Talk:Sensible Sentencing Trust

Editing

If anyone has any concerns about the recent additions to this article, please say so.Offender9000 (talk) 17:24, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

If you want timely feedback on articles it's best to ask on a wikiproject page like Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_New_Zealand. If you're after concerns, you can start with the point of view issues. Stuartyeates (talk) 18:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

In the lede, you say "The trust was created at least in part to defend Mark Middleton...", but the reference does not mention the trust or McVicar at all. You need to check that all your statements are directly supported by the references. I am also concerned that you appear to be attempting to turn in the article into an explanation of why the SST is wrong. This is not the purpose of Wikipedia.-gadfium 19:39, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I understand your concerns re 'why the SST is wrong'. But what am I to do with general comments like that. If you point out specific statements as you have with the bit about Mark Middleton, it is much easier for me to see how to 'correct' it. I will address your concern on that point soon.Offender9000 (talk) 21:00, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I have now provided a different reference which makes the connection between Mark Middleton and the formation of the Trust.Offender9000 (talk) 19:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

• On neutrality, wikipedia says: "As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone. Biased information can usually be balanced with material cited to other sources to produce a more neutral perspective, so such problems should be fixed when possible through the normal editing process. Remove material only where you have good reason to believe it misinforms or misleads readers in ways that cannot be addressed by rewriting the passage."

The criticism section that is currently being edit-warred is seriously flawed. All of it is referenced, but the information is not a direct criticism of the SST and I invite editors to read Wikipedia:Criticism_sections. Stuartyeates (talk) 18:52, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

criticism

This needs to be re-framed. Needs to address people speaking against the society. Not just in a general way about the policies that they happen to advocate. Things like:

• John Smith said that the society has overstated the amount of crime and led to a "fear of crime" among the population
• Kate Jones has said that the longer sentences the society advocates will not led to reduced crime rate
• Bill Johnson has questioned the figures that the society proves.

It is not good enough to just quote statements/sources/stats about crime policy that are opposite to what the SST advocates, you have to list specific criticisms of them. - 18:54, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Where does it say that in wikipedia policy? Mr Lyall wrote: I'm sorry you can't just insert random negative stuff and then call people "pedantic" when they remove it. Please follow the rules. What rule are you talking about? Offender9000 (talk) 17:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The rules that say the article must be balanced and not just there as an attack of the society and people who run it. Lets start with that one and see if we can follow that. - SimonLyall (talk) 18:56, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I repeat - what rule are you talking about? You now claim I am attacking the society and the people who run it but in your other comments (below) you claim my comments are not about the society....? You wrote "They are not criticising the society." If they are not criticising the society, then this cannot be an unbalanced attack article.Offender9000 (talk) 18:09, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Let me give an example: " Offender9000 doesn't thread wikipedia comments properly. 4 years ago Jimbo Wales said people who can't thread comments properly shouldn't be editing wikipedia" . There, a perfectly sourced (well it could be) unbalanced comment attacking you using somebody who has never heard of you. The point is the article has to be balanced and material in it properly sourced (and relevant). - SimonLyall (talk) 19:34, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I've added some {{cn}} templates. These may be taken as signaling an intention to remove this content unless citations are found. Citations that specific mention SST and support the claim in the text. Citations that don't specifically mention SST (or McVicor) have no place here. Note that claims about living people fall under the WP:BLP rules, even when they're not in biographies. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:46, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to ask people to read what I've written above again. It is no good to say "The Society advocates longer sentences, John Smith showed 20 years ago that longer sentences don't work". You have to say "John Smith said that the societies advocacy of longer sentences was at odds with 50 years of research showing they didn't reduce crime" - SimonLyall (talk) 19:30, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

• If that's what you're 'supposed to say' (???), then why don't you edit it accordingly instead of just deleting everything.Offender9000 (talk) 17:09, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Because that would be a completely different quote from the one that is provided. The references you are providing are for people who have never heard of the society. They are not criticising the society. Instead you are making the text of the article criticise the society and are using them as references to your arguments. These are completely different things. Read what I have written again and try and understand the difference. - SimonLyall (talk) 18:56, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Judge Sian Elias is one of the sources and has certainly heard of the society. The speech she made which I quoted from makes reference to policies promoted by the Sensible Sentencing Trust - without specifically mentioning the Trust. If you want to argue that one shouldn't criticise the policies of the Trust because one should only criticise the Trust directly, then the Trust's policies should also be removed from the article. And that's not possible as the two are inseparable. The only reason the Trust is worthy of mention in Wikipedia is because of its policies and the impact this has had on penal policy in New Zealand. The distinction you are trying to make is arbitrary and illogical. Offender9000 (talk) 18:33, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. The encyclopedic style that SimonLyall is advocating is a core part of what wikipedia is about. Clarity about who says what is incredibly important, especially when it comes to living people. Stuartyeates (talk) 05:55, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Balance

No, not the scales of justice but WP:UNDUE when looking at WP as a whole. This article is longer than it should be given the poor state of other articles. Crime in New Zealand needs work, the Urewera 17 - now the Urewara four - needs an update now that the jury has delivered its verdict (possible its own article rather than a redir). Also, the "Other criminal justice pressure groups in New Zealand" section is completely unnecessary in this article. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 18:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed these two articles are taking up too much of everybody's time. The more this goes on the more convinced I am that Offender9000 ( see edits this morning to Department of Corrections restoring a bunch of his material) is not going to be happy with any version of these two article (and possibly others that you mention above) being in a Neutral state. I also have other articles I want to work on ( like 1951 New Zealand waterfront dispute ) and prefer not to engage in edits wars.

