Talk:ACAB/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

ACAB is that not a shortening for All Cops Are Bastards? I think that is a very used abbreviation... --Lindberg47 (talk) 23:20, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

So the google link says it's ALL coppers are beautiful?

So, when I googled ACAB the first link is to a wikipedia article on it and you can see the first line of the article:

A.C.A.B. is an anti-police acronym standing for "All Cop[per]s Are Beautiful", used as a slogan in graffiti, tattoos, and other imagery.

So I click on the link and see this instead:

A.C.A.B. is an anti-police acronym standing for "All Cops Are Bastards",[1] used as a slogan in graffiti, tattoos, and other imagery.

Anyone know why that happens? Kairos (talk) 01:42, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Bärchen

• File:Politparade 183.jpg Bärchen, actually. --C.Suthorn (talk) 14:32, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Anarchy

• "Anarchy And 'Acab': Why The Turn Of Phrase?". Ransom Note.

@Johnnycatt: This is more than an anarchist phrase. Feel free to write more on the anarchist usage in the body of the page. --evrik ^(talk) 16:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• I just added it to the "background" section. --evrik ^(talk) 16:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 01 July 2020

Please swap out all the text in the In popular culture section. --evrik ^(talk) 01:22, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

@Evrik: full protection is gone, feel free to make this edit yourself now. Ed6767 talk! 21:41, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Ed6767: can we ramp it back up, featuring the version up right now for six more days, to get us through the period of time till it goes on the front page? --evrik ^(talk) 14:12, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

  Evrik, I mean ECP might be an option if there's still vandalism from confirmed users but I'm not sure about full again. Ed6767 talk! 14:14, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Ed6767: There was a lot of discussion about keeping the article stable, after it hits the main page ... I will care less. :-) --evrik ^(talk) 14:56, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Can someone with a higher Wikipedia rank than me please semi-protect this page against vandalism? Thank you. SpencerHalse (talk) 15:53, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• I made the request. --evrik ^(talk) 16:21, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. SpencerHalse (talk) 10:05, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• I think it may be time to ramp up the protection again. --evrik ^(talk) 04:28, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Request for comment on text removed from ACAB article

