Talk:Killing of Trayvon Martin

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved Mike Cline (talk) 13:05, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

---

Shooting of Trayvon Martin → Death of Trayvon Martin – Current title is ambiguous to status of Martin (e.g. did he survive the shooting?) and is not consistent with other WP article titles of similar nature where victim was shot (e.g. Assassination of JFK[1], Death of John Lennon[2], etc.). Redredryder (talk) 07:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Bad proposal It needs to be moved to "Shooting death of..." That martin was shot is critical to the article. That he is dead is also critical. Neither automatically implies the other. HiLo48 (talk) 07:38, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Sigh, if we are going to do this lets have opinions on each possible title. If I missed any go ahead and add one. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 07:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this, Richard - it may help. Tvoz/talk 08:47, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

This proposal is terrible in form. People of one decision type should not ballot stuff the opposing views. This completely negates previous discussion and obfuscates the reality of Wikipedia's naming conventions and NPOV. Why is 'Murder' even on here as an option, it is not even before the court and Zimmerman has not been charged and convicted of a crime! ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:16, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Why is this done even in this form anyways? With the existing title up for vote. I'd move for a complete tear down and simplification like other methods for consensus. You cannot possibly support two different titles at once. One per person, one comment per person. Not multiple supports and opposes. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:34, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
  • The problem is that the original proposal, change Shooting of Trayvon Martin to Death of Trayvon Martin, was too narrow and, as it turns out, not the most popular. The process was changed on the fly. Very clumsy, I agree, but consensus is pretty clear. HiLo48 (talk) 18:42, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
    • No arguments have brought forth to deal with policy concerns or prefix concerns for 'Shooting Death of Trayvon Martin', not now not in the previous discussion. This needs to be cleaned up and the arguments presented are not being specifically responded to. Currently there is no consensus and policy and procedure weighs on 'Death of Trayvon Martin', but with such a mess the singular choice of editors like Tvoz are unclear with multiple supports. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
      • The whole point of this was to clean up the arguments for renaming it Death of Trayvon Martin from Shooting of Trayvon Martin, there was no need to hijack it so people are "voting" on five different titles. Do we really need to read the same reasons for opposing a title four different times? If people felt Shooting Death of Trayvon Martin was a better title, that should have been made as a seperate section. Also I'm removing Murder of Trayvon Martin, this is in clear violation of WP:NPOV at this time. Killing of Trayvon Martin should also be removed for the same reason. Redredryder (talk) 20:23, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Do not delete other people's proposals or opinions. What were you thinking? What policy are you acting on? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 20:57, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Hmm, I thought I saw somebody somewhere say it should be murder, I can't find it now. I threw it up there so we could all say hell no. We have and it is done. I have to go do real life stuff. Don't delete people's stuff while I am gone please. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 21:08, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• That's my bad, I wasn't aware we could lock section like that. Apologies for any confusion I caused.Redredryder (talk) 00:49, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Shooting death of Trayvon Martin

• Weak Oppose not concise per WP:NAMINGCRITERIA Richard-of-Earth (talk) 07:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support It very concisely describes what happened. That Martin was shot is critical to the article. That he is dead is also critical. Neither automatically implies the other. HiLo48 (talk) 07:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support As stated in thread. ```Buster Seven Talk 08:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support One extra word does not make this unconcise - this title covers the two salient points - that he was shot and that he died from the shooting. See my comments in the thread. Tvoz/talk 08:36, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support This title contains both keywords that readers would likely search for and either word would redirect the reader to this article.--Isaidnoway (talk) 10:48, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• neutral support would keep "shooting",or "shooting death" Gaijin42 (talk) 12:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose on the proviso that there is a general convention for article names dealing with the death of someone--whether in the context of assassination, homicide, suicide, shooting, stabbing, poison, etc.--as "Death of [Name]." In that case, we really should not make exceptions, especially with all the political static associated with this case. If there is no such convention, then I very weakly support this title, if only because it is a better alternative than "Shooting of..." But seriously, it's awkward. If he were stabbed, would it be called "Stabbing death of Trayvon Martin"? The fact is that "Shooting death..." gives itself to some of the ferocious argument that surrounds American gun law, which this killing has caused to bubble up. I don't like Wikipedia getting into the political stuff through the naming of its articles. Same way I oppose the races of the people being spelled out in detail in the lead. We're a cataloger of, not a participant in, the public debate. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 13:10, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - less clear than current title. -- Avanu (talk) 14:08, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support "Shooting" or "Shooting Death" both seem to mean similar things, if it were to change, I think "Shooting Death" would elaborate things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darter9000 (talk • contribs) 15:29, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support The title is concise and to the point of what the article is (supposed to) be about: George Zimmerman shooting Trayvon Martin, his death as a result of the shooting, and the events surrounding the incident. Rollo V. Tomasi (talk) 15:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support It was a shooting that lead to a death- explains a lot with few words.Emeraldflames (talk) 19:51, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose Violates Naturalness,Conciseness, and Consistency of WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Redredryder (talk) 20:29, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose rename unless and until actual facts (like autopsy) are available Any name chosen now is quite likely to be inapt in six months. Collect (talk) 22:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - this is just not a natural enough title for this article. "Death of Trayvon Martin" covers the essentials more naturally and concisely. This is a title; 99.9% of the details are going to appear in the article, not in the title of the article. VQuakr (talk) 03:09, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Redredryder's violations - in particular a very unnatural sounding title. AIRcorn (talk) 04:59, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose No need to create a new prefix when WP has been nearly consistently using other article titles for years. Angryapathy (talk) 14:30, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Redredryder, Angryapathy, et al. This would create a ridiculous precedent. I can see the arguments regarding accuracy, as well as the appeal of splitting the difference between "Shooting of" and "Death of," but as a solution, this is cutting the baby in half. --BDD (talk) 19:23, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose — I did a search in Wikipedia for article titles that started with "Shooting death of" and I didn't find a single one.[3] --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:05, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - How can this even be proposed? --MarshalN20 | ^Talk 12:33, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Current title is fine. No need to change. --soulscanner (talk) 02:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support - He was shot. He is dead. His was a shooting death. 98.118.62.140 (talk) 22:19, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Shooting of Trayvon Martin

• Tentative Oppose only if we can reach a consensus on some other name. Otherwise we should keep this per WP:TITLECHANGES although it is not consistent with other article WP:NAMINGCRITERIA.Richard-of-Earth (talk) 07:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Doesn't say he's dead. HiLo48 (talk) 07:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose ```Buster Seven Talk 08:23, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Doesn't make clear that he was killed, but better than "Death of" alone. Tvoz/talk 08:45, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• neutral support would keep "shooting", or "shooting death" Gaijin42 (talk) 12:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Support if the assassination of Bin Laden is going to be called "Death of Bin Laden," then one would think that "death of..." is a stand-in name for all articles that deal with the death, murder, killing, suicide, or otherwise demise of a person. There really should be simple standards for this. If that is an established convention, I see no reason to change it in this case. If it is not, then "Shooting death" would do the job, despite its awkwardness. Big mistake. I had put this in the wrong section. OPPOSE. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 13:04, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support - The shooting is the primary issue of the incident. The participants and the consequences are—sad but true—secondary to that. Alandeus (talk) 13:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support - It doesn't need to say he's dead. People know he is, and the more concise title is easier and in line with WP:NAMINGCRITERIA Conciseness and Precision. Also, as has been point out before, the notable thing in this is the event, not the people. -- Avanu (talk) 14:07, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Neutral Support I'd be fine if it stays as it is, but think it could be expanded and still be even more effective. Rollo V. Tomasi (talk) 18:58, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Being dead is more important to the story than being shot. If he were shot and alive, we'd have two sides to this story. As it is, I prefer "Death of..." or maybe "Killing of...". At some distant future date, once things have been resolved legally, it might become more appropriate to use "Murder of...", if that's how the courts decide. For the moment though, the story is about a kid who came to be killed. If Zimmerman had stabbed or bludgeoned him to death, the story would be just as significant. The method of killing is not nearly as important as the outcome. Dragons flight (talk) 19:12, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Until further information is actually at hand to determine an NPOV title. Collect (talk) 22:14, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Best choice for now. Death omits the violence, Shooting Death seems unnecessarily redundant, murder is non WP:V. --HectorMoffet (talk) 10:47, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose If you just look at the Special:PrefixIndex/Death of versus Special:PrefixIndex/Shooting of, one can see how seldom "Shooting of" is used, and how often "Death of" is used. We should stick to convention. Angryapathy (talk) 14:33, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Dragons flight and others. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, commenting on a couple of the other proposals as well, but the actual death made this newsworthy and notable for our purposes. If he was only shot, it might have made Wikinews at best. Consistency, accuracy, and fairness point clearly to "Death of." --BDD (talk) 19:26, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support DocTree (talk) 04:41, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support — There is not a single article in Wikipedia that has "Shooting death of" in its title.[4] "Death of..." seems only appropriate for people who were notable for who they were when they were alive, or for people who died of unknown causes. The fact that Martin was shot is the point, not that he just died. See discussion after my struck out Oppose in the Death of ... section. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:28, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support No need to change. Title may not be prefect, but it gets the point across, and there is no consensus on a new name. --soulscanner (talk) 02:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Death of Trayvon Martin

