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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

I've replaced this page's probation tag

(which pertains to the entire article, although oviously to aspects concerning Obama's involvement in this controversy in particular). Admins known to be cognizant of issues on this page include User:Bigtimepeace and User:xeno. ↜Just M E here , now 09:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the consideration but I rarely participate in AE and also i'm involved in various discussions on this page. –xenotalk 12:46, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't agree with this. This article is only tangentially related to Obama. We've had some debates here but few of them centered on Obama. Was it decided anywhere official that this should be on probation, or did an Obama editor just throw this into a template one day? Squidfryerchef (talk) 14:39, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Would you please make the rest of us cognizant of the issues on this page that lead to the block? Other than the questions around the photo, I don't see any reason to protect this article. Since it was an anon making the "racist" comments, why not just semi-protect it? Dhaluza (talk) 14:59, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Dispute over the mugshot among logged in users. –xenotalk 15:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Commenters believing the designation appropriate (in the recent ANI thread here: WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive557#Is Crowley-Gates an Obama related page?) included Bigtimepeace, who'd also been gracious enough to agree to step in, "admin-wise," if called upon, if it should turn out to be needed.

I would urge folks not to make the same mistake as me, and actually read what the probation says before objecting to the tag:

Any editor may be sanctioned by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, personal attacks, incivility and assumptions of bad faith.

That's not much different than the status quo. –xenotalk 15:20, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with probation, semi-protection or even a short term (24 hour) full protection. But I don't see anything in the edit history to justify a long term block. A dispute over a photo should not freeze editing on the remaining content, which is still developing, and was doing so rather amicably IMHO. I think the sudden long term block is over the top. Dhaluza (talk) 16:03, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
You may wish to start a new section or petition directly to the protecting admin. This section isn't about the protection. –xenotalk 16:43, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Image captions

The arrest image captions at present read as follows:

  1. Gates led from his home in handcuffs after being arrested. Sgt. Leon Lashley in the foreground.[12]
  2. Cambridge police booking photo of Gates.

Since the booking and arrest photos, presented without an immediate comment as to the justification of the arrest, are apt to mislead the reader, I propose we expand the image captions as follows:

  1. Gates led from his home in handcuffs after being arrested. Sgt. Leon Lashley in the foreground.[12] The police department later called the incident "unfortunate and regrettable".
  2. Cambridge police booking photo of Gates. In their joint statement, Gates and the police department said that the incident "should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department."

Objections? JN466 18:12, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

"Along with the title, the lead, and section headings, captions are the most commonly read words in an article, so they should be succinct and informative."

—WP:CAPTIONS ↜Just M E here , now 20:52, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

A fairly high percentage of people [edited: big slice of the readership] coming to this page will read these photos' captions who otherwise will but glance at some of the lede and headings throughout the rest of the article. I do think it imperative for Wikipedia to include within their captions such "contextualizing" information as Jayen466 proposes. ↜Just M E here , now 18:36, 14

August 2009 (UTC)

What percentage[edited: big slice of the readership] is that, and of that percentage, [edited: big slice] what subset will come away with the wrong impression if we don't have these expansive captions. It's very unusual to have extensive, non-descriptive information in a photo caption. I'm sorry if I'm being a direct here if you're going to write "a fairly high percentage" to back this, I'd welcome some foundation for that statement.Mattnad (talk) 18:50, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Mattnad, it goes like this. Someone goes to the article for Burma-Shave and sees the following illustration.
Set of signs promoting Burma-Shave, on U.S. Route 66.
They read the caption. It tells them what they already know from the illustration: that this picture shows a set of signs, one of which reads "Burma-Shave." The person reading this says to hi/rself, "I already know this has a set of signs, one of which reads 'Burma-Shave!'" Instead, tell me a little more how this illustration pertains to the article. Tantalize me with a taste of it. Just a concise taste, though. Don't drone on. (Like the caption itself is the whole article!)"
Now check out the following illustration. It is from WP:CAPTIONS.
One sentence long, this caption leads the reader into why the illustration was chosen for the article -- giving just a smidgen of taste of something that is said in the article. In one concise sentence, this illustration tells us how (by its subtle implication) (1) Burma-Shave was one of the very first popularizers of aerosol shaving creams (2) -- but, not only that, Burma-Shave also innovated the use in advertising of a series of roadside signs, one line to a sign, that, these signs put together, would give a joke or a rhyme. In other words, the first caption is boring and dry and ultimately uninformative of some special point in the article it was meant to illustrate; whereas the second caption tantalizes the reader with a kernel of knowledge contained in the article. Thus a good caption serves as a concise abstract or hint at some basic premise or piece of information contained in the article.
Back to my basic point above, whatever the actual percentage of readers are who glance at captions before deciding to find out what an article says, such readers read the first caption above and have no reason to read the article since they know absolutely nothing other than what they could see with their own two eyes just from seeing the illustration without its caption. (Other than the useless fact, from the point of view of the article, of where the photograph was taken.)
WP:CAPTIONS reads, "[...W]here the purpose of the image is clearly nominative, that is, that the picture serves as the typical example of the subject of the article and offers no further information - no caption needed." Who cares what highway that particular series of "Burma-Shave," tiny, roadside-signs was on? Indeed, for the purpose explaining content in the article, such information is absolutely, completely and wholly EX-tr-A-ne-OU-s!
But how about the second caption? Ah, this one is the one that succinctly does what is asked of it! It only tells us what we don't know yet about the image: Burma Shave popularized shave creams through an innovative technique of ubiquitous roadsigns using jingles and puns, each jingle or pun broken down into a series with one line to a sign.
Could this caption for an old-time Burma Shave sign be written even better to accomplish this objective? Of course. But is it still hands-down better than the first caption? Absolutamente!
Captions are an art in themselves. One to which Jayen466 aspires!
"Big Mistake
"Many Make
"Rely on Horn
"Instead Of
"Brake
"Burma-Shave" ↜Just M E here , now 04:36, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
The Burma-Shave example is excellent captioning. (The location Route 66 is not incidental, worthless information though. Route 66 acquired a popular culture renown at least as great as that of Burma-Shave.) But the Burma-Shave example is not really germane to our topic here. It's easier, by far, to be cute successfully with something like an article on an advertising slogan. Not so easy with an article about a politically contentious incident. The problem is that a wordy caption then needs to have perfect balance between the Gates and Crowley perspectives. That can't be done in the confines of a caption, which is a reason not to try it. I would favor, instead, bolding caption references to the charges being dropped, as the visual cue the (assumed casual) reader needs that the Gates arrest did not lead to charges being pursued past a few days. As Mattnad says, we do have to assume some inclination to read the article. Not many will come here without a willingness to read at least the lede. Or so it seems to me. ----- A suggested solution that would highlight the short time the charges were pending: The info box currently gives the July 16, 2009, date of the arrest itself. How about, we put in the 'charges dropped' line that "The disorderly conduct charge was dropped on July 21, 2009"? That has JMHN's desired 'tantalizing' quality, of stimulating the reader to want to know how an arrest on the 16th led to charge dropped on the 21st. And the article does indeed give ample info to answer that question for the reader. Pechmerle (talk) 05:59, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Seems like overkill to me. The article introduction provides plenty of context (and we can add more) and the images are farther down the article. We really need to be comfortable with the fact that people can and do read. Mattnad (talk) 18:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I would agree that it's overkill. But a little overkill seems like a reasonable compromise to meet the concerns of those who think some readers will only look at the photos. And the suggested revised captions are not overly wordy for the purpose. Pechmerle (talk) 19:11, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
It's not the end of the world to have it in, but it's terrible writing style and I couldn't find it anywhere. Do we even use this techique elsewhere in Wikipedia?Mattnad (talk) 19:25, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
At the very least, the booking photo caption should make clear that the photo was not from a previous incident. Perhaps "Cambridge police booking photo of Gates taken after the arrest."--agr (talk) 19:23, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
WP:CAPTIONS sez a good caption "(1) clearly identifies the subject of the picture, without detailing the obvious (2) is succinct (3) establishes the picture's relevance to the article (4) provides context for the picture (5) draws the reader into the article." I believe Jayen466's proposed captions fulfill objectives #3, #4 and #5 better than the existing ones. (His suggestions can always be tweaked to do the job better, though.) ↜Just M E here , now 21:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Succinct they are not and I'd welcome examples that takes a similarly expansive approach inside or even outstide wikipedia. As for "better" on the other points, that's subjective. I'd say its worse in that the suggested language is designed to qualify the image based on separate and later information not part of the photo. Essentially it goes beyond the photo to tell the reader what they should think of the photo. Mattnad (talk) 23:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
In the booking photo caption, simply add The charges against Gates were dropped on July 21, 2009. The reader who wants to know more can read the article. That's what it's there for. Pechmerle (talk) 06:10, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Sounds like a reasonable proposal to me. The one change I would make is to date the photo (since that is the more important date), and say "the charges were dropped five days later." Dhaluza (talk) 14:01, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
"The charges were dropped" is not the same as "the incident should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department". Hundreds of charges are dropped every day without such statements being released: it is vital to the context that this was done in this case. JN466 15:24, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Mattnad, it tells the reader what the Cambridge Police Department told the public they should think about this arrest. The reader needs this information to decide what they should think about this photograph, because the Cambridge Police Department was the authority who made the arrest. Also see Wikipedia:Captions#Providing_context_for_the_picture – telling readers what happened before or after a photo was taken is considered good practice. --JN466 16:01, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Jayen466, there's a point where the pursuit of a specific POV on the photos become absurd when we need to have long explanatory statements that repeat what's in the lede and a substantively the rest of the article. It's just bad writing and inconsistent with how other photos are handled in wikipedia and by other media channels. Context is needed but you want to go beyond the context to a conclusion, and a very wordy one at that.
I also find that you're selective in what you write - so even though I personally disagree with the arrest, such a lengthy context statement could also have the arresting officer's POV in it (e.g. what Gates did prior to his arrest). But I suspect you'd fight that. The reason we shouldn't do that, or what you're pursuing, is that we have the lede and the article to provide the details. And I'll add that breathless opinions that people only come to Wikipedia to look at the pictures is not supported by facts.Mattnad (talk) 17:15, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
uch a lengthy context statement could also have the arresting officer's POV in it (e.g. what Gates did prior to his arrest). But I suspect you'd fight that.: No, I wouldn't fight that. Don't you remember? I proposed putting in that Crowley reported Gates yelled at him here, a few days ago. So by all means, let's add it, to balance the context. JN466 12:30, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Pictures get seen they are unavoidable for the eyes, the pictures get seen first, I have read somewhere and i'll look for the quotation, that nine out of ten people that access an article never read past the lede. Off2riorob (talk) 18:12, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Also while I am here, the pictures should be spread throughout the article a little better, they look silly as they are, doubled up in the arrest section. I suggest moving the mugshot down the page a bit where it will get seen even less. Off2riorob (talk) 18:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Not to belabor an obvious point, but the arrest related photos are after the lede. So according to Off2riorob's stats (which he still needs to research), only 1 in 10 reader will ever see the arrest photos, and only after they've read the lede that explains the charges were dropped etc. etc. So, again, why do we need to change the captions? Mattnad (talk) 19:38, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Sorry that was a bit of a throwaway comment that is now amongst your considered debate. Off2riorob (talk) 19:53, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
For myself, Mattnad, sometimes I dig right in and read an article right off the bat. Yet other times I skim over the whole thing first; if I come across something I'm interested in -- depending how much -- I will then continue reading to the end and then perhaps start up back up to the top in order to read the whole thing. During this process, if I see an image I like, I'm apt to focus in on its caption; and, when I do that -- I tend to like details. That is, instead of, "Kilmer's farmhouse in Mahwah, NJ," I'd tend to prefer, "After a stint writing lexicographical entries for Funk & Wagnalls in New York City, Kilmer, continuing work as a critic for the New York Times and a lecturer, moved to this farmhouse in Mahwah, New Jersey, in 1912." (Or, as another example, instead of "Trees near Kilmer's farmhouse," I'd prefer, "Window at upper left, the bedroom-study where Kilmer wrote 'Trees' (1913).") ↜Just M E here , now 21:13, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Replying to Justmeherenow, I completely agree that captions can have a bit more depth. What I'm pushing for a balance between the article text, the picture, and explanation that doesn't go too far in any direction. Jayen466 has a notion that the photograph captions must focus on the later apologies. While understandable, it's a form of editorializing that exceeds the usual way captions are handled, and on top of that, he's proposing a verbose way of explaining that the arrest was unjustified. Anyway, I don't see consensus for jayen466's proposal, but I'm up for us providing more detail - just lets not make each caption into a multi-line disclaimer. The article does a lot to provide context and these photos are well below the lede. There's a point when we have to believe (just like many mainstream publications that published these photographs did), that people actually read.Mattnad (talk) 21:58, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

