Talk:New Westminster Police Department

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Editing on this page reported in Delta Optimist

FYI - Editing on this page has been covered in the Delta Optimist[1].--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 01:23, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

We need to provide up-to-date, open honest, transparent information to the public, instead of information with bias.

Concerns over the content of"Controversy" on "New Westminster Police Department" page

I suggest that the "Controversy" part on the "New Westminster Police Department page" should be removed.

I personally believe that the incident of 3 off-duty police officer has nothing to do with Police Departments. That was the 3 off-duty police officers' personal behaviors.

First, the Police Departments’ managers didn’t tell them to go somewhere to assault somebody. Why Wikipedia always emphasize the NWPD? As if the New Westminster Police Department's Top cop taught him to do that.

Second, the incident happened when they were off duty, in their spare time, which was their personal behaviors.

Third, Police officers are human beings, so it is easily understood that they may have alcohol drink after work. Shouldn’t Police officers make a little mistake only because they are police officers? It is unfair. Police officers are also human beings.

I give you an example. Suppose you are a mother with 3 children, and your 3 children went outside to play. For some reason, they were fighting with other guys. Why they were fighting only with those guys, not others? There must be some reasons. And media always accuse you. Especially Wikipedia emphasizes your name with this incident for 10 more years. People who view Wikipedia all know your name and they all mistakenly think that you are a not good mother who taught your children to have that kind of incident. Did you tell them to do that? Absolutely not. No mother will do that. Then what do you think about Wikipedia??? Do you ask Wikipedia to correct or do you accept it???

In the world, there are many things happen every day. Why doesn't Wikipedia focus on other events? Why does Wikipedia give overladen focus on BC Police Departments?

I can give Wikipedia some suggestions. Wikipedia can focus more on how Marilyn Monroe died, and why Princess Diana died. That entertainment news relating to American former President and British Royal Family are more popular than police officers.

(1) The reason why Marilyn Monroe died is that she slept around two Kennedy.

    It is not something related to who was more powerful, it is something related to men's dignity. 

(2) The reason why Princess Diana died is that she ruined the image of the Royal Family.

    Her behaviors made the Royal Family extremely awkward. 
    She could choose to fight with her rival for Prince Charles, and people would view it as entertainment. 
    However, she chose to give media improper remarks.

I suggest Wikipedia gives more attention to American former President, instead of police. The brilliant image of police officers is helpful for the stability of society.

One most important thing I need to mention is that the New Westminster Police Department is a really good Police Department. The current Chief Constable is a really good person. the officers there are all reasonable and respectful. Previous and current Chief Constables there all make contributions on good training to their officers. This is a fact!!! If only because of a previous staff's a little mistake, make the department has a bad reputation, it is unfair to them!!!!!! I believe that there must be a lot of positive reports relating to them. Why Wikipedia only keep the negative report instead of the positives?KathleenKathleen12345 (talk) 17:29, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

What is your relation to the topic in question? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:54, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Okay so I take it you are related to the individual in question per your comment on my talk page? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:21, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Just for the sake of the record, despite the poor attempts by the user in question at engagement on this matter, I've attempted to distil the various arguments that are being made and provide responses to them below:

I personally believe that the incident of 3 off-duty police officer has nothing to do with Police Departments. That was the 3 off-duty police officers' personal behaviors.

That is true, but they were police officers at the time and there is a strong public interest in knowing that police officers have engaged in criminal behaviour.

the Police Departments’ managers didn’t tell them to go somewhere to assault somebody. Why Wikipedia always emphasize the NWPD? As if the New Westminster Police Department's Top cop taught him to do that.

Nowhere in the article has it been suggested that the initial incident, or the response, was in any way connected to a culture of inappropriate or criminal behaviour by police officers, or that this behaviour is tactility or even explicitly minimised/ignored by management.

the incident happened when they were off duty, in their spare time, which was their personal behaviors.

That is noted. They were still police officers, so there is still a strong public interest in it's inclusion.

Police officers are human beings, so it is easily understood that they may have alcohol drink after work. Shouldn’t Police officers make a little mistake only because they are police officers? It is unfair. Police officers are also human beings.

There would be no public interest in including content about police officers having an alcoholic drink after work if they hadn't then gone on to racially abuse, assault and rob a delivery driver.

In the world, there are many things happen every day. Why doesn't Wikipedia focus on other events? Why does Wikipedia give overladen focus on BC Police Departments? I can give Wikipedia some suggestions. Wikipedia can focus more on how Marilyn Monroe died, and why Princess Diana died. That entertainment news relating to American former President and British Royal Family are more popular than police officers.

Wikipedia contains over 6.1 million pages of encyclopedic content, of which 1 contains a mention of this event. You are free to go and edit other pages if you'd like, though I suggest learning more about how we use consensus first.

