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Fact or fiction

You reverted a citation I put up citing 'unreliable source'. It was a [dataset of defendants in Magistrates court so far]; it came from [The Guardian], who cite their sources as Helen Clifton, Siraj Datoo, National News, Newsteam, Raymonds Press, Central News, Magistrates Courts, Conrad Quilty-Harper (Telegraph), Ministry of Justice. A pretty important data set I think, as it gives the actual breakdown of the offenders, unlike the YouGov survey which gives the perceived offenders. Wilfridselsey (talk) 17:04, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

How reliable is that dataset?
  • The names "Jack Lamb" "Kyron Richardson" "Lloyd Amarteifo", "Toby Okonkwo", "David Swarbrick", "Ingrid Smith", "Lloyd Coudjoe", "Mark Phillips", "Michael Gillespie-Doyle", "Michael Warburton", "Stephen Carter", "Wayne Aldershaw", "William Jenkins", "Mario Quiassaca", "Sean Mitchell", "Thomas Partridge" and "Byron Cawley" "Paul Olawale" "Asher McDuffus" all appear twice.
  • The name "Michael Hayden" appears three times.
  • At least two people appear twice, but under 2 different (albeit similar) names: "Fabrice Bembo-Ieta" and "Fabrice Bembo-Leta"; "Relando Tekl-Giorgies" and "Relando Tekle-Giorgies".
  • And one person appears at least 3 times, under 2 different names: "Paul Raune" and twice as "Paul Ruane".
And those are just the mistakes I picked-up by scrolling down the list once. Deterence Talk 00:22, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
It sure is a raw dataset, and if it's good enough for media groups... at what point did wikipedia become a tool for deception and disinformation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.222.167.112 (talk) 12:23, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
It's a raw dataset so will have errors, that's pretty normal. But it's what the Guardian and other media groups are using as their source, therefore if we exclude this then better start deleting most of the other 'media' citations too (unless you believe that the media are 100% accurate 100% of the time!) This is probably going to be the most accurate picture we have so far. Where else are you going to get data saying that 9.3% of those who appeared in court were female, 18.7% were between 11 and 17, 39% transferred to crown court etc.? The dataset sample is now over 1000 so the errors are insignificant. This is the info that historians will be using, and eventually us - once it's in the history books....Wilfridselsey (talk) 07:18, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm the last person to suggest that the media are 100% accurate 100% of the time. In my experience, whenever I talk to someone who was there, they inform me that the truth is nothing like those reported by the media. Even mainstream media.
As for the dataset, I'm just pointing out a few (read: many, given that I only gave the list a cursory examination as I scrolled down) of its errors which, like it or not, do bespeak to its lack of credibility. One of the main criteria (if not the predominant criteria) for content in Wikipedia is that it meets the standard required for WP:RS. I'm not the least bit comfortable ignoring the notable flaws of a dataset simply because the mainstream media are also relying on that dataset. Indeed, if anything, its use by the mainstream media makes challenging that dataset even more important. There are already far too many sensationalist lies and rumours posing as reporting in regards to the 2011 England riots. Let's not add to the media cesspool. Deterence Talk 07:51, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
We are straying off piste here, somewhat. As far as wp:rs is concerned if the Guardian is not a reliable source then you'd better started deleting half the citations in the article, not to mention 1000s of other articles on wiki that cite the Guardian don't be silly! Data journalism is becoming quite common check this for some background [1], and how the Guardian do it [2].
Getting back on subject, I think with any dataset, there is always an acceptable percentage of error and that the Guardians falls within that, you may disagree. There is probably an element of double reporting and sometimes people give wrong names when charged with offences, which I think are probably the main sources of error you see. However I only put this up as a citation originally, I see that we have the Guardian Dataset as an external link, so I guess we should leave it at that for the time being. It will be worth revisiting in a couple of weeks once the dust has settled and they have had chance to clean up some of the errors. I think that it will be worthwhile putting an analysis of the results (here) as they stand now so we can compare as time goes on.
Breakdown of people in court
Remanded to Jail %
Y 70
N 30
Transferred to Crown Court %
Y 39
N 61
Age %
10 to 17 18.7
18 to 24 53.8
25 to 30 14.3
31 to 40 6.6
41 and over 6.6
Gender %
Male 90.8
Female 9.2
Dataset source [3]  Sample Size: 1003

We shall then see who was right!! Best regards. Wilfridselsey (talk) 08:34, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Breakdown of people in court
Remanded to Jail %
Y 65
N 35
Age %
10 to 17 21
Gender %
Male 90
Sample Size: 1179 Date: 15 Aug 2011

Wilfridselsey (talk) 15:57, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Breakdown of people in court
Remanded to Jail %
Y 62
Age %
10 to 17 22
Gender %
Male 90
Sample Size: 1406 Date: 22 Aug 2011

Wilfridselsey (talk) 14:14, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Breakdown of people in court
Remanded to Jail %
Y 70
Age %
10 to 17 22
Gender %
Male 90
Sample Size: 1474 Date: 24 Aug 2011

Wilfridselsey (talk) 20:32, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Photos

A couple of recent Hackney photos:

--Trevj (talk) 15:02, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

English Riots? Two arrested for inciting these riots live in Glasgow? British surely?

see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-14461393 80.42.224.157 (talk) 12:21, 19 August 2011 (UTC)twl80.42.224.157 (talk) 12:21, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Where were they allegedly hoping the trouble to occur - Scotland, England or elsewhere? Either way, this is an article about "riots", which, as far as I know, all occurred in England, and mostly in London. FactController (talk) 13:25, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
There were thousands of rioters across England with over three thousand arrests. A couple of Glaswegians (making less than 0.065% of the total arrests made in relation to the riots) arrested for using social media tools in a failed attempt to incite further rioting is not sufficient to shift the parameters of the event from "England" to "Britain". Do we change the name to "2011 Europe riots" if a couple of French teens are arrested for the same offence? Deterence Talk 14:32, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
The fact that it was Alex Salmond MP who objected to Scotland being included by the use of British, BEFORE two of those responsible for inciting it were found to be based in Scotland because they felt the laws on incitement may differ subtly, suggests the Scottish dimension may not be trivial. I just worry that no one is even going to find your page with the current title, as zero press are using the same title as you. 212.139.99.125 (talk) 16:16, 20 August 2011 (UTC)twl23212.139.99.125 (talk) 16:16, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
The mainstream media seem to be using labels like "London riot", which does redirect to this page. Deterence Talk 16:39, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
While it may be possible that something could potentially come out from Glasgow (two arrests is not enough however) we can't change the name based on what may happen but only after something has happened or we would be violating WP:CRYSTAL. To put it another way Wikipedia has to be reactive not proactive.--76.66.180.220 (talk) 18:55, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

There were at least four incidents in Wales too. (92.7.4.36 (talk) 18:21, 27 August 2011 (UTC))

Improvements in this article

Someone could to improve the section "Suggested contributory factors"? To do a cleanup in the section. Eduardo P (talk) 21:55, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

It's a controverse subject. =( Eduardo P (talk) 21:55, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

