Talk:Killing of Michael Brown

RFC: Alleged theft of cigars from convenience store?

The following discussion 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.

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In references here to the theft and/or strong-arm robbery of cigars from a convenience store prior to the shooting of the decedent, should this article use the term alleged or allegedly before any such claims since the decedent was never and will never be charged or convicted of theft or robbery? Dwpaul ^Talk 02:52, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

survey

• (As nom) Yes, as that is Wikipedia's standard practice when a criminal act is alleged but will never be prosecuted. Dwpaul ^Talk 02:54, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
• no There is video of the event. An admission from his friend who was present, and admission from the Brown family. We actually have numerous opposite examples of non-convicted persons who are described as having done certain illegal actions, and we have hundreds of reliable sources saying without qualification that brown took the Cigars without paying. However, describing that theft in a specific legal crime term should not be done as we do not have sufficient proof that all elements of a crime were done, it is enough to say "stole cigars" or "took cigars without paying" but not "committed robbery" etc. Gaijin42 (talk) 03:00, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

In regard to the question whether there is "sufficient proof that all elements of a crime were done", we just need to follow the MO law. It says, "A person commits the crime of robbery in the second degree when he forcibly steals property." Did he steal the items? Did he use force when confronted by the clerk? If you say yes to both questions, then all elements of the crime were done and the act is called robbery in the second degree. Z22 (talk) 01:08, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• No per Gaijin42 above and also see Columbine Shooting, Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting,, Isla Vista Killings and numerous other articles here on WP where a crime has been committed with the individual being killed and/or suicide with no prosecution and/or conviction and the word alleged is not used in those articles. I would also note that the police have classified this case as being "exceptionally cleared", a stringent standard to meet in a case when there will be no prosecution or conviction. Isaidnoway (talk) 03:04, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
• No - Alleged refers to something that is said, without proof, to have taken place or done. Also, by the same logic of Dwpaul, you cannot identify someone for a criminal act if they are incapable of being tried. Glad to know that despite the Columbine Shooting evidence that you are content to put "alleged", again a reference to "unproven", in front of any act or attribution of the killers. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:52, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Didn't say you "cannot identify someone for a criminal act"; simply said you should make clear you are not claiming they have been convicted of it, if only for your own protection (in this case, for the protection of the project). That is all allegedly does. Dwpaul ^Talk 06:05, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

We are not "convicting" anyone. Your understanding of "alleged"'s use is wrong according to the dictionary. Allegations in a legal sense are no different, but you should be aware of that process. Since this is not a pending court matter so kindly take your armchair lawyering off this page. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 06:31, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

• No. According to WP:ALLEGED, alleged is "appropriate when wrongdoing is asserted but undetermined, such as with people awaiting or undergoing a criminal trial." In this case, Brown will never go to trial so the issue won't be determined that way. However, we are not entirely without the ability to make an editorial determination here. We have a published security video showing what certainly appears to be a theft (or more accurately strong arm robbery) and there is the published testimony of Brown's friend Johnson describing the events in the store. That description supports that it was in fact a strong arm robbery. In addition, many (though not all) sources refer to the event as a theft and do not use the term "alleged". Taking all this into consideration, I think it's perfectly reasonable, neutral and accurate to treat it as an actual crime and leave out he word "alleged".

There have been theories suggesting that maybe Brown did pay for the cigars and the clerk just wanted an ID. This is an interesting theory, but entirely unsupported by anything. Others note that no store employee contacted the police (a customer did). In no way does this cause other evidence to vanish. Again, taking ALL things into consideration from what is available to us, it is reasonable to say that a crime was committed and there is nothing "alleged" about it. – JBarta (talk) 22:11, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

That actually brings up an interesting question. Let's suppose Brown (who is of age) wants to buy cigars and the clerk wants to see an ID. Let's further suppose Brown throws down the money and says "screw the ID, here's the money" then grabs the cigars and leaves. The clerk tries to stop him still wanting to see the ID. Brown pushes past and exits the store (we'll forget about the hard shoving). Has a crime been committed? Or more specifically, is it theft? – JBarta (talk) 22:36, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

If for some reasons you put a million dollars cash on the counter but the clerk refuses to "sell" an inexpensive product (no matter what it is) and you take that product anyway, then you use force to clear your way out of the store, you will still be charged with robbery in the second degree as per MO law. Even when give a correct amount of money to the clerk for the cigar, but the clerk refuses to sell that to you. The transaction does not take place. When you take valuable propety from that store when you have not been the owner of that property yet, it is stealing. To add to that, you use force, it's a robbery of the second degree. Z22 (talk) 00:48, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

What a poor example - the discussion below shows it is closed and why. Original research or other accusations carry no real weight because the official report is our proper source. As a result, no matter what excuses or theoretical case you come up with, it does not apply to this case. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:06, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• No – In prior weeks there was some question from news sources whether Brown might have actually paid for the cigarillos, that analysis seems to have disappeared even in Brown-friendly news outlets as more information has come out. Also, John Wilkes Booth did not "allegedly" assassinate Abraham Lincoln, even though he was never convicted of it. —Megiddo1013 01:49, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• No - In the absence of any other reasonable explanations for what can be seen in the footage and testimonies, it seems safe to go with what the recently written RSs say on this one. AdventurousSquirrel (talk) 12:56, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• No - There's really no question at this point of what happened, and Brown is very much dead and thus we have no reason to worry about prejudicing a jury against him. It is safe to not use "alleged" here as we have video, testimony from his friend, RSs which don't use "alleged", and standard Wiki policy that in cases like this that we don't use it (John Wilkes Booth, Columbine shooting, ect.). Titanium Dragon (talk) 15:18, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• COMMENT Due to the apparent WP:SNOW above, I am going to remove the "allege"s that are referring to the robbery. However, the RFC remains open, and consensus could certainly swing the other way over the next days/weeks. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:25, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• No - Per the users above. There is no question as to the factual nature of the crime.--TMD Talk Page. 16:06, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• No Per AdventurousSquirrel. We should be going with what the recent WP:RS are saying. Rmosler | ● 16:18, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

Can you include a source for the "exceptionally cleared" classification being applied to this case and its meaningsignificance, since this information (not there now) would be useful to include in the article? I can find references to the police report including this notation, but none that say it gives it some special degree of "truthiness".Dwpaul ^Talk 03:29, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Exceptionally cleared is a Uniform Crime Reports term. It means "solved" by "exception" not the "awesome" meaning of exceptional http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/clearances NPR is one of many many sources saying that the case was closed with this status, but they appear to be doing so based on just viewing the police report. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/08/15/340594634/ferguson-police-release-name-of-officer-who-shot-michael-brown Gaijin42 (talk) 03:38, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I was about to point out the same finding to Isaidnoway, with a caution against using it to suggest some special quality of the investigation. Dwpaul ^Talk 03:45, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Its not some special quality, but it does indicate that the case was formally solved including identifying the perp sufficient for FBI reporting purposes. Gaijin42 (talk) 03:49, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, that is one interpretation; I would tend to go with your suggestion above that the case was said to have been resolved "by exception", in this case by the death of the only suspect at the time rather than by diligent and detailed police work that would have achieved a conviction. Dwpaul ^Talk 03:52, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

From the Missouri Uniform Crime Reporting Program (Missouri State Highway Patrol):

Exceptional Clearance - If all four of the following questions can be answered 'Yes' the offense can be cleared “exceptionally”.

1. Do you know who the offender is?
2. Has the investigation determined there is enough information to support an arrest/charge of a specific individual?
3. Is the location of this individual known so the subject could by taken into custody now?
4. Is there some reason outside law enforcement‟s control that precludes arresting, charging, and prosecuting the offender?

Examples of exceptional clearances include: death (suicide or justifiable homicide where the offender is killed by a police officers or citizen). This case meets all the above criteria for the case to be closed as "exceptionally cleared". Isaidnoway (talk) 07:04, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

The police report (external links) says that it has been exceptionally cleared and if you search the archives of this talk page, you will see that this very same discussion has been had before about using the word alleged in relation to this strong-arm robbery committed by Brown. Isaidnoway (talk) 03:43, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I see this previous discussion from August, and I see you making the same arguments you're making now, but I don't see that any consensus evolved in support of them. In fact, I see quite a lot of dissent on the question. Dwpaul ^Talk 04:00, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the RfC, maybe we can put these unsourced conspiracy theories to rest once and for all.

• Michael Brown Robbed Convenience Store, Stole Cigarillos Before Darren Wilson Shooting, Dorian Johnson Says
• Dorian Johnson told the grand jury he was stunned when Brown stole cigarillos from the convenience store
• The attorney for Dorian Johnson, the man who was with Michael Brown when he was shot, says it was Brown who stole the cigars from the store where police say the two were filmed before Brown’s death, and that the FBI is aware of it. Isaidnoway (talk) 06:33, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

• Also... "Brown was a suspect in an alleged robbery" is horrendous writing because you cannot "allege a robbery" and the nature of the matter requires "alleged" be dropped. Either a robbery took place or it didn't; it is mutually exclusive here, just as you cannot be an "alleged suspect" in the case. One alleged needs to remain in the article: "Brown then allegedly attempted to seize Wilson's gun..." which has not been conclusively proven. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 06:40, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Dwpaul, I ended up as a main dissenter in that August discussion, based on the use of reliable sources available at that time. However, more information has been published since then, notably Dorian Johnson's testimony under oath, and I have more carefully reviewed the video, and I don't think that using allege is appropriate. It gives the impression that there is a reasonable doubt that Brown stole the cigars, which isn't the case. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:39, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Whether to use the word "alleged" or not, one thing clear is that we should not misrepresent the act as a theft or stealing. It should either be called "forcibly steal" or "robbery". Apparently, the force was involved. The first mentioning of the act as just stealing in the lead is actually misleading. See definitions here: [1] [2]. Z22 (talk) 18:58, 29 November 2014 (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.

Offensive Phrasing -- Style Question

Under the section Grand Jury Hearing (which should be capitalized, but I don't have editing privileges), it refers to the grand jury's makeup as "three blacks". This usage of black as a noun is not considered acceptable any longer in American English and is specifically prohibited in most style guides (I don't know if this is covered in wikipedia's). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.108.125.200 (talk) 19:01, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

It isn't offensive and is frequently used in American English. Google shows how many people use it to this very day, including places like the Huffington Post. Titanium Dragon (talk) 19:16, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I checked the source used for that sentence, and the source uses the terms "blacks" and "whites" in relation to the race of the grand jury members. Based on that source, I don't see a problem. Isaidnoway (talk) 19:50, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Isaidnoway is correct, but there is no requirement to match the specific source on something like this, which is not within a quotation. We paraphrase all the time, and what matters is that the world of reliable sources frequently uses "blacks" as a noun. Here's an example from the New York Times, who are known for close attention to such details. Incidentally, the "Grand jury hearing" is correct; Wikipedia uses "sentence case" in section titles. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 20:07, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

This black/African-American question is not going to be solved in general anytime soon around here. Sources generally use a mix of "black" and "African-American" and so should we. Sources however do NOT generally use the word "Caucasian" when describing Wilson, so that has little place in this article. We're not here to worry about what is offensive to this person or that... we're here to reflect the sources in a neutral and balanced manner. – JBarta (talk) 00:24, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

From a strict stylistic standpoint, it'd probably be good to use BOTH terms in the same passage, as elegant variation (while our article on elegant variation disparages the practice - contrary to what I and other students in my technical writing degree program were taught - in this case it wouldn't be unnecessary, but would serve the purpose of placating people on each side of the "black"/"African-American" controversy). loupgarous (talk) 15:49, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

It may seem unnecessarily contentious to some, but I'm not interested in placating editors who misinterpret Wikipedia's mission as moving social trends rather than documenting them. These editors are simply wrong, and we follow the collective sources. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 16:06, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Why are you calling Michael Brown a man when being eighteen did not qualify Eric David Harris a man?????

If Eric Harris can be called a boy when he was also 18 yrs old when the shootings took place a Columbine High School, I believe we can come to the conclusion that Michael Brown was just a boy also. Stop making him out to be something another was not....... I do not know him personally, but you are adding to a problem that will not cease because of status that is not really true. He was only a boy!

Butterflygem (talk) 09:01, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

It's true that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and Columbine High School massacre use the term "boys" in a few instances. That may or may not reflect source's descriptions of them. You would have to bring that up on those article's respective talk pages. Regarding this article, can you point out the specific part of the article you wish to change and what you'd like to see it changed to? Be prepared (if challenged) to back up your suggested edit with sourcing and a rationale that supports it following Wikipedia policies of verifiability, neutral point of view, and due weight. I'm not trying to make it hard on you, I'm just trying to show you that editing this encyclopedia is more than simply inserting one's opinion. – JBarta (talk) 11:09, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

To be quite honest, I am starting to see some unconscious racism creep in this manner in articles on wikipedia. Two white guys who shot up a school are boys but an unarmed black guy is a man. Just like missing white girl syndrome -Myopia123 (talk) 12:10, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think this has anything to do with "unconscious racism". It's hard to visualize, much less describe, anyone who is 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) tall, weighs 292 lb (132 kg) and smokes cigars as a "boy". In every one of these cases, if the subjects are over 18, they should probably be described as "young men", but I think it's easy to see why the term "man" was used here instead of "boy". It's a bit too convenient to invoke the racism card when a simpler explanation will suffice. Dwpaul ^Talk 13:53, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I also don't think the "unconscious racisim" comment is helpful, it could be seen as casting aspersions and is not WP:AGF. If you believe that an editor is not following policies or POV pushing, discuss it here or their talk page with diffs. Man, boy, teenager, the choice of nouns should be by consensus and backed by WP:RS. If you have sources that would back a change, then please share them, and the proposed change. Rmosler | ● 14:03, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not accusing any individual editors. I'm saying that RS's and all the editors as a whole(including me) are giving in to a very human tendency to judge on a class basis. -Myopia123 (talk) 14:48, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd be willing to bet that, if not for the POV implications in this case and a desire for him to be perceived as the victim, we'd just as likely be criticized for calling Brown a "boy" because of the connotations that term has had when applied to young black men in the past. Dwpaul ^Talk 14:53, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Anupmehra -Let's talk! 14:18, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear Myopia, I believe that your comments on "unconscious racism" amount to silly navel-gazing. Also a more fit subject for your talk page than here. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:12, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it was a constructive contribution, if only because it allowed us to address this aspect of the question from a perspective others may have had or will have in mind, even if they didn't frame their arguments in those terms. Dwpaul ^Talk 16:24, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Empathize with stupidity and you're half way to thinking like an idiot. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:28, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes that's a creative and useful method of problem solving. Think we're done here. Dwpaul ^Talk 16:36, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear @Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS), I don't know what navel gazing is but if you want to cuss me out you might as well accept that you're going to violate WP:CIVIL anyway and do it properly. I disagree with your suggestion that it's more fit for my talk page. Racism is a core element of this issue and the deaths of black men at the hands of police in general. As far as you calling me stupid, that was a comment for my talk page. -Myopia123 (talk) 23:41, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Navel gazing is where you are desperate to find some major significance in a hopelessly insignificant detail of life. Imagine staring intently into your navel, and then you find a piece of lint and want to show your special insight to the world. That was an apt metaphor for your silly comment, in which you made an observation about extremely reasonable & accurate use of language & wondered aloud whether it wasn't actually the reasonableness or accuracy, but NAY SIRS, HIDDEN RACISM, that made us decide to be reasonable and accurate. If you don't see how that is at once both unconstructive & essentially impossible to discuss in connection with this WP article & insulting to other editors, and thus that there was no good reason to put it on the talk page, then I'm not sure what else to say. Then again, judging by your username and userpage — and the comment "Racism is a core element of this issue" — it's pretty clear you are just trolling. So I guess the joke's on me.

P.S. it appears you don't know what "cussing someone out" means. Probably because of your unconscious racism. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:57, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

That someone failed to call an eighteen-year old man a "man" in Columbine, Colorado doesn't excuse repeating the error. We're not responsible for the press's errors nor obliged to repeat then in our articles. Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and Michael Brown were all eighteen years old at the time they become notable. That made them eligible for the military draft, capable of making valid legal contracts, and immune to curfews - in short, "men." "Young men," if you want to drive the point home that they couldn't legally buy alcohol in many jurisdictions. loupgarous (talk) 15:58, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Minor correction... Dylan Klebold was 17. And if I recall, some of the instances of the word "boys" referred to events that happened before they turned 18. (Eric Harris turned 18 just before the shooting) – JBarta (talk) 16:19, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

The OP's opening strategy is not meaningful. For any question, you can find other articles to support either of two opposing answers. This is the spirit of the essay, Other stuff exists. We should confine ourselves to what is appropriate for this article, without cherry-picking other articles that support our point of view. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 16:26, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, but no article exists in a vacuum. To completely disregard similar articles is not wise approach either. A certain amount of consistency is a good thing. Even the essay you mention has a section Precedent_in_usage. – JBarta (talk) 16:38, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) has engaged in one too many personal attacks. Editors were trying to reason with him on his userpage and I was being discussed and attacked perosnally. I attempted to end the matter peacefully on his userpage but his repeated personal attacks resulted in me snapping and violating WP:CIVIL. Therefore, I will not be editing this page if this person is involved as well. I have had enough of his bullshit. -Myopia123 (talk) 16:43, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

You have made a grand total of zero constructive contributions to this article or Talk page, again it seems like you're just trying to bait negative responses, AKA trolling. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 19:37, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

At least one other editor disagrees with your premise, and Myopia123's constructive contributions to this page (including one section they started) are evident. In any case, it is not your place to determine the worthiness of other editors. Since the editor has drawn a line, kindly let them go on their way instead of goading them to cross it. Dwpaul ^Talk 20:00, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Not sure why you find the suggestion that hidden racism could possibly explain the most innocuous and obviously correct editorial decisions, and yet you don't find helpful the suggestion that such an idea possibly reflects irrational hysteria. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:12, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Back to the original question, while some of this can certainly be explained by the bias, or narrative the authors (of the RSs) wishes to tell, or political correctness, one must also remember that Columbine happened in school by and at attendees of that school, which makes the "boy" appellation a bit more contextual.Gaijin42 (talk) 16:12, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Shooting scene

I made some edits to the shooting scene section. It's longer.

I expanded the description of the street and indicated the directions in which the people involved were traveling. I added "left side" for those in right hand drive countries. I reorganized the evidence from three groups to two, anchoring the groups around the SUV and Brown's body, because the center group consists of one sandal.

The contentious part of my edit is those ten shell casings. I didn't know they were there until I saw the diagram. At first I thought it had to be a mistake. I tried to be NPOV about it, but I don't have a good reference about those casings. It has to be mentioned, though.

People (bystanders, parties involved, responders, investigators, etc.) move casings around crime scenes often, apparently. Sometimes it's inadvertent, or people take them as a souvenir, but sometimes people take them or move them simply to make things difficult for investigators, or in the worst case people might move them to make it look like a gun was fired in a different place. So, it's possible that the ten casings near Brown were put there to make it look like Wilson had shot Brown at close range.