There was a recent lobotomization of the ACAB article, stripping out half of the text, attacking the sources, the text, and passages that gave context to the subject. What do other people think? --evrik ^(talk) 15:11, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support removal Not to repeat what I said above too much, but I completely agree with this "lobotomization". The original version of the article was, frankly, a bit disgraceful. It was a mix of WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, and unreliable sources. I think that, given recent events in the US, this article was very much written from a certain point-of-view, probably by a mix of IPs and newer editors (I can see a lot of red names down in the edit history in June). This article still needs a lot of work, but cutting out the tendentious fluff has drastically improved it. — Czello 15:29, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal. I made these removals, which were specifically supported above by Czello and were in accord with complaints by three more. The content was unacceptable per policy, using non-WP:RS, engaging in WP:Synthesis, and violating WP:NPOV. I therefore made these cuts: [1][2][3][4][5] (each one has an edit summary with reasoning). All policy non-compliant material is unacceptable whether a little or a lot. If that happened to be a big chunk of the article, that's irrelevant. YouTube, Twitter, a far-left political group's website, and a high school newspaper by a literal child are terrible sources. Synthesizing sources that are not about ACAB to convince the reader that really, all cops are bastards, instead of giving a neutral, encyclopedic discussion of the phrase, is not acceptable. Using this article as a WP:SOAPBOX to spread a POV about law enforcement is not acceptable.
• evrik's RfC statement is a violation of the requirement that the statement be neutral as required at WP:RFC. I also note that so far no one other than evrik has endorsed any of the removed content. Crossroads ^-talk- 15:41, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Mostly agree with removal. However, some of the material should go back. Specifically:
  • The first two pieces of the diff, which describe how the term is directed primarily toward policing as an institution rather than at individual police, is important to understanding the term. There's a fair amount of editorializing on line 17 about why that is in Wikipedia's voice; that should be rewritten to make it clear that it's about why people use the term. The source is usable, but I'd be shocked if there wasn't academic literature that would be a better source.
  • The paragraph starting "Traditionally used by anarchists and punks..." should be restored, with copyediting ("A good example" sounds weird)
  • The "A.C.A.B. and race" section really doesn't belong at this article. A large chunk of it is sourced to a high school student newspaper opinion piece, which means it's probably not suitable for moving elsewhere. Race is relevant in explaining why people use the term, but that section is loosely related to the article subject at best.
  • In the prosecution history section, I think the New York Times source could be used, but the sentence it's used to support is awfully vague. Most critically, the person in the article didn't say A.C.A.B., which the current text implies he did. Something like "Even in the United States, where using the term A.C.A.B. is protected speech, criticism of police can still be prosecuted under libel law." (NYT ref)
  • "Other meanings" is bad. I would say it's original research to link "bastards" applied to black Germans to the phrase A.C.A.B. without a source making that connection (for those who don't have access to the source: it doesn't mention A.C.A.B. or cops; I can provide a copy to anyone who wants to examine it). The rest of the section is reasonable if someone can find reliable sources that use/describe those acronyms (which seems possible). Vahurzpu (talk) 15:48, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
    • This source is no good. It's a blog site by anarchists. In a very limited WP:ABOUTSELF sense regarding the group would be one thing, but to represent users of ACAB generally? No. And using the political sites of even mainstream political groups for anything outside ABOUTSELF is very sketchy. Regarding the paragraph starting with "traditionally used by anarchists and punks", that source was a dead link. [6] It also doesn't seem to be published by NPR as the template said. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:04, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
      • @Crossroads: I searched Google Scholar for the phrase "all cops are bastards", and basically none of them explained the term beyond expanding the acronym (and most of them were in the context of European soccer hooligans, which I was not expecting). Thus, I'll let that point stand. The LatinoUSA source, while it does have a screwed-up citation, is substantially correct: it just has a typo (the correct URL is this, and this is a page on NPR's website saying that the reporter is reporting the story "for our website, latinousa.org". The source does directly support the claim that it was being chanted at the George Floyd protests (though they expand it as "All Cops Are Bad"). Vahurzpu (talk) 21:23, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
        • That source seems decent, but now that I've read it, it's another WP:V failure. Unlike was being claimed, the only thing the source says about ACAB is Others tagged the CNN sign with sharpies, messages included “ACAB” (All Cops Are Bad) and “No justice, no peace.” Many of the initial messages were written by white protestors. It says nothing about "anarchists and punks", "adopted broadly", or "institutional police brutality around the world". Crossroads ^-talk- 03:30, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
          • The two sentences leading up to the LatinoUSA citation seem mostly uncontroversial and easy to source, and would have benefitted from a cn tag rather than removal. The first sentence starts "Traditionally used by anarchists and punks," which is easily referenced: As Vahurzpu notes, the remainder of the passage could be phrased better but is substantially right: "it has recently been adopted broadly to reflect the institutional police brutality around the world. A good example of the acronym being a stand against the institution of police brutality is the mainstream attention in 2020 as a result of the killing of George Floyd and the protests that ensued following his killing." I would propose something like: "it has recently been adopted more widelyand received the mainstream attention around the world, including in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in the US." This could then cite LatinoUSA, as well as the Vice and GQ pieces which make the same point. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:57, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