• Support concise and consistent with other article WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 07:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Doesn't say he was shot, which is why this article exists. HiLo48 (talk) 07:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  Sorry, can't help myself. See my comments below. If he were only shot, the article probably wouldn't exist. It's his death that made this event all too notable. --BDD (talk) 19:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Incomplete. ```Buster Seven Talk 08:26, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Doesn't make clear that the death was not accidental and not of natural causes. Tvoz/talk 08:44, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  You could say the same for Death of John Lennon. The name alone need not include all that information. --BDD (talk) 19:42, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• oppose his death is not particularly notable. its the shooting and the circumstances around it that are causing controversy. If Martin had survived, many of the same issues would be discussed (perhaps less strongly) Gaijin42 (talk) 12:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - The people in this are not notable beyond the EVENT. So the title should focus on an event, not a person. -- Avanu (talk) 14:10, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  Is a person's death not an event? --BDD (talk) 19:42, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Strongly Support Death of Trayvon Martin is the correct one. 'Shooting Death of' would create a new category of prefixes as no other title in all of Wikipedia shares the prefix 'Shooting Death'. User:TheSoundandFury is correct that it is awkward, biased and unprecedented in Wikipedia to come up with a new prefix entirely for this case when other cases have been put forth. See [5]. Shooting of, has 12 entries not including redirects.. 29 with 'Killing of', but many redirects. It is not neutral. The titles of other news sources focus on Death of Trayvon Martin or Trayvon Martin's Death, which some do not even have proper naming itself, disproportionately exist to the 'Shooting Death of Trayvon Martin' or 'Trayvon Martin's Shooting Death' as a title. The current 'Shooting of Trayvon Martin' still has more support then it though. I don't see why this is still an issue. If our result is to create an entirely new prefix that is not even neutral; how is that fair. Wikipedia standards come first and it does not rest on creating new title prefixes that are better covered by existing forms. To bring it up again. Shooting of John F. Kennedy redirects to Assassination of John F. Kennedy.Killing of Muammar Gaddafi is a redirect for Death of Muammar Gaddafi and he too was shot and died from his injuries. There is no 'Shooting Death' for a prefix and should never be. Redirect as you need, but the prefix 'Death of' is neutral, unbiased, concise and standard form for Wikipedia. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:07, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Why invent a new prefix ("Shooting death") when almost all other Wikipedia articles use "Death of" as a article title when referring to a death. And leaving it as "Shooting" is not explicit enough. Angryapathy (talk) 17:20, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Prefer consistency with the way similar articles have been named. We can certainly include a variety of relevant redirects, and the article lead already makes the broad strokes plenty clear. Dragons flight (talk) 17:28, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Doesn't address that the shooting and the events leading up to it are a huge part of the story. Because we've known from the jump the cause of death and by whom, it's the cause and the shooter who are also of interest. "Death of..." doesn't give a complete enough picture. Rollo V. Tomasi (talk) 18:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  See Death of Caylee Anthony. Over 80% of the article is about the Casey Anthony trial, but the source event is the death. Angryapathy (talk) 19:16, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  Note that from the beginning of the Caylee Anthony case, it was not certain who killed her or how. The cases are completely different. Rollo V. Tomasi (talk) 01:09, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the events have differences. But there are a plethora of details in both articles (nearly all of them) that are critical to a complete description of the event but not mentioned in the title. The title should be the shortest combination of words that unambiguously identifies the subject. VQuakr (talk) 03:17, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support for consistency's sake. ChrisGualtieri has covered this ground well, but I'll reiterate and add that "Death of" is much more accurate than "Shooting of." People can be shot without dying. It's very likely none of us would have known the name "Trayvon Martin" had he not died. --BDD (talk) 19:42, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Unless and until further facts are determined. Collect (talk) 22:14, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  I'm curious, are you expecting that further facts will make him not dead? I don't see how "death of..." would be contingent on any further knowledge. Dragons flight (talk) 02:05, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support - best meets the criteria per WP:NAMINGCRITERIA of naturalness, concision, recognizability, precision, and consistency with other similar articles. VQuakr (talk) 03:13, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support - had to resist the urge to do a "strong support." I think it is important in our community to maintain standards. Nearly every article about a death is called "Death of..." The idea that we should use "Shooting of..." is, in my view, giving too much emphasis to the current, overheated political exigencies in question. If it was a poisoning event, the page would absolutely not be called "Poisoning of..." And I think this says it all. In order not to be biased, political, and in order to be independent and judicious, we should apply the same standards to this death event as we do others. For that, and all the reasons mentioned above. This is a question of the integrity of the naming process of the encyclopedia, which reflects on Wikipedia and this community as a civic institution. So you can see I feel strongly that we get this stuff right. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:29, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Out of all the proposals this fulfills the the naming criteria the best. AIRcorn (talk) 05:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Death is a neutral word, and it matches the other "Death of X" articles on Wikipedia. Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 23:19, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support If fulfills the naming criteria the best and is consistent with other, similar articles. Oppose all other names.LedRush (talk) 14:46, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose — "Death of..." seems only appropriate for people who were notable for who they were when they were alive, or for people who died of unknown causes. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:32, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• This isn't supported by precedent. See Death of Aiyana Jones, Death of Jean Charles de Menezes, Death of Oluwashijibomi Lapite, Death of Somer Thompson, or Death of Vincent Chin. Here are all articles starting with "Death of," including redirects. Conversely, only three other article names begin with "Shooting of." --BDD (talk) 23:19, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Good work! I wasn't aware of the tool Special:PrefixIndex. I'll reexamine the situation. --Bob K31416 (talk) 04:31, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Glad to help. I wasn't aware of it myself a few days ago, but I figured there must be a tool like that, and Google came to the rescue. --BDD (talk) 15:19, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support Decent title. The fact that he was shot is evident in the article. Don't need to make it a reference in the articles title.--JOJ ^Hutton 22:41, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

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.

---

Killing of Trayvon Martin

• Oppose not any better the "Shooting of". Richard-of-Earth (talk) 07:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Doesn't say he was shot, which is why this article exists. HiLo48 (talk) 07:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Too strong. ```Buster Seven Talk 08:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Better than "Death of" or "Shooting of" as it gets across the fact that he died, and that it was not accidental or natural. "Shooting death of" accomplishes the same thing and is also fine. Tvoz/talk 08:39, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• oppose removes information compared to other titles, implies intent, although it is technically acurate
• Oppose - Shooting is more precise than killing, and while Killing is not inaccurate, to me it doesn't hit the right tone. -- Avanu (talk) 14:14, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Inflammatory. Rollo V. Tomasi (talk) 15:51, 2 April 2012 (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.

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.

---

Murder of Trayvon Martin

• Oppose WP:POV Pushing Richard-of-Earth (talk) 07:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Agree with Richard. HiLo48 (talk) 07:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose this was not suggested by anyone, and is not appropriate at this time. Tvoz/talk 08:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Agree with Richard. May also sound like it was premeditated Alandeus (talk) 09:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• strong oppose would have to wait until after a conviction for this title. Gaijin42 (talk) 12:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - we have no conviction or admission of guilt in the sense of murder, and so it is inappropriate to use this title. -- Avanu (talk) 14:14, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose Inflammatory and inaccurate. No murder charges have been filed. Rollo V. Tomasi (talk) 15:52, 2 April 2012 (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.

