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WP basics; "Officer Vera lied under oath"

I suppose by now I should not be surprised at basic ignorance of policy by people editing this page. But this one should be fairly obvious: if you want to include article prose asserting that a police officer lied under oath, at bare minimum you need a source saying the officer lied under oath.

Not only does the source cited for this claim conspicuously not say the officer lied under oath, the video evidence the source discusses does not "prove" that the officer lied, as the article text stated before I removed it. All it shows is that there was video showing the person on the sidewalk and no video showing him blocking traffic. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 14:43, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

You are right, that was a mistake on my part due to editing late at night. It's fixed now. Vera was under oath when he claimed Arbuckle was standing in the middle of the street, which was contrary to all evidence from NYPD video.petrarchan47Tc 23:13, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Hey wait a minute! I just reread your comment, did you really start out with a violation of "no personal attacks"? Wow.petrarchan47Tc 23:15, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Occupy Wall Street according to David Graeber

I have removed a lengthy paragraph purporting to explain how anarchist David Graeber invented the New York City General Assembly after finding that existing groups did not properly adhere to anarchist principles regarding what a "general assembly" should look like.

The entire paragraph was sourced to a Bloomberg BusinessWeek article promoting Graeber's book, celebrating his anarchist credentials, and discussing his involvement in OWS.

One problem: at no point does the article say anything whatsoever about the NYCGA, much less say that it grew out of any of the seemingly dozens of individual "general assemblies" that the article describes Graeber as organizing, attending, or otherwise having been involved in. This is, at best, breathtaking OR—and at worst, it is simple misrepresentation of source material. Either way, it is unacceptable.

So it seems that Graeber's connection with OWS is much tenuous than we've been told—I note that the article cited is careful to say that he is neither a "leader" of, nor a "spokesman" for, the movement—further drawing into question the insistence of some editors that Graeber's views on OWS be featured prominently here, simply because of some kind of anarchist "streed cred" or questionable "founding father" status, while mainstream views that are more notable are relegated to a sub-article. Heck, even Kalle Lasn's commentary is in the commentary article.

I thus call upon any editors who are concerned about this aspect of the topic to clearly explain why we should be giving greater weight to Graeber's anarchist views and "philosophy of OWS" than to the views of mainstream journalists, academics, political leaders, etc. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:27, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

That line was changed from its original prose and i never agreed with it. However the source is RS and the claims (aside from that one) are supported by the reference. Celebrating his anarchist credentials? What?--Amadscientist (talk) 17:11, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
It doesn't especially matter if some of other the claims are supported by the source. Without the primary claim (which the source turns out not to support), it's just a bunch of details about David Graeber (which is exactly how the source article is styled). Only by massaging this background info into an unsubstantiated and possibly false claim that Graeber organized the NYCGA (or that his various general assemblies became the NYCGA) do we have relevance to OWS that would justify essentially giving Graeber headline status. If we have to commit OR and bend the truth to fit a mention in, we've got a significant WEIGHT problem. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Regarding direct action vs. petitioning the government, this is an import aspect, and I would say it certainly is supported by the source [1]. Equazcion (talk) 17:15, 2 Jun 2012 (UTC)
I've restored that, re-written to track the source. The WP-article language about "petitioning the government", which the source discusses only in connection with Graeber's observations of direct action in Madagascar, had me looking at the wrong part of the article. Thus I didn't see the subsequent language discussing the other topics in direct connection with OWS. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:35, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Uhm, while Graeber is not employeed at any major University at this time...he is considered a mainstream academic. Can anyone show how he is not mainstream? He is quoted and referenced by mainstream publications and I believe his books are not considered fringe in any way.--Amadscientist (talk) 17:18, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Even if Graeber, an anarchist, can be considered "mainstream" in any sense, to give his anarchist narrative of OWS more prominence than basically everything else that has been said about the movement presents a serious WEIGHT problem. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:32, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Graeber is with the University of London, and the Chronicle of Higher Education is a very good source. It looks like it should be included to describe the OWS decision making and direct action process. Also, I believe there are indeed good sources connecting Graeber to the NYCGA, maybe they were removed (sigh). Be——Critical 17:40, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I just now restored that, albeit in a form rewritten to track the source. See my comment above, posted at 17:35. My bad. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I didn't remove any sources regarding Graeber and the NYCGA (other than the one source contained within/cited by the deleted paragraph). Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:47, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

The following is now deleted from the article:

Formation of the New York General Assembly (NYGA) began in June and July when a group called New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts (NYAB), began promoting a “People’s General Assembly” to “Oppose Cutbacks And Austerity Of Any Kind”. On August 2 NYAB met in Bowling Green Park. Activist, anarchist and anthropologist David Graeber and several of his associates attended the NYAB meeting, but grew frustrated when they discovered the event was not a "general assembly" that rules by consensus resulting from group discussions. Rather, the event was intended to be a precursor to marching on Wall Street with a corpus of predetermined demands such as "An end to oppression and war!" In response, Graeber and his small group created their own general assembly, which eventually drew all remaining attendees from the NYAB meeting and developed into the New York General Assembly. The group began holding weekly meetings to work out issues and the movement's direction, such as whether or not to have a set of demands, forming working groups and whether or not to have leaders.

Is there really an agreement that the source does not support this info? Perhaps I am being too hasty in my re-reading of the source, but it seems to me to be adequate. What am I missing? Thoughts? Gandydancer (talk) 18:30, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, for starters, the cited source does not even mention the NYCGA. The source is basically a history of Graeber's involvement in OWS and his nurturing of anarchist organizing principles. It does not say that all of this culminated in the formation of the NYCGA. That's straight OR. (Unless there's some crucial source text I'm missing.) Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 18:35, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
"The only part I see as OR is the line: "and developed into the New York General Assembly", the fact of which I have always felt was stretching things a bit from the source. It is not that Graeber started the NYCGA, but that the early meeting were intended and did begin the process that lead the the NYCGA. I am for restoring everything but at least that one line, but if others feel strongly about inclusion of that line as well, I can live with that--Amadscientist (talk) 19:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) On page 2 of the article it says this:
On July 13, Adbusters put out its own call for a Wall Street occupation, to take place two months later, on Sept. 17. Setting the date and publicizing it was the extent of the magazine’s involvement. A group called New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts—student activists and community leaders from some of the city’s poorer neighborhoods—stepped in to execute the rest. For three weeks in June and July, to protest city budget cuts and layoffs, the group had camped out across the street from City Hall in a tent city they called Bloombergville. They liked the idea of trying a similar approach on Wall Street. After talking to Adbusters, the group began advertising a “People’s General Assembly” to “Oppose Cutbacks And Austerity Of Any Kind” and plan the Sept. 17 occupation. Gandydancer (talk) 19:07, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that establishes the fact that the NYABC advertised a General assembly. The only part i am still unsure of is how this became the NYCGA as that single General assembly meeting was not intended to be the NYCGA. I believe the question is, how did Graeber's GA meetings lead to the formation of the actual organization the "New York City General Assembly"?--Amadscientist (talk) 19:12, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes Madsci seems reasonable to me...Gandydancer (talk) 19:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I would just note, not for nothing and not to be rude, that it doesn't really matter if editors "feel strongly" that we should include claims not supported by any source. Additionally, without that connection, I'm not sure I see a basis for including a detailed account of Graeber's personal involvement in OWS. Even if he is a central figure, he's not the only one, and this is an article about OWS, not Kalle Lasn, David Graeber, Larry Lessig, Cornel West, or other people that we can consider to be "OWS personalities". Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 19:29, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Didn't the original sourcing for this paragraph draw the connection to the NYCGA? Be——Critical 19:27, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
It would be easier to discuss this if you would provide a link. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 19:30, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I know several editors believed so, but it has always been a point of contention with me. As i said I can live with it as the interpretation of the material can be seen in different ways from the original source. To, me however, it was a matter of where the "Fact" is pulled from and whether the source material supports it.--Amadscientist (talk) 19:32, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't know, but I think that the "Daily GAs" mentioned are the NYCGA:
While there were weeks of planning yet to go, the important battle had been won. The show would be run by horizontals, and the choices that would follow—the decision not to have leaders or even designated police liaisons, the daily GAs and myriad working-group meetings that still form the heart of the protests in Zuccotti Park—all flowed from that. [2] Be——Critical 19:35, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
That's highly speculative. WP's sourcing requirements don't merely require that we find a source that kind of, sort of, when interpreted in a certain way, might support our WP article text. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 19:40, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I very much doubt it's highly speculative. Let's see what others think. Be——Critical 19:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't agree that it is highly speculative. Just not implicitly stated. But the wording could be seen to support the statement. I could agree with it's inclusion if others were for it.--Amadscientist (talk) 19:43, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
It's not stated implicitly or explicitly in the source; thus it is highly speculative. We're talking about a specific named group that is never named or even generally discussed in the source. What the source tells us is that Graeber participated in and organized a bunch of general assemblies, and that many future choices about how OWS protesters would structure their conduct were influenced by the success of one of these assemblies. Whatever we do say about Graeber, we don't have a source for the claim that formation of the NYCGA can be traced back to Graeber's early general assemblies. Thus we can't say that. We don't write articles based on speculation. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 19:58, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict - I missed Factchecker's last post) (shudder) I believe that Factcheker is perhaps not correct in that it is "highly speculative", but certainly it is "speculative". ...we had so little to go with...I (gradually) knew that a lot had been going on prior to Sept. 17 and when this article suddenly was brought to our attention I was so glad to get some background...at the time (and even now) it strikes me as most likely accurate... This is difficult... Gandydancer (talk) 20:01, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

But the very first line of WP's central policy, WP:V, tells us that our criterion for inclusion is "verifiability, not truth." If there's a narrative we want to tell, even if it's a perfectly correct one, we either find sources for it or we don't say it, period. We don't fill in gaps with what we think, even if we know we're right. And those policies are there for a reason -- to prevent WP from developing into an original source of information. And, even if a speculative conclusion turns out to be correct, that does not make it any less speculative or any more appropriate for WP article space. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 20:06, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it is a bit difficult, but as i said, many editors do think the source does support the "Fact". I could see this either way, but still support the current consensus for inclusion at this time.--Amadscientist (talk) 20:10, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
WP:V is not subject to a vote and editors cannot simply agree to pretend that a source says something it does not. Spoiler: if you're sitting there saying "well, based on all my extensive knowledge about OWS based on my personal experience researching and editing this article, I suppose it's possible to interpret this article so that it might be read to support X", your in-article claim X is not verifiable. WP:V does not mean "readers should be able to conclude, after being given extensive coaching and background information by knowledgeable WP editors, that the information might possibly be supported by the cited source". Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 20:45, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I have no idea what you were meaning to say there. Uhm...I was one of the editors that originated that line of prose using the source. It was changed from my original prose several times and then changed one last time by an unenvolved editor I believe) that altered the specific line in question to be supported by the source. Sorry, but I believe editors can see the prose as being supported by the source.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:01, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I'll try it again with fewer words. Article text is not verifiable if it depends on numerous unstated and unreferenced inferences and suppositions, each of which is not necessarily accurate. Put another way, an assertion that relies on guesswork cannot be included in an article. The BusinessWeek source says something about Graeber's organizing role during the early days of OWS, sure—but it doesn't say jack about the NYCGA. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 21:12, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
So it is your claim that the NYCGA was not a part of "What flowed" from the initial meetings? Isn't that OR?--Amadscientist (talk) 21:30, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
You're suggesting it's OR for me not to assume or speculate that the source really meant to make a concrete (but unspoken) claim about a specific group it never actually mentioned? No. That's the opposite of OR; it's a refusal to commit OR. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 21:40, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
You do realize some things are undisputable...right? And the NYCGA undisputably came after and from many of the processes put in place by Graeber....so yeah, it is kind of OR to claim the NYCGA did not flow from the meetings Graeber intiated.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:51, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
No. That's simply ridiculous. OR has a meaning and that isn't even close. What *is* OR is writing based on your personal expertise and knowledge of the article subject. WP has numerous policies whose sole purpose is to prevent editors from attempting to do that. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 22:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
But, you see...it looks to me like you ARE using personal experiance on the MOVEMENT to create original research on THIS article. I agree with Becritical. The article does state the GA's as the "choices that followed". They are talking about the NYCGA, because they are the daily GAs and the working groups are a partof THAT. Yes...I get it completely now. The source DOES support the claim.--Amadscientist (talk) 23:50, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, here's where I'm at on this. I agree with Madsci and BeCritical in that the source is adequate for the information presented in the article. My problem has always been, and still is, the fact that we are filling a big gap in the history of the movement with one article, written by an editor that we know nothing about or where he got his information from (which may not be correct) and in fact he may have received all of his information from Graeber, who is well known and assumed to be credible, but may have colored his information to fit his own mindset... It would be good if we could improve our source, but for now it's all we've got and I'd like to see it returned to the article. However, didn't someone write a book on the movement? It sure would be good to have more information than just this one article. Gandydancer (talk) 14:08, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I believe we originaly had more references and they were slowly edited out. I can certainly look and see where these and other references can be found. I also agree that perhaps in this case it is vital that some links to any referenced material be included. With this, I can see a similar reasoning being made for other information to amend other sections that are currently being dicussed and perhaps this is where we see that some further information should be used (such as the actual CBO report to augment any interpretation of data from it, whether prose or charts, graphs etc.) At any rate, yes this should be referenced better and perhaps a closer look at the source is in order.--Amadscientist (talk) 17:10, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
There is a book written abot OWS...however, it is self published.--Amadscientist (talk) 17:14, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
No...wait, maybe not. OR Books out of New York and London and has a website. let me look further.--Amadscientist (talk) 17:17, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Uhm...I am so not sure this is a legitimate publishing company for Wikipedia standards. Here is the link to OR Books "About us".[3]. Here is the book.[4]. Now, there are some others but many are not coming up as "not found" through google books.--Amadscientist (talk) 17:23, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
I have some sort of memory of a good account of the early days. It seemed so complete and had so much information that I wondered how ever the author researched it all. That's why I think it may actually be a dream or hallucination. :-). Gandydancer (talk) 17:38, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Haha, this is funny... Yes, there are some books. Here is a one-star review at Amazon: "This book is a complete riip off of Wikipedia. The author didn't even feel the necessity to remove the references from the wikipedia page. So save your money. This kind of books shouldn't even be allowed on Amazon without a warning." As the authors of this article, I think we'd all agree that although we did our best, this is about the last place to look for accurate information on the movement. On the other hand, I guess it was the only place to look... Gandydancer (talk) 18:02, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
OK, here's a fairly complete history article from YES mag [5] without mention of Graeber or anarchist wording. The more I think about it, the more I am beginning to believe that Centrify is right when he says that we sure are giving a lot of copy to that one aspect of the article. While it may be true that the ref is adequate for our article, it does seem we need to wonder if it's not time to get rid of information that may be just one very small slice of the information pie? Or at least, to look more closely at it? Gandydancer (talk) 18:42, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Graeber published a handbook through a publishing company but it is only available as an e-book and i am unaware of the policy for use on such.--Amadscientist (talk) 16:30, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
I just got confirmation that E-books are handled the same way as regular books and we just look close to each author and their specific notabilty and other criteria for RS and then to be sure it is not a self published book (defined as "paid for publishing" and then even then that has some exception with experts in their fields when they themselves pay to publish a work). I was given this link to check self publishing companies: Wikipedia:List of self-publishing companies, so some of these books may have value as RS.--Amadscientist (talk) 17:17, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad that this issue has been presented. As I said above, I really do wonder about giving so much importance to the one source that we are using regardless of whether or not it is adequate. I'd much prefer something more generic like this paragraph from YES mag.

Meanwhile, quietly, a group of several hundred mainly young activists, artists and students started gathering as a “General Assembly” (GA)—a leaderless, consensus-based decision-making process. They met weekly in public parks, starting on August 2 and continuing until the occupation began, with the intention of building an organizational and tactical framework for the action. It grew out of New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts, which had recently held a three-week occupation near City Hall called “Bloombergville” to protest against austerity measures. They had learned a lot from that and were ready to try something bigger. Thoughts? Gandydancer (talk) 14:07, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking something similar. The OWS book that I linked seems to be a reasonable RS as far as publishing and it lists a different figure as having moved the GA from the NYABC, however there may be more sourcing to establish this one way or another. At any rate i will take a look and see if i can gather the original sources and a few more to bring to the talkpage here.--Amadscientist (talk) 16:20, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Sounds good! Gandydancer (talk) 20:14, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
We still can't be sure that either source is actually talking about the NYGA. I again strongly urge that we should not make any claims that are not directly substantiated by reliable sources. Again, WP articles are not supposed to be based off of guesswork, however educated and responsible that guesswork might possibly be. This remains true even if editors feel that the WP article is not giving "the whole story". Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:20, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

In the YES mag article they are clearly speaking of the NYCGA. I will copy a little here:

Meanwhile, quietly, a group of several hundred mainly young activists, artists and students started gathering as a “General Assembly” (GA)—a leaderless, consensus-based decision-making process. They met weekly in public parks, starting on August 2 and continuing until the occupation began, with the intention of building an organizational and tactical framework for the action. It grew out of New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts, which had recently held a three-week occupation near City Hall called “Bloombergville” to protest against austerity measures. They had learned a lot from that and were ready to try something bigger.

The GA formed an Internet Committee, which quickly became fraught with infighting about process, security concerns and editorial control. These problems consumed hours and hours of the whole Assembly’s time. Their site went up, then down and then finally up again just days before the occupation began. It is now online at nycga.cc, but it receives only a small fraction of the traffic of occupywallst.org. Only on Thursday afternoon did the two sites figure out how to formally coordinate their activities.

As a result of these hiccups, in the lead-up and early days of the occupation, media coverage almost always associated it with meme floaters like Adbusters, US Day of Rage and Anonymous. But none of them were especially responsible for what would be happening on the ground starting on September 17. That was the GA’s doing. Gandydancer (talk) 09:51, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I believe that we should look at the original authors of the Declaration of the Occupation of NYC as the most influential people in the beginning (Ryan Hoffman and Lex Rendon). There is no question, in my mind, that Graeber is one of the most influential activists to participate in OWS. I mean he's way up there with Jesse LaGreca and Noam Chomsky. I would also like to point out the influence of Dr. Cornel West in the context of the movement(see Troy Davis execution), and the work of Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, Naomi Wolf (Shock Doctrine), and Slavoj Žižek. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.35.195.58 (talk) 09:21, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Graeber should be given prominent weight re: Occupy Wall St. (the New York contingent in particular) for two perfectly solid reasons: i). he was PRESENT at many of the protests and meetings; ii). even if he is not "mainstream," he publishes in mainstream publications/newspapers. The fact that he writes editorials does not suggest that he is offering a "subjective perspective" of the movement, because he does not tend to SPEAK FOR the movement (that would not be very "anarchistic") but often merely to clear up prevailing misconceptions about the movement based on his experience at the protests. Many journalists reported on the protests, but rarely were they present during its more decisive moments. Graeber was, and his dual function as activist/journalist gives him the only perspective capable here of actually dispelling rumors and reporting what happened, which ideas were present, what the different factions think, etc., not what corporate media wants to pretend happened. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.64.13 (talk) 00:53, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Conspicuous Absence of any Reference Whatsoever to "Anti-Capitalism"

There are dozens of sources which bear this out, so any attempt to squash reference to anti-capitalism or even to socialism and/or anarchism are prejudicial and have absolutely no neutrality to them. It is by now "objective fact" that OWS is left-wing, but this page is hopelessly liberal garbage, total obfuscation of the actual ideology and practice of the protests. I've given up on editing this page to include references to such empirical realities, because the chief editors of this page seem quite intent on immediately removing any reference to capitalism or anti-capitalism; indeed the word "capitalism" DOES NOT EVEN APPEAR ON THE PAGE, which to anyone who was ACTUALLY IN ATTENDANCE of the protests seems absolutely absurd. If anyone has a conscience, they'll fix this oversight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.60.176 (talk • contribs) 20:33, 7 June 2012‎

Regarding this: In case it needs to be said, the overall movement doesn't seek to end capitalism, and even the source referenced can't be interpreted that way unequivocally. Primary sources need to be treated with extreme care and not interpreted. Cookie monster explains it best [6]:
"Capitalism great system. We won Cold War because people behind Iron Curtain look over wall, and see how much more plentiful and delicious cookies are in West, and how we have choice of different bakeries, not just state-owned one. It great system...built middle class...It system that reward hard work and fair play...Rich get richer, poor get richer, everyone happy...Now we have system where richest Americans ones who find ways to game system...poorest Americans ones who thought working hard would get them American dream, when in fact it get them pink slip when job outsourced to 10-year-old in Mumbai slum. And corporations have more influence over government than people (or monsters). It not about rich people having more money. It about how they got money..."
There might be some groups who want to end capitalism, but there are many sub-movement movements, and this particular article is focused on the overall (or mainstream, if you will) OWS movement. Equazcion (talk) 20:58, 7 Jun 2012 (UTC)
"the overall movement doesn't seek to end capitalism"
Deeply incorrect, and anyone who, again, ACTUALLY STARTED AND MAINTAINED THE MOVEMENT would put you down right there. These same actual participants are extremely critical of the "mainstream" interpretation of the movement. I originally posted reference to anti-capitalism with a video of MANY protestors chanting "Anti-Capitalista" in unison. Trust me: the anti-capitalist strain is not a fringe of the movement, it is the center.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.60.176 (talk • contribs) 22:45, 7 June 2012‎
Well, since I didn't start or maintain the movement and don't know anyone who has, I'll have to take your word for it. Although the article can't really operate that way, so you're going to be reverted again, without reliable secondary sources stating this stuff you're claiming (I see that's just happened while I was typing this). Equazcion (talk) 23:12, 7 Jun 2012 (UTC)
I don't need you to "take my word for it," because the sources I'm using are perfectly acceptable: three large banners at major Occupy encampments with explicit anti-capitalist slogans. If actual photographs of OWS activists holding actual signs which state general anti-capitalist ideology are not good enough proof, then you're being deliberately antagonistic to that addition, for whatever personal reasons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.60.176 (talk) 23:19, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Really? Pictures of banners are reliable? I could find you pictures of American and Pakistani soldiers stepping on kittens, but I wouldn't recommend using them to back any argument you want taken seriously. I'm being deliberately antagonistic towards the use of propaganda (it's a real word I swear, I have pictures of it on a banner). Equazcion (talk) 23:23, 7 Jun 2012 (UTC)
So do enlighten me: what kind of "proof" do you need beyond primary documentation of people at the protests with anti-capitalist propaganda? You'd like some New York Times article to admit that, gee, based on interviews and photos we took OF PROTESTORS WITH SIGNS, they seem to be anti-capitalist? I really am in the dark here: what's better than photographs or video evidence of anti-capitalist ideology AT OWS EVENTS to prove that OWS simply INCLUDES anti-capitalist goals? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.60.176 (talk) 23:33, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
All the while in the same "Goals" section, an assertion about the alleviation of the foreclosure crisis goes unreverted, even as it cites NOTHING in its defense....— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.60.176 (talk • contribs) 23:41, 7 June 2012‎
WP:V and WP:RS outline the proof we need. Photos and interviews you've gathered yourself certainly don't qualify (see WP:OR). Sorry for all the links, but explaining Wikipedia's sourcing rules would take a long time. My simple answer to you, which I attempted to convey above, is that photos and video often only tell the story that the person who produces them wants to tell. How do we know, for instance, that a photo of a banner doesn't just contain a couple of dissidents holding it among a crowd that gathered to say something different? You especially seem to feel strongly towards one point of view, so your photos and video are especially suspect. In order to avoid making Wikipedia editors responsible for verifying the authenticity of material, we tend to only base articles around content that's already been verified by the editorial staff of reliable sources, like newspapers and other published works. If you still don't get it, I'm sorry, but that's how it works here. Equazcion (talk) 23:41, 7 Jun 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's why I'm not going to keep editing, because what piece of evidence could possibly convey that EVERYONE in the movement is anti-capitalist? Indeed, of course that's not the case. But it's also not the case that everyone in the movement supports the various reforms in the "Goals" section, and it is not possible to prove that with any better sources. The citation for "more and better jobs" refers to a Businessweek article in which, predictably, these goals are just asserted based on interviews and photos of protestors (that very same article features a photo of an Italian anarchist burning a police car). Why is that more reliable than primary documents? It's a news source! It's LESS reliable! It makes bare assertions without reference! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.60.176 (talk) 23:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, shocking: my edit which expanded the quote from the Wall Street Journal to include the preceding statements on the "commitment to left-wing policies" and antagonism to "free-market capitalism" was erased, and the "goals" cited from Bloomberg Businessweek without ANY substantiation reappeared. Clearly I am the one who isn't being neutral! cf. the title of this section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.60.176 (talk) 00:15, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