References

• Oppose removal. Some content could be tagged with {{better source needed}} but the majority is better than nothing and some of it ([7], Race Matters, Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures) seems unproblematic. I would support removal of the history.com-sourced content only (see WP:RSP). There are some worse-sourced things like that the phrase is also backronym-ed as "all capitalists are bastards" but such things are uncontroversial facts better tagged than removed—users would do better to simply find a reliable source than to remove it. Any users labouring under the silly misapprehension that criticism of the police is something that started with the death of George Floyd, or not a fully-fleshed out scholarly position would do well to read some Angela Davis. Additionally, I think anyone who comes out of reading this article believing that all cops are bastards went into it believing the same thing.
  On the bureaucratic side of things, I don't see why this went straight to an RfC rather than being reverted and then discussed in a WP:BRD fashion. Slashing half of an article that's been DYK-approved and previously stable is not something that should stay by default when it's contested. — Bilorv (talk) 20:14, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Per WP:BURDEN, material that is unsourced should stay off until sourced. Material that is sourced to bad sources is as good as unsourced. And WP:ONUS shows that the default position for questionable material is exclusion. WP:Original research is also never allowed. We don't leave up bad material because someone, someday, might make it compliant. Look at the previous discussions - 3 other editors besides myself saw the same problems. It is on that consensus that I took action. That one source you mention here was only used to support "The slave patrols were the first publicly funded law enforcement in the South." It says nothing about ACAB and was being used as WP:Synthesis. As for so-called uncontroversial facts, clearly they are controversial since they were removed. Of course it can be re-added when and only when a reliable source is found. But this article will not be a WP:COATRACK or WP:POVFORK about the history of policing. As for police abolition ideas, WP:Fringe applies to social sciences too. Not many criminologists are advocating for no police or prisons. As for DYK, see WP:DYKNOT: DYK is not: A smaller-scale version of either featured content or Good Articles...Articles must meet the basic criteria set out on this page but do not have to be of very high quality....it is not expected that articles appearing on DYK would be considered among the best on Wikipedia. But if an article can get past DYK with these issues I've pointed out, the problem lies with DYK, not the remover. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:54, 28 July 2020 (UTC) updated Crossroads ^-talk- 01:41, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
    • We don't leave up bad material because someone, someday, might make it compliant. Of course we do. This is the purpose of {{citation needed}}, {{more citations needed}} etc. Wikipedia is a work in progress. clearly they are controversial since they were removed The example I gave here was that the phrase is also backronym-ed as "all capitalists are bastards"—if you dispute that this is true (not verifiable or due weight, but true) then we really have a serious issue. As for DYK, I'm quite familiar with the process—more so than you, I believe. Please don't patronise me in this way again. — Bilorv (talk) 17:54, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose removal. Everything was sourced. Stripping out half of the text was uncalled for. Restore the text and let's discuss the whole thing line by line. --evrik ^(talk) 21:58, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

• • Please fix your RfC to comply with WP:RFCNEUTRAL. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:22, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
    • Please stay on the topic. --evrik ^(talk) 23:40, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
      • It is on topic though. Your RfC statement is biased. You need to change it. -TrynaMakeADollar (talk) 03:33, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
        • Given the aggressive nature of the comments made when the article was halved, I'm okay with my characterization. --evrik ^(talk) 15:46, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

• Mostly oppose removal: Some of the content was definitely editorializing or inappropriate to put in Wikivoice. Some of the sources were definitely not strong enough. However, none of that justifies deleting content en masse. I'd prefer to be able to talk about specific edits to specific parts of the article, but if you force me into the position of "yes or no, should we cut out half the material in the article?", I'm going to have to answer no. (I agree this RfC is non-neutral and would prefer it to be reworded to An editor recently made this series of edits which removed about half the content of the page. Should this material have been removed?) Loki (talk) 00:37, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

• More specifically:

• The line from the lead about it not being about individual cops was poorly sourced but should have been maintained with a better source or a citation needed tag.
• Content about the police directly and not the term should still have been removed. This includes the entire "ACAB and race" section and When an individual joins the police force.. to ...in the origin of modern policing. in the Background section. (But the line The acronym is meant then...the police as an institution. should have been kept and perhaps rephrased.)

• The line about it being Traditionally used by anarchists and punks should have been kept.

• The line about its use in the George Floyd protests should have been kept and rephrased.
• The line about other left-wing interpretations should definitely have been kept. Sourcing is not strong and perhaps could be improved, but even a single use is sufficient to support that those other phrasings are used enough to not delete the entire line. The current version of the article strands the picture of "All Cats Are Beautiful" without its intended context.