Please don't reply with wikilawyering, fellow editors. Change whatever you want, add references, but this is not original research or speculation or whatever. The article needs a diagram. The diagram shows 10 casings in an unusual place. Those 10 casings have to be explained, and the only way to explain them without invoking a conspiracy theory is that they were moved. We can't say how, we can't say when, we can't say by whom, but they must have been moved because all the other evidence points that way. Somewhere in the transcripts or in some article I haven't read there is a clear, solid explanation of how they got there. Roches (talk) 22:27, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

What are you talking about? They are there because they are near where wilson was standing at the time those shots were fired (plus random physics bounces and the like). There were other cops and media on the scene within seconds/minutes. When exactly do you think things were tampered with? What specifically do you think is proof that that cannot be the natural position of the casings? Where do you think those casings "really belong"?Gaijin42 (talk) 22:32, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Presumably from the blood stain at the far right, at some point Brown was standing near there during some of the shots. (with a fudge factor for how far blood may fly from being hit). Most of the witnesses, and Wilson say that they were about 20ft apart at that point. Wilson and some witnesses say that Brown moved forward, and Wilson says he was trying to backpedal to keep distance (while firing). . That explains the pattern of casings and blood fairly well to me, and more importantly, its all covered by reliable sources. [3] [4][5] [6][7][8] Saying "speculation" and "original research" is not wikilawyering, its the foundation of the way the wiki works. Find a reliable source that discusses some alternative theory, and we can talk about adding it in. Gaijin42 (talk) 22:45, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Roches, unless you can find reliable sources supporting this speculation it cannot go into the article. – JBarta (talk) 22:50, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't have an agenda where I want to introduce an alternative theory. I guess the talk page comment was forceful. What I wanted to happen in the article was for someone who had more knowledge about the location of the casings to add detail. As I say below, I didn't want to say "The placement of the casings is unexplained" because it's not unexplained. It's probably explained in detail in the grand jury evidence. I don't have to be the one to find the evidence; this being a collaborative effort, I wanted the statement that there was something unusual about the placement of the casings to be a call for collaboration. Roches (talk) 06:20, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Having spent quite a bit of time working on the diagram, I can say that I was confused by the casings as well. Nothing nefarious, there though. What struck me is that Wilson pursued Brown for more than 150 yards, before shooting 10 times toward him. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:56, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

He didn't shoot while running the distance. He pursued, then stopped. There was a burst of a few shots, then as he backed up, a burst of a few more shots. According to Wilson's testimony, the casings are exactly where one would expect. And if editors haven't heard it yet, here is apparent audio of the shots. – JBarta (talk) 04:03, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I mean. Wilson pursued Brown for 150 yards before shooting, which begs many questions that I will keep to myself. - Cwobeel (talk) 04:12, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Some of those questions might be answered by reading Wilson's testimony to the grand jury (if you haven't already). And it was 150 feet, not yards. Big difference. 150 feet is not that far a distance at all. – JBarta (talk) 04:17, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I think what Cwobeel is saying is that Wilson didn't shoot until Brown turned around and became threatening. And now for your listening and viewing pleasure is a music video by Queen.[9] --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:59, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

It's official... I'm completely confused. No worries though... isn't the first time and won't be the last. If anyone wants to explain the last few posts of this thread to me using small words and short clear sentences, you know where to find me. – JBarta (talk) 06:22, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for not just reverting the whole edit. I'll explain:

This placement of casings supports the claim that shots were fired in close proximity to Brown.

I wanted to remind the reader of the early accounts that have Wilson walking up to Brown as he's laying on the pavement and shooting him. I wanted to say that in a neutral way. It's not really disputed that shots were fired in fairly close proximity, so I worded it that way.

However, shell casings can be moved either inadvertently or in a deliberate attempt to confound or manipulate the investigation of a crime scene.

This does not require a reference, and it's naive to think the presence of police or media makes a difference, especially considering there were specific requests for assistance regarding the crowd of people who gathered at the scene.

The grand jury's interpretation cannot be known, but their decision not to indict Wilson suggests they concluded that the casings had been moved.

I didn't want to say that the position of the casings was "unexplained," because I know there's an explanation, and I was sort of hoping someone would find that explanation and put it in the article. What I meant to say is that their decision not to indict does mean that they were convinced that Wilson did not execute Brown at close range. (The "without invoking a conspiracy theory" above means that we assume the jury decided in accordance with the evidence.) "They concluded the casings had been moved" was a plainly a bad choice of wording on my part. It's totally impossible to be objective, neutral and concise if people assume content is politically charged, but what I meant is "the decision not to indict Wilson means that they did not think he shot Brown multiple times while he was lying on the ground."

I should apologize for the above assertion that the casings must have been moved. However, the shell casings shouldn't be used to establish the locations where shots were fired.

Some of the casings directly south of the body are where they should be, but the ones to the east are up to 20 feet from what I take to be Wilson's easternmost point. Casings from a .40 cal SIG Sauer P229 are ejected to the right and go slightly forwards or backwards. There are no casings in the area the west of the body, and there probably should be.

Last thing: My interpretation of "reliable source" forbids me from citing a politically biased journalist that interprets a primary source for me. Objective facts from a primary source are not original research, and synthesis of objective facts when only one conclusion is possible is not speculation. It's badly worded, but the decision not to indict means the jury believed that Wilson accurately described where he shot from. Roches (talk) 06:15, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

If you have a non-reliable source that discusses a theory, you can bring it up here. We can't use it in the article, but it can certainly be a launching point for finding better sources.

Assuming any particular scenario, particularly one that involves tampering with the scene when there were dozens of eyewitnesses, media, and additional cops (not to mention Wilson himself) within seconds/minutes and nobody mentions anything close to that, on any side of the issue, is absolutely something that requires sourcing

While your conjecture that ""the decision not to indict Wilson means that they did not think he shot Brown multiple times while he was lying on the ground." is true, it is absolutely the type of thing that requires sourcing. We do not put thoughts/words into living people's heads. Ever.

• You say "where only one conclusion is possible" but there are MANY possible conclusions.Here are a few I can think of in just a few minutes. I'm sure they are many more others could come up with. None of them should be discussed or hinted at without reliable sourcing.
  • Wilson could have been that far and moved backwards. (Wilson and witnesses testify to this one)
  • Brown could have had significant forward momentum as he fell putting his body in front of the casings
  • Wilson could have been further to the right side of the road (down on the diagram) so was shooting at an angle and not parallel to the road. Therefore "ejection to the right" would be further down the road
  • MOST guns eject back and to the right, but 20-30% of bullet cases even from those guns go somewhere else, and in a particular gun if the ejector has been modified or bent or something could be consistently sending cases in a different direction
  • If Wilson was Limp wristing, or shooting with the gun tilted (either gangsta style, or canted up or down), or one handed, or any one of infinite shooting positions, it could have significantly affected the trajectory

Gaijin42 (talk) 15:34, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

As an aside, if and when the graphic is updated, could the caption be corrected from "shell casings" to the correct terminology "shell cases"? The press pretty frequently misuses the term but Wikipedia has it right, here: Cartridge (firearms)#Materials. Here's another example (NIST). — Brianhe (talk) 19:34, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Meh, I've known my way around guns for almost 30 years and I've never heard the term used that way. Our sources say "shell casings" and I imagine that is what just about everybody says. WP is not a source, and the source you did provide appears to be a deadlink. What is it? It won't load but I notice that the URL includes the word "casing", not "case" or "cases" Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:19, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

It is an NIST report titled "Shelling Out Evidence: NIST Ballistic Standard Helps Tie Guns to Criminals". It provides this definition: "Cartridge cases—the empty shells left behind after a gun is fired...". At some point in my firearms instructor coursework, "case" had been promulgated as the right term to use, "casings are for sausage" being a common mnemonic which you can see in this comment on an urban shooting [10]. But on further research the NRA glossary says they are interchangeable. Perhaps a readjustment to the realities popular usage. Bottom line: request for change is withdrawn. — Brianhe (talk) 15:58, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Shooting scene diagram

Obvious OR diagram by Cwobeel removed. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:02, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

It won't stay out long. Everything on it was taken directly (and accurately, as far as I can tell) from a grand jury exhibit diagram. No SYNTH occurred. For another example, see the map in Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109, which I had another user create from an equivalent map produced by National Geographic. It has stood for close to a year I guess. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 16:07, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Factchecker_atyourservice The diagram is not OR. per WP:OI "Original images created by a Wikipedian are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments" There are multiple RS that have produced virtually identical images, based directly off of the image used by the grand jury

• http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/24/ferguson-evidence/assets/ferguson/photos/2014-43984/photos-7/capture.png
• http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/08/13/ferguson-qa/2e754ae76c10ce9a0ea2e1dc9166a341312be797/testimony-Artboard_1.jpg
• http://graphics.stltoday.com/img/grmp-brown_shooting_scene.png
• http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/79290000/jpg/_79290150_ferguson_diagram_20142611_624_v3.jpg

Gaijin42 (talk) 16:07, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I suppose it would be incredibly rude of me to ask about sourcing for the additional data points added to Cwobeel's diagram that do not appear to be in any of the other diagrams? Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:24, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Which are? Gaijin42 (talk) 16:25, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

e.g. location of "interior side front door blood stains", 21'7" "distance from feet to farthest red stain". Just a suggestion — pick one of the published graphs and copy it exactly, don't try to "amplify" or "improve upon" it with your own research. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:30, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Distance to the furthest stain is covered by WP:CALC because the legend that goes with the original grand jury diagram explicitly includes locations with distances. [11] The word "Interior" could possibly be removed, but since there are a bazzilion sources saying there were stains on the interior doors, its really not an issue IMO. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:38, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

"provided there is consensus among editors that the result of the calculation is obvious, correct, and a meaningful reflection of the sources." Could anyone hazard an explanation of where that number comes from and why it is significant? Also I don't recall anything from any source giving us the location of interior bloodstains. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:48, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

The source for that number comes directly from the legend of the original grand jury diagram, as I said in my previous comment where I gave you a link directly to that legend. It was added by Cwobeel at my request. Since there are witnesses that state that brown moved forward or charged, and there is blood at the furthest most point, I thought it would be a useful addition to give an indication of how far Brown may have moved (although such must be an inference by the reader, since all we know for sure is the distance to the blood, and not how the blood actually got there). At a minimum even without the inerence, it gives the reader the ability to tell the total size of the scene. There are numerous sources describing blood on the "interior left front door handle" and other locations of the car [12] [13] For the scale of the diagram we are will within "accurate" imo. But if you insist on having the word "interior" removed you are free to argue that. BTW, all of this stuff was discussed in quite a bit of detail towards the top of this page, where your suggestions would have been more than welcome, and where you can see the consensus for the image, rather than just charging in blindly and accusing people of breaking policy and deleting the image without discussion. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:55, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Since there is no 21 foot 7 inch figure in that jury page, it looks like you're still not done explaining the origin of the figure, and I confess I'm a bit hazy as to your rationale for having our WP article give an emphasis that the published sources didn't find necessary or relevant. Shall we also try to deduce how many feet or inches Brown would have had to walk to get off the street and onto the sidewalk in order to comply with Wilson's order? That would also help readers understand the total size of the scene. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 17:03, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

The legend has the position of Browns feet. The legend has the position of the stain. WP:CALC certainly allows simple vector subtraction. If you think it should be removed, build consensus for it, but since we have been discussing the diagram for 2 days now, and nobody else complained I think you are in the minority so far. Cwobeel has been quite compliant so far with changes to the diagram. If you can build a consensus for a change, I'm sure he would be happy to assist. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:14, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that Centrify's concern about us picking that distance to highlight is a reasonable one, and can be addressed with a reliable source that specifically mentions that distance, or one similar. I seem to recall there is such a source, but offhand I don't have a link to it.

Re the 2 red dots next to the car and their identification, “Red stains driver’s side front door exterior and interior” — When I looked at the diagram for the first time, I thought the red dots indicated red stains on the ground, which they weren't. I would suggest removing the red dots and extending the blue arrow so that the arrowhead just touches the car. Also, I would suggest changing the identification to "Blood on the exterior and interior of the driver’s side front door", and we should include a reliable source for the blood on the car door. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:31, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

The exhibits says "red stains", not blood stains, so I used the former. The exhibit also says interior and exterior. If you want to check the sources I used see the File page (also below for your convenience):

* map  : http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/24/ferguson-evidence/assets/ferguson/photos/2014-43984/photos-7/capture.png

* Legend : http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/24/ferguson-evidence/assets/ferguson/photos/2014-43984/photos-7/picture2.png

Other sources used: NYT [14], WaPo [15], and another one from St Louis Post Dispatch (which I can't locate now, but was very similar to the others. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:51, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I also wanted "blood" but thought it got too deep into WP:SYNTH. There are numerous sources calling out the distance from the blood at marker 19/20 to browns body. The NYTimes in particular called it out, and since THAT ARTICLE is the source for one of the diagrams that completely takes care of SYNTH in my mind "Mr. Brown’s body was about 153 feet east of Officer Wilson’s car. Mr. Brown’s blood was about 25 feet east of his body. This evidence supports statements that Mr. Brown continued to move closer to the officer after being hit by an initial string of bullets."[16] However, there are more. [17] [18] (convenience link to video of previous transcript [19]) [20][21]Gaijin42 (talk) 17:53, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

If there are changes to be made, I will most certainly comply with requests that have consensus. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:55, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, to avoid re-litigating this issue in the future, we should add a commented section with the sources used to create the diagram. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:56, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Or, even better, figure out a way to show normal citations there. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 18:12, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

We could add a caption to the image, and attach the refs to the caption. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:17, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I took a first shot at it, which can be cleaned up considerably. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 18:24, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Are the two NYT images in a NYT article? It's much easier to cite an article than an image. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 18:35, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

The image created BY the NYT is in my comment just above. The official GJ images just hosted by the times I cant find where the times used them, but other sources do have the same image embedded too [22] Gaijin42 (talk) 18:40, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it would be great if we could find them in sources we're already using. We're suffering from ref bloat with a ton of redundant source overlap. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 18:46, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

They are in both GJ evidence links in the external links section, but those may not count as "refs".[23][24] Gaijin42 (talk) 18:54, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

No I can't reuse those in a citation, and it would be too hard to find what's being cited in those anyway. I'll figure something out, adding new sources if necessary. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 19:03, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

The "red stains" at the scene were confirmed to be blood by the crime lab. It's not original research to synthesize those pieces of information. Please do not refer to publicly available information that was presented to the grand jury as "grand jury evidence." Only the transcripts of the hearing have been released, and nothing else can be released. Much of the evidence, such as photographs and audio recordings, is not public. The original map, if I remember correctly, was part of the medical examiner's office report. Roches (talk) 19:40, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Cwobeel and Gaijin42 for the links, which were very helpful.

• Regarding the distance discussed previously — Here’s a source and excerpts that refer to the grand jury proceedings, which I think would justify our highlighting the distance from the blood to the body by showing it in the diagram.

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1411/25/ath.01.html :

"They asked in great detail about the blood spatter evidence, which indicated that Michael Brown walked -- or may have indicated -- that walked back or ran back. There was blood further on down the line. His body ended up being 20 feet closer to Officer Wilson.”

"But it was the questions on pages 87 and 88 -- and I'm sure you can find these on CNN.com if you want to pore through them yourselves -- the grand juror asks questions of the detective trying to nail down what Mark and Sunny and you guys were just talking about: This physical evidence of blood and the blood pattern and whether or not this blood pattern establishes the distance that Michael Brown traveled when he charged at the officer. And so the grand juror asked this, 'So as far as physical evidence, we have the blood on the ground. That was about 21 or 22 feet from where Michael ground ended up.’ “

So I think the diagram is OK indicating this distance because it’s a notable distance.

• Regarding the red stains on the car I suggest,

1. moving the red dots that are for the red stains on the car, to halfway overlap the car boundary, so as not to appear that they are on the ground. (Note this is the style used in this source [25].)

2. adding to the identification, the red stain on the exterior of the driver-side rear door[26]

3. adding the following sources for the red stains on the car [27] [28]

--Bob K31416 (talk) 20:13, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Updated the infographic as requested. Pls check and let me know if understood you correctly. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:58, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Looks good. There's a few things I'm thinking about but haven't decided whether to suggest anything, e.g. "red stains" vs "blood stains", interior and exterior of front door, and using the word "feet" in the phrase "distance from feet to farthest red stain" doesn't read well for me. In any case, I consider all your work on the diagram a good job with a good spirit of collaboration. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:40, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Please propose alternative wording, as we can always improve. Your feedback is welcome. - Cwobeel (talk) 02:10, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Grand jury hearing section

The grand jury hearing section has, as far as I can tell, only one statement by a law professor in MO. To get an accurate idea of whether the hearing was out-of-the-ordinary, it's got to be compared to other police-involved-shooting cases in the same state.

I made some changes to the table. I know this makes it different than the Times' table, and it incorporates facts about grand juries from Grand juries in the United States. According to this page from the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney, "a little less than half" of the felony cases in the county result in a grand jury hearing and the others go to a judge for a preliminary examination. So this is not a "typical" MO grand jury case.

I also removed a statement about witnesses being repeatedly asked about whether Brown appeared to reached for a gun "despite the fact that it was known he was unarmed." The Times has legitimate concerns about the grand jury hearing which are in the article, but this claim is faulty. In the last seconds of Brown's life, he knew he didn't have a gun, but nobody else did. That emerged later.

Disclaimer: I hope that Wilson went through essentially the same process as any other officer, and I hope he had faced the same likelihood of being prosecuted. I deplore abuse of power, whether it's a court making an example of a person or a police officer using excessive force. But if the people of MO feel there is a need for change, it's a matter for the legislature, not the criminal courts. Roches (talk) 17:12, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Look I am trying to AGF here, but you can't just make changes to a table sourced to a an RS and add whatever you want from material from other sources that it is not related to this incident. That is a violation of WP:OR. As for the "faulty" claim of the NYT, that is none of your business to assess. We need to stay close to the sources, regardless if we believe the source is wrong. See WP:V 15:17, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I also warn you again, that this page is not a forum, so please keep your opinions out of it. It does not help. - Cwobeel (talk) 15:27, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

No troubles whatsoever AGF'ing, his good faith seems pretty obvious to me. Also he is correctly pointing out source misrepresentation. The NYT article does not say "it was known he was unarmed" and neither should. Of course, I am shocked, shocked, shocked that it was Cwobeel who edit warred to defend the source misrepresentation which was intended to wrongly defame a living person, because that's not like his MO or anything. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:33, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Can you stop characterizations? It is becoming insufferable. If you wanted to restore that portion you could have done it. But instead you reverted everything back to OR. Stop the nonsense!!!! - Cwobeel (talk) 21:56, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Try making objectionable edits all by themselves so that your other work won't be touched when the objectionable edits are reverted. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:44, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

This is what the source says

Over the months, the jurors seemed to focus intently on the final movement that Mr. Brown may have made toward Officer Wilson, after a brief chase. The prosecutor asked witness after witness if it seemed as if Mr. Brown were reaching for a weapon, though few said they saw anything like that. Mr. Brown was found to be unarmed.

I am restorring the material with some tweaks. Next time, please read the source. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:05, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

'Yes, that is precisely the source text which failed to substantiate your WP prose claim that "prosecutors ask[ed] witness after witness if Brown was appearing to be reaching for a weapon when confronting Wilson, while it was known that Brown was unarmed". You ought to be thanking me for removing that fact-falsifying, source-misrepresenting prose, and yup you do this all the time, it's super annoying. Now you have gotten all mad & chided me angrily for reading correctly & reverting you correctly.