New proposal

Here is a revised proposal to address the concern that Crowley's POV is underrepresented in what I proposed above:

  1. Professor Gates being arrested on his front porch; Sgt. Leon Lashley in the foreground, Sgt. Crowley on the right. Crowley's report stated, "Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him." Gates and the Cambridge Police Department later issued a press release calling the incident "unfortunate and regrettable".
  2. Cambridge police booking photo of Gates. In their joint statement, Gates and the police department said that the incident "should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department."

Views? JN466 12:39, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you missed my broader point. We should not be throwing in everything including the kitchen sink into these captions. What you are proposing goes well beyond providing context for the photos. You are operating under a false assumption that people will only look at the photos and therefore you want to make sure they are perceived they way you want them to. But what you are suggesting is so far from the immediate context that it's borderline non-sequitur. The words before, adjacent to, and after the photos must be considered part of the editorial context. Why would we repeat quotes that are elsewhere in the article? I'm interested in balance, and balance is not proposed here.Mattnad (talk) 13:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Well, that's what captions are for: establishing context, and drawing the reader in. Please read Wikipedia:CAPTIONS#Drawing_the_reader_into_the_article. It is good practice to mention things in the caption that are then covered more fully in the article. Can you tell me what harm it does to mention in the caption for the booking shot that the Cambridge Police Department said it should not be seen as demeaning Gates' character and reputation? Why wouldn't we want to mention that in the caption? JN466 14:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
And you and I have a different notion of both context, and succinctness. What you're recommended is context beyond the photo -- not to draw the reader in -- but for other purposes you've mentioned before. I believe that failing to remove the photographs, you want to include large disclaimers to ensure these photos are interpreted from the context of Gates' innocence. The article does that very well already and I'm not in agreement that we need to duplicate that so verbosely in the captions. I think the porch photo caption does a reasonable job, and the booking photo already does a very good job (perhaps too good for your tastes) of drawing the in the reader. And again, if you examine the Rosa Parks booking photo, it also has a very succinct caption. I don't see you changing that caption, so I suspect your agenda is not in the true spirit of Wikipedia:CAPTIONS#Drawing_the_reader_into_the_article. Mattnad (talk) 14:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Mattnad, I know your allusions to Jayen466's editing rationale in this instance is very mild, nevertheless I remind you that this article is on probation so the usual idea, Wikipedia-wide, of concentrating on content and otherwise assuming good faith, at least as far as talkpage commentary is concerned, I believe should be invoked. ↜Just M E here , now 17:08, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) In the context of a mugshot, the fact that the police department itself issued a press release saying that the incident should not be taken to demean Gates' reputation and character is not some unimportant detail, or a non-sequitur. Nor is it my view; it is the view of the authority who made the arrest, and as such I could not think what could be more relevant, especially in the BLP context. If you want to see precedents of "long" captions giving context also given in the article text, look at Abu Nidal; it is an FA. Unification of Germany is currently up for FA; it's got plenty longer captions than the ones proposed here. For other FA examples with captions repeating article content see Rudolf_Vrba, Brown_Dog_affair and surely dozens of other FAs. Having said that, I am happy to try for something more succinct, as long as the key points are there. So here goes, again:

  1. Gates being arrested at his home, with Sgt. Lashley (foreground) and Sgt. Crowley (right). Crowley's report stated, "Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias." Five days later, Gates and the Police Department issued a joint statement calling the incident "regrettable and unfortunate".
  2. Gates' arrest photo. The Police Department and Gates later said the incident "should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department."