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Thought we could clear this up and get some outside thought on the matter. For those joining, there is a fairly large discussion regarding the title change here [6]. Redredryder (talk) 07:30, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Richard-of-Earth has added WP:NAMINGCRITERIA to several of his comments above, presumably implying only his opinions comply and that different opinions do not comply. That is disingenuous. I would argue that my views comply better with WP:NAMINGCRITERIA than his, but I'm not going to stick it in every post I've made above. That would be silly. Can we stop this dumb game playing and just admit that what we each post is done in good faith and is our own opinion. HiLo48 (talk) 08:10, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Hilo, that wasn't my intention. I apologize if thats the impression you got. I just wanted to cite the policy I assume everyone would go by, rather then just give an opinion. I was adding the links as you were voting. Of course, everyone interpretation of the policy is just as valid. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:24, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I closed the previous discussion, so this one would be the prime discussion. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:27, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• • Wikipedia is not a vote. Stop cross posting your views. Wikipedia policy is pretty clear about titles and such that "Death of Trayvon Martin" is the correct one. People who oppose should not ballot stuff as it breaks Wikipedia's rules and you could be blocked. We have too many proposals up and people for one are forcing their views into other groups to generate consensus against a side they do not agree with. This is sillyness. It completely makes the previous discussion useless by design and misrepresents the situation. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:24, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

(EC)That's right. It is not a vote so there is no "ballot stuffing". It's just editors choosing from the asst. vegetables available. You seem to be the only one that has a problem with the collaborative effort of your fellow editors. ```Buster Seven Talk 16:17, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

So you think posting multiple supports and multiple oppose in the same survey is not rigging of consensus? I'd disagree and it runs afoul of the rules. As your views are clearly noted and Wikipedia is not a vote based system, continuing to spread your opinion in multiple areas of a single survey... especially without comment is wrong. Considering arguments, not a strawpoll is how things are handled here. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:25, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Wrong. Considering arguments and continuously arguing is NOT the way things get done. All I needed to say I had said in the previous discussion. The same with most others that chose and commented. Collaborating gets things done not chiding other editors for stretching the Holy Rule Book. ```Buster Seven Talk 16:37, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

The survey needs to be fixed, it is not a fair representation and making good arguments are a proper way to get things done, if no editor can address the evidence put forth in such a way as to refute the point or offer a better alternative, option or evidence about it, then my argument still stands. Wikipedia is not based on strawpolling, but matters of policy, convention and neutrality. Multiple votes for and against contradict the nature of a title change. Things should be done by those policies and not by breaking or stretching them to suit your purposes. One vote per person. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

@ChrisGualtieri : What is happening above is not vote stuffing. It is effectively 5 separate proposals, to see which ones have support. This is very common, and accepted in wikipedia. See the ongoing RFC for muhammad images Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Muhammad_images other high visibility RFCs. especially in a multiple choice siutation here, you can believe more than one of those results is acceptable, while others are unacceptable due to policy. Saying "I like this one", should not preclude you from saying "using the word murder is a blp violation". Gaijin42 (talk) 17:42, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• That discussion is different and notice that the same user, for example Student7, does not have a support and oppose for both sides of the same question. This is not something so complex or so controversial in nature either. You can realistically only support one title, not two... not three, but one. If you pick for multiple competing viewpoints it is not making concensus, your decision should be singular as the choice is singular. A title is a title, others with enough support should become redirects. I am not stating that comments on sections shouldn't be allowed, but that a single editor not raise multiple supports and opposes like it is multiple-choice and multiple-selection. Any other with a proper arguement should be labeled as '''Comment''' instead. This prevents a misunderstanding of support and still details issues without stating a for or against. It is common to use those comments to strengthen or counter arguments and is not a representation of that editors single vote. Putting multiple votes of support or opposition runs counter to this survey and it should be corrected. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:57, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

This is a well established practice. Wikipedia:How_to_hold_a_consensus_vote#Third_choice:_Approval_voting Gaijin42 (talk) 19:34, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• No activity from 06? A withdrawn proposal for a guideline? It is only kept for historical purposes. Don't misrepresent. WP:Strawpolls and specifically, WP:DEM. Wikipedia is not a democracy. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:26, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I noticed afterwards it was withrdrawn, did not mean to mislead. However, I do note that that propsal does refer to times approval process was used to gather consensus. In any case, it is clear that there is a consensus for deciding the process this way, as you are the only one objecting. (Meta consensus ftw! )Gaijin42 (talk) 20:37, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Since Trayvon Martin already redirects to this article, I don't think it really matters all that much what the article is called. 6ty4e (talk) 19:45, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Chris, "ballot stuffing"? Come on - there is nothing being done under the table or without full disclosure of who is expressing which opinion which is what ballot stuffing means. As others have said, this is well-established practice here -surveys like this are often done so that people can express their preferences for various proposals, and briefly explain why they favor a proposal or not, and perhaps try to rank their own preferences. It is common form and in fact is useful because it goes beyond a straight-up vote, which you know we are discouraged from doing, and with luck it helps people refine their thinking. Consensus doesn't easily come from forcing a commitment to one and only one response - a survey like this gives people some room to consider alternatives to their own first choice.

As for your concern about whether policy is being considered, since you singled me out above for some reason (in the subsection "Survey"), I'll reply: the cited policy in the now-closed discussion above was WP:CRITERIA, which enumerates some criteria to be considered, and the specific ones brought up in the context of this article were that they are to be neutral, precise and concise - the specific objection to Shooting death of was whether it is concise, and I directly responded to that concern in my survey replies, and also gave reasons for why I was less in favor of other titles, including clarity of meaning. (And by the way, WP:CRITERIA also says these are "goals not rules".) Tvoz/talk 20:41, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:VOTE matters, do not use the article when it is not the same thing. The matter of the discussion done poorly and with preference to votes, not arguments as what is the best reason. Now fabrication of 'concensus' is being used to try an unprecedented prefix? The votes both for an against obfuscate the reality of the situation. All it is doing trying to reverse or delay the decision for 'Death of Trayvon Martin' which was set to be done today, barring arguments from the 'Shooting Death of' side. None of which have been made to directly counter the very heavy evidence presented against doing so. Considering the term itself is not even neutral; I've faced attacks from fellow editors for going by policy, procedure and of all things prefixs. Maybe Ballot Stuffing is a term which you do not like, but typically I don't see this as 5 separate proposals because only one title can be chosen. They are options and only one will be chosen, each editor should only have one vote... not 5. Pick your side, support it and leave the rest to others. Don't go filling up the others with 'oppose' or 'support' when you should have a single vote amongst them. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Some here are desperately grasping at the word "concise" in policy to argue against "Shooting death". I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. Shooting and death are two almost independent and both equally relevant adjectives for this event. Just using one does not automatically imply the other. He could have been shot but not dead, or dead but not shot. One more word, giving much more complete information, does not negate conciseness. Leaving out one of "shooting" and "death" provides a lot less information and leaves obvious doubt and possible confusion. And there's nothing POV about "shooting death". Martin was shot, and he is dead. Both unarguable facts. Neither fact implicates anyone. So let's drop this nonsense about non-neutrality, or about policy allowing only one option. Oh, and comparisons with Death of John Lennon are also invalid. Lennon was famous. His shooting is already well known about. The article simply fills in details. Martin was an unknown. The whole story needs to be told here. I simply cannot understand the opposition to a simple, clear, five word title. HiLo48 (talk) 21:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

This is not a news article. This is an entry in an encyclopedia. Here are the arguments that require counterpoints: WP:Namingconventions on Naturalness, Conciseness and Consistency. Also on prefix. WP:NPOV for neutrality on subject matter. The term imparts perspective and it is a poor word choice. Rather then complain about these points, address them. Your own argument for Death of John Lennon only makes the case for Death of Trayvon Martin stronger because familiarity with the subject is not a requirement for its title, it should be logical. If I don't know how John Lennon died, then why must I find his cause of death before I find the article? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:09, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I just happen to think that's not a valid response to anything I said. But life goes on. HiLo48 (talk) 23:42, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Am I suppossed to react to you referring to me as Student7. You should worry more about your manners and the way you treat a veteran editor with 20K edits than you care about your skewed interpretation of the guidebook. You may be biting off more than you can chew. ```Buster Seven Talk 22:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

@Buster Seven. Do not threaten me. Do not harass me. You are making a HUGE misunderstanding. Student7 is entirely different editor in who's commented on the Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Muhammad_images. I even stated that I was using it as an example in a direct reply to the argument presented. I even go on to point out the differences in that article's discussion versus this discussion. Your offense is misplaced and unjustified. There are other editors that share a similar name to my own and sometimes they reply to the same discussions as me, here and on IRC. Now kindly, look at that discussion and see for yourself that Student7, who was previously the last supporter at the time for Support and the first one I grabbed. (Until FurrySings replied recently added support, making it second last.) Also, Student7[7] is a recent golden award winner and fellow editor with more then 50k edits. He is not you. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:47, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