Loki (talk) 00:52, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

If something is well-sourced, on-topic, and NPOV, I'm obviously good with it. But there is no obligation to leave bad material and tag it instead of removing it. Just like how unsourced material can be either left with a CN tag or removed per WP:BURDEN. Of course, I thought that maybe editors would try to fix the problems I identified instead of starting an RfC to salvage junk, but here we are. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:19, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support removal. Serious WP:SYNTH issues, as outlined above. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 01:37, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal. Violates WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. Also, the beginning RfC statement seems quite biased. -TrynaMakeADollar (talk) 01:42, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal—after checking the diff, it's clear that the content removed violated WP:SYNTH, WP:OR, and/or WP:RS. I don't think the people who added it had bad intentions, but content needs to have better sourcing and be directly related to the topic to include. Please keep in mind RFCNEUTRAL when starting RfCs. (t · c) buidhe 02:18, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

• I noticed that someone has started posting at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard, and Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. That borders on Wikipedia:Canvassing. --evrik ^(talk) 03:05, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
  • WP:CANVASSING: Appropriate notification - An editor who may wish to draw a wider range of informed, but uninvolved, editors to a discussion can place a message at any of the following: The talk page or noticeboard of one or more WikiProjects or other Wikipedia collaborations which may have interest in the topic under discussion. (Emphasis added.) Crossroads ^-talk- 03:08, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
    • These are completely appropriate notifications, being neutrally worded. Accusation of canvassing is unfounded. (t · c) buidhe 03:43, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
      • They may be neutrally worded, but the odd selection of venues not directly related to this topic gives the impression of vote stacking. --evrik ^(talk) 04:16, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
        • There is no "odd selection". The reliability of your sources has been questioned. The fact that the statements up for debate violate Wikipedia's policy of OR has been brought up multiple times. And, the possibility of the statements being fringe has been established above as well. Those are all relevant. -TrynaMakeADollar (talk) 04:54, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
          • If it's not odd, then there was a purpose. Perhaps recruiting people who have similar opinions? --evrik ^(talk) 04:58, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
            • Well, the purpose was to let the appropriate noticeboards know. If by "people who have similar opinions" you mean people who oppose unreliable sources, OR, and fringe theories, then... well, yeah. Afterall, the whole point of this dispute is because the article has issues with reliable sources, OR, and fringe theories. Why wouldn't they be notified? Please remember to WP:AGF: this was entirely appropriate. — Czello 07:31, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
              • WP:Duck. --evrik ^(talk) 15:13, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
                • @Evrik:There's no cases of WP:DUCK here. As several people have told you, this is a case of appropriate notification for the reasons I said. But on the subject of WP:DUCK, I suggest you read the 2nd sentence on that page: The duck test does not apply to non-obvious cases. Unless there is evidence which proves otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt, editors must assume good faith from others.. — Czello 15:49, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