JN466 18:02, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

In the examples you provided, for the most part the captions are needed to explain who or what's in the photograph, and how it relates to the story. So it's not helpful to see photos of other politicians in the Abu Nidal article if we a) don't know who they are, and b) what part of his story they relate to. But in the Gates Arrest article, his photos don't need that level of explanation, and what you're proposing take context to a much broader level. But we have already have equivalent detail where needed - we identify Sgt. Lashley since that's the only photo where he appears.
What you've proposed for the booking photo would make more sense if it were in another article (lets say Gate's main BLP). There the detailed qualifiers become more important. But in this Arrest article, it's unnecessary and IMHO bad writing. As you've already mentioned, your reasons are due to concerns that photos demean Gates. While a laudable motivation, I'm not buying that we need such long and messy captions when we have an entire article dedicated to providing that context. But do what you will tomorrow when the block comes off, and we'll see if we can find a common ground in the editorial process. I'm open to more explanation, but keep it shorter and closer to the event captured than what you have.Mattnad (talk) 19:33, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I would suggest that the booking photo caption be changed for now to "Cambridge police booking photo of Gates taken after his arrest on July 16. 2009. Charges were dropped five days later." That make it clear that the mugshot was not from some previous arrest and gets the essential point of his innocence across without excessive verbiage.--agr (talk) 23:10, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Nice and concise.Mattnad (talk) 00:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 Done ↜Just M E here , now 01:03, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Then undone. After agreeing my proposal was "Nice and concise", Mattnad without discussion removed the words "after his arrest" on the grounds that this is somehow understood. I think it is important to be really clear that the photo is the result of this incident, and not one taken earlier. Not everyone knows what a booking photo is. I feel strongly the words "after his arrest" add that clarity and should be put back in. Making unilateral changes after wording has been agreed to amounts to edit warring, in my opinion. --agr (talk) 03:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
I see your point, and it might be close. But would Mattnad's single bold move really be edit warring, even now where we're trying to keep things roughly around 1RR? ↜Just M E here , now 03:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
I believe the accepted model is "be bold, revert, discuss, find consensus," not "discuss, find consensus, then boldly go against that consensus." --agr (talk) 04:01, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Relax Arg - the change I made did not remove the substance of the new caption. ALL booking photos come after an arrest. I removed words that were redundant. What you wrote would be the equivalent of writing "a battle photograph taken after the battle began" I mistakenly thought that the meaningful addition to the caption was that the charges were dropped and not an explanation that Booking Photos happen after an arrest. Mattnad (talk) 06:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
The point I am trying to clarify is that that the booking photo was taken after "this" arrest, not some previous arrest. That may not be obvious to a reader not familiar with the story. I've changed the caption to make this clear again by saying "after the arrest", rather than give the date, which requires the reader to note the date of the incident. The meaning of the words "the arrest" should be clear from the proximity to the arrest photograph. I do think overall the page looks much better overall now and your small typeface is a real improvement.--agr (talk) 11:41, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Speaking of being maybe over bold, I took a look at the length of the "porch shot" caption and decided to maybe include the whole paragraph of "regret" from the joint, City/Police Department/Professor Gates press release instead within a completely separate box on the right margin. (I thought, "Hey, if we wanna highlight a quote we should use a "quote box" that's designed for the purpose, eh?") ↜Just M E here , now 03:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
I'll give you points for creativity, but the side by side captions are a bit cluttered given there's no separation between the two photos and it's quite a large graphical element in total with the quote box. As a starting point, can we get a bit more space between the photos? Mattnad (talk) 06:23, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Mattnad. Hey, they say we're supposed to start using WP:GALLERY for...well, for galleries now anyway; so I converted the template:double image to a gallery: which makes for lots of space now between the two images. ↜Just M E here , now 07:02, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
I think the previous version was better. In this latest effort, the photos on my screen are not lining up. There was an edit conflict, but I had reduced the font size for the captions which helped alot. I'm going to revert back to your previous effort so you can see what I mean with the smaller caption font.Mattnad (talk) 07:09, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
You're right, smaller typeface doesn't overwhelm the space taken up by the images as much. Good work, Mattnad. ↜Just M E here , now 07:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Love the quote box. That idea never occurred to me – good work. Do any of you know if the WP:MOS subpages have anything to say on using small text in captions? The same question came up in another article just the other day. Cheers, JN466 18:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
The combination of the 'porch' photo, booking photo, and quote box is excellent. What I think now, though, is that the text in the two photo captions should be trimmed back, and let the quote box speak for itself. In other words, I would drop the Sgt. Crowley quote in the porch caption (too imbalanced for pov) and the 'charges dropped' language from the booking caption because the quote box covers it. What do you think? Pechmerle (talk) 04:09, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
I also favor brevity (no surprise there). For the porch photo I left the quote in as a compromise to Jayen466 who recommended it, but it has the effect of getting a dig into Crowley and suggests he was profiling. As for the "charges dropped", I also think it's unneeded, but I can understand that some other editors want to make sure the booking photo is clearly stamped that way. To compromise with their concerns, I'd say leave that in. Mattnad (talk) 11:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
The Crowley quote explains Gates obvious agitation in the arrest photo and thus provides context. I don't see it as POV, these are Sgt. Crowley's words and they are consistent with Gates' version of the events. However i agree we don't need the "five days after" in both the caption and the nearby quote box title. I'd leave it in the caption and change the quote box title to "Joint statement by the Gates and the Cambridge Police Department." It's more important to add context to the mugshot.--agr (talk) 14:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

With the loss of the porch photo due to non-free rules, we are left with the booking photo and a gigantic quotebox beneath it. From a layout and content point of view there's no need for it anymore. When it was added, it was a smart way to capture more detail, but Jayen466 has included there relevant text from the press release below. I'm planning to remove it unless someone can explain why we need to repeat the same text in the same section (and no comments about people may misinterpret the mugshot since we make it clear in the caption the charges were dropped).Mattnad (talk) 10:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC

Did this help? I cut the width of its side banner by half, rendering it a narrower sidebar. ↜Just M E here , now 12:40, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
The quote box is valuable as it is and should remain. The function of quoteboxes is generally not to replace article content, but to highlight aspects of article content. --JN466 14:00, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Jayen466 says it's valuable and I don't dispute that the article should mention the press release. But since it's already in the text of the article repeating it, and as a quotebox, gives it far too much weight. Justheremenow originally added the full quote as a compromise to avoid bloating the captions with this content too much information when we had the two photographs. I see no persuasive argument for why we need to have this here if its handled in the . I will add that this is symptomatic of a bigger problem with the article in that an editor has been steadily adding other minutia that is bloating the article to the point that we are losing the encyclopedic value here. Mattnad (talk) 14:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
With the double image back in, issues of weight are less of a problem since the full quote is there to counteract the potential damage to Gates' reputation by the arrest photos by some editors. There's still overall bloat, but the quote is not longer off the charts as it was with the single photo.Mattnad (talk) 19:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

"... should not be viewed as one that demeans the character ..."

Unlike the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Boston Herald, ABC News, Fox News and many, many others, we don't quote the part of the joint statement released by the police department that says that the incident "should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department." I think we should do so at the appropriate point in the narrative, even if we've already said it in a picture caption as proposed above; it's rather important.

So towards the end of the first section, where we say

In a joint statement, authorities and Professor Gates called the incident "regrettable and unfortunate"

can we please make that

In a joint statement released by the Cambridge Police Department, the authorities and Professor Gates called the incident "regrettable and unfortunate" and said it "should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department." All parties, the press release said, had agreed that this was "a just resolution to an unfortunate set of circumstances."[1]

Any objections? JN466 18:12, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

  1. ^ http://www.cambridgema.gov/CPD/News/NewsDetail.cfm?story_id=2250
I agree that this fuller version is appropriate in the text. Pechmerle (talk) 06:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Same. It's more complete and more accurate, thus should go in.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 03:39, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} The above proposal here in this section has been up for a couple of days, has attracted support and no objections, and seems uncontroversial, being the wording of an official and widely quoted press release by the Cambridge Police Department related to this specific incident. Please implement as given above, or copy and paste the following:

In a joint statement released by the Cambridge Police Department, the authorities and Professor Gates called the incident "regrettable and unfortunate" and said it "should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department." All parties, the press release said, had agreed that this was "a just resolution to an unfortunate set of circumstances."<ref>http://www.cambridgema.gov/CPD/News/NewsDetail.cfm?story_id=2250</ref>

JN466 15:56, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done [1]. –xenotalk 19:46, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. JN466 12:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Lede

Now that we have a fuller version of the Police Department statement in the article, we should also represent a short excerpt of the statement in the lede. Right now we simply say, "the charges were dropped". As I said before, thousands of arrestees have their charges dropped each day; it is very rare for the arrestee and the arresting police department to release a joint statement saying that arrest was "unfortunate and regrettable" and should not be assumed to reflect negatively on either party. JN466 12:46, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's a proposal:

The arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a Harvard University professor and documentary film maker, occurred at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts on July 16 2009. When Gates and his driver forced open his malfunctioning front door that day, a local witness reported their actions as a possible burglary to police. Accounts regarding the ensuing confrontation differ, but it resulted in Gates being arrested for disorderly conduct by the responding Cambridge Police officer, Sgt. James Crowley, and taken into custody. The charge against Gates was dropped on July 21; on the same day, Gates and the Cambridge Police Department issued a joint press release stating that the incident had been "unfortunate and regrettable".