In response, you've changed it to "prosecutors ask[ed] witness after witness if Brown was appearing to be reaching for a weapon when confronting Wilson, while none of the witnesses said anything about Brown being armed." Yet another editorial spin that is not found in the cited source. Reverted. You misrepresent sourced facts, you misrepresent sourced opinions, you do it over and over and you do it to further your own hyper-partisan anger and desire to defame people whom you despise. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:20, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I think ,y last edit is accurate, so instead of endlessly complaining, do the the hard work and make it better. - Cwobeel (talk) 15:32, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Please explain, as clearly as possible, how you think your last edit was accurate. Or any of them, for that matter. "despite the fact that it was known he was unarmed" wasn't right, "while it was known he was unarmed" wasn't right, and "while none of the witnesses said anything about Brown being armed" is not right. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:36, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

despite the fact that it was known he was unarmed" - refers to the prosecutors, not the witnesses. That is the point the source is making, at least that was what I understood. while none of the witnesses said anything about Brown being armed, was my attempts to unpack the statement "The prosecutor asked witness after witness if it seemed as if Mr. Brown were reaching for a weapon, though few said they saw anything like that". I accept that it was not perfect, but still valid. Now, please propose how to include in your own word that last sentence, because you have deleted it and it is a crucial point in that reporting. - Cwobeel (talk) 16:33, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Since the source didn't use those words — and since prosecutors, like Wilson, did not know at the time of the incident that Brown was unarmed — this sounds like obvious BS. Also, "few witnesses said they saw him reaching for a weapon" is not even remotely equivalent to "none of the witnesses said he was armed". So once again it looks like you're adding your own spin, and there is no "validity" to it. Could you please propose content here before adding it to the article so that others can remove the errors and policy violations first? Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:44, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

. My read is this: The critique is that prosecutors were acting as defense attorneys trying to validate Wilson's testimony regarding his perception that Brown was reaching for a weapon, when actually no witness other than Wilson made that case, and the prosecutors were asking again and again about that, which was very unusual. That is my reading of the source. Please re-read the source in its entirety and propose how to best reflect it. BTW, I intend to add more from that source, currently working on it. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:14, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for spelling out your uninformed opinion which does not belong anywhere on Wikipedia. I decline the invitation to grind your axe for you. I have already read and re-read the source. You are now on triple-explicit notice that the source does not say any of the things you previously wrote into the article, and thus I humbly request you bring any further material from this source HERE, to the talk page, so it may be vetted by editors who aren't quite so prone to accidentally misrepresenting a source to defame a living person. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 18:47, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for you suggestion, but I have no intentions to refrain from editing. I am working an additional material that I would add in due course. Thankfully, the collaborative process of Wikipedia will, as always, catch any mistake you or I make in our editing. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:44, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

"Mistakes", mmm, yes, it's quite amazing how your "mistakes" always result in WP prose that misrepresents a source to trash a living person, and it's further amazing how it's invariably, always and without exception, the targets of progressive wrath that get this treatment. What I find remarkable is that you do this deliberately, and repeatedly, and without the slightest hint of remorse and without the slightest hint of apology for those whom you dumbly snark at, threaten and insult, in the process of trying to defend an indefensible anti-policy edit. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 14:41, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

^When I posted the above, I hadn't see that you went ahead and added more source misrepresentation. Please be advised that all opinion commentary is supposed to be well-sourced to notable commentators, not Wikipedia editors. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 14:55, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I guess we're fortunate in this case that the WP prose in question doesn't trash anyone. At any rate, I think it's worth mentioning that paraphrasing "Mr Brown was found to be unarmed" is hardly an unsourced opinion, considering it's a New York Times report. If you were to provide a better paraphrase than any in the list that you've accumulated on Cwobeel's attempts, it would resolve this issue fairly easily. Explaining why the information shouldn't be included would also be informative. As an aside, the NYT article was corrected today as it misattributed questions asked of Wilson to the prosecutors. The questions were actually posed by one of the grand jurors. --RAN1 (talk) 02:32, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

It has gradually evolved from something that misrepresented the source to defame McCullogh, into something that merely reports what the source says without WP-editor embellishment intended to defame McCullogh. And as an aside, Cwobeel's level of activity and "accidental source misrepresentation" is far too intense for me to go around actually ghostwriting his prose for him. Fortunately, BLP explicitly provides that I needn't do that. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:12, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Except, again, nothing you edited out seems to show any hint of defaming McCulloch. The only thing that comes remotely close is this edit, which was neither libelous nor non-notable as it is a well-documented controversy about McCulloch by at least two sources (the last link was to the source cited in the edit). The Huffington Post source brings a different perspective to the controversy, which merits it being referenced in the article in a neutral tone. Btw, perhaps it would be in everyone's best interests if you were to be bold and give insight into how to rewrite the prose in an acceptable way, or to provide justifications on why the information shouldn't be included. As far as I can tell, BLP doesn't provide defenses for not contributing rationale. --RAN1 (talk) 19:26, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the correcting by the NYT. I have deleted the miss-attributed sentence. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:22, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

additional sources discussing eyewitness testimony discrepancies from evidence (from a scientific point of view)

• http://www.forbes.com/sites/fayeflam/2014/12/01/what-science-says-about-the-ferguson-case-memory-can-be-hacked/
• http://web.randi.org/swift/eyewitnesses-and-emotion-a-reminder-to-engage-critical-thinking

Gaijin42 (talk) 21:03, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm a scientist. I like the idea of critical thinking. I like the idea of testing a hypothesis with evidence before making a conclusion, rather than making the evidence fit the conclusion. The Swift article reminds me that the public doesn't have all the evidence (nor should they), that details were presented to the grand jury that we are not privy to. I'm also reminded of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Gaijin42, can you help me avoid attempting to write things I don't need to write, by just saying why you posted this? Do you think Wilson was justified in killing Brown? (I do.) Roches (talk) 23:29, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

May I remind you of WP:NOTFORUM? - Cwobeel (talk) 00:00, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The answer to your larger question I will reply to on your talk to avoid WP:FORUM (as Cwobeel is quite correct to point out). I posted these particular links because they can help to flesh out the "Accounts" section similarly to the existing Rashomon effect paragraph. Gaijin42 (talk) 00:02, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Roches: As fascinating as these articles may be, they have no place in this article. Of course, if this is an area of interest you are welcome to edit Eyewitness testimony, Credible witness, and Eyewitness identification- Cwobeel (talk) 00:03, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Cwobeel, the articles were posted by me (gaijin), not Roches. Why do you think they have no place in this article? They are directly discussing the general testimony issues in the context of this case and the specific witness statements we have in this case. Gaijin42 (talk) 00:13, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. The only thing I see useful in the Forbes article is this passage

Our instincts tell us that honest people remember events correctly and others are lying. Loftus, on reading the AP report, suggested that what witnesses remember is heavily influenced by the way they interpret what they are seeing. Different people heard shots and saw some kind of commotion. Was the victim charging, wobbling, or surrendering? People may have unconsciously filled in gaps in their perception with information based on their past experiences.

... which could be added as the fully attributed opinion of Elizabeth Loftus, and the writer of the piece. - Cwobeel (talk) 00:32, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that would be a fine quote to include since we already mention the AP report in question, that serves as a nice commentary about it. Gaijin42 (talk) 00:54, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Could probably also find sources talking about how the typical unreliability of witness testimony leads prosecutors to rely more heavily on physical evidence, which is what they did in this case. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:12, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, go ahead, Gaijin. FCAYS: Just find a source that describes that opinion in the context of this incident and it can be included as well. - Cwobeel (talk) 15:15, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Lazy Saturday, usually when I post about the possible existence of a source it's because I am hoping someone else will go find it. ;) Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:24, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Release of video in lead & dispatch

It seems to me that the fourth paragraph in the lead may be a little incomplete. At some point a dispatch went out mentioning the theft and Wilson claims this dispatch was something he considered before and during the altercation. Yet the only thing mentioned in the fourth paragraph is that some were pissed off about the release of the video and that it may shed light on Brown's state of mind at the time. I think this is an imbalance and should be briefly addressed, though I'm not entirely sure how. Thoughts? – JBarta (talk) 01:17, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I added a little to that paragraph. – JBarta (talk) 03:45, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

publisher=

When standardizing refs in this article, I have dropped any |publisher= and replaced it with |website=. While many editors use |publisher=, they generally use it incorrectly per the documentation, which states: The publisher is the company that publishes the work being cited. Do not use the publisher parameter for the name of a work (e.g., a book, encyclopedia, newspaper, magazine, journal, website).

While you can code both |website= and |publisher=, I haven't felt that the latter is of enough use to the readers of this type of article to be worth the trouble and space. In many cases it would be a non-trivial task to determine the name of the publisher.

I just noticed that the copy-and-paste "template" we have in the comments at the top of the References section includes |publisher=, and I'm writing this as the explanation for my removal of that. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 02:00, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

So if a ref is from www.cnn.com/blah/blah/blah/ you would prefer website=cnn.com rather than publisher=CNN ? – JBarta (talk) 02:13, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

No, the convention here is to use the website's branding, as |website=CNN or |website=The New York Times. In some cases the website seems to be branded in multiple alternative ways, so we are forced to choose one, but we are consistent with that choice. For local TV and radio stations we ignore branding such as "Fox2Now" and use the call letters, as |website=KTVI. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 02:18, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

So if a ref is from www.cnn.com/blah/blah/blah/ you would prefer website=CNN rather than publisher=CNN. Correct? – JBarta (talk) 02:26, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Or you can code it however you want and I'll convert it as part of standardization, which would probably be needed anyway. I rebuild every ref from scratch, unless it's already perfect per the local convention (hasn't happened yet). ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 02:31, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm reminded of a line from Godfather III.... "Our ships must all sail in the same direction". Forming the refs as you suggest is no problem at all as far as I'm concerned. And I'll assume you are correct in your rationale for doing it that way. – JBarta (talk) 02:40, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok. I copy-and-paste an abbreviated "template" from a Notepad document, to save myself the trouble of removing multiple rarely-needed parameters. Then I can insert |location= for local TV and radio, add parameters for additional authors, and/or remove the archive parameters if the source won't archive. This abbreviated "template" is: <ref name= >{{cite web |first= |last= |title= |date= |accessdate= |website= |url= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |deadurl=no}}</ref>. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 02:47, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

References

"Crime scene"

We refer to "crime scene" five times. I just wanted to confirm that this is deliberate and that the rationale is that some crime was committed there, the crime and perpetrator undetermined. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 06:02, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

While I think I understand your concern, I think this may be a situation in which the correct term just has unfortunate implications. In any trial in which the defendant is ultimately acquired (or not charged as in this case) those bits of evidence are still from the "crime scene" in general parlance. Charitably one could also interpret these scene as a crime as either Wilson or Browns take your pick depending on POV. But I would also not object to "incident scene" or "shooting scene" or something. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:24, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

"Incident scene" sounds like a form that HR has to fill out after a fight in the break room. "Shooting scene" is not as awkward, but I think we should just track the terminology used by sources and trust that our readers will be discerning. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:42, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

If it's a crime scene, then what was the crime and who committed it? That's a pretty sticky question. Shooting scene seems most accurate to me, is well represented in sources and has zero stickiness. – JBarta (talk) 16:08, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually, since crime scene investigators (CSIs) work all homicides, justifiable or not, I'd support the use of the term "crime scene." Apart from that, the testimony of Officer Darren Wilson was that Michael Brown was guilty of initiating an assault on Darren Wilson at that location. At the time that data are recorded from the scene of any homicide, the possibility of a crime having been committed is assumed by first responders and crime scene investigators. Both Darren Wilson and Michael Brown were regarded by press accounts as criminal suspects when that crime was investigated. loupgarous (talk) 16:16, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Would it be correct to say that a "crime scene" can also refer to an area of investigation where a crime may have been committed? – JBarta (talk) 16:22, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

That appears to be common usage, whether or not it's literally correct. Common usage is good enough for me. In any case, I think it's clear enough that at least one crime was committed there, assault on a police officer (aside from conspiracy theory, is there any other plausible explanation for the facial discoloration that persisted for hours?). There may or may not be mitigating circumstances, but it's still a crime AFAIK. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 16:47, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

That seems a little loose. We've exposed criticism of the term "crime scene". Is there any direct criticism of the term "shooting scene"? Not asking if you prefer something else, but looking for direct criticism of the term itself such as being inaccurate or problematic in any way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbarta (talk • contribs) 17:11, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't advocating "crime scene" over "shooting scene", but merely saying I'm not opposed to "crime scene". I don't see "shooting scene" as being inaccurate or problematic in any way. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 17:18, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

It's not called a "shooting scene," it's called a "crime scene." Call it what it's called, not what you think it should be called. Roches (talk) 17:57, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

How do you know it's called a "crime scene"? To you it seems crystal clear. To me it's not. What is it that you know that I don't? – JBarta (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Crime scene says it's called a crime scene. Vfrickey gave a clear explanation of why it's called a crime scene. Roches (talk) 19:17, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Crime scene says "Crime scenes may or may not be where the crime was committed" which I admit I missed. However, despite explanations, I still find the rationale for calling it a crime scene a little shaky, and as discussed earlier, "shooting scene" isn't shaky at all. My preference (slight as it is) is still for "shooting scene", but it's arguably a minor matter and if a consensus of editors prefer "crime scene", then so be it. At least it was examined and discussed. – JBarta (talk) 02:17, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it is common knowledge what a crime scene is. We all understand that it is a place where police are investigating a possible crime. It does not mean that just because we have labelled it such that we have bypassed judge and jury and want to throw the suspect in prison because, oh yea, we called it a crime scene. I've never heard the terms "shooting scene", "robbery scene", "assault scene", "arson scene", "shoplifting scene", etc. in my entire life. —Megiddo1013 05:54, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

At the risk of beating an unconscious horse and just for the sake of argument, I'm really not moved by what you think everybody knows or what you think everybody understands or what you've never heard in your entire life. I was looking for some definitive evidence as to whether a scene that may or may not have been the scene of an actual crime (depending on who you ask) is still called a crime scene. The rest of my comments are above (I hate repeating myself). One more thought that I don't think was brought up... is the Ferguson Police (or State Police or FBI or whoever is investigating there) calling it a "crime scene"? If not, how do they refer to the site? Just a thought. – JBarta (talk) 16:22, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I see here the grand jury is hearing testimony from a "crime scene investigator" and they do mention the words "crime scene" several times. Other than simply "the scene", they don't really call it anything else. So I suppose if you walked up to the investigator while he was measuring and examining and asked him "Whatcha doin?", he would most likely reply with "Investigatin this here crime scene. Now get back behind that yellow line or someone's gonna shoot you too!" – JBarta (talk) 16:41, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Micheal Brown attacked Officer Wilson there, as well as resisted arrest, so there's really no question that it is the scene of at least some crime committed, regardless of whether or not Wilson committed any crime. Crime scene, scene of the incident, scene of the shooting all seem to be pretty commonly used. I don't think it is unnecessarily POV; we should use whatever the sources use. Titanium Dragon (talk) 02:21, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Incident reports

I changed the incident report section. The complaints are really examples of journalists writing about how they think people should do their jobs; if this incident report isn't different than a normal one about the same thing, then it's not lacking in information.

The reason why the incident reports have very few details is that they are admissible in court. Filling in only basic information is a normal thing to do in a case like this, because the incident report is just the beginning of an investigation. In most cases, such as a collision involving a police vehicle, the incident report is a full description of the event because nothing more ever needs to be said about it. These incident reports are not the official story of the police department, they're the individual account of the person who might have to go to trial. Journalists should have known better than to speculate that details were being omitted improperly.

Something was made of the date of the report (ten days after the shooting); this is the time the report was entered. The date it was submitted isn't there. The times of day must also not mean what they appear to mean, since other accounts have police arriving at the scene in much less than 40 minutes.

Roches (talk) 18:12, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

No, no, and no. You are not here to decide what journalists should do or not do, or what they should report or not report. If you find a source that describes your opinion, by all means add it. But do not delete material just because you think the journalists are doing a poor job. Who cares what you (or I) think? We report what sources say. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:19, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

According to a spokesman for the St. Louis County police department, it's normal practice not to give out the details and that under the Missouri State “Sunshine” Law, the department was not required to release the information during a pending investigation.[29] --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:31, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Then report that, alongside the critique from other media sources, even if unfounded. - Cwobeel (talk) 01:03, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Please don't tell me how Wikipedia works, even if it's using WP:article links to things that are not policy. I changed the section to describe the level of detail on the forms, and mentioned that Wilson sought legal advice about completing them. I kept the ACLU statement, because it is important to convey that people objected to the way the forms were completed, but I didn't keep the paraphrased list of things the HuffPo author thought were missing.

Reporting the Huffington Post author's opinion of how police departments should fill out incident reporting forms is not NPOV. That's an opinion of one journalist at one source; the ACLU's public statement is a much better, and entirely sufficient, way to report objections to the way the forms were completed.. See WP:ONUS. Roches (talk) 04:37, 7 December 2014 (UTC) (Added policy link to post at 4:30.)

we report opinions and attribute opinions to those that hold them. That is our work as editors, and not pass judgement. I will remove these edits and expect you to follow WP:BRD, as there is an implicit consensus on material that has been in the article for a while. - Cwobeel (talk) 05:18, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

If the opinion isn't found anywhere other than HuffPo, it's probably not notable. Notice also this was published in August and never followed up on. Not exactly quality sourcing. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 15:51, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I started looking over the current version of the section Incident reporting forms and there was a problem with verifying the first two sentences.

"MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell reported on August 21 that Wilson did not complete an incident report about the shooting, after being advised by a union lawyer not to do so.^[68] According to O'Donnell, Wilson did file a report, but not until ten days after the shooting, and the report contained no information other than his name and the date.^[68]

68. O'Donnell, Lawrence (August 21, 2014). "Ferguson PD didn't file report after shooting". The Last Word. MSNBC. Retrieved August 26, 2014.

The link for the source doesn't go to the page where the info is, so I wasn’t able to verify the material using the citation. --Bob K31416 (talk) 23:01, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Searching for the title of the source in the ref, yields this: http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word-with-lawrence-odonnell/watch/ferguson-pd-didnt-file-report-after-shooting-320755267999 - Cwobeel (talk) 23:07, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

 Fixed ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 23:18, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

On the other hand, that link is to a 1:16 clip, apparently the intro to the episode. I can't figure out how to get the whole thing. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 23:31, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

So who is correct, the prosecutor's office, O'Donnel, the ACLU? Was or was not an incident report filed? Because they did release the reports when pressed to do so. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:51, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Cwobeel, The current issue is verifying those two sentences. The link you just gave is insufficient. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:01, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, it was the when I sourced it, but it seems that it is gone. I will see if I can find it in the wayback machine. - Cwobeel (talk) 00:05, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

The full episode may be on this page, but I am not 100% sure: [30], OTOH, this is a good source that could be used: [31] - Cwobeel (talk) 00:12, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Here's a relevant excerpt from a Nov 24 Newsweek source.[32]

"The official incident report filed by St. Louis county police 10 days after the shooting contains few hard details about the encounter, other than the fact that Brown was unarmed."

--Bob K31416 (talk) 00:24, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I made some edits involving the second and third sentences of the first paragraph, which currently is:[33]

"MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell reported on August 21 that Wilson did not complete an incident report about the shooting, after being advised by a union lawyer not to do so. According to the St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office, the Ferguson police didn’t file an incident report on the shooting because the case was turned over to the county police almost immediately. The St. Louis county police filed an incident report 10 days after the shooting with little information about what happened."