When you finally made a reasonable edit after repeatedly disrupting the article with POV edits everyone told you were against policy, someone assumed it was also disruption and reverted you? Shocking, yes. When you feel like talking like a human, I'm sure people will eventually take you seriously. Feel free to defend your edit in a civil manner. I'll try to listen. Equazcion (talk) 01:14, 8 Jun 2012 (UTC)
I am defending it like a human, because a human HAS opinions; you pretend that you would only ever remove "non-neutral" edits, but when I attempted, several times, to remove the "goals" which are quoted from an article in Bloomberg Businessweek due to an absence of any actual reference in said article to interviews or documentation of any kind, they were quickly re-established. If it doesn't make sense to you that I'd be skeptical of the neutrality of Bloomberg Businessweek regarding an anti-big business protest, then I simply can't convey anything, humanly or otherwise. If trying to convey that THIS PAGE has a detectable bias is disruption, then the Wikipedia guardians are just a bunch of hypocrites.
So far you've tried adding POV/OR content (against policy), and removing relevant, reliably-sourced content (ditto, basically), and warred to keep your edits in (double ditto). You're 0 for 3 so far. For your next attempt, I'd suggest a policy-based edit or argument, rather than getting your shots in -- which might feel good, but won't accomplish much else. Equazcion (talk) 01:39, 8 Jun 2012 (UTC)
Then I should retrace my editing history in this regard. First, I modified the "goals" section, without reference, to include a general anti-capitalist ideology. That was, quite fairly, deleted for want of reference. So then I went in search of references, and cited a) articles published in the Occupy Wall St. Journal denouncing "the cult of capitalism" and b) videos and photos, none of which I myself took or put on the internet, of large Occupy crowds chanting and brandishing anti-capitalist slogans and banners. Both sources are PRIMARY, as no other authority exists to claim what the protestors believe and intend other than the protestors themselves. After these were removed, I decided that if such PRIMARY references were too biased, then surely SECONDARY references, let alone from the business press which incidentally didn't reference anything concrete, are too biased to include. So I got rid of these, and even extended an edited quote from the Wall St. Journal to include the reference to OWS' "opposition to free-market capitalism" and "commitment to left-wing policies" which I thought was conspicuously excised from the original quote. But obviously all this considered, I am the one manipulating the information.
WP:Primary sources are actually considered less reliable than secondary ones, for the reasons I explained. Your use of primary sources to add material and your removal of secondary-sourced content were each reverted justly. Food for thought, the people who've reverted you here are from both sides of the fence. Nobody agrees with you, and it apparently has nothing to do with their respective points of view. You just don't get how Wikipedia works, and I'd suggest doing some reading up on that from the many links I provided, if you're not willing to take our word for it, if you'd like your time here to be productive. Equazcion (talk) 01:55, 8 Jun 2012 (UTC)

My newest edit declares that "Some media label the protests 'anti-capitalist'", whereafter I cite The UK Guardian, a trusted news source, and then "some dispute this label," whereafter I cite The Huffington Post, another trusted news source. However, I suspect that this too will be removed.

Also, do you really believe that a secondary source is more reliable IN THIS INSTANCE than a primary source? The concern is what the protestors intend and believe, not what some outside media source thinks they intend and believe. The problem with this "goals" page is precisely that: it asks the wrong authorities. But you don't seem to want to address this point, you just repeat the same dogmatic "follow the policy" orders. This is just mob rule.

I haven't looked at your latest edit yet. Yes, in this instance especially, secondary sources are better, because anyone can claim to speak for the movement and say whatever they like -- and various extremists have done so on numerous occasions. Yes, we're all ganging up on you to make you follow the rules. I guess that could be considered mob rule, in a certain light... Equazcion (talk) 02:13, 8 Jun 2012 (UTC)

Well, then, I think that speaks to a certain structural flaw in Wikipedia, that by attempting to remain neutral it actually obscures the reality of the situation. An "extremist" may say whatever they please, but one of the overwhelming problems here is the unaccountability and unreliability of the 'mainstream media,' which is not a problem lost on some media sources: the press has an agenda, and in this case it could be more of a distortion than a primary source.

Yeah, we tend to trust the possibly-biased media over the extremists. A flawed system perhaps, but it's the best we've got -- for a leaderless movement, it's either that or post every crackpot statement appearing online, which would make for an exceptionally tedious article. Or a very interesting one, I haven't decided. Equazcion (talk) 02:33, 8 Jun 2012 (UTC)
I've reverted two of Amadscientist's reverts of the IP who started this thread. I think the latest additions did actually comply with the repeated (justified) requests made in this talk thread to use reliable secondary sources, and blocking out these edits would be setting the bar arbitrarily high. (I also tend to agree that it's a little strange for the article to have no mention of anti-capitalism whatsoever.) Sindinero (talk) 09:49, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Just a courtesy comment for the IP. It is Wikipedia's aim not to second-guess the mainstream, but rather to reflect its views. Even if you are right, Wikipedia articles are not the place to wage war on what you perceive to be defects in mainstream media coverage. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 14:48, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
As a courtesy, I am letting Sindinero, I plan to revert that again. It is undue weight for the quote and opinion in the goals secton. I am against these changes (at least the quote-before and after its edit) If needed I will use DR/N. If there are others that feel it is appropriat for this addition please weigh in. This addition is disputed.--Amadscientist (talk) 17:42, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't care about the "Anti-Capitlasim" part being added in the article. I object to it being placed in the goals section. It has no place there. The goals section should not contain opinion peices as references (frankly the artilce contains far too many opinion peices). Goals are very straight forward. Anarchism is not a goal. It is just a part of the origins of the protests. Some say it has longer lasting effects on the NY protests but I have not really seen it. It actaully looks like OWS in New York is going out of their way to discount the original Anarchist tactics and infrastructure of the original protests. Socialism and anti-capitalism are not part of the New York protests. I have never actually seen an OWS protest that was anti-capitalsim. This is POV and to attempt to add it officially to the goals section is POV pushing. Opinion of what the goals are should go in the Reacvtion article. If you cannot find sources (and they are there) then perhaps the gaols section should be renamed to "Public opinion of OWS Goals". Otherwise we should stick to facts in this section and not opinion. My 2 cents.--Amadscientist (talk) 18:12, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

"I have never actually seen an OWS protest that was anti-capitalism." See, I started this business by saying that I have seen MANY anti-capitalist protests at OWS; but obviously no one can take my word for it. I didn't put anarchism in as a goal; that IS an ideology, but OWS has not tried to discredit it, if anything, has had to defend its anarchist roots, which are still VERY evident. It is essential to mention, at least, "anti-capitalism" as a goal, because that has, and it's just inaccurate to say otherwise, been an essential aspect of its ideology and practice. It is clearly in the anti-capitalist tradition, no matter what liberals want it to be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.60.176 (talk) 18:22, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

POV pushing. It matters not what you percieve is clear. It is OR to state that one of the goals is Anti-capitalism just as it would be OR to claim the what "liberals" want.--Amadscientist (talk) 19:36, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

By those criteria, "goals" should not even be a section. If it is original research to interpret anti-capitalist chants, protests, and signs as evidence of anti-capitalist goals, then it is definitely original research to interpret pro-healthcare and pro-taxation chants, protests, and signs as evidence of such goals. The section should be retitled "Reforms" if it cannot fulfill its function as a "goals" section, which are NOT a straightforward category: you're conflating 'short-term reforms' or even 'long-term reforms' with 'goals' in general, which is a category that can include GENERAL goals like 'anti-capitalism' etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.60.176 (talk) 20:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The goals of a protest most be seperated from what is percieved by others and what are the actual aims of the protest themselves. Signs alone do not deem what the original intent of organisers etc. How is this handles in other protest articles?--Amadscientist (talk) 16:25, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

If the criterion is "the original intent of organizers," there's never going to be a unanimous consensus: it's up to individual ambitions & goals. So if individual ambitions & goals are just "perceived" goals, then some kind of unifying goal would, what, be un-perceived, an objective fact? I tried to make the case that what unified all the individual goals & ambitions was a general goal of "anti-capitalism," which I apparently cannot prove to anyone, especially not with mainstream news sources, was the "intent of organizers," even though anyone who spent any time at the protests knows this without hesitation. Obviously protestors would be appalled by the secondary sources which say things like 'this is a conservative call for law & order & basic capitalist principles like accountability' etc. etc. This page will probably remain deeply inaccurate forever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.81.117.227 (talk) 21:01, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Time to add "recent developments/aftermath" section?

Commentary's starting to come in concerning the question of "what next?" for OWS, and it might be time to add a short section to this effect. I think -- to be clear -- that we should avoid language that sounds like we're making pronouncements in WP's editorial voice, instead presenting various claims clearly as various claims rather than some 'truth' of OWS. A few sources that might be useful here:

Well, I think centrify doesn't like press from other countries or something, and that guardian article looks great to the unaided eye, but with statements like

The US press seems to have decided that the Occupy movement is no longer a story. Pretty much no matter what we do. In New York, on May Day, something between 50,000 and 100,000 people marched through the streets – we don't know the exact numbers because most papers didn't report the event at all, and therefore, didn't bother to make estimates. In California, there were blockades and walkouts. In Seattle, one band of protestors relived the famous Black Bloc actions of November 1999, smashing many of the same corporate windows – and even that didn't make national news!

I think something like that is going to get British news moved into the garbage article as well, I'm not sure. Penyulap ☏ 10:46, 12 Jun 2012 (UTC)
Penyulap I wish you'd quit calling the article a piece of crap which infers that the editors are inept and stupid. The article is not perfect but we have put endless hours into it and continue to try to improve it. Furthermore, please quit going out of you way to make snarky digs at Centrify. We have all disagreed from time to time and have been able to move forward from any hard feelings for the sake of the article. Sindinero, I think that's a good idea. Gandydancer (talk) 11:48, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
I most obviously did not say anything about "press from other countries". That's just silly. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 14:44, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
"editorials by the state news agencies of China, Iran, North Korea, etc." Penyulap ☏ 16:36, 13 Jun 2012 (UTC)
Yeah. Other countries were mentioned in that comment. If you don't take that incredibly brief snippet out of context, it is clear I am not talking about "press from other countries", but rather "government controlled propaganda factories of authoritarian regimes". Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:52, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
So you were talking about more press from more countries then ? Penyulap ☏ 02:07, 14 Jun 2012 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to rephrase that question. Its meaning is a mystery to me. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:10, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Hijacking of OWS protests by anarchists

This has been a widely noted phenomenon. It seems the usual scenario is that an otherwise peaceful OWS protest is marred by a small gang of black-masked anarchists smashing things. Currently the article gives no attention to this trend, but it has been regarded as notable by the media and, apparently, by protesters themselves. Additionally, since we're giving significant article space to sources purporting to set forth the anarchist lineage of OWS, readers would be disserved and misled by a failure to also mention the uncomfortable tension between ordinary OWS protesters and the folks that show up to break windows. By covering the one aspect but not the other, our presentation is skewed. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:22, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

By drawing a distinction between "ordinary OWS protesters" and anarchists -- in your naive, uninformed characterization, the "folks that show up to break windows" -- you're not only showing your bias, you're offering a shaky foundation on which to base edits to this article. Whether you're aware of the fact or not, such a simplistic dichotomy between 'good' and 'bad' protestors already constitutes analysis; if worked into the article, it would be WP:OR.
I have no problems, as I've said before, with presenting various and opposing views of a contested movement, so long as we present them as particular views. The anarchists in many cities, for their part, are sore about providing the organizational forms and laying the groundwork for the movement and often being hounded or witchhunted out of it, and see the more recent fractures and attempts to divide the movement into 'good' and 'bad' protesters as a form of cooptation. These are important and interesting debates, and I do think they should be reflected as a vital part of OWS, so long as we can do so responsibly.
Starting a talk section called "Hijacking of OWS protests by anarchists" is hardly an auspicious start. Sindinero (talk) 15:33, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi, this is not a concept I simply made up. A quick google search will reveal that this exact terminology has been used by both outside commentators and insiders frustrated at being associated with violent action. So kindly spare me the vapid lecture and personal attack. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:43, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for engaging with the content of what I actually said. This is promising. Sindinero (talk) 15:51, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Likewise, I appreciate your continued willingness to focus on the contributor, not the content. The single most helpful thing you can do on an article Talk page is disregard what the other editor says and accuse him of bias. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:06, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
The difference is that I'm engaging what you're saying. I didn't disregard what you said at all, and my comment was a response to yours. I accused you of bias because of what you've said, not because I'm imputing a given position to you. This is a courtesy you haven't extended to other editors here in your continued and abrasive accusations of POV bias and anarchist cheerleading. The characterization of a political movement is a hugely complex thing, especially when it's a movement in flux. It can't be reduced to cliched soundbites or simplistic all-or-nothing statements, nor does it do any justice to the topic to suggest a facile dichotomy between 'good' and 'bad' protesters. These issues take thought and consideration; yet when other editors take the time to engage with your points, you're dismissive and rude if there's no "clear (read: facile) message". That's not super productive. I've said what I think about your suggestion, and I'll leave it at that. I'd be interested to hear what others think on the topic. Sindinero (talk) 16:26, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
You've done little but impute straw-men positions to me. The only "difference" is that I suggested the inclusion of material that does not further the particular narrative that you wish this article to convey, apparently prompting you to manufacture absurd criticisms in an effort at character assassination. If you have some source definitively sorting out the respective roles of anarchist ideals and anarchist protesters, do let everyone know. Otherwise, drop the chicken-little whinging about what you think the worst possible outcome could be if we dare to consider reflecting this view; also spare everyone the TRUTHY lectures and the frankly idiotic comments about the sophistication (or lack thereof) of other editors. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:50, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure how quoting things you've actually said has much to do with straw men. I don't want this article to convey any particular narrative -- can you show me diffs where I've made edits to the article that demonstrate your allegation? What I want is for this article to reflect the complex and contested status of the various discourses, struggles, and actions that comprise OWS. Nothing more, nothing less. I've said that I think we should include a section on the debate concerning the relationship between anarchism and OWS; approaching it under the rubric of "hijacking" is maybe the worst single way to go about this. And what exactly do you have in mind by "some source definitively sorting out the respective roles of anarchist ideals and anarchist protesters"? You mean above and beyond the current sourcing (including the recent addition of a peer-reviewed piece) concerning anarchism and OWS? It seems strange to request other editors to produce a silver-bullet single-source that will sort out the entire discussion once and for all. Would it be too optimistic to ask you to elaborate on this? Sindinero (talk) 22:48, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Good suggestion. Chris Hedges has spoken of this problem and he should know since he has remained intimately connected to the movement. Do you have any refs Centrify? Sindinero, quit going out of your way to look for a fight. Gandydancer (talk) 16:46, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure how pointing out the complexities of this issue and the problem with framing it like this is going out of my way to look for a fight, and I think my tone is pretty measured here, considered. Like I said, I think the article should reflect the discussion about the role of anarchism, but should do so responsibly. I'm also continually mystified as to how you and Centrify can view the inclusion of claims concerning the relationship of OWS to anarchism -- presented as claims and not as judgments -- as POV-pushing, while the repeated attempts to make negative judgments on anarchism are somehow unproblematic. I'd respectfully ask you to consider what it might mean for your own assumptions that you can offhandedly refer to the role of anarchism within OWS as "this problem." It's not up to us to pass judgments on a political movements: we need instead to responsibly present the major contentions, issues, debates, etc., as such. It's my impression that Centrify (and perhaps you?) would prefer to present this issue as a "problem" or a "hijacking" in the article proper; I hope this isn't the case. Sindinero (talk) 16:59, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I've pretty clearly stated that it seems like a very substantial POV forking/weight problem to me, since everyone else's views on OWS languish in obscurity at the sub article, while you apparently wish to give even further coverage here to what one outspoken anarchist scholar thinks. Unfortunately, you didn't hear that.
I'm puzzled by what you are referring to when you speak of "repeated attempts to make negative judgments on anarchism" by others, while you are (of course) just innocently and neutrally reflecting sources. That seems like an accusation that sounded nice when you wrote it but has absolutely no substance behind it (a habit of yours, I suppose?) And since it seems you can't say 100 words without questioning the motivations of other editors, I wonder if you could take a moment to ask yourself why—if we have sources showing that protesters or commentators complained that a protest or message was "hijacked" by anarchists, or complaining about being associated with anarchist goals or views—it would be "irresponsible" to reflect those views. Who, exactly, is in charge of second-guessing reliable sources because they are not appropriately on-message? Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 18:14, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
It would be irresponsible to "reflect" those views if we come across as making judgments in WP's editorial voice, rather than presenting them as one set of particular views in a contentious debate. This has nothing to do with staying 'on message', and I'm not sure how any even remotely reasonable reading of what I wrote could come up with the suggestion that I want to second-guess reliable sources. You've made your dislike of anarchism clear on multiple occasions; I hope you see that what any of us feel about a particular political tendency is totally irrelevant in this context. As I've said way too many times now, I'm all for a responsible presentation of complex, contentious debates, but not for WP articles making undigested judgments based on partisan positions. Sindinero (talk) 22:39, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
So the entirety of your comments here were personal attacks, completely unconcealed assumptions of bad faith, and lectures about policy that I obviously had no intention of violating. In a nutshell you had no objection to reflecting this sort of material, and really had nothing to say other than that you don't trust my intentions? Absolutely delightful. Cheers, bro. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:09, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Not at all, sis. I was drawing a distinction between presenting a debate as a debate and importing one's personal political beliefs in the form of an ideological distinction between "good" and "bad" protesters. I hope you can see the difference there. It's not unreasonable, given your oft-stated views on anarchism and the wording of the comment with which you began this thread, for me to be apprehensive that your intentions might tend towards the latter possibility. You consistently accuse me of bad faith editing, and yet you haven't backed this up with diffs, and seem uninterested in answering any of the more specific questions I've posed in this thread. So yes, I suppose once you subtract all the content from what I say, you're left with very little. If you don't want to engage my specific questions or hesitations, perhaps we could end this back-and-forth and move on to specific suggestions about how to structure the section in question..? Sindinero (talk) 18:19, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I hope you won't mind if I take a moment to unpack all the absurdity from your above comment. First, obviously I never said that this article should draw any "ideological distinction", much less one based on my own personal political beliefs. It's dishonest and insulting to suggest otherwise, and you derailed this discussion from the very beginning by doing so. Second, your unfounded assumption about my intentions is only "reasonable" if we change the G in AGF to a B, yielding a policy that encourages editors to attack the motivations of other editors instead of engaging them in discussion of content. Third, at no point have I accused you of bad-faith editing; that's a claim you can't substantiate, and I'd like you to retract it right now. Fourth, you can't seriously take me to task for not responding to your "more specific questions" in this thread when you went to so much trouble to preface these questions with finger-pointing and accusations, opening the discussion with character attacks rather than on-topic discussion. Surely you don't expect me to sit around attentively waiting for you to say something pertinent?
As for "how to structure" the section in question, I'd suggest that we include some of the published accounts of OWS protesters complaining at the disruption by anarchists or at the risk of being associated with anarchists, and/or similar discussion from outside commentators. But I'm sure the sky will fall if we do that, no? Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:06, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
No, you never explicitly said that the article should draw ideological distinctions, but the comment with which you open this thread, not to mention the title you chose, already draws an ideological distinction between "good" and "bad" protesters that seems to fit well with your views on the role of anarchism within the movement. That was my point, and it wasn't finger-pointing or a character attack, but an engagement with the content of your proposal. I'm not sure how to make this clearer. As for the other point (allegations of bad faith on your part), that's my mistake, and I take it back. I had you confused with another editor, and shouldn't have been so hasty. Apologies on that score.
No, the sky won't fall, and that's not a bad suggestion. The tension within OWS re: anarchism is an interesting and salient feature, and certainly warrants representation. But in my understanding it's (also) been largely an internal discussion within OWS -- there are non-anarchist OWS protesters who dislike the anarchist aspects, there are anarchist OWS protesters who were there from the start who feel they've been shut out or coopted, there are non-anarchist OWS protesters who are sympathetic to the anarchists. It's a messy situation and can't be boiled down to the simple dichotomy of [normal] OWS protesters vs. [outside] anarchists: that's already analysis, a value judgment, and factually incorrect. I think this is a fair hesitation to register in a talk page discussion of potential content. Sindinero (talk) 07:22, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
The comment with which I open this thread and the title I chose both reflect notable views that have been published in reliable sources. You, apparently straining to find a way to make this debate personal, have chosen to ignore that and fixate on what you think my views are. This "value judgment" that you insist I plan on making is fictitious; it exists only in your head. I have neither expressed nor implied any intention to distinguish between "good" and "bad" protesters. I have only said that we should be mentioning the published accounts of complaints about, e.g., disruptions of OWS protests by anarchists. If these accounts draw some distinction between groups of protesters, and that distinction that casts anarchists (or some anarchists) in a negative light, there's really nothing you can object to. If you find any claims being made that are "factually incorrect", then we can cross that bridge when we come to it, but I caution you that per policy, we're not going to be removing or re-inventing notable published viewpoints simply because you, a Wikipedia editor, disagree with their substance or find that they miss the point.
This entire conversation has been an unnecessary odyssey into your irrelevant and frankly unfounded suspicions about my motivations. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 19:03, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

This article seems to have a lot of information. [7] Gandydancer (talk) 18:40, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the source, Gandydancer. Any verdict on whether truthout counts as a RS? Sindinero (talk) 22:50, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Welcome! No I don't know. I read the whole thing and the Hedges article too to refresh my memory. I also read our Oakland article. I'd sure advise reading the followup notes at the article too - good info there as well. Gandydancer (talk) 22:57, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, which followup notes at which article? Sindinero (talk) 23:01, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
That would be the "comments" section at the bottom of the article I referenced. I've read the first few only... Gandydancer (talk) 23:30, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I usually try to avoid those, since for most stories, topics, and publications, it's largely a stream of undigested prejudice. Sometimes entertaining, but in any case, nothing we could use here. Sindinero (talk) 09:33, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
That is not my experience at all. I sometimes post at Common Dreams and find the Comments very well-thought out and informative - and once and awhile even better than the article itself. Of course they can't be used here but they are helpful to help us to know what's going on within the movement, which is good for the article in general. Gandydancer (talk) 10:56, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough, and after reading the comments, I see that there are some quite thoughtful ones. Nevertheless, I think forums like these need to be taken with a grain of salt; it could be quite problematic to (mis)take a given comment board for the pulse of the movement. The different and competing tendencies also tend to post in different arenas, and many voices will be absent from a forum like that one. I think you're quite right that we'll be better equipped to edit this article the more we know about how things are going for and within OWS (even in sources that don't work for the article space); the risk would be that a limited exposure to the full breadth of discussions on OWS might support our various tacit assumptions about the movement and play into our editing in unhelpful ways. That's my caveat, anyway, but I enjoyed reading that source, and think that (if it counts as an WP:RS) it provides a well-balanced, restrained survey of the various positions at stake, so thanks again. Sindinero (talk) 11:05, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Well, I just assumed that the editors here are aware that comments to an opinion piece are just that - more opinions. I read them and don't find that I'm putting myself at any risk, but others can make their own decision about that. Gandydancer (talk) 11:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
The risk I referred to wasn't about mistaking opinions for facts, but about seeing one particular group of opinions as representative of a larger whole. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. Sindinero (talk) 12:30, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Let's give our editors the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are bright enough to realize the difference. Let's quit splitting hairs and move forward. Gandydancer (talk) 12:49, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I happened to run across this: Graeber's reply to Hedges [8]] Gandydancer (talk) 12:20, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit War Prevention: Origins of Occupy Wall Street

Movement Resource Group "creation" date and timeline

Current edit states "On March 3rd, a group of business leaders [...] created a new working group..." in reference to the Movement Resource Group. While the creation date of the group might be hard to pin down using sources, there are sources indicating that this date is at least inaccurate, and shouldn't be presented as such. Assigning the funders as "creators" of the group also seems specious, as it appears they were courted by existing OWS participants.

