Talk:Fixed penalty notice

Fixed Penalty Notices were introduced under the...

Under the WHAT?

Actually under a number of different acts - I've removed this bit, thanks for point it out. Mnbf9rca 22

10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

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Requested move 27 December 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 01:32, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

---

Fixed penalty notice → Fixed Penalty Notice – Widely appears capitalised on the web and some other wikipedia articles (verifiable by search). PND and PCN appear capitalised in article body. Bojo Skankins (talk) 12:27, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:42, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

• Is this a case of a noun being capitalized because the object that it refers to seems to be important or to respected? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:42, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
  • See the updated text of my request here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Technical_requests#Contested_technical_requests Bojo Skankins (talk) 13:09, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    • The comments from WP:RMTR are now copied below to centralize the discussion. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:24, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• My guess is that it's because FPN is often used as an initialism. Talpedia (talk) 17:37, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comments originally posted at WP:RMTR#Contested technical requests:
  • Widely appears capitalised on the web and some other wikipedia articles (verifiable by search). "Penalty Notice for Disorder" and "Penalty Charge Notice" appear capitalised in article body (and did so prior to edit by me, I only changed one instance of "Penalty Notice for Disorder"). I cannot think of a reason why "Fixed Penalty Notice" should be treated differently to those with regards to capitalisation. Bojo Skankins (talk) 12:27, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
  • The government website uses the lowercase form ([1]), and—more importantly—so does all the legislation establishing fixed penalty notices (see, e.g., [2]). Frenzie23 (talk) 13:58, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    • I suppose this means that instances of "Penalty Charge Notice" and "Penalty Notice for Disorder" in the article also should be printed in lower case then. [3] [4] Bojo Skankins (talk) 14:57, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose: MOS:CAPS says, "capitalization is primarily needed for proper names, acronyms, and for the first letter of a sentence." It's not any of those things. Government and specialist documents have their own capitalization guidance. Wikipedia follows its manual of style. SchreiberBike | ⌨  18:06, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose: MOS:CAPS states: only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia. The evidence so far is that it is not even consistently capped in gov sources which are not independent and tend to overcap. A google search also shows lowercase often enough. This really isn't a proper noun but a descriptive noun phrase that is sometimews capitalised for MOS:SIGNIFCAPS but we don't do that. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:53, 28 December 2021 (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.

First sentence misleading

A Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) is a notification of what is usually a minor fine that unless settled will become a criminal offence

. I don't think this is accurate. A fixed penalty is an offer to buy immunity from prosecution for a particular suspected instance of an offence. Declining this offer has no effect, other than someone might decide to try to prosecute you. You aren't really even opting for a court prosecution, you are just declining the offer Talpedia (talk) 13:21, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Irritatingly looking into this the legislation is all talked about "requesting to be prosecuted" - which I highly suspect is garbage. Since the following sentence is "you may be prosecuted after requestig to be prosecuted". It's all just deliberately threatening wording that a balanced source should not be parroting... but it appears to be what shows up in most sources. I want to find some legal theory addressing the topic for a little more balance. It annoys me how everyone seems to want to "shake the sabre" for unseen power. Talpedia (talk) 10:05, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

BLP compliant and due weight?

Is it WP:SUSPECT compliant and WP:DUE to describe that 50 members of Whitehall staff, or even government ministers or family members, were issued with penalty notices related to Covid gatherings? Remembering that they do not constitute convictions of anything or require an admission of guilt of anything. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:26, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

It matters that ministers and Whitehall staff got penalty notices. The ministers in question made that specific law and broke it. Cabinet ministers make law and should uphold the law. Proxima Centauri (talk) 16:56, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

@Proxima Centauri, that's my whole point though, we don't know if either of them broke any laws as there were no convictions. FPNs are civil penalties requiring nothing more than an official to say they have a reasonable belief that an offence was committed. And why mention the ~50 staff who do not make any laws? -- DeFacto (talk). 17:08, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Cabinet ministers can afford to pay good lawyers. After getting advice from good lawyers the ministers decided not to contest the penalties. Proxima Centauri (talk) 17:13, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

@Proxima Centauri, so? There is no formal process available to recipients for reviewing or appealing FPNs. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:23, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Yep, FPNs do not constitute an admission of guilt so it is incorrect to assume that they mean guilt: they are just an offer of immunity. Also there is a strong incentive to accept an FPN rather than go to court given FPNs tend to be small adding to the unfairness of assuming guilt. There is no appeal process as discussed in this source. That said, judicial review might apply as it did in the Everard vigil.