References

The first sentence is not supported by its source. The only thing it adds is the part about the lawyer. The rest is covered in the second sentence. I think we should delete it for now and consider restoring the lawyer info when there is a suitable source for it. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:23, 8 December 2014 (UTC) Deleted. [34] --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:44, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately the source is no longer online. In any case I think what we have there is covers this quote well. I have re-ordered the sentences for a narrative that makes sense. - Cwobeel (talk) 14:50, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that was an improvement. I noticed that another editor reverted the re-ordering. [35] --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:40, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

The version reverted to does not make sense. It starts by describing the reasons why a report was not filed, only to say in the following paragraphs that reports were indeed filed. when you removed the O'Donnell reference, the section came out of whack. I am still trying to find the original source from O'Donnell. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:07, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I think the lead paragraph is OK and shouldn't be touched for now. I've been working on the rest of the section to get it into better shape. After I complete that, I'll revisit the lead paragraph. --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

OK Found it. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:16, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

We have breaking news tonight in the killing of Michael Brown. St. Louis County prosecutors told NBC News today that the Ferguson Police Department has no incident report of the shooting of Michael Brown. Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, did not write an incident report contrary to standard police procedure. […] Yesterday, in response to a lawsuit from the ACLU, the St. Louis County police released an incident report that says, in effect, nothing other than the time and proximate location of a homicide and the victim`s name, Michael Brown. That incident report indicates that it was not filed until possibly 10 days after the killing of Michael Brown. […] In the decades I`ve been studying these cases, most of them involve incident reports written by the officers involved with the shooting. In recent years, it has become customary for the police lawyer to run in, police union lawyer usually, and prevent the shooter from giving any kind of comment or writing any sort of incident report whatsoever.

References

The excerpt you gave doesn't say that Wilson was advised by a union lawyer not to complete an incident report. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:31, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

See my edit, which attributes that opinion to O'Donnell. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:45, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I moved it from the article to here for discussion.

"MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell reported on August 21 that St. Louis County prosecutors told NBC News that they do not have an incident report from the shooting, contrary to standard police procedure, and described a pattern in which police union lawyers prevent shooters from commenting to filing incident reports."

References

This Aug 21 item became obsolete when the police interview of Wilson, the day after the shooting, was released to the public. --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Really? Can you provide a source that describes the police interview that was released? - Cwobeel (talk) 18:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Here's a link from a CNN webpage to the interview. [36] --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:55, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

@Bob K31416:I see what you mean. But you are confusing two things. What O'Donnell is referring to is an incident report. What you are refrring to is an interview with Wilson. These are two different things. Please restore that edit, as this section is all about incident reports and not interviews. - - Cwobeel (talk) 18:31, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

@Cwobeel: - You have to add the ping (yo) and your sig in the same edit, or there is no notification. I learned that the hard way. @Bob K31416: ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 18:50, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

O'Donnell said, "any kind of comment or writing any sort of incident report whatsoever.” --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:55, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

So what? The fact is that Wilson did not file an incident report. That is undisputed. - Cwobeel (talk) 19:39, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Break1 Incident reports

@Bob K31416: I added additional commentary from legal and law enforcement analysts. I also re-ordered the sentences to follow the chronology. I think I got it right, but please change it if it is not correct. - Cwobeel (talk) 19:58, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

(Here’s a link to the version after Cwobeel's recent edits [37] and a link to the version before [38] .)

Cwobeel, Here’s some comments on your recent edits of the section.

1) The first sentence of your version misstated the source. O'Donnell was referring to only the Ferguson incident report. The info was already in the first sentence that you moved.

2) The second sentence of your version about Lisa Bloom’s opinion misstates the source. Lisa Bloom didn’t say that Wilson refused to file a report.

3) Re the 3rd sentence of your version about Jim Cavanaugh’s comment — The info was already covered in the first and second sentences of the original version.

4) The 4th sentence of your version about the Ferguson police not filing an incident report was the original 1st sentence.

5) The 5th and last sentence of the lead paragraph of your version was about a use-of-force report and was formerly the last sentence of the section. I hadn’t worked on the placement or content of this sentence yet.

6) The 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of your version were obtained by switching the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of the original version. I hadn’t worked on the content or placement of the material in these paragraphs yet.

7) The 4th and last paragraph of your version was the second sentence of the lead paragraph of the original version.

Before I try to edit the section again, could you list here in our discussion, in chronological order, the events that you are trying to portray in chronological order? --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:33, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I cheeked again this evening and this is the correct chronology, my last edit was not correct:

• August 19 - (10 days after shooting) incident report filed by St. Louis county police
• August 21 - O'Donnel's reporting, commentary from Lisa Bloom and Jim Cavanaugh
• August 22 - St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office says that Ferguson police did not file a report because the case was assigned to county police
• August 26 - ACLU releases the report they received after their FOIA request
• August 26 - HuffPo reports on commentary by ACLU's Gupta
• Sept 25 - Yahoo News reports that key report does not exist

Regarding Bloom and Cavanaugh:

• Lisa Bloom: And if he refuses to follow standard operating procedure in preparing a report about the taking of the human life, he should be fired."
• Jim Cavanaugh: That is an expert opinion that should be presented.

I will attempt again to correct corrected the chronology. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:37, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

@Bob K31416: feel free to copyedit my rendition of Bloom and Cavanugh's comments, if you can make it better and closer to the source. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:42, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Cwobeel, On giving the section another look, I noticed that it is about not releasing information that has now been released. It’s obsolete and a digression from the topic of the article, the shooting of Michael Brown. We could summarize the incident report issue in a couple of sentences and merge it with the Police section. Thoughts? --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:48, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Wholesale deletion of relevant material

@Roches: Why are you deleting perfectly good material without any discussion[39]. I welcome your contributions, but you need to show some respect to the hard work from others. Deleting material that has been in the article for quite a while, and which represents an existing consensus is not acceptable - Cwobeel (talk) 22:15, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

And when you are it, explain this edit [40] in which you removed several key pieces of reporting. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:21, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I mean, how blatant can you be? You removed a key piece:

. Brown stumbled, stopped, put his hands up and said "OK, OK, OK, OK, OK." The worker believed Brown had been wounded. With his hands up, Brown began walking toward the officer, at which point Wilson began firing at Brown and backing away.

- Cwobeel (talk) 22:23, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

It's difficult to contribute anything at all if every aspect of every edit has to be justified. The fact that somebody said that something happened is not necessarily worth reporting here, and it does not remain worth reporting here. Editing material that was written some time ago is not destructive, it's just changing the article to represent the importance of that particular account as of right now.

The construction worker's account describes Brown being hit from behind after being shot by one of three police officers. I thought it was acceptable to keep the broader details of the account. I did not remove all of the details in the "key piece" above. I only removed what the otherwise-unreliable account said Brown was saying. There's a reason for that. If someone reported that Brown said "I'm gonna kill you," then that conveys to readers the idea that Brown may have said that. Similarly, including a quotation from a possibly unreliable account, a quotation that other accounts don't include, can alter the opinions of readers in a different way than a retelling of what the worker said the people did. The edited account still conveys the worker's contention that Brown was trying to surrender, it just doesn't quote Brown in the retelling.

If that content represented an existing consensus between, say, ten editors, it no longer represents a consensus. I'm strongly opposed to it, I think it should be removed, so there isn't a consensus anymore. Roches (talk) 04:09, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

No comment on the rest, but I'll go out on a limb and challenge your last sentence based on the second sentence of WP:CONSENSUS: Consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity (which, although an ideal result, is not always achievable).... In other words, consensus doesn't vanish the moment someone comes along and disagrees with it. It was rarely unanimous to begin with, as indicated in the quoted passage. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 04:39, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

The part about hands up was removed. It was significant because it was supported by the following, which was also removed, "In a cellphone video obtained by CNN on September 11, which captured the reaction of the construction worker and a colleague, one of them can be heard saying, "He had his fuckin' hands up." Does anyone know where the corresponding grand jury testimony is, volume, page number? --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:04, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I have restored the material that was deleted. - Cwobeel (talk) 05:28, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

@Roches:: It's difficult to contribute anything at all if every aspect of every edit has to be justified. Welcome to editing contentious articles in Wikipedia. - Cwobeel (talk) 05:30, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

And a good reminder WP:NOTTRUTH - Cwobeel (talk) 05:32, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Cwobeel, From the essay WP:NOTTRUTH that you referred to is the following, "The phrase 'the threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not truth' meant that verifiability is a necessary condition (a minimum requirement) for the inclusion of material, though it is not a sufficient condition (it may not be enough)." --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:45, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you in that context. I was referring to this section: WP:!TRUTHFINDERS - Cwobeel (talk) 05:50, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Cwobeel, I don't think that part of the essay means that verifiability guarantees the inclusion of questionable material. Also, please note the statement at the top of that essay's page, "Essays are not Wikipedia policies or guidelines." Wikipedia policy says that verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. --Bob K31416 (talk) 06:50, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I am fully aware that an essay is not policy. But the point made in that essay is a good one. - Cwobeel (talk) 15:24, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

And what point is that? --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:42, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, talking about the construction worker's testimony to the grand jury - A landscape worker who lives in Jefferson County gave grand jurors one of the oddest accounts of the moments leading up to Brown's death. The man said he encountered Brown that morning. He was trying to cut through some tree roots and cursing at the difficulties of the job. Brown told him that Jesus would help him with his anger problem. A few minutes later, the man said, he heard gunshots. He looked up and saw Brown running. He said three officers were chasing Brown, but only one of them was shooting. Brown appeared to have been shot as he fled, the worker said. Then Brown turned around, put his hands up and started yelling “OK.” "And within a couple of seconds the three officers came up, and one just pulled up and shot him," the worker said.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 05:36, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Sure, but this article is not just about the testimony to the grand jury. This and other witnesses provided their accounts before that, such as in here [41], the source used in that section. You are welcome to add his testimony to the grand jury for completeness. - Cwobeel (talk) 05:44, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Restoring the original version reminded me of why I edited it. I'm not going to dissect the content line by line, feign outrage, or welcome you to Wikipedia. I especially do not like the last of these things, and I don't like when you tell me or other editors that we are free to add content to some section of the article, but not to another.

What I tried to do wasn't perfect, but if that content represents the hard work of many individuals working towards a consensus, the result was surprisingly awkward and difficult to read. Roches (talk) 06:22, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. If you can improve content by copy editing, that would be most welcome. But there is a difference in making something more readable, and deleting content wholesale as you did. - Cwobeel (talk) 06:30, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Fair use photos of Michael Brown and Darren Wilson

I'm wondering about grabbing some photos of Brown and Wilson and uploading them as fair use. I have in mind these... Brown,Wilson, and using them in a manner similar to the ones in Shooting of Trayvon Martin. Brown is dead so "historic portrait" applies, unless someone wants to argue that anyone who owns a photo of Brown could conceivably upload it here under some sort of free license. Wilson is still around, but I think the chances someone will upload a free picture of him anytime soon is pretty slim. And even if 30 years from now someone finally does, it won't do us much good in the meantime plus he won't look anything like he did during the event... which sort of kills the encyclopedic value. I think that since this a historic event (historic meaning this particular event happened at only one time in history), contemporary photos of the main participants are fair use. Thoughts on the validity of "fair-use" here? Thoughts on using the images in general? – JBarta (talk) 16:44, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

For Brown, we get one (and and only one) "fair use" photo under the "dead, no future free photos available" bits of WP:NFCC. So if consensus can be built on which photo to use, then we can go with it.

For Wilson, as he is living, we do not get such exceptions. I already uploaded a pic of Wilson's face injury under the NFCC for a non-reproduceable historical photo that is discussed in the article (the degree of injury or not). Having just an "What does Wilson look like" photo is not going to survive the fair use discussion tho.

The Trayvon Martin article is working under slightly different rules, because Florida does not allow state agencies to keep copyrights and so all of the evidence stuff is in the public domain. Missouri specifically does allow state agencies to keep copyright. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:52, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

That fair use can indeed encompass "what does a main participant look like?" in a very notable "moment in time" event is an incorrect belief? – JBarta (talk) 17:30, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Generally only if there is some specific thing that is being commented on significantly in the article that the "moment in time" captures. For example injuries, or "iconic" status. "Here is a random snapshot of Wilson" won't qualify. You can always try of course, but I've seen hundreds of photos trying that argument get deleted. The relevant criteria are Wikipedia:Non-free_content#UULP. In our case a hypothetical free replacement would let us see the general ID of Wilson just fine (As opposed to the injury photos, which cannot be replaced ever in the future). More detail can be found at Wikipedia:Replaceability_of_fair-use_images#Living_people Gaijin42 (talk) 17:58, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the guidelines, just wondering how far they can be stretched in this context. We could argue that not only is this hypothetical future free image of Wilson unlikely to materialize, but it may very well not capture him as he looked during the event. No doubt he'll probably lay low for the forseeable future, he may grow a beard, etc. So one way to look at it is that Wilson, as he was during the event, is in fact a not reasonably replacable historic image. Compare this context with say a movie star with a career that spans many years. If we don't get a picture of him today, he's likely to be out and about still making movies and appearing at events in the future, not to mention his notability is not tied to one particular moment in time. Very different context than Wilson here. I'm not looking for a "you can always try it and see how it goes". I'm looking for a consensus that a "what he looks like" image of Wilson is a valid application of fair-use and while stretching WP guidelines, doesn't necessarily run afoul of them.– JBarta (talk) 18:55, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually, a re-read of Wikipedia:Replaceability_of_fair-use_images#Living_people (thank-you Gaijin42) makes me think a photo of Wilson is well within the guidelines simply as a "not reasonably replaceable image of a living person". Add to that the idea of his notability being tied to one moment in time, and it's starting to look like a pretty solid case. No? Again, I'm looking for a consensus on that point rather than a "try it and see how it goes". – JBarta (talk) 19:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with that choice of Michael Brown's photo, for several reasons. One reason is that is only shows his face. In the context of this article, I believe it is important to see his physical size (i.e., his body/frame/physique). Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:22, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Can you point to any images you would prefer? – JBarta (talk) 19:28, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

No, I don't have any access to such photos. And I don't particularly understand (or follow) all of the intricacies of the copyright/fair use rules, etc., as discussed above. Nonetheless, I disagree with this particular proposed photo. For the reason stated above, and for other reasons as well. I am sure that I have seen many photos of Brown in the news and on the internet, etc., over the past few months. I will see if I can point one out in particular. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:32, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Here is one photo: [42]. And I thought that I had seen this photo in a not-cropped version, showing his full-length body shot. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:37, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Even if you have a full body shot, unless he's standing next to someone much smaller, you probably won't get a true sense of his size. And even if you did get such a photo, people will come out of the woodwork screaming that we're trying to portray him as a "big black monster". I'm thinking maybe it should be a neutral sort of image that no one has much of a problem with. Then again, he was a big dude and that certainly plays a part in the narrative. – JBarta (talk) 19:55, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

People can visualize 6'4" 300 lbs. without a photo. Unless we feel it useful to show that his build was more that of a lineman than a linebacker (I don't, particularly). ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 20:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I think the proposed photo by JBarta is just fine, as it is the one that was used by most sources. Go head and add it. - Cwobeel (talk) 20:36, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

To counteract Spadaro's comment, we are not showing a full body shot of Wilson who is 6' 4" either. - Cwobeel (talk) 20:38, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

JBarta Regarding your question above about Wilson and replacability, I do not think the photo serves any purpose in the article that qualifies under NFCC. What he looked like in general is not a subject that is discussed in this article. Relative sizes between Brown and Wilson may be relevant, but the photos in question do not show that. Your proposed justification would basically apply to any photo of any person for almost any article, it renders the restriction meaningless. If NFCC had an exception for "this photo has been widely used by news media for this story" I would support that, and would perhaps support a change to NFCC to create such an exception, but as the policy currently stands, I think its pretty clear generic photos of Wilson do not make the cut. Gaijin42 (talk) 20:45, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Agree. The photo showing the redness on the face, relates specifically to the investigation and thus it can squeeze through (hardly,IMO) under NFCC. A generic photo of Wilson would not. - Cwobeel (talk) 20:48, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

"What he looked like in general isn't important" could be similarly argued for any person who is dead, yet has a fair use photo in their article. By my reading of the guidelines, it's not the importance that is important, but whether the photo is reasonably replaceable. If one agrees that a photo of Darren Wilson (especially capturing him at this moment in time) is not reasonably replaceable to an extent similar to a person who has died, then I would think the guideline would apply to Wilson as well as a person who has died. It's not like Wilson is going to be out posing for photos at the next Fergson Community Days or anything. – JBarta (talk) 21:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia works in hypotheticals quite often. WP:V has WP:V#Access_to_sources for example. (Its in a physical library in Peru in a village only accessible by foot. Doesn't mean it isn't verifiable. ) There is a zero percent chance of free photos of Brown being taken in the future. I can come up with many ways we could have photos of Wilson in the future. (someone catches him in public, federal evidence released, federal charges, cspan testimony) etc. The main point that its tripping you up on replacability is that you have not stated how a photograph of him at the time is of particular encyclopedic value to justify the copyright issues vs a hypothetical image of him from the future. What does his "look" at that moment in time illustrate for the article? His skin tone? his physical fitness? We discuss none of this in the article, therefore illustrating it is not adding anything. In any case, the general policy won't get changed here. As I said feel free to try, but I have seen literally hundreds of photos go down in flames on the same type of reasoning. And fair warning I would !vote as I have indicated here (although I certainly don't make the consensus alone). Gaijin42 (talk) 21:09, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

On the issue of having a photo of him at this time and its replacabiliy. Imagine for a minute an article about a famous fight between two boxers back in the 1970's. You show each boxer... one a contemporaneous photo, the other forty years later all crippled up hunched over a cane because we can't find a free image of that boxer from back in the 1970s. The article is about the fight in the 1970's. The recent image of the one fighter arguably has little to do with the fight. It's not the same person that was in the fight. The same replacabilty concern exists with Darren Wilson, only the circumstances are less extreme and we're at the beginning of not having an image of him rather than far down the road. – JBarta (talk) 21:33, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Per NPOV I don't see how we could justify a photo of one without a photo of the other. A photo would serve no purpose other than to personalize the subject for the reader. If you think we've seen battles here to date, just make the popcorn and add Brown without Wilson. We have the shot of Wilson's cheek, but that's not equivalent to a full face shot, with eye contact, in the subject's bio section (which I presume is where Brown's photo would go). ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 21:19, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

• User:Jbarta asked me to comment here.

Wilson: This person is still alive. Jbarta seems to be concerned that Wilson may look very different when a free image is created. However, I note that the event took place only four months ago. It is therefore obvious that the person currently looks more or less the same as he did when this event took place. There is a potential that someone might take a photo of him tomorrow, next week or in January, and that photograph would then serve as a free replacement. It is important to note that WP:NFCC#1 disallows non-free content if free content can be created, and it is perfectly possible to take photos of him for the moment. The image is therefore replaceable, at least for the moment. If, after 40 years, it turns out that there is still no one who has taken a free photo of him, things may be different and he may look a lot different. WP:NFCC#1 allows non-free images in some situations if the person has changed a lot from the time when he became famous, but non-free images are not allowed in all such situations. It may be useful to point out that a similar situation (a child actor active in the 1990s) currently is being discussed at deletion review.