Of those sources, only the WSJ piece looks usable, but it does appear to show that the date used in the article can't be right. It was reworded to track the WSJ source; the sentence begins, "In late February 2012 it was reported that..." This gets us out of having to pin down the date. Thanks for the heads-up. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 19:55, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Trinity Church

Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church, an early supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement based in Zuccotti Park, had allowed Occupy members the use of meeting rooms and offices, computers, WiFi, bathrooms and cell phone recharging. When forced to leave Zuccotti Park, Occupy wanted the church to give them Duarte Square, located at the Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue) and Canal Street, originally a bequest of Queen Ann of England in 1705, now valued at one billion dollars. Trinity spokespeople refused citing safety concerns and the lack of facilities for a large scale occupation of the area. Occupiers protested and marched on Duarte Park, forcing their way trough the fence. Arrests were made and eight members of Occupy Wall Street were convicted of trespassing.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/06/occupy-wall-street-loses-trinity-church-trial.html

That's my suggestion for information about this. I originally came to Wikipedia to find out about this situation and I'm trying to provide a brief entry. This was an unusual event in which the people protesting corporate greed demanded more than their benefactors were willing to give. Labellesanslebete (talk) 19:17, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Good suggestion and I hope to see some mention in the article as well. Gandydancer (talk) 20:10, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
There has actually been some copy on this over at the Timeline of Occupy Wall Street article for some time. I've pasted that copy below. Any further thoughts are welcome.

December 2011

December 17 (Day 92) – On the three-month anniversary of the OWS protests, police arrested 50 protesters in New York. Organizers of the protest were dubbing it a day to "re-occupy." The protestors surrounded a fenced-off park owned by a church and began climbing over it. Two ladders were placed on either side of the gate, as well as the gate being pulled up from the ground, to allow hundreds of protestors to occupy the park for a few minutes before the police moved in. The protesters attempted to cut through multiple sections of the fence down before the NYPD stopped them.
Thanks! Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:06, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Labellesanslebete, I see that you are a new editor to WP. Would you be willing to write a paragraph or two and add it to the article? Or perhaps you'd like to present it here first if you feel that you would like some help? A google (church+OWS) shows that there are plenty of good references. Gandydancer (talk) 15:26, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Gandydancer; I accept! I try to be neutral, which is not easy. What do you think about what I wrote in my first paragraph? Can you omit anything? I like the info in a long entry to be concise without losing the essentials. Labellesanslebete (talk) 21:24, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Neutrality tag

This appears to have been up for months with nary a discussion of why it is there or what would satisfy the sensibilities of the editor who placed it. The tag should either be discussed ASAP or removed. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 20:10, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

The tag has been removed. No discussion is currently present on this talk page about the article's neutrality. Northamerica1000(talk) 09:10, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it had or has issues but I can't address them at this time due to RL. Sorry. Be——Critical 13:55, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Bloombergville, David DeGraw and the origins of the 99% as a movement and concept before the slogan

We appear to be missing some information from the origins section about the Bloombergville protest and the early organising efforts of several other activists. If some good references can be found it appears that the origins of the 99% start in Febuary of 2010 with a book by one of the organizing participants that then collaborated with Anonymous to form something called the A99. This all well before Greaber and the Tumbler page began using the term on flyers etc.. Could be some information of value to the article.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:15, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

99% Sub-section of origins

Right now we have a rather small subsection of Origins that was created by a blocked user who reverted attempts to incorporate the information into the section itself. I would like the Origins section to have subsections like this as it helps to seperate the different areas that converged to become the September 17 protest. I propose to change the subsection to "The 99%". The article, at the moment, does not address the subject as anything more than a slogan when, in fact, it is a movement within a movement...so to speak. It is the group of individuals percieved to be within this "demographic"(in the form of statistical information based on such), and the actual concept and idea of the 99% verses the 1% of the population divided by income. This section desperately needs to be researched and expanded because I think we have a major chunk of information missing about the motivations of the protestors.--Amadscientist (talk) 20:02, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the article, I'd rather move the entire 99% section into another section, on the movement's influence. As it stands right now, it has no support for the connection with the movement's origins, I think, though of course it's possible there are sources that can support it. Burritoburritoburrito (talk) 12:53, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
I have to agree. The context with OWS is not in origins alone and as I said we are missing a good deal of information here. I suggest a seperate section below origins with the simpleheader "99%".--Amadscientist (talk) 02:23, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Pepper-spray cop, a Staten Islander, is named in 2 federal lawsuits

Hi all, I am wondering if you have any input as to how this should be added. Does it deserve it's own subsection with the other court cases? The pepper spraying of the 2 women in NYC is what put OWS on the map. Before that, there was no mainstream mention of the protests. But once the videos went viral, it was in the news for months.

Also, NYPD won't provide a defense atty for Officer Bologna.

Hopefully someone here can add this into the article. petrarchan47Tc 21:02, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Also this regarding NYPD: The New York Police Department Declares Open Season on the First Amendment A new report highlights the full extent of the NYPD's efforts to suppress political speech during the Occupy Wall Street protests. petrarchan47Tc 03:14, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I would certainly agree it should have its own section. There is no question but that it was a turning point in the protest--in fact, Bologna even had his own article at one time. Gandydancer (talk) 11:53, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I added a somewhat off-topic article about the NYPD's war on First Amendment also. I wonder how this should be added. petrarchan47Tc 07:02, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Semi-protection?

I stand in solidarity with the Occupiers; I believe in what they fight for. But should we actually give this page protection? Like just in case someone critical of the movement or a Tea Party supporter might vandalize?--Evanaeus (talk) 03:58, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

That isn't why pages are semi protested.--Amadscientist (talk) 04:30, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
And it is not protected now.--Amadscientist (talk) 04:32, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Huh? I thought that was the main reason.--Evanaeus (talk) 21:44, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Pages are protected to prevent vandalism, but we try to wait until it is vandalized regularly before protecting--we don't protect preemptively. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:39, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Gotcha.--Evanaeus (talk) 19:22, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Merge proposal for Timeline of Occupy Wall Street

I've gone and removed big chunks of the Timeline of Occupy Wall Street article, as it was often irrelevant, not specific to OWS, POV, or unsourced. I'd vote for a merge to the main article, as there is hardly any content in this one that is notable, and it's all a repeat of what is in the main OWS article. I imagine someone will try to revert my changes, but to be honest, I was pretty lenient on axing stuff from here, and much more could go. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 02:09, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to remove that merge proposal and suggest it be proposed for the Occupy movement article as there is a consensus that removed that section from this article and placed all information on the timeline article. See archive. Sorry, however if you get support to re-add the section here we can follow that new consenus, but at this time it is not appropriate to tag the article as a formal proposal. But thank you so much for not adding it without discussion!--Amadscientist (talk) 04:12, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree with MadSci. Gandydancer (talk) 14:51, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The 1970s band Spring (American band)

Do we really need that hatnote? Does anyone seriously think that people will end up here, and lost, when looking for that band? --Nigelj (talk) 08:23, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I removed it. I agree. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 22:35, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

"Ongoing"

I notice the status of the occupation still reads as "ongoing", even though the occupation was evicted by force months ago and Zucotti Park is presently empty. I think the status should be changed to have ended when the Occupation itself was evicted by force. --Michaelwuzthere (talk) 01:04, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Occupy Wall Street remains quite active, despite the park eviction. See: Occupy Wall Street Events and Occupywallst.org for starters. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:44, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
Collapsing chat that has no value without deleting

===“Ongoing”… FOREVER?===

This seems like more a piece of Anti-American, Anti-Capitalist propaganda than anything else! Anyone can say anything “is going on in the internet”… for how much years? Until 2040? 2050? 2100? Until Capitalism falls? This is not NPOV!--177.32.130.81 (talk) 09:21, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

This movement is no longer "Ongoing". There are no longer camps set up in any US city. The movement, i.e. protesters, may still be ongoing using the moniker "occupy" but the encampment is long gone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.9.249.116 (talk) 17:00, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I think we need to put wording in the lead that explains that OWS is the name of the movement so that we don't continue to need to explain that OWS is ongoing even though there is no longer a physical presence of a camp. I think it should be the second sentence of the lead to clear it up right off the bat. Thoughts? Gandydancer (talk) 14:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
While I'm fairly indifferent as to what its status is, I'd tend to think that the movement that is ongoing is the Occupy movement as opposed to "Occupy Wall Street" itself. Wall Street doesn't currently have an established occupation or even continuous protest, and while there is a website that organizes marches, etc., they would likely better fall in the Occupy Movement, as a post-OWS reaction. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 22:46, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
Occupy Wall Street is not ongoing. Whether the Occupy movement is ongoing is a debate for that article. People don't even congregate on Federal Hall anymore, and there is no police presence as there are no protesters. --David Shankbone 23:24, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Here is the OWS's most recent newsletter:

Collapsed protest literature -- if it's a source, link it -- if it's not, forget it

Our mass mobilization of the 99% on September 15 - 17 is coming up soon. And as it was when OWS first began, the most impactful way to help is to show up, do your thing and help all our voices be heard!

Below you will find a series of actions and events building up to S17 as well as planning meetings and conference calls where you could help organize the litany of S17 festivities throughout the weekend. You can also check out the Occupy Classifieds for immediate needs leading up to our one year anniversary. Have a great idea? Make it so!


Help Build the People's Wall on S17 Wednesday, August 29th, 5pm Liberty Square - Zuccotti Park The morning of September 17th will include a gathering at the intersections immediately surrounding the New York Stock Exchange. Each intersection will feature performers and open public speak outs, followed by a mass sit-in. Join us this Wednesday, when we will talk about and practice this planned action.

Free University Planning Meeting Thursday, August 30th, 6pm CUNY Graduate Center - 365 Fifth Ave - Room 5414. Bring ID and snacks. All are welcome. The Free University of NYC will host a week of free educational courses and events in Madison Square Park this September 18-22. Help us organize all this at our planning meeting.

S17 Affinity Spokes Friday, August 31st, 6pm Foley Square Come to the affinity group spokescouncil to plan actions on the birthday of Occupy Wall Street, September 17th. An affinity group is a group of friends or family. Its a group of people you trust. Its also a group that shares a political or tactical goal. 5pm: Trainings on affinity groups: learn more about how to form an affinity group. 6pm: Spokescouncil begins

Occupy Dance Every Saturday and Wednesday, 7pm The Wall Street Bull, 1 Bowling Green Help build momentum leading up to September 17 on join Occupy Dance in a peaceful protest at the Wall Street bull. Join us as we celebrate the iconic image of the ballerina on the bull and exercise our freedom of expression. All are welcome to join in a full ballet warm up and creative practice.

S17 Convergence Planning Saturday, September 1st, 2pm The Garibaldi Statue at Washington Square Park, 1 Washington Square Join us for our fourth meeting for planning convergence components for September 17th and the preceding weekend (September 15-16). Check out the schedule we’ve developed and look for the OWS Orientation Banner!

S17 Work Sprint Sunday, September 2nd, Noon - 4pm 33 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn Come join teams from across OWS as we work on all the exciting stuff that needs doing for S17: websites, volunteer coordination, calendar updates, prep for the Monday Spokes meeting and anything else. Please email services@s17nyc.org for location and further information.

S17 Coordination Meeting Monday, September 3rd, 6pm - 9pm Judson Memorial Church, Washington Square Park South Interested in planning or plugging in to S17 activities? Come and bring your creative juices so we can make an amazing cocktail of a weekend celebrating a new chapter of Occupy!

National Planning Call for September 17th Tuesday, September 4th, 7pm Location: Your phone Join occupiers nation-wide through InterOccupy as we organize for the big day. Pass on the plans from your city to date (estimate numbers interested in coming if there was free transport, solidarity actions, etc), and help us help you best plug into any available resources.

The Crushing Burden of Debt Tuesday, September 4th, 7pm McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince Street 76% of Americans are in serious debt. At least 1 in 7 is already being pursued by debt collectors. Median household debt in America has risen to $75,600, and much of it can never be repaid in our lifetimes. Credit was supposed to help us realize our dreams. Instead, predatory lenders are rapidly closing off the opportunities that a democracy ought to nurture. Panel members will discuss the consequences, and the possibilities for debt resistance.

Call for Artists: Submit Media for S17 Anytime. From anywhere. This movement can't happen without your creativity. Please share pictures, videos, drawings, signs, posters, or anything else we can re-post online!

Administrative Announcement from our friends at NYCGA.net:

We will be starting over with new and improved events listings! If you have events on NYCGA.net they will need to be reposted after September 5th. For more details about how to make sure your awesome events are posted now and going forward, please contact tech@nycga.net with questions.

For Text Message alerts on your cellphone about daily events, actions, and important information, sign up for the ComHub SMS blasts by texting @owscom to 23559.

Gandydancer (talk) 18:40, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

As with most of the planned events, there is hardly a turnout. They have events nearly every day, but it can hardly be called alive or ongoing just because a group posts events on their own website. Were the events notable and if they caused a significant ongoing presence as an entity specific to OWS, then this specific OWS movement could be considered reborn, but until that happens, there's really no evidence it is truly ongoing. The most recent "big" event they had was May Day, and that hardly had notable turnout in itself beyond the standard yearly protests unassociated with OWS/Occupy.
A further note: Occupy’s New York General Assembly, which was largely the monetary arm of OWS, was dissolved and its assets frozen several months ago (See this for example) Coupled with the lack of real activity within the last few months, OWS can hardly be considered ongoing. Unless there's more opposition, I'd vote for removing the ongoing status until something else major happens to bring it back to life. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 22:37, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Your link actually does not support the claim just made above. All that article says is the GA Website stopped functioning because of infighting (some of which we saw splashed on this page) and that they froze there own accounts to stop further disbursement of funds to save it for bail. You can't just say something as been disbanded from that source at all. Get better sources that state implicitly that the NYCGA and OWS organisation has disbanded and we can use it, but these are extraordinary claims that require extraodinary sources.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:04, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

No Longer Continuous - Araignee's informed points aside, OWS has morphed into an organization like Food Not Bombs, where there isn't a continuous presence, but more of a active roster of events. I don't think this meets any reasonable criteria for continuity. -- Veggy (talk) 13:27, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Uh...what criteria is that? I have never heard of this guideline before. Please give a link.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:08, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Actually, that's the sign of a problem with the template. Is there anything in the article to support the claim that the organization is continuous in the way it obviously was during the protests at Zuccotti? So, what are the guidelines that define "continuity" (especially after such a momentous event as its eviction)? -- Veggy (talk) 02:15, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Actually, we would need some confirmation in the form of a reliable secondary source to make claims that anything has ended, however with David Shankbones comment, I wonder if the answer is simple remove the entire mention of Continuous. The simple fact is that Occupy Wall Street is not the protest at Zuccotti Park. Yes, the movement is still ongoing, but the point here is that the protest group known as "Occupy Wall Street", the original protest, is still intact and still very well funded. Just remove mention of ongoing or not ongoing. Any declaration of this not being ongoing is OR and syntesis without a reference and all the references that I find that are RS point to the groups in other cities using the name "Occupy [fill in the blanck]" to illustrate that the groups simply are not encamped, but that is not the definition of a protest. To accuraty reference that Occupy Wall Street is no longer "Active' you must establish that the group itself has disbanded.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:55, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree, but your justification is backwards. Reliable sources are need to prove that OWS is continuous, not that it's not. The last mention in the "Main Organization" subhead is in March, and the "Court Cases" subhead mentions something in May. -- Veggy (talk) 02:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Uhm...no. Reliable, secondary sources are required for ANY claim Period that is likely to be challenged. But I think just removing the mention is best at this point.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:55, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but we were talking about continuance, not "ANY claim." Stay with the discussion. -- Veggy (talk) 22:49, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
The lack of coverage and sources stating that it is active and ongoing would mean the burden of evidence lies on sources to support its continuing existence. Take for example the 15 October 2011 global protests, which is written in past tense. If a movement fizzles out, there won't be many sources saying so; instead, it'll just die quietly. That doesn't prevent a rebirth of the same idea in the same place (OWS part 2, part 3, etc.) or a transition from the physical presence to the movement, but the movement has its own article, so doesn't need to be repeated here, and the physical presence of OWS is non-existent.
Sidenote: As for the OWS website, it would be paradoxical to say that the site is the official site, as a tenet of the Occupy movement and OWS occupation is that there is no leadership. Instead, it is a group of Occupy sympathizers that are doing their best to further the overarching movement, but can't logically claim to be officially and intrinsically linked to the specific OWS presence in Zucotti. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 17:14, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
I've removed the reference to "ongoing" in a hopefully neutral way that will satisfy both sides: "OWS is the name given to..." is tense-ambiguous. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 17:26, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
All speculation aside, we don't decide what is or isn't official due to our own interpretations of the subject.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

There are now a couple of news articles discussing whatever the current status of OWS is. One article by the WaPo, A year later, Occupy movement struggles for relevance, notes that a recent Reuters poll showed that 45% of respondents did not identify with the OWS movement at all, while only 9% said they "strongly identified" with the movement. (As an aside, another poll by NBC, not mentioned in the article, found that 2/3 of respondents did not support the OWS movement.)

Lots of things could be said about OWS at this point, but the one clear theme that seems to be emerging, as noted by WaPo, is that the movement is "struggling for relevance". Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:47, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Trimming the article

This article has become quite overloaded with tangential side notes, etc. I've tried to clean up the first few sections, but would appreciate the help of others to make this a lean and clean article that clearly outlines the topic. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:48, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Editor Marxcubes made a string of edits earlier today that left some parts of the article in ruins. These are strong words but not inappropriate when a new editor makes drastic changes, sometimes with no summary at all, on an article that experienced editors have debated with thousands of words and thus obviously a highly contended article, etc., etc. I left a note on his/her page. I'd be glad to work with anyone that wants to go through the article and look for improvements but I'm not sure what you mean by "lean and clean". Gandydancer (talk) 22:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
What is your evaluation of the state of the article at this time? What's needed, and is it in a worse state now than before Marxcubes edits? Be——Critical 17:12, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Origins - OWS being the leader of the movements around the world - A big mistake

Why do people insist on saying "Adbusters initiated the protest, which has led to Occupy protests and movements around the world"? I don´t give credit! Adbusters only animated to introduce in USA a movement that was already ongoing in Europe for, at least, 6 moths (Spanish 3/15/2011). People in Europe saw this movement reaching Wall Street when they had been months occupying squares with that same slogan ('Toma la plaza', translated or maybe mistraslated from Europe as 'Take the Square'). And now USA is going down in History as the perpetrator and leader? So months taking squares didn´t worth anything? USA was almost the last country to join it, and Europe witnessed it after months of being in that movement. Just because it was not in USA media so nobody realized it there? OWS is an exact replica of the movement as it was created in Madrid (Puerta del Sol).

The Adbusters themselves stated so in their call saying people in USA had to rise up as Arab Spring and Spanish 'Acampadas' ('Encampments').

I provided proof enough with this:

The Canadian activist group Adbusters initiated the protest, inspired by the Arab Spring and Spanish 'Take the Square'<ref>{{cite web|title='Original Adbuster´s Call #OCCUPYWALLSTREET|url=http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet.html|web=Adbusters.org}}</ref>, taking from the last, the encampment and assembly method.

The link is: http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet.html

This is just a question of fidelity to the truth that millions of people lived in Europe. Now you can edit it again and again, but I hope History to be more truthfull than this wiki sheet.

I say this not in anger (I just express it as my English skills allow me to do). I won´t start an editing war, that´s preciselly the opposite that this movement means. But that´s the way it just was, and won´t change because some people didn´t witness it.

