Talk:United States v. Strong

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Bruxton (talk) 01:30, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that in United States v. Strong the First Circuit court upheld the conviction of a man for creating a hazard on Federal court property because he covered a court restroom in his own feces? Source: New York Daily News Salon
  • Reviewed: Robe of State

Created by Dr vulpes (talk). Self-nominated at 21:14, 18 April 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/United States v. Strong; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• The hook is difficult to resist, but I am not satisfied with the sources and the amount of coverage I see. It appears to me that the case has not received enough in-depth coverage in reliable sources, i.e. something more reputable than salon.com, to warrant a standalone article. Furthermore, the tone of the article strikes me as too casual for an encyclopedia. I suggest that we first resolve the question of encyclopedic notability. Surtsicna (talk) 19:50, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
• Surtsicna, Would these sources address your concerns? I've added them to the article, they might be a bit hard to access I had to use the wikipedia library. Russell, Eric (26 Jul 2013) "After two years in courts, bathroom-mess case ends". Portland Press Herald.; Shepherd, Chuck (2013-09-12). "New of the Weird: Fine Points of the Law". Sun-News.; 1st Circuit affirms conviction of man who leaves nasty surprise in court bathroom". Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. 2013-08-15. Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 01:01, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  I am not sure, Dr vulpes. I can tell that you invested a considerable effort into the article. I would like there to be a proper discussion to get more opinions, if that is alright. Surtsicna (talk) 17:06, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  Surtsicna, no worries that's 100% a-ok with me. Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 17:16, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

• nomination doesn't seem to need imminent closure – Surtsicna, DYK usually defers to AfD on questions of notability. If you'd like to get an answer on that, I'd suggest AfDing the article and returning here. me and my big mouth :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 18:50, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
• Comment Article is out of AfD. Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 04:53, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
• Comment. While the article survived AFD, it was only "no consensus". And furthermore, this article hook seems to skirt the line of 4a on "articles that focus unduly on negative aspects of living individuals should be avoided" (I presume Mr. Strong is still alive). At least with stuff like "normal" crimes, there's also the victim side, but... meh. It's not really agreeed on how strong "unduly" is, but I'd weakly suggest giving this one a skip on DYK on 4a grounds. SnowFire (talk) 23:01, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

  SnowFire, just so we're all clear the only reason I even worked on this article is that it was an appeal AND has been cited in other cases. If this was just a case with a man pooping his pants it would be super unethical to create the article about it, but two appeals later (Strong appealed to the Supreme Court) and some legal citations later I didn't feel that this was inappropriate and that's the only reason I nominated this for DYK. I'm not trying to start a fight or anything, just I understand that when we deal with living people we need to be careful and considerate. Dr vulpes ^{(💬 • 📝)} 08:06, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

  I respect that this is a good faith effort, of course. I still feel the article ends up reading somewhat lurid. Like I said, it's a weak objection, but I feel it's still an issue (and an "issue" is not quite the same as "problem", just, not every article that is keepable on Wikipedia is necessarily DYK-certified).

  While we're here - the "legal analysis" section seems to be primary sourced currently. Are there any sources that directly connect the Strakoff case with the Strong case? Both the current citations are before 2010. (I'm not saying delete it, because it does seem to potentially be relevant, but it would be nice to have some other source connect these cases.) SnowFire (talk) 00:11, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

  • • • Just to say I've done a little copyediting of this myself.--Launchballer 08:29, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Article was nominated within 7 days of creation. Over 3,000 characters of prose. Neutrally written, and no copyvio detected. QPQ done. I'd like to shorten and simply the hook a bit, so here's ALT1: "... that in United States v. Strong, a U.S. appeals court upheld the conviction of a man for covering a federal courthouse restroom in his own feces?"

A few issues, @Dr vulpes: You have a sentence that states, "As he was going through security Strong informed the court security officer that he needed to use the bathroom, defecated, and was escorted to the restroom, in that order." However, if I read the sources correctly, it seems that Strong first asked to use the restroom, then he was informed that he needed to pass through security first. Could you please check the sources again?