The arrest generated national media coverage and a debate about racial issues regarding whether or not it represented an example of racial profiling by police. Professor Gates’s African-American ethnicity and involvement with studying the history of black Americans, along with comments by President Barack Obama, put a national media spotlight on the events. President Obama was asked for his reaction to the matter at a July 22 press conference. ... [rest as is stands now]

Views? --JN466 12:59, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

If you read the current lede, including Obama's opinion, I think most readers will realize the this was not an everyday arrest. While joint statements are rare, Presidential comment and joint meetings at the Whitehouse are even rarer. Again, I think we need to consider where we want detail, and where we want brevity. The lede does a good job demonstrating that Gates' situation was unusual and his arrest was over the top. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but when the President of the United States says "the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home" it's clear to me that Gates' reputation has been effectively protected in the lede. Mattnad (talk) 13:25, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

A better approach is to take this sentence "The arrest generated national media coverage and a debate about racial issues regarding whether or not it represented an example of racial profiling by police. Professor Gates’s African-American ethnicity and involvement with studying the history of black Americans, along with comments by President Barack Obama, put a national media spotlight on the events." and put it at the end of the lede. It's really a good summary of why this is an important event, and by putting it at the end of lede, it has Obama's comments immediately following the the "charges were dropped" facts.Mattnad (talk) 13:37, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

There might be merit in putting the sentence you mention at the end of the lede, but the joint press release by the Cambridge Police Dept., City of Cambridge and Gates is part of the nuts and bolts of the case. It's not a "nice to have" detail, it's one of the essential facts. JN466 13:54, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
And it's in the article already. So there you go.Mattnad (talk) 13:59, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
It may be in the article, but the lede is supposed to summarise the key points of the article. The official and widely reported press release is one of those key points. JN466 14:08, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with you on that one. They key point is that the charges were dropped. The press release is additional detail that's included in the article.Mattnad (talk) 14:24, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
However, if we can keep it tight, let's see what that additional copy looks like in the lede. It's only one more sentence so perhaps I'm being a little too aggressive on paring things down. Mattnad (talk) 21:31, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Prepping for Good Article Review

Given that the event has run its course and I think we're now stable (more or less) on major edits I'm hoping we can start to clean this article up for a run at the Good Article review. Thoughts? Mattnad (talk) 13:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind. The recent bloating changes to the article no longer make it close to good article in my experience.Mattnad (talk) 01:41, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree that there is far too much detail & minutia in the text now. The text should summarize the conflicting points of view, not give a blow by blow. The interested reader can easily access blow-by-blow versions in our sources. JN and JMNH, are you strongly against condensing this down to more of a summary of the actual incident? Pechmerle (talk) 05:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
I would rather cut or condense other things. For example, the types of beer people drank, or that the documentary Gates was filming in China was about Yo-Yo Ma, these are matters that are incidental to the story. Justin Barrett's e-mail, while worth a mention, is essentially extraneous to the Gates arrest, yet we have a large and detailed section on it.
The events leading up to the actual arrest, on the other hand, and the competing truth claims, are central to the story and were the subject of wide coverage. Given that we find room to mention that Gates sent Mrs Whalen flowers and she appreciated them, is it really reporting "minutia" to say how long Gates was held by police, or to mention that the Cambridge Police Department released a widely-quoted statement? In my opinion, these are the sorts of things that we should have "encyclopedic" coverage of in an article on an arrest. What was there until yesterday wasn't (besides getting a couple of details wrong). JN466 08:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
If there's one section that has too much detail, take it out. Don't use it to justify paraphrasing an entire police report (for instance). I agree there's too much detail in other sections so let's revert back to a simpler version of the article and then start cutting from there!Mattnad (talk) 14:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
I'd rather not do that. JN466 14:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Not yet for GA. It isn't stable enough, and the inevitable proposed changes by a GA reviewer would lead to tremendous debate. Give it a couple of months. Jeez.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
What if the body of text is tightened up but we leave some fuller material in the sidebar or the appendix at the bottom of the article? Only readers who are interested are very likely to read further than the headline of a sidebar else click down to check out a post-article supplementary section, in my opinion. ↜Just M E here , now 18:00, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
What's wrong with writing an article in fine detail? Our articles should be as complete as possible. I mean, I could live with trimming quotefarms and moving what kind of beer they drank into the footnotes ( as long as they're someplace in the article ), but to redact the trip to China to research Yo-Yo Ma, that's pretty important. Heck, I'd like to know the name of the limo company if it's been published out there. This was an important event, and I'd hate to blur it into a summary. Wikipedia is not paper, you know. Squidfryerchef (talk) 02:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Nothing wrong, and I think this should make a GA or even FA someday. It is my experience based on my work on Jena Six that you can't seriously improve an article until emotions die down. Not there yet.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:BLPN thread

Please see [2]. User:Mattnad feels it degrades the article to mention in the body text that the Cambridge Police Department released a statement saying that the incident should not be taken to reflect negatively on Gates' reputation and character, given that wording to that effect is already in the quote box. I think it's fine to have it in the quote box and the article body and think it's an important point that should be mentioned in the article body as well. Further discussion please WP:BLPN, so we keep it in one place. Thanks. JN466 19:38, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I recently reverted Jayen466 attempt to introduce a third quote from the press release in the article. In addition to the large and obvious box quote other editors added to capture the release, and put it adjacent to the photographs, this editor added two more quotes including one immediately adjacent to the quote box. Is this necessary to have multiple quotes of the identical information?Mattnad (talk) 19:40, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
The body text of an article should cover the topic in full. Essential points should not be relegated to quote boxes. Quote boxes may be used if a quote is itself notable, and represents a significant part of the article's story. That's the case here.
The lede should summarise key points. The Cambridge Police Department's press release is one of them. Mattnad's edit removed all mention of the press release from the lede. Given that in the press release Gates and the Police Department took pains to exonerate each other, I think this has made the lead worse. JN466 22:43, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
If that's your stance, then let's remove the quote box. No need to repeat the same material in the same section. Mattnad (talk) 23:02, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Neutral, at least for the moment: Checking out both Jayen466's and Mattnad's proposals here within their full context, in light of the competing issues of balance and concision is a pretty complicated task that would take more than a glance; and I simply haven't taken a hard and careful enough of a look to feel like I can weigh in with confidence on the question; however, I will say that it is my inkling (for whatever that's worth!) that neither version probably wanders all too far from the Wikipedian mainstream. ↜Just M E here , now 00:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
(I have commented at the BLPN thread.) Pechmerle (talk) 07:49, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Whalen section

The following text is unsourced, and as far as I can see, completely wrong:

Sgt. Crowley stated in his official police report after the incident that he received a call that two black males were trying to enter a house. He said when he arrived at the scene Lucia Whalen, the witness and 911 caller, told him that "possibly two black males" were trying to enter a house. Whalen has since disputed the representation of her statements in the police report. Several days after the incident, Whalen held a press conference, where she indicated that she never identified the individuals as black.

Crowley's report is here: [3] If we trust the thesmokinggun.com website, which seems to have been consensus up to now, then Crowley stated nowhere that "he received a call that two black males were trying to enter a house". Nor did he state that when he arrived at the scene, Lucia Whalen, the witness and 911 caller, told him that "possibly two black males" were trying to enter a house. Crowley makes no mention of race when he describes hearing the broadcast about the potential burglary. He says he spoke to Whalen on the scene, and that she said then that she had "observed what appeared to be two black males" trying to force entry.

Whalen specifically denied referring to them as black in her 911 call, and was proven to have been right; when the dispatcher questioned Whalen for more details, she told police she could only guess about the race of the two men. “She speculated . . . that one might be Hispanic.’. It appears she also denied describing the men as black to Crowley at the scene. JN466 11:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done Please review. Is anybody attached to the sentence about Gates buying Whalen flowers? While it is very gentlemanly of him, I am not sure it is of encyclopedic relevance. --JN466 11:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

  • It's occurred to me that the Whalen account does not really belong in Reception. I've moved it up into the arrest section, so it follows Crowley's and Gates' accounts, parts of which it contradicts. I've dropped the sentence about Gates buying flowers. --JN466 12:00, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Sounds good to me, as the arrest section should only be about what happened at the time of the incident, rather than being loaded up with post-even reflections, etc. GoldDragon (talk) 16:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

POV tag

Obama's apparent siding with Gates,[4] without having all the facts of the incident, drew criticism from members of law enforcement across the country.