Marxcubes (talk) 19:58, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I now see this issue has been discussed several times, so I guess, this is going to stay like this no matter what. Thanks gosh this is not gospell.
Marxcubes (talk) 21:03, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Anniversay

The anniversary marks the beginning of the occupation, not the arrests or any other aspect of the occupation. If in the article we want to then describe the occupation we must do so in a neutral manner , ie, what about the occupation was being celebrated. So this content should be layered. A) Celebration. B) aspects of the occupation that might be celebrated. For any of this you need sources or its OR. What do the sources say was being celebrated beyond the "beginning" ? (olive (talk) 15:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC))

Thanks for the clean up, Becritical. Not sure what happened there.(olive (talk) 15:09, 30 September 2012 (UTC))

The text under discuussion does not refer to the arrests, etc., during the occupation - it refers to what happened on the 1 year anniversary day. See below. Tvoz/talk 18:55, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Recent POV Tag

The following prose, IMO, takes a dispassionate tone and is well-sourced. Is there some problem with including it?

Police surrounded groups of protesters, at times pulling protesters from the crowds to be arrested for blocking pedestrian traffic. A police lieutenant instructed reporters not to take pictures. Police knocked city councilman Jumaane D. Williams off a bench with batons after he refused to move. There were 185 arrests across the city.

I see there seems to be some edit warring that could possibly be cleared up with a brief discussion. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:21, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Please see my post above which open this discussion and pertains to OR/ sources and syntax. The content under discussion is about the anniversary that marks the beginning of something. I revert once so will be moving away from this, but I hope OR and an obvious syntax error will be considered in relation to this content(olive (talk) 15:30, 30 September 2012 (UTC))
Olive, re your note on my talk page, I sure don't know how that happened. I had replied to Factchecker's post and ran into an edit conflict. Rather than repost my reply I decided to wait for a bit before reposting. I sure didn't mean to delete your post and am sorry for the problem. Gandydancer (talk) 19:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. No worries.(olive (talk) 19:54, 30 September 2012 (UTC))

Thank you for the reply but I don't see the connection between the two disputes. What does the question of what's being celebrated have to do with what actually happened on that date when protesters hit the street? Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:14, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm good with either taking the statistic about arrests out, or having significantly more than that one detail... the only thing I think is POV is to have only the arrests in there, as if that's the only important thing going on. The arrests could be in there with more details of nearly any sort. It's just having them as the only stat that I think is POV. Be——Critical 17:14, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I tend to agree and I don't see why the additional details are problematic. I do see why mentioning the number of arrests and nothing else could threaten the NPOV. Counterpoint? Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:32, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

edit conflict

The content is about the anniversary of an event, not about the event itself. The entire article is about the event. Sure, you could add more content here about the "event" but why would we want to repeat what's already elaborately described in the article. If you do want to explain again about the event, Occuppy Wall Street, you should first begin a new sentence because you are sailing into a different topic than the anniversary. Second you must, to satisfy NPOV include more than a single-sided point about the event/protests.
Sources do not have to be measured. What has to be measured is how we use and include content supported by those sources. So again if you want to include content about the "event " you must include more than a sinlge point or you have created a lack of balance in the POV. I personally would not inlcude more than what is below. I don't think the article needs redundant content, but this is just my opinion.(olive (talk) 17:35, 30 September 2012 (UTC))
"On September 17, 2012, protesters returned to Zuccotti Park to mark the one year anniversary of the beginning of the occupation,...."

First, olive, the text that is being recommended to add is not about the 2011 event itself, it is about what went on on the 1 year anniversary, September 17, 2012. The 185 arrests we are talking about all took place on the anniversary, and the wording under discussion all refers to what happened on the anniversary date, not what happened any time before September 17, 2012. There were many more than 185 arrests over the course of the Occupy Wall Street event in 2011, plus more in March 2012, the six month anniversary, plus more on September 17, 2012 (the 185 we're talking about). So your point is moot - that's not what is being done here. Please read the sources regarding the September 17, 2012 anniversary commemoration, starting with this one.

Secondly, we've had various versions of this in and out of the article over the last week or so, and I want to clarify where I stand on it. I was trying to compromise on the wording as I thought the "POV" objection was to the details - not the arrest number - that had been added beyond the arrests, but it appears I misunderstood what Becritical was saying. So to be clear about my edits, and what I actually think should be in the article: I think that it is misleading and incomplete to state only that protesters gathered to commemorate the anniversary of the beginning of the occupation with nothing about what went on that day - that is not the whole story as reported in reliable sources. And I see Becritical's concern about stating only the arrest figure, so I think we should mention the 185 arrests, with the details as Centrify wrote them posted them above, which is clear and neutral. I support one paragraph at the end of the Zuccotti section reading:

On September 17, 2012, protesters returned to Zuccotti Park to mark the one year anniversary of the beginning of the occupation. Police surrounded groups of protesters, at times pulling protesters from the crowds to be arrested for blocking pedestrian traffic. A police lieutenant instructed reporters not to take pictures. Police knocked city councilman Jumaane D. Williams off a bench with batons after he refused to move. There were 185 arrests across the city.

sourced to the three sources we currently have, NYT-2012anniv, ST-2012anniv, Politiker-2012anniv. Apologies for my misunderstanding - hope this clarifies. Tvoz/talk 18:44, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

[edit conflict with Tvoz, posting my views just for the record. Also for the record, the prose I pasted above was written by BeCritical before being removed.]
Let's back up a second. I think we've got two separate issues on the table here. (1) whether details of this event belong in the OWS article rather than the timeline sub-article; (2) whether any of the proposed text has POV problems.
On the first issue, the Zucotti Park Encampment section currently looks like a summary of milestones from the Timeline article. Isn't that how it should be? As for whether there is too much detail being proposed, I'm not sure what to think. The date recently reported on was obviously quite significant to OWS and was given attention as such in the media. I currently lean towards the view that the above prose that I quoted does not give too much detail.
On the second issue, I don't see a POV problem. I think there are at least two different kinds of POV problem. Under the first kind, POV problems could arise in the case where individual details are handpicked from a single source in a way that presents a picture that is somehow skewed or materially different from the source. I believe that was BeCritical's concern with reporting the number of arrests and nothing else.
The more "classic" form of POV problem as I understand it is giving too much weight to one notable published POV and not enough to another. But by definition this problem can't even arise until we have more than one notable published POV on the table. We don't exclude a POV just because there is no opposing viewpoint to "balance" it. So in a nutshell, if there are other POVs not being given enough attention, let's talk about them here. But if there aren't other POVs with some kind of equivalent notability, there can't be an argument that this one POV is being given too much weight. Admittedly this is usually a question with no clear-cut answer, but it's commonplace to deal with this exact issue on WP. Consider also that we would accept self-published claims by OWS participants or organizers, and you could expect that to be even more one-sided than an NYT piece that takes a supportive tone. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 18:46, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Littleolive as to simplicity. While for BeCritical disagrees with the number of arrests (I'm fine either way on that part), it's the details that I find have POV (and undue weight...this isn't an article that needs to flush out the details of every event). It is only noteworthy because the media mentioned there was an event. The day-to-day interaction between protesters and police is summarized in detail throughout the article elsewhere, and as stated, it would be redundant and inappropriate to put here. In the details that were added, it was full of POV "police did this and that to protesters". A NPOV paragraph would include both sides, including the harassment and violence against the police. In any case, though, I don't think this detail belongs. A one-phrase sentence is all that is needed for this event. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 18:52, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
While I don't deny that OWS protesters have often been unruly, confrontation-seeking, and antagonistic towards the police, I didn't see anything in the sources about harassment or violence against the police on September 17th. So without that, I still don't think a real NPOV concern has been raised. As for only being noteworthy because the media discussed the event: coverage by major media tends to be *the* guidepost of notability for most article subjects on WP. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 19:02, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I really don't see any POV problems here. The one year anniversary is always notable for such an event. I'd like to see more copy rather than less. I'm in agreement with everything Centrify has had to say. Gandydancer (talk) 19:23, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
[ec] To Araignee: But it appears that Littleolive's comments were based on the incorrect premise that the arrests and details were referring back to the 2011 event - they are not, they are all referring to what happened on the anniversary. Please read the NYT source cited and others - the 185 arrests and the details described in the wording above all are referring to what happened on the anniversary. I think we should include this short summary because without it the sentence could suggest that some people got together and lit a candle in commemoration, but nothing more happened - which is not the case. As Centrify says, if there are RS'd details about other notable things that happened on the anniversary date that represent a different view than what we have, they could be appropriate to include too. Tvoz/talk 19:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I can't keep track of how much indentation there should be, so I'm pulling down a few levels, sorry ;) Yes, I read both Littleolive's comments and the sources. I'd go so far as to argue that where the general public is concerned, and the current media, all that happened was a "candle lit in commemoration". But the problems I have are as follows:
"Police surrounded groups of protesters, at times pulling protesters from the crowds to be arrested for blocking pedestrian traffic." This sounds like they're indiscriminately bullying and arresting people. Blocking pedestrian traffic is a valid violation (in fact, the NYT states this was part of the "People's Wall", actively blocking access and encouraging sit-ins), but this phrase put together looks like they were surrounding them with a cause/effect of blocking traffic. "A police lieutenant instructed reporters not to take pictures." Not sure why this is noteworthy...one person asks them not to take pictures? They weren't ordered or arrested for doing so. "Police knocked city councilman Jumaane D. Williams off a bench with batons after he refused to move." He was trying to get onto a closed sidewalk, not innocently walking around observing. Nor was this related to OWS, despite happening on the same day...police were trying to figure out who punched an officer during a parade in the general area (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/nyregion/city-councilman-jumaane-d-williams-is-handcuffed-at-west-indian-day-parade.html), but that's something for another article another day. One might even mention that Aaron Black, a prominent protester credited with organizing many of the events, announced he was sick of the protest, including both the protesters and the police (http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/19/occupy-wall-street-chief-organizer-unravels-ponders-calling-it-quits/).
I propose this instead, if details are necessary: "Protesters blocked access to the New York Stock Exchange as well as other intersections in the area. This, along with several violations of Zuccotti Park rules that evening, resulted in 185 arrests." ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 19:39, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I stand corrected as far as Mr. Williams. The article I was reading was for last year. That being said, it's irresponsible to drop names into an article like this that don't further the article. He was standing on a bench and got into a scuffle with a female police officer. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 19:47, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I did misunderstand the text, my fault. However the text wasn't clear either, not my fault but I should have checked the sources. The text was not POV though, so efforts to correct that would be good. Apologies for my error. (olive (talk) 19:54, 30 September 2012 (UTC))

Araignee, I think your suggested wording is more POV than the original, as it downplays most of what the NYT source says and ignores any actions of the police that are a part of the story about the 185 arrests. I agree with Centrify's points about POV vs NPOV and our responsibilities there. As to your earlier point about stopping a reporter from taking pictures - the source says One officer repeatedly shoved news photographers with a baton, and a police lieutenant shouted at one point that no more photographs would be permitted, adding, “That’s over.” That is not "one person asks them not to take pictures", that is reported as a police lieutenant ordering them to stop - certainly a police order - and it is significant as it violates freedom of the press as well as the NYPD directive that the police should not interfere with journalists doing their jobs. So it is notable, and I believe should be here. Tvoz/talk 20:57, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the significance of the police officer ordering the press not to do its job is as Tvoz says, and that's why I included it. Also, just to confirm, you guys got it right about my opinions above. Certainly, they were arrested for blocking access and for whatever unruly behavior. Still, what I read of the sources seems to emphasize that police were rather overstepping the proper boundaries of a police force in a democracy. However, the text "Protesters blocked access to the New York Stock Exchange as well as other intersections in the area. This, along with several violations of Zuccotti Park rules..." is good, and we could combine it with the other text to make a more NPOV version which shows both that the rules were broken and also covers the reactions of the police as told in the sources. Be——Critical 21:22, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I can sign on to something like that - I can't take a crack at it now so I hope someone else will. Tvoz/talk 21:45, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree with both of you. Gandydancer (talk) 23:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)


On September 17, 2012, protesters returned to Zuccotti Park to mark the one year anniversary of the beginning of the occupation. Protesters blocked access to the New York Stock Exchange as well as other intersections in the area. This, along with several violations of Zuccotti Park rules, lead police to surround groups of protesters, at times pulling protesters from the crowds to be arrested for blocking pedestrian traffic. A police lieutenant instructed reporters not to take pictures. Police knocked city councilman Jumaane D. Williams off a bench with batons after he refused to move. There were 185 arrests across the city.[8][9][10]

Be——Critical 02:02, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with this minus the Williams sentence. This was not an assault, and no one got hurt. He was simply pushed off of a bench after disregarding police warnings. From his spokesman, "NYPD officers approached the Council Member and pushed him while he tried to explain his purpose at the park. He was neither arrested nor injured during the incident." He wasn't beaten off the bench with batons as it implies. He was simply pushed off using the side of the baton, and it does not add to the article. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:07, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I think Becritical's wording is fine - NPOV and complete, including the Williams sentence. The New York magazine article is titled "NYPD Arrests Almost 200 Occupy Protesters, Roughs Up City Councilman Again" and also has the NYCLU saying Williams was nightsticked - it is cherry picking to select only what his spokesman later said, which was perhaps for political reasons, and ignore the totality of the report, and of the other source (the NYT report). I don't want to get into whether a police officer pushing him off a bench with the side of his baton is ok or if the word "simply" ought to apply, because that's a matter of opinion - we could say that his spokesman later said he wasn't hurt, but I don't see the need to expand that sentence beyond what Becritical wrote, and a city councilman being "roughed up" or similar by the NYPD is certainly notable. Tvoz/talk 04:17, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I think it makes more sense to also mention the clarification from the spokesman. I don't see the harm of mentioning it and I do see the harm of omitting it.
However, I would caution against either reading too much into a source and actually saying something like "NYPD violated freedom of the press", since that's neither stated in the source nor obviously implied by the source. For example, if a reporter is standing as part of an unlawful assembly taking pictures, and the cops break that up, saying "no more pictures", that's not nearly the same as actually prohibiting journalists from taking pictures. Additionally, it's not out of the question that Williams's subsequent "clarification" was designed to avoid a defamation lawsuit, i.e. he may have stretched the truth when initially telling his story, and then walked it back after realizing he could be called to account for it. The point is, we don't know.
So, I would just say that we should be careful to say nothing more than what RS's explicitly say, and at all costs avoid our own armchair lawyering or amateur analysis -- that means both putting unsupported assertions into the article, or using those unsupported assertions as a guide for choosing which sourced material should go in and how it should be presented. Notice that the NYT piece didn't say anything about the NYPD violating freedom of the press, trampling over the first amendment, suppressing speech, etc? That's where we should take our cue. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:38, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Um, what text are you suggesting? I'm strapped for time as I have been all summer... Be——Critical 20:57, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Right, Centrify - I was not suggesting we say anything about freedom of the press or the NYPD directive etc in the text - I was just explaining to Araignee the reason that police ordering news photographers to not take pictures was notable and should be included. As for Williams, it wasn't his report alone, there also is a photograph of the incident, but in any case, again, I wasn't suggesting we go into all of that. Try this wording:

On September 17, 2012, protesters returned to Zuccotti Park to mark the one year anniversary of the beginning of the occupation. Protesters blocked access to the New York Stock Exchange as well as other intersections in the area. This, along with several violations of Zuccotti Park rules, lead police to surround groups of protesters, at times pulling protesters from the crowds to be arrested for blocking pedestrian traffic. A police lieutenant instructed reporters not to take pictures. Police knocked pushed City Councilman Jumaane D. Williams off a bench with batons after he refused to move; his office said he was not injured. There were 185 arrests across the city.[8][9][10][11]

  1. ^ Apps, Peter. "Wall Street Action Part of Global 'Arab Spring'", Reuters, United States, 11 October 2011. Retrieved on 25 June 2012.
  2. ^ Schwartz, Mattathias."Pre-Occupied", New Yorker, New York City, 28 November 2011. Retrieved on 25 June 2012
  3. ^ Flemings, Andrew"Adbusters Speaks Wall Street Protest", The Vancouver Courier, Vancouver of Canada, 27 September 2011. Retrieved on 25 June 2012.
  4. ^ No Author Given,"Occupy Wall Street", Adbusters, Vancouver of Canada, 13 July 2011. Retrieved on 25 June 2012.
  5. ^ Bennett, David."David Graeber, the Anti Leader of Occupy Wall Street", Business Week, New York City, 26 October 2011. Retrieved on 25 June 2012.
  6. ^ Investopedia Contributors.<"Bull Market Definition", Investopedia, United States, No Date Given. Retrieved on 25 June 2012.
  7. ^ Horsely, Scott."The Income Gap: Unfait,, Or Are We Just Jealous?", National Public Radio, United States, 14 January 2012. Retrieved on 25 June 2012.
  8. ^ a b Moynihan, Colin (17 September 2012). "185 Arrested on Occupy Wall St. Anniversary". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  9. ^ a b Barr, Meghan (17 September 2012). "1 year after encampment began, Occupy in disarray". Seattle Times. Associated Press. Retrieved 26 September 2012. Cite error: The named reference "ST-2012anniv" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  10. ^ a b Walker, Hunter (18 September 2012). "Unoccupied: The Morning After in Zuccotti Park". Politicker Network. Observer.com. Retrieved 26 September 2012. Cite error: The named reference "Politiker-2012anniv" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  11. ^ Coscarelli, Joe (September 18, 2012). "NYPD Arrests Almost 200 Occupy Protesters, Roughs Up City Councilman Again". New York. Retrieved 2 October 2012.

Tvoz/talk 01:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

In response to the "stop photographing" part, I don't think there's any indicator of suppression (though police can order people to stop photographing if they are interfering with their work (but I wasn't there, so I can't say what the situation was)), and I think including that statement is trying to imply they are squashing rights. If I'm alone on that, I'll survive with it in. As far as Mr. Williams, though, I don't think it's worth including. That being said, if it is included it needs to include the fact that he was repeatedly asked to get off the bench before being pushed off, then stepped back on in defiance. Watch the video (2:40 to about 3:40, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9EhHwr6Pik). Also, mentioning batons implies he was beaten off the bench, and he wasn't injured in the least. Only sensationalist media is mentioning batons, even though the officer simply was holding it, not swinging it (note that even HuffPost says "pushed" and makes no mention of a baton). All this is not to say we should include video analysis in the article, but instead that we should use reliable and non-sensational sources and phrases that help this article instead of giving undue weight to minor incidents. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:04, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
The New York Times is hardly considered to be sensationalist media. Tvoz/talk 04:50, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, NYT also includes the fact that he was ordered down from the bench twice (but doesn't mention the fact that standing on the benches was prohibited). The real question to me is what does this incident add to the article? Police brutality is the only reason I can see it being in there, and there wasn't any in this instance, nor was there claimed to be. It was simply a two-sided confrontation between police and a councilman. As the proposed text stands, though, it implies brutality with batons (which once again just happened to be held by the (only one) cop that pushed him). The fact that his spokesman came out and refuted brutality makes it a net zero gain, at which point leaving it in simply misleads the reader. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 13:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Could we just say "pushed off" instead of "knocked?" Be——Critical 15:01, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, "pushed" is fine with me. Tvoz/talk 17:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
While I disagree completely with even mentioning the incident, I could live with something like this (knocked->pushed, removing incidental fact that the officer held a baton):
"During one incident, police pushed City Councilman Jumaane D. Williams off a bench after he refused to comply with park rules prohibiting standing on said benches[1] and repeatedly ignored orders step down; his office said he was not injured."
  1. ^ This was both announced as police entered the park (prior to Williams' arrival), and has been a rule for at least 8 months: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/11/zuccotti-park-occupy-wall-street_n_1200422.html
~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
To me the big question is: why include it? It doesn't add anything when taken in context, and out of full context/backstory/aftermath it is hardly related to OWS events in the least beyond being a routine case of civil disobedience at Zuccotti. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:23, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't agree at all to that wording, and the cite wording you have embedded in there is completely OR, again. The HuffPo article makes no mention of Williams, so your analysis that seems to be suggesting that he should have known something that you say was announced before he arrived, is not appropriate. This is considerably more POV than a simple statement that he was pushed off by officers with batons, and your conclusion that the batons were "incidental" is, again, just your opinion. It's not what the NY Mag or NYT articles say, and the spokesperson did not address it. Further, the NYMag article reports that the NYCLU said he was "nightsticked". We should include it because it's notable due to who he is, it's directly related to OWS contrary to your assertion, and sources found it significant enough to include. We're not saying anything about "police brutality" and similarly should not be saying this is routine - the wording we suggested is neutral, sourced, and appropriate. Tvoz/talk 03:50, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

The HuffPo article makes mention of the "no standing on the bench" rule that dates back 8 months or more. I agree that it's as unlikely he knew the rule as you did, which gives context for WHY the police ordered him (at least twice per the NYT article), and then he refused. And yes, mentioning being pushed by a baton or nightsticked or any of those terms implies excessive police violence. Any common reader that reads "with a baton" will think that, hence why it's dangerous to include that. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 04:07, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
I haven't read all the sources, but I can see where mentioning batons gives an incorrect impression. But then that was more or less the whole point of mentioning the incident at all. The source itself is POV in this way. We might just need to leave it out or at least give a summary which is more in line with multiple sources rather than just one. Be——Critical 04:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
This is in line with the only two sources that have been presented that discuss it - the New York Times piece (Moynihan) and the New York Magazine (Cosarelli) piece. Both talk about the officers with batons, plus the NYCLU mention of nightsticking. I don't know what else we should add here - nor do I see why it should be left out. It is not just one source - Araignee has not presented any source that contradicts the two sources we have, and two sources making the same point is more than we often have for including a detail. Since when do we need more than two sources to include something? Tvoz/talk 04:53, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Well that's true as well, it's not our job to judge the POV of sources, only to report what they say. Attribution might be a compromise here. Be——Critical 05:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
That is what I was thinking. Sorry if I did not make it clear. A few points:
1. I agree that the NYT does seem a little POV. Watching the video, the first push is a single female police officer, a full foot shorter than Williams and obviously fairly small compared to him, pushing him with one hand. Only after he defiantly steps back up on the bench does she brace both her hands on the baton and use it to push with both hands. I didn't see a 2nd officer pushing, and the suggestion that anything approaching serious force was involved is quite misleading, IMO.
2. However, it's not our role to second-guess or "explain away" the accounts given by RS's -- especially not a piece presented as straight reporting in the editorial voice of a high-quality source like NYT -- and especially not using a YouTube video as a primary source for OR.
3. Thus the solution, IMO, is to present as much information as can be given a neutral tone and reliable sourcing, WITHOUT appearing to take sides.
I would suggest we take BeCritical's text posted above, with modest changes which I have put in bold:

On September 17, 2012, protesters returned to Zuccotti Park to mark the one year anniversary of the beginning of the occupation. Protesters blocked access to the New York Stock Exchange as well as other intersections in the area. This, along with several violations of Zuccotti Park rules, lead police to surround groups of protesters, at times pulling protesters from the crowds to be arrested for blocking pedestrian traffic. A police lieutenant instructed reporters not to take pictures. The New York Times reported that two officers shoved city councilman Jumaane D. Williams off a bench with batons after he refused two orders to move. A spokesman for Williams later stated that he had been pushed by police while trying to explain his reason for being in the park, but was not arrested or injured. There were 185 arrests across the city.