I think we should go to one of the official processes to arbitrate or whatever. To put it bluntly something that if it finds against him can ban him from editing these articles. Suggestions as to which is the best one welcome and I can file it. - SimonLyall (talk) 19:16, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I have not been following the debate very closely but WP:ARB sounds like it might be the next option. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 19:32, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I think some form of WP:Mediation is appropriate. Arbitration is not suitable unless attempts at mediation have been tried and failed.-gadfium 19:57, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

BLP violation - gratuitous insult sourced from a blog

Rather than get into yet another pointless edit war I've reported the rather sleazy insult directed at Garth McVicar to the appropriate place. Daveosaurus (talk) 14:20, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

This article is a fucking nightmare

Someone has a huge axe to grind here. As a matter of politics, I might be sympathetic to some of what is going on -- but it's a misuse of Wikipedia. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 09:04, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I concur. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:57, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to do some edits to move items that are not supported by refs and/or are editorialised as a starting point, but it needs significant work..... Clarke43 (talk) 08:17, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

So I've done some edits... and after slugging away for a bit, now think we should just remove all the material on this page from Policy down and drop it back to something more akin to a stub, as in reality this is going to take a LOT of work to produce a nice balanced article from where it is now. Especially as we don't seem to have people lining up to take it on. Thoughts? Clarke43 (talk) 09:19, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Stubified for POV issues. I'll leave that edit highlighted in case someone comes along who cares to crawl through the POV. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:24, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

That seems like a sensible move. The article's content was a POV pushing train wreck. Nick-D (talk) 11:31, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Whitewash - serious interference with article, mods should be flagged

This article is now as a result of huge edits by User Clarke43 about 10% of the size it once was. Presumably in the quest for a "completely neutral" article this user has managed to delete an enormous amount of well referenced history of the organisations actions and criticism of it, placing it in a wider societal context. Presumably in the interest of neutrality I note that only essentially a few positive descriptions of the organisation remain/the organisations own self-described mission statement.

Trying to go through the edit history to find some sort of stable version to start cleaning up/restoring the historical record from is a nightmare more than whatever issues the original article had.

- Otago Uni student — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.80.123.34 (talk) 03:00, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I probably removed about as much material as User:Clarke43. I stand by my edits; and User:Clarke43's too for that matter. Did you have any specific suggestions for improvements for the article? Did you have independent reliable sources for those improvements? Stuartyeates (talk) 03:33, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey Stuart,

When I have a bit of time Ill re-insert a column called "Controversy / Criticism" outlining in neutral terms that the organisation has been criticised at various times by a number of credible people, including that Professor of criminology (will find the reference in the previous history), saying the organisation contributes to Penal Populism. What happened to the mention of Sian Elias's speech and SST's reaction to it calling for her to resign? You just can't whitewash the existence of that broad base of important events/criticism by deleting the fact it exists- this is different to just putting the article into neutral terms. Two wrongs don't make a right, responding to some editor with an axe to grind by completely sanitising the article is disingenious and its own kind of bias. - Otago Uni Student 139.80.123.34 (talk) 03:49, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I invite you to have a crack at writing this, I expect that you may find it harder than you think. The longest version of the article (with references to scavenge) appears to be this one. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:01, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey Stuart,

It isn't really that hard even taking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criticism#Avoid_sections_and_articles_focusing_on_criticisms_or_controversies in mind.

Ill have a crack at it later, it might look something like this:

Public profile and reception

• High media profile, regularly quoted in media
• Garth McVicar controversial character, ardent supporters/ardent critics (This is a brute fact)
• Positive: Argued/hailed for supporting victims, providing support for families where justice system apparently deficient
• Negative: argued to contribute to penal populism, criticism of methodology

Kind regards, OU Student 139.80.123.34 (talk) 04:07, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

What the heck does all that mean? Time for bed obviously!--Malerooster (talk) 04:14, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

It is a very rough precis outline of what a neutral section might look like, Cock. 139.80.123.34 (talk) 04:17, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

It would be great if you could produce a new article to fill this gap. I started to edit it as part of a wider clean up effort, with the goal of sorting out the POV issues (as discussed above), but struggled due to the way the article had been structured and referenced to support one particular POV. As a result, it was agreed to revert the article to a stub, and give someone the opportunity of building a balanced, neutral article from the ground up. As per the policy you reference above, it is suggested that you don't create separate positive and negative sections - but rather balanced, integrated and appropriately referenced paragraphs presenting the issues. Clarke43 (talk) 06:01, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Glad to hear an explanation from you, it addresses some of my fundamental concerns. I am a bit short on time at the moment but will try and find some to start an integrated section like that. I would encourage you and others to help with this. OU Student 139.80.123.34 (talk) 00:49, 16 July 2013 (UTC)