It appears this section is a result of merge from previously deleted article, see discussion. That's why we have "article winthin article" kind of redundancy and WP:COATRACK magnet still stands. Probably the best way to move forward would be trimming this section. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 04:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
I did express a willingness to work and expand the causes article with another user during that AfD however it was decided to delete it anyway. It seems to me ridiculous to work on an article with the threat of deletion hanging over it as it might get deleted anyway making any efforts to salvage it redundant. Had the deletion tag not been placed on the page there would be a good 'encyclopedic' article there now! 92.16.11.65 (talk) 13:12, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Please see WP:DRV procedure. As this section stands now it can lift a weight of about one paragraph. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 23:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I've put this section back in. It's not great at the moment (who the hell named a section "random selection"?), but the deletion debate was only closed as delete because something similar now exited in this article. The deletion debate was not a mandate to delete this topic from all other articles as well. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 10:00, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
Who named a section "random selection"? How could you even ask? It was a signature edit. [4] Rubywine . talk 13:05, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
It was a random (and OR) selection of mainly one-liner opinions and comments, with no thread, theme or rationales. The section certainly didn't justify the name "Current theories" - which it had previously. FactController (talk) 13:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I think this is a red herring. My point was that a section of arbitrary reasons, random or not, doesn't make a good article. You could aruge over whether it was correct to rename a section from "current theories" or whether there should have been a more fundamental rewrite of the srticle, but now that the offending sub-section has been dismantled and the relevant stuff incorporated into the article elsewhere, I it's not helpful to argue over who made which edit and why. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 14:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Random selection sub-section does look like a shelf of discounted products in a grocery near your home, WP:COATRACK. Another issue would be Death of Mark Duggan which is already discussed above, do we need it twice? I find that usage of Crackberry instant messaging by looters for collaboration got a fair reflection in the WP:RS, so probably it should stay in the article, but I'm not sure it should go under "cause/incitement". The content and the structure of the article should be encyclopedic, after all Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject. So you know you are getting the best possible information. Editors should probably roll up the sleeves and start working to clean up this mess. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 07:47, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I've done some initial work on it. I've put it into subsection format and and have removed duplicate headings including the many different ways of saying the same thing. Obviously there won't be universal agreement on the last part but it's a start.

I have removed a small amount of material. Someone posted an OR statistical piece about the multiracial nature of the Tottenham community as though that was self-evidently a "cause". A Russian senator suggested multiculturalism as a cause; I deleted that because I don't think the isolated hobbyhorse opinion of a Russian politician warrants inclusion. And when I say isolated, obviously, I'm talking about RS.Rubywine . talk 14:22, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Your 'clean up' has simply removed the content you disagree with and reordered it to push your views.87.113.82.185 (talk) 01:33, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Your 'comment' has contributed nothing to the quality of the article. If you disagree with my edit then either address the specific issues or make your own edit. Rubywine . talk 02:51, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The use of "sic" within quotes

The result of the discussion is that there is no consensus to include the "sic": we do not second-guess the meaning of the quotes. sic is understood to be used to correct glaring errors or unusual usage in orthography, grammar, fact or logic. It is felt this quote doesn't do that.--Cerejota (talk) 20:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"Sic" is used following a word within a quoted statement to confirm that the written word was indded the actual word used. The Wiki article "Sic" explains this:

.

I inserted the word into the quote from Ken Livingstone after the significantly factually incorrect use of the word "Tory" when referring to the current UK coalition government. Recently it was reverted, and with a bizarre edit summary attached. I changed it back, again explaining the rationale in the edit summary, but this was again reverted, with apparent support for the earlier irrational reason.

What do other editors think? Should we let the error stand, assuming that no readers will mistakenly believe it to be true, or should we use "sic" in the conventional way to flag it?

FactController (talk) 14:38, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

That it is an 'error' seems to be a matter of opinion. If one takes 'Tory' to mean 'Conservative Party', then it is only 84% true (if my maths is correct [5]), but it is also entirely possible that Livingstone was referring to the government as 'Tory' in policy, rather than in composition - 'Tory' is after all not an official designation of any UK political party. So no, your 'sic' is entirely unjustifiable (and incidentally, contrary to the MOS, and common practice - one should use square brackets for insertions into quotations). AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
It is factually incorrect - the Government isn't a Tory one. What is a matter of opinion is whether you think it was used knowingly and intentionally, or ignorantly. Either way, the insertion of "sic" is appropriate. FactController (talk) 17:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Nope, that is your opinion. If Livingstone used 'Toy' intentionally, one can only assume that he used it to suggest that the government is 'Tory' in its policies, if not entirely so in its composition. It isn't our job to second-guess politicians, and then mess around with quotations when we disagree with them. And I've seen Livingstone accused of many things, but him being 'ignorant' isn't usually one of them. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
It's an incontrovertible fact - not my opinion. See United Kingdom coalition government (2010–present). FactController (talk) 18:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
It is an (apparently) incontrovertible fact that Livingstone chose to characterise the current Conservative-led coalition government as 'Tory'. The rest is opinion: his being the only one of any significance to the quotation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:09, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Exactly! And that's why "sic" is used - to confirm that the quote is indeed verbatim, and that there's not a mistake in the transcription. How it was meant is not the point (and we don't know that for sure anyway), it's that it was the word actually used that the "sic" confirms. FactController (talk) 18:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
But there's no apparent reason to doubt that Livingstone used the word "Tory." Therefore, the confirmation is superfluous at best (and non-neutral commentary at worst). —David Levy 18:34, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
It's required because the resulting statement is, at face value, and without preconceptions, significantly factually incorrect - the Government isn't a Tory one, it's a coalition. FactController (talk) 18:53, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
You're simply reiterating an argument that multiple editors have addressed. —David Levy 20:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
FactController, your suggestion that it might be seen as a mistake in the transcription is new - you were previously suggesting that Livingston made a mistake. In fact neither may be true: he may consider the coalition Tory, and describe them as such and any assertion that this is incorrect can only be based on opinion. I suggest that, since clearly nobody else agrees with your arguments, you should accept that your insertion is not going to be allowed, and just drop the issue now. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:41, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
As I said above, the resulting statement is, at face value, and without preconceptions, significantly factually incorrect. Whether it was a mistake, an insult, or whatever, shouldn't be our concern here. "Sic" is used to clarify that what may appear to some to be an error, is an accurate quote. FactController (talk) 19:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
There clearly isn't consensus that the quotation appears erroneous. Thus far, only you have suggested that it might (and even your assertion stems from a disputed claim that Livingstone's statement is factually incorrect, not any actual confusion as to whether he was quoted accurately). —David Levy 19:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I am answering a whole series of questions about this on my talk page. In case it's of any further help, FactController, what Andy describes here is precisely what I meant when I said the political viewpoint I perceived in the edit was the viewpoint that seeks to assert that Livingstone was wrong. The viewpoint that assumes the right to second guess him, correct him, and mess with his quote. I would also like to make it clear that if I saw anyone doing the same thing with a quote from a Conservative or Liberal Democrat, I would have reacted in exactly the same way. Your enthusiasm for controlling the facts here goes beyond mere pedantry, and asserts a political viewpoint. I think it's important for the integrity of Wikipedia that people we quote should be allowed to speak for themselves. Rubywine . talk 17:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
"Sic" isn't messing with the quote, it is used to clarify its accuracy. FactController (talk) 18:29, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
The quotation's accuracy is readily apparent; no clarification is needed. —David Levy 18:34, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
It may be "apparent" if you are familiar with KL's style and if you understand British politics, but if you know nothing about either you may understandibly be confused by it. FactController (talk) 18:41, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
It doesn't confuse me (an American with no recollection of Ken Livingstone or his views). My knowledge of UK politics is limited, but the idea that the quotation might be inaccurate never would have crossed my mind. At worst, someone unfamiliar with the term "Tory" (as many people from outside the UK are) would simply not know what Livingstone meant. —David Levy 18:53, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Andy hit the nail on the head. --John (talk) 16:05, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
To look at it from a different angle, there is really no chance that someone will doubt that the written word was the actual word used in this quote. Many Labour politicians have used the words "Tory" and "Coalition" interchangeably on the basis that the Con/Lib coalition is no different from a Conservative government; not something I agree with, but that's the way it is. If we start using [sic] every time someone highlights a pedantic factual inaccuracy when there is no doubt as to what the person meant, we could end up with a free-for-all where people try to use it to make opposing political figures look stupid. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 16:20, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
"Sic" is used following a word within a quoted statement to confirm that the written word was indded the actual word used. As in the case in point. FactController (talk) 17:28, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
As Chris Neville-Smith noted, it's highly unlikely that a reader would question whether Livingstone used the word "Tory". One might disagree with him (or, if unfamiliar with UK politics, not understand what he meant), but the quotation doesn't come across as a typographical error on Wikipedia's part. —David Levy 18:34, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Quite - (sic) is used to denote an actual factual (or grammatical, or spelling) error, but that depends what the original person actually meant to say. We need to be careful that we don't second-guess what someone actually means in their quotations; if Liveingstone (as I suspect he did) meant that the Coalition government is pursuing Tory policies (Tory =/= "Conservative party") then the quote needs to remain unchanged. Black Kite (t) (c) 18:36, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I have sympathy with your view, but agree with the responses here. I am reminded of the "a hand has five fingers ((citation needed))" edit of legend; we have to be careful about what kind of opinion we are putting across even when (or more so) we are being neutral doktorb wordsdeeds 16:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Example