IMO, it's important that the two sentences beginning "The New York Times reported" and "A spokesman for Williams later stated" be kept completely separate -- not linked together with a semicolon, or worse, a conjunction like "although" or "however". Once we start cobbling out-of-sync sources together to yield statements like "X said this, but Y said that", it's only a quick trip down a slippery slope before we're subtly telling the reader which of those statements is somehow more valid than the other, which we're not supposed to do. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:00, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Centrify - I can go with that. Tvoz/talk 17:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Agreed, I can live with that too. Thanks for everyone's patience with my objections! ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 22:59, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Be——Critical 23:01, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, done. Tvoz/talk 01:52, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi everyone-- this is the first time I've closely examined this page. I've been heavily involved in OWS since last October, which means two things: 1) I know a bunch of stuff first-hand, including things the media has failed to document, and 2) sometimes an NPOV is going to be difficult for me to maintain. That said, I have many concerns with this article, mostly on the facts. For example, this quote above: the rules of Zuccotti Park aren't self-justifying; this quote and others in the article seem to indicate that they are actually material. They're not; they don't actually exist; there is a rule-making procedure that is required by city law which the police and Brookfield have totally ignored. So, using them to explain police action without quoting or citing a police source is not NPOV. Secondly, these rules have nothing to do with the police tactics used that day, which were employed all over the Financial District, well outside the region where the "rules" of Zuccotti Park apply. What happened was the police grab whoever they feel like at any given moment, apply laws like the disorderly conduct statute willy-nilly ("blocking pedestrian traffic" is frequently absurdly applied), and have a goal not of enforcing laws but of maintaining an extralegal standard of order. This is called "crowd control policing", and it explicitly involves unconstitutional conduct and arrests. Remember, sometimes a point of view is political despite being neutral, i.e. based in empirical observation and fact. Thanks for your work, and perhaps you can offer some guidance as to how first-person expertise can properly be used to make sure a wiki article is factual and not based on flawed or incomplete media interpretation.--Diceytroop (talk) 17:47, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
It has been my experiance on this article that those with self proclaimed involvement (let alone heavy involvement) should probably not be editing here. The COI has become enough of an issue in the past that sanctions have been applied. My advice is to not even try to apply "first-person expertise" in any way.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:29, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Whether the rules are legal/fair/material or not would be a discussion for another article. If police enforce a set of rules that don't parallel the ones posted, that's still a set of rules that resulted in results. As far as making something factual, Wikipedia is less concerned with factuality and more with verifiability. In most cases, this results in well-rounded, non-POV, sourced information. In cases that are non-verifiable but true, Wikipedia has no place for that, so unfortunately, first-hand sources are the least useful of all. Being directly involved simply results in a direct conflict of interest in the article. That being said, if you get yourself quoted in a news article, by all means we can try to fit it in if it adds to the article. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
OK, I respect that. There's a question in here about citizen journalism- for example, I've been involved but in part as a documentarian. There are, for example, thousands of livetweets of statements made at OWS meetings that can be checked against multiple sources to verify (livestream, audio, official minutes as well). Are these considered verifiable? What if they were published in a printed book? Also, before I signed up for an account I added some text to the intro. I think it's NPOV, but a perspective that a citizen journalist would be better able to understand than a visiting reporter. Fortunately, I had a great source to reference. But it's also been true for the duration, and not well-reflected in the article until now having a recent source. Which has material effects on the article's usefulness, as well as influence. Anyway, I wanted to be sure to own that edit before now stepping back. --Diceytroop (talk) 05:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
A couple things to address here.
First off, I think you may seriously misunderstand what is meant by "NPOV". This is not a rule that tells us to seek out perceived bias in mainstream thought and correct those biases here on Wikipedia. That's the opposite of what we do. At Wikipedia, our aim is to reflect the mainstream, not question it on our own initiative. Your comments about the Zucotti park rules are a prime example of what's called "Original Research".
Ditto for "verifiability". Generally speaking, "thousands of livetweets of statements made at OWS meetings that can be checked against multiple sources to verify (livestream, audio, official minutes as well)", and other things of that nature, are not going to be usable on Wikipedia. The possibility of sifting through a mass of primary source material of uncertain origin in order to figure out whether it corresponds with other primary source material, is not what is meant by "verifiability".
Verifiability refers to the quality and reputation of the source publishing the material. There aren't a lot of rules set in stone, but generally speaking The New York Times is usable, and your friend's Tumblr feed is not usable, pretty much no matter what. Likewise, material sourced to actual journalists generally goes in, while material sourced to "citizen journalists" does not (see WP:SPS for the broad outlines of policy on this topic). Even the single example you just offered is a bonanza of serious concerns about verifiability, original research, and potential for POV-pushing, to say nothing of the potential COI problems mentioned by others. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:48, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the dialogue. I can't help but feel like the rules you cited actually don't address the situation I'm describing, though. I'm an "expert" in the realm of this article, one who has been published in reputable places (as well as quoted and referred to in many others). So, my livetweets should be sourceable, right? At the same time, they're also commentary from OWS about itself. So, that's another whole set of criteria that needs to be discussed. Finally, "actual" journalists are not a thing. What the New York Times prints is no more likely to be complete and accurate than the Occupied Wall Street Journal, or a street journalist that has a reputation to uphold. If verifiability actually means "we skew towards sources that are businesses", then that is at least consistent, but not actually anywhere near the actual meaning of the word "verifiable", which means "you can ascertain that it is accurate." Using primary sources that verify each other is a pretty standard way of determining whether something is verifiable. And it's incredibly ironic, truly, that a platform that relies upon the positive intent of people dismisses the voices of people who are actual witnesses to things, in favor of professional reporters who suffer from a lack of expertise and an excess of interest in getting pageviews rather than getting the story exactly right. RE: my use of NPOV, I'd think that a neutral point of view would actually boil down basically to an empirical assessment of reality. You're going to get much closer to that by aggregating the experiences and expertise of many people than by relying on our comically broken media. You may scoff at that, but as someone who has had a year's worth of direct experiences to compare to the retellings of events in the press, including often in the New York Times (where my work has been cited and embedded, not to be a dick, but the complexities are real), it's a sad state. Using those sources to build Wikipedia, while rejecting documentary evidence from other journalists, is dangerous and misguided.
To elucidate a little more: if you were writing an article about a community in, say, Massachusetts, like Middlesex, or about events that take place therein, would you not use the Middlesex News as a source? Even though it's clearly coming from a within-context perspective? And isn't actually particularly held to a high standard of anything? I submit that you would, that it would be laughable to dismiss it as a source. The work I've done is no different; I'm a community journalist and I fail to see a difference between myself in the context of OWS and a reporter for the Middlesex News in the context of Middlesex, Massachusetts. Other than that I lack a printing press and a corporate charter. It's really not right to treat my contributions differently. --Diceytroop (talk) 20:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Break

Dicey said this: "I'm an "expert" in the realm of this article, one who has been published in reputable places (as well as quoted and referred to in many others). So, my livetweets should be sourceable, right?" According to WP:SELFCITE: "Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant and conforms to the content policies, particularly WP:SELFPUB. Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion. In any case, citations should be in the third person and should not place undue emphasis on your work, giving proper due to the work of others as in a review article."

No. Your live tweets are anonymous. Your published work is not in a reputable place if they are publishing in the form of said anonymous form. Occupied Wall Street Journal, or a street journal is not a Reliable Source. Should, a story in an RS mention you by your anonymous name, it is unlikely that there is any relevence to this article.

Dicey said this: "What the New York Times prints is no more likely to be complete and accurate than the Occupied Wall Street Journal, or a street journalist that has a reputation to uphold. If verifiability actually means "we skew towards sources that are businesses", then that is at least consistent, but not actually anywhere near the actual meaning of the word "verifiable", which means "you can ascertain that it is accurate."" Acording to Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources:

Definition of source

The word "source" as used on Wikipedia has three related meanings:

Any of the three can affect reliability. Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people.

Context matters

The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article, and should be appropriate to the claims made. If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.

The guideline in this page discusses the reliability of various types of sources. The policy on sourcing is Wikipedia:Verifiability, which requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations. The policy is strictly applied to all material in the mainspace—articles, lists, and sections of articles—without exception, and in particular to biographies of living persons, which states:

Contentious material about living persons (or recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.

So, lets look at you as the "author". You are not notable, educated in the area (that is known) or credentialed. Expert? It must be something that can be demonstrated. Impossible if using an anonymous username.

What articles have your written? What publication has published your work. The OWS Journal is a promotional/advocacy publication and does not pass RS as it is selfpublished on top of the other things. Context is something that is going to be nearly impossible to show if you are attempting to inject POV-promotional or advocacy information.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:30, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, first, for continuing the dialogue. I recognize that this is probably treading on well-worn ground for you all, and I do appreciate y'all's patience in mapping it out for me. Second: does it change anything that I'm actually not anonymous? Google me and you'll find out plenty about me. I threw some links into my user page as well. Also, given that I'm nonymous, does that make other people citing me, even if by my nom de guerre, a testament to my repute? And finally, no, I don't intend to add POV-promotional or advocacy information. I want the article to be as factually accurate as possible. I've put a lot of time into making facts about OWS available. Those facts have been referenced by RSes quite a few times, but there's much more that hasn't been. Give me a bit and I'll verify my argument about the Zuccotti rules using sourced components beyond my own experience, just to prove the point. Also, doesn't there need to be room for a street journo to gain RS status? This isn't a common scenario; occupy has generated a context for serious street or citizen journalism to develop beyond single tweets or YouTube videos. My expertise is derived from that consistency, as should my reliability.
And as to the question of credentials: that's the crux here, isn't it? In New York City, the NYPD alone credentials press, and they are extremely reticent to credential anyone. This bakes a pro-police bias into the "credentialed" coverage, and therefore right into the rubric you're using. This makes Wikipedia an ally of the state, instead of an ally of the truth or of the people. Not trying to be a dick, but that is how I see it. Many scoffed at WP as a whole for deigning to operate without "credentialed" editors or an associate hierarchy. In this policy, WP sides with a similar mentality.
Similarly, on the night of the raid (November 15th), I was the last source of visual or textual coverage of the police actions due to their removal of all other cameras and press within a 2-block radius of Zuccotti Park (until the recent leak of the cops' own footage). What is the policy in a situation like that, where the state muzzles or blinds all "credentialed" sources of something central to the topic?
Again, thanks. --Diceytroop (talk) 21:44, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Hi there Dicey. Believe it or not, the small group of editors that have worked on this article are well aware of its shortcomings. We have spent many long hours to try to keep bias out of the article. I'd suggest that it would be good for you to take the time to read the talk pages of the 99 Percent Declaration (which Michael Pollok repeatedly attempted to edit) if you want to see what could happen if Wikipedia were to allow the sort of editing you are suggesting. It is good to have you here and I hope you stick around. Gandydancer (talk) 22:32, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Gandy! I appreciate all of your work. Seems clear that it's not a good look for me to edit the article directly, but I may very well be bringing sources and ideas here to Talk. See you soon, no doubt! --Diceytroop (talk) 23:24, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Dice, I will say, once again, that WP is not the place for you to wage battles against mainstream society. Complaining that Wikipedia's sourcing policies make it an "ally of the state" will not get you far, and if you feel that the journalistic credentialing process in NYC is rigged, that's a subject for you to write about on your own forum and on your own time. Based on what you have said and the links I see on your userpage, it appears you are not an expert and nothing you have written looks especially promising as a reliable source. And that's just your published pieces; your thousands of livetweets are, a fortiori, not appropriate for use as sources.
By all means, prove me wrong — but please do so within the guidelines that have been set for you on Wikipedia, and not as part of a larger process of attempting to reinvent Wikipedia because you don't like its existing policies. There are appropriate avenues for you to express your larger concerns about Wikipedia; expressing those concerns by eschewing firmly established WP policy in the context of a content dispute at one of the most controversial topics in existence is simply not appropriate. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 22:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I just wrote you like 300 awesome words before my computer did something very unusually glitchy and I lost it. I will be back to recompose, though, thanks for your reply. Rest assured that I will defer to the sense here that it would be best for me not to make edits myself. I also think that the politics I mentioned derive from very real power dynamics that Wiki can either acknowledge (and thus potentially address) or ignore (and thus potentially exacerbate). I'll explain again later argh sorry. --Diceytroop (talk) 23:24, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
@Diceytroop: If there are RS that you have to offer, feel free to place them here and we'd be glad to look over them. You're also welcome to voice your opinions and even edit and contribute to the article itself, but as a self-proclaimed expert, organizer, and documenter, your edits may often be reverted, as it will be harder to stay NPOV through the definitions set by Wikipedia (granted, every editor has some bias somewhere, but the more directly involved, the easier it is to be blinded against mainstream reality). With regards to current events, it's not WP's goal to be an ally to either a "state" or a "people" (in themselves loaded terms), nor to provide "unadulterated truths" (which is nigh impossible to nail down), but instead to provide the current perception of the general populace toward said subject. Aiding or hurting a cause is not its purpose, and if it happens, it's not WP's fault. As time goes on, and public perception changes, so will a good article follow. Does it involve rewriting history over the years? Yes. Is that a problem? So long as it represents what RS say, then I'd say no. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Araignee; I appreciate the broad welcome but also will take the recommendations to not edit and instead interact here, as I mentioned yesterday. I understand that WP's goals are very narrowly defined, and I don't mean to question that recipe -- I love WP and recognize that such a view would have broad and probably not well-considered implications. But what WP emprically is is the world's largest collective, and there are political implications therein. It's been a disruptive force; that's also political. I think those things belong on the table here. I for one would like to see WP actually consider its power to aid and hurt a cause; as a very powerful public institution (like it or not), that power exists, and can have effects, and should be considered as part of WP's policies, even if that is difficult. It's a matter of accountability, and consistency (why does Wiki only respect 'credentialled' journalists when it argues that, contrary to long-held understanding, amateur editors are just as good as 'credentialled' ones?) And also, re: this topic, it's a matter of future-proofing; the reliability of all sources becomes less and less clear as time has gone on. Journalism is a wreck, and so are our freedoms of the press. WP needs to be aware of and have policies that address these things according to the values of its contributors. IMO. --Diceytroop (talk) 23:24, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
This is one of the more civil discussions on the matter that we have had on the subject of conflict of interest and advicacy editing, but you should understand there is quite a bit more that none of us have relayed to you. One I feel needs to be mentioned is our Biographies of living persons policy. These policies cover all areas of Wikipedia, including the talk page. Should you begin to violate these policies and guidelines you may be blocked form using even you own talkpage. In fact, any link you add to your talkpage that violates said BLP policy or copyright could be just as probalmatic. I want to address your "Citizen Journalism" issue. There is no such body of journalist that have ever been considered RS. It is against policy to out you Dicey, or give any personal information that you yourself have not dosclosed. As such you could be seen as a problem to some editors if your begin to add your own information. In some ways you have outed yourself by claiming that you are somehow known by your real name, but in the quick search I did I did not see any such thing, although it may well be there and I missed it. What I did see is that you have a financial stake in OWS as you are soliciting cash donations from people as part of your OWS "work" to support your rent and other expendatures and that may put you in direct conflict of interest as much as a paid advocate from what I understand. I could be wrong here however.--Amadscientist (talk) 23:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Ahh, hmm, that's interesting. I hadn't considered that. It's been about 8 months since I put in any effort to raise funds, but the conflict of interest concern is interesting. I wouldn't begin to know how to make money easier to raise, though, by using a Wiki article. I guess that any growth in involvement could have that effect, potentially, but that being a goal is itself a conflict of interest.. I think the frame of "how does this stack up against my own record of events" is helpful, so that's the one I think makes sense for me to come here in and potentially drop RSes on y'all, although with the clear expectation that the page isn't supposed to match my own record of events at all- but having one does make fact-checking a little easier. Also, most "real" journalists get paid for their work. Within the community journalism context I mentioned above any COI would be pretty much on par, no?
No. This is becoming a tad tiresome for me. So I will make this my last reply to you and leave you to your own devices. As long as you don't violate any policy or guideline no one will object to your editing the talkpage but I am beginning to see a possible topic ban might be appropriate should you continue some of the WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT sort of replies or, at the very least, setting yourself up for a competence issue for work on wikipedia from the replies I am seeing. Try to study the policy and guidelines more. Especially those for Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources and please, be aware that novel interpretations of policy are not be accepted and could be Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. Good luck and happy editing.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
RE: the two policies you've raised; definitely confused about the applicability of BLP here. I can describe myself however in my user space, right? So how could a link there violate that? Also how can a link violate copyright? And, re: citizen journalism- I understand that in very few contexts would a CJ even have the body of work requisite to establish a sense of reliability. But, we're gonna see more of it, as a society, and WP is going to have less and less to draw from if it remains impossible for a CJ to become an RS. To be clear, you're saying it would be a problem for me to start citing my own reportage, right? I get that and absolutely won't do it. I promise. As with all of the commitments I'm making to WP, I'll start any work here and leave it to someone else to potentially insert. --Diceytroop (talk) 00:39, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I only scanned the links you left. For the most part they appear to be fine, but that does not mean that they don't have issues. BLP may not be something that would be applicable in just a link unless you are seen as promoting the links here and then it might be. However, copyright violations (which do not appear to be the case from what I see) are very common with linking Youtube videos that contain copyright infringment. It happens all the time and had been quite a problem on this article.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:11, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh, and vis a vis my identity -- It's out there; I could make an effort to highlight it if it was needed, but since primary sources aren't part of this project I'm not sure under what circumstances my naming myself would matter anyway. As far as this work is concerned, I'm Dicey. But my birth name has been published, for example in both of the N+1 links in my userpage. Also really N+1 isn't an RS? --Diceytroop (talk) 01:35, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
We all certainly appreciate the willingness to work within parameters. The one last point I'll hassle you with is that this particular talk page is intended to be used for discussions related to improving this specific article, and for doing so within the existing boundaries that have been set. Thus there is much conversation, which, while interesting and thoughtful and undertaken in earnest, is best taken elsewhere. Discussion, both general and specific, about aspects of OWS and about potential sources are to be encouraged here, but will often lead back to the point that the policies are what they are right now and we respect them by following them. When the conversation reaches the point of mapping out improvements for Wikipedia, or searching for answers to society's problems, it no longer really belongs on the Talk page of any ordinary WP article, and it will be important to recognize that when it happens. However, there are a variety of ways for you to continue your efforts to address any frustrating disconnects you see, while still upholding WP's current mission. There are a million places to talk to people, from your own talk page and those of others, to various noticeboards, policy pages, and projects aimed at exploring all kinds of ideas about the world and about WP. Anyway, welcome and cheers. And, word to the wise: when you're working on a long post, bang it out in Notepad -- much harder to lose it to a misclick, edit conflict, or program crash that way! Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 23:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I put it a little more bluntly. The talkpage is for discussions to improve the article not the subject in general. See WP:TALKNO and read "Behavior that is unacceptable" and "Editing comments - Others' comments"--Amadscientist (talk) 00:00, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Dice, the way you're inserting your comments is a little confusing. Please try to put newer comments below older ones rather than going back and inserting individual replies -- or if you need to make those replies on an individual basis, at least indent them differently than the surrounding comments so people can see you've added something new.
Regarding n+1, generally we talk about whether something is an RS not in a vacuum, but in the context of a particular statement an editor wants to put into an article. But, to boil it down, I'm going to say that it looks like generally n+1 would not be a reliable source. Besides not meeting the bar in terms of the typical indicia of reliability, the pieces you link on your userpage look like advocacy and protest literature, not journalism. That's not what WP articles are based on, especially not at the most high-profile topic evarr, where a fairly endless array of established high-quality sources have weighed in. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:57, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Ahh, sorry, been trying to preserve threading, but I see everyone else is consistently indenting.
RE: the writing -- I think we (or me and WP) have got a core difference about what journalism is. That's okay. Both articles I linked aren't designed to be advocacy at all; they're eyewitness observation and analysis. The topic is protest, but it's also politics. I'm "credentialed" as a political scientist (and it's weird too that here I suddenly feel obliged to announce that?) and consider all of OWS' experiments in direct democracy to be crucial research. The fact that folks have a narrowly-defined definition of politics doesn't make my writing about OWS advocacy or protest literature. It's still political science. One of my fears about the established concept of RSes is that the Venn circle for RSes pretty much entirely correlates with the Venn circle for "people who take entirely for granted that neo-liberal republicanism is the same as 'politics'." As a political scientist, I see the real political power of OWS being obscured by RSes who don't understand it, and I see a real political problem in how WP ends up compounding the issue. (And it's not that we don't talk about the real politics of OWS; we do. It's just rarely quoted by reporters. But that's why Occupy communities have our own media -- it's not (all) advocacy media; (much of) it is good-faith, 'objective' media that just has a wider understanding of what is political. All of this bias towards so-called 'RS' thus often appears to me, in this context, as a form of (unconscious) political repression. It obscures fundamental truths about something that many are interested in. And that's a real shame.) --Diceytroop (talk) 15:53, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm curious as to what you think about our dealings with Machael Pollok, who certainly thought he was an expert on all things related to the movement. Gandydancer (talk) 16:04, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I read some stuff from the massive Talk archive just now -- not even any of the posts where Pollok named himself. It's obviously all Pollok. We've had plenty of dealings with him, although mostly online, because he was never a presence in NYC. Anyway, my main response is this: Pollok gets the movement not at all. Any serious wiki editor is far closer. Let's be real: his tactic of rolling into Zuccotti Park with a document he'd written all on his own, then going through the motions to create a 'working group' (by name only), and then having that 'working group' issue his personally-written document, isn't much different from what Dualus did here on WP (replace document with entry, replace working group with sockpuppet accounts + IPs). That Pollok would have contempt for a collectivist creative ethos makes perfect sense. He's never had anything to do with OWS, aside from his one time at GA announcing his 'working group', and his abuse of the good faith process of establishing working groups led to having to make reforms to that process (which themselves caused irksome problems).
Anyway, I don't think I'm trying to do what Pollok was -- not at all. When I say 'expert' I don't mean I have all the answers, and actually much of this page is quite good, I think. If you have to have all the answers on OWS to be an expert, then there ain't one in the entire world. Although there are hundreds at least with the experiential 'expertise' that I have, there aren't many with more. My goal isn't to make this page an advocate. I'd just like to make sure it doesn't mislead. I understand that that was Pollok's (stated) goal too, but since he was a madman who didn't give a crap how his point of view triumphed (only that it did), it was a whole other thing. Based on the "accuracy" of his edits, "accuracy" wasn't actually his thing at all.
Incidentally, today is the one-year anniversary of my involvement! I think it's sort of been established that my first-person experience, while maybe useful for discussion purposes (and good to know as collaboration continues here), doesn't license any kind of assertiveness as to the content of the article. I think it will help me know when to look for sources for something or when something can be included (and then to look for sources for that). And when things can't be verified, I look forward to putting it on the record here, and maybe linking some non-RS proof, and asking for help finding an RS source that does a better job. <3 --Diceytroop (talk) 16:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Dice, a lot of experienced editors have spent significant time giving you very earnest, even indulgent, advice. So far you seem intent on resisting or contradicting what is being said to you. Please recognize, as I stated above, that this page is not a forum for us to have an extended debate about Wikipedia's role in society, or about reinventing its rules. Even without discussing at length your purported expertise and the question of whether your published pieces qualify as journalism, it should be clear that neither can really play a role here. If you want to discuss potential material or sources for this article, great; but let's leave the philosophical ramblings for another time and place. As I said before, discussions questioning the rules don't really belong here, and anyway they will tend to lead back to the point that the rules are there for a reason and it's our mission to follow them. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:49, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I understand. Grandy asked me to comment on the 99% Dec, so I did. Maybe that was a bad look. I've tried to restate several times my understanding of what I'm being told: my first-person experience is mostly not a boon but a liability; my own work and OR isn't RS and that I can use Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources to determine what an RS might be. I also hear that this talk page isn't the place to have this discussion. If any of the above seems a refusal to get the point, please understand that it's the opposite: an attempt to confirm that I did get the point. Unless there remains some base misunderstanding that I'd invite correction on, I assume this is the end of this discussion on Talk. Thanks for everyone's patient assistance and the work you do. --Diceytroop (talk) 17:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Well said and thank you. For my own part, if my comments seem a bit cold, it's just because I am hoping to prevent any misunderstanding from ripening into something bigger and more intractable. But it looks like we're on the same page. Cheers :) Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 18:12, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Break II

I always feel we shouldn't discuss real living Persons on talk pages too much. I think Gandy was asking how Dicey felt about the way the Wikipedia community handled another OWS participant. The user was indef blocked, their userpage deleted. In the end, another editor was blocked and turned out to be a sock puppet, I can safely say. Another user was sent to Ani and topic banned for using the OWS articles to promote Occupy.