It is unfortunate that the police chose to issues FPNs rather than refer the cases involving prominent politicians to the courts, and I agree that this gave the police too much power over political issues which the courts would be better at dealing with. But then I'm not sure the courts can properly be trusted with political issues so maybe the should have just published the Gray report in a timely manner and had this dealt with politically.

Looking at WP:SUSPECT, Johnson and Sunak are clearly public figures so the logic of alleged offences doesn't apply to them.

The WP:BLP argument might hold for the 50 unnamed officials. But do we a referenced to unnamed people is specific enough for WP:BLP to apply. There is perhaps also an argument that civil servants working at a high level should be considered public figures given the increased responsibility society places upon them. If we wanted to follow others then it's noticeable in the Grey report that civil servants are blurred out - but there are also photos showing their presence.

Regarding WP:DUE, there is an argument that there was a culture of rule breaking within the Westminster bubble - which these 50 FPNs support. I'm not sure whether it absolves or damns Johnson. On the one hand it suggest he condoned a culture of rule breaking, on the other hand it means he partook in a culture rather than just choosing to break rules himself. The delayed but published gray report might be relevant here.

Regarding partygate, my only personal opinion is that some mention of partygate in this article is WP:DUE given the moral outrage expressed publicly and in the press, but I don't think it matters much whether the details themselves are here or in partygate article itself. Too much detail here about partygate might be WP:RECENTISM and sort of act to smear excessive COVID details all of wikipedia. Talpedia (talk) 18:51, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

One other point. I wonder if Police caution provide a good analogy. While these appear to involve accepting guilt, in practice there is a strong incentive to accept guilty even if you are not guilty. Talpedia (talk) 18:57, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Oh another point. I wouldn't call an FPN a civil penalty. I would call PCNs civil penalties (and they have lower standards of proof and an appeal process). Personally, I think they are on dodgy ground legally and should not have been created. Its telling that PCNs are only used for a small range of things and Blair, when rolling out FPNs as "summary justice" while evoking the image of people being taken directly to a cash point, ending up using FPNs with their "offer to buy immunity" Talpedia (talk) 19:06, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Poor people and ethnic minority people were targetted for FPN's, not privileged cabinet ministers. Proxima Centauri (talk) 12:16, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't disagree. This was demonstrated by the antics that the cabinet ministers seem to have gotten up to. Towards the end I think there was some targetting going on - albeit by the media. Talpedia (talk) 12:39, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Consensus on partygate

I've added a see also on partygate... just to sort of explore the consensus space a little. Obviously, if editors aren't happy with this they can revert (WP:CONSENSUS, WP:BOLD). Don't have time to flesh out some considerations right now. Talpedia (talk) 14:09, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@Talpedia, yep, looks like a good idea to me. -- DeFacto (talk). 15:00, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@Proxima Centauri: Hey, let's see what DeFacto thinks about the shorter edit. WP:CONSENSUS sort of means that if we can't find concensus through WP:BOLD editing then we roll back to the "accepted" version, stop making changes, and seek consensus through talking here (though there is potentially a little contention over which is the "accepted" version). Talpedia (talk) 14:30, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@Talpedia, DeFacto, and Proxima Centauri: Without wishing to reopen a discussion that others might no longer be interested in, I think this merits further discussion. The only arguments against including this content that seem to have been made are the obvious reductio ad absurdum "are we to list everyone who has received one?" and the point that there isn't a current consensus in favour of including it, which is really only meaningful if there are separate good arguments against including it. My own investment extends to having added a request for discussion of this in May 2022 and I continue to think it's an odd and noticeable absence. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:16, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I lean in favour of inclusion... mostly because of the political nature of the use of FPNs during the lockdown, and so it feels relevant that the politicians who implemented the fine system themselves violated the rules.

I think the relevant issues at hand are WP:DUE and WP:RECENTISM. To steelman the argument against inclusion consider this analogy: suppose I went to the murder page and wrote "Harold Shipman murdered his patients" to the lead. Definitely important material on wikipedia, definitely to do with murder, but not really to do with abstract concept and it feels a but like activism.