Say we have a quote of someone saying "X is an idiot". We wouldn't put a (sic) after the word "idiot" because that person isn't saying that the subject has a mental age of less than 3 years (which is the technical definition of "idiot"). It's pretty clear what they meant. This is a similar issue. Livingstone clearly meant that he considers the Government to be pursuing Tory policies, and as such his quote should be left unchanged. Black Kite (t) (c) 18:55, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Precisely. And I think Chris also made a very important point when he said "If we start using [sic] every time someone highlights a pedantic factual inaccuracy when there is no doubt as to what the person meant, we could end up with a free-for-all where people try to use it to make opposing political figures look stupid." If we allow editors to insert [sic] whenever they see something in a quote with which they disagree, then quotes throughout the encyclopaedia could end up being strewn with intrusive annotations from editors with axes to grind. Rubywine . talk 19:09, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Your logic is flawed because it relies on the assumption that all readers are familiar with KL's style. Is this statement incontrovertibly accurate: "The UK currently has a Tory Government"? FactController (talk) 19:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
My logic does not rely on that assumption at all. Not in the slightest. What I assume is that readers are aware that politicians choose their words deliberately and speak with political intent. The point is this. This statement :
"The statement that "The UK has a Tory government" is incontrovertibly inaccurate"
is incorrect. What is a government? That is a matter of opinion and perspective. If someone's view is that all the junior party in the coalition is doing is filling seats and propping up a Tory government enacting Tory policies then, whether or not they are right, that is a viable political opinion, which readers can recognise and understand without any knowledge of that person's style. Clearly, many other people will disagree with that view. But to say that an opposition politician is simply wrong in calling the UK government "Tory" is to assert a point of view, and not a fact. Rubywine . talk 19:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Are you now deliberately missing the point? The "sic" isn't to say whether the quoted person is right or wrong, it's to say that the quote is accurate. It is used if the text of the quote could be interpretted as inaccurate. It isn't needed if what is quoted is incontrovertibly accurate, only if it isn't. FactController (talk) 19:54, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
No one other than you has opined that the text in question is likely to be perceived as a misquotation (and even your assertion stems from a disputed claim that Livingstone's statement is factually incorrect, not any actual confusion as to whether he was quoted accurately).
Your apparent belief that it's stylistically appropriate to append "sic" to any quoted statement that isn't "incontrovertibly accurate" is rather disconcerting. —David Levy 20:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
No FactController. Apparently you are now deliberately forgetting that we've already established that WP:MOSQUOTE says that sic should be used in cases of significant error. Significant error does not mean "a situation where the text of the quote might conceivably be interpreted as inaccurate". FactController, we've discussed this enough. I want to finish this conversation. As I said, we'll have to agree to disagree. Good night. Rubywine . talk 20:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
For those who aren't familiar with the politics of the situation, and take the quote at face value, they will perceive a "significant error". To leave it out would be to be negligent to the requirements of those readers. To those aware of the politics, no harm is done by its presence. FactController (talk) 20:24, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
"Those who aren't familiar with the politics of the situation" are unlikely to know what "Tory" means (and therefore unable to perceive an error).
"To those aware of the politics," the "sic" notation comes across as non-neutral criticism of Livingstone's statement. —David Levy 20:30, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Did you read my 18:53 reply (in which I noted that I — an American unfamiliar with Ken Livingstone and largely unfamiliar with UK politics — wasn't confused)? —David Levy 20:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes - it's a red herring though. FactController (talk) 20:13, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
How so? —David Levy 20:18, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
We aren't claiming that "the UK currently has a Tory Government". We're quoting a partisan statement that readers are unlikely to perceive as an error on our part (even if they believe that Livingstone erred, which also seems highly doubtful). —David Levy 20:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Enough

This is getting ridiculous. Nobody but FactController is arguing in favour of this insertion. I suggest at this point, we stop wasting our time. The consensus is clear - no '[sic]'. End of story. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. It's over. Rubywine . talk 20:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. --John (talk) 20:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Please don't try to stiffle valid discussion. There are still unanswered points. FactController (talk) 20:27, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I see no unanswered points. You simply refuse to accept anyone's answers. —David Levy 20:32, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Location details, widespread pattern of arrests

Infobox location details

The edit war over the location details in the infobox has resumed, so I would like to start a discussion about how the location details should be presented so that they can be stabilised once and for all. FactController edited the infobox today, yet again, to replace this text agreed by consensus

1 : Several districts of London, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Bristol and several other areas.

with this text

2 : Several London Boroughs and districts of cities and towns across England.

After John and I restored the original text twice, and I added supporting references [1][2] FactController changed the text to this, with the comment that "we should not sensationalise and exaggerate the extent":

3 : Localised districts in: dozens of London Boroughs; central Manchester and Salford; central Liverpool and Birkenhead; Birmingham; Sandwell and Wolverhampton; Bristol; Medway and Oxford and in two locations in Gloucester and in one location in each of Coventry, Leicester, Slough, High Wycombe, Reading and Huddersfield.

While I am totally in favour of providing more detail, I am not happy with the third and final wording. Firstly, it is verbose. Secondly, "dozens of London boroughs" is incorrect since there are only 32 London boroughs, of which only two-thirds were affected.[3] Thirdly, I suspect that it conveys a false impression of precision, although I am prepared to be convinced otherwise.

Widespread pattern of arrests

On a closely related issue, it has emerged from analysis of arrests data that many rioters travelled long distances from their homes to converge upon central urban areas. In some areas of London, very few people arrested were actually local to the area.

"Almost none of those charged with rioting in Ealing, Clapham Junction, Enfield and other places comes from the immediate area. Home addresses given by defendants paint a chilling picture of rioters converging simultaneously on these districts from all points of the compass and often from great distances." [4]

So that in very many cases, the rioters travelled into London from areas unnamed in this article. Earlier, a similar pattern of arrests in outer suburbs and satellite towns had been noticed in Manchester and Birmingham..[5] I think this is important information which needs to be reflected in the article, and it provides further reason for us not to use the euphemistic term "localised" which has been sprinkled throughout the article text, to downplay the riots outside London.