When we say Shooting Death of Trayvon Martin are we supposed to assume it was a firearm shot by someone else that caused his death? How do we know from just the title it wasn't a bow and arrow? or a slingshot? Or he was shooting up too much heroin and it caused his death? Or was he cleaning a gun and it accidentally went off killing him? In short, it's too ambiguous and is less concise than something like Death of Trayvon Martin. Redredryder (talk) 04:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Bullshit HiLo48 (talk) 04:44, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Redredryder, really? Including "shooting" is more ambiguous than "death" alone which could be from vastly different causes ranging from illness to suicide to accident to murder? It's longer - one word longer - but surely it is more informative=less ambiguous. Tvoz/talk 05:35, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Death of has one question surrounding it, How? Shooting Death of doesn't completely answer the how, and introduces two new questions, Who did the shooting? and What was used in the shooting?. It's less concise because it raises more questions than it answers. Redredryder (talk) 06:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Cut the crap. Of course it's a gun he was shot with. Find me one normal human being who reads "shooting" and assumes it's something other than a gun, and I will apologise. As for "death" being unambiguous, there's an international comedy festival on in my city right now, and every stand-up comedian speaks of dying on stage. Is that a sillier interpretation than a slingshot? But I'm happy with "death" here. A "shooting death". Accurate, concise, informative, etc, etc, etc. HiLo48 (talk) 06:10, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

It may imply that a gun was used but in now way does it confirm that one was. As for your comparison to the comedians? Come on, they are using it in a figurative sense. This is wikipedia, we use language in a literal sense, so of course it's a sillier comparison. Redredryder (talk) 16:22, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Out of 3.9 million articles none of which use it. It has shown to not be concise or natural. An article title is key to how an article is discovered and how other people refer to the article. The action which resulted in a death should not be necessary to communicate, find or inform others about said with its own title. Which is probably a good reason why 'Overdose Death of' and 'Suicide by Hanging of' and 'Car Accident Death of' are not used. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 06:52, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Your first sentence makes no sense at all. And the rest is marginal. HiLo48 (talk) 18:19, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Clearly it does. But an inserted comment and a missing comment shouldn't make it much harder. So here it is again. Out of 3.9 million articles; none use 'Shooting death' as a prefix. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Consensus Results

• Shooting death 8 support, 10 oppose
• Shooting 7 support, 9 oppose (3 of the supports are "neutral")
• death 10 support, 7 oppose

Based on these results, I think it is obvious we do not have a clear consensus at this time.

The relevant policy

If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed. If it has never been stable, or unstable for a long time, and no consensus can be reached on what the title should be, default to the title used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be a stub.

Based on that, I think the two available choices would be either "Trayovon Martin" which was my original title, or "Shooting of Trayvon Martin", which is the longest standing title, and the one that the majority of the expansion happened under.

Other relevant parts of the policy, to try and head off objections

In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense. Nor does the use of a name in the title of one article require that all related articles use the same name in their titles; the WP:OTHERSTUFF objection. there are lots of other articles called "death of",

While titles for articles are subject to consensus, do not invent names as a means of compromising between opposing points of view. So this sort of is a policy against "shooting death" since that was a compromise position - the funny part is I meant that suggestion as a joke, but people ran with it :)

Wikipedia describes current usage but cannot prescribe a particular usage or invent new names more of the WP:OTHERSTUFF objection. there are lots of other articles called "death of",

While you certainly can have continued objections to this title, I don't think anyone can say that there is consensus for a change, and the policy is clear on what happens if there is no consensus. The current title stands. Gaijin42 (talk) 13:24, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• • Wikipedia is not a vote. Based on arguments made there has been no single counter to 'Death of Trayvon Martin' and neither your calls for 'title to remain based on length' the dispute has been going on for a long time. Arguments made, not votes, and considering you made it up as a joke it should be obvious that for all the reasons support it not be used! ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:51, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

You are the only one objecting to a !vote. Neither the !vote, nor arguments made prior achieved a consensus. It is clear that a lack of consensus for a move, or a move to a particular destination exists. WP:STATUSQUO. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

The system for Requested Moves wasn't designed to be a vote on five different possible choices, therefore we shouldn't count Opposes as if they mean anything because if you are going to support a choice, it is natural that you oppose the others, and we have the current title listed now so those who oppose changing it all would have naturally voted to support the original title. And if you look at who actually voted you will see that some users voted in support of two different titles (Rollo V. Tomasi). When this was changed to include five different titles it flawed the entire process. Plus it's only been two days, per WP:RMCI we have a total of seven before we declare any action, including declaring whether there is a consensus or not. Finally, you forgot to count my vote for Death of Trayvon Martin. I started the Requested Move and that automatically gives my support. Redredryder (talk) 15:01, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Chris Gualtieri is right that this is not a vote. See WP:NOTVOTE.Redredryder (talk) 15:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Arguments for and against. Personal Opinions shelved.

• Shootin Death:
  • Oppose: WP:Namingcriteria for Naturalness, Conciseness and Consistency. General convention, Unused Prefix, Title search, neutrality. Personal opinions.
  • Support: Personal opinions
• Shooting of Trayvon Martin
  • Oppose: WP:Namingcriteria. General convention, Rare Prefix, neutrality. Personal Opinion.
  • Support: Personal opinion. Weak on WP:Namingcriteria.
• Death of Trayvon Martin
  • Oppose: Personal Opinions
  • Support: WP:Namingcriteria for Naturalness, Conciseness and Consistency. General convention, Normal Prefix, Title search, neutrality, precedent, recognizably. Integrity. Personal Opinions.

Seems pretty clear that Wikipedia policies and their specific sections have not been countered to specific policy and their specific arguments. This is not an exceptional case that requires an entirely new prefix or brings issues of neutrality with it. These should at least have counterarguments made or at least have their arguments against the opposition citing specific examples be at least discussed. Every 'oppose' in the 'Death of' category has had their personal opinion rebuffed by fact. How can this possibly be 'no consensus' when there is no single credible argument against 'Death of'? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:12, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Seems pretty clear that there is not a consensus Your opinion about what particular policies mean regarding the titles and how they apply is your opinion. You may be right. Your opinion that approval voting is not valid is also just your opinion. What is a fact is that there is no consensus for a move. You are right about the 7 days, we should let it simmer, but I dont see a consensus magically appearing. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:41, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Approval voting is NOT a valid means. It is in the policies. Wikipedia is not a vote. It is not my opinion about the title either, it is a shared opinion by other editors tied specifically to matters of policy and convention. Therefore our argument is that much stronger and in two sets of discussions not a single argument has been raised against those policy points. The discussion continues and our arguments are meant to persuade other editors of our views; ideally some argument would be raised against our arguments, but it hasn't. Consensus arising from a rational discussion based on policy and common sense is the Wikipedia ideal. However, the practical reality of editing often falls short of the process described herein. Concensus is best described with this quote, "In 2012, a group of researchers studying Wikipedia disputes reported: "Debates rarely conclude on the basis of merit; typically they are ended by outside intervention, sheer exhaustion, or the evident numerical dominance of one group." I am trying to uphold the value of merit and policy and I've been attacked for using 'The Holy Rule Book' as a way to point out the clear lack of argument and issues of policy put forth by the community. I've taken my opponent's side when their arguments are good, but it doesn't seem like merit or persuasive debate will impart my fellow editors to do the same. I say let the discussion continue! Do not find 'no consensus' as no arguments have been brought forth, let other editors reply. Time must be given to make this critical decision proper discussion. I'm not saying to change it, just please let the discussion continue until counterarguments have time to be brought forth. This is an important matter which will stay with the article. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:33, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

As I said, I am fine with letting the consensus stew boil. Do you have any policies that specifically address approval voting as not being allowed? Gaijin42 (talk) 16:51, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• There are still votes rolling in. Let's wait a few days before finalizing it. It seems that 'death of' is more in favor than the current title. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 17:58, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

THIS IS NOT A FUCKING VOTE!!!!! Do any of you pay any attention to Wikipedia policies on that? Quality of argument is meant to count for something too. Several of the Supports for "Death" alone are just plain illogical. HiLo48 (talk) 18:20, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Chill out. If he'd put !vote in front of it would that make you happy? This is wikipedia dogma where you get to jump on editors not savvy enough to know the superstitions we have... yes it's not a vote, but it's also not an excuse for you to say GOTCHA. Shadowjams (talk) 18:29, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

If editors are "not savvy enough" to read and comprehend rules that have been widely described, then their contributions deserve to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. I haven't reached that level yet. Topics like this do attract a lot of ignorant bigots, and I at least partly mean ignorant in the sense of not knowing the rules here, we don't just drop those rules for the newcomers. We expect them to learn and follow the rules. HiLo48 (talk) 18:54, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean rules and policies such as WP:CIVILITY? Redredryder (talk) 19:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