• Note: might I invite all involved to remember to assume good faith and even assume the assumption of good faith? Carry on the fruitful discussion if you please. Lectonar (talk) 06:18, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal without prejudice to restoration of some individual items. This was a WP:SYN-fest. Guy (help!) 09:32, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support partial restoration as per Vahurzpu above. NPR's LatinoUSA[8] is a good source. I also think it is appropriate to use anarchist sites like that of the Workers Solidarity Movement here because that's exactly where you are going to get a serious discussion of the term and its usage, whereas mainstream media almost by definition are going to struggle to report accurately. Wikipedia guidelines on referencing anarchism-related topics, WP:ANCITE, is useful here: Because anarchism has traditionally been a marginalised movement, it can be challenging to find well-informed mainstream sources of information... A comprehensive familiarity with anarchism, as with many subjects, is rare among journalists. Their concept of anarchism is often associated with terrorism, chaos or anomie in the popular consciousness, whether rightly or wrongly so. Specifically, editors should be wary of citing passing references to anarchist-related topics where the author does not support their claims with a rationale or citation...a journalist doing a story on a group of anarchists will often have no prior experience with the anarchist movement.... More generally, I think it is bad practice to remove so much content in a single edit. It would have been better to remove each problematic element with a specific edit summary so that each one could be discussed on its own merits. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:20, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
  • LatinoUSA looks good to me too, but it was being used to support information that was not in it, as I explained here: [9] And, it wasn't removed in one edit, but in five, each with its own edit summary: [10][11][12][13][14] Crossroads ^-talk- 16:28, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
  • In response to your comment, Bobfrombrockley, Crossroads has started a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Found a niche guideline that was never widely vetted about removing guideline status from WP:ANCITE. — Bilorv (talk) 18:06, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal - due to WP:SYNTH as raised in above discussions. Idealigic (talk) 11:05, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal - poor sourcing, synthesis, original research, coatracking. I raised these issues four weeks ago, but it was quite clear at the time, eg aggressive reversion of requests for better sources, ownership behaviour, that pursuing or attempting to rectify the issues would be a massive timesink. Neil S. Walker (talk) 11:51, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
  • As is the problem with so many articles on Wikipedia. I don't think this article can ever be totally stable or free of POV pushing. -TrynaMakeADollar (talk) 20:47, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal lots of grotty synthesis and poor sourcing. -Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 12:01, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal - a really gross WP:OR and WP:SYNTH burrito supreme. - DoubleCross (‡) 12:07, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Comment There was minimal synth, Wikipedia:What SYNTH is not.--evrik ^(talk) 15:13, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal, some of it can probably be added back in if sourced and worded appropriately but most appears to be OR for which no reliable source exists. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 19:56, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Invalid Rfc – This "Rfc" is fatally flawed as it fails both WP:RFCBEFORE and WP:RFCNEUTRAL. I was all set to quote WP:DONTBITE, but seriously, a fifteen-year editor should *really* know better than this; it should be closed and restarted from scratch. The only saving grace, is that despite that highly-POV rfc statement and failure to lay the groundwork in discussion, the Rfc seems headed strongly against the OP's POV, so maybe we should just continue it anyway. If the closer decides to evaluate it rather than declaring it void, then they can count this as a Support removal !vote, per previous arguments and analyses of sources and WP:V. Mathglot (talk) 22:34, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• This is indeed a pretty lousy RfC, but more importantly, the scrubbing was done for the right reasons--the sourcing was poor, and much of the text was a kind of essay-style argument pulling in sources, SYNTH-style, to make a point. Drmies (talk) 03:48, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal because of synthesis and poor sourcing. Evrik has been here long enough to know better than to bake "lobotomization" into the RfC, which would be expected to skew it away from removal. It's a reinforcement of the rectitude of removal that the "lobotomization" comment has not in fact helped the RfC go that way. Binksternet (talk) 04:04, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal - A quick look over what was removed and it is fairly clear to me that it was the correct action. That is not to say none of it can be re-added with proper sources and in a more encyclopedic ton. Just that was was in there needed to be gone. PackMecEng (talk) 04:06, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• I would suggest that the large section removed on the relationship between policing and race is tertiary to this article, but should be moved to a separate draft specifically on the relationship between race and policing (i.e., Draft:Race and policing or the like), where it can potentially be worked up into a decent article on this subject. It is too far afield to belong here. BD2412 T 04:20, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Is that really a separate topic from Police brutality in the United States? I mean, maybe it is, but I'd hate to have a content fork. It would need work and to be based on high-quality WP:Scholarship sources. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:57, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
    • It was included to give context to the anger directed at the police. --evrik ^(talk) 15:51, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
    • Arguably the relationship between policing and race in the US is far broader than just the subject of police brutality. Incidentally, I am surprised that Fuck 12 (I disagree with that redirect) is not mentioned in either version of this article. I think I agree with others here that the appropriate development of this subject should take place on another article, but ACAB has changed context drastically during the recent George Floyd protests, there is no question. There are A LOT of sources to that effect and this article is poorer as a result of not using those. I'm not sure it's possible to write an encyclopedic article on ACAB, but anyway. jps (talk) 01:55, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
      • Per jps, there is much more to the relationship between police and race, such as the tendency of the occupation to be more attractive to people of different ethnicities. There are instances of people in underrepresented groups to seek to become police officers precisely because they feel motivated to counter this underrepresentation. BD2412 T 02:02, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal Some of the material removed rebuts the claim that ACAB but isn't referenced to sources discussing ACAB. We are supposed to report controversies, not weigh in on them. TFD (talk) 05:49, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

The Variants section was directly linked to all the other different language articles. That too was removed. --evrik ^(talk) 15:46, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