What do other people think? How should the location details in the inbox be phrased - version 1, 2, 3 or some other wording? Should we drop the term "localised"? And should we have a section entitled "Widespread pattern of arrests" or similar, to describe the pattern of people travelling from outlying districts into urban centres to riot? Rubywine . talk 00:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

    1. This article is a mess, and in general of poor quality under pretty much all of our MOS guidelines. However, it is generally well sourced, and Factcontroller's insistence of removing well-sourced information that is verified borders on the tendentious as it has been reverted multiple times by multiple editors without any editor supporting his edit. I think that shows the consensus is that the larger list of places is preferable to a short amount of information, in particular as it is well-sourced. We shouldn't needless abbreviate what sources say, lest we fall on OR and SYNTH.
    2. On the "wide spread arrest" stuff I would be extremely careful with it, as with the blackberry stuff. I am not sure this is not a WP:SENSATION claim and hence unencyclopedic I am not convinced of the enduring encyclopedic value of such information, or even if the claim is widely verifiable.
    I think we need to be careful not to fall into the WP:NOTNEWSPAPER trap of reporting everything the media reports, and lose sight that we are writing an encyclopedia.--Cerejota (talk) 01:31, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Basically I concur with Rubywine and Cerejota. I would also note that this was previously discussed a couple of weeks ago here and the consensus was implemented. It would be a shame if this had to become a conduct issue as I agree that some of the counter-consensus edits are in danger of becoming tendentious edit-warring. --John (talk) 01:46, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • To be honest, I'd more or less given up trying to keep this article to normal Wikipedia standards - it is deeply flawed, and needs a complete rewrite: preferably by someone not trying to spin it one way or another. Regarding the particular issue of how specific the infobox needs to be, I'm inclined to go with the original 'several districts' version - we are describing the general phenomenon in the infobox, and the specifics of what exactly happened where are best dealt with in the body of the article. AndyTheGrump (talk)
  • Yes it is deeply flawed but there are many reasons why that is the case. I'd support the idea of a total rewrite by editors who have never touched the article before, or who are clearly neutral, but as far as I know that's not achievable on Wikipedia. Rubywine . talk 07:48, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • About the infobox location details, I prefer 3, but replace "dozens of" by "many". Ultimately, Wikipedia is a public information source, not for literary effect like a collection of essays. People need to know which areas were affected and which not. Often one man's trivia or cruft is another man's important relevant matter. At least, all the affected areas should be listed in one place, not have to be ferreted for through the article. At least avoid 2, which is too London-centered. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Let's evolve the currently preferred wording then to reflect the actuality - rather than using the previous (and current again) unrepresentative and sensationalist version. How about:
FactController (talk) 06:35, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Overly specific and horrible to read. I'm happy with the current wording of "Several districts of London, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Bristol and several other areas." (ie. #1, the previously agreed version). violet/riga [talk] 07:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
The current wording is non-neutral; it understates the London locations whilst exaggerating the extent outside of London. If you think the wording is "horrible", please refine it - but we need to be representative of the reality and, above all, NPOV. FactController (talk) 07:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
It's an infobox. It is there to say where the rioting was, not say how severe it was in different locations - that is what the prose, particularly the lead, is for. violet/riga [talk] 08:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes, "infobox", not "propagandabox". If you mention places that had minor scuffles then you certainly need to mention each of the London places that had serious disorder. As I said, it needs to be NPOV, even in an infobox. FactController (talk) 08:14, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
"Minor scuffles". And you talk about propaganda. Unbelievable. You have persistently tried to delete all other areas of England from the infobox despite the three men murdered in Birmingham, the widespread criminality and the millions of pounds lost to businesses outside London in property damage, stolen goods and lost sales, during riots described by every source as "England riots" or "UK riots". Your notion of NPOV is anything but neutral. You seem to believe that every other person is wrong, and that you'll hammer your version of reality into this article by sheer persistence. I'm really fed up with you. In fact I'm so fed up now that I'm not going to attempt to work on this article any further. I'm leaving a bunch of references in this section and I hope that someone will see fit to use at least some of them. [6][7][8] Rubywine . talk 09:56, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Let's look at the weights then. In "option 1" we have West Yorkshire mentioned in the same context as Greater London. Readers might therefore surmise that similar levels of disturbance happened in those two locations. Looking at the Guardian map, there's one confirmed incident in the whole of West Yorkshire - 4 youths tried to steal TVs from an ASDA in Huddersfield. What happened in Greater London then? Well, where do we start... there are at least 100 incidents, maybe as many as 200 - they're too dense to count, plotted as confirmed. Do you see what I mean? The weight ratio should be at least 100:1 for those two places. To suggest that West Yorkshire suffered, without mentioning Newham in Greater London where Argos was looted is outrageous. FactController (talk) 11:44, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Another classic piece of carefully contrived spin. Now let's look at the truth about West Yorkshire. What happened in West Yorkshire was indeed on a much smaller scale, but it displayed every key characteristic of the national riot :- dozens of rioters engaged in criminal copycat violence, smashed windows, stolen cash machines, arson, van fire, stonings, injuries, arrests, and terrified local residents: [9]

  • Arsonists torched the Leeds carnival centre, destroying some of 40-year archive about the annual carnival.
  • An Asda supermarket, a working men's club and a carpet shop were attacked.
  • windows were smashed and a cash machine stolen by a group of youths in Deighton and Sheepridge Working Men's Club
  • A 26-year old man suffered a leg injury.
  • Dozens of youths surrounded the club, throwing bricks and stones at the building while people were inside.
  • Kevin Boyle, club member, said: "We were just under siege, just brick after brick, stones after stones coming through the window."
  • Four youths smashed windows at the Asda supermarket off Bradford Road and stole five televisions
  • A group of people wearing masks broke into Chestnut Medical Centre on Chestnut Street, damaging the centre and stealing a cash machine and cash from a till.
  • A failed attempt was made to set light to United Carpets on Union Street.
  • John Brierley Ltd on Turnbridge Mills had a window smashed by a paving slab.
  • A van was set alight during disorder in the Roundhay Road area of Harehills in Leeds
  • One woman said she had been left "terrified" after her car was attacked by a group of teenagers as she drove through the area.
  • Katy Norville, 25, a medical rep from York, said: "They were running out into the road and trying to stop my car. There were big groups of them carrying big metal bars."
  • Five arrests came in Huddersfield where police said youths had tried to "copy the disorder and theft seen in other parts of the country".
  • In Wakefield, a 19-year-old woman was arrested after posting an invitation to a riot on Facebook.

And you know what, FactController? Let's pretend there really had been only 4 youths trying to steal TVs. What would have stopped you coming to this page and starting a topic? You could have said hey, I've done some research and I honestly think West Yorkshire should come off the list and these are my reasons and these are my sources. Nothing would have stopped you! But that's not the way you handle anything, is it! Instead you just delete every city and town in the infobox except London, for the umpteenth time, and when it's restored you revert, and then revert again, and then you argue, and argue, and peddle whitewash. Enough!