Brown: This person is dead, so non-free images of him are not replaceable. The image proposed by Jbarta, [43], looks like an image of children at an amusement park or some similar kind of place. It looks as if Brown could easily be at about the same age as the children in the background. However, it says that he was 18 at the time of his death. Is this a 10-year-old photo or something? If Jbarta is concerned that the photo of Wilson must be contemporary, then why does he think that the photo of Brown doesn't need to be contemporary? I suspect that this photograph isn't suitable for the article. However, I don't know what other photographs, if any, would be suitable. I am also not sure if it is necessary to include a photograph of him in this article per WP:NFCC#8. I believe that there have been other discussions about murdered people at FFD, but I don't remember the outcome.

Shooting of Trayvon Martin: Jbarta mentioned this article because this article also contains non-free pictures. This article seems to have problems, see Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2014 December 10#Pictures of Trayvon Martin. --Stefan2 (talk) 00:19, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

On the topic of Brown's age in this photo you'll notice the bit of beard on his chin. It's the same as this photo where I assume he's graduating high school. I think the photo I chose isn't more than a year or so old. At any rate, I'm not firmly fixed on any photo. It doesn't entirely matter to me. No matter what photo is chosen there will be those who see some sort of suspicious reason for the choice.

And while it's "possible" someone could snap an image of Wilson in the near future and upload free it here, I'd say it's highly unlikely. I'd also like to point out again that Wilson fits precisely the criteria set out in the 'May not be reasonably replaceable' section of Wikipedia:Replaceability_of_fair-use_images#Living_people. He's the poster boy for not likely to get a free picture of him anytime soon. The only thing he's likely to show himself for is a possible lawsuit from Brown's family... but I suspect he won' be out front signing autographs. – JBarta (talk) 00:51, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I just noticed Wikipedia:Replaceability_of_fair-use_images is a failed proposal. It carries zero weight. My argument just took a shit. – JBarta (talk) 01:17, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, WP:REFU appears to be a failed proposal. I obviously overlooked the beard on the photograph. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:06, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

@Stefan2: You probably missed the goatee, Brown doesn't look 8 years old in that photo. Judging by the federal autopsy report's description, the photo is probably recent, although it could use a bit of cropping. Trayvon Martin's photos aren't relevant to the discussion; as of when I wrote this there hasn't been any consensus regarding those images. That leaves Wilson's images. It's possible that a photo of Wilson might be released publicly, so NFCC#1 probably doesn't work here. The only nonfree image that's irreplaceable is that of Wilson's injuries, except they're probably not appropriate for the short biography. Those are better suited for descriptions of the shooting. I think that posting only an image of Brown with the biographies would violate impartiality, so I don't think their photos should be posted in the article. --RAN1 (talk) 02:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

"baseline position" on diagram

Cwobeel I think it may be helpful to include a spot on the diagram for the "baseline" position where all the measurements are from. Note that this point is not a WP:SYNTH issue derived by us from the witness testimony/sources, this is the "zero" point for the diagram measurements, per the crime scene photographers/investigators, and that point is explicitly marked on the original diagram.

As an aside, the quotes below has bearing on the "Crime Scene" discussion above, as we have the police specifically referring to this location as a crime scene.

• [44] (See figure 2 cone photo)

• https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1370513/grand-jury-volume-24.txt
  • And why is it that this cone was placed at that location on Canfield Drive? A As best we could tell based off of witness accounts, that would have been the furthest point east that Michael Brown would have went to. So that intersection of roughly Coppercreek Court and Canfield Drive. or Canfield Road? [...]That was the point that they had made reference to and so we used that as the furthest eastern point to go to.
  • In terms of on August 9th, one of our crime scene detective's jobs was to take various measurements of items of evidence at the scene. And he used what starts as a baseline at Coppercreek Court and Canfield Court, and used this baseline here and measured items during the entire, I should say, within the entire crime scene and those items were documented in a diagram that he completed with specific measurements, feet down to inches. So when we went back out there to take those 360 degree panoramic shots, we based, obviously, Coppercreek Court and Canfield Drive is subjective in the sense that we are basing that off of where, again, witnesses were telling us is the furthest point east that Michael Brown would have went So that is a subjective point that we use that intersection, northwest corner of that intersection right there.
• Witness 14 http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/24/ferguson-evidence/assets/interviews/interview-witness-14-01.pdf
  • "the boy was still standing on the, on the, on the partially on the parking lot and on the grass. 'Cause he had ran that way. The officer came out came around got into his stance. And he said ?stop.? Because the boy looked up at him and he took two steps, about two or three steps.
  • When [Brown] turned around he had about one foot on the grass and one on the driveway.
• Dorian
  • [Brown] was barely on the sidewalk, he was barely on the sidewalk to the parking lot. He was going towards this building. I presume that’s the way he was running. He wasn’t really all the way on the driveway when the . . . shot went off, and he turned around, and he was in the street

Gaijin42 (talk) 16:48, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Do we have the exact position of the baseline cone? I don't see it on the police report diagram. Is it on the legend list? - Cwobeel (talk) 20:40, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Cwobeel It is at 0 feet 0 inches for both directions. on the diagram (text at bottom right corner saying "Baseline starting at 0'0" ) with a line pointing to the corner. On the legend the very bottom says "baseline runs east to west on north side of canfield with 0'0" starting at copper creek ct." The testimony indicates why they chose that spot as the baseline, and that the cone in the photograph is that point. Gaijin42 (talk) 20:58, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Added baseline as suggested. Also added the cross street Copper Creek Ct. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:45, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Nice. Suggestions: 1. Extend the bottom curb to the right edge of the image, to show that Copper Creek does not cross Canfield. 2. Is there a little too much space between the C and T in CT., or is that just more flaky rendering? 3. If there is any way to establish the distance between the left edge and the baseline, I can use that to fine-tune our coordinates, using the distance measuring tool in Google Maps. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 21:55, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

 Done . Thanks for the feedback. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:36, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Mandruss The legend of the original diagram includes the exact distance in feet and inches to every other item from the baseline, so just pick the furthest left item? (looks like its one of the casings by the car) Gaijin42 (talk) 22:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I tweaked the coords to a position halfway between items 4 and 20, or about 105 ft NW of the baseline (they moved about 20 ft SE). ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 22:28, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Obsessively checking my work, I came up with 118 ft NW of the baseline, and the coords were already correct. I could be taking this accuracy thing too far, or perhaps someone as anal as I am would care to check my work. Item 4: 210' from baseline. Item 20: 26'7" from baseline. 26'7" = roughly 26.6 ft. ((210 - 26.6) / 2)) + 26.6 = 118.3. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 22:56, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I vote accuracy too far. A few feet certainly won't matter for the purposes of the infobox. Gaijin42 (talk) 22:59, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Thought so. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 23:01, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

As for the other witnesses narratives, that would be a good addition, as it explains the position of the casings and other evidence when the final shots were fired. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:46, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Cwobeel How are you making the SVG? Are you just eyeballing positions, or do you have it gridded out so you can convert from the actual feet/inches to the right pixels in some deterministic way? Gaijin42 (talk) 22:10, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Neither. I used the diagram of one of the media sources as an underlay, and positioned the evidence items accordingly. As the media sources did not have the baseline cone, that one I added by eyeballing. If we want to be scientific about it, I will have to re-do the position of each item using the measurements and converting the positions to the XY grid in Omnigraffle. Pretty laborious I'd say. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:29, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Can you explain how this is not original research or synthesis? You're converting a not-to-scale diagram to a scale diagram using information from two different primary sources. The article is in poor condition, with many outdated sections, far too many references, and duplicate information in several places. There are also far, far too many statements of the type "A B of XYZ News stated on August 21 that..."

For comparison, 2014 Grozny clashes has a better balance of opinion and fact, and an appropriate use of citations. That's just a random news article that I like the style of.

Does this article require mediation? I haven't done that before, but I think there are issues that need to be addressed. I mean ownership, if it's not clear. Roches (talk) 05:06, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

From WP:Citing sources: Wikipedia's Verifiability policy requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, anywhere in article space. However, editors are advised to provide citations for all material added to Wikipedia; any unsourced material risks being unexpectedly challenged or eventually removed.

Based on the above, your concerns about too many references are unfounded and clearly unsupported by WP content guidelines.

I honestly don't see where you're getting the ownership claim, but please be specific and back it up.

I'll let others respond to your concerns about the diagram. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 05:14, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think Roches was referring to there being too many citations, but rather too many in-text attributions.

Regarding ownership, I think it's more a matter of there being some very active editors. This can result in there being misinformation and bias that would take more time than most have to correct it, but I don't see how that can be avoided, considering there is open editing. All I can say is to hang in there and do what you can.

Regarding the scale of the diagram, it looks like the same scale as the diagram in this source [45]. In fact, the identifications and placement of the individual pieces of evidence look about the same too. If something is added to the diagram that is not supported by a reliable source, or it highlights something that is not specifically mentioned in a reliable source, then that might be a problem. So far I don't know of that happening here. Items that are the result of calculations can be questioned, but then there is the policy WP:CALC that allows some, and whether or not it is suitable for an article can be determined by consensus. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:01, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

On second thought it doesn't look like the same scale. our article source Maybe we need take out a ruler and check it and then add a note to the diagram, "not to scale", or redraw the diagram, using the source's diagram as a model for the scale. I notice that the source's diagram uses an actual picture of the street and surroundings on which it overlays the items in the crime scene. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Update: I just now added the above source to the diagram. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:10, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

My understanding is that the plotting of all points in the diagram used in the article was down to the inches from the baseline point based on the data published in that measurement table. If the scale in the diagram is questionable, it may be good for us to add a scale bar with 10-foot increment along the bottom part of the diagram. Z22 (talk) 14:23, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Bob, I disagree that we need to inform the reader that the scale of our diagram is a little different from that of the source, for the sake of improved readability. All that matters is that the distance proportions are the same, and a "not to scale" statement could easily be interpreted as meaning that they are not. I think we're better off without it. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 02:51, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

About the diagram, as per WP:OI, "Original images created by a Wikipedian are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments, the core reason behind the NOR policy." This diagram was created from published data here and here, same document. There is no unpublished ideas or arguments included in the diagram, so it is not an original research, but it is just an original image. Also it is not synthesis because it is largely based on that same source. Other references listed next to the diagram were to show that same idea/argument has been published by multiple reliable sources. Z22 (talk) 13:32, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Per the arguments above by Z22 and others, the diagram is not OR. Can it be improved? Sure, there is always that possibility. As for the state of the article referred to by Roches, same applies. It can always be improved, but generalizations don't help here. If there are specific things that you want addressed, join in and do the hard work. You may get reverted and challenged, but that is the way of this land. Collaborative editing is hard work and requires patience. - Cwobeel (talk) 8:39 am, Today (UTC−6)

Collaborating, OR, and inline attributions

Cwobeel, you have mentioned WP:OR three times since the talk page was last archived, and none of those instances were legitimately original research. I don't think the diagram is OR, actually, but it seemed inconsistent, for example, that you'd estimate the position of the baseline.

I'd like to contribute in a collaborative and positive way, but that will require the active editors to assume competency on my part. I would use fewer in-line citations, I would use primary sources to some extent, and I would have to remove existing content in the process of editing it. I can't justify every change I make, but all the changes I make are justifiable. So, if I remove content, replace it, and if I make a change that needs justification, please ask for justification. Roches (talk) 15:46, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Again, you call for fewer inline citations, but this time you're doing it without responding to the guideline excerpt that clearly says you're wrong on that. If you're in fact referring only to in-text attributions, as Bob said, then please use the correct term and say so.

If you want to work collaboratively on this article like the rest of us, I don't think anyone here will oppose that. We can use all the collaborative help we can get. Doing things like asserting, quite incorrectly, that your disagreement voids a consensus is not collaborative. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 17:26, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I second Mandruss comments about consensus. @Roches: What I am puzzled about is your assertion that you want to use primary sources to some extent. Can you clarify what do you mean by that? As discussed in Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources#Source_bombing, while primary sources are not forbidden, most materials in articles are expected to be drawn from secondary sources. - Cwobeel (talk) 19:12, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

A point about in-text attributions. These are needed in each and every case in which an opinion is expressed. - Cwobeel (talk) 19:15, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm referring to WP:BUNDLING, not to any removal of inline citations or in-text attributions that are required. It didn't occur to me that there was even a possibility of someone thinking I meant removing references that needed to be there.

About consensus: That was in reply to an assertion that I was deliberately removing content. The idea was that it had been there for a long time, and so it should stay. I thought that it needed to be updated, and that's all. If I was really trying to do something incorrect there, I would have undid the revert, and I didn't.

About using primary sources to some extent: I really just meant what I said here (and everywhere else, for that matter). There are aspects of this case where primary sources are the best ones. An example would be the autopsy report, which is the work of a medical professional and makes all of the appropriate conclusions (and none of the inappropriate ones), as opposed to an article about the autopsy.

In general: I don't have a lot of Wikipedia edits, but I've been using the site almost since the beginning. I've written and edited a substantial amount of scientific text, some of which is published. This does not mean I'm better than anyone else, but it's difficult for me to understand the hostility towards my comments here. (I don't mean replies to things that were already hostile.) It's even more difficult to understand the hostility I got when I tried to edit the article.

I have posted to the admin noticeboards incident section. I tried to resolve this with the last post, but all that happened is that I got told I wasn't being collaborative. I can't see any reason why I was being uncollaborative that does not involve altering someone's content.

Roches (talk) 20:35, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I can understand your frustration. Expert editors sometimes have difficulties adapting to the realities of Wikipedia editing. A couple of good essay on the subject are WP:EXPERT and WP:EXR - Cwobeel (talk) 20:46, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The problem with WP:PRIMARY sources is that they can only be used for "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge" and "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation". As can be seen in the "shell casing pattern" discussion above, deciding what is or isn't analysis vs objective fact is often itself controversial per your statement "Objective facts from a primary source are not original research, and synthesis of objective facts when only one conclusion is possible is not speculation". Clearly there is disagreement about how many conclusions are possible for almost all the facts of this case both on wiki and in the real world. Further, your specific example for wanting primary sources is itself problematic "An example would be the autopsy report, which is the work of a medical professional and makes all of the appropriate conclusions (and none of the inappropriate ones), as opposed to an article about the autopsy" By definition you are stating that your analysis of the primary source disagrees with the secondary source analysis of that same source. You may be right, you may be wrong, but policy prohibits any such analysis all together. There are plenty of places all of us disagree with various secondary sources, and think they got it wrong. The answer to that is to find an equally reliable secondary source that you think got it right and put it in, not just delete what we disagree with, or put in our own analysis. To some degree those restrictions are less on the talk page where we can briefly discuss why we think a particular fact or analsysis is relevant and worthy for inclusion in the article. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:06, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I couldn't have argued it better. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:29, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Please don't be offended by the admin noticeboard post, at least not to a great extent. Things were gradually building up, and I held back from resorting to the admins for a while.

The autopsy report may not be the best example, because that section is okay. I wouldn't analyze a primary source; there is always a need and a place for secondary sources. I just don't think secondary sources are necessarily better. Maybe a witness account is a better example; it could be quoted directly and supported by secondary sources rather than using several sources to write the account. Roches (talk) 23:14, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Two witnesses found dead?

According to this source, two witnesses, Shawn Gray, and DeAndre Joshua were found dead under suspicious circumstance. No idea if the source is reliable, but I doubt this is a made up story. [46]. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:33, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

After digging in a bit, it seems that there is a conspiracy theory garnering steam on the interwebs, that witnesses are being targeted. But reports I am seeing about the death of Shawn Gray, do not say anything about him being an witness in Brown's case. [47] - Cwobeel (talk) 23:38, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Joshua was the one found in the burned car. We have him in the unrest article with no connection to this case other than location. I don't see any reason to include random Internet conspiracy theories. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 23:45, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Neither do I. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:49, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Anonymous released wrong name

All right, here's a tricky issue.

I went and tracked down the purportedly-Anonymous (group)-affiliated Twitter account's release of a police officer's name mentioned in the article, no doubt getting myself on all kinds of governmental watchlists in the process. It's not easy to find, but the name they released was not that of Darren Wilson. (Nobody type it here!) This fact seems inclusion-worthy despite (or, per WP:Recent, particularly because) being out of the headlines, but the only RS I can find who have reported on this error mention the released incorrect name themselves, and it would be unethical and probably prohibited by WP:BLP to link to them.

Should we just let this info fade into the Net? People will want to check the record next time Anonymous doxes someone in a high-profile situation like this, but maybe that's not our problem.

Apologies for not posting links to what I'm talking about, but I shouldn't for obvious reasons. FourViolas (talk) 01:14, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Are you talking about this (fifth bullet, next-to-last sentence)? ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 01:17, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

That's the section I'm talking about, but not the citation. That one is from before Wilson's name was released, so all it says is that the police denied the allegation. It might be good enough for this article, though, as it allows readers to infer from the absence of an update saying "...but the police were lying, and it was Officer [redacted] after all." FourViolas (talk) 01:28, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I get you now. And you haven't found a source that says the Anonymous ID was wrong, without reporting the name of the innocent party. In that case, I agree with leaving it at is. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 01:34, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

New documents released

New material has been released by the prosecutor's office. As I will not have much time today to work on this, maybe others can take a look. [48] - Cwobeel (talk) 20:18, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

So far the docs seem all over the place. A few supporting brown, a few supporting wilson, one completely off the wall "walk out" one that claimed to personally see Brown on his knees and Wilson shoot him in the head point blank, and then saw/heard 8 more shots into Brown while he was face down, who then stopped the interview when they were told what they were saying didn't match the evidence. Mostly they seem to be all followup interviews asking specific questions after the local interviews. On from the guy Brown was living with that week.Gaijin42 (talk) 20:31, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Added above source as LATimes.Documents. It includes a link to the federal autopsy report, and I added that report separately as LATimes.FederalAutopsy. Added mention of the release of the federal autopsy report. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 20:48, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

More terse summaries in the witness accounts

As there are now a massive amount of witness statements available, I think we need to change how we are doing things in the accounts section. Obviously covering each account in the level of detail we currently have for dozens of additional accounts, and then criticisms of those accounts, would not be viable - it would be multiple standalone articles worth of content. Keeping things the way it is now represents an WP:NPOV issue as well. I suggest we move to a more WP:SUMMARY style overall bringing all of the media witnesses together under a WP:SUMMARY section (as they are mostly saying the same thing), and then a Grand Jury section that discusses the various testimonies again at a high level - Using sources such as the PBS comparison (even with its well known flaws) or the links that TParis pointed out in ANI.

Perhaps the Police/Wilson and Johnson should keep standalone sections, as they are directly involved and therefore their statements have more importance, and have been scrutinized more carefully by the media and other analysts. Gaijin42 (talk) 23:26, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I was saying this, thinking this, and in one case tried doing this, for several days before taking it to ANI. I don't like that I had to take it to ANI because of objections that it would destroy people's work or might constitute original research. There was no critical discussion of any witness that opposed Wilson, and much discussion of discrepancies and flaws in the few accounts that supported it.

