Talk:2009 May Day protests

Greece?

Nothing has happened in Greece. Somebody has confused this with the December 2008 riots. 79.103.201.194 (talk) 21:51, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I would e-mail the BBC and tell them that they're misinformed... --candle•wicke 23:03, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The BBC has lost its integrity a very long time ago mate. Quote from its "brilliantly written" article [1] :"Greek police battled to quell rioters in Athens after banks were attacked." That's it. One sentence! The article is actually about Turkey and Germany (have you read it? please think before you comment). Remember me when you realise how the BBC really works. 79.103.201.194 (talk) 13:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Too funny to change?

"Several hundred protesters dispersed authorities with rocks in the Şişli central district." - this goes a bit beyond what the source says, but this is just hilarious ;) Wnt (talk) 22:15, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. ;) --candle•wicke 09:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Wording

Wouldn't it be better to replace the section heading "By Country" with "By State" because Hong Kong is definitely not a country, and the status of Taiwan is heavily disputed? Mimson (talk) 23:21, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Unsourced claims

A lot of the claims in the article point to the "Worldwide May Day rallies" article but that article doesn't contain information backing those claims. In particular, the Tokyo rally and the Austria rally aren't mentioned at all. --Killing Vector (talk) 02:01, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Venezuela

Theres a consistant attempt to politicize the section relating to Venezuela by claiming that opposition marches were disperssed, with the not so subtle intent to label the reasoning was because the government didnt allow them. Demonstrators were breaking down barracades, switch marches to be near pro government marches, and throwing rocks at police. This isnt a political or partisan statement its what happened but many who have distain for Hugo Chavez keep changing it to give the aura of dictatorship and infringement on free speech. The marches were approved, the course of the marches were agreed upon, demonstrators became violent (injuring two policemen) and were dispersed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.30.145.64 (talk) 22:25, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You clearly have a POV on this issue. And the material you inserted did not coincide with the information in the citation directly following your insert. The Reuters article did not state that the demonstrators "turned violent" and so were dispersed, as your insert stated. It said that demonstrators tried to push past a barricade and that the police then opened fire with tear-gas and rubber bullets into the air, etc. to disperse them. The Reuters article also made no mention of "breaking down barricades" or "throwing rocks" or anything else which might be considered violence. If you want to insert material to such effect, then you'll need to also provide a proper and verifiable citation from a neutral POV source, such as a known news organization like Reuters, which confirms your contentions. I'm not saying such things didn't happen. I'm saying that you must maintain a neutral POV and statements made in the article must coincide with the citations for those statements. You can't simply insert obviously non-neutral POV material and expect it to remain in tghe article. See WP:NPOV for more information. Thanks. Age Happens (talk) 22:46, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

fair enouph, I put 2 articles relating to the matter, even though in the first, events are clearly scewed to favor a certain interpretation through some ommissions. Im looking for Globovisions coverage (which is what I was watching) where they clearly show demonstrators throwing rocks and bottles and tearing down the barracade after the announcer said to re-route the march-at the march to the national assembly. So I just put what was there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.30.145.64 (talk) 04:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The IP user has good reason to raise concerns about manipulation of the article against the Chavez government. This is a common occurence on wikipedia as Venezualan's with internet access tend to be of the anti-government parts of the population and while they deserve a voice, they are in the minority in Venezuala and in the past used the re-routing of a protest to launch a coup detat against the government. I would also point out that on this issue, the citing of your normal media sources could also be a little problematic as the true story of the coup detat only reached the West after it was made obvious that it was a failure. In fact many Western news agencies simply regurgitated information they garnered from Venezualan private media WHO significantly were involved in the coup detat. So I think in relation to this article the sources need to be thoroughly checked and rechecked to ensure wikipedia doesn't become a soap box or POV.--Senor Freebie (talk) 13:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree. My concern was where the edit was made and how. The POV of the sentence was entirely changed and didn't reflect the information in the citation which directly followed the edit. That made the entire section misleading. Inline citations should always verify the preceding information, not directly contravene it. Such was the result of the edit. The information itself is not something I have any problem with including, as long as proper, verifiable citations support the additional information. So, I requested such above. The editor complied with citations to support that side of the issue and it seems to me that all of the conditions necessary for at least attempting to maintain a neutral POV have been met now. Age Happens (talk) 07:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

"Further marches"

Re "Further marches have taken place in Russia, Ukraine, the Philippines, Japan and Hong Kong, Cuba, Italy and Spain". Wouldn't it be better to name the countries where marches have not taken place? Isn't this a world-wide event? Also, what's the idea of only mentioning "clashes"? Shouldn't the cases being raised be the main issue? This article seems severely biased... Narssarssuaq (talk) 08:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)