Rubywine . talk 14:06, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Rubywine, no spin, no BS, no sensationalising... Looking at the Guardian's ""UK riots: every verified incident - interactive map" with all the dots on, that you give the link for, there is one dot in West Yorkshire and if you click on it you get "What happened? Police were injured as objects were thrown at them in their police car when trying to stop a group of 4 youths stealing TVs from the ASDA store." There is nothing on that map for Leeds. We need to decide whether we are treating this at the RS-sourced "England" level, or whether we are prepared to flout Wiki policies and build our own OR picture by cherry-picking local news sources, hearsay and rumours from the local hack level. FactController (talk) 14:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
FactController, do you really think the lack of information on the Guardian's map gives you a mandate for pretending nothing happened in West Yorkshire, and to accuse me of cherry picking, using hearsay and rumours, flouting Wiki policies, and building my own OR picture! You are so totally unconcerned with the truth that you haven't done the smallest piece of research for yourself and you haven't even looked at the source I provided. It's a BBC article. Every single item on my list comes from the same BBC news article. On the national BBC News site. Is there anyone else here who sees how ridiculous this is? And how unacceptable this comment is? Rubywine . talk 14:59, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
The scope of that is local, not national. You picked it from a choice of hundreds, if not thousands, of similar articles about other localities. If you can find it in a source dealing with incidents at a national level its weight would become appropriate to add it, until you do - it isn't. Have you read WP:OR? FactController (talk) 15:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
[6] I'm leaving this in the hands of administrators. This is a farce. Rubywine . talk 15:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Hi Rubywine, what did they say? FactController (talk) 12:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
Nothing. Silence. Rubywine . talk 12:10, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
At what point does something go from being "localised" to being more widespread? You can't really put a number on it but if you said that it has to be in at least 15 different cities then this surpasses that. I think that this can be described without that world to better convey the extent of the rioting while not sensationalising or exaggerating what happened. violet/riga [talk] 07:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
"Localised" means that it does not involve the whole city, town or district; just a "local" part of it. These riots only involved localised areas of the towns concerned, so were all "localised", even if a few towns over a wider area were affected. FactController (talk) 07:56, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
"Localised" could be used when discussing a larger area (eg. a county) but are not particularly accurate for cities. violet/riga [talk] 08:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to hear an example of any previous riot that wasn't localised. Do we sprinkle the term 'localised' through every article about every previous riot? No we don't. The truth is that this national riot was less localised than any other riot in history. As the New Scientist said, it was the UK's first networked riot [10] (which was agreed by several other reliable sources and reported as, literally "the world's first non-localised riot"). People networked using phones and social media and then they travelled miles to congregate for rioting and looting. I'm rather disturbed that nobody else seems to think that the widely distributed patterns of arrest data reported by both the Telegraph and the Guardian is significant. The article will be weakened by an omission to present these findings. Rubywine . talk 09:12, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
It depends on the scope you try to implicate. If you use "England over 4 days" as the scope, then the riots were very localised in London and in a small number of other towns and cities in a small number of regions. If you say "London on Tuesday night", then it was localised in quite a widespread number of districts. If you limit it to one of the ransacked High Streets, then it may have been widespreadand affect4ed most of the shops there. So you need to look at the scope of the article and pick the appropriate description - full-stop. FactController (talk) 12:27, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
For what it's worth, my vote is for "Areas of Greater London, West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and other towns and cities". I don't see the need for the infobox to list every detail provided it's not misleading - people can read the article if they want a comprehensive list of what happened there, and "other towns and cities" is sufficient to avoid the infobox being misleading. Yes, it is weighted towards London, but if that's how the mainstream media weighted the coverage, I don't think it's Wikipedia's job to re-prioritise the weight that we think the media should have given to other places. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 08:19, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Wording in an infobox should be concise. That rules out #3 and the longer alternative proposed. #1 works for me - in Birmingham, we had shootings and, separately, three deaths. That shouldn't be relegated to an "also ran". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:06, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Should the Harrogate incident where 4 youths were thought to be stealing TVs from ASDA (sensationally described as "West Yorkshire" - a county with an area of more than 780 square miles and with a population over 2 million - in the article) be given equal billing to that Birmingham incident, do you think? FactController (talk) 12:28, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "UK riots: every verified incident - interactive map". The Guardian. 11 August 2011.
  2. ^ "London riots map: all incidents mapped in London and around the UK". Daily Telegraph. 9 August 2011.
  3. ^ "BBC News - More London riot suspects 'to be identified from CCTV'". BBC. 2011-08-15.
  4. ^ "London riots were orchestrated by outsiders". Daily Telegraph. 2011-08-21.
  5. ^ "England rioters: young, poor and unemployed". The Guardian. 2011-08-18.
  6. ^ "Riots cost UK retailers £141 million so far". Retail Gazette. 2011-08-10.
  7. ^ "UK riots could cost taxpayer £100m". The Guardian. 2011-08-09.
  8. ^ "England riots: Debate over clean-up costs". BBC. 2011-08-19.
  9. ^ "BBC News - Disorder in West Yorkshire: six people arrested". BBC. 2011-08-10.
  10. ^ "London unrest: UK's first networked riots". New Scientist. 9 August 2011.

edit warring report

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:FactController_reported_by_User:Cerejota_.28Result:_.29 I take no great pleasure, but it had to come to this. We tried, its all I can say. --Cerejota (talk) 22:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

New proposal for infobox 'locations'

Based on our previous discussions, and taking into account all the points raised - such as the tragic outcome of an incident in Birmingham and the trivial nature of other incidents and the exagerrated scope applied to them. Here is an Aunt Sally for us to work on and attempt to reach a robust consensus:

For context and number weights, remember that England has 83 Counties, 326 Districts (10% of them in London), 50 cities and close to 1,000 towns. FactController (talk) 13:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Here we go again. "The trivial nature of other incidents and the exaggerated scope applied to them." Cavalier disregard for every reliable source. Non-stop promotion of a view that is totally unsupported by sourced facts. Opinions expressed by all other editors totally ignored. This is pointless. It is an absolute waste of time. Rubywine . talk 14:33, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
RS-sourced England-scope information, not homemade syntheses from cherry-picked local sources. Almosy every local newspaper in the land managed to relate a story of broken windows or wheelie-bin fires to the disorder that week. Are we to trawl up the thousands of such stories and include them all? No we're not, so how are we going to filter them down? Shall we use your favourite incidents and write a summary around them, or shall we use RSs which concentrate on the same scope as this article, such as the Guardian map, and use them? Please let us know your thoughts. FactController (talk) 14:55, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
This is the source which I provided with my earlier list of riot incidents in West Yorkshire.
BBC News - Disorder in West Yorkshire: six people arrested
Rubywine . talk 15:18, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm not saying it didn't happen - or that there are no reliable sources to verify it, what I'm saying is that (unless you know otherwise) there's no reliable source yet provided that has given it enough weight to include it in an article about the troubles in England as a whole (rather than just in Leeds or West Yorkshire in isolation). To give it that weight ourselves is, I believe, OR. I'm sure, if you looked hard enough, you could find some incident that ocurred, over those 4 or 5 days in every county in England, that some local journo has associated with the London riots, but that doesn't mean that we can synthesise that up and say every corner of England was striken. FactController (talk) 15:37, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
I really don't see the problem with what we've got at the moment (apart from maybe debating whether West Yorkshire and Bristol should be included, and whether there's a better word than "districts"). If the infobox used the word "widespread" I would support removing it because that description is open to dispute, but it isn't so it's not a problem. Similarly, it is open to dispute whether you could describe the riots as "localised". I think we should avoid any descriptive words in the infobox that are disagreements, but I can't see anything in the infobox that could be misleading. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 18:05, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Do you think that the current wording accurately conveys the fact that more than one-hundred of the locations were in towns within Greater London, whilst none of the other mentioned areas contained more than a dozen, or so, of the locations? FactController (talk) 18:27, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
The infobox is meant to summarise. Which it does, and it also links to a more detailed source. The place for detail is in the article. WP:IBX - "the purpose of an infobox (is) to summarize key facts about the article in which it appears. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." The current version complies with that. Black Kite (t) (c) 19:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
There are summaries and summaries. Do you think efforts should be made to word the summary in a way that reflects the essence of the facts? Would you be happy with a sloppily worded summary that exagerrates, or masks, truths or sensationalises the subject? FactController (talk) 20:29, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
I don't see how the current wording exaggerates, masks or sensationalises anything. Unless the summary says "Evenly distributed over London, West Midlands etc.", I fail to see how anyone would get the impression that London was no more badly affected than other cities. Once we start going down the road of putting in the infobox any details that an editor considers too important for the body text alone, we may as well put the whole article in the infobox. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 21:49, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Let's look at a similar example in another article. Should we argue that the content of the 'Countries or regions' field in the infobox of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami should be changed from "Japan (primary) / Pacific Rim (tsunami, secondary)" to "Parts of Japan, Russia, Alaska, California, Oregon and several other Pacific Rim countries"? It is a factually accurate summary - those places were all impacted. FactController (talk) 22:12, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Lets not look at another example from another article about an entirely different event with entirely different circumstances and entirely different RS - that is comparing apples and bottles (not even oranges, which are a fruit). The point is, the RS say something, and you just don't want to hear it, even if a large number of editors tell you otherwise. The reality is that it is pushing for an WP:OR view that undermines the importance given to the riots outside of London by the RS, even today [7], the RS are all there. Ask yourself why no one has reverted the infobox? It is because no one else agrees with this position. Because we have eyes and a brain and see what the sources say, and see these riots were not localized to London, and in fact some of its most dramatic actions happened outside of Greater London. This is historical fact supported by RS. You argue otherwise, but the rs are overwhelmingly arguing otherwise.--Cerejota (talk) 03:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
You have completely missed the point. We all know that there were events, even serious events, outside of London (as there were serious tsunami events outside of Japan). However, nothing that happened in any place outside of London got within 1% of the scale of disorder that ocurred within London. To put West Yorkshire on the same level as London in the infobox is like putting California on the same level as Japan in the tsunami infobox. The analogy fits perfectly. That others may want to exagerrate the impact on places outside of London is unsurprising, but we, as Wiki editors, need to be mature and neutral about this and not allow our judgement about due weight and proportionality be skewed by prejudice or the desire to perpetuate a WP:SENSATION. FactController (talk) 06:17, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
The analogy is not perfect, because the scales are not the same. For example, more people died outside of Greater London and your 1% claim doesn't hold up to scrutiny. While we surely are to make editorial desicions and not repeat anything that is published, I think publishing this information doesn't have the consequence you claim it does. However, it does pushes the POV that suggest "keep calm and carry on" - that the riots were insignificant and only the creation of a media hell-bent on sensation and yellow journalism. However, it would take a huge conspiracy of the media, including *all* of the major media in the UK, to take up such a view. The preponderance of evidence speaks against the editorial position of ignoring the RS as sensationalistic.
In any case, you are misreading WP:SENSATION completely - it is intended to control gossip and gore and other yellow reporting, explaining that the scale of the rioting was national is not sensationalism, it is exactly what happened - that there were differences in different locations is a matter for the article to reveal, not the info box.
Put succinctly, your position is that we err on the side of minimizing the information to the reader, whereas the consensus is that this harms the encyclopedia. Its time you stop beating this horse, as you have enough horsemeat to open a burger house.--Cerejota (talk) 06:30, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
Can you support your challenge to my 1% figure by by providing details of another city that had more than 1% of the number of incidents that ocurred in London? FactController (talk) 06:41, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Gladly: Unless we consider the police in London more incompentent than the rest of the country, I think arrest percentages are a good, if imperfect, indicator of the spread, with court appearances being a close second (because indeed court appearances outside of large systems like London might understate the prevalence). As per this source, such percentages are:

Court appearances[8]
City/Region percentage
London 64%
Greater Manchester 12%
West Midlands 9%
Merseyside 4%
Nottingham 4%
Rest of England & Wales 6%


Of course, this is imperfect, but WP:BURDEN suggests that your 1% figure is unsustainable: even when not counting G Man, W Mid, Mers, and Nott, the rest of E&W is 6%, well above the 1% you suggest - which of course you are pulling entirely out of thin air. And this is not WP:SENSATION, this is a careful analysis of the government data, done by a respected reliable source known by other respectable reliable sources to be accurate in their assessment of such data. It is true, and no one denies this, that the locus of the riots was Greater London, but it is incorrect to minimize the impact nationally - for example, Merseyside side might have 4% of the appearances, but it also have less than one sixth of the population of Greater London - making it proportionally much more significant in impact. When called upon making editorial choices, which are not the same as OR, these are the kind of valuations we should make - and again, the preponderance of evidence supports the existing version of the infobox, rather than the one you are proposing. --Cerejota (talk) 07:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Nice work! But, unfortunately it doesn't address the issue, we've seen that data before. Appearances in regional courts are not a good surrogate for the number of incidents in a particular city - at all. This article is about riots, not court cases. What we need is the number of incidents in a city (e.g. in Birmingham or Manchester or Salford or Liverpool or Leicester or Bristol or Leeds, etc.) which is significant in comparison to the number of incidents in London. Currently I don't see any. The most dramatic summary we can currently justify for the location is somthing like: "primarily London, with secondary incidents in a few cities in a few other regions of England". FactController (talk) 11:50, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
I completely disagree - and for someone who analogizes with earthquakes this shouldn't be much of a stretch. Incidents result in arrests - and even if not all incidents result in arrests, there is no reason to believe there is any significant variation in the proportion across regions. What you ask we do, is something that cannot be done because its OR - a full survey of incidents. If you find an article similar to the BBC's but on incidents themselves, that would be useful. We cannot invent a data set, we must get it from RS, and this is what the RS give us. The rest I already explained, and it approaches tendentiousness not to address it. However, I will repeat that this demolishes your pulled-out-of-thin air appreciation that only 1% of the incidents happened outside of London. There was significant action elsewhere, and proportionally they were in the same severity. It is your WP:BURDEN to show otherwise.--Cerejota (talk) 19:15, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
You've misrepresented what I wrote. Was that intentional? If not, read what I wrote again and what you've written, and see where your mistake is - then see if you think your arguments still hold water. FactController (talk) 21:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
I have not misrepresented anything: you have provided not a single source to back your view. Until you do so, your argument is invalid.--Cerejota (talk) 21:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
I made a throwaway remark, you seized upon it and ridiculed it. I then challenged you to support your dismissal of the figure. You made a valiant attempt - but didn't actually address the nub of it, so failed. You then misrepresent my challege, which was to find a city with more than 1% of the incidents suffered by London, not that 1% of incidents happened outside of London, and now seem to be expecting me to prove something! Amazing. FactController (talk) 09:20, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Controversial or negative edits?

These edits were characterised as revertions and offered as evidence in an attempt to get me barred recently. Can we please appraise them (perhaps Cerejota will chip-in as he cited them) to help me and others avoid making similar mistakes in the future.

  • 1: This edit merged the contents of a one-sentence sub-section into its parent section. I thought that one-sentence sub-sections weren't encouraged.
  • 2: This was the addition of a clearer explanation, according to the RS, of what happened.
  • 3: The removal of assertions that were't supported by the cited reference. Isn't OR and/or misrepresentations in contravention of OR, verifiability and NPOV policies?
  • 4: I removed the cite of a news item of 2 July (more than a month before the disorder started). It described events which weren't mentioned anywhere in the article.