My bad for not putting the "!". The response seemed rather disproportionate, though. The point is that "death of..." is closer to meeting the naming criteria and conforms to existing convention--or put another way, it has the least amount of defects as a title. I suggest giving a few days to the decision. Seems kind of obvious which is the least-worst choice, which is what we're arguing about. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 18:59, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm in favor of moving this entire section down further; it is getting pretty far separated from the rest of the current discussion. As for Gaijin's request, WP:Notvote Specifically first section. "3. Polls might lead editors to expect that a majority will automatically win the argument, or that the result is permanently binding. This contravenes Wikipedia's policy on What Wikipedia is not (a democracy), and what it is (a consensus). 4. If Wikipedia were to resolve issues through voting on them, editors would be tempted to also use voting with respect to article content. This might undermine Wikipedia policies on verifiability, notability, and the neutral point of view." Which is further backed by WP:DEM. Numbers should never be the basis for concensus. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:25, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I am in agreement with !vote. This is not a democracy, it is not majority rules. However, polling is a valid tool for gauging consensus, and as such it is uncontroversial. However, when a !vote comes back as 50/50 (ish) for all 3 proposals, with a very similar number of suport !votes for all 3 viable choices, thats pretty clear that we are not near having achieved a consensus. My request was not about !vote in general (which I think we are in agreement about), but specifically that approval voting is not an acceptable tool for doing a !vote. I posit that the situation above is 5 proposals. Is there consensus for any one of the 5 proposals. Nothing in !vote, or in any other consensus methodology says gathering consensus must be a binary operation with only 2 possible outcomes. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:54, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Here we go again. Number of supports or opposes are not to be considered in any shape or form. Evidence is vastly for 'Death of' and the number of 'votes' mean absolutely nothing. Let it go for a week, but no matter what, the ratio of votes or their number is not indicative of what the argument and its strength is. I'll bring this before the boards before allowing uncontested arguements rooted in policy are discounted by unsupported personal opinions or numbers of 'votes'. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Chris, it would be good if you'd take a step back and reconsider what "consensus" means and how well this group is actually working together, even though we don't all agree on everything. Just because you think the "evidence is vastly for 'Death of'", your preference, does not mean we have reached consensus. And threatening (or at least that's how it sounded to me) to "bring it before the boards" is really extreme, when what is being suggested is to maintain the status quo until we do reach more agreement.

Gaijin correctly presents the results of the survey as of now, and it shows that people are not in agreement that "Death of" is the best title, despite your best efforts at promoting it. I agree with Gaijin that there is no clear consensus at present for any of the choices, so it seems policy is clear that we should leave it at Shooting of, let the discussion simmer, until further developments in the story, or further community discussion persuade editors to change their preference.

Although I clearly do not think Shooting of goes far enough, I am more than willing to let it stand for a while longer, pending further discussion, and I hope some reassessment all around. We can't go back to Trayvon Martin, because that one is, actually, incorrect for what this article is - this is not a biography of Trayvon Martin, as I believe we all agree. It is an article about the shooting - and I believe it needs to be clearer that he was killed as result of the shooting, so still prefer Shooting death which I do not find so unconcise as to be ruled out. And despite some people's concern about precedent, precedent is not the determining factor alone in titles, nor is "prefix".

So, I agree with Gaijin that we leave it as is for now, and see if we get more input that persuades us otherwise. Comments that state that one or another title is "the right one" are not really helpful, and policy allows for interpretation here - policy would prevent us from creating a POV title that violates BLP - like "Murder of Trayvon MArtin", although it is certainly possible that circumstances could eventually lead us to that title. But obviously not now, and no one suggested it to be that, and policy would be clearly against it now for obvious reasons. But the other choices are quite far from that, and therefore the policy that requires us to change that title do not apply here. The policy points are subjective - one person sees something as concise, another one does not. There is no absolute right or wrong. So I am in favor of letting it sit at Shooting of Trayvon Martin for now, as is common practice when no consensus is reached, and see what happens.

And a word about how this group has been working together - many of us disagree, and there are some outliers who have been more extreme, but I have to say that by and large even people who do disagree have been working fairly well together, trying to sort this out. I've worked on many other contentious articles, and I think this one is remarkable in how little vitriol has been spilled, and if memory serves, only one brief time of full protection to stop an edit war. Most of the trolling and inappropriate language has come from drive-bys, as is not surprising. but by and large I feel that the group is trying to work things out. This survey is a good example of that.

So please chill out a bit and let the process take care of itself. There is no rush to do anything. Tvoz/talk 20:41, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Not to be combative, but I do find some fault in that 'Taking it to the boards' was a bit out of context leaving the rest of the sentence out and all. We were fine, but I was referencing the recent post with the caps and the cursing. It is proper to go to dispute resolution and seek third party, it is not a threat or in anyway negative. It is fair to seek a third unbiased opinion when things are at an impasse or when things get out of hand. I'd sooner take it to the boards for those reasons then entertain negative ad hom attacks from editors who disagreements raise matters of bigotry against others. If these kinds of attacks become more frequent then that course of action is fair; even if it has been relatively peaceful. It is like how I agree to disagree with Gaijin on as many issues, but we are still respectful to one another; even though I am more talk page heavy then him. Attacking one another should never be condoned or endorsed, I am grateful about the amount of civility going on considering the circumstances of this article topic. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, you're right, I should have quoted your whole sentence, which was I'll bring this before the boards before allowing uncontested arguements rooted in policy are discounted by unsupported personal opinions or numbers of 'votes'. - which doesn't sound to me to be about ad hominem attacks at all. It sounds to me to be about what you had been saying your argument was, which is that your choice is rooted in policy and the other comments are personal opinions and vote-counting.Tvoz/talk 01:00, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I actually think it would be a good idea to get 60 or 70 Wikipedia editors to quickly think about the proper title of this article and see which wins. Like a vote but more like a !vote. Or maybe a ?vote. The reason? People editing the page are looking at the title from the perspective of what they personally think is important about this topic (that a gun was the instrument of death) rather than from the wider issue of what community-wide conventions govern what we name our articles. Since all the arguments have been raised, and people are decided how they think, I think it would be wise to consult a much wider set of people. Just my thoughts. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 23:00, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

It might seem like rushing, but considering that it was originally set to have action on Monday... you might be right. All this talk of concensus this and concensus that has been pushed by the opposing side without countering the strong arguments made; only recently has the 'Death of' section seen a good amount of support (in numbers not arguement) which is now '50/50'. It would be a simple way to settle easily without risking a breakdown of civility. No matter which way this survey goes will undoubtably be contested by the other side. If the matter won't be decided on merits, bring it for third opinion and those who are familiar with that specific issue. I'm sure that a collective decision will help quell the inevitable uproar. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:47, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

As far as I recall, nothing was "set to have action on Monday", although you made that point earlier. One editor (I forget who - was it Sound and Fury?) suggested during a one-day lull in the back and forth that we try for Monday, but then the conversation started up again, and no one set any deadline, because no deadline is necessary. As for "consensus this and consensus that", I'm just laughing - I thought that was the idea. I'm not opposed to getting more opinions, but I don't see this as some kind of apocalyptic moment that requires high-level intervention or an influx of editors stopping by just for this who aren't as familiar with the nuances of the situation, or the possibility of POV pushing for a title change. We've managed pretty well without it so far, and we haven't been edit-warring or fighting too terribly much. I don't really know why you, Chris, are so adamant that the title be changed immediately. As I've said, I'm not particularly in favor of the current title, but I'd rather see it stay as it is for now, than to change it to something that a lot of the editors disagree with. We've had this title since almost the beginning - and it has been stable - so what is the rush to change it about? Seems to me if we don't change it, the "inevitable uproar" you predict won't happen - and if we make a change that we have a real consensus for, then there shouldn't be any uproar because people thought it through and agreed to whatever we go to. Uproar happens when decisions are made high-handedly or ignoring the positions and reasoned arguments of others. Tvoz/talk 01:00, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Civility is waning and I am not one to stand allegations of bigotry, name calling or cursing in the discussion. Even minor misunderstandings are blown out of proportion with threats and not even a single apology given. Given that I've thrice been attacked for upholding policies in other aspects of this article and had one even calling for my blocking do you really expect me to entertain further degradation. Those boards exist for a reason and it is not some 'high-level intervention' and characterizing it and my points of view in a negative light. Last I checked comments like this: "Topics like this do attract a lot of ignorant bigots, and I at least partly mean ignorant in the sense of not knowing the rules here..." is not a term which 'ignorance' is really applied it still stands that at least some of us are 'bigots' because of our stance. Even an implied allegation is offensive to me. I rather get a third party to handle matters if this is the direction in which the discussion goes; simple as that. Last I checked, DR is not binding, at least not at that 'level'. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:35, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Given the contentious nature of the topic, waiting the full 7 days on this name change discussion seems reasonable. VQuakr (talk) 20:12, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

7 days have passed, more so since the first discussion started. I think the time has come to close this. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:23, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