OWS on Wikipedia had been very difficult for the community as a whole for a small amount of time. So much, that it was brought up at one point to be handled for what may have ened up as either general sanctions or mass bans or blocks. It took a good deal of editors working together and not always agreeing...OK a lot of not agreeing. But we found a way to edit this article to what the most editors could live with and the least amount dislike. The editors still involved have many options and articles that have lived through the AFD (articles for deltion) process many times. We created a Wikiproject and it can be used to work together and collaborate within Wikipedia guidelines, but promoting and advocating OWS is just not permited anywhere on Wikipedia. But with all political movements, and ideas, there are those who have great interest and have decided to research the sources and determone over time what represents the best summary of the best relaible sources including some primary sources and other media and images. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, but there are a number of policies and guidelines, on top of the past history of issues and disputes etc. This is just an encyclopedia. The most important point is accurate information that can be verified through a set criteria.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:59, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Olive branch.--Amadscientist (talk) 12:36, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

No ideological association?

As per usual Wikipedia leftist bias, the opening paragraph (and virtually the entire article) makes no mention of OWS as a primarily socialistic/communistic movement. There is but one mention of the movement being left-wing, via a quote from an unknown pollster, and one mention of its socialist associations via a poll done of OWS participants conducted by a university regarding how they self-identify. Conversely, the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia entry of The Tea Party Movement immediately, and appropriately, describes it as widely-viewed to be libertarian and conservative. The reasons for the discrepancy between the ideological description of the OWS article and Tea Party Movement article are obvious - the message sent to the Wikipedia reader is that the Tea Party Movement is ideologically oriented while the OWS movement isn't. There is also no mention of the anti-Semitism that was well-documented via video evidece of various participants as various "Occupy-this" rallies. The article makes no mention of Marxism or communism, despite the abundance of video available online of widespread solidarity with these ideologies from OWS participants. Bobinisrael (talk) 09:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

As per the usual rightist bias, you have completely failed to provide any evidence for your assertions. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:53, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
There could probably stand to be more sourced prose on this topic. There are probably additional reliable sources discussing identifiable anti-capitalist or socialist leanings, but I have no plans to go find them myself. This discussion can't really go any further without some mainstream sources. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:01, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I tried to add in a bunch of stuff about Occupy, but I can say that everyone is biased no matter what, so that's not able to be changed.138.78.49.163 (talk) 04:05, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

wrong attribution on New Year's Eve photo

This photo, used in the article, is not Creative Commons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Police_stuggle_with_barricades.jpg

it was created by Stephanie Keith, photographer and should be credited to me as I took the photo

I have this photo copyrighted with the Library of Congress here it also appears on my Flickr page which clearly states all rights reserved http://www.flickr.com/photos/86681342@N00/6611623623/in/set-72157628661197209 the photo also appears in many news articles with my credit, like this one: http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/gallery?section=news&id=8486772&photo=3

I don't mind if you use it, just put the right credit Credit should read: Copyright Stephanie Keith

just because Occupy Wall Street puts it on their facebook page does not mean they have the copyright, thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by SreffiKeith (talk • contribs) 15:10, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I've disabled the photo on the article. Someone else will need to delete/edit the photo as necessary...I'm not sure how to do that. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 16:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

This is a commons upload. I have nominated it for a speedy delete.--Amadscientist (talk) 08:32, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

grammar

"and provided a number of activists to begin organising" Sadsaque (talk) 16:43, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Non-neutral Point of View

This article violates neutral point of view. It was clearly written by supporters of the OWS movement.

There are many examples of presumptuous language and unreferenced assumptions. First example:

- Income inequality has increased over the last three decades with economic stagnation and unequal distribution of the wealth undermining some goals of working people.[44]

This is an inflammatory statement, which, if it had strong supporting references would be fine, but the statement cites as its source an LA Times opinion piece. Opinion pieces are not valid sources.

During the 1990s, ECONOMISTS began to release studies which showed the increasing income inequality in the United States...

- Weasel words. What economists? What studies?

OWS protests were particularly concerned with income inequality in America, in addition to corporate greed and the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations.[49]

- Many things wrong with this. First, it cites its source as an article titled "Income Inequality" out of the NY Times, but that article doesn't even mention OWS, let alone what its protests were "concerned with."

- Protests, by the way, are not capable of being "concerned with." ProtestORS are, but not protests themselves.

- "Corrosive power of major banks"? This is presumptuous language. The reader is expected to simply accept that banks possess "corrosive power." Further, there is nothing in the source that mentions anything about the "corrosiveness" of banks.

I could go on and on, but I think my point is made. Poor article. Needs a rewrite by a truly objective person.

Smokinglizard (talk) 19:55, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I cleaned up the above concerns. It's naïve to assume that this article is only written by supporters of the protest. If you read through the talk pages, many issues have been hammered across both sides. Not all sections are as well curated, but you're welcome to join in editing if you believe something is overly biased. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:13, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Economics section

Why has the economics section been reduced to one sentence? I recognize that there are editors who don't like the statistics, but they are facts and they are relevant. Here is the former section. As to the above section, terminology used in the sources is often appropriate to use in the article. Sometimes you might want to attribute "what they see as..." etc. A fuller explanation of Occupy's concerns can be found here. Be——Critical 20:12, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I trimmed that section because half of the sources were opinion articles that didn't mention any statistics, and the other half were vaguely related statistics that didn't mention OWS. There is definitely more that could be added using RS and relevant data, but as it stood, neither applied. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't know how it was when you were editing it. It was a version I opposed to begin with, but I ran out of time for WP. What do you think of the version in my userspace? Many of those sources, including the opinion pieces, were checked out as RS at the noticeboards. And there may be sources which don't mention OWS, but in such cases they were referred to directly by the other sources, so included as a courtesy to the reader. Be——Critical 00:36, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
Hey Becritical. I was thinking about that version just recently when I was going through the archives. Why don't you post it again and see if it gains a consensus through the current group of editors. I am willing to look at it all again with a new perspective if you wish to re-discuss it.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
We put so much work into this article, didn't we? I didn't work on the stats section but I know hundreds of posts/hours were devoted to discussion. It would be a shame to have it all go to waste... BTW, hi Be--nice to see you around! Gandydancer (talk) 01:51, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
I did look over your sandbox one. The one I trimmed was hardly the same size. However, I do have several objections from the full version, too, a few listed below:
  • "Economists began to release studies" is quite vague. Studies are released often, but not just during the 1990s (why this date? I'd argue more of the studies were within the last 5 years, but that also would require a source). Also, "cited by liberals and Democrats" is a divisive statement and requires a RS or two in itself. Also, terms like "greed and the corrupting power..." (it was "corrosive power" in the version I trimmed) are POV. More appropriate: "concern with...the increased influence of banking and corporate industries within politics" or something along these lines. Also, the source cited there is a great source for certain things (e.g. income inequality), but it doesn't mention greed, corruption, or OWS, and it doesn't support the statements made in the paragraph, which would need their own source.
  • As far as the next three paragraphs, this is far too detailed for an article about OWS. This would belong in an article about income disparity in the US, where it's covered at length already. It is slightly relevant to the background of OWS and the discontent, but not in such detail. If the stats were linked to Americans mirroring the views of OWS protestors, that would belong in the "reactions" section, but dislike of income disparity doesn't indicate agreement with the movement, either.~Araignee (talk • contribs) 02:58, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi everyone (: Araignee... hmmm it's complicated. Because the draft there -correct me if I'm wrong- was one we had almost agreed on when I ran out of time. Its sourcing is -or was- fine by me, because I know it's correct in what it says, but it was mainly a result of agreements with other editors, who didn't like my original sourcing. But my original sourcing was closer to the text. I'm not sure that I agree that the level of detail doesn't belong, because the economic data/situation are the main cause of OWS, so it seems like some detail is called for. So that said, over a few days I could post text from sources here, and then summarize them. So we would have

A quotation

followed by a

Summary of the quotation

And we can do each sentence at at time and agree on it. Sound like a way to go? Be——Critical 03:42, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'm a tough critic, I'm warning you! ;^) (P.S. I'd generally consider HuffPuff reliable enough. The slideshow article not so much, but the articles linked in it, yes). ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 00:11, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

This version from the archives was what we started out with, I think, on DR.

As Amadscientist requested, I'll past here the last version of my sandbox which had the draft that came out of the dispute resolution process (had to find it, forgot all about this :P).

A chart showing the disparity in income distribution in the United States.[1][2] Wealth inequality and income inequality have been central concerns among OWS protesters.[3][4][5]

Studies over many years have shown increasing income inequality in the United States.[6]

These facts have been further pushed into the national spotlight by the OWS movement. OWS protesters are concerned with wealth and income inequality, in addition to greed and what they see as the corrupting power that banks and multinational corporations hold over society.

Inequality in wealth and income has increased over the last three decades with economic stagnation and unequal distribution of wealth undermining the goals of most Americans."[7]


A 2010 poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans across the political spectrum, including the wealthiest, want more equitable distribution of wealth.[8]

According to The Guardian Data Blog, Americans, including the vast majority of Republicans, believe that the top 20% of Americans should own as much as 40% of the wealth of the nation, and that the poorest 120 million Americans should own about 10%. Currently, the top 20% own 85% of the wealth; the 120 million poorest own .3%; and the most affluent 1% own about 33%.[9]

Deborah Jacobs of Forbes states that according to 2007 statistics, financial inequality (total net worth minus the value of one's home[10]) is greater than inequality in total wealth, with the top 1% of the population owning 42.7%, the next 19% of Americans owning 50.3%, and the bottom 80% owning 7%.[11]

However, even before the 2008–2012 global recession the share of total wealth owned by the top 1% of the population grew from 34.6% to 37.1%, and that owned by the top 20% of Americans grew from 85% to 87.7%. The recession also caused a drop of 36.1% in median household wealth but a drop of only 11.1% for the top 1%, further widening the gap between the 1% and the 99%.[6]

Tax rates paid by the wealthiest are less than those paid by Americans making $100,000 to $200,000 per year: incomes of $100,000 to $200,000 are taxed at an effective rate of 25%, but the most affluent, whose income derives mostly from investments, pay less than 20%.[nb 1] Since 1979, federal taxation has become less progressive, shifting away from progressive income taxes and toward payroll taxes.[7] In the United States, about 15% of households are "food insecure," meaning that they have difficulty buying enough food. About 50 million Americans have no health insurance and at least 42 million —about 1/7th of the population— live below the poverty line.[nb 2] Executive pay in the largest US companies has quadrupled since the 1970s, but the average non-supervisory employee is paid 10% less.[nb 3][12][13][14][15]

  1. ^ "Tax Data Show Richest 1 Percent Took a Hit in 2008, But Income Remained Highly Concentrated at the Top. Recent Gains of Bottom 90 Percent Wiped Out." Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Accessed October 2011.
  2. ^ “By the Numbers.” Demos.org. Accessed October 2011.
  3. ^ Alessi, Christopher (October). "Occupy Wall Street's Global Echo". Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved October 17, 2011. The Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York City a month ago gained worldwide momentum over the weekend, as hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in nine hundred cities protested corporate greed and wealth inequality. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  4. ^ Jones, Clarence (October 17, 2011). ">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/clarence-b-jones/obama-mlk-memorial-_b_1016077.html "Occupy Wall Street and the King Memorial Ceremonies". The Huffington Post. Retrieved October 17, 2011. The reality is that 'Occupy Wall Street' is raising the consciousness of the country on the fundamental issues of poverty, income inequality, economic justice, and the Obama administration's apparent double standard in dealing with Wall Street and the urgent problems of Main Street: unemployment, housing foreclosures, no bank credit to small business in spite of nearly three trillion of cash reserves made possible by taxpayers funding of TARP.
  5. ^ Chrystia Freeland (October 14, 2011). "Wall Street protesters need to find their 'sound bite'". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved October 17, 2011.
  6. ^ a b "Wealth, Income, and Power by G. William Domhoff". University of California at Santa Cruz. Retrieved 12-21-05. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  7. ^ a b ael Hiltzik (December 31, 2011). "Presidential campaign needs to get real on salvaging middle class". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  8. ^ Occupy Wall Street: More popular than you think By Brian Montopoli October 13, 2011 "the vast majority [of Americans] seem to share the protesters' sense that the economic deck is stacked"
  9. ^ a b c d Simon Rogers (2011-11-16). "Occupy protestors say it is 99% v 1%. Are they right? | News | guardian.co.uk". Guardian. Retrieved 2012-05-21.
  10. ^ "Financial wealth" is defined by economists as "total net worth minus the value of one's home," including investments and other liquid assets.
  11. ^ Occupy Wall Street And The Rhetoric of Equality Forbes November 1, 2011 by Deborah L. Jacobs
  12. ^ Cozy relationships and ‘peer benchmarking’ send CEOs’ pay soaring The Washington Post with Bloomberg, special report on Breakaway Wealth, By Peter Whoriskey, October 3, 2011
  13. ^ Ratcheting up pay with peer comparison The Washington Post with Bloomberg, October 3, 2011.
  14. ^ Who are the 1 percent?, CNN, October 29, 2011
  15. ^ "Tax Data Show Richest 1 Percent Took a Hit in 2008, But Income Remained Highly Concentrated at the Top." Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Accessed October 2011.

Section building

Since 2008, national unemployment rates have remained above 9% with much higher rates for African Americans and youth—16% and 24.6% respectively. An estimated 10.4 million mortgages could default this year. Income inequality, with concentrated wealth at the top and flat incomes or impoverishment for the vast majority of the country’s population, has increased precipitously since the 1960s. The well known facts are worth reciting again: the top one percent of the country owns 34.6% of the wealth in total net worth; the next 19% owns 50.5%; the bottom 80% owns 15%.



In financial wealth, the figures are even more startling: 42.7%, 50.3%, and 7.0% respectively. And these statistics from UC-Santa Barbara Sociology Professor G. William Domhoff are from 2007, the most recent complete data available for analysis. Domhoff cites economist Edward Wolff, who concludes that the Great Recession has meant a whopping drop of 36.1% in median household wealth as compared to 11.1% for the top one percent, further widening the gulf between the obscenely rich and the rest of us—the 99%. [9]

Summary: Since the 1960s Income inequality in the United States has increased, with the top 1% of the population currently owning about 34.6% of the total wealth, and the poorest 20% owning 15% of the total wealth.[1]

In the above, if there is any question about the first source, the source refereed to -William Domhoff- can be used to supplement.

Domestic Security Alliance Council

Wolf, N. (December 29, 2012) "Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy" The Guardian: "New documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall ... was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved ... violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured ... was coordinated with the big banks themselves.... a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity ... the Domestic Security Alliance Council.... the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.... The fusion of the tracking of money and the suppression of dissent means ... banks ... are now in the business of tracking your dissent."

I trust that these FOIA-sourced documents are appropriate for summary inclusion? 70.59.14.20 (talk) 08:41, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

There should likely be a mention of the FOIA docs from a RS, but the above are quite POV. The FBI watched OWS as it would any other movement. It coordinated with other parties. It evaluated the risk and eventually moved on (otherwise the data wouldn't have been released a year later). Not of that is particularly groundbreaking. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 15:47, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
Looks like we need to do a new section on this. [10] "Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy" [11] Be——Critical 01:36, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Agreed, though I'm not up for the task myself. I'm trying to think of what parts are important/notable. Also, most of the data is on the movement, not OWS specifically. Of note:
  • Monitoring began before the encampment was set up or the first protest began
  • FBI warned NYSE and other businesses of impending protests
  • Worried that it was an easily-exploitable movement for disgruntled loners
  • Noted that it was largely a peaceful movement
  • There was nothing implying a systematic crackdown or infiltration in OWS. The monitoring is SOP for any large, somewhat anti-establishment movement, meant to evaluate risk.
In short, it's notable mainly because it's reported, but nothing terribly earth-shattering. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:56, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Wolf called the cooperation between the FBI, regional police, Department of Homeland Security and the banks’ hired hands “Orwellian.” I'd have to agree. Most likely this article was being watched as well. I've been meaning to get this info into the article and some other new stuff also. Gandydancer (talk) 17:31, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
The whitewashing of the economics section has historically and is now up to orwellian proportions. This is a movement one of whose top concerns is economic inequality. That inequality is associated with specific facts. Those facts should be in this article. Be——Critical 20:16, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
I'd suspect Araignee is right that this is standard procedure -- it would have been silly not to monitor the movement in the way described, and it would have been irresponsible not to safeguard the private interests at stake -- again, in just the way described.
And, not for nothing, but seeking the loose and uncorroborated opinion of a Guardian reporter on what is or is not an "Orwellian" exercise of US government power is a bit like asking a Russia Today shill to describe official Russian government attitudes on U.S. human rights abuses -- that is to say, it's a great idea if you seek a bunch of muck-raking propaganda manufactured by people living in glass houses. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 20:11, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
You should also analyze the reporter for CNN. Be——Critical 22:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Hate to be predictable, but I'm afraid I've missed your point :( Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 18:44, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
I really shouldn't have said it that way, but my point was that I don't believe in analyzing the writer as much as analyzing whether the institution such as CNN or the Guardian or whatever is accepted as an RS. If it is, I tend to think we should assume they fact-checked it. So talking about the particular writers isn't useful unless someone is trying to specifically push what is obviously their value judgment. And I wouldn't even take that very far. If the writer is saying "Orwellian" then that at the least requires attribution or should be left out, but if they are saying that the government was spying on its citizens and that is highly relevant given X historical context, I feel that's appropriate for WP. So to describe the opinions of a Guardian reporter as loose and uncorroborated should be accompanied by a well-founded statement that the Guardian is not an appropriate source for Wikipedia. The reporter speaks for the source. Be——Critical 01:40, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Carrying my metaphor a bit further, perhaps we could mine Al-Jazeera or Saudi state press releases for axe-grinding opinion quotes about the religious intolerance and horrible oppression of women that is rife in the United States. Thoughts? Sensible sourcing decision? Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:59, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
I consider the Guardian to be a relatively RS in most cases. It's clear from the tone of the article that it is written to an agenda, but there is useful information in there. Any of the stronger wording (like "Orwellian") should be reflected in other RS (not including being quoted) before used, though. As it stands, RS I've seen are more focused on the fact that there was an investigation, but have downplayed any conspiracy/comprehensive monitoring/infiltration claims. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:28, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose that The People's Library be merged into Occupy Wall Street. A previous discussion on this merge ended in no consensus, and as it took place when OWS was arguably at its peak level of prominence I think it was difficult to get a clear sense of perspective. Now that time has elapsed, I'd like to discuss this merge again. The People's Library has very interesting content. However, I think it's best-served integrated within the overall OWS article, with any examples of undue weight condensed (and preferably not excised).