FactController (talk) 10:13, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

The content was irrelevant. The issue was that they were reversions, more than three done within a 24 hour period - WP:3RR makes nearly no qualitative distinction as it is a purely quantitative one. The behavior that should be changed is that you shouldn't make so many reversions (which includes re-inserting removed material even if it was removed without a direct undo). Instead, for example, make a summary of needed changes in the talk page, and spread the work there is no deadline for good edits. You should understand that while editors often ignore 3RR when there are clear improvements (and some of these edits are) this is not permission to ignore 3RR, simply a choice under WP:IAR made by implicit consensus. However, the WP:EW correctly focused more on the general issues of behavior, than in the actual presence of 3RR - to avoid further drama it would be very useful if you kept this in mind, in particular the comments from un-involved editors. No one argues you are a bad editor, just one that seems to be aloof - what in business gets called "not a team player". Wikipedia is a collaborative environment: collaborate and you would have no issues.--Cerejota (talk) 23:45, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Also, the report not wants an attempt to get you barred. It was an attempt to make you realize - after a few weeks of strong interaction in which these issue were repeated to you by many editors - that your behavior was not acceptable even to non-involved editors. If you still think this is not the case, I suggest you request further comment from the closing admin - because the only reason you didn't get a 24 hour block or a topic ban was because of backlog and your fortuitous absence which essentially meant you self-blocked. Take this suggestion to heart: try to also edit other topic areas or this will only get worse. We have all been there or seen it happen - we didn't start to edit a couple of months ago.--Cerejota (talk) 23:49, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
What behaviour? Having the temerity to disagree with the two or three editors pushing their own agendas? Having the temerity to remove unsourced and misleading assertions? I think that the only reason for going to that forum was to get me barred because I refused to accept your flawed attack on my belief that undue weight is being given to the extent of the troubles outside of London. FactController (talk) 10:32, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Are you seriously suggesting that any one of those 4 edits wasn't a clear improvement? Are you seriously suggesting that I should have raised a separate discussion for each of them to get a consensus before proceeding? FactController (talk) 10:20, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
I am sad to see that you still missing the point. :/--Cerejota (talk) 20:22, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Nice article

Just wanted to say thanks to all who have helped build this quality article so soon after the event. Good work on achieving NPOV. Id say the article isnt especially realistic on the causes of the rioting, but then neither are most of the prominent sources. Hopefully as we get more rigorous studies from top tier sources, we can start to de-emphasise the right wing "analyses" and more confidently present the link between the riots and working class deprivation. FeydHuxtable (talk) 09:12, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

"working class deprivation"? Yeah, I did not have enough toys when I was younger, so that gives me an excuse to burn other people's property. WWGB (talk) 11:08, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Grammar check please

One of these sentences was just reverted with an edit comment suggesting that it was "ungrammatical". Can someone with a better understanding of English grammar than me please tell me which one it was, and suggest a better wording.

FactController (talk) 06:28, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Nothing much wrong with the original grammar but I can see what BlackKite was getting at. Even elitists usually accept grammatical rules can be relaxed for captions, so I think it was the second sentence they were calling ungrammatical. A useful general rule is that if you can reduce word count without losing information or precision, then do so. Technically Id say the original sentence had too many prepositions . Either way BK's replacement of in some other parts of with across was an improvement.
My suggestion for the location caption wording would be:
Many districts of London and several other urban areas across England; including parts of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, West Midlands, West Yorkshire and Bristol. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

london riots

i dont understand, what was the intial cause for this rioting and looting?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.24.206.252 (talk) 22:59, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi, the initial cause was the shooting of Mark Duggan, the lack of a timely explanation of the killing to his family and general poor relations between the police and young people living around Tottenham. We could maybe be clearer about this in the lede? FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Hip-hop culture? [9], [10] --Trevj (talk) 17:24, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Foul Play

I think it should at least be mentioned that there were claims that youths were offered money to start rioting by men claiming to be journalists. www.infowarscom/claim-youths-offered-money-to-start-riots/ [unreliable fringe source?] Also, there were people who felt that some of the police did nothing to stop the violence but allowed it to continue unabated. I think this is noteworthy enough to include in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.9.62.130 (talk) 18:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

We would need better sources to include this. Has the BBC covered it? The Guardian? Meantime I have removed it. --John (talk) 19:10, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
It's nuts. No. The guy who runs the website is a notorious conspiracy theorist, which should be a flashing red light in itself. Prioryman (talk) 21:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)


WP:FRINGE and that is that.--Cerejota (talk) 21:38, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Vigilantism

I've seen no evidence of vigilantism nor does the section headed with it give any examples. The Wikipedia article for vigilante clearly states that it is a "a private individual who legally or illegally punishes an alleged lawbreaker, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to an alleged lawbreaker". Defending one's property doesn't meet that definition, I know many media outlets used the words 'vigilante' and 'vigilantism' to describe these acts of self-denfence but Wikipedia isn't a place to perpetuate media sensationalism, or is it? Experiment 47 (talk) 15:36, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I really may not know about this, see more information. Mohamed Aden Ighe (talk) 00:59, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
The citations don't seem to refer to "extralegal punishment" or similar. I agree that (despite terminology used in the media) vigilante is an inappropriate term to use here. However, we should still state that the press used the term vigilante, and that the Metropolitan Police Service referred to them as "so-called vigilantes". Perhaps there is some confusion with the word vigilant, so I've added a hatnote. --Trevj (talk) 11:08, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Split proposal:Heroine of Hackney

The AfD resulted in a Merge. There is further encyclopedic content to be added to this part of the "Public reactions" section here, e.g. [11], [12], for starters. Most of the old content could be merged into a further subheading of 2011 England riots, but in doing so could be disproportionate per WP:UNDUE. Therefore, I propose splitting the content back out to a separate article again. Because there is some apparent concern about the encyclopedic content of Heroine of Hackney, I'm not simply being bold and splitting without prior discussion. Please note that I consider the WP:BLP1E issues to be separate to the article content, which is primarily about the video and its effects. --Trevj (talk) 06:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Adequately covered in main article. It is, after all, WP:ONEEVENT. WWGB (talk) 13:12, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Er, no. See WP:EVENT for the guideline on articles about events - this doesn't come close to being notable. It was a brief media circus. There's no need for a separate article for what can be summed up here in a few lines and there's no need to rehash the AfD. To go all "OTHER" for a minute, should we expecting you to write David Starkey racism controversy next? Fences&Windows 20:41, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
We'll have to agree to disagree on notability: your brief media circus is what I see as a notable viral video which plainly warrants encyclopedic coverage. Anyway, I'm not intending to rehash the AfD - if that were the case, we'd probably be at WP:DELREV. However, I note that if WP:BEFORE were a strict policy, WP:WEB or a merge would have been properly considered before proposing deletion (there was no support for deletion, which brings into question the validity of the proposal). Regarding WP:OTHER, I must be missing the obvious because I don't see anything appropriate there, not even wikibios.com (as some people seem to think the article was a biogrpahy). And there's no need to expect anyone to write David Starkey racism controversy, unless there are further multiple incidents reported in reliable sources. But maybe someone fancies a stab at Death of Haroon Jahan. No hard feelings, anyway - I expect I'll see you 'round the wiki. --Trevj (talk) 05:11, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Pauline Pearce#Biographical information. Trevj (talk) 12:18, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

My two cents: I really don't think she deserves or needs a separate article. At least wait another year or so to see if the video is still popular. --Lobo512 (talk) 22:28, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

  • Comment I'll remove the tag from the article page when this discussion has been live for a month... but if anyone feels this issue has already had enough visibility then just go ahead and remove it whenever you feel like. Cheers. --Trevj (talk) 20:22, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
The content here seems complete. There doesn't seem much reason to write more about her. --filceolaire (talk) 06:35, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Except that Pearce is notable beyond this one event, as a jazz singer. And that IMO the encyclopedic content contained in the (redirected) article about the notable video explains its EFFECTs. Anyway, I appear to be in the minority and this isn't a rehash of the AfD, as discussed above. --Trevj (talk) 07:40, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

'Reading the Riots'

There's a series of articles on this at The Guardian, apparently in partnership with the London School of Economics, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Open Society Institute. -- Trevj (talk) 13:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Minor Edit

I would hazard to guess calling the cop who shot Duggan "an ugly one" is not WP:NPOV. Maybe he is "ugly" in a superficial sense, but I believe that's being used as pejorative slang much as "pig" is used by people in the United States who don't like cops. It might be worth a more dedicated editor keeping an eye on this article for such slants in tone. I'm going to do my two cents by editing it out. 68.225.171.64 (talk) 20:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I would say it's vandalism. pcuser42 (talk) 21:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Removed new section on Antisemitic coverage

I thought this was a bit undue so I removed it. I would be happy to work towards a compromise here over how or whether we can use any of this material. It certainly wouldn't need a section of its own. --John (talk) 20:24, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree - I was about to do the same myself. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:33, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Tariq Jahan

