Talk:2016 riots in Sweden

A fact from 2016 riots in Sweden appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 4 July 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that 2016 has seen widespread rioting and unrest across Sweden?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/July. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/2016 Sweden riots.

Wikipedia

POV

I have some serious concerns with this article which would justify a wholescale revision or perhaps even deletion:

1. The overarching concern is that the tone of the article is such that it seeks to portray the events in the most dramatic fashion possible, in a way which is not consistent with the role of an objective encyclopedia. (Which of course, to be absolutely clear, is not to say that the seriousness of the events should be played down.)

2. It is also not clear from the article whether this is in fact one "event", which ought to be covered by a single article, or if it is a series of unconnected events which each might deserve separate articles (or, if treated separately, might not meet the notability guidelines).

The article has not shown that there is a causal connection between the events, in the way that, in some other cases of widespread riots, rioting in one place inspired rioting elsewhere. I am not aware that established Swedish news outlets have reported on these events as being a part of one chain of events. In fact, many of the riots in cities beyond Norrköping and Borlänge seem to have begun before escalation of riots in those two cities in mid-May.

3. There are any number of weasel words employed. Stone throwing is described as "rampant", an assault on a person is "brutal", Husby and Rinkeby are "high risk".

The article chooses to highlight certain actions by public authorities but not others. In connection with the destruction of cars in Hageby, it is said that police "responded by bringing coffee along to offer locals". In fact, police also that night worked with the fire brigade in trying to put out the fires and restore order (http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=160&artikel=6433678). Leaving out such information obviously gives the impression of a police force which is helpless and naive.

4. There is a bias towards responses that describe the situation in extremely serious words, such as "lawlessness", "among the most deplorable" etc. It is not clear if there are other responses which describe the situation in other words.

5. The role of the police report on "problem areas" is unclear in the text. Now it just seems to provide a general undertone of doom. It should probably be formulated thus: (1) the publication of the police report (and subsequent updated versions) has caused an intensified debate concerning areas with high levels of crime and anti-social behaviour, which provides the prism through which the events during the spring are viewed and (2) the recent events could be seen as having given further impetus to that debate.

6. Sputnik News and Russia Today are news outlets which are funded by the Russian government. Their objectivity can be seriously questioned. They should not be listed under "Further reading".

David ekstrand (talk) 17:00, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please feel free to edit the article if there are specific concerns. Here [1] is a source by the main Swedish news bureau (TT) which links and provides context to the events and which is included in the article. Should also be clear by public/political responses that this has been a linked series of events. User2534 (talk) 18:52, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I largely agree with the issues raised above. My issue with the article as a reader is that the cause of the riots seems entirely unclear. This statement is particularly odd, "The riots took place amid a wave of unrest and outbursts of riots in exclusion zones across Sweden since late March." The article is ostensibly about this "linked series of events" throughout 2016, so this sounds a little like a tautology or perhaps a circular reference. It is suggested later in International Reactions that lax immigration policies may be to blame - so in what way? Are the rioters immigrants? Youths? Hooligans? Anti-immigrant reactionaries? Why are they rioting? There certainly are a massive number of sources, so the answer must be somewhere. It would be nice to get a couple English-language sources in there, there appear to be zero now. A number of the sources appear to be editorials or opinion pages, so that may raise some flags. I'm no expert on policy but WP:Citation overkill mentions that "A well-meaning editor may attempt to make a subject which does not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines appear to be notable through quantity of sources. Ironically, this serves as a red flag to experienced editors that the article needs scrutiny and that each citation needs to be verified carefully to ensure that it was really used to contribute to the article." Not that I don't think the article meets notability, it likely does - but unless we can get some Swedes involved on the page, it is going to be a huge burden for one or two editors to weed through all these sources in order to resolve some of these issues. <> Alt lys er svunnet hen (talk) 19:53, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's a Swedish user above who's only real concern is the "tone" and wording of the article (which largely is taken directly from sources themselves). There's no shortage of Swedish or Scandinavian Wikipedians, so the otherwise silence speaks for itself. Swedish RS don't really give any information on the rioters as you seek other than them being "youths", so that's all we've got as far as RS is concerned. This is all the result of striving to be as objective as possible per RS. If something is left out it shouldn't be a problem for others to add supposed balancing information. User2534 (talk) 10:03, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The use of the word "riot" is for the most part extremely misleading. If 4 people set fire to a car is that considered a riot? The vast majority of these cases could be called arson. The perpetrators set fire to cars and then leave. For instance in the article "Stockholm led to days of riots, hate crime attacks, car fires, Molotov cocktail arson attacks and stone-throwing against police" the sourced article described a fight between two people who removed the pride flag. There is no mention of hate crimes. This entire article seems to have an agenda to present the issue in the most extreme way possible while interjecting commentary from right wing pundits like it is fact. Frostiga flingor (talk) 06:42, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 18 August 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved to 2016 social unrest in Sweden per nom. No such user (talk) 08:19, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

2016 Sweden riots and unrest → 2016 social unrest in Sweden – There are no credible english news sources that refer to widespread connected rioting as this article title implies. Frostiga flingor (talk) 11:27, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References: ^[1] ^[2] Frostiga flingor (talk) 11:27, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

Procedural comment: lowercased "social" (uncontroversially) per MOS:CAPS. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 15:49, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support, Per WP:NPOV & WP:RS. This is not only a good start to removing biased language in the article, but will also allow us to broaden the scope of the article somewhat. I also think we should try to incorporate some credible English sources into the article (still not seeing any ATM), if nothing else than to provide a wider perspective on the issues. <> Alt lys er svunnet hen (talk) 21:43, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support as more neutral. — JFG ^talk 06:19, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Could someone change the title back

Somebody changed the article's name to Social unrest in Norrköping and Borlänge from 2016 social unrest in Sweden, which wikipedians already had a consensus on. The person who made the change didn't use talk and ignored the fact that unrest occurred in the rest of Sweden--and this is even mentioned in the article--so the latter name is more appropriate.2602:306:32A2:C7A0:5115:FDD6:7448:4A49 (talk) 05:19, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, the previous title was much more appropriate. HerbertMacuse (talk) 14:25, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Naming

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but the word "riot" to describe these events suggest that these events are largely organised and connected. I don't think it would classify as neutral language. There are no English or Swedish sources in the reflist that use the word "riot" or "upplopp" to refer to these events, most of them calling it "unrest", or just "car fires and stone throwing". I suggest that this title should be renamed to something like "2016 social unrest in Sweden" or alike. Thanks

Gabzony (talk) 17:53, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[1] ttp://sverigesradio.se/sida/sok.aspx?q=riots&programid=2054&filter=true

[2] ttp://www.thelocal.se/page/view/search?q=riots&s=

[1]

[2]