I've always thought there should be a section on Wilson's story and a section about the opposing views; I typed that a few days ago, though I'm not sure I posted it. I still think it's the best way to move forward. Roches (talk) 15:49, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

POV Issues Regarding Controversy Section

I pretty much agree with everything that TParis wrote at ani. This article has NPOV issues. The article relies too heavily on the opinions of non-notable commentators and their criticism. The article is also littered with weasel words and phrases like "some legal experts" and terms like "asserted" and "claimed", which are all discouraged by MOS. The controversy section for the grand jury hearing is a prime example of undue weight with the amount of criticism in that section. That table really needs to go too, what is the significance of having that, it's not even true. These jurors were a typical grand jury that were conducting typical grand jury business, doing exactly everything listed in the first column, before Wilson's case was given to them, there's no mention of that in the table. The criticism in Wilson's section has weasel phrases like "sources reported" and "other discrepancies" without defining who the sources are or what the other discrepancies are. It also provides no context at all either, like the fact that the grand jury was made aware of these inconsistencies before Wilson even testified. There just seems to be a lot of cherry-picking sources to negatively portray Wilson, law-enforcement officers, prosecutors and the grand jurors. Isaidnoway (talk) 02:10, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I think the reason for at least one occurrence of "some legal experts" is that the source says "some legal experts". Obviously we can't say it in Wikipedia's voice, so are you suggesting it should be left out of the article because the source declined to identify the legal experts? I would disagree. As for "other discrepancies", if those were elaborated it would be attacked as undue weight, so it appears there's no way to include such material at all. It's either undue weight or weasel words. I'll abstain from discussion about the table for lack of competence in that area. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 02:28, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

First, this has almost nothing to do with Gaijin42's post in #More terse summaries in the witness accounts and I've refactored it into a new section (if not, go ahead and undo it). I disagree that this article has NPOV issues. Notability does not apply to content, and we should instead be looking at due weight. In this case, it seems that the majority of opinions are biased against Wilson, the prosecution team and the grand jury, which is why it's reported so heavily in the article; unless it's out of proportion, there shouldn't be anything wrong with this. Sources that argue to the contrary are present; if there are others, they should be included to keep due weight. The "some legal experts" phrase is a leftover from the LA Times article, which provided a number of legal opinions. While out of context it may seem like a weasel phrase, the rest of the section references by legal experts mentioned in the source by name, so it really isn't a weasel phrase. Assertions and claims are only weasel words when implying a point is inaccurate, which is hardly the case here. The table is sourced to NYT, which is why we have it. I don't see what's the problem with having it here, maybe you could clarify? The other two instances are poorly paraphrased: the "sources reported" is actually the Huffington Post's analysis, but the analysis that went into their article was cut out of ours so that'll have to be reworked; there's only one discrepancy reported in the CNN article, so I went ahead and reworded that phrase. At any rate, there doesn't seem to be blatant cherry-picking of POVs as far as I can tell. --RAN1 (talk) 03:01, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Once you have summarized and presented information to the reader in an encyclopedic tone - following that up with an endless stream of cherry-picked opinions of non-notable commentators is undue piling on. I completely agree that the majority of the reporting is negative against Wilson and the other entities involved in this case, but that doesn't mean we pack as many negative opinions that we can into a section, or the article, and still claim it's NPOV, because that's not neutral. We should be summarizing and including the most notable opinions or academic opinions, instead of being a depository for negative opinions that don't really impart any encyclopedic information to the reader. The weasel phrases "some legal experts" and "sources reported" is exactly that - weasel phrasing - and should never be used in this article, especially when there are more than enough legal experts identified by name offering legal opinions. Isaidnoway (talk) 17:36, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I really don't think the opinions are cherry-picked unless we're missing pro-Wilson/prosecutor references, and notability really doesn't matter for sources. I took a closer look at the article though, and I noticed that we're quoting a lot of the opinions directly, which is probably compromising impartial tone. We should neutrally summarize the arguments instead of quoting them, and I think that should fix the POV problem. Btw, "some legal experts" isn't a weasel phrase when used in the header or (especially) when the legal experts are clarified after the fact. Using that phrase should be ok. "Sources reported" is weasel phrasing, and I'll take the time to reword that sentence later today. --RAN1 (talk) 19:33, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

P.S. And now my refactoring's a moot point. Whoops. --RAN1 (talk) 19:37, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there was blatant cherry-picking of POVs, but I think there was a desire to represent a greater variety of opinions than was necessary. There are so many opinions from so many sources that it would be much more helpful to avoid arguing why a given source is acceptable despite having issues like weasel words and unnamed sources. We could simply choose sources that don't do that.

In general, I objected to the inclusion of journalists' opinions about the legal issues because there were also several published opinions from real lawyers about the legal issues. In the point where there was a formal statement from the ACLU and an analysis by the Huffington Post, the first source was a much better choice than the other. Roches (talk) 16:11, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

RFC

Since the above discussion keeps running around in circles :

The grand jury controversy section currently consists of 18 quotes/opinions plus the table.

• Should we keep quotes, or move to a more prose style summary
  • If kept as quotes, should the number of quotes be reduced
  • Or a summary plus a small number of representative quotes
• Should the table be kept, or moved into prose

Survey

• Move most quotes to summary style keeping only most 2-3 most notable/important voices as quotes. Keep table. IF WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV is controlling, reduce number of quotes/opinions as currently WP:UNDUE Gaijin42 (talk) 16:09, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• This section needs an opening paragraph that gives a clear and concise overview of the nature of the controversy, convert table to text and summarize salient points, reduce amount of legal/academic opinions, remove all weasel phrasing. Isaidnoway (talk) 18:30, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Summary with representative quotes, keep table without charges row - Not most notable quotes, just representative of author opinions that can be included in as neutrally-worded as possible. We have people to attribute to, so undue doesn't apply. Table should be kept with charges row removed since it isn't consistent with grand jury transcript. --RAN1 (talk) 23:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Summary with representative quotes, keep table as is - The summary does not need to represent a false balance as, if the prevalent opinion as repressed in its reporting is negative, we should not hide that fact per NPOV. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Differences between typical grand jury proceedings in Missouri and Wilson's case --should be removed or changed to reflect data and not opinion

It should either compare this case with a low profile case or just give the facts of the case. It is copied almost word for word from the the NYT and is not fact but opinion. As there are no references to real data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oceanisle2009 (talk • contribs) 03:12, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Which NYT source are you suggesting is an opinion piece? Dyrnych (talk) 03:17, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

In addition, if it reflects an analysis by (hence opinion of) a New York Times columnist or reporter, it should probably be adequate to simply make sure it is identified as such (inline attribution). Even opinion, when properly identified and attributed to a credible source, is fair content here. Dwpaul ^Talk 04:20, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I have no problems with attributing the content to the NYT. - Cwobeel (talk) 05:12, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, that solves that. --RAN1 (talk) 07:17, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

If the text of the table was copied verbatim, is there a problem with copyright infringement? --Bob K31416 (talk) 11:01, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

It was not copied verbatim. You can check and compare. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:08, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

BTW, the Controversy section that has the table is bloated and could use some summarizing. --Bob K31416 (talk) 11:33, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

The problem with the table is that it doesn't take into account what grand juries usually do, which is approving felony indictments that a prosecuting attorney's office has already decided to take to trial. The hearing in Wilson's case was intended to determine whether there was sufficient evidence for a trial. (A trial for second degree murder, since it was intentional but unplanned.) Now, I think this is the time when we got into why it's not up to us to decide when journalists are right or wrong. The table compares two very different things, and in so doing it misrepresents the purpose for the hearing in this case. I don't want to deal with opinions to any more of an extent than is absolutely necessary, but it's not right for Wikipedia to contain information that is factually wrong, or misrepresented, up to the point where one journalist discovers the error of another. Roches (talk) 16:03, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I think your difference of purpose is the exact point of the criticism. The grand jury was not normal, and thats what the table points out. The prosecutors job is to prosecute, not decide if there is a crime. There is prosecutorial discretion, but if thats what was at play he should have just said so, and declined to prosecute. Having a show "trial" where he didn't actually prosecute did nothing except waste money and provide room for criticism. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:34, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I disagree, in this specific instance, this was a "normal" grand jury conducting "normal" grand jury business, it just so happened in August that they were thrust into the spotlight and given an unusual case under unusual circumstances - and the table doesn't point that out. The table is confusing because it seems to imply that some kind of special grand jury was convened to hear this case, and that's not what happened. A typical grand jury had already been convened and were conducting typical grand jury business when they were suddenly tasked with an unusual and controversial case, that's what happened and that's what should be relayed to the reader in prose instead of a generic table that doesn't address the context in which this case was given to them. Isaidnoway (talk) 17:50, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Nothing is stopping you from adding other viewpoints about the grand jury process, besides the NYT's opinion and the other opinions already in the article. - Cwobeel (talk) 18:22, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Certainly the makeup and convening of the GJ was normal. But was the presentation of this case normal? The table is about the GJ proceedings, not the GJ itself. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:25, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

From what I read from the bloated opinions in that section, it's the decision and the presentation of the case by the prosecutor McCulloch and the unusual way he used the grand jury - that is the controversy, at least that's what the overwhelming sources indicate and what and who they are specifically criticizing. If anything, there should be a table comparing "Similar cases handled by McCulloch" vs. "Wilsons case". The controversy/criticism revolves around McCulloch and the decisions he made. And I'd also point out that the table says that they met 25 days over 3 months, that was a decision that this specific GJ themselves elected to do, so that is specific to them and therefore makes it about "the GJ itself" and an apparent scheduling decision they made for convenience purposes. Gee, isn't that controversial? And I'd also make note of the fact that a "typical" grand jury does not meet for a day or less, it meets for a specific timeframe decided by a judge, and these grand jurors were originally appointed for a four-month term (and later extended). Isaidnoway (talk) 22:44, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

FYI grand juries are not the same as trial juries. Trial juries are directed by judges; grand juries are directed by prosecutors. --RAN1 (talk) 22:55, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Isaidnoway You are completely misinterpreting the criticism Isaidnoway. Yes, the jury was convened for a set amount of time, but the amount of time they spent on a particular case was controlled by the prosecutor. This same GJ dealt with dozens of cases prior to this case, and most of them were less than a day. Probable cause is a really low standard. Did wilson shoot? Yes. Were there witnesses (that passed the initial "not obviously lying" test) that said Brown was surrendering? Yes. Ok, thats probable cause for a trial. Impeaching those witnesses, and showing the defensive evidence is the job of the defense, not the prosecutor. Self defense cases are tougher, because they need to show all the elements of the crime and one of those elements is "it wasn't justified" but its still a really low bar. I think there is no way they could get a conviction, but the criticism that the prosecutor would not be giving the random joe the same level of deference is absolutely correct. He used the GJ for political cover instead of just saying "I don't think there is a case here" Political cover is not one of the appropriate roles for a GJ.McCulloch essentially had a trial, where he was both the prosecution and the defense. Gaijin42 (talk) 23:01, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

The amount of time spent on a case is not controlled by a prosecutor, the time is controlled by the jurors themselves, as they are certainly allowed to ask questions of the witnesses and to individually examine the evidence as it suits them. And your explanation here on the talk page about how they dealt with dozens of cases with most of them being less than a day is great, but that explanation for the reader is absent from the table. The implication presently in the table is that a "typical" grand jury meets for a day or less, sans any explanation or context. Probable cause was never there for the prosecution, the physical evidence is in line with the officer's version of events. Isaidnoway (talk) 23:26, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

" but it's not right for Wikipedia to contain information that is factually wrong" - Actually, the purpose of Wikipedia is to report what reliable sources say about a subject. If reliable source A said X, and X is factually incorrect because B says so, then we report what A said and what B said, and let our readers arrive to their own conclusions. But we can't avoid quoting A just because B said that A is factually incorrect. In addition, we can't use a primary source that contradicts A, unless the primary source refers to A's opinion. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:16, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Policy doesn't say that we have to include questionable material. See the policy Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion.

There’s a false implication in the NYT table and ours that the prosecutor didn’t provide a range of charges. He provided five, from murder in the first degree to involuntary manslaughter.[49][50]

In any case, I think we should summarize the information in the table with the following:

According to The NY Times, the grand jury proceedings were not typical of such proceedings in Missouri. They lasted much longer, the prosecutor did not recommend that the defendant be indicted, there was much more evidence presented, many more witnesses testified, the defendant testified, and all of the evidence and testimony was released to the public after the defendant was not indicted.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 01:23, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Reverted per WP:BRD. I don't see any consensus emerging for this change. - Cwobeel (talk) 15:51, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Your summary is inaccurate, to say the least. Using generic terms such as "much longer" and "more evidence" when we have hard data that is measurable. I still believe the table is the best and easy to read and appreciate for our readers. - Cwobeel (talk) 15:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I recently made some edits that were reverted by Cwobeel, as indicated in the history of the article between 07:15, 11 December 2014‎ and 15:58, 11 December 2014‎. I essentially summarized, organized, reduced the wording, and changed the heading from “Reception” to “Discussion”, on the way to getting the section into a more encyclopedic form. Could some editors review and comment on any of the edits, reverts or their edit summaries? Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:50, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I'll comment on the heading. It was originally "Controversy" but Cwobeel renamed it to "Reception", saying, This section needs to includes statements of support not just those views critical of the proceedings for NPOV. My reaction at that time was that "Controversy" correctly reflected the two sides to the issue, and there is no controversy on any issue without (at least) two sides. So I couldn't make sense of that editsum and didn't see how renaming to "Reception" was an improvement. Since then, we've been around and around between Reception, Response, and Discussion, when Controversy might have been more acceptable to most involved. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 18:04, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Restoring the heading to "Controversy" is fine with me. Feel free to restore it. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with moving the content from the table into a more readable summary of the salient points. Might need a little tweaking on the language, but it's a good start on cleaning up this section. There are also 13 separate paragraphs with varying opinions being offered that should be trimmed back as well, we don't need that many opinions to get the point across that McCulloch's handling of the case was controversial. Weasel phrases like "some legal experts" and "others said" and "legal experts also noted" should be removed entirely, we have plenty of legal/academic experts with names giving legal/academic opinions that suffice instead of generic weasel phrasing. Isaidnoway (talk) 18:22, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the agreement regarding replacing the table. Feel free to replace it with any tweaking of my version.

Also I agree with your point about too many opinions and I would add that there is overlap and repetition of their points. Phrases like "various legal experts criticized", "others said", etc. are useful when combining the same or similar sourced opinions from different people. I don't think we need in-text attribution when there is a source for the statement which does that. Any concern that it should be noted that it is an opinion can be done in text without the bulky in-text attribution and a description of who the person is, which hurt the flow and distract from the point that is being made. Using "various legal experts criticized", "others said", etc. is a normal way to summarize, as long as they are substantiated with inline citations. Please see the 1st 2 sentences of this version of the section [51] and you will see that they were. See also WP:WEASEL, which supports the fact that they aren't weasel phrases when they are substantiated with sources. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't believe the table should be replaced. Granted, the charges row is wrong, but the rest of the information is verifiable and from a (otherwise) reliable source. It's mostly data, and putting that in prose would make the data less presentable. --RAN1 (talk) 20:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

On the issues raised on ANI

I've posted replies under three sections that dealt with issues raised in the ANI discussion. Now, I'm going to voluntarily avoid this article and talk page for 48 hours, and after that I'll respond to any outstanding issues.

For the editors who have worked on this article and who will be working on it, try to remember that this is one of the increasingly small number of places that people can go to even get a chance at not seeing news presented in the form of a top ten list. Your work is important, people read it, and it needs to be the best it can be. Roches (talk) 16:35, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

What gun was used?

One of the key missing details is how the police officer's gun was wrested from him. I have tried to find the make and model gun used, as well as the make and model of holster. If this article was merely an overview, I could excuse it, but this article drills down to the level of "$48 worth of cigarillos." Not $47, not $49,but $48. I would like to see the same attention to detail for the gun issue.

Was the gun a Glock, a Smith, etc.? Did the holster have a butt strap, or an internal locking device, etc.?

Thanks for your attention. 50.0.36.243 (talk) 16:38, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Not an answer to your question, but a while back I stumbled on this YouTube video that may be informative, or at the very least, interesting. (I'm not suggesting using it as a source nor suggesting the information contained is unimpeachable) – JBarta (talk) 16:50, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

It was a .40 cal SIG_Sauer_P226#P229. Its a 12+1 gun, and Wilson had several spare mags. To my knowledge we do not know the type of holster he was using, but I don't think its relevant as there is no assertion that Brown went for the gun while it was in the holster - Wilson freely says he drew the gun from the holster himself. We don't talk about the gun much, because it has not been discussed much in reliable sources.

One interesting (to me, not covered in any sources I am aware of) discrepancy is that there were 12 cases found near the scene. Wilson states that after the shooting there was one round left in the magazine, which he removed. If there was a round in the magazine, there should also have been a round chambered. That there wasn't means that either there was a Firearm_malfunction#Failure_to_feed or the remaining bullet was not in the magazine but in the chamber, but wilson explicitly said "I lock the slide back, take the magazine out, take the one round that’s left in it out. I put it all in that bag, seal it with evidence tape and then sign it.".

http://listverse.com/2014/11/25/10-of-the-most-important-pieces-of-evidence-from-darren-wilson-testimony/ Gaijin42 (talk) 17:04, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

@Gaijin42: There are 15 rounds on a P299 magazine, so 12 cases + 1 in the magazine according to Wilson, that leaves two rounds not accounted for? - Cwobeel (talk) 23:07, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

@Cwobeel: The .40 model uses 12-round magazines, it's the 9mm variant that has 15 rounds. --RAN1 (talk) 23:11, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

CwobeelThere are both 10, 12, and 14 round magazines for a 229.[52] You can see Wilson's specific magazine in the photo at that listverse article I posted, and that it is a 12 round mag. The 14 round mag is longer (duh) so is more difficult to wear while seated. Some cops have the 14 rounders as their backup mags tho since you can move them around more easily than the holstered gun (Wilson said he had 2 additional mags, but their size was not released anywhere)Gaijin42 (talk) 23:14, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

In my time in the army (not in the US), we used to chamber an extra round in our small arms in addition to the mag. Is that not a practice in law enforcement the US? - Cwobeel (talk) 23:36, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that is standard practice here too. Its a 12+1 gun, so the +1 is the "extra". That chambered round would have been the first one fired in the car. Wilson fired 12 times, so the final round should have been chambered in the end, but it could have stayed in the magazine if there was a failure to feed. Per wilson's testimony he also had 2 failure to fires in the car during the time he says Brown's hand was on the gun (see the video posted above for a technical explanation of how his particular gun works in that regard) Gaijin42 (talk) 01:37, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Also to add to my discrepancy above "locking the slide back" prior to removing the magazine would have loaded the round from the mag into the chamber. (This is why you ALWAYS REMOVE THE MAG FIRST WHEN UNLOADING A GUN) So my assumption is that what he meant to say was that he ejected the round from the chamber and removed the mag, but it was a sloppy way to talk, and I'm surprised nobody (rs) mentioned it, especially with how some sources (Shaun King etc) were saying he might have reloaded, and therefore exactly what happened to each round would be very relevant. Gaijin42 (talk) 23:28, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Use of See also

Resolution of my edit and its revert by Likeminas. Reason for revert was All these killings have been discussed as an overall recent trend in news articles. I don't think that justifies the revert. The killings are included in the umbrella list article. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 20:22, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

With the exception of the Travon Martin shooting, all these cases are discussed in news articles as a recent trend of police abuse of force. i.e. Police officers killing people under questionable circumstances. In fact, there's a good amount of sources that mention them all in the same article.