Non-neutral source with documented neutrality problems (The Australian) does not belong in the lead section. Section headings mixing fiction (police report) and fact (911 call) are inherently misleading and confuse the issues. Selective quoting and one-sided information permeates the entire article with arguments from experts on the topic relegated to one-liners while arguments from non-experts (Powell) are given an entire paragraph, as editors place cranks like Sharpton next to unrelated statements by Gates to make the subject seem like a nut, while mainstream critics who agreed with Gates are absent from the article, particularly the critics who discuss the history of racial profiling directly related to this incident. Viriditas (talk) 14:00, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I happen to agree with you that the statement "across the country" is wildly inappropriate and that there has been one edtior pushing for it for quite some time, but what is the problem with The Australian? As I recall, it is the largest Melbourne newspaper and fairly well regarded.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:17, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
First off, that isn't how we write encyclopedia articles. The source doesn't support the statement "Obama's appparent siding with Gates", and that wording is neither neutral nor attributed to the author Brad Norington, and even if it were, it wouldn't belong in the lead. Norington's entire article for The Australian is an Obama hit piece, and The Australian is notoriously non-neutral when it comes to anything Obama (read the wiki article). So, we have a problem with not just the article itself but also the source. We can certainly state that the police criticized Obama, but claiming that Obama sided with Gates (and hedging it with "apparent") is way over the top. Viriditas (talk) 14:29, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Regarding "Obama siding with gates", the article cites a Pew Reseach Poll, "An opinion poll released yesterday by Pew Research found 41per cent of Americans disapproved of Obama's action in coming out strongly in favour of the Harvard academic last week, despite admitting he was not aware of all the facts. Only 29 per cent approved." I'm not familiar with the Australian in particular, but I imaging they qualify as a reliable source and the Pew Research is well respected and provides context (if accurately quoted by the article). I'm for fine tuning the lead anyway. I've been spending time repairing things elsewhere. How about some proposed language to clean thing up? Or why don't you try some edits? Nothing wrong with improving it yourself.Mattnad (talk) 14:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
No, you are quoting Norington, not Pew. You can see the actual Pew results for yourself, here. This is precisely why we need to use reliable sources that are neutral, and not biased opinion hit pieces like The Australian, which has successfully misled you and many others. Pew never said what Norington claimed. Oh, and do take a close look at the ethnicity of the people polled by Pew. Viriditas (talk) 15:02, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
And is the AP Article also a bad source? The cited AP article states "Many police officers across the country have a message for President Barack Obama: Get all the facts before criticizing one of our own." I'm not wed to any POV, but the lead has sources even if you don't like 'em.Mattnad (talk) 15:09, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
I fail to see how you have even addressed the problem I have raised. How does the AP support the current statement? Nobody claimed Obama sided with Gates-Obama himself admitted that Gates is his friend. You apparently think that the lead section of an encyclopedia article should not conform to WP:LEAD. Who claimed that Obama sided with Gates? Obama claimed the police acted stupidly, and that's what the police were criticizing him for here. Why is this so hard for you to understand? Viriditas (talk) 15:15, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
As for calling the police report "fiction" - that's an amazingly dubious statement on you part that suggests you've taken a side on this matter. The section header is not an attempt to mix fiction and fact. It's designed to capture the scope official documents / records covered. Anyway, if you have other experts you'd like to include to provide balance elsewhere, go for it. But I personally prefer editors to add value rather than gripe from the sidelines.Mattnad (talk) 14:55, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Much of what was written in the police report could not be substantiated, hence "fiction". And claiming it is on par with a 911 call is deceptive. Viriditas (talk) 15:02, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
I suggest you take that one up on the reliable sources noticeboard. I'll say you've crossed a line from acting as an editor and become an advocate for a point of view. When do we require official documents to be "substantiated" and why is that required to assume the report isn't "fiction". I noticed you're not equally skeptical of Gates' accounts.Mattnad (talk) 15:13, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
You're right, I'm not that skeptical of an elderly man with health problems who just flew in from China and can barely walk straight without crutches and was accused of being disorderly in his own place of residence and was arrested in his own home and hauled off to jail. And I'm very skeptical of the police report which made outlandish claims which were both contradicted by the witness and were contradicted on a recorded 911 call. So, the police report doesn't hold up. I'm sorry you have a problem with the facts, but there they are, and no amount of POV will change that fact. Viriditas (talk) 15:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

