Talk:New South Wales Police Force strip search scandal/Archive 1

Archive 1

Seeking clarity

@Nick-D: could you please explain why you've made this revision here. You've cited WP:OR as the reason for deleting the video and a mention of it in the text. The file was included in a section of the article discussing allegations that drug detection dogs used by NSW Police have falsely reacted to non drug related odours, including food odours. The file featured a video of a stunt filmed at the 2006 Big Day Out music festival wherein an ABC presenter had allegedly used raw meat to draw the attention of drug detection dogs at the event. I'm not sure how WP:OR applies here. Could you please elaborate on why you removed the content. Thank you OpticalBloom241 (talk) 18:29, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

WikiProject assessments

I have provisionally assessed this article as C-class quality because it has multiple issues tags that require clean-up and still needs checking against B class assessment questions. However, the length and detail within this article suggest it could easily be of a higher quality once these issues are addressed. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 06:55, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

OpticalBloom241 (talk) 16:17, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Conflict of interest editing

@OpticalBloom241: The entirety of your Wikipedia editing to date seems to have been related to either this article and creating other related articles. While there's nothing wrong with this per se, it can be an indication of some kind of connection to the subject matter that goes beyond a mere casual one. Are you connected to any of the organizations mentioned within this article? If you're somehow connected to or have been involved in any of the incidents or organizations mentioned in the article, then you going to want to read Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:Righting great wrongs to be understand what the Wikipedia community expects from such editors. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:32, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi, there. I'm not sure if you were referring to anything specific. The bulk of information on this topic has generally been sourced either directly or indirectly from either the Sniff Off campaign or Redfern Legal Centre. The Sniff Off campaign is an initiative that was launched in 2011 by the NSW Greens, a political party here in New South Wales. A Facebook page was launched by Sniff Off in 2014 which provides updates on drug detection dog sightings and more general information about policing in New South Wales. A majority of the images and videos used in this article and the others associated with this topic were sourced from that page. Various pieces of information used in the article, including statistical data, have also been sourced from NSW Police by Greens MP David Shoebridge, who serves as a public spokesperson for the campaign. The page also liases with various media outlets.

Redfern Legal Centre is a community legal centre which provides legal assistance and advocacy across a number of fields, including tenancy, workers rights and police powers. Since 2018, Samantha Lee, their police powers solicitor, has been involved in public advocacy surrounding the use of strip searches by NSW Police. A report commissioned by Redfern Legal Centre in 2019 was published by the University of New South Wales and the organisation is currently involved in an ongoing class action process with a commercial law firm. This is discussed in greater detail within the article. The organisation has also provided information to mainstream media outlets.

To answer your question, I'm not affiliated with any of the organisations mentioned in the article and I don't have any particular ties to the subject. I'm just some guy to be honest. If it seems a bit amateurish that's because it is. This is my first time writing on Wikipedia. No professional writing experience or legal background.- OpticalBloom241 (talk) 16:17, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Facebook citations

Facebook is not really a reliable source for Wikipedia's purposes per WP:RS/P#Facebook, particularly in cases where it's individual Facebook user accounts being cited; so, most of these probably need to go. Official government organization accounts might be OK as a WP:PRIMARY source, but it would be much better to find WP:SECONDARY coverage of such posts in reliable sources and cite those instead. Same goes for citations to the Sniff Off Facebook page. If the organization's posts are discussed in secondary reliable sources, then perhaps it would be better to cite those sources instead. Otherwise, it's going to be really hard to treat them as anything other than WP:UGC content that is not suitable for Wikipedia's purposes. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:18, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

A lot of the mainstream reporting on this issue has directly or indirectly been as a result of the work of the Sniff Off campaign. Several of the first mainstream media articles discussing the use of strip searches by NSW Police were published shortly after the creation of the campaign's Facebook page in 2014. Comments and statistics provided by the organisation's spokesperson David Shoebridge also featured heavily in the first article on the subject published by The Sydney Morning Herald in 2014, which is generally considered to be most reputable commercial media outlet in New South Wales (see: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/police-in-doghouse-over-strip-searches-20141201-11xpzh.html). Several of the items mentioned in the article (Hidden festival incident, central station incident, venue ban policy) involved situations where content was shared on the Sniff Off Facebook page before being disseminated by other media outlets. It's biased undoubtedly but the Sniff Off Facebook page serves as the most comprehensive source of firsthand information on the subject.