The killings in the List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States does not single out cases that have produced extensive news coverage and massive national outcry.

These cases are related and should be listed under 'See also' for readers that are interested in reading the most notorious cases in recent history. Likeminas (talk) 20:36, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Garner, Rice and Gurley are at least related by timing. Martin and Diallo less so, since they aren't part of this recent chain of events. --RAN1 (talk) 20:40, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. Feel free to remove them, if chose to. Thanks Likeminas (talk) 20:44, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Done. Btw, should we keep the "hands up, don't shoot" in see also? We already have it in the navbox, having it in see also seems superfluous. --RAN1 (talk) 20:48, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia has multiple articles addressing that topic, including Police brutality in the United States and Police misconduct. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 20:46, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

True, but the three deaths that are still in there are related by timing: The grand jury trial against the officer who killed Garner ended in non-indictment last week, and Rice and Gurley's deaths coincided with the grand jury case against Wilson. Brown's shooting at the very least had an influence on the reactions to these, so including them in 'see also' wouldn't be a bad idea. --RAN1 (talk) 20:54, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Common sense (wiki-linking Ferguson, Missouri)

In the opening sentence, I linked Missouri, and unlinked "suburb" (edit summary: "some of us don't know where Missouri is; everyone knows what a suburb is"). I was reverted (twice), and instructed to "talk it to talk and stop edit warring". So, I leave it here for others to consider. Thanks. zzz (talk) 21:15, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

This is two separate issues, which I will address separately. First, the Missouri linking. I don't know of a policy or guideline about this, but there is this essay by an editor very experienced with linking. I would encourage any editor to read all of it before becoming involved in any disputes about linking. It says, Uniqueness: Is the linked topic reachable—directly or indirectly—through another link in the vicinity? (If so, consider not linking.) In other words, Missouri is easily reachable via Ferguson, Missouri, so it probably doesn't need to be linked here. The general idea is the concept of overlinking, which says that having fewer links increases the value of the remaining ones. That concept is covered in the essay as well as guidelines.

As to "suburb", I don't think it's all that clear that everyone knows what a suburb is, but I feel less strongly about that. I might even support unlinking suburb on overlinking grounds. Frankly I didn't even notice that was part of what I was reverting. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 21:27, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

The idea that it's "overlinking" because the link is available on another article is clearly wrong. (Incidentally, it's only available there because I just added it.) You should always check what your reverting, before accusing editors of edit-warring, (and quoting irrelevant essays and policies). zzz (talk) 21:35, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Please don't make statements about what's "clearly wrong" without some kind of backup; i.e., no matter how emphatically you present something as truth, that doesn't make it true. That's fundamental Wikipedia. And please don't lecture me about proper editing procedure while demonstrating complete ignorance of WP:BRD. The correct procedure was demonstrated in the dispute preceding this one. I was reverted once and I opened a talk discussion about it. You did not do that, instead re-reverting the revert, thereby starting an edit war. There is nothing gray or fuzzy about this area. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 21:42, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, I started this discussion, not you!

Secondly, "overlinking" is best avoided for the reason that it draws attention away from the text. In this case, Ferguson, Missouri appeared entirely in blue, ie. identically to my edit, so this reason does not apply. And you apparently agree about "suburb". So, we are in agreement, then. zzz (talk) 21:52, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

And thirdly, to reiterate, you should always check what you're reverting ("fundamental Wikipedia"). zzz (talk) 22:19, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I think Ferguson, Missouri is fine. No need to link the city and state separately. Regarding suburb, I could go either way. I lean towards not linking it as relatively common knowledge. Then again, I'm from the U.S. If '"suburb" is not a commonly used term in oher English speaking countries then wikilink it. – JBarta (talk) 22:31, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

This will be my last comment. You failed to mention any reason why Ferguson, Missouri is better than Ferguson, Missouri. zzz (talk) 22:46, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

First, never say "this is my last comment" because it rarely is. There's really no need to... if you're done commenting, just don't comment any more. No need for a parting shot. And if (like so many do) you re-enter the discussion, you re-enter it looking a little silly. We all look silly sometimes accidentally. There's really no need to do it on purpose. At any rate, to answer your question, while I know of no policy that prefers one way or another, I see no need to offer two links where one will do. – JBarta (talk) 23:03, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Washington Post Reception Source

The Boston Post source that was used in the reception section has a couple of problems. First, it's actually a repost of The Washington Post, but The Washington Post doesn't allow the Internet Archive to preserve it. Should it still be sourced to Boston or to Washington? Second, it seems to be a lot of analysis that can't be summed up easily without trimming it out, and doesn't really fit with the reception section and should probably moved next to Wilson's testimony. Any suggestions? --RAN1 (talk) 01:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Re your first question, assuming you're in fact talking about sourcing rather than attribution, I'd be inclined to go with the one that can be archived, even if it's a repost. Btw, according to our article, The Boston Post folded in 1956. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 18:25, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Grand jury no bill reception

Bob K31416 has started a process of summarizing that section, in a manner that I believe it to be counter productive. We have expert opinions from legal, law enforcement, politicians, and media outlets all of which are notable and informative. Wikipedia is not paper – If the section is too long, the correct process to avoid losing good content that is well sourced, is to create a sub-article with all the detail, and summarize here per WP:SUMMARY. But deleting useful and well sourced material, is not acceptable. We are here to build an encyclopedia. - Cwobeel (talk) 16:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Extremely biased POV

The lead and the entirety of this article is so clearly biased that this article needs immediate action. This is so apparent that current lead is so POV that I will ask for the immediate blocking of anyone removing the NPOV tag. The opening paragraph is "Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson were walking down the middle of a street when Wilson drove up and told them to move to the sidewalk. An altercation ensued with Brown and Wilson struggling through the window of the police vehicle until Wilson's gun was fired. Brown and Johnson then fled in different directions, with Wilson in pursuit of Brown, eventually firing several more times. In the entire altercation, Wilson fired a total of twelve rounds;[2] Brown was hit by seven or eight[3] and the last was probably the fatal shot." And that is just the beginning of the problems. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

In what way do you believe that this is biased? Sorry, but you can't just rely on your assertion that it's self-evidently POV. Dyrnych (talk) 17:29, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

You're going to have to be more specific here. You quoted a passage that you take issue with, but you've not made any suggestions as what would be better. A drive-by NPOV accusation and tagging is not constructive. – JBarta (talk) 17:37, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. Without any specifics the tag is not constructive. Neither is the threat to call for a block of any editor who removes the tag. The passage you quote as egregious pov is more or less the consensus on the events from all the parties involved. I don't see the problem. --Daniel(talk) 17:42, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I've removed it as an unconstructive mis-use of the tag per the above discussion and the tag instructions. – JBarta (talk) 17:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

A consensus the article is not of NPOV has been made at ANI. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:50, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

ANI is not the place to discuss or form consensus regarding an article specific NPOV dispute. It's place to seek administrative action. If those there want to bring their issues to this talk page they are welcome. In any event, I don't see anything like consensus in the section you linked. -- Daniel(talk) 17:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That in no sense represents consensus on the content of the article (or, for that matter, on anything else). Dyrnych (talk) 17:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any sort of consensus there either. It seems more more of a squabble over editing style and civility than anything else. Again, the NPOV tag requires certain things of the tagger here which have not been done. It is a mis-use of the tag by ChrisGualtieri. – JBarta (talk) 18:01, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Hmm... @Tparis: made a clear argument and @John Carter:, and I am inclined to agree because numerous times have opinion pieces and details from the Grand Jury have been outright ignored. Including the fact that Brown was a suspect in the robbery after the first verbal exchange before the "altercation" occurred.[53] There is pro-Wilson claims which are not being used properly via WP:BLP.[54] Then there are numerous BLP matters attacking parties in the case which should not even be present. The article has many many many BLP violations which should not be here. Even a cursory reading gives too many examples to list here. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

As others have stated, ANI is not where consensus over content is formed. And you have yet to provide anything SPECIFIC that you believe violates NPOV. Dyrnych (talk) 18:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

ChrisGualtieri, this is a highly contentious article with many strong opinions flying all over the place. One person's neutrality may be another persons POV. If you feel that strongly that the article could stand improvement I would suggest you take part in the editing making changes as you see fit rather than just a drive-by tagging. – JBarta (talk) 18:12, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

If anyone can provide evidence to support the contention that WP:BLP is being violated, and that would include unsourced or poorly sourced potentially damaging content relating to a living person, like either the decedent's companions or the officer in question, that questionable content can and should be removed immediately, and any concerns taken to the WP:BLPN. Also, if anyone edits the article in a problematic way at all, it is as per the discretionary sanctions template at the top of this page clearly acceptable and appropriate to take those concerns to the WP:AE page to address those problems. But I would very, very clearly warn all editors involved that given the fact that this article is under both discretionary sanctions and BLP policy, that there is no reason whatsoever to restore any content which is questionable without first taking it to the talk page here and seeking to address those concerns before the material or some variant form of it is restored to the article. John Carter (talk) 18:17, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll make a new section below to highlight concerns. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:19, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with Chris that there are POV issues with this article. Some issues I see are the use of weasel phrasing and weasel words/terms being used, when there is absolutely no need for it, there have been plenty of legal/academic experts with names offering their opinions about this shooting, so that we should never have to use phrasing like "some legal experts" or other weasly phrasing or words. There are way too many quotes/opinions from non-notable commentators being used that don't offer any encyclopedic information thats of any value to the reader. There is a noticeable difference in the way various accounts of this shooting are being handled as well. Content that criticizes Wilson, the various law-enforcement agencies and the prosecutor is quite abundant (as is should be, considering the media coverage), but that same media coverage about the various eye-witnesses and their discrepancies/contradictions in their statements/media interviews/testimony are noticeably absent from the article. Dorian Johnson went on a national media tour and said that Wilson shot Brown in the back, but that has been proven to be false, yet there is absolutely no mention of that discrepancy in his account (section), and it has been widely reported on. Isaidnoway (talk) 19:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Concerns

These concerns cover issues in the article in this state as of 18:01, 11 December 2014‎

It should also be noted that these are the enumerated concerns of one editor... User:ChrisGualtieri.

Sources

Sources 1-10

Sources 1-10

Reference #1 - Now used solely for "coordinates" [55] which does not give the coordinates and contains much information that has been proved contradictory and leaves much speculation. This is unneeded and does not support the "coordinates". Numerous other references provide this data. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:27, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference #2 - For the sole use of the number of shots fired, it comes from the Grand Jury documents. I suppose this is a reliable secondary source for that claim. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference #3 - Does not link directly to the material. It is on the last page of the content, but this dates "Three autopsies agreed that seven or eight bullets hit Brown, all from the front." Should be given with more clarity in some form. Which of the autopsies said 7, which said 8, were they conclusive on the number or shots or did they say "7 or 8" because it was inconclusive? Why would it be inconclusive? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference #4 - Wait... this autopsy says it was 6 shots fired at him. Why is this even present in the article and why is it being used to support "the last was probably the fatal shot." when it doesn't even agree with the previous claim "three autopsies" which said "7 or 8". More so, it was not 6 shots fired at him, it was 12. So not only do we get the number of shots fired wrong, we cannot even get the number of rounds which hit? This raised more questions on why it is being used. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 5 - Seems to be reliable, but as a source, does it really need to be parroting the original source. Seems to be an unnecessary duplication. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:03, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 6 - A key source, but also early. "Autopsy Shows Michael Brown Was Struck at Least 6 Times" differs with Reference 3. Citation A checks out. Citation B checks out. Citation C does not check out "At 12:01 p.m., Wilson drove up to Brown and Johnson in the middle of Canfield Drive and ordered them to move off the street and onto the sidewalk. Wilson continued driving past the two men, but then backed up and stopped close to them..." - This should be for the private autopsy data. Citation D - "Wilson fired his gun again, with at least six shots striking Brown in the front" - again differs from the reports, replacement is best. As the other citations are in "Independent autopsy" these are fine. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:03, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 7 - This source can probably slide given the usage, but the source is flawed. This line "The office of Missouri’s attorney general concluded in an annual report last year that Ferguson police were twice as likely to arrest African Americans during traffic stops as they were whites." is really a clear example of a bias or shoddy reporting. The reason is actually cited in the very article is this report which shows that 369 of the arrests were for "Outstanding warrant". We should get a better source if possible. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 8 - "In a press conference on November 24, Robert P. McCulloch, the Prosecuting Attorney for St. Louis County, Missouri, announced that the jury had decided not to indict Darren Wilson for his actions." is tangential because the source is "Gunshots, looting after grand jury in Ferguson case does not indict officer in Michael Brown shooting". Why is this source being used like this? Reference 9 - Checks out but vagueness is an issue with the line "Some legal analysts raised concerns over McCulloch's unorthodox approach, asserting that this process could have influenced the grand jury to decide not to indict." This is given in the source. Same with Citation B. Citation C makes an error, "not unusual" which is different from "not strange", also this is not a quote, it is an attribution, which was also the subject of a correction a day later. Citation D needs the claimants. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 10 - An acceptable source. Citation A is vague, should be handled by Reference 9. Citation B should have the text reworded better, as it is close wording. I know this is limited with the three key pieces of information though. Citation C has an issue that " probable cause need be proven to obtain an indictment" when it does not need to be "proven". Accuracy issue. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:42, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

References 11-20

References 11-20

Reference 11 - No issues with the source. Citation A could use specifics in the line. Citation B reads "Blood on the ground supports statements that Brown continued to move closer toward Wilson after being hit by a number of bullets." and the text states "Mr. Brown’s body was about 153 feet east of Officer Wilson’s car. Mr. Brown’s blood was about 25 feet east of his body. This evidence supports statements that Mr. Brown continued to move closer to the officer after being hit by an initial string of bullets." Be specific. Ref D is used in the image - no concerns, but source 167 was not used in its creation. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 12 - Fine. Not sure why it is being used in the lead and not the body. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 13 - Fine. Not sure why it is being used in the lead and not the body. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 14 - Fine, but this is covered by reference 13 and does not confirm the $75 million figure. Making it unnecessary.[56] 20:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 15 - Is a primary source for a BLP claim in violation of WP:BLPPRIMARY. [57] This should be removed. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 16 - No issues, wish Time got more use still... ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 17 - No issues, missing information on "And 10 days after that, he was to start at a local technical school to learn how to fix furnaces and air conditioners...." ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 18 - Reliability questions with the source. The quote usage is not really appropriate, but otherwise some information not utilized in the source. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 19 - Contradictory with Reference 18 in a sense, but irrelevant. Instead his planned attendance of Vatterott College is left out. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 20 - Instead of highlighting the commendation or clean record, is referencing some comment instead. Poor utilization of the source. Also, many personal details are left out, probably for the best in this case. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

References 21-30

References 21-30

Reference 21 - Duplicating reference. The amount of public record details, are like WP:COATRACK on Wikipedia, this may be better removed if not for the accusatory title "Little trail of Ferguson police officer behind the gun". ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 22 - Same as reference 21 in many details and should be removed. Reference 20 works. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 23 - A source which summarizes other sources and adds nothing. Best removed. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 24 - Again, a public record dive. Best removed as it adds nothing. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 25 - Not my favorite source, but can we lose the quote "felt like a 5-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan". I find that inappropriate analogy and I would rather not use the source at all because despite being the same height, this is just misleading. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 26 - Probably best used for personal details over the others. Citation A works. Remove Citation B by dropping that quote. It is inappropriate for an encyclopedia in light of the clear "no disciplinary record". ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 27 - ABA Journal is a blog site, but this use is from a senior editor. Wikipedia makes a major violation by stating "Jennings Police Department was disbanded due to corruption." The source says "The Ferguson police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown had a prior job on a police force that disbanded amid racial tensions and a probe into misuse of grant money." This is a big difference, especially since it wasn't the effect of a reached conclusion, but amid a grant money issues. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 28 - Immediately remove because it is a blog. It also uses "following an internal corruption scandal" when this is not reported to match Reference 27. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 29 - Used to cite "Wilson became a police officer in Ferguson." and the quote by Orr. Adds nothing and should be removed. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 30 - This is Chief Defends Release of Robbery Surveillance Video yet I do not see evidence for: "At 11:51 a.m. on August 9, 2014, a convenience store security camera captured video of Brown taking a $48 box of cigarillos and physically assaulting and intimidating a convenience store clerk." Bad reference, miss reference. Does not support data. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

References 31-40

References 31-40

Reference 31 - Supports the time aspect of "At 11:51 a.m" with "three minutes later", but does not back up " physically assaulting" with "The video shows the suspect, apparently Brown, pushing away a clerk." So that needs to be cited. Seems like a decent RS.ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 32 - Reliable, but better reading of the text would be helpful to establish the setting. Citation A, B, C works - so no sourcing issues. Reference 33 - A compilation of sources. Not necessary in any fashion, a source reporting a source reporting another source at its core. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 34 - This is not in dispute, but one citation works, this is also included in Wilson's Grand Jury statements. Why not use Reference 35 or 36 instead? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 35 - Works for the claim, but not sure why it needs 3 others. Pick one? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 36 - Works for the claim, but not sure why it needs 3 others. Pick one? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 37 - Reference 35 works here. Why not use it instead? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 38 - Used a lot. Citation A works. Citation B misses clarity in the Grand Jury documents, but works. Rest work. No concerns. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 39 - As a source this works, but it does have some quotation issues in the article. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Reference 40 - A video... Reference 38 works. Why this one to add nothing? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:RS concerns

I'll limit this section to key reference concerns. Essentially, Vox and Huffington Post are not Reliable Sources. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Reference 28 - Is a blog. Not a reliable source.
• Reference 33 - Vox is not a reliable source.
• Reference 49 - Vox is not a reliable source. Author is a "Jetpack Comandante"
• Reference 57 and 58 - While "false" they do not report as such. Use 61.
• Reference 60 - Vox is not a reliable source.
• Reference 62 - Daily mail is not reliable and makes errors regularly.
• Reference 66 - Many details, including this story, debunked.
• Reference 70 - Debunked
• Reference 75 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 78 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 87 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 103 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 108 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 121 - Vox is not a reliable source.
• Reference 123 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 130 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 138 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 146 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 174 - Vox is not a reliable source.
• Reference 188 - Vox is not a reliable source.
• Reference 232 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 256 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 258 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.
• Reference 279 - Huffington Post - Not reliable.