OK - again, I also see no particular reason to rush this decision as VQuakr said, but it is clear that we still have no consensus, and no consensus, as per policy cited above, means stay with the title that has been stable for a long time which is Shooting of Trayvon Martin at least for now. (And please note, this is not my preferred title, nor is it my second choice, so I am not pushing for what I want - I am just going with policy, which is no change.) The fact is there was no groundswell movement here asking for a title change in the first place - the subject was raised, people voiced their reasons for preferring one or another or for opposing one or another, and the resulting discussion showed that people didn't reach an agreement. But since this title has remained stable, I think we can move on, leaving it intact, and focus our energies on working on the article. Tvoz/talk 17:22, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Seems strange that this naming issue was not as obvious to all those other people as it was to me and those who agreed with me. I bet everyone is thinking the same thing. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 18:49, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd say so. Tvoz/talk 00:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

7 Days have passed and input has fallen off. I strongly contest the finding of 'no consensus' mention from Tvoz. Several very important policy related matters and issues of precedent remain. One who is involved should not close this and the arguments should be weighed by someone uninvolved. Anything less would have issues of neutrality, either way. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:22, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't "close" it, Chris, I merely stated where it is apparent we have been for days - not agreeing. This is not the title I think would be best for the article, as I said, so I don't know how you figure a problem of "neutrality". Right, I don't agree with you or your pronouncement of what the "correct" title is, but neither did others - there was no agreement on any of the choices, so policy says we stay with the stable title we've had for a long time. I don't see how any other conclusion can be drawn, nor do I see why this is being approached as some kind of major issue that must be adjudicated. Tvoz/talk 03:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not that we aren't agreeing, it's that those who have opposed Death of Trayvon Martin (the title with most support at this point) have stopped debating. Just about every reason given for opposing that title has been rebutted in the survey above and there has been no attempt by anyone to counter those rebuttals. Instead the thread has turned woefully off topic and we aren't even discussing the original intent anymore. The only reason the title hasn't been changed at this point is because the topic is still in the news and people want to politicize the shooting. Plenty of reasons have been given why those titles violate wikipedia policy, but I have yet to hear anything remotely valid about why those reason are wrong and why this article sets a precedent for new naming criteria? Redredryder (talk) 04:13, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Article name should be "The shooting death of Trayvon Martin"

Current name is not precise enough. 98.118.62.140 (talk) 05:41, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

There was a pretty lengthy debate about this already. See further up the 'talk' page. If it is going to be altered for that reason, it should be to "The fatal shooting of..." because "shooting death" sounds awkward and clumsy. However, I think it is fine the way it is. The title does not need to tell the whole story, and the very first paragraph of the entry makes it clear that Martin died following the shooting.Zetrock (talk) 06:00, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

As Zetrock says, there was a lengthy debate about this and consensus is the current name for now. I understand your point, but we've had similar namings for other shooting-death incidents too. This is more a manual of style issue than it is an ideological one. For example, 2011 Tucson shooting, and Fort Hood Shooting. For most school shootings we seem to use the term "massacre", see, e.g., Virginia Tech massacre, Columbine High School massacre, and Dunblane school massacre. As a general rule, we tend to call things what they are rather than what their consequences were. In other words, we call the bombings bombings (even though people die) (e.g. 2008 Danish embassy bombing in Islamabad), or don't (e.g. 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt), and more general attacks "attacks" (September 11 attacks), and shootings "shootings". The school articles are a bit of an exception. Shadowjams (talk) 06:18, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Must we argue this again? It hasn't even been reviewed and closed by a third party. Despite wide policy support of 'Death of' in both argument and individual views I think the current title is not one to stay as it has been questionable for so long now. Also in one on one cases, 'Death of' is the norm for shootings, not 'Shooting of' as in the case of public icons, private citizens, military figures and even assassinations. Like Death of Osama bin Laden is not Shooting of Osama bin Laden. Convention is 'Death of' not 'Shooting of' where the participant dies.ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't have time to read the entire talk page. When will the name be changed to "Death of...."? Also, I see that some biased editor is determined to keep introducing problematic NPOV bias into the main info box. As of the time I am leaving this comment, the info box states: George Zimmerman (shooter); Trayvon Martin (victim). The net effect of using this term, in conjunction with the misleading title, is to represent Martin as a "victim" of a "shooting." It is important to indicate that Martin died; however, identifying Martin a "victim" of a "shooting" is not appropriate when there is not yet sufficient evidence to know with a reasonable certainty Martin was a victim. In addition to supporting a title change, I propose this language be used in the info box: George Zimmerman (shooter); Trayvon Martin (decedent). 72.37.249.60 (talk) 14:25, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a problem with 'victim'. From all accounts, even George himself considers Trayvon a victim, despite his statement that he had to act in self-defense, his family and friends all say the same thing. They tell us that George is deeply emotional over the shooting. So who claims Trayvon Martin is not a victim, whether it is merely a victim of circumstance or of being too young or anything else? -- Avanu (talk) 14:52, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Referring to Martin as a victim is completely appropiate and not biased. It is no different than saying someone was a "victim of an automobile accident" or a "victim of an airplane crash". Considering that Zimmerman has admitted to shooting Martin, that is sufficient evidence to know with a reasonable certainty that Martin is indeed a victim of that shooting.--Isaidnoway (talk) 16:48, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Martin would only be a victim if he didn't initiate an assault on Zimmerman and if Zimmerman wasn't acting in self defense. What actually happened according to the evidence remains to be determined by the State Attorney or court. Saying that Martin is a victim seems biased because it asserts that he is innocent of any criminal assault, which hasn't been determined. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

When a kid darts out into the street and is run over, he is never referred to as a victim. "Victim of being run over"? Victim requires proof of innocence. We do not have that here. There is conjecture but no proof of innocense.True Observer (talk) 16:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

A victim does not imply a crime. It is a sysnonym for "the subject of an unfortunate incident/event/disease"

• accidental drowning victim
• car accident victim
• car accident victim
• accidental shooting victim
• accidental fall victim
• self defense shooting victim -trayvon -zimmerman
• accidental poisoning victim
• fire victim
• disease victim
• cancer victim

Gaijin42 (talk) 17:29, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

In each of the above examples, the person is assumed to be innocent of wrongdoing. A "victim of fate".True Observer (talk) 17:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

As a follow up, Whitney Houston died of accidental or intentional overdose or drowning and yet is never referred to as a victim. The best that can be said is she was a victim of her lifestyle. (implies that she was innocent).

Also, why the effort to contort the English Language. Since when do people go out of their way to refer to all of the above as "victims"? You do not see such usage in either written or spoken English. A person dies or is injured in an auto accident. When was the last time you heard anyone refer to such a person as a victim of an auto accident? True Observer (talk) 17:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

double check *self defense shooting victim -trayvon -zimmerman then, which is direclty analagous to this situation, and shows that the dead person is quite often refered to as a victim even when the shooter claims self defense. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:59, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Most all of the cites refer to some headline on a story. Headline writers specialize in using abbreviations to stir up interest in the story. The only real reference to victim is the quote from Peoria County State's Attorney who refers to a person as a homicide victim. But careful analysis shows that he is just making a laundry list. I.e. homicide victims, burglary victims, etc. All of this begs the question, why is victim used in the first place? Why even say "victim". What purpose does it serve? The question answers itself.True Observer (talk) 20:29, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The context in which victim is used in describing Martin's death in this instance (one who is harmed or killed by another) does not imply that any criminal activity was involved with either party in this shooting. Regardless of whether criminal activity is involved in a shooting or not, the person who dies as a result of that shooting is still a victim. In this instance, "victim" does not have a fixed salient legal meaning nor is one implied.--Isaidnoway (talk) 18:21, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

It all depends on whether or not Martin was perpetrating the crime of assault when he was shot. Saying he was a victim means he was not. --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

You seem to be under the impression that calling Martin a victim implies he wasn't involved in criminal activity and if he was involved in criminal activity, it implies he is no longer a victim. Like I stated earlier, the context in which victim is used in describing Martin's death in this instance (one who is harmed or killed by another) does not imply that any criminal activity was involved with either party in this shooting. In this instance, "victim" does not have a fixed salient legal meaning nor is one implied. We should not be making judgement calls as to whether criminal activity or the lack of is somehow a determining factor in describing someone who died as a direct result of a fatal gunshot, a victim.--Isaidnoway (talk) 23:22, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, let's see how you apply your notions to other situations. If a bank robber is in a shootout with police and is shot dead before he is about to kill hostages, would you call the bank robber a victim? --Bob K31416 (talk) 06:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The victim/shooter shouldn't even be necessary in the info box (can anyone find a link to another article that does it like this?) if we have a clear and concise title for the article, which incidentally is what this topic is supposed to be about. Redredryder (talk) 04:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• "Every aspect of both the shooter and the victim will be looked at and analyzed as it relates to the evidence in this case," quote from state attorney Angela Corey.--Isaidnoway (talk) 06:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

That's a good quote! Could you give the link to it? --Bob K31416 (talk) 07:02, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about that, my eyelids were failing me when I found that, it came from CNN. And I do get what you're saying about that word, it is one of those generic words that has several different meanings, but my contention is that it depends on how you use the word. You have to look at the context of how it was used. The most common usage is describing someone who became a "victim of a crime". It also denotes someone who has been taken advantage of, "victim of a scam". It can also be used to describe someone who has died, regardless of the circumstances--like these, Martin was the "victim of a shooting". As far as your bank robber is concerned, if he engaged in a shootout with the police and was killed in that shootout, yeah, he too could be described as a "victim of a police shootout". I don't think that just because a person was involved in a criminal act and he was the perpretrator of that crime, that it necessarily excludes him from being called a victim if he dies as result of commiting that crime.--Isaidnoway (talk) 13:37, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Saying that the bank robber is a victim of a police shootout implies he was shot without good cause, which is a misrepresentation of the situation. I think you're reaching on that and the bank robber should definitely not be referred to as a victim.