• Mainly Support I think the paragraph starting "In the Southern United States..." and the one describing the book Race Matters are informative and might be kept, but they're not a huge loss. The book could be added to the "See Also" section and the other means I view as potential material for a "controversies" section.Fred (talk) 00:16, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal. Clear-cut SYNTH. Neutrality^talk 02:27, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal A lot of what was removed is clearly a violation of WP:NPOV. Most of the sources are questionable at best and egregious at worst. None of that should be in here. Anon0098 (talk) 06:23, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• False dichotomy I agree with Bilorv that some of those statements should be tagged with {{Better source}} rather than removed wholesale. Specifically, the parts about the acronym as a generalized or particularized insult. Whether ACAB refers to individuals or a group is important both legally and sociopolitically, so while those sources may not be ideal, the distinction is one that should remain in the article and improved. The rest of the removed text is probably better off pruned. A lot of it seems like WP:COATRACKS unrelated to the acronym itself (such as the origins of policing) and would probably fit better in other more specialized articles if at all. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:34, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal Seems close to unanimous that "ACAB and race" should go for reasons of OR/Synth. A couple of people have argued for keeping the institutional/personal distinction with CN tags, but if there was a RS out there you'd think someone would have found it by now given the number of editors who have weighed in. --RaiderAspect (talk) 08:15, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support removal definitely WP:SYNTH issues, maybe even WP:NPOV issues in regards to some statements being made, with, at best, weak sources to back. Ed talk! 15:31, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Comment

As a long time reader of Wikipedia pages I don't believe I have ever stumbled across a page more biased and poorly sourced as this one thats being featured on the front page of Wikipedia . A large amount of the "information" has been lifted directly from an opinion piece. Phrases like "While they might try to de-escalate, more often than not they respond with force" and "All Cops Are Bastards not because of flaws in their moral character, but because the institution they serve is corrupt" are not sentences that belong in an encyclopedia. I have lost a little bit of the faith I had in this site after reading this today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:56A:7830:A100:1DD4:447C:56B3:4ED6 (talk) 19:54, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

• I have to agree with the above statement. This article has less to do with documenting the true origin of the acronym A.C.A.B., and has more to do with vilifying law enforcement. This article needs major re-edits and sources should be cited. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 21:18, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
• Read the talk page at 'Kenosha protests' if you really want to lose faith. LegendLength (talk) 08:04, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

• The whole article is sourced. What changes do your propose? --evrik ^(talk) 21:58, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
• If you have higher-quality sources or believe there are changes that need to be made then make those changes. If other editors believe they are a genuine improvement then they will stay and if not then we will have something concrete to have a discussion about. — Bilorv (talk) 13:56, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Have to agree with Neil S Walker from a previous discussion, the IP above, and TadgStirkland401. The article as it was written had major problems with bad sources and WP:Synthesis. I therefore took action based on this and made several cuts of unacceptable material [15][16][17][18][19] (each one has an edit summary with reasoning). Instead of any edit warring, please instead discuss here and only add material that is reliably sourced and on-topic (not synthesized), as well as being WP:NPOV about law enforcement. If anyone wishes to claim that material I removed is acceptable per policy, please explain how in light of the reasons I gave for removal. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:34, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

• Wow, it's not often you see someone strip out half of the article, and then throw down about edit wars. --evrik ^(talk) 04:28, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

All policy non-compliant material is unacceptable whether a little or a lot, just added or weeks old. If that happened to be a big chunk of the article, that isn't my fault. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:31, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I took a look at the older version of this article and was aghast (and also not that surprised) at how bad it was. The original IP was absolutely right to raise his/her concerns with this; it was a clear mix of WP:OR/WP:SYNTH and unreliable sources. It's looking much better after Crossroads' edits (I promise I'm not following you around Wikipedia, Crossroads) but I'll take another look at it over the next day or two to see if what's left can be improved. — Czello 07:53, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Reference [23] in section "Other meanings"

Reference [23] doesn't says "In addition, there is an antisemitic variant used by neo-Nazis: A.J.A.B. (All Jews are Bastards)". It is only an article about a court hearing, whether wear clothes with the the abbrevation "A.C.A.B" is punishable or not. And for the term "eight cola eight beer". — Preceding unsigned comment added by DeyrAldregi (talk • contribs) 08:22, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Good catch, DeyrAldregi; I've removed this from the article, as well as another assertion about anarchists, which is also unsupported. Keep up the good work! Mathglot (talk) 09:03, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Inaccuracy of lead

> A.C.A.B (All Cops Are Bastards) is an acronym used as a political slogan in order to denounce potential or actual political persecution and police brutality.