I don't think this arguments holds in this case due i. the scale and invasiveness of the FPN regime during COVID, ii. the fact many of the people fined were instrumental in the COVID FPN scheme. But it's a reasonable argument. Talpedia 17:48, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

I've restored a revised version of the paragraph. Strong arguments against WP:DUE/WP:RECENTISM concerns include (1) that two heads of government were sanctioned; (2) that the Johnson and Sunak FPNs represent respectively the first time a sitting PM was criminally sanctioned and the first time a sitting Chancellor was criminally sanctioned; (3) that the FPN contributed significantly to Johnson's eventual resignation, first as PM and later as an MP; (4) the significant number of FPNs issued and individuals and events involved; and (5) that the text on this topic constitutes 56 words out of just over 2,000 in total. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 14:02, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

@Arms & Hearts, this wasn't the subject of this discussion though, it was about whether we were happy to add a see also to the Partygate article, which we were. Major changes such as the one you've just made need to gain consensus in an appropriately titled new discussion. For those reasons, I've reverted the change. -- DeFacto (talk). 14:59, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

If I recall correctly the see also was a middle ground between discussing party gate directly and not all, but it was a while ago. @DeFacto:, I imagine you might still be against the inclusion of material other than the see also even it we discuss it in a new heading with an appropriate title and suggested change... so maybe it's easier to discuss here whether, why and why not to add material discussing party gate to this article. I'm also happy to create a new section if you think that's clearer. Talpedia 15:20, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and started a new section – talk page neatness is a noble enough aim, after all. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:14, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Partygate paragraph

@DeFacto: I continue to be interested in your reasons for opposing this addition, which you've so far mostly kept us in the dark about. You did offer more of an explanation back in December (above), where you cited WP:SUSPECT and WP:DUE, but didn't respond to subsequent comments. Since then, the only explanation you've given is that there isn't a current consensus in favour of the material. This is both questionable on its own terms (I count three editors on this talk page in favour of inclusion and one against) and, as I mentioned above, is only going to convince anyone when accompanied by substantive arguments against the material. In case you're not familiar with them, see WP:STONEWALLING and WP:DRNC. The latter has the following useful advice: Wikipedia editors resolve a lack of consensus through an exchange of information leading to persuasion and compromise. Reverting an edit shows there is no consensus. Saying "no consensus" in the edit summary adds no new information. Worse, it forces the reverted editor to begin a talk page discussion just to find out the real reason for the revert. This hampers consensus-building by adding an unnecessary step to the process. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:12, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

@Arms & Hearts, two things...

1) Consensus does not mean achieving a majority. WP:CONSENSUS says, In determining consensus, consider the quality of the arguments, the history of how they came about, the objections of those who disagree, and existing policies and guidelines. The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view.

2) Cherry-picking our own examples defies the WP:DUE section of NPOV which says Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. So examples in an article about Fixed Penalty Notices need to be those given in the reliable sources which concentrate on the topic of this article, Fixed Penalty Notices. That is, sources mainly discussing FPNs, not sources mainly discussing Covid or Partygate. If we find that the disputed section fairly represents the viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources majoring on FPNs, then I would concede that we should include it. Currently though, the disputed section is only supported by news media sources related to Covid and Partygate, and thus relies on editor WP:SYNTH drawing the conclusion that it is a good example of Fixed Penalty Notices. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:21, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree with WP:SYNTH really. What conclusion is the reader lead to believe that is not represented in text? I can see the argument from a WP:DUE perspective - you want an article discussing FPNs in general to talk about partygate, rather than an article about partgate to mention FPNs. I would say that partgate is a *topic* rather viewpont.Talpedia 09:57, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

@Talpedia, that's the crux, that we need an article discussing FPNs in general to talk about partygate, rather than an article about partgate to mention FPNs, yes. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:10, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

There are plenty of articles on FPNs in reliable sources that not only mention the ones issued to Johnson et al. but also make them their central example. These include numerous (somewhat clickbaity but still reliable) articles of the "explainer" type published after Johnson et al. were fined: i, March 2022; Telegraph, April 2022; Manchester Evening News, April 2022. We also see mentions of Johnson in more recent coverage of FPNs: Guardian May 2023 and June 2023, for example. Some scholarly sources also discuss Partygate as part of a broader discussion of FPNs: for example Hufnagel et al. 2023, pp. 182–3.