I have reverted a contribution regarding Jahan's conviction on an unrelated matter [13] - this seems to me as off-topic, and per WP:BLP1E policy (amongst others), probably not suitable for inclusion. I'd appreciate the opinions of others on this. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:13, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

This is not a BLP issue - nobody is disputing the facts of the case. If you think this material is off-topic, then why is the whole Jahan hagiography in the article? That too must be considered off-topic if the material I added is off-topic. None of the after-event praise given by the media or Establishment figures to Jahan is directly connected to the riots. Jahan got his suspended sentence specifically on account of his actions during the riots, an event which took place after the crime. That fact reveals a direct connection to the media attention he got - so if the media attention stays, the result of the media attention must stay.
I feel the case also reflects intrinsic falseness and double standards: a person who beats up a man for just "looking at his wife" is not "uncomplaining, in control of his emotions". Is being a convicted fraudster, drug user, mother-in-law beater, etc., "what it means to be British", while those who, in the heat of the moment, steal this or that bit of consumer tat are seen as such a threat to that "British" society that they are given fast-track trials and heavy, disproportionate sentences. Meowy 12:46, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
If you think that "nobody is disputing the facts of the case" automatically means that this cannot be a BLP issue, I think you need to study our BLP policies in more depth. And as for any supposed 'hagiography' in the article, if you think it is inappropriate, you should discuss the matter, not add further details on something you are claiming is off-topic. I'd also remind you that BLP policy applies on talk pages too - and if this [14] is the source for your assertions (the link you provide is broken), you clearly have your facts wrong - a caution is not a conviction, for a start. And as for your comments about "what it means to be British", I suggest you take your soapbox elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:00, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
The article states that he had "a conviction for false accounting and forgery in 1985 and a conviction for conspiracy to rob in 1990", no cautions there, so stop making false assertions. And they are not MY facts, nor were they even facts that I was wanting to be inserted into the article. And it is YOU who have been claiming things are off-topic. Given that your opinion of what is, and what is not, off-topic seems to vary arbitrarily, according to your personal POV, and is not backed up by any discussion, and that you have declined to address any of the points I made, I am fully justified in restoring the deleted content. Unless I hear some coherant arguments for either excluding the new material or (alternatively) not deleting the hagiography material I will restore the deleted content. Meowy 19:45, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
As you are aware, I reverted the material because I considered it off-topic. You are apparently arguing that the 'hagiography' is also off topic, and doesn't belong in the article either. Fine. You are entitled to suggest that it should be removed - instead, you seem to be proposing to violate WP:BLP policy to make a point. Why? If you wish the existing material on Jahan to be trimmed down, make a sensible concrete proposal. You will note that in my initial edit summary, I said that "I think we'd best discuss on the talk page, and wait for others to offer an opinion". I also started this discussion making the same point - that this seems to be an issue that requires further input from others. Do you not agree that this is the best option, rather than arguing amongst ourselves? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:33, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
It is difficult to discuss anything with an editor who resorts to continuous bad-faith statements about "violating BLP"? Either justify that serious allegation or withdraw it. I have explained why I felt that the new material was on-topic. You have not yet explained why you think it is off-topic. Just repeating the words "I consider it off-topic" is not a valid reason to delete content. Meowy 03:00, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
You think I have to give an in-depth explanation as to why the the unrelated conviction (for events that occurred before the riots) of a person who's son was killed in the riots doesn't belong in the article? Your only justification seems to be what you describe as the 'hagiography' of a man widely acknowledged to have helped diffuse a dangerous situation - yet when asked to make concrete suggestions about rectifying this, you fail - again - to offer any suggestions whatsoever. Clearly, we aren't going to agree amongst ourselves here, which is why I suggested that we wait for comments from others. Meanwhile, perhaps you should consider how well your characterisation of the events as merely involving "steal[ing] this or that bit of consumer tat" can be compatible with the death of Jahan's son, along with two others, in an incident which has led to charges of murder. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:16, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, your continuing refusal to justify your position and your continuing accusations of bad-faith precludes any further discussion with you on this particular subject until you ammend your ways. Hagiography is an accurate description of both the amount of gushing praise heaped on Jahan and the uncritical and unqualified insertion of it into this article. His response was nothing more than would be expected from any normal person. Though, since the guy is a Muslim, maybe you think the expected response would have been to grab a machette and go around hacking people's heads off in blind revenge. Meowy 11:02, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Use of term 'government cuts'

Seeing as government spending was up in 2011 from 2010, and is now up again in 2012 from 2011, I think the use of the term 'government cuts' is at best ignorant, and at worse for a supposedly neutral enterprise like wikipedia, overtly political.

If the article is to remain informative and credible, then sections such as this should have no place within it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.250.101 (talk) 13:21, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

You might be getting confused with government spending and the government using austerity. The "government cuts" is austerity - they're too different things. I don't see how it's not neutral? ☠ Jaguar ☠ 16:46, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

a local man from the area

At best, this is tautological; at worst, unhelpful. Where was he from? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 10:12, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I feel so happy to have created this article

I bow down to all of you in respect. On the night the Tottenham riots happened I switched on the news and got to the computer as fast as I could just as the breaking news was coming in - I created this article by using barely one sentence of poor information. I must have created this article half an hour after the riots happened. Now look how far this article has come - literally hundreds of contributors have built this article up to become a huge and reliable source of information. There has been no greater honour, as even the University of Toronto had looked at this and studied it. I know, no thanks to me, I just got lucky to have switched on the news. The next day I got a ride into London to see what had happened. I saw no riots in Knightsbridge or any part of Central London of course, but I wanted to be there first hand to try and contribute this article, but I got no luck. This is what Wikipedia should be about, getting the breaking news and putting it for all to read. I thank you all. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 16:53, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

"This is what Wikipedia should be about, getting the breaking news and putting it for all to read". Um, no - that is what Wikinews is for. It is more or less inevitable that Wikipedia will cover such major events, but our objectives are long-term coverage, not journalism. And as for you wanting "to be there first hand to try and contribute this article", I'd strongly advise against it - going out looking for a riot is inadvisable, and in the case of Wikipedia contributions, pointless. First-hand accounts aren't remotely compliant with WP:RS policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:11, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
I didn't mean it like that - I meant that historic events like these could make its mark on Wikipedia. Only a small number of people read Wikinews compared to major news sources like Sky News etc. The day after the 'Tottenham riots' happened everyone though it was just one of those things that would pass, and the morning after I went to London like I did everyday (I wasn't riot hunting), I just wanted to go there first hand to get a feel of things. That's what life is about - experiencing things. And it's not pointless at all - things like that gives you motivation. I want to be a journalist when I'm older, but I've had second thoughts now. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 17:49, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Well that just ruined my moment - why are you so negative!? ☠ Jaguar ☠ 00:18, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

congrats88.104.134.234 (talk) 16:30, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Get off your high horse. 86.46.48.214 (talk) 17:24, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, you're a miserable bastard aren't you? ☠ Jaguar ☠ 22:27, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Portsmouth Nightclub

I recently edited this sentence (A fire destroyed a former nightclub in Portsmouth on 9 August, the cause of the fire has not been publicly released although Hampshire Police have stated there was nothing to suggest it was related to the riots.[1]) to actually reflect what was stated in the sourced article rather than mysteriously link it to the riots. The original sentence was as follows: A fire destroyed a nightclub in Portsmouth on 10 August, the cause was unknown, it's a mystery as to whether this was related to the riots or not.

Given that the police have stated that there is no evidence to link it to the riots, should this be included in the article whatsoever? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.195.147.18 (talk) 12:10, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

  1. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-14473058
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