(unindent)The current version of this statement, "Obama's comments drew criticism from members of law enforcement", says the same thing without the slant, so it's just fine now. The actions of the police officer, and his report, drew considerable skepticism as well. That's what made it a controversy in the first place, and of course we cover that. It's not really up to us to decide whether Obama's statement was appropriate or the officer falsified his report. Although there are a few stray sources, and lots of arguing and speculation among the less reliable sources, the major neutral reliable sources most weigh in there on the side of not coming to any conclusions about the underlying event, but rather reporting on the views of various parties and the public. If this article is on a controversy rather than an event, it's fine to report on the controversy without getting to who is right. I don't think we'll ever get to the bottom of the event, and the whole point of the beer summit is that the parties agreed that they would move on too. Wikidemon (talk) 17:41, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Not only is Obama's apparent siding with Gates,[4] without having all the facts of the incident, drew criticism from members of law enforcement. supported by the sources and in NPOV form, this acts as a counter-weight to Obama's quote "the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home", which has a slant towards Gate's side of the story. GoldDragon (talk) 14:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Why did you reinsert the POV tag? It was removed by Viriditas after he resolved his own objections to the article. At a minimum it should be updated to focus on the lead since that was the focus of his concerns. Mattnad (talk) 14:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
I've removed the POV tag and reverted GoldDragon's changes to the article.[4] If there's an editing disagreement we should resolve it here on the talk page, but slapping POV tags on articles takes us farther away from trying to resolve things. It's not constructive. I don't see any consensus for claiming throughout the piece that the triggering event was Obama's (apparent) "siding with gates". Trying to balance supposedly pro- and anti- sides of a controversy is not a helpful way to go about POV, and more or less guarantees a POV result. POV is not a dial you can turn up and down to reach a desired level of approval of a premise. It's an editing tendency to be avoided as much as possible. The problem with describing a supposed "siding with Gates" is not that it's pro-Obama or anti-Obama, it's that it's an unencyclopedic voice. It implies that there is an objective arbiter behind the writing of the article who deems what is "apparent" and what is not, and whose side Obama is on. In actuality, all we have to go on are that Obama said X, and some in law enforcement were critical of Obama's statements. The reasons are rather complex and can't be easily summed up. Other things like saying that Obama "admitted" this or that, or that he did not have all the facts, are just argumentative in style rather than encyclopedic. When confronted with differing opinions on a matter it's best to stick to the facts, and if there are noteworthy opinions relevant to the story, describe them as such. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't believe that there is anything unencylopedic about "siding with Gates", it is just a paraphrase of "coming out strongly in favour of the Harvard academic". Furthermore, by just saying "law enforcement were critical of Obama's statements', there would be the problem with undue weight, because the full weight of Obama's comment is presented but not that of the officers. Maybe we could quote one of the law enforcement officials. GoldDragon (talk) 21:41, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Furthermore, the law enforcement official pointed out that Obama didn't have all the facts yet when making the statement, so there is nothing POV or unecyclopedic about including that. GoldDragon (talk) 21:43, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
First, please do not edit war to insert clearly disputed material - I'll leave a separate caution on your talk page about that. Weight is not a matter of balancing every human's statements to be equal - that has nothing to do with weight. Weight is a matter of representing various facts and opinions in due proportion to the coverage in the reliable sources and relevance to the subject, and also leaving things of negligible weight out of articles. Obama's statement is of course a lot more significant than that of individual law enforcement officers or law enforcement as a whole. The primary fact is that Obama said something. Then there are reactions - by law enforcement, commentators, political leaders, the parties involved, the public. The sources say that some in law enforcement took umberage, and give a lot of different reasons why. The outrage is clearly not because someone said something without having all the facts. It would be that he made an unfair judgment without having the facts. Some opine that the outrage was because Obama is being unduly harsh on law enforcement, or the individuals. Others opine that it is law enforcement taking care of their own in a reflexive or defensive manner. Yet others say that there is a racial component. Sure, there are reliable sources that say one way or another, but those are opinions and analysis, characterizations of events. Different sources characterize it differently. Wikipedia becomes unencyclopedic where we endorse one among serveral interpretations as the official account of events. At best one could say something like "Obama's statements (which were perceived by some sources as siding with Gates) drew criticism from some in law enforcement (according to some sources because Obama rushed to judgment without having all the facts)". But then you would have to go over other interpretations presented, and then it becomes unduly detailed for the lede. Better to simply state the facts, that obama's statements drew criticism, and leave the analysis if any for the body of the article. Wikidemon (talk) 22:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Nevermind the caution - but please heed the "article probation" notice at the top of this page, and realize that if a proposed change is reasonably objected to by other editors, normal editing convention is to leave the status quo until and unless you get consensus. The other change you're repeatedly trying to insert, the mention of a joint public statement that the parties announced a "just resolution to an unfortunate set of circumstances"[5], is not very helpful in the lede. When disputing parties to a legal issue make a joint press statement, the words they use are completely unreliable because they are the byproduct of a legal negotiation rather than a straightforward attempt to express some opinion or fact, and generally not very relevant to the situation beyond the fact that the parties agreed to make a joint statement. PR blurbs in general aren't worth quoting and are not reliable sources. In this case, it does not indicate that the parties thought the circumstances unfortunate, or that the resolution was just - only that they had reached some kind of a deal where Gates would not be prosecuted and Gates (perhaps) promised not to sue the officer. If that deal was important to the event we could find some reliable sources explaining it, and go into detail in the body of the article. Wikidemon (talk) 22:12, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
  • My preference is for "Obama's comments" rather than his "apparent siding with Gates". However, as for the other element of the revert just made, I prefer having an explicit mention of the Cambridge PD press release in the lead. So I'm with Viriditas on the "comments", and with Wehwalt on the fuller statement describing how the charges were dropped. --JN466 22:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Or maybe Sharpton himself was poisoning the well and we're just noting it. The difference, I think, is whether his comments were covered by a reasonable number of sources as part of the incident (in which case they're relevant) or if it was yet another incident of Sharpton jumping into a race controversy (in which case his opinion is just one in the crowd). There were, indeed, some serious commentaries that the arrest raised issues of racial profiling, or at least racial sensitivities. Wikidemon (talk) 22:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
I would prefer the joint statement in the introduction paragraph, indeed because the dropped charges and wording came about as a result of negotiations (as opposed to other cases where charges are dropped because the police lack evidence, but without input from the suspect). GoldDragon (talk) 23:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. JN466 00:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
"apparent siding with Gates without all the facts" was the status quo for quite some time, although I'm weighing whether to change it to "insult/attack on the police department without all the facts"
The police union's O'Connor noted that both Obama and Governor Patrick conceded they did not have all the facts. "I would expect the next words to be, 'So I cannot comment.' But both proceeded to insult the handling of this case by the Cambridge police department," O'Connor said.[6] GoldDragon (talk) 23:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
As a point of order, you are right and I stand corrected. The language was in the article as of August 1,[7] so it's entitled to some deference unless a consensus develops to remove it. But I do think we should talk about whether "siding with Gates" and not having all the facts is the main reason given by the sources as to why Obama's comment was criticized - I don't think that's quite it. Language about someone admitting, conceding, etc., is not encyclopedic, but I think you're getting closer to it there, that the police considered it an insult / threat on the department. Obama may not have known all the facts but many continue to believe he was correct in his assessment that the police acted stupidly to arrest a middle aged professor in his own home, and there continues to be outrage that it happened. Police do band together to present a united front when their methods are questioned. So a fair treatment would not come down on either side, but simply note what their positions and actions were. Wikidemon (talk) 23:58, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
What reliable source supports the claim that "Obama sided with Gates" and why is an unsourced opinion being stated as fact in the lead section? Unsourced material may be removed at any time; No deference or consensus is needed to remove it. Viriditas (talk) 00:54, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
Given that we quote the relevant part of Obama's comments ("police acted stupidly" etc.), I don't think it is necessary for us to present an analysis of what he said, and far more elegant if we don't: just calling them "comments" will do. The reader has after all just read them and will already have formed their own analysis. --JN466 00:05, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the lead section should only summarize the main points. I'm confused as to why User:Wehwalt has been allowed to tag team revert back in unsubstantiated POV into the article. The opinionated reference that he added back in (see here) does not support the claim of "Obama's apparent siding with Gates", nor would an opinion piece be considered neutral and reliable enough to support such a statement without attribution in the first place. As an unsourced POV claim, it doesn't belong in this or any other article. Viriditas (talk) 00:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
  • What did Obama say on July 22nd that added to the controversy?

Joint press release?

On July 21, Gates and the Police released a joint statement, announcing that the charges were dropped as a "just resolution to an unfortunate set of circumstances.[8]

The primary reference doesn't say that the CPD released the joint statement with Gates. The term "joint statement" appears to refer to the press release being released by the City of Cambridge and the Cambridge Police Department. Viriditas (talk) 03:05, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Interesting point; I'll point out though that Ogletree, Gates' Harvard colleague and lawyer, is listed among the contact information at the bottom of the press release. I took that to mean that he had made an input to the wording, on behalf of Gates. Ogletree had earlier released a statement on behalf of Gates in The Root. But I agree that an RS clearly ascribing the press release to Gates as well as the other parties would be useful. JN466 16:04, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
Here some sources: this calls it "a joint press release from the Cambridge Police Department and Middlesex District Attorney's office". This calls it a "joint press release from the city and police department." This one says, "The city and Police Department, after consulting with Gates' attorney, issued a joint press release calling the incident "regrettable and unfortunate" and declared the matter closed." This one however, from the Cambridge mayor Denise Simmons, says "The City of Cambridge, the Cambridge Police Department, and Professor Gates have released a joint statement". JN466 16:24, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Length of time held, mention of press release in body text