You've also addressed the use of Facebook citations more broadly. Generally speaking, the majority of incidents involving strip searches conducted by NSW Police have taken place at music festivals and other events geared towards a more youth oriented crowd. The information sourced from Facebook and other social media outlets in the article has been limited to firsthand accounts involving individuals speaking about their own experiences. This is content that has in some cases served as the basis for more mainstream reporting and serves to supplement the more established sources provided in the article. You've alluded to social media posts being published by secondary sources adding credibility to the content, though I'd argue that in many cases media outlets will publish this content without conducting any due diligence, more so now than ever. - OpticalBloom241 (talk) 17:15, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

First-hand accounts posted on social media are WP:PRIMARY sources in the best case scenario and can only be used in certain types of ways; moreover, they're pretty much are never OK with respect to content which might be associated with a living person as explained here. They're also not what Wikipedia article content is intended to reflect because Wikipedia isn't intended to be a newspaper and it's not Wikipedia's role to try and set the record straight when reliable sources fail to do so. Most user-generated content is not reliable for Wikipedia's purposes because there's no sort of formal editorial control over what's posted. While it may be true that secondary coverage of these incidents may not be as diligent as it could possibly be, there does tend to be more oversight than you might find on an organization's Facebook page or an individual's social media account. A secondary source isn't automatically reliable for Wikipedia's purposes simply because it's secondary, but generally major media sources with established reputations for editorial control are considered OK for the most part. There's probably nothing wrong with content about Sniff Off being in the article, but citing Sniff Off in support of such content is not really what a good idea from Wikipedia's perspective. If reliable sources are reporting on Sniff Off and it's involvement in this matter, then perhaps that can be cited in support of such content. If there are things, however, that Sniff Off has done that's not being covered by reliable sources, then such content probably shouldn't be in the article regardless of whether it's true. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:28, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Use of Social Media Content

I understand that there have been some issues raised regarding the use of social media sources in this article. I understand that while these sources are generally considered to be unreliable, I believe that their use within the article falls within WP:ABOUTSELF guidelines. Per the guidelines, social media content used in the article has been restricted to instances involving individuals speaking about their own experiences and does not include any self-serving or exceptional claims, nor claims about third parties or events not directly related to the source. The article is not based primarily on these sources. Any claims put forward on social media have largely been consistent with, and in many cases served as the basis of (Central Station Incident, Hidden Festival Incident, Venue Ban Policy) allegations and accounts published by more mainstream sources. A discussion about the use of social media content within the article was opened here — Preceding unsigned comment added by OpticalBloom241 (talk • contribs) 12:01, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

This is an article on the NSW Police Force strip search scandal. If someone is randomly undressing without anyone observing them, that has nothing to do with this article. In other words, I don't see how it's possible for a relevant social media account to not involve claims about third parties. By definition any claims must relate not only to the person but also include the police otherwise it's offtopic here. The media may report on claims made on social media, hopefully after some independent investigation and we sometimes may use such sources. That is how things are supposed to work. Nil Einne (talk) 15:31, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

I've fixed a few easy pickings in this edit. WP:ABOUTSELF might say something about reliability when the claims are "Some random person on social media claimed X and Y...", but it does not say that there is due weight (imagine a police apologist who starts adding to the article things like "However, the post got 183 haha reacts and Joe Bloggs on Facebook made a counterargument that got 4 likes").

Nil Einne puts it exactly correctly that it's the media's job to report on claims by members of the public, and we can then quote media reports (sometimes). However, it's not our job to start doing investigative journalism, and much less our job to cover the minutiae of a Facebook group. Nor to start making evaluative statements like "NSW Police will typically release a statement detailing the total number of 'personal searches' conducted by officers, however the figure will not distinguish between the number of strip searches performed as opposed to general searches", which contain original interpretation not made in the reference itself (just an NSW Police statement). — Bilorv (talk) 01:21, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I believe you wrongly deleted many links there. Some are official statements from organisations like NSWPOL, others are Facebook posts by reputable news organisations.Kylesenior (talk) 08:03, 21 February 2022 (UTC)