I suggest Wikipedia gives more attention to American former President, instead of police. The brilliant image of police officers is helpful for the stability of society.

And there remains a strong public interest, and encyclopedic value, in informing the reader where that brilliant image has been tarnished. ninety:one 12:00, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

WP:Undue weight for 2009 controversy

The "controversy" section seems pretty big given the size of the article.

Perhaps someone with access to a local public library can expand the article by adding more details about the department's history. For example, HOW was the department affected by the Great Fire of 1898, the bank theft in 1911, etc.?

A section on current and past highly-visible police initiatives would be helpful, as would a brief list of any high-profile investigations that this department led.

Most of the details in the "controversy" section can probably be streamlined. For example, the corresponding section in West Vancouver Police Department is smaller and less detailed, while keeping all of the references. That said, the September 2019 incident with COI-editing of Wikipedia should stay. As a side-note, I hope whoever it was from the department that ran that account understands the meaning of "Streissand effect". If they didn't then, they should now. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:39, 16 September 2020 (UTC) Updated with strike to correct bad editing, should have removed it before saving. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:53, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I think it may be appropriate to mention this controversy, but I agree the weight is extremely undue. The controversy currently makes up about half of the article. Also we are supposed to avoid WP:CSECTIONs. I think this section needs to be paired down, and information about other parts of the department's history, structure etc. need to be added.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 16:54, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

We have reached a consensus for the change in the article. Thank you!!!KathleenKathleen12345 (talk) 04:03, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

No, I don't think we do have consensus. I do not agree with this edit removing all of the information. I simply think it should be paired down, and other information about other aspects of the department's history should be ADDED to balance this content and ensure it is not given too much prominence.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 04:42, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Darryl Kerrigan, agree I've just reverted. Trimming is definitely appropriate. No one is in agreement that all the content get removed entirely Glen (talk) 05:09, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

I also disagree. It can be pared down, but not removed wholesale. I also don't trust anyone who seems to be astroturfing for User:NWPD media's desired edits. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Hasteur Hasteur Ha-- oh....} 05:10, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

WP:AVOIDVICTIM and WP:BLP might also require us to remove the names/personal details of otherwise non-notable people.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk)

Collapse tangential commentay so as to make it less visible and avoid drawing attention to it
I do love a man in uniform. The New Westminster Police Department communications team using their smartphone to do some Wikipedia editing

• Until the NWPD stuck their porky fingers in the pie, the incident warranted at most a sentence and an argument could have been made that it didn't need to be mentioned at all. Not anymore, since they've managed to make themselves the story [2]. Good work, team! EEng 13:33, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

  This comes across very badly now. Multiple sources - local and national - comment on the two officers charged for assualt, and one single local paper covers the minor issue that they made a small number of edits to this article. Yet we focus on the latter, and almost put the former as an aside. That they tried to edit here and were reverted doesn't even seem worth mentioning. Compared to assault, it certainly shouldn't be the focus. - Bilby (talk) 21:55, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

  I've got to agree with Bilby here, and the current wording is reminiscent of naval-gazing. The article used as a reference uses the term "scrub" while our non-neutral summary uses "censor" and "purge". It seems that the police editor thought the section gave undue weight to the misconduct of one off-duty officer and they were correct. The account was blocked for a username violation which is quite common. Now it looks like we are punishing and humiliating the department for trying to edit the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and then festooning the talk page with a Keystone Cops photo and pejorative adjectives like "porky" . Come on. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:10, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

  The current wording also mentions two officers convicted but does not clarify that only one of those officers worked for this particular department. We can do better. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:17, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

  Disagree 180°. I didn't read the sources on the assault charges and so on (and maybe you two can find something that changes what I'm about to say) but based on our article as it stood, I don't see how what these officers did relates to the department. If we had sources explaining that this was part of a pattern of officer misbehavior, lenient treatment by the department, or whitewash, we'd report that. But AFAICS there were no such sources – until last year. The attempted whitewash definitely is about the department and definitely belongs in the article.

  I don't think scrub carries any less connotation, in context, of censorship than does purge (or even censor itself) but in deference to your comment I've changed the wording to scrub. I also clarified that only one of the officers worked for the subject department.

  You know me – I may wrap my serious point in a bit of fun, but it's still a serious point. With a completely straight face I believe that the scrubbing is the only actual fact worth including (though unavoidably, including it requires mentioning the underlying incident), and that's why I made the edit I did. (As mentioned, if sources say anything about how the incident reflects on the department, then we should add that material too.) In parallel, here on the talk page, I've got no problem admitting I'm thumbing my nose at the stumblebums who thought they could get away with such a ham-handed attempt. However, in response to your concerns I've collapsed the images to make them less prominent and noticeable.

