Talk:NYPD shuts down anti-war speech due to absence of permit

"shutdown" order issued? this is inaccurate and clunky. they stormed through the crowd and grabbed the mike. much closer to a 'silencing' than the orderly process this new title suggests. i'm gonna change it back or to something else besides this. Bstender 06:42, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Do you have a source stating that Sheehan is responsible for Bush's sliding approval rating? If so, please include that in your sources, otherwise remove the line from your opening paragraph. --Wolfrider 11:04, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

ok, working on it Bstender 16:26, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

ok, what i find is that despite the intense coverage, his approval drop was not significant. so, good call, sorry to be careless. but i do want to capture the essence of the point which is that the events were both bad news for bush. i dont think that is questionable (except in some Rovian mirror universe)...changing.Bstender 16:33, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

It reads better now. :) Good coverage. I hadn't heard about the story. Thanks! --Wolfrider 21:25, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

POV issues

• First senctence: "Cindy Sheehan, bereaved mother and news-maker, found no sympathy from the New York Police Department (NYPD)." is emotive and pointless. It provides no factual content; work it into the first para.
• 'stormed' is slightly POV. The viilage voice article never uses it except to describe the protestors confronting police. I didn't look at the other source since it is not a legitmate source. If you wish to *quote* someone describing the police as 'storming' in then please do so. The VV uses 'marched'
• I have no idea what a 'solidarity encampment' is.
• There is no mention of the fact that police were attempting to arrest the organiser. Furthermore, the NY-Sun reports that police repeatedly warned them to turn the audio equipment off.
• The protestors are reported to have some lovely things to say to NY's finest. (It's important that faux-lefties get quoted as much as possible, because they routinely undermine themselves everytime they actually say something. ok sorry couldn't resist ;) 69.23.220.138 05:23, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

• Applying the word "notoriety" to Cindy Sheehan is POV. The term has had a pejorative connotation for some 400 years. I'm changing it to the neutral "national prominence". Mpulier 03:44, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

you've got to be kidding me, this is written for the military times. my facts were not wrong and is NOT POV. take a poll. Bstender 04:15, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I've not edited this article at all, but I have reverted your revert as the article appeared to be factual (and little different from the version you reverted to). The article, as it stands, is compliant with both our NPOV directive and the style guide. --Chiacomo (talk) 04:35, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Little different? mine is erased and this police press release has been inserted! yes it is compliant, but so was mine. isn't it better if someone wants to rewrite the story that they just click on the "write a new article" button, why erase mine and rewrite it? clearly the author hates protestors and wanted to write about how appropriate the police were. aren't you really saying that you consider this the _corrrect_ POV? if he can erase my work, why do i have to submit to that? bc this is the POV you prefer? i'm trying to understand this, please explain.

BTW, the rewrite came from one person, it was not "community developed", i did take care to go back to the last revision prior to the re-write.Bstender 05:03, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't appear to have been erased -- simply re-written. I think this diff will show where the major changes occurred. As you can see, several portions of the article were retained -- and there has been some editing of the article since. I've read the article (both your version and current version) and both present the facts. Your article did incorporate some emotive language, which, while compelling to the reader, may not most appropriate for this purpose. Wikinews is not in the business of creating sensational journalism, but rather, we hope to present factual news with as little POV as possible. You and I both know that news will never be entirely NPOV -- the events themselves protray a certain POV that cannot be escaped. If there are fundamental inconsistencies with the actual event and the event as portrayed in the article, perhaps they can be discussed on this talk page. If you have objections to language (emotive, POV, or otherwise) used, that too can be discussed on this talk page. Wholesale reverts to a previous version of an article (especially after other editors have contributed) without adequate explanation is probably not the best way to approach this issue. Thank you for reading this epistle -- it's longer than I intended, and thank you for contributing to Wikinews! --Chiacomo (talk) 05:10, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

re-writing an article is equivalent to reverting an article.Bstender 23:37, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I am amazed how this story got stepped on since I added the bit about the Richmond tour stop. I fail to understand how removing content from an article could be considered by another editor as making a contribution to the story — unless the content was completely incorrect, a standard which I do not think was met with this story and its content removal.

Simply rewriting the content to NPOV suffices, or qualifying the reporting with additional reporting is the method I believe we should ascribe to. This would avoid revert wars which are not productive. Considering the butcher job done to this story, well, I can't agree that when it comes to reporting, that "perfection is attained when there is nothing left to take away". When it comes to reporting, there is always something more to add. -Edbrown05 15:10, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

and this butcher job is an example of NPOV-compliant text being selectively used to emphasize certain facts over others. i did it with my original article, then the butcher ddi it by erasing my stuff and telling it fromthe point of view of the police (much of which has been erased now, but an example is, i started the article with "Cindy Sheehan, bereaved mother ... found no sympathy from the NYPD." which was replaced by "An anti-war demonstration..was shut down Monday, after failing to obtain a sound permit" both are accurate, nor are they overtly POV, but the facts chosen to report strongly convey a pov. the second takes the position that the police are unquestionable in their position (we don't for sure whether they had the right to shut it down, the fact is that the police harass protestors in violation of the law as a rule-not an exception) the writer already displayed his bias against the left and made an attempt to retell the story in as negative a light as possible without out and out saying it. having a personal POV is fine btw, what is not fine is axing someone elses personal POV and inserting your own. i think the mods should be limited to correcting factual errors, blatant POV and punctuation. if you want to retell from the police pov, then just click the "start new story" button on the main page.Bstender 23:19, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

It looks pretty nuetral to me now. An example from the other POV would be:

"Peace officers forced to break up illegal gathering of radical potential rioters after repeated requests were arrogantly denied."

The current NPOV voice is much better than either POV version, IMO. StuRat 16:13, 22 September 2005 (UTC)