[9] Can we please agree that –

  1. the length of time Gates was held (four hours) is an important legal detail worth mentioning in an article on his arrest;
Why? What's the legal relevance here? And note that you and others have tried to give it undue prominence (like being in the lead or a photo caption). I'm per se against the information but efforts have been made to give it undue prominence and I'd really like to see a) why it's relevant, and b) why it need to be in the lead or in aphoto caption as other have repeatedly insisted.Mattnad (talk) 18:34, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
It's just one detail we should mention. Otherwise the reader may think he was held for five days. As for its positioning, it's perfectly fine where it is now. JN466 19:02, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
I would suggest not mentioning it. If you mention he was held, you then have to mention he wasn't put in a cell, but in a room and was allowed to have friends visit him.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:07, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
By his own account, he was put in a cell at first, then complained of claustrophobia and was allowed to move to another room where he was allowed to speak to his friends. --JN466 21:38, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
  1. the section "Charges and resolution" should mention the widely quoted press release in the body text. The quote box, while entirely appropriate here in the context of the images, does not absolve us of the responsibility to cover basic core facts in the article body. JN466 18:18, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
It's in the lead and in the box. The press release material is already given more prominence than ANY other fact in the article. What I see here is no effort to compromise on your part at all. None. Pick two locations so we can move on.Mattnad (talk) 18:34, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
The lead is supposed to summarise the body. Having things in the lead means that they ought to be in the body. I am not happy to compromise on your say-so, Mattnad, because I honestly do not see any merit in your reasoning. To me, it is like saying, "the man was accused of murder, and you keep wanting to write in the article that he was found not guilty and exonerated. It already says in a quote box under his mugshot that he was not found guilty, so why would you want to mention it in the article? Anyway it is mentioned in the lede." Just makes no sense to me whatsoever. JN466 18:43, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
Then take out the quotebox. Are you willing to compromise there?Mattnad (talk) 18:45, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
No, Mattnad, not on your say-so. If tomorrow I find there are several other editors weighing in, suggesting we remove the quote box, we can have a discussion, but as far as I recall, the quote box got positive feedback from most editors here. As for what is given prominence, please remember that we feature two prominent pictures of the arrest. The outcome of an arrest is surely as - or rather more - important than the fact that someone was arrested in the first place. JN466 19:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
At issue with the press release is that Jayenn466 has decided that this is so important that it must be mentioned at least three times, including the Lead and a Quotebox, in addition to have more details in the article body. My view is that this provides undue weight to what should be a peripheral fact in this article. I will add that the Quotebox was added to to accommodate Jayen466's desire to have this press release attached to the photographs. It's not at all required for BLP purposes, but was done in a good faith attempt for compromise. There's plenty of text in the article explaining the outcome and gates point of view on the arrest (about 4/5ths of the article). The press release should be a reasobable portion of that and not everywhere this editor wants it to be. Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should. Frankly, a single mention is all we need to inform the reader. Mattnad (talk) 20:54, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
That he was held after arrest, but only briefly, is a police detail that has to do with the ordeal but not directly a legal issue. People may be held for longer or shorter times depending on how busy the police precinct is, time of day, whether someone's getting off shift, paperwork details, on and on. That doesn't clearly say how serious the charges were or what the parties were up to. People often get arrested and released on the spot for very serious crimes, or held for a long holiday weekend merely for drinking in public because no magistrate is available for booking. I think it's worth mentioning but not making a big deal of it. I'm usually in the minority on this, but I prefer to avoid unnecessary precision in numbers where the precision is not important. For example, I generally like to say "In early 2009", "several hundred vehicles", or "more than 3 months", rather than "On February 17, 2009" or "317 automobiles", or "92 days". Following that, I would say that he was held "briefly" or "for several hours" and then cite it. I fully expect to be outnumbered on that but it's my $0.02. Also, as I've argued before press releases and canned statements tell us little about things other than that the parties decided to issue one. The quote box is unencyclopedic - it looks like an infobox and incorrectly suggests that the press release is a summary of what happened. I don't think it belongs in the lede either, but if it does it should simply be that the parties jointly issued a press release, and leave the details for the body. It's fine to describe the press release in the body, but it is incorrect to say that in the joint statement "the authorities and Professor Gates agreed that this was..." The parties agreed to issue a joint statement. They did not necessarily agree with what the statement said. It's PR-speak, and not a reliable source for what the parties actually agree on or believe. Wikidemon (talk) 21:12, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
Reworded: [10] --JN466 21:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the press release mention from the lead. Jayenn466 has offered a weak argument that we need to include facts from the article, but it's self-evident that not all facts from the article are needed for the lead. This press release is secondary to key information that charges were dropped and he's never demonstrated why this quote is needed in the lead. He just keeps saying it is. In the past this editor has claimed we need this statement to ensure people are not misled by the article and arrest photos and assume Gates is guilty (despite the massive weight of this article that says otherwise). In concession to this unfounded concern, we have a massive quote box next to the photos. Not satisfied with that, he also demands we include it again in the body copy. So now, in the spirit of WP:Weight, he'll have to do more to demonstrate why a press release rises to the level of being needed in the lead. Before it gets put back in, I suggest Jayen466 do an official RFC since he's the proponent of having the release mentioned so many, many, many times in the article and in such detail.Mattnad (talk) 09:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

It is my thought that a press release is a primary source and should be cited with care and inline attributed. I would think that given the monumental coverage of this imbroglio, if it ca't be found in a secondary source, it ain't worth spit.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:07, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Wehwalt, the press release was quoted by dozens of sources – Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, etc. – and this has been demonstrated on this talk page before. JN466 11:44, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
It also appears significant enough to be linked directly with the dropping of the charges against Gates. If that is true, I don't understand why it continues to be removed from the lead. Viriditas (talk) 11:48, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
The initial reason why I added the joint press release in the introduction is because the charges were dropped though mutual consent by both Gates and the police, rather than just the police making that decision on their own. More importantly, the part in the statement This incident should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department was a way for both sides not to admit fault or press each other for an apology. (I'm not sure if Gates continued to accuse the police of racism after that statement was released...) GoldDragon (talk) 16:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
The press release saying that the charges were dropped by mutual consent is not a reliable source for the proposition that it is true. Legal settlements are often victories for one side or the other, and they always announce that it was an amicable mutual solution. What the parties wish for the public to make of the incident is not all that germane to what happened or to what the public actually makes of the incident, but here too it is just legal PR speak and not very enlightening on what the parties were actually thinking. Newspapers reprint public legal statements all the time. That doesn't mean we should. Newspapers are not encyclopedic and we are - we have a different focus and tone. When you look at almost any event that happens in the modern world there are press releases about it, and any legal issue has public statements by lawyers and spokespeople. We rarely consider that part of the incident. Consider Washington's crossing of the Delaware River. If George Washington had a lawyer and a spokesman the press at the time would have said "Washington, through a spokesman, stated that he bore no ill will toward the British soldiers, considered it an honor to have such accomplished men as his enemies, and hoped that by next Christmas they would all be home in England with their families." - Wikidemon (talk) 21:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
We're not commenting on the truth or otherwise of any statement in the press release. We're just saying that such a statement was released. Sources reporting that the charges were dropped invariably quoted the press release. JN466 00:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Just because newspapers quote press releases does not mean it's encyclopedic for us to do that. It's empty content. Wikidemon (talk) 01:21, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I disagree. The police department etc. calling the incident "unfortunate and regrettable" etc. is an important part of the case. JN466 01:36, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Sure you do, but it's not a "case" since the charges were dropped and it's nothing compared to other facts of the controversy. In this article the press release gets more emphasis than any single thing Gates, the President, or the arresting officers say. Talk about distortion.67.201.86.226 (talk) 01:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I am not a lawyer, and I was not using "case" in a narrow legal sense. This article is about a media controversy, as indicated by the article title. The press release is a substantial part of that, reported and quoted by mainstream media around the world: Australia (The Age), India (The Hindu), New Zealand (Television New Zealand), South Africa (The Star (South Africa)), etc. JN466 12:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
eh.. just because newspapers pick up a press release doesn't mean you have to jam it into the lead. Newspapers also picked up the police union's release, with Crowley's statements, that he makes no apology for arresting Gates. Let's put that in the lead too. Same argument you just made, and just as weak and nonsensical. But maybe we should have that quote big and fat in in the article for balance.67.201.86.226 (talk) 13:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
WP:POINT? --JN466 14:12, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