External links does not follow WP:EL properly. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

To make it real simple for you: Both The Huffington Post and Vox (part of Vox Media are reliable sources. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:51, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

FYI: [58], [59] - Cwobeel (talk) 21:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

No, they are not reliable. When your author of the piece is not a journalist and describes themselves as a "Jetpack Comandante" in a BLP matter, you do not cite them as a source. You cite the sources themselves. This goes against WP:IRS and WP:BLP and most of them are merely parroting anyways. You may not like it, but this is not a review of a "Day at the Faire" so the editorial control and sourcing need to be really handled with extra care. Or are you saying they are reliable sources, because I got some bad news for you. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Take it to the WP:RS/N, or better search the archives there, because this has been discussed to death already. I think you will be convinced to WP:DROPTHESTICK (Here are some bad news for you: The Huffington Post became the first commercially run United States digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize.) - Cwobeel (talk) 22:09, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

^^^^ That's what I call an argument, assuming it's true. "Not reliable" is not an argument. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 22:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Huffington Post is an opinion piece with little editorial controls and many differences in its "writers". The argument about winning a Pulitzer is irrelevant because the persons in this case did not. This has been debated many times at WP:RSN and the consensus has always been that you do not use them for BLP matters. Huffington Post does not exert proper editorial control and the posts are opinion pieces mostly published by bloggers and not employed by the press. They are not suitable to be included in the article as a reference. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok, then let's start with a link to said clear consensus. You'll forgive me for not just taking your word for it, as I've been around long enough to see a few experienced editors asserting community consensuses that evaporated when challenged. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 22:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

(Btw, I've long been in favor of putting actual community consensuses in a place designated for community consensus on a particular subject. But, apparently, that is not the Wikipedia Way, as it would prevent too much conflict for Wikipedia's conflict-based culture. The way it is now, you could point to a consensus reached in one discussion, while an opposite consensus was reached in a different discussion that may or may not have even taken the first into account. To really divine the consensus, or whether one exists, one has to be able to hunt down and then analyze every related discussion, a very haphazard, time-consuming, and error-prone way of doing things. Hell of a way to run an encyclopedia, in my opinion.) ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 22:49, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe in the case of a potentially problematic source such as HuffPost where reliability consensus is in flux, instead of a blanket all or nothing approach (yes they're all good or no they're all bad) the article might benefit by looking more closely on a case by case basis at the specific source and how the information is used in the article. Certainly some sourcings will be adequate and some may very well be inadequate. – JBarta (talk) 00:06, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

BTW, Ref #49 is [60], written by Dara Lind. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:13, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Huffington Post is an opinion piece ??? not employed by the press -- Where did you get that from? - Cwobeel (talk) 22:50, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

In this version as indicated above: Ref 49 is When is it legal for a cop to kill you? by Dara Lind and Ref 60 is Did Darren Wilson have a broken eye socket after his encounter with Michael Brown? by German Lopez. I expect some things to change in relation to my raised concerns. Sorry for the confusion you had. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:25, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I have already suggested to you how to take care of you concerns. Start slow and steady. This is not a peer review, good article review, or featured article review. Maybe you are too used to that process? - Cwobeel (talk) 22:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLP states: "We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation. Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." Standards should not come into play if it is a peer review, GA or FA. WP:BLP is not optional and just like my issues with the WP:BLPPRIMARY concern. I didn't start off by going through and purging everything - so don't take me the wrong way, but this article is reflecting a clear slant and agenda. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

The slant is explained by the flow of the case. The bulk of the article was written prior to the GJ results and prior to that time almost all the RS were running anti-wilson stories because they didn't ahve any access to the exculpatory evidence or issues with the witnesses etc. The article has been steadily moving to accommodate the new information, although there are issues with the reactions section that are undue relative to the rest of the article (Im not sure if they are POV since there has been quite a bit of media focusing on the unusualness, but we have too many "example" quotes)Gaijin42 (talk) 23:01, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) So there you go, now we see were you are coming from. You are assuming that the editors that have made considerable contributions to this article, and that remain active for several months have an "agenda". So what "agenda" would that be, uh? . FYI The editors are of a wide variety of POVs, and the current article represents a clear consensus (with the exception of one section that has a dispute tag). What happened to WP:AGF, did you leave it in the drawer?- Cwobeel (talk) 23:04, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

A common misapplication of "AGF". He is challenging our competence, not our good faith, not that that's any better considering the experience levels here. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 23:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Whatever it is, you get my gist. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:10, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Having opened my big mouth, I'll self-correct. He did say agenda, which goes to good faith. So he's challenging both. And while some of us may qualify as POV pushers, I have always felt they were adequately checked by the rest. If there were less of a balance among the group, then I'd be concerned about POV in the content. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 23:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@Gaijin42: is someone I've worked with before, and quite well I might add. I cannot fault any editor, given my unfamiliarity with the editors involved in creating the article, but I do recognize many problems which remain because they were unknown and likely present prior. How else can a demonstrably false claim like a whole paragraph by Saki Knafo go unchecked? This was in the article for months, was it not? I am not challenging the competence or the motivations of the editors involved, but NPOV can be adhered to even on an article like (yes... wait for it) Adolf Hitler. It is not easy and its not all roses and buttercups, but fixing errors and taking the emotions out of it goes a long way to being the cold and impersonal encyclopedia that we need to be. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:14, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Add to the list of your concerns that the "fractured-eye-socket" was a made up story. We all know that now. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I did. 57 and 58 report it, but do not label it as false, that's why they the article should use 61 instead. The two sources are being used in direct opposition of what the reader would expect. WP:V has not held true for a lot of statements in this article. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:00, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:V is not about "truth". Did you forget that basic principle? The fact that a false "eye socket fracture" was reported as a leak by Ferguson police, and later was found to be a total lie, WP:V means that we report the lie. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:07, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

You misunderstand, we do not say something is false when the source says otherwise. You instead cite the source which highlights the error of the earlier report. In short you do not say "It was falsely reported that Tom likes the color blue.[Ref to Tom liking Blue]" it is instead "It was falsely reported that Tom likes the color blue.[Ref to Correcting Report]". Again, WP:V is about verifying what the source says. The source doesn't say it is false, so even though you know its false by a later reference - you can cite the original which states otherwise. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Huffington Post source 1

Source check: Knafo, Saki (August 22, 2014). "Ferguson Police Report Raises More Questions Than It Answers". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on August 23, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2014.

Use in article:

Saki Knafo of The Huffington Post commented that the Ferguson incident report was "almost entirely blank", with the address and time of day of the shooting, and other "bare-bones details". In Knafo's opinion, police reports generally include details about the crime scene, interviews with witnesses, and the names of all the officers involved. Vanita Gupta, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said "[it] just further demonstrates the lack of transparency and lack of information that is being provided by the Ferguson police department about the Michael Brown shooting." A spokesperson for the county police said that the information they provided contains details they are required to share by law, but that other information was "protected until the investigation is complete". The report states that county police learned of the killing at 12:43 p.m., 40 minutes after the incident, and that county officers did not arrive at the scene until 1:30 p.m. The spokesperson for the county said that their response was slow because officers were investigating another crime at the time.

Problems:

• County police were aware of the case by 12:07 and Ferguson police asked them to take it over.
• St. Louis County patrol officers arrived on scene at 12:15.

As a result, the timeline being advanced by Knafo is incorrect and is of a major concern. Knafo may be a journalist of good caliber, but it does not change the fact that the data he is reporting is incorrect and even KMOV reported the heavy police presence upon their arrival at 1. The source is flawed and should be removed immediately. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Huffington Post source 2

Cherkis, Jason; Wing, Nick (November 25, 2014). "Ferguson Grand Jury Evidence Reveals Mistakes, Holes In Investigation". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on December 2, 2014. Retrieved December 4, 2014.

As used in the article:

Sources reported reviewing Wilson's testimony and highlighted a number of inconsistencies, including Wilson's first interview with a detective, hours after Brown’s death, in which Wilson didn’t claim to have any knowledge that Brown was suspected of the robbery, and that in that first interview Wilson told the detective that Brown had passed "something" off to Johnson before Brown punched him in the face, while in his grand jury testimony, Wilson referred to Brown's hands being full of cigarillos.

Problems. "Sources reported[who?] reviewing Wilson's testimony and highlighted a number of inconsistencies,[clarification needed] including Wilson's first interview with a detective..." is a clear starting point. Which sources, Cherkis and Wing, whom? Are they really qualified to make such an examination? Certainly does the previous statements not include Wilson's own report? If anything we are not to take Wilson's word as gospel, or for much of anything for that matter if we want to hypothetically frame this in a court matter - given the situation. While mistakes were made, linking to 200+ page documents and not better legal opinion on a BLP matter. This should be replaced. Even so, this does not owe to source verification of its claims, nor does it reference them either. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:04, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Reference 1 Discussion

Resolved

Please suggest one of the "numerous other references" that provide geo coordinates for the location of the shooting. I'd be happy to make that change. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 18:36, 11 December 2014 (UTC) But it does not provide the geo coordinates nor the map used with said detail or accuracy. We have street data and police reports and other documents which describe the location, but why is this source with its other flaws being used for something it doesn't provide? We do not even need a source, though the scene and the body come to lay 20ft SW on Canfield Dr from that position. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Honestly, considering the article is about a bit more than just the location of the shooting, but also the trial, etc., which are not at the exactly same geolocation, I'm really not sure WP:GEO necessarily applies to this article. Given the nature of the content, I would think maybe something that just indicates the location of the city of Ferguson would probably be sufficient. Having said that, in all honesty, this is possibly one of the most minor conceivable objections I can imagine, and this is from someone who was involved in one of the lamest edit wars in the history of wikipedia regarding exactly where Hogenakkal Falls is located. John Carter (talk) 18:48, 11 December 2014 (UTC) The article title is Shooting of Michael Brown, and the coordinates give the location of said shooting. I think there is value in allowing a reader to easily access an interactive map with the shooting location marked. The map can then be scrolled or zoomed to provide context information that is not readily available in any other way. I'm open to improving the sourcing, as I said, but I'm strongly opposed to removing the coordinates. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 18:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC) I think it's useful in one fashion or another to include the (geo) location of the shooting. The location is not exactly in dispute. – JBarta (talk) 19:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Btw, I'm sure I don't need to point out that things only need to be verifiable. The source given provides the undisputed location at a low resolution, and other sources such as grand jury diagrams allow that resolution to be refined. In this middle of this thread you'll see that we obsessively established the coordinates to a resolution of a few feet. They represent the midpoint of the shooting scene as delimited by the outermost items of crime scene evidence. They deliberately do not point to the precise location of Brown's body. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 19:13, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Verifiable, not original research. The National Register provides GPS coordinates, but they do not need to be sourced in an info box. My issue is the source is vague and our coordinates are specific. The specific data and coordinates are not on the page, and are indisputable (within reason) so why make a citation which is vague and not the actual source? The coordinates as placed now are about 20ft from where Brown's body lay, this is much more accurate and precise then the "map" cited gives. Why keep that reference at all? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC) 1. I've already said that the coordinates are not intended to indicate the location of Brown's body, so why do you keep referring to that? 2. The greatest precision for the coordinates comes from two associated grand jury exhibits: the diagram of the shooting scene, and the list of evidence items with their distances from a baseline point. Would you be happier if we changed the cite to use those sources instead? I wouldn't be opposed to that. They show the position of the crime scene relative to the intersection of two streets, Canfield Dr and Copper Creek Ct. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 19:42, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Removal of the citation or replacement works. This is a small matter, it is not of great importance to me, but I would appreciate either solution equally. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Replaced CNN map source with grand jury exhibits as described above. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 21:21, 11 December 2014 (UTC) To hedge my response to John Carter's concerns above, I wouldn't oppose moving the coordinates to the Shooting section. The problem is how to incorporate them into prose text in a Wikipedia-acceptable way. "The coordinates of the shooting scene are 38.73847°N 90.27387°W / 38.73847; -90.27387" seems more than a little awkward. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 21:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Reception section

This area is a major section of the article and has many major problems to establish a clear POV that is unacceptable. A major section is dedicated to criticism, establishing a negative slant. The second sentence/paragraph mix is also negative, but unspecific despite sources which provide names... including Ronald S. Sullivan Jr and Jeffrey Toobin... in the first paragraphs source. Then a balancing of sorts with Ben Trachtenberg, but bumbles the source and the law in the description. Then more criticism with the New York Times sourced paragraph. Dan Abrams balances only to criticize again. Then more criticism from the The Washington Post. Then we get a comparative table of the "usual" vs "the extraordinary" with the table "According to the The New York Times, differences between typical grand jury proceedings in Missouri and Wilson'" Then more criticism...courtesy of the New York Times. Ronald Kuby adds more criticism. Tom Nolan seems to bring balance... then more criticism. Eugene O'Donnell's statements add more criticism, and possibly create a BLP issue. Jay Sterling Silver, criticizing again. Jeff Roorda is a counterpoint, but then it follows up with Mark Weisbrot to cap off the issue to make criticism become even more poignant. The WP:UNDUE tag is there, but NPOV is really not being adhered to. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:01, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm trying to figure out what you're trying to say, and what I'm getting is that "it's not balanced." Mind you, in this case we use the principle of due weight, not that of equal validity. I've done my best to try to give everything prior to the NYT table an impartial tone, but the rest I haven't gone over yet and definitely needs a re-evaluation and rewrite. In the pre-table text, I checked the sources for relevant opinions and included them as concise, neutrally-worded and correctly-attributed as I could. If I screwed up, go ahead and fix it. --RAN1 (talk) 23:22, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

If there is undue weight, the response is not to delete content, but to add additional POVs. So go ahead, do the hard work and research and add content that supports the prosecutor's handling of the grand jury proceedings and its decision not to indict. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Mmm, I prefer not to edit war with people like you when I am deconstructing their arguments that everything is "fine" because this page certainly has plenty of issues that need to be resolved first. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Accounts and BLP

We should remove of minor (in role) witness names and the identifying details per WP:BLP and specifically WP:BLPNAME. This applies to Brady and other witnesses. Crenshaw witness reports are not really necessary, but do we need to personally identify the individual at all? Mitchell as well. And can we just remove the "Construction worker" section of the accounts? One or two sentences tops. There is no need to give so much detail to the account which is not even supported by the facts. McKnight's testimony is two sentences and we have a section for it, definitely under BLPNAME to me. Walker and Freeman as well. Also... do we really need a section for "Bystander heard on video"? Can we agree on this much? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:30, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Comments

See below

Comment: I gotta say.... so far this is trivial stuff, not the "extreme POV" issue you were screaming about earlier. I'm getting a "boy who cried wolf" vibe. I hope you do come forth with some substantial issues here. If not, no worries... we all get excited sometimes. – JBarta (talk) 18:50, 11 December 2014 (UTC) I'm going through all the sources and the information. Give it time, since many issues exist. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC) I'd suggest level 4 subsections for each Reference to avoid a wall-of-text effect and to ease editing. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 19:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Every 10 work? I doubt some of them are going to be really contentious. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:36, 11 December 2014 (UTC) If they aren't contentious, just fix it. You made some pretty strong claims about POV/BLP issues, lets talk about those instead. Gaijin42 (talk) 19:41, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Aww, you are no fun Gaijin42. I am going to go through this with a fine tooth comb, certainly you don't object to the raising of issues with sources, accuracy problems and other concerns which should be handled first. It will take time to go through them all, but quite a few will be removed by the end of it. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Good thing BOLD and BRD has you covered. The wot really wasn't needed and should be refactored. --RAN1 (talk) 19:48, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Read through this exchange and my impression is that this is a lot of smoke with very little fire. None of the arguments and concerns presented by ChrisGualtieri raise to the level of having to question the neutrality of the entire article. @ChrisGualtieri: Just fix whatever you think is needed fixing and use WP:BRD, please. There is a good number of editors with a wide divergence of opinion here that have worked really hard for months on this article, and in most cases, able to collaborate despite the differences. You are welcome to join the fun. - Cwobeel (talk) 19:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC) In any case, things are going to get very confusing when someone inserts or removes a ref within your range. Your labels will then be worse than useless. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 20:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Strike that, now that I see the reason for the revision you linked at the top. Everyone will need to use that for reference, not the current article revision (if this section survives as a useful tool, which isn't clear based on above comments). ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 20:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Yes, thank you. I've begun with the first BLP issue in a source and highlighting under utilization of the sources. I am happy to go through this piecemeal, but I am still a bit reeling from the concerns which I immediately see with the article. A few can be removed, but I am finding information which should be added from others. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:12, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Keep in mind that articles are built by consensus. Be prepared that editors may disagree with your views no matter how fervently you believe something. You are welcome to build a list of grievances, but that doesn't automatically mean other editors will agree with each point or that your view by default is the correct one or that those who disagree are by default POV pushing. Correct can be subjective. – JBarta (talk) 20:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Of course, I understand as such. I know some are not going to be major contentious points, but I've found under utilized sources and inaccuracies, BLPPRIMARY violations, and cases where the information is contradictory or not even there. I'm not even 1/8th of the way through my review yet and we have blogs and such on this list. There is much much more to come. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:41, 11 December 2014 (UTC) Also keep in mind that coming off as a self-styled one-man review board is also not helpful. Editors have egos, and the best way to piss them off en-masse is to explode onto the scene with blustery talk about "your review". You are not above other editors and I would suggest getting down into the trenches and editing with everyone else rather than proclaiming your wisdom from on high. – JBarta (talk) 21:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Refactor this out

Could you please move the reference problems to a page under your userspace? This isn't the appropriate place to post your personal list of problems with the references and if needed for discussion you can reference the list with a link. --RAN1 (talk) 20:23, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. Issues pertaining to this article should stay here. It may be largely a list of one person's grievances, but other editors may add their thoughts as well. – JBarta (talk) 20:31, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

And I expect some push-back over a few behavior quotes. Quotes as to someone's behavior or such after the fact can be objective or flawed, but both do no good for the article. The quote from Orr, useless, the quote attributed to teachers or family, little. It is far better to explain what the records (pre-incident) show and simply state the facts and leave the "human equation" out of it. After all, by utilizing these quotes we ignore Brown's further education details and we use some really poor quotes for Wilson while allowing violations of WP:BLPPRIMARY and a blog to surpass a senior ADA Journal writer. Recapping without summarizing where the problems exist and why they are wrong do little, because it would be a question of backing up my statements or a lack of clarity. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Agree with Jbarta. This page is for discussion of any kind of proposed improvements to the article, no matter how minor. The question is whether the same end could be accomplished with routine BRD; i.e., discussing only disputed edits. The assumption that every edit would be disputed is a faulty one, but any disputed change should be kept out until consensus for it is reached. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 20:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@ChrisGualtieri: I don't think your approach is a sound one, doing a dump of all your concerns en masse. Just take a few items that are important in your view, discuss the edits (or use BRD), get these resolved and the move to the next one. Just think of your fellow editors here: we are not here to serve you. There are other areas of the article that need work, and your approach will suck the air out of any other conversation. - Cwobeel (talk)

Like the NPOV tag? I know you are not here to serve me or anything, but I expect things like BLPPRIMARY to be followed and missing references or behavior attributes and other issues to be resolved long prior. The article has many references that do nothing and do not even refer to the content let alone add anything. I'm still posting up the sourcing matters... ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

At the very least it's collapsed now, I still disagree that dumping concerns here is a good idea but there isn't a consensus regarding that as of now. --RAN1 (talk) 21:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Just post one or two items at the time. This is not the time for a WP:PR or WP:FACR. Not there yet. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

ChrisGualtieri, Good job. I appreciate your efforts. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:03, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 December 2014

Change "The shooting of Michael Brown occurred on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Brown, an 18-year-old black man" To "The shooting of Michael Brown occurred on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Brown, an 18-year-old African-American teen" Jetserf (talk) 23:18, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

 Not done This has been discussed extensively and the current wording reflect editors' consensus. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:21, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Recommendation to indict

I don't understand this edit [61]. The text is accurate, there were no charges recommended by the prosecutors. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:29, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

According to the grand jury transcript (Testimony of Grand Jury, 11/21/2014, p. 132-133) and Vox, the prosecutor team provided 4 charges to indict on: Murder in the first and second degree and involuntary manslaughter in the first and second degree. --RAN1 (talk) 23:45, 11 December 2014 (UTC)