This list is based on a fairly cursory search but shows clearly that numerous sources mainly discussing FPNs do devote attention to the ones received by Johnson, Sunak and others. (Whether this is a reasonable standard to apply – and what content we'd be left with in this article if it were applied beyond this case – is another matter, but perhaps moot.) Finally, I'm aware of how consensus works, which is why I said the claim no consensus exists was questionable rather than, let's say, "plain wrong" – it's always possible that the preponderance of editors are mistaken in their understanding of policy, and sometimes a lone editor does prevail, but I don't think this is going to be one of those cases. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 11:16, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

@Arms & Hearts, these are written as explainers related to main Partygate articles, so are hardly independent of Partygate. How about getting an uninvolved closure? -- DeFacto (talk). 20:10, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Your criterion seems to be "sources that mention Partygate but don't mention it too much". I'm torn between pointing out how arbitrarily restrictive that is and noting that, nonetheless, three of the six sources presented above (the three you ignore) meet it. Happy to request a close, but it might be worth waiting another day or two to see if anyone else wants to weigh in. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:23, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Request for comment

Should this article include a summary of the issuing of fixed penalty notices in relation to the Partygate scandal, as in this edit? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:12, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

• oppose This is probably class 101 of how to not do an RFC, "Should my version be allowed?" I have to go back and dig thru all the old arguments to actually find out what the conflict is all about and its boring. I'm going to go with oppose and endorse the arguments in the topic above. -Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 23:39, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

  @Serialjoepsycho: There doesn't seem to be much consensus regarding how RfC statements should be written (except perhaps that it's easier to criticise them and try to get the whole thing thrown out than to make a substantive argument one way or the other!) – when I've tried to include a summary of arguments, relevant policy etc. in the past it's been characterised as editorialising too. It's probably too late to revise now but if you'd like to suggest alternative wording I'll certainly bear it in mind for the future. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 11:44, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

• No – The existing general examples are more than enough to give a clear understanding of FPNs in the pandemic context. There is very little, if anything, to be gained by mentioning a single case. I don't understand why anyone would have tried to add this content and I don't understand why we're here discussing it. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 07:20, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
  • I suppose my main argument would be a historical one where it is all part of the same sorry affair. Dictatorial government, arbitrary rules, loosening of the rule of law and hypocrisy. Also this single case does involve the people who enacted the regulation.

    This is not really a policy based arguments, and perhaps these aims might be better achieved by writing about human rights in British government response to the COVID-19 pandemic and linking to this. If someone was going to give a historical account of FPNs I would expected partygate to be mentioned in a single sentence, in a similar way to if someone were to give a historical account of mental health laws they might mention cases of homicide that influenced public opinion - that said we should probably find a source doing so - when the covid inquiry or bingham report get published perhaps we will have something to cite... Talpedia 14:17, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

    • The two situations are disanalogous as the FPNs given to officials in this case are not significant for the history of FPNs or understanding them as a subject. Supporters of inserting this example seem to be equivocating between "this was significant case when FPNs were used" and "this was a significant moment in the history of FPNs". The former is true, the latter is not. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 15:02, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
      • I guess I'd say the equivocation is "the must be a significant moment in the history, surely?" and "this is a significant moment in the history", the latter being determined by the attention of commentors and what people remember. I guess this is the definition of WP:RECENTISM... I wonder if it possible to tell if you have paid enough attention to a cognitive bias or if only can be rectified by the passage of time. Talpedia 08:32, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose as I can't see any sound policy-based argument to emphasise that specific case, and see plenty against it based on WP:Core content policies like WP:No original research (in particular WP:Synthesis) and WP:Neutral point of view (in particular WP:Due weight) . -- DeFacto (talk). 10:46, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
• Comment I was initially in favour of including this but am now a bit more on the fence, per Defacto arguments, though I don't really buy WP:OR or WP:SYNTH (the fines happened), but I do potentially buy the WP:DUE argument. How are we to decide what is WP:DUE when there is disagreement other than by relying on literature? That said it would be difficult to arguing that mentioning the tens of thousand of covid fines some misissued was not WP:DUE even in the absence of general literature discussing the topic, so I do think there is some sort of "no brainer" WP:DUE that can apply.Talpedia 14:17, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
• Weak no. On the one hand, it doesn't seem to me that this is all that problematic (it is a very high profile example, and examples can be helpful to the reader), and this is isn't the kind of question that is going to have a clear-cut policy-based answer. But on the whole, I find the proposed paragraph a bit out of place, and more importantly it doesn't seem to me that it really sheds much light on the rest of the article. -- Visviva (talk) 20:51, 26 August 2023 (UTC)