The Library's notability seems to have been mostly temporary -- all supplied sourcing is from a one month span of time from October-November, 2011, and some of it is of questionable value. I do note that the New York Times covered the controversy over the fate of the Library's collection in September, 2012 here, although I can't find any other stories before or since then. Just as importantly, much of the coverage is less concerned with the library itself than with the raid(s) of the library, which seems to me more a part of the overall OWS narrative and less something distinctly concerned with the library itself. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 03:16, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Support - It doesn't look like there's really been any activity on the other article for a few months anyway. Its notability stems directly from OWS, but there's little else to mention than the fact it existed as a facet of OWS "life" as it were, and it could easily be merged here and considerably condensed. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:48, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
Great idea. Gandydancer (talk) 04:45, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - This was a facet of OWS. it is no longer. Better to merge with the Occupy movement article for historical reference, but this does not have relevance to the current organization. Perhaps a small summary under the Zuccotti Park section, but not the entire article.--Amadscientist (talk) 04:55, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
I wouldn't argue that we should include everything that is in the current article. More likely, it'd be a couple sentences at most (e.g. a small summary). ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 05:31, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
Can you clarify if you really mean oppose or support? I definitely wouldn't support incorporating literally the entire article, but I think it has relevance, as you say, "for historical reference." Perhaps in exactly the spot you suggest here (i.e. in the Zuccotti Park section), but that'd be an editorial decision after deciding on the merge. To be plain, a "merge" doesn't necessarily (or even usually) mean that we literally incorporate the entire source article. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 05:56, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
One doesn't need to make a merge proposal to add a small amount of information from another article, however, this proposal has been attempted before I believe. The reason it was removed is that is has little relevance as a fleeting part of the overall protest and is not a functioning part now.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:04, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
Gotcha, yeah, as I noted in my original note, it ended as no consensus the last time it was discussed. To be honest, I'm more concerned with what to do with the original article. I'd be nominating it for deletion if I didn't think it had a case to have some of its contents merged here. Personally, I think its contents could be scattered across a few sections of the OWS article (that is, I don't see this as representing an entirely new section or subheader), but that's an editorial call. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 06:11, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
As the original and most substantial author of this article, I thoroughly reject the characterization of it as unencyclopedic.   — C M B J   16:17, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Support merger. I support a merger but only if all of the information from the split article is retained. The free library was a novel and important part of OWS, and one that was incorporated into every (as far as I know) new sister organization that sprang up in the U.S. and some other countries as well. While not currently important, historically it is an extremely important aspect of the movement. Gandydancer (talk) 16:51, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Which information is vital per you? I'd say it was an interesting quirk, but as far as being central/extremely important at any time to the OWS or the movement as a whole, I'm not convinced. Free public libraries abound. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 20:46, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
The reasons listed above are essentially proof by assertion. Would you please elaborate on your specific objections?   — C M B J   16:20, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
I decline to agree with your opinion that the reasons previously stated are proof by assertion and reiterate my support for merger without further comment. BlueSalix (talk) 14:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
That Centrify's contentions remain unsubstantiated is not a matter of opinion, but plainly observable fact. It is insufficient to simply state that an article was created in bad faith.   — C M B J   01:10, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
I decline to agree with your opinion that Centrify's reasoned analysis and assessment are "unsubstantiated" and reiterate my support for merger without further comment. BlueSalix (talk) 18:03, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

It appears Gandydancer (thanks!) merged some of the content in. I don't think there's much more that needs to be added, but someone may disagree, so they should take a look. It also appears that there's fairly clear consensus (with one clear dissent) that the other article doesn't need to exist on its own...should we wait a bit more or mark the other one for deletion? ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

No, since it seems that there is not interest in returning all the library info to this article, I see no reason to delete the library article. Gandydancer (talk) 01:37, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
So I take it you are only for the merger if we merge over every part (no condensing/incising)? ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:04, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
If there is consensus to merge, we shouldn't delete the original article (per WP:MAD -- it leads to sticky problems concerning properly attributing authorship of content if we merge and delete). The original article would typically be converted to a redirect, and pointed at the OWS article or one section of the OWS article. I don't think the existence of The People's Library as a redirect is problematic. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 13:54, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, Ginsengbomb, thanks for the clarification. I meant exactly that in my mind, despite saying delete. The redirect is certainly appropriate were we to go forward with consensus. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 00:04, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose merger all good arguments above. I came to this when someone tried to place a time limiting statement about its existence, which I reverted. I think there is a POV politically motivated element that wishes this would just go away, and are trying to insert that into WP. The library has its own website [13] and is apparently active (currently doing a showing, March 2013). Not that it only being a part of history would disqualify its significance, but that fact that there is still activity also points to the potential of further advancement of the article. This article stands on its own merits, associated to the Occupy movement, but also as its own unique entity.Trackinfo (talk) 08:49, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Economics section table

I was struggling to figure out how to organize my thoughts, so I figured a table might work. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 00:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

# Sentence Reasons for inclusion Reasons for exclusion
1 Studies over many years have shown increasing income inequality in the United States.[2] Necessary background; this is the context for the anger of OWS. Studies show it, but it's not studies that inspire OWS protestors in general. The crux for most is that income equality exists, not that it has increased. Also, the context is covered extensively in the We are the 99% article, as well as here. Important information, but not for this article, as it's much more general in nature.
2 These facts have been further pushed into the national spotlight by the OWS movement. This is about the effects of OWS, and it is also something sources talk a lot about. Further than what? Simply an awkward phrase. OWS has pushed the idea that it exists, not that it has increased.
3 OWS protesters are concerned with wealth and income inequality, in addition to greed and what they see as the corrupting power that banks and multinational corporations hold over society. General description of what they are unhappy about economically. "Corrupting" is a POV word. Corporate greed and power is what protestors complain against, not so much individual greed. Also, it's the influence over politics and policy, not society.
4 Inequality in wealth and income has increased over the last three decades with economic stagnation and unequal distribution of wealth undermining the goals of most Americans."[3] Expands upon the sentence about studies and adds the fact of goals It's mostly redundant. Also, again, the increase is not the reason for the protest. More awareness is. The only reason to mention OWS + increases would be were there a source linking the increase with an increase in discontent (which would be appropriate background if it exists). Otherwise, the increase of income disparity is irrelevant: the now is what protestors are out there for.
5 A 2010 poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans across the political spectrum, including the wealthiest, want more equitable distribution of wealth.[4] Sets the ideas of OWS in the context of the rest of the population.
6 According to The Guardian Data Blog, Americans, including the vast majority of Republicans, believe that the top 20% of Americans should own as much as 40% of the wealth of the nation, and that the poorest 120 million Americans should own about 10%. Currently, the top 20% own 85% of the wealth; the 120 million poorest own .3%; and the most affluent 1% own about 33%.[5] Gives more context of where OWS stands in relation to the ideas of Americans in general; sets economic context further. No need to include all the details of the study (that's what one would go to the source for). The summary in the last sentence is plenty. Also, "including the vast majority of Republicans" is a weasel phrase is implying the reader shouldn't expect Republicans to agree.
7 Deborah Jacobs of Forbes states that according to 2007 statistics, financial inequality (total net worth minus the value of one's home[6]) is greater than inequality in total wealth, with the top 1% of the population owning 42.7%, the next 19% of Americans owning 50.3%, and the bottom 80% owning 7%.[1] Gives the idea that even income stats don't properly convey the problem. Somewhat redundant. Getting way too abstract. OWS protestors don't care about the particulars. They simply protest that it's currently not balanced across the board.
8 However, even before the 2008–2012 global recession the share of total wealth owned by the top 1% of the population grew from 34.6% to 37.1%, and that owned by the top 20% of Americans grew from 85% to 87.7%. The recession also caused a drop of 36.1% in median household wealth but a drop of only 11.1% for the top 1%, further widening the gap between the 1% and the 99%.[2] This gives further context about why OWS feels cheated by the system; they are greatly concerned with the effects of the downturn on the poor and middle class. Again, the protest is against the imbalance, not the increase of imbalance. If the discontent increased over that period, it would be relevant (with a source).
9 Tax rates paid by the wealthiest are less than those paid by Americans making $100,000 to $200,000 per year: incomes of $100,000 to $200,000 are taxed at an effective rate of 25%, but the most affluent, whose income derives mostly from investments, pay less than 20%.[nb 4] Another main reason for OWS's anger; and sources say it may have had an impact on Obama's reelection and Romney's loss. Income inequality ≠ tax rates. Lots of claims here, too. Not all the affluent pay less than 20%, though some do. Also, this doesn't discuss that the fact they still pay more percentage-wise on average than every other income level (e.g. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=3278), but once again, that's a discussion for another article.
10 Since 1979, federal taxation has become less progressive, shifting away from progressive income taxes and toward payroll taxes.[3] Shows the trend they are angry about. Again, good data, but a discussion for another article. Not directly related to OWS.
11 In the United States, about 15% of households are "food insecure," meaning that they have difficulty buying enough food. About 50 million Americans have no health insurance and at least 42 million —about 1/7th of the population— live below the poverty line.[nb 5] Included in the Guardian discussion of OWS probably as a way of establishing that the poor in the USA really do hurt, and it's not just a matter of luxuries. More context to their anger. Not relevant to this section unless it is a sustained argument made by OWS protestors.
12 Executive pay in the largest US companies has quadrupled since the 1970s, but the average non-supervisory employee is paid 10% less.[nb 6][7][8][9][10] Sets context of previous sentence and OWS anger over the loss of and/or stagnation of the middle class. Again, the protest is not about increased disparity, but the existence thereof. Good data for another article.

Hope it was okay for me to fill it in. A very good exercise glad you thought of it (: Be——Critical 00:45, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, that's the idea. I was introduced to the table format by another editor...works pretty well to at least analyze it. P.S. I wrote mine without looking at yours, so I'll look at that in a bit when I have a bit more time. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 01:35, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
So how do I argue with the reasons for exclusion? Just put it down here? With the first one, it's my guess that the long term trend is known by the protesters and is indeed what inspires them, but whatever the case it's the point made by sources when the sources discuss economics and OWS. We shouldn't assume we know more than the sources. Be——Critical 02:19, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
I've arbitrarily added identifiers to his table so that individual points can be discussed.   — C M B J   08:56, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
What a marvelous way to sort through this. I love it. One more suggestion. Could the reasons for inclusion and against be attributed to the editors making the argument. Even if, say, Becritical is the attribution to all the "inclusion" Just put that in the title at the top and ech "exclusion" be signed by the indivdual. Hmmmmmm. I wonder I wonder if this would work at DR/N for more complicated cases? Hmmmmmmm.--Amadscientist (talk) 09:20, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, linking specific people to specific thoughts is difficult in this format, unfortunately. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 01:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
That's not necessarily a bad thing because it allows the merit of ideas to be considered without as much subconscious bias. But if there was some process where attribution would help, instructions could always call for signatures to be provided in <ref>~~~~</ref> format.   — C M B J   07:02, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Arguments

# Argument Pro Against
1 What protesters believe or think is a basis for inclusion/exclusion OWS protest behaviour is driven by what protesters believe and think; this should be backed up by RS, of course. WP reflects sources, so it's what the RS on OWS say that matters, not what the protesters think. Be——Critical
2 Economic background deserves less WEIGHT/space in this article Sources focus on the current state of inequality, not the increase The sources on OWS extensively discuss the economic background as being relevant, therefore we should give it a great deal of WEIGHT/space. Be——Critical
3 Detailed economic statistics are not relevant to the protesters, so should not be included. Interviews and sources show protester's general distaste for income inequality, not specific statistics. More detail belongs in the respective categories of income inequality, financial crisis of 2007–2008, or the more general Occupy movement articles. Alternatively, a "Occupy background" article might be appropriate. Economic statistics are discussed and made relevant by the sources. Be——Critical

So on #2, we're contradicting each other. Would it solve the problem if I showed sources talking about the increase? We're both making general statements about the sources which would be hard to support without an exhaustive review, but I think I could find some good quotes to support my take on it. Be——Critical 05:10, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, this one is a hard one to reconcile, but good sources that have heavy weight on the economic lead-up as opposed to complaints on the current situation would probably be good to put here. I'm persuadable, but still not convinced. :) It'd probably be nice to get other opinions on both sides to comment here...calling any users watching this! ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 02:52, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Well I'm just using Google here:

"As you mentioned above, one of the most striking developments of the U.S. economy is how the top 1 percent has pulled away from the bottom 99 percent. Because the top one percent has captured about half of income growth since the 1970s, income growth for the bottom 99 percent has been only about half of the macro-economic growth we always hear about in the press." http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/10/07/wall-street-protests-echo-researchers-findings-on-growing-income-gap/

Occupy Wall Street turns one today. And though the encampment didn't always get its facts straight, its grievances did stem from some real economic trends. For Business Beast's first "Chart of the Day," we've set two of them side-by-side: the steady rise of corporate profits, and the decline in labor's share of business income, since 1980. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/17/occupy-wall-street-s-birthday-in-one-chart.html

This paper maybe http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ev.2012.9.issue-3/1553-3832.1899/1553-3832.1899.xml

"Occupy Wall Street is highlighting a real economic trend that's not good for our country. While the superrich keep getting richer, "living standards for the median household have declined more or less steadily since the late 1990s," says Mark Zandi, the chief economist and a co-founder of Moody's Analytics. Here are some stats that back this up:

Between 1993 and 2008, the top 1% of families raked in more than half the gains in overall income, according to Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley. And from 2002 to 2007, the top 1% of U.S. earners got two-thirds of all income gains. Their income grew by more than 10% a year after inflation, while the rest, the 99%, saw more-modest income gains of just 1.3% a year.

In 2010, median household income, $49,500, fell back to levels last seen in 1996.

The 2010 poverty rate was the highest since 1993, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And the number of people in poverty, 46.2 million, was the largest in the 52 years of tracking poverty estimates.

CEOs, on the other hand, earned much more than they did several decades ago on average.

Unemployment remains stubbornly high, more or less stuck in the 9%-plus range since May 2009. Unemployment hasn't been this high since 1982-83."

http://money.msn.com/investing/what-wall-street-protesters-have-right-brush.aspx

On this last one, what you see is that people discussing OWS re economics tend to come up with a bunch of stats showing the historical trend and what it means. Something like that is basically what we need here. Be——Critical 02:05, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Berkeley: While it discusses the increase, it doesn't really discuss that as a complaint of OWS. In all honesty, the article is more focused on income inequality in general (the interviewee is famous for his paper on the subject independent from OWS).
Daily Beast: more related to OWS, but again, doesn't mention the fact that OWS is concerned with the trend/increase beyond the fact that the movement was born out of grievances that didn't exist 20-30 years ago. Causation vs. correlation: the fact that OWS exists due to the trends doesn't make the trend their crux of argument. It simply means that conditions arose that sprung forth its existence. Instead, we need something that talks more about protests against the rising inequality.
De Gruyter: Not sure, as I don't have access. That being said, it sounds more like the above from the summary.
MSN: Again, good stats and numbers, but they are numbers that support something that OWS hasn't been shown to be protesting in RS. It'd be a great source for the income inequality article.
I even browsed the "official" OWS site and saw nothing in their "manifestos" regarding the increasing income inequality (that even surprised me). Instead, every item was dealing with the current conditions, the state as it is right now. Even if we do find sources that mention this, wouldn't it belong on the Occupy movement article instead? I wonder if there should be a "conditions leading up to the Occupy Movement" article (better title).
As it stands, the article should probably be restructured into a) Origins (brief background and more appropriate location for stats on increased income inequality), Overview (including a timeline, demographics, and goals), and Public Response. The first three cats in the current "Overview" section are overlapped in a few places, and belong to the larger Occupy movement article anyway. As per the hatnote, "This article is about the protests in New York City. For the wider movement, see Occupy movement." ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 02:38, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
This is why I put in the Arguments table above "What protesters believe or think is a basis for inclusion/exclusion." You didn't have an objection to that, but now you're using the argument extensively. Be——Critical 23:23, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
I guess I read it differently. I was reading it as "it's not what they think/believe, it's what RS says they think/believe." Me saying they believe this or that in itself isn't worth inclusion. RS that says they do is. I've updated the table with my thoughts. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:36, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Police testimony in Michael Premo arrest case

I suggest that the details about the police testimony and videotape from http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/03/why_the_police.php be added to this article. If this is not the Occupy NYC article I apologize. Either way, it's an important story about police misconduct and the lack of repercussions.

EllenCT (talk) 04:39, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Looks like it's already covered with appropriate weight in the article? ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 21:34, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I guess I missed it last night. EllenCT (talk) 23:47, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Media blackout

Occupy movement, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Wall Street, and other city articles presently lack any coverage of alleged and actual media blackouts, several instances of which were independently notable to the extent that discrete articles may be necessary to provide adequate encyclopedic coverage.   — C M B J   10:12, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

No — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.182.150.244 (talk) 23:15, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Lack of an objective Criticism section

Why is the only very small Criticism section on this page focused on Conservative opposition? There is no mention of opposition from any other persons.

Wikipedia is supposed to be impartial and objective.

As always, Wikipedia is only as impartial and objective when editors come together and cowrite the article. If you believe something is biased, you're welcome to discuss specifics here, or, better yet, become a contributor. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:31, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Snowden and Manning Face Masks from 3-D printers in 2013 ?

Snowden and Manning Face Masks from 3-D printers in 2013 ?

(Source ?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.91.119.2 (talk) 19:41, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

What are you asking? The article doesn't appear to say anything about face masks. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:35, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Communism

Why does the article not talk about the pro-communist ideology held by the leadership of OWS? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.145.127.182 (talk) 01:33, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Two reasons: first, it'd need a reliable source to include it, and second, the nature of OWS was decentralized, with no clear leadership. It's probably more accurate to say it leans socialist than communist, but again, that'd need a reliable source. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:18, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
The OWS had no leadership and very few of the participants were communists or even socialists. TFD (talk) 04:37, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Start date

RE: "This date may be disputed with a likely trigger event as early as August 1, 2011, as a nude[citation needed] artist performance "Ocularpation: Wall Street" followed by arrests on Wall Street occurred while protesting American financial institutions.[7][8]"

This is the first I've ever heard of this. While this other event has a similar-sounding name, I don't think anyone thinks it was the start of OWS and having this in the second sentence of the article does the reader a disservice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.251.56.61 (talk) 18:10, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Just a note

Due to some attempt to enforce some policy through the software, I'm unable to undo an unintentional blanking (which was caused by saving before the whole page loaded, I think). I was just trying to delete the merge template. Be——Critical 05:19, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

No worries, I figured something must have gone wrong. I've restored the blanked material and removed the merge template. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 05:22, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
Haha Be, I wondered what you were up to. I miss your friendly face and hope all is well with you. Gandydancer (talk) 05:58, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Prototime. Hey Gandy (: All is well, I just have so much to do in RL I don't have time for WP. Hope life is treating you well (: Be——Critical 23:33, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Merger Proposal

The consensus in this discussion is to not merge. NorthAmerica1000 14:18, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

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

I propose that The People's Library be merged (not deleted) into this article. A previous merge proposal (details here) ended in no consensus. That discussion took place in November 2011, when the event that gave the People's Library some prominence in the press was very fresh in most peoples' minds (as was Occupy Wall Street in general). All of the coverage in the article is from a 3-4 week period in that late-2011 timeframe, and almost all of it is concerned with a single event -- the destruction of the library's contents. The existence of the separate article, to me, drastically exaggerates the importance of the library relative to Occupy Wall Street as a whole. To me, the library is an interesting sub-bullet. It's a specific and finite chapter in the early history of OWS.

When this merge was last proposed, editors reviewing it did not have the benefit of time/perspective with which to truly judge the topic's independent notability, so I'm suggesting this again in case clearer consensus can now be established. The content is absolutely fine, but I don't think it should be in a separate article. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 03:56, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

  • Keep as a distinct article What I wrote previously is still valid. I'll suggest what most of the respondents wrote the last time this merge was proposed is still quite valid: The Occupy Wall Street article is far too large and cumbersome as it is. This is an appropriate, separate link to explain this specific aspect. It deserves mention, as it gets in the current article, but the whole subject will be weakened by too much detail in an already huge article. The next slippery slope will be to diminish the detail, which is essentially where it sits in the main article now. I will remind you of WP: NTEMP. It was notable then, it remains notable. But even if you accept the validity of it expiring, the Library is still active. Less than a month ago, the 4th of July, they have posts on their website regarding government surveillance, a current issue. WP:NPOV There is a faction who would like to diminish the Occupy Movement and expunge the history of it, starting with the #1 information site in the world. The Library is a sustaining aspect of the Movement. Diminishing the Library by merging, is a POV biased step to quashing the entire story, meaning rewriting history to serve a political agenda. Trackinfo (talk) 05:30, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Keep as a distinct article For the same reasons given for the merge proposal. Seriously. It was something that was part of a unique history of this event and I still see it as having enough notability for a stand alone.(Amadscientist)--Mark Miller Just ask! WER TEA DR/N 05:37, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Keep as a distinct article per WP:NOTTEMPORARY, "once a topic has been the subject of "significant coverage" in accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to have ongoing coverage", and WP:SPLITOUT, "refactoring an article into child or sister articles can allow subtopics to be discussed more fully elsewhere without dominating a general overview article". If the material were merged, it would immediately be necessary to split it back out again. Now that I "have the benefit of time/perspective with which to truly judge the topic's independent notability", I am absolutely convinced of the importance and long-term significance of this aspect of the Occupy Movement, and the story that surrounds it. --Nigelj (talk) 08:10, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Keep as a distinct article per Trackinfo's arguments, but just the length of this article would be good enough reason as well. Gandydancer (talk) 08:33, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Comments Okay, first, my nomination is not a "POV biased step to quashing the entire story, meaning rewriting history to serve a political agenda." Not sure what else to say about that.
The rest are very good points. Firstly, WP:SPLITOUT requires that the resulting split article be notable. It's not a catch-all for articles which are becoming too lengthy, so I don't know that that's relevant (although it's useful). Second, notability is absolutely not temporary, but we also don't necessarily deem things notable in the first place if they are the topic of a short burst of coverage and then vanish -- in this case, rather literally. I think it's a very big stretch to say that the "Library is still active" because their Wordpress blog had a post a month ago. That tells me somebody is updating their blog. This is not an article about a blog. That it is no longer active is not necessarily relevant, of course.
I'll be honest and say there's an WP:IDONTLIKEIT component to my nominating this. OWS is a hugely important subject worthy of considerable coverage. TPL has always seemed to me a nice thing that happened to happen and became a bigger deal when the raid destroyed the library. If that raid hadn't gone the way it had, I doubt we'd have an article at all. But this last paragraph is purely my opinion, there's obviously no policy here :). ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 20:55, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
I did not accuse you of inserting POV yourself. However, with the existence of such people with a POV, removing the article is an early step to reducing the story about this aspect of history being told. This plays into their hands. Trackinfo (talk) 22:18, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Ah, okay, sorry, I misread that. I understand your perspective now. Thanks for clarifying :). ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 22:55, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Merge - so far I'm in the minority, but may as well put my say in, particularly being the last person to suggest it ;^) At this point, I think the main "notability" factor is simply that it was raided. As far as amount of content, one can write an article of any length on pretty much any subject, but to me it seems the PL is more of a side-note to the actual OWS, and could be succinctly and sufficiently merged in with just a few lines on the OWS article. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:14, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Sheesh, can you rewrite my nominating statement for me? Those are my points more or less exactly, stated in about 30% of the words. Ha. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 22:46, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
You can write it...that doesn't mean it will stick. This article has. This seems like more of an effort to delete the article if your intention is for a redirect and only a few lines. Perhaps the approach is wrong. Try AFD. Seriously.--Mark Just ask! WER TEA DR/N 22:56, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
I thought about that. I proposed a merge instead because the existing content in the OWS article doesn't discuss the effect of the November 2011 raid on the library's collection, and I'd want to preserve that content over there in some abbreviated form -- which would involve expanding the existing TPL copy in the OWS article a bit, not pulling it back. From my POV, proposing deletion while wanting to preserve some of its content is tantamount to a merge-and-delete scenario. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 00:09, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
Merge and delete is exactly the scenario we are trying to protect against. With the crowd out there that wants this material removed, whittling it down to one long article, the whittling out content, sometimes word by word, line by line achieves their same ultimate goal. I watch several thousand articles on WP, I think I do a good job of it. But occasionally I let my guard down. I have revisited articles I haven't read in years, only to discover paragraphs, sections have been removed. Trackinfo (talk) 01:16, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
While on the face of it, I understand that, it really doesn't effect what I said. Look, AFD can result in an article being redirected and merged. However, a merge discussion is a completely different animal as the article can always be un-redirected with a change in consensus. What you need here is wider community input I suggest an AFD with the suggestion of a merge with redirect a possible outcome that is acceptable. To me it sounds like you want your cake and eat it to. It doesn't really work that way when you approach it on the article with a simple merge proposal. You may have to face the fact that it either is a notable article on a subject that has enough historical context to be it's own article, or it is not and should be deleted. Sometime we just have to see some things in black and white for clarity. I still think the article has enough notability to remain a stand alone, but these constant requests for merge could become slightly annoying if not outright disruptive. Think about it and let me know. I would support an AFD just to get a wider input from the general community.--Mark Just ask! WER TEA DR/N 01:27, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
No need to take it personally...Not everyone editing here has a hidden agenda in trying to covertly trim down an article they ideologically wish would disappear. I'm all for an AFD proposal simply to get more voices, though like Ginsengbomb I think it's more of a merge-and-delete scenario. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:48, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
Yeah....uhm, in many circles when someone replies to a post like what I left above with a "personalization of the comment" we usually call that projection. WTF are you going on about a conspiracy for?--Mark Just ask! WER TEA DR/N 03:52, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
Okay, let's all assume that nobody in here is part of a conspiracy to do anything to this article :D. If you guys are okay with AfD, maybe I should just do that. The wider community exposure is one very desirable aspect of pushing this over there; I was concerned going into this that one of the double-edged sword aspects of a Merge discussion is that the participants are invariably very involved in the subject matter, whereas with AfD you usually draw participation from people who are less directly involved (which I think is preferable). ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 13:07, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In light of the most recent NYPD settlement, Gothamist has a good survey of the Legal Cases that could be incorporated into the legal section, which is a little out of date.--Theredproject (talk) 19:39, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Merger Proposal