In the case of Trayvon Martin it's not clear and I think we have to go with the consensus of the articles, whatever that may be. Angela Corey's recent remark was probably made after she had decided to prosecute, so her referring to Martin as the victim would be consistent with a prosecutor's position as an advocate of Zimmerman's guilt. So I don't think we should side with the prosecution and refer to Martin as the victim, unless it can be shown that a consensus of RS's refer to him as the victim. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:50, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

If I read your scenario right, a bank robber was holding hostages and was about to shoot one when he was engaged in a shootout with police which caused his death. I said he could be called a victim of a police shootout and you think that it implies he was shot without good cause? If you just take that phrase "victim of a police shootout", I might agree with you, but when you read the whole scenario, the context is clear that he was shot for good cause. This is my point--context. Same logic applies here, you have to look at the context in which it was used.--Isaidnoway (talk) 17:15, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Criminologist Marvin E. Wolfgang referred to the deceased in self-defense justifiable homicides as "victim offender" or VO for short. Victim does not necessarily imply innocence. --Naaman Brown (talk) 14:56, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Closing the discussion

• Search of "Shooting of" (see [8]) shows that redirects cited in the move request owe to fame or political status of victims (JFK, Lennon. Martin Luther King). The majority of cases on Wikipedia of fatal shootings of lesser known people have no such such redirects:

-BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant,

-Shooting of Kayla Rolland,

-2009 shootings of Oakland police officers,

-Shooting of the Romanov family (probably should be "Execution"),

-Shooting of Hosie Miller,

-Fatal police shooting of Joseph Erin Hamley.

As such, the premise for moving this article is demonstrably false. Furthermore, since no consensus for a rename or redirect exists after a long discussion , I recommend closing the discussion and leaving the title as is. --soulscanner (talk) 04:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• The majority of cases of lesser known people that were shot to death are also titled with the prefix Death of.

*Death of Jean Charles de Menezes

*Death of John Ward

*Death of Kent Leppink

*Death of Victoria Snelgrove

*Death of Maxwell Itoya

*Death of Fadhel Al-Matrook

*Death of Ali Abdulhadi Mushaima

*Death of Donald P. Scott

*Death of Seyed Ali Mousavi

*Death of Neda Agha-Soltan

*Death of Jennifer Ann Crecente

*Death of Jamal al-Sharaabi

*Death of Harry Stanley

*Death of Asel Asleh

I'm sure I can find more if I look but I think I proved my point. And the argument regarding "fame" isn't a very good one because it forces people to make assumptions. Also, I wouldn't exactly say the Romanovs were lacking in fame or political power considering they were the ruling dynasty of Russia at the time. Redredryder (talk) 06:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• Isn't it time to stop arguing about this and let it stand? We've been around and around, and have not come to an agreement. There is no hard and fast policy that insists we go by the number of other articles that have one or another title - the current, stable title, which was not my preference, fits the standards laid out about titles, so I think it's time to stop this and move on. There are many actual problems in the article that need attention, such as how to weed out material that is repetitive, out-of-date, and otherwise in need of improvement - we are wasting time and energy arguing about a title which is accurate and clear, if not everyone's concept of perfect, including mine. Continuing to argue it is getting to be disruptive, in my opinion. Please let it go - we can always revisit this sometime down the road. The fact is that now that there is a charge of murder, we could certainly be discussing whether that would be the more appropriate title. Do you want to have that conversation now? Tvoz/talk 07:29, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• I could find more articles with "Shootings" in them, but what would that serve? It would nly confirm that either title is perfectly legitimate. I also agree that it may now be the time to change the same "Murder trial of George Zimmerman" or something like that. --soulscanner (talk) 08:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• I'd say we've shown that both titles are completely legitimate. That means there is no good reason to change it. I agree that belabouring the point when there is not clear consensus on moving the article really gets nowhere. WP:TITLECHANGES is clear: If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed. . On this policy basis, I recommend closing the discussion. --soulscanner (talk) 08:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

  Six weeks is not a long time, especially when there has been various talk page discussion of what the title should be for a substantial fraction of that time. I agree though that it would be good to try and wrap this up. Dragons flight (talk) 09:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It's been wrapped up several times, but some people are not willing to accept anything other than Death of, the title they are sure is the "correct" one. I'll accept sticking with Shooting of for now, as I've said, to end this - but my next suggestion, not facetiously, will be Murder of Trayvon Martin. Murder charges have been filed, there are dozens of articles using this prefix (since that seems to be so important to some people), and that title is recognizable, natural, precise, concise, and consistent - all five characteristics that are our goals in seeking a title. So what now? Continuing the conversation is ok with me, but I'll be talking about why Murder of is appropriate, and see where it goes now that the circumstances have changed, as we said a couple of weeks ago could happen. Or we can close this now, stick with the stable Shooting of a while longer, and re-visit this when some more time has passed. Tvoz/talk 23:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm appalled at how circular the reasoning is on this point. Trayvon was shot. Trayvon is dead. The event under discussion is The shooting death of Travyon Martin. To deny this is to deny an obvious impartial truth. 98.118.62.140 (talk) 04:45, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, well, I tried for that one earlier. Tvoz/talk 04:48, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

"Murder of" is unacceptable until after a conviction - possibly even after that as there will likely be a lengthy appeals process that could change the ultimate resolution of the case. Additionally very few murder cases actually make it to trial, there are quite often plea bargins, and this one could easy go down to manslaughter. In any case, there is no finding of fact that a murder occurred, only a charge of such by the prosecutor. It is inherently obvious that we still do not have consensus for any particular change, so WP:STATUSQUO. I have doubts consensus will be able to be gained on a title change (to any title), until people get bored and move on from this article, which may be some time. I think there is wide support for a variety of titles, unfortunately there is also wide opposition to them as well. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:26, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

At the risk of labeling it as such, this seems to be a matter of WP:DE. Consensus is not based on votes, numbers or anything like that. WP:VOTE is pretty clear on it. It is highly disruptive to procedure that the side with the strongest arguments have those arguments dismissed repeatedly on grounds of 'consensus' when said arguments have not been even replied to or even hinted that the argument could be wrong. WP:CONLIMITED may apply because, "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale" This applies to two arguments. The validity of the 'Death of' and the matter of WP:CRITERIA and WP:CONSENSUS especially given that, "Consensus arising from a rational discussion based on policy and common sense is the Wikipedia ideal." Discussion has taken place, but the arguments have never been countered and the matter has been sitting in limbo for more then a week. Only to be dismissed despite the editor of the opposing side never actually addressing the concerns related to the viewpoint which they still stand on, and instead trying to interpret a policy to keep the original despite arguments against it being the same as 'Shooting Death of' I am going to move that either discussion on the presented arguments takes place from the 'Shooting Death of' and 'Shooting of' side either state their case or we bring this to the dispute resolution board. Under WP:GAME this several matters are of concern which should be mentioned if it does go to DR. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Chris, I respect you as an editor, but you have a severe case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. It is your opinion that other peoples arguments are not persuasive enough. That is a fine opinion to have, but it doesn't mean you win. There is no consensus. Including no consensus for keeping the current title. Your opinion that people did not make persuasive enough arguments is --- your opinion. This is clearly not WP:DE, unless "you didn't agree with me" qualifies. A very wide variety of people have agreed that we do not have consensus. A telling point is that people who do not agree with each other on practically any other point agree on the lack of consensus. THose same editors have expressed a variety of arguments about which titles they would prefer or think best meet policy. that is the very proof of no consensus' The people are all over the board. Take it to DR if you must, but I think you are the one playing the game here. Onus is on you to show that there is consensus for a change, not for us to show that there isn't consensus. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