Also, there's a sentence that states, "nowhere did [the law] say [the posting of regulations] had to be in the front of the courthouse". However, it seems that the GSA regulation did require this; all the appeals court stated was that non-compliance with the regulation did not nullify the conviction. See: ABA Journal source. Edge3 (talk) 02:48, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

The 'in that order' bit was one of mine, and was a rewording of existing text without looking at the source, which I have now done, and reworded accordingly.--Launchballer 08:20, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

I've done some additional copyediting, and I'm now ready to approve ALT1. Edge3 (talk) 23:35, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Before approval I am just going to ask opinions of the DYK crew. Bruxton (talk) 14:02, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

@Bruxton: Given our conversation at DYK talk, are you ready to promote? Edge3 (talk) 03:26, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

@Edge3: I did not put a hold on the nomination and the discussion at talk went nowhere so I think you are safe to promote. Bruxton (talk) 03:31, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

@Bruxton: Ah, I see I misunderstood your previous comment. When you said "Before approval", I thought that you were putting a hold on promoting this nomination. In any case, I'm unable to promote because I was the approver. Edge3 (talk) 04:29, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

@Edge3: did you have a problem with ALT0? Because you cannot approve your own hook which was ALT1. Lightburst (talk) 01:02, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I was proposing a variation from ALT0. Rather than edit ALT0 directly (which reviewers can do), I left ALT0 in place and labeled my edits as ALT1 so that others may compare the versions, as you have just done. I'm not sure where we are procedurally because I already completed my review, but then Bruxton used the word "approval" when we're already at promotion stage, and then after having had the requested discussion at DYK talk we somehow seem to be back at the approval stage (rather than promotion stage). Edge3 (talk) 01:23, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@Edge3: I did not want to force a promotion over @SnowFire:'s objection. But I think we can promote at this point. Bruxton (talk) 01:28, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Grammar too advanced

Here is the excerpt that i selected

As he was going through security Strong informed the court security officer that he needed to use the bathroom, was told he had to pass through security, defecated, and was escorted to the restroom, in that order; about ten minutes later, he headed to the clerk's office.

Its pretty confusing for non native speaker. Where is the clause and effect? Where is the preposition? Wheres is the conjunction? Where is the verb? Hard to understand that excerpt text isnt it? 2404:8000:1027:85F6:34DA:2FD8:4B38:8B51 (talk) 10:05, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

If you want simple english, there's a simple english wiki.

As a native speaker, there's nothing overly complicated about this.

It's the order of events with the subject omitted as it is implied.

If you think it could be worded better, you're welcome to change it. DarmaniLink (talk) 18:00, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

It's a confusing sentence to me (as a native English speaker).

Does this make it clearer?

"As he was going through security, Strong informed the court security officer that he needed to use the bathroom. Strong was told he had to first pass through security, at which point Strong defecated and was escorted to the restroom. About ten minutes later, he headed to the clerk's office." Grvy (talk) 08:20, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Badly written, seems to imply that he was correct

The phrasing of "...was told he had to pass through security, defecated, and was escorted to the restroom, in that order;" to me, seems to imply that the man in question was correct in his actions? If he was told that he had to defecate before reaching the toilet, then it would make perfect sense for him to have done it before he got there. Is it perhaps implying that he soiled himself after passing security, but before being brought to the bathroom? The phrasing here is, frankly, shit. There is surely a better way for this sentence to have been written? 51.37.184.155 (talk) 17:58, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

It could be worded more explicitly. The "in that order" bit does spell it out, but it does seem a little too colloquial. DarmaniLink (talk) 18:07, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Not clear what regulations

The appeal had to "consider if the violation of federal regulations occurring on a federal property could still stand if such regulations had not met posting requirements." What regulations is it referring to? Was the expectation that a notice should have been posted not to foul the restroom? Grvy (talk) 08:32, 6 July 2023 (UTC)