This seems a serious oversimplification of the term and its history, bordering on inaccuracy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:77bb:a800:f338:6fe2:f6eb:fabb (talk • contribs)

It was recently changed from its long-standing definition, which I have now undone. Note, though, that the purpose of the WP:LEAD is to summarize, even though there shouldn't be a loss of accuracy in doing so. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:33, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Tone

In the section ACAB and race, @Neil S Walker: keeps placing a tone tag. I have removed the tag, because the tone is neutral, and mirrors both Police brutality in the United States and Police brutality. Before it gets removed again, please discuss the issue here. Thanks. --evrik ^(talk) 17:44, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

@Evrik: - Firstly, "keeps placing"? You're creating drama where there is none: I placed it once - and you removed it without dealing with the issue. "Tone" is not about neutrality; it is about the writing style. The whole section titled "ACAB and race" is riddled with tortuous prose, for example: "In fact, the Broad Street Riot in Boston led to the creation of the Boston Police Department and Boston Fire Department. The irony being that the new police departments were created to control the Irish population." It also reads less like an encyclopaedia entry and more like a high school senior's essay or project, with a strong whiff of WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH, particularly where it is attempting to "shoe horn" police and institutional racism, trans-Atlantic slavery, and 19th century Irish immigration into an article about a common - and universal, having no regard to race or creed - acronym that most likely was first used as recently as the 1970s, in England.

I understand that there is now a desire to rewrite the history of the phrase to reflect the zeitgeist post-George Floyd, and I also understand the sense of urgency you feel to have the article in a semi-stable state before it becomes a DYK, but that doesn't alter the fact that it is verging on incoherent at places in an effort to make the citations and research "fit" the current narrative. There are four large paragraphs discussing a synthesis of the history of police brutality and racism in the United States, yet none of them mention ACAB or how they are connected to ACAB - until the final sentence, which appears almost an afterthought: "All Cops Are Bastards not because of flaws in their moral character, but because the institution they serve is corrupt." That assertion is merely an opinion, and a modern one at that, presented by and credited to a student at North Allegheny Intermediate High School in a student newsletter.

That brings me to another point; the ownership as demonstrated with this diff requesting full protection of the article due to IP vandalism - of which there is practically none in the last two weeks - and attempting to shut down the article into your "preferred version"... I note that @MelanieN: complied with the request, citing "Persistent addition of unsourced or poorly sourced content" as the reasoning. Ironic, really, given that the sources you have been adding include archived advertisements for T-shirts, You Tube videos, high school newsletters, forum posts on Facebook and board game bulletin boards, tweets on Twitter made by random non-experts, the list goes on. I really can't be arsed to get into an edit war or pissing contest with you over your pet project, but I don't take kindly to being pinged in to your drama with false accusations of repeatedly disrupting the page. Neil S. Walker (talk) 09:54, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Please do not suggest that other editors are rewriting history. Such comments violate WP:CIVIL. — Bilorv (talk) 18:15, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

• If you want to rewrite the tortuous prose, please do so. Please suggest it here and we can discuss it. Thanks --evrik ^(talk) 20:39, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The tone of the article doesn't even start out neutral. "used as a political slogan associated with dissidents who say they are subjected to political persecution and police brutality" – starting off with framing in the first sentence of the article. This slogan is used by all walks of life who see a problem with police brutality, not just people subjected to persecution... 2001:16B8:5053:B100:5D47:2694:8A17:93BF (talk) 04:21, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

ADL statement in the lead.