I propose that The People's Library be merged into this article. When this merge was last proposed, editors reviewing it did not have the benefit of time/perspective with which to truly judge the topic's independent notability, so I'm suggesting this again in case clearer consensus can now be established. The content is absolutely fine, but I don't think it should be in a separate article. --Judgeking (talk) 14:08, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

it was a snowball Not merge the last time. There is nothing that has changed the situation to make it anything different. Please save everybody's time and effort. Trackinfo (talk) 17:36, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
  • No merge. The article is swathed in independent, reliable sources. If it were merged, it'd be chopped down to barely anything to make it relevant to this article. No need for that when there are many other substantive things said about the library. Going to need a more persuasive merger rationale than that time has passed, otherwise I'd recommend withdrawing the proposal as not having a snowball's chance. czar ♔ 00:26, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Too soon. Consensus is clear. Besides, it would be undue weight to add anything more than is in this article already. I suggest that a link back to the main article may be a good compromise here and save us future requests.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Legacy

The "Subsequent activity" action has collected a lot of junk—it should be limited to subsequent activity from OWS itself, not other Occupy efforts. So that stuff should likely be moved to another article, e.g., Occupy movement in the United States. I think it would be useful, however, to have an "Influence and legacy" section that could summarize what reliable, secondary sources consider to be the major influences from OWS (how it influenced other Occupy sites or related efforts unaffiliated with OWS) and what commentators have said about OWS's public legacy. It's a normal encyclopedic section for a topic like this to have. czar 14:15, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

KKK and Communists

User:Blackjackshellac repeatedly is adding sourced comments that the Occupy Movement was vocally supported by the KKK and the Communist Party of the U.S. At no point in previous documentation have those groups been important or associated to the movement. Those particular groups, being as hot button as they are, are attempting to discredit the Occupy movement in general by association. I think it violates WP:NPOV. I think for those groups to be included with the Occupy movement articles, there should be some sourcing to prove the movement accepted that support in some fashion, which I do not believe is included anywhere. I have reverted the edits where found and will continue to unless there is some consensus that those groups deserve inclusion. Trackinfo (talk) 22:08, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello Trackinfo,
As Occupy Wall Street was a Grassroots movement, it does not have a single leadership group. Therefore, it would be unnecessary to prove that its leadership accepted the support of any such groups. The Occupy Movement had a wide range of supporters, which definitely included democratic-socialist, socialists, Marxist, Marxist-Leninist, and communist groups. [11] [12] [13] [14] Ontario Teacher BFA BEd (talk) 13:36, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
In your section of "criticism" you have an unsourced statement

"International activists involved in the Occupy Movement have seen it stall due a lack of synergy to work with other alternative movements calling for change. The biggest criticism is that the movement is without depth, without a lasting vision of an alternative future."

That whole subject certainly needs sources and significant development in anticipation of tying the other associated groups supporting the movement. The absence of cohesive leadership or more specifically, a unified direction is at the core of the failure of OWS to advance. But guilt by association to inflamatory groups of any political persuasion be they communist, facist or racist is going into the range of NPOV. You can probably prove "they" were present and "they" held up signs . . . whoever "they" were. But with such an unfocused group as OWS, a group that was so democratic and so welcoming to all viewpoints, you cannot say any of these groups were really a part of the movement. Justine Tunney does merit inclusion only because her efforts included the website and social media representation of the movement and thus were publicly tied to whatever was commonly seen about the movement. The confusion and denial that she speaks for OWS is perhaps exemplorary of the general rejection of any form of cohessive leadership for OWS. Trackinfo (talk) 17:50, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Huge section on Police infiltration is completely gone!

The huge section on police infiltration is completely gone from this article! Moscowamerican (talk) 00:20, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I restored the article to [14] dozens of references that were deleted after this edit. Moscowamerican (talk) 05:15, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello Moscowamerican,
You have recently performed a massive edit on the article. Please resubmit your changes in smaller edits. Do not remove sourced content without first discussing it, and reaching consensus. Ontario Teacher BFA BEd (talk) 13:01, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
Edits on Wikipedia do not require discussion first. There is no minimum or maximum edit requirement. Removing sourced content does not mean the source did not support or that, perhaps, the claim was not from a reliable source etc.. Consensus is not required to begin an edit, only when there is a dispute or disagreement on the content itself. Please be specific if you have a concern or disagreement as it might be disregarded if your only concerns are generic and outside of guidelines and policy.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:55, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
  1. ^ a b Occupy Wall Street And The Rhetoric of Equality Forbes November 1, 2011 by Deborah L. Jacobs
  2. ^ a b "Wealth, Income, and Power by G. William Domhoff". University of California at Santa Cruz. Retrieved 12-21-05. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  3. ^ a b ael Hiltzik (December 31, 2011). "Presidential campaign needs to get real on salvaging middle class". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  4. ^ Occupy Wall Street: More popular than you think By Brian Montopoli October 13, 2011 "the vast majority [of Americans] seem to share the protesters' sense that the economic deck is stacked"
  5. ^ a b c d Simon Rogers (2011-11-16). "Occupy protestors say it is 99% v 1%. Are they right? | News | guardian.co.uk". Guardian. Retrieved 2012-05-21.
  6. ^ "Financial wealth" is defined by economists as "total net worth minus the value of one's home," including investments and other liquid assets.
  7. ^ Cozy relationships and ‘peer benchmarking’ send CEOs’ pay soaring The Washington Post with Bloomberg, special report on Breakaway Wealth, By Peter Whoriskey, October 3, 2011
  8. ^ Ratcheting up pay with peer comparison The Washington Post with Bloomberg, October 3, 2011.
  9. ^ Who are the 1 percent?, CNN, October 29, 2011
  10. ^ "Tax Data Show Richest 1 Percent Took a Hit in 2008, But Income Remained Highly Concentrated at the Top." Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Accessed October 2011.
  11. ^ William F. Jasper (18 November 2011). "Occupy Wall Street: Lawlessness & Communist Revolution". The New American.
  12. ^ Ross Douthat (19 April 2014). "Marx Rises Again". The New York Times.
  13. ^ "Occupy Wall St./Toronto News/Analysis/Events". Socialist Project Canada. Retrieved 23 April 2016.
  14. ^ Tessa Stuart (19 April 2016). "In Battle for New York, Occupy Wall Streeters Turn Out for Bernie". Rolling Stone Magazine.
-23,000 were deleted originally in this edit [15]. I will integrate all changes since the huge deletion that supports Ontario Teacher BFA BEd's viewpoints. Moscowamerican (talk) 15:38, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

LOGS:

(cur | prev) 15:40, 23 April 2016‎ Moscowamerican (talk | contribs)‎ . . (185,572 bytes) (+23,109)‎ . . (undo)

(cur | prev) 13:49, 23 April 2016‎ Ontario Teacher BFA BEd (talk | contribs)‎ . . (162,463 bytes) (+300)‎ . . (→‎Notable responses: Communist Party USA - reinsert edit by Blackjackshellac with more neutral wording) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 12:46, 23 April 2016‎ Ontario Teacher BFA BEd (talk | contribs)‎ . . (162,163 bytes) (-23,387)‎ . . (Revert back to version by Gbawden.) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 22:15, 22 April 2016‎ Kgf0 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (185,550 bytes) (+20)‎ . . (rvv Undid revision 716536316 by 192.107.46.187 (talk)) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 22:14, 22 April 2016‎ Kgf0 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (185,530 bytes) (-25)‎ . . (rvv Undid revision 716537360 by 192.107.46.187 (talk)) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 22:12, 22 April 2016‎ Kgf0 (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (185,555 bytes) (0)‎ . . (Undid revision 716538480 by 192.107.46.187 (talk)) (undo | thank)

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(cur | prev) 07:48, 22 April 2016‎ 192.107.46.187 (talk)‎ . . (185,555 bytes) (+25)‎ . . (undo)

(cur | prev) 07:36, 22 April 2016‎ 192.107.46.187 (talk)‎ . . (185,530 bytes) (-20)‎ . . (undo)

(cur | prev) 13:41, 19 April 2016‎ The Wordsmith (talk | contribs)‎ . . (185,550 bytes) (0)‎ . . (Undid revision 716029118 by 172.56.22.69 (talk) "arrested" is in the source provided.) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 12:22, 19 April 2016‎ 172.56.22.69 (talk)‎ . . (185,550 bytes) (0)‎ . . (We were not arrested. We were detained. No rights were read.) (undo) (Tags: Mobile edit, Mobile web edit)

(cur | prev) 05:13, 19 April 2016‎ Moscowamerican (talk | contribs)‎ . . (185,550 bytes) (+23,387)‎ . . (restored huge number of deletions in the article - dozens of references.) (undo)

(cur | prev) 11:44, 18 April 2016‎ Gbawden (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (162,163 bytes) (+4)‎ . . (link Justine Tunney using Find link) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 10:16, 16 April 2016‎ Magnolia677 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (162,159 bytes) (-1,279)‎ . . (gibberish; this sort of writing makes no sense to the average reader) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 09:20, 16 April 2016‎ Ontario Teacher BFA BEd (talk | contribs)‎ . . (163,438 bytes) (+5,134)‎ . . (Criticism. Transfer from Occupy Movement article) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 13:32, 30 March 2016‎ Epicgenius (talk | contribs)‎ . . (158,304 bytes) (-28)‎ . . (→‎Strike Debt: per WP:EL) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 13:31, 30 March 2016‎ Epicgenius (talk | contribs)‎ . . (158,332 bytes) (-6)‎ . . (→‎Third anniversary: grammar) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 13:31, 30 March 2016‎ Epicgenius (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (158,338 bytes) (-6)‎ . . (→‎Government surveillance: un bold) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 13:30, 30 March 2016‎ Epicgenius (talk | contribs)‎ . . (158,344 bytes) (+11)‎ . . (→‎Notable responses: grammar) (undo | thank)

(cur | prev) 13:47, 29 March 2016‎ Epicgenius (talk | contribs)‎ . . (158,333 bytes) <red>(-27,217)</red>‎ . . (reword & remove unused references) (undo | thank)

Moscowamerican (talk) 15:47, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

I added back the huge deletion of Epicgenius, I also added back the criticism section that Ontario Teacher BFA BEd added, and the communist party endorsement that Ontario Teacher BFA BEd added. This is all of the significant changes in the article added back since Epicgenius deleted (-27,217) on 29 MArch 2016. Moscowamerican (talk) 15:53, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

I fully support the changes added back in by Moscowamerican to this article. And thanks for doing the work to document this for us here on the Talk page. Christian Roess (talk) 01:57, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Expansion

Just a note to mention that the article is becoming a bit choppy again. We have far too many micro-subsections that are too small, giving undue weight to these subjects that, in some cases, may not be notable enough to section off.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:01, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

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There is this Robert Grodt from OWS, but I don't know where to put is link, as he kind of was an accidental symbol of the movment. --Yug (talk) 16:43, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

References not in use

There are a large number of references commented out for being "not in use". I've deleted them as they clutter the wikitext and expand the size of the text. The list of deleted refs is in the diff. Many of these cites are incorrectly formatted with double archiveurls. -- GreenC 13:16, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Peer Review

I think the additions to this article helped advance the narrative of Occupy Wall Street and update the page to fit the current political climate. The authors remain neutral throughout and use verbiage that does not express an opinion for either side. The sources are reliable and well cited. Overall, great article! Gracemorgan192 (talk) 04:58, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

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Adding New Content

I think it would be a good idea to add a new section to this page to discuss institutional and corporate responses to the social movement. I want to talk about the actions that corporations took in response to the claims, allegations, and protests against them. I want to focus on financial institutions, and how they changed their compensation figures, hiring practices, and branding. I also want to answer how financial institutions and corporations tried to re-integrate themselves into society after being accused of greed and creating income inequality. Lastly, I think it would also be interesting to write about whether these responses, 7 years later, were actually genuine or just a farce.

Here are some potential sources I'm thinking to draw from:

1. Conover MD, Ferrara E, Menczer F, Flammini A (2013) The Digital Evolution of Occupy Wall Street. PLoS ONE 8(5): e64679. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064679

2. Mark Tremayne (2014) Anatomy of Protest in the Digital Era: A Network Analysis of Twitter and Occupy Wall Street, Social Movement Studies, 13:1, 110-126, DOI:10.1080/14742837.2013.830969

3. Omarova, Saule T. “WALL STREET AS COMMUNITY OF FATE: TOWARD FINANCIAL INDUSTRY SELF-REGULATION.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, vol. 159, no. 2, 2011, pp. 411–492. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41038809

4. Ruth, Van Gelder Sarah. This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement. Berrett-Koehler, 2011

I really like this whole entry

With so much information to cover, the author does an amazing job at keeping all of the threads associated with the Occupy movement clear and consice. All facts are backed up with citations, and even though there is a lot of information to keep tied together. It flows well. To be completely honest, none of the information present distracted me. I became distracted when I remembered a point, and I would search for it in the article. I was very pleased.

Ctturmo (talk) 05:26, 21 June 2018 (UTC)christa 06/20/2018@2225Ctturmo (talk) 05:26, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Occupied Wall Street Journal

This newspaper existed for only a few months at the height of the movement, then disappeared without leaving much trace, so we're stuck with a one-line "article". Randykitty (talk) 08:20, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Oppose: I think the sources in the article provide enough information to expand the article at least a little bit (as well as to signify notability), though I can't promise to do so any time soon. Google Books and Google Scholar also turn up mentions in academic works up to at least 2015, so the newspaper clearly continued to be discussed after its dissolution. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 11:08, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment I’m neutral about merging it or not. It would be a clean merge and just as easily separated again. I would rather contextualize all of these newspapers into larger article about Occupy Media across the countries. Full disclosure, I was an active Occupy Media participant myself. Shushugah (talk) 12:21, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment Are there many more such newspapers? If yes, combining them into one meaty article that would have more explicit notability would be an excellent idea. Of course, with the Occupy movement having petered out, few editors are still interested in editing these articles. As could have been predicted from the outset, the OWS wikiproject is moribund and many articles on aspects of the movement have hardly been touched in the past few years. Somebody ought to go through them and merge the content that has enduring value, pruning all the unencyclopedic stuff that was added in the excitement of the moment. --Randykitty (talk) 12:29, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
  • The only other newspaper with an article seems to be The Occupied Times of London, which was published under that name until last year and continues to be published under another name. There may well be other newspapers or magazines discussed more briefly in other articles though. I think the London paper shows one potential problem with discussing multiple Occupy movement publications in a single article, namely that in the several years after the end of Occupy London it took on a life of its own and a set of concerns only distantly related to the Occupy movement (hence, I assume, the change of name). As such, it's almost certainly better off with its own article. (This only tangentially relates to the merger proposed here though.) – Arms & Hearts (talk) 13:38, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment I did a search through some of the larger Occupy groups, namely NYC, DC, Oakland, Boston, London

and found just a short section for Occupy_Boston#The_Boston_Occupier, and The Occupied Times of London. I will invest some time in expanding these pages, but for now, I am convinced that merging OWSJ into OWS page is the reasonable thing to do. Let the sections be expanded, and then we can create a list referencing either articles, or sections. Shushugah (talk) 15:49, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Support merge. I was neutral at first, but after doing discovery of other occupation wikis, I am convinced this would benefit from more eyes on one page, and we can separate it out when it happens. OWSJ is too small in its current form, and neatly gets imported in OWS section. OWS Section should also include other media, such as Tweetboat (briefly mentioned), Occupied!, and Tidal Magazine. Shushugah (talk) 15:49, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I made a merge here into a new section called Occupy Wall Street#Occupied media and redirect OWSJ inside it at Occupy Wall Street#Occupied Wall Street Journal Shushugah (talk) 00:15, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Greetings Arms & Hearts, Randykitty, and Serial Number 54129: I estimate print publications exist for approximately 20 different Occupations based on preliminary research and have embedded sections inside their respective occupations for Occupy Chicago and Occupy Wall Street. I am going to add Oakland, DC and some more NY papers later today. Any others you can think of, or would be willing to contribute to? I am particularly interested in the legal challenges e.g trademark violations, that some of these papers did, such as The Boston Occupier, Occupied Chicago Tribune and the Occupied Oakland Tribune. Shushugah (talk) 11:54, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

The sections in this article and Occupy Chicago look good. Just to clarify: are you still envisioning creating a new article discussing all of these publications? Or are you just thinking about expanding our coverage of these publications in existing articles? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 21:27, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
Both, I will focus on expanding coverage of print media in any occupations first, because otherwise we won’t have an eagle view. We can start sandbox of what we think could go in a Occupy Media section. Occupy LA Times, Occupied Washington Post, Occupied Washington Times are my immediate next steps. Shushugah (talk) 23:14, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
It sounds like a worthwhile project. I think there's a lot of encyclopaedic content on the Occupy movement and media that we're missing – perhaps especially on its use of social media – and lots of scholarly work we could draw on. For example:
None of which is necessarily to say that I personally have any time to work on this, but do keep me posted. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:17, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Improving Existing Content

Since Occupy Wall Street ended, a number of civil suits and large settlements have been settled. This may warrant a new Article, thoughts?

https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20150327/washington-heights/city-pays-councilman-ydanis-rodriguez-30k-ows-arrest-lawsuit-settlement/ http://gothamist.com/2014/06/10/city_agrees_to_largest_occupy_settl.php

In Oakland 1.4 Million https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-occupy-california/occupy-protesters-arrested-in-oakland-to-share-1-4-million-settlement-idUSKBN0KP0BK20150116

Shushugah (talk) 14:56, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

There is no article about Stock market tax, and I couldn't find a suitable place for it. But here is an article about astroturfing against a tax on stock trading. TGCP (talk) 10:05, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

It seems to belong in financial transaction tax, if anyone can add it in a suitable way. TGCP (talk) 10:35, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Lead Image Change

Should the lead image be changed? It's currently used on Charging Bull, so in my mind doesn't exactly meet the "minimal usage" criteria for non-free use images. Also I think there are plenty of other images that can represent the movement, particularly actual images of protestors. Sam-2727 (talk) 15:32, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Removal of information

A lot of detail, about 25% of the article, was removed here by User:QueensanditsCrazy, as too excessive. I think the reasons for removal should be explained in more detail here. Some of that content might be better of being split or merged elsewhere, too. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:52, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. I’d revert and remove/trim bit by bit, to make it easier to discuss/compare edits. I think they were good faith and generally improvements but tad too much trimming Shushugah (talk) 02:01, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Sure, I can discuss my cuts. I was acting on the warning issued on the beginning of the article (too much detail) so I took that as impetus for my removals. Here's a rough breakdown of what I removed.
A lot of it was quotes (either kept but trimmed, or removed) from thinkers and writers in magazines and journals etc. but people who I didn't think were of note. For example a quote by "Arindajit Dube and Ethan Kaplan of the University of Massachusetts Amherst" was trimmed quite a bit (it had many many sentences in that quote, more than I think it needd) but I still kept parts of it. I didn't touch quotes from, say, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. I do recll removing a quote from the Prez of Greenpeace but I was on the fence about that one (in the section about 'reactions to OWS'), I think a reasonable person could put it back and I wouldn't object. But the original article had a lot of quotes from onlookers and magazine authors that I didn't think were particularly notable on their own in the article - perhaps put them into the Reactions to OWS article? (i believe that article exists) And those quotes were often opinion pieces. For example: "Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times noted "while alarmists seem to think that the movement is a 'mob' trying to overthrow capitalism, one can make a case that, on the contrary, it highlights the need to restore basic capitalist principles like accountability"".
I deleted the entire section on Protestor Demographics and Funding because I'm not really sure how relevant that is to the article? Some discussion on this would be helpful for me and for the article. I'm ok with putting it back into the article but afterwards I would still question its encyclopedic relevance in a discussion form - sorry for deleting those prematurely. For the case of the Funding section, it had a lot of excesively detailed minutiae and if financial information is relevant to the article, I think it should be summarized much more briefly than it was previously.
There were some segments about protestor and police activity, describing behaviors like "some people marched here", "police were parked here", etc. which I don't think belong in the article because theyre too detailed and didnt have a significant effect in themselevs beyond just being parts of this protest. So I trimmed those down, I didn't remove all of it. I think I removed a few sentences about a city council member being shoved by police, I think that could reasonably be put back, I was on the fence about removing that as well for excessive detail. Some discussion would definitely be appreciated in re how much detail should be given to individual instances of violence, arrest, or police activity or mistreatment, I think a lot of the parts on this topic that I removed could reasonably be put back.
I trimmed down the section about OWS media and publications, but I left most of the encyclopedic content there. It read a bit like promotion and advertisement but some sentence removals fixed that and put it back into a neutral objective tone.
I removed the entire section on Anarchism because I figured it could be included on the page about Reactions to OWS, so once again please accept my apologies for prematurely deleting that instead of moving it to another page.
Finally, some other reaction movements like Occupy George and Occupy Yale weren't big enough to merit mention, in my opinion.
I hope this explains my thought process, hopefully you can agree that I removed a good amount of excessive detail while we can still discuss how much of what I deleted should be put back - in particular, quotes and analyses by magazine thought leaders, and coverage of individual legal cases / protestor action / police activity. I think a lot of the former can go into (if it isn't already in) the article about Reactions to OWS and that would be a more appropriate place to put it.

QueensanditsCrazy (talk) 17:08, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Hey guys, do you have any thoughts about how I/we can improve this article or about the content I removed? Would love to hear feedback and ideas. QueensanditsCrazy (talk) 04:53, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

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