  EEng 22:29, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

  I want to see if I understand you correctly, EEng. It seems you think that the 2009 conviction and termination of an officer for drunken off-duty criminal behavior does not belong in the article, because it is not relevant to the management of this department. I think I agree. But you also think that a description of an attempt to remove that very content from Wikipedia belongs in the article, because a brand new COI editor thought their username was an appropriate disclosure of their COI, and got blocked for a technical violation of our username policy which is unknown to 99.9+% of the world's English speaking population. And for this, you think it is right to call living people "stumblebums". Is that accurate, and if not, what did I get wrong? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:20, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

  It may seem paradoxical, but yes. Perhaps I'm an idealist, but I expect the police – having at their disposal the full investigatory resources and awesome intelligence apparatus of the state – to be able to navigate Wikipedia's rules and regulations better than an average civilian. By the third revert they should have rethought their theory of the case and called for backup. (I'll agree stumblebums was a bit harsh.) EEng 05:32, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

  That's an interesting definition of idealism, EEng. Your variety of idealism apparently concludes that it is OK that eight of eleven references in the article about a department with a 147 year history have to do with the escapades of two off duty cops who admitted to having 15 to 25 alcoholic drinks off duty one night, and then beat up and robbed a Pakistani-Canadian newspaper delivery guy in the middle of that night while off duty in 2009. Only one was an employee of this department. That ref-bombing is not WP:NPOV and you know it. The article text is not NPOV now, and I respectfully request that you set out to correct the situation to the best of your ability. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:00, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

  It's not a definition of idealism, it's an expectation born of idealism. I didn't add any of the refs, but when I cut out almost all the material about the underlying incident I didn't know which of the many refs supported what was left so I just left them all; I suppose most of them can be excised. The article already notes that only one of the officers worked for the department. EEng 07:03, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

  Two off duty cops admitting to having 15 to 25 alcoholic drinks one night and then beating up and robbing a Pakistani-Canadian newspaper delivery guy in the middle of that night, and then someone from the department trying to remove that information from the department's Wikipedia article, is probably one of the most significant and most-often-written-about events in the 147-year history of the police department of New Westminster, British Columbia (pop, in 2016: 70,000). It doesn't surprise me that this content would comprise a significant portion of the article about a small town's police department. Lev!vich 20:53, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

  That seems incredibly unlikely, especially given that the entire coverage of the Wikipedia side comes down to a single article in a local paper, and we don't know about what other coverage of other issues has happened in the past 147 years. My problem right now is that we're trivialising an off-duty police officer assaulting an individual, because what it appears we really care about is that an account made 4 edits to WP and was reverted. We can't even argue that we're following due weight in the sources. - Bilby (talk) 21:00, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

  Can you explain by what reasoning the robbery, if it hadn't been followed by the WP editing incident, would be relevant to this article? Anyway, I solved the ref-bombing problem that concerned Cullen: turns out everything in the text is in the one source, so all the other sources could be deleted. EEng 03:20, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

  I find this difficult. I'm not convinced that the assault should be dropped, but I do feel that the WP editing is so minor that we're giving it far too much weight. If it had been covered by multiple indpendent sources then the weight might be justified, but that wasn't the case. Previously the weight was all about the assault with comparitivly little about WP editing, and now the weight is primarily about the WP editing. The result is that it feels like we have our priorities backwards - that we're more concerned about someone editing WP than about someone being assaulted - and I'm really uncomfortable with that presentation. My inclination is to say that if the assault isn't notable enough to be covered on its on, then the WP editing also isn't notable enough to be covered, so we just kill both. - Bilby (talk) 05:46, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

  Look, you can't keep saying the assault belongs in the article, on its own, unless you can produce a source that in some way ties the assault to the department or its leadership or something. As to "multiple independent sources", that's the test for notability (whether an article on given topic is justified), not article content – see WP:NNC. And there's no "weight" on either the assault or the scrubbing; all there is is a single sentence mentioning both:

  In September 2019, a Wikipedia user account operated by a member of the department's communications team was blocked after attempting to scrub the department's Wikipedia article of information about two officers (one employed by NWPD) convicted of assaulting and robbing a newspaper deliveryman (and making racist comments in the process) in Vancouver in 2009.

  Certainly the article needs a lot of expansion, after which the stuff we're discussing will be a minor corner of it. And I don't even feel strongly that the editing incident passes the WP:TENYEARTEST. But for reasons explained repeatedly, the assault can't stay unless the editing does. It's both or nothing. EEng 14:35, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

  I don't think you really understood what I was saying, but that's probably on me for explaining badly. At any rate, I think your suggestion of covering neither is the best way forward. Thanks. - Bilby (talk) 09:28, 30 September 2020 (UTC)