This edit moved an ADL statement to the lead; the statement is extremely brief (merely two sentences long), essentially states that it is used by both racists and non-racists, and has no secondary coverage. When I removed it, it was restored and a reference to it kept in the lead. The only other source mentions the usage by skinheads in passing but does not reference the ADL or describe ACAB as a hate symbol. There's no indication, in short, that this is a significant aspect of the topic worth mentioning in the lead; by my reading that sourcing is barely enough to support a sentence in the body. That's plainly WP:UNDUE for the lead - how is this a major aspect of the topic? How is putting it in the lead based on such light sourcing proportionate? The other aspects of the lead given comparable amounts of text are major aspects of the topic covered by dozens or hundreds of independent sources; this is a single cite to a single opinion by a single organization, which is plainly WP:DUE far less weight than the other things currently in the lead. Even the shortened version is about 10% of the lead, which is far more coverage than this gets as an aspect of the topic as a whole. Just as a note, since a recent edit suggested that WP:STATUSQUO is that it was in the lead - this is untrue. It was added to the lead less than a month ago in the edit listed above. --Aquillion (talk) 07:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Not having it in the lead is POV. No, this phrase is not used only by the "good guys", and we are not going to imply that it is with a whitewashed lead.

WP:UNDUE is not an all-purpose removal wand. It states: Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. The ADL is a highly reliable source and removing it outright was an especially bad move. Per WP:DUE/WP:UNDUE, it should be covered. "Dozens or hundreds of independent sources"? Seriously? Anyway, the ADL is one of the best sources on the topic of hate symbols there is. Odd that something's use as a hate symbol should be so minimized. Crossroads ^-talk- 07:18, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, dozens or hundreds. Look at the other parts of the lead. The first paragraph is a broad summary of the term's usage; the second paragraph (prior to this addition to the lead) is a broad summary of criticism - both paragraphs cover massively significant aspects of the topic. I could easily find dozens or hundreds of sources broadly backing each sentence in those. The ADL bit is, comparatively speaking, a random tangent into one organization's opinion. The ADL is a decent source, but they are not so significant that everything they say about every topic is automatically added to the lead; if you think that this is a major aspect of the topic comparable to other parts of the lead, then it should be easy to find other sources saying so, or more extensive coverage. And the lead is hardly whitewashed without it - we still have an entire paragraph devoted to criticism of the term (about half the lead!) That's reasonable, because that broadly-summarized criticism is a major part of the topic. If you searched for ACAB on Google Scholar and skimmed the results, you would find stuff that roughly corresponds to that lead. The one-paragraph entry on the ADL's page is not such a major part of the topic - it is not prominent in reliable sources, being mentioned essentially just once on the ADL page - and if you skimmed coverage of it you wouldn't find a mention of that aspect at all. --Aquillion (talk) 07:24, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As for this, the regulars should know better than to edit war to get their way.

And as for "no secondary coverage"? Not true. [20][21][22][23] Crossroads ^-talk- 07:28, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I just checked Google Scholar for "acab" cops (to remove results for people named "Acab") and there is very little scholarly discussion of it. Most of it has to do with European soccer hooliganism, which is not in the lead whatsoever. Crossroads ^-talk- 07:35, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

It's still a comparatively narrow part of the topic relative to every other part of the lead; WP:DUE is relative and there's no particular reason why we should give such specific focus to one organization's opinion of the term when the rest of the lead is a much more broad summary of major points. And if you understand that editors shouldn't edit-war over things, especially not in the lead, then let's follow WP:BRD and stick with the pre-Dec. 17th status quo for now. Regarding searching for additional sources, I see hundreds of results there, but it certainly is true at a glance that the article could stand to cover a more worldwide view (the ones you are referencing are non-American, which may be why they are under-represented. There's also a lot of references to its use during the Arab Spring and the like, eg [24].) --Aquillion (talk) 07:44, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

It was in the lead just fine for almost a month, which I'd say is the status quo. (I could also argue you are edit warring against me and the editor who put it there.) In fact, the disconnect between the lead and the body is worse than I realized before. From the lead, especially now after the ADL was forced out, you'd think the term had entirely to do with what I earlier called "good guys" - i.e. persecuted political dissidents. But the body explains how it is also heavily associated with punks, skinheads, hooligans, and plain-ole criminals, and how it has been prosecuted in Europe. None of that is in the current lead, in violation of WP:LEAD, and of WP:NPOV (because it is not only persecuted dissidents who object to police brutality). Crossroads ^-talk- 07:49, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Lead sentence improved. Crossroads ^-talk- 07:55, 15 January 2021 (UTC)