A press release written by laywers is not worthy of the lead. Both sides were covering their butts. Sure it mentionable, but no article I read that's about the big picture leads with this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.68.134.167 (talk) 20:42, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed the two quoteboxes. They're redundant, nonstandard, most people think superfluous, and don't seem to have consensus. Wikidemon (talk) 14:28, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
What we were discussing here was the narrow issue of whether the press release should be mentioned in the lede as well. The quote box, used to balance the two arrest pictures, has had support across the full spectrum of opinions here, by JustMeHereNow (who inserted it), Mattnad ("With the double image back in, issues of weight are less of a problem since the full quote is there to counteract the potential damage to Gates' reputation by the arrest photos by some editors."), Pechmerle ("The combination of the 'porch' photo, booking photo, and quote box is excellent"), ArnoldReinhold ("I'd leave it in the caption and change the quote box title to "Joint statement by the Gates and the Cambridge Police Department." It's more important to add context to the mugshot.") and myself. JN466 15:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
The Police Union statement quote box, twice inserted by IP, does not have similar consensus. But I agree the information that Crowley was supported by his union belongs in the article; I'd prefer to have it in the article body. JN466 16:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Neither statement in the boxes enjoy consensus, but I restored both removed by another anon since there's an active discussion. No surprise I think both are equally deserving of inclusion in the article body, and that's that. I've grudgingly accepted the box(es) as compromise (as quoted above), but it's bad encyclopedic form IMHO. Mattnad (talk) 16:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
You know my view – we can do without the quote box if we lose the mugshot. Or we can integrate key statements of the press release into the images' captions. Personally though I think the quote box is kind of neat.
At any rate, the support for Crowley from his union should be in the article; I've transferred it from the quote box to a separate paragraph. JN466 18:03, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
In case anyone wonders, why show the statement exonerating Gates in a quote box, and not the statement backing up Crowley?, it's because we're showing Gates' mugshot, not Crowley's. A mugshot has a prejudicial effect; given that the matter was not pursued, and the Police Dept. expressed regret and said the matter should not be taken to demean Gates' character, it is appropriate to balance that prejudicial effect. The quote box does that. --JN466 18:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any consensus at all, just a trace of WP:OWN. The rule is, if an addition has no consensus it stays out. One doesn't need to prove consensus to object and remove things. Further, horse trading one problematic piece of content for another for so-called balance is not a legitimate way to go about writing articles or reaching agreement. I'm not keen on the mug shot either and my vote is to leave it out, but mug shots are arguably acceptable, a tolerated evil in articles about arrests. However, putting quote boxes around press releases about an incident is completely non-standard. It doesn't help the reader, and it's not encyclopedic at all. Take a step back for a moment and consider that in addition to anything else, Wikipedia is fundamentally an encyclopedia. What kind of encyclopedia runs with press releases about an incident in side bars? That's just goofy. Regarding balance, as I said "balance" of pro and con is inherently a POV endeavor, it acknowledges that one is deliberately shifting article POV. The problem with that theory is that there is no zero point on the scale. Are we supposed to make Gates look 50% good and 50% evil, the police 50% right and 50% wrong? Half praise and half condemnation for Obama's statement? Further, I'm not sure how the press release undoes the damage of the mug shot. The mug shot doesn't make him look like a criminal, it makes him a man falsely arrested, a victim. Sadly, what it communicates is that a very distinguished professor is unkempt and vulnerable at the hands of police. Does the press release undo that? Does it make him look strong, dapper, and spiffy? I don't think so - it also makes him look weak and intellectually dishonest. He had to concede and make nice with the police. It's just as artificial, contrived, and snared in red tape as the arrest procedure. Gates was exonerated immediately, before any of the public outcry, because he simply did not commit a crime. Full exoneration would be an apology from the police and some kind of court victory or monetary settlement. The answer to balance is that we should report the facts that the reliable sources report. The reliable sources repeat parts of the press release, but they don't talk about the press release. Fewer of the reliable sources comment on all the shouting from the sidelines, like the police union agitating. If we're going to include non-parties' press releases, what about civil rights groups? Liberal activists? The inevitable late night talk show jokes? Whether newspapers run press releases or not, we don't. The attention we're devoting to it here is out of all proportion to the substantive attention paid to the press release by the reliable sources. I'm going to start a section with some questions trying to gage whether we have consensus for any of these things. Wikidemon (talk) 18:21, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
If the arresting police department releases a statement like that, whose content is reported by news media around the world, then it is just part of the story. I find it really odd that editors can argue that a press release this widely reported and quoted -- all the way to India, New Zealand and South Africa -- and of such relevance to the BLP subject, is unimportant to the story. Whether it makes Gates look weak because he compromised is immaterial too – it's what happened.
At the moment, both the quote boxes are out again, anyway, courtesy of the IP. The statement by Crowley's union is out again, too – wrongly so, in my view. If we quote all sorts of uninvolved people like Sharpton and Powell, surely the Cambridge PD's views should be heard. JN466 18:39, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I for one will not edit war on this, and despite arguing that it should stay out pending consensus it is fine either way. It's all in good spirits. This is not a huge deal either way and I'm not going to raise my blood pressure for this one! My argument about the press release making Gates look weak goes to the question of whether it really does balance out the fact of his arrest - for me as a reader, no. But maybe I'm just more jaded than some about the sincerity of press releases. That's a different line of discussion than whether the press release is notable. I think it is, just not so notable to repeat more than once in the article. Sourcing and verifiability go to the validity, relevancy, and weight of facts, not matters of style and presentation. Newspapers use fundamentally different narrative and presentation techniques than online encyclopedias. Most of the newspapers simply repeated quotes from the press release rather than reporting about the press release. The fact that newspapers printed excerpts does not mean we need to print quotes... that does not inherently make the excerpt notable. If that were the case Wikipedia would be full of press releases, because newspapers (some more than others) often reprint press releases, verbatim, prettied up in article form attributed to a journalist who wrote a story based on one, or in quotation . Wikidemon (talk) 20:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm just about to go on a short wikibreak, so I will leave it with you for now, but really, you'll be pushed to find a press release of such BLP relevance that was as widely quoted as this one. And Wikipedia quotes hundreds of press releases: [11] Beyond that, your argument that "The fact that newspapers printed excerpts [...] does not inherently make the excerpt notable", strikes me as kind of strange, because I am not sure just what would make a quote notable then. So long, back in a few days. JN466 21:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Straw poll about press release(s)

As usual, this is *not* a vote, it is an attempt to focus the discussion and gauge consensus. Please don't feel constrained or obliged to answer yes/no - please say whatever you want, however you want to say it - Wikidemon (talk) 18:31, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Joint statement in lede?

  • Oppose - redundant with placing in body. The fact that Gates and the police issued a joint press release is not one of the key points of the incident, much less the content of that press release. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:31, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose - repeated. 66.167.13.153 (talk) 18:40, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Support – reported around the globe, of key importance to BLP balance regarding Gates. If the police department releases a statement saying the arrest was "unfortunate and regrettable" and should not be taken to "demean the character of Professor Gates", that's just a fundamental part of the story. The lede should summarise all the key points. JN466 18:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose166.68.134.167 (talk) 20:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose - of marginal importance - key facts are already there. This is subordinate detail of the charges being dropped: that's the main point that helps readers know Gates was innocent (plus the Presidential comment and the following majority of the article that also says that).Mattnad (talk) 00:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Support So far it is the ultimate outcome of the affair; the (clearly, negotiated) extent to which Gates implicitly concedes he was somewhat out of line is an important fact in this controversy. As some others here have rightly said, the fact that this particular press release was issued is itself a significant part of the story. Pechmerle (talk) 08:33, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Not really the ultimate outcome. That would be the meeting at the White House. This misunderstanding of the scope of this article is part of the problem. Most of the reason this arrest is notable is because Obama got involved and took the extraordinary step of becoming a mediator. A press release written by laywers does not rise to the level of the lede and from the coverage I've read, only a peripheral part of the story. Deserves mention, but not highlighted as it has been.Mattnad (talk) 11:35, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Joint statement in quote box?

Joint statement in article body?

  • Support inclusion inline with a few key phrases quoted and worked into a sentence, rather than an extended quote. That is approximately the weight it deserves given the sources, and its relevancy to the article. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:31, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Support —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.167.13.153 (talk) 18:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Support Obviously. --JN466 18:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose166.68.134.167 (talk) 20:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Support - single sentence with ref should cover it. Key fact is that the charges were dropped. Not a press release (which when read is pretty contrived on both sides).Mattnad (talk) 00:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Support - If not in quote box. Contrived or not, it's what the parties agreed to say about the incident. That's far more useful to our readers than our attempt to summarize.--agr (talk) 00:55, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Support Definitely should be in the article body. I disagree with a number of comments that have been made here, to the effect that the joint statement is unimportant because it was negotiated among the parties. The slur is that it was 'contrived.' That judgmental approach is beside the point: it is of interest to the reader to know what the parties negotiated among themselves to say about the resolution of the incident. Yes, we can read various things between the lines of the joint statement. So can our readers. The statement is intrinsically interesting because it has the expected backing-off by the authorities, but also the less expected backing off by Gates as well. (As I see it, he didn't have to do that to get the charges dropped -- they would never have stuck in court and Ogletree will have told him that. Rather, it was something he was willing to say in conciliation toward the police department -- a bit of implied acknowledgement that he contributed to the occurrence of the unfortunate arrest.) Pechmerle (talk) 08:33, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Police union statement in article body?

  • Weak support for stating that the police union issued a press release supporting the officer, and possibly a single brief quote. Some reliable sources mention this so it's fair game. However, the opinions of people who are not directly involved are just that, opinions, and the encyclopedic treatment is to focus mostly on what happened, not how people not involved in the incident are spinning it... except, as in the case of Obama, where their commentary becomes part of the story. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:31, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose
  • Support If reliable sources reported that Crowley's union backed him up, this should be included. Again, simply standard. JN466 18:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose166.68.134.167 (talk) 20:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Support - companion to single sentence now in the article that Crowley has refused to apologize.Mattnad (talk) 00:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Support, for a brief mention No harm in including it for completeness. It's kind of 'dog bites man,' i.e. what else would you expect. Now if the union had disavowed Crowley, that would have been 'man bites dog,' and very noteworthy. Pechmerle (talk) 08:33, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Lynn Sweet ‎

Lynn Sweet isn't mentioned by the name in the body of the article, and considering her role in changing the subject from health care to Gates, she's important enough to mention. Viriditas (talk) 12:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree it makes sense to mention her name. JN466 13:44, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
agreed. relevant and easily integrated. Mattnad (talk) 15:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
This article is not about her; no mention needed. It's not who asked the question at a press conference that is notable, but the answer that was given. Identity of the reporter asking a question is really trivial here. Pechmerle (talk) 08:37, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
No, I must disagree. Attribution is not trivial at all, it's essential in an encyclopedia like Wikipedia and is considered best practice. Her question changed the focus of the discussion from health care to Gates (and indirectly led to controversial comments by Obama) and she's also a notable media personality. Viriditas (talk) 09:36, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
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