What is the significance of having one title instead of the others? I may be missing something but is the difference in the titles sufficiently significant to make the effort to change? I don't ask these questions to argue; I'm just honestly wondering what I am missing with respect to significance. Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:26, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

A proper title should reflect the guidelines of WP:TITLE. Considering this more then just a shooting and has moved well past the point that any context of 'Shooting' allows and under said policy that 'Shooting Death of' not be its replacement. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:06, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

♣ A rose by any other name would smell as sweet... -_- . ArishiaNishi (talk) 06:16, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

A rose was referred to by name as 'Red Thorny Weed' it would still smell sweet, but just like Dandelion in Chinese literally translates to "flower that grows in public spaces by the riverside" it is far from romantic. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:05, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Gaijin, based on arguments made how do I have a case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, is for, "In some cases, editors have perpetuated disputes by sticking to an allegation or viewpoint long after the consensus of the community has rejected it, repeating it almost without end, and refusing to acknowledge others' input." If there is no concensus then this doesn't clearly apply, as I am calling for discussion or dispute resolution because the 'Death of' arguments have been ignored, not that I am trying to force a change. Not acting to try and repeatedly force WP:STATUSQUO would be actually WP:STONEWALL. Why am I the subject of such scrutiny, many editors attack me because of TheDarkLordSeth's comments and I am quite upset that despite said bias being utterly and completely false! I do not know why it continues to be a matter when my stance is over here or over there I get attacked on BOTH sides. You cannot have a bias on both sides because that's neutral. I've posted the RfC below. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:06, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Chris, Thanks for reminding me about the policy WP:TITLE. I read it carefully and it was very informative. I'd recommend that all the editors here read it over carefully. The policy didn't conclusively differentiate between the titles considered here. Considering the present status of this discussion, I think the second paragraph of the section Considering title changes is most apt. That policy suggests to me that the present title should be kept, the other titles should be redirected to the article, and editors should heed the following advice from that policy.

"Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia."

--Bob K31416 (talk) 15:02, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:TITLE has WP:CRITERIA which directly refers to it. Though last I checked, I've done several hundred other edits unrelated to this page recently and another 300-500 expected edits in the next 48 hours. So I have plenty of other stuff on my plate, though I am largely taking a break from this page during the process. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:22, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Request edit 4/10/12

The statement "While in custody at the police station, Zimmerman was not administered a drug or alcohol test." is not pertinent as Zimmerman was not placed under arrest so he was not required to submit to a drug or an alcohol test. "Except for DUIs, police cannot test suspects for drugs or alcohol, unless the accused demands or consents to it, or they get a warrant". Source: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/middle-class-guy/2012/mar/20/trayvon-martin-case-and-legal-experts/ 68.3.103.157 (talk) 19:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)AndyB

At the very least, it should be included to balance out that statement. I wondered how long it was going to be before someone else realized that and reported on it. That statement does imply that the police were incompetent and ABC reported it under that guise. Zimmerman was never formally arrested or charged, so all the PD could do was "request" the test, which we will probably find out they did.--Isaidnoway (talk) 19:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, but is there possibly a better source? The blog is not the Washington Times piece it is an opinion post on the communities section. Also he glances over the alleged word entirely for the racial epithet part. Other issues abound. A better source for the statement noting how it applies to Zimmerman would be ideal. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree it is not the best source, I have actually been searching since ABC first put that statement out, to me it was just so glaringly obvious, I couldn't believe that nobody in the media didn't catch it either. I will keep searching.--Isaidnoway (talk) 20:12, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

• The only RS I could find was this one. It quotes the Washington Times article, incidentally the author of that article is a retired Chicago police forensic investigator.--Isaidnoway (talk) 07:00, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

In support of my argument to include his statement; WP:IRS Reliable sources may be...authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject [alcohol/drug testing/legality]. Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements asserted as fact without an inline qualifier like "(Author) says...".

I would argue that a former Police Forensic Investigator would be knowledgeable about the legalities concerning administering alcohol/drug testing to a person who has not been formally arrested or charged.

In my searching, I also found this source quoting Sgt. Morgenstern from the SPD stating Zimmerman's clothes were recovered the night of the shooting.--Isaidnoway (talk) 15:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't really get the relevance of this to be honest. The fact that the suspect either needs to consent or they need to get a warrant hardly seems surprising to anyone with a basic understanding of the law (it occured to me early on and I don't even live in the US). This doesn't really directly address the criticism of the fact Zimmerman wasn't tested, as it's not stating it was impossible for for such a test to be carried out. It's unclear if they even asked (remember since he claimed self defence, unless he was actually on something he may have consented), and if they did and he denied it whether it was possible for them to get a warrant but they didn't. More relevant criticism would be whether it's normal or routine to test a suspect in a case like this, but this isn't addressed by the source. (Personally I suspect not, since there was no indication at the time usage of either by Zimmerman may have played a factor in his. Heck there's still no indication now. For this reason, they may not have been able to get a warrant. But the fact they needed a warrant if he didn't consent is still largely irrelevant if they didn't either try, or decided against trying because they didn't believe they could get a warrant.) To put it a different way, the question is 'should they have (or tried to have) him tested' and perhaps 'was it possible to have him tested' (the issue here being unless they actually tried, there's no way they could know for sure) not 'how easy was it for them to have him tested'? Nil Einne (talk) 03:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Investigation of the death of Trayvon Martin to this article

Template:Merge discussion As a content fork, this seems unnecessary. Length issues at Shooting of Trayvon Martin should be solved editorially; I think multiple encyclopedia articles on this topic is premature at best. More significantly, having multiple overlapping articles amplifies the WP:BLP problems and the overall difficulty of maintaining neutrality for such a contentious topic. For these reasons I propose that Investigation of the death of Trayvon Martin be merged into this article. VQuakr (talk) 04:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support - 100% agree that a merge is needd. I do think we might need a split at some point, but I also think that needs to be something arrived at by consensus here, since this is the primary article. -- Avanu (talk) 04:58, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support I was not aware this existed. It has some good points, but it should be merged to this one article. Improper to have two articles at this time. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:00, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Right now we have no way to tell if the investigation will even be newsworthy in 10 years time. At this point in time that article should be merged with this one. Redredryder (talk) 05:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Keep as child, rename? The SPD investigation has a much narrower focus. We need a a section/child just on the original SPD investigation prior Mar 22. May retitle initial investigation to make scope clear clear. --HectorMoffet (talk) 09:06, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support One article. Things are about to change dramatically when the state attorney announces her decision, hopefully with a detailed rationale. I predict this will happen within 3 weeks. Intrepid (talk) 13:50, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support May require some sort of Timeline subarticle at some point, but for now it should be limited to one article to avoid the addition of too much superfluous information. ~Ttony21^{(talk, contribs)} 13:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support One article, where readers can reference all the comprehensive coverage related to all the aspects of both the case and the aftermath of the case.--Isaidnoway (talk) 14:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Too much duplication. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:34, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Too early to have separate articles. --Mt6617 (talk) 15:59, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support No need to have two separate articles. TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 17:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support I was not aware this was created despite consistent agreement to stick to one article at this point. — DocOfSoc • Talk • 21:00, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Well duh.--JOJ ^Hutton 22:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Only one article is needed. Dreammaker182 (talk) 02:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support No need for two articles on same subject. Recommend consensus be reached and discussed on main page before opening new forks. This will be helped by a project page. --soulscanner (talk) 02:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support No need for a second article. I agree with Soulscanner's and ChrisGualtieri's arguments. ArishiaNishi (talk) 05:06, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support and speedy close per WP:SNOW. Merge advantageous per WP:SUMMARY and for avoidance of content forking. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 11:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support This is in the news now, but I really doubt it will have the sort of long-term notability required to justify two separate articles, which just makes finding relevant information more difficult anyway. --JonathonSimister (talk) 16:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
• Tally: 16 support merge, 1 oppose merge. -Stevertigo (t | c) 23:06, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Yes, the subject isn't distinct enough to warrant a separate section. While certain sections may justify being broken out, this one is probably the least useful one to be separate. Shadowjams (talk) 22:13, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Usual media hysteria influencing various Wikipedia editors. Merge all. In ten years, we will barely remember the participants. Event of the moment being treated as the "story of the century." Listening to tv too much. They are excused for trying to sell air time. We don't have that excuse! Student7 (talk) 00:19, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Too much redundancy to justify duplicating information in this article. Should be merged. Yaf (talk) 05:36, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Here we go again :(

Similar or not?[9] I am sure it is going to come up here at some point, so we may as well start figuring it out.--Mt6617 (talk) 01:47, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Incredible. Certainly similar. Summary: In Phoenix, a man shot and killed a mentally disabled man at a Taco Bell when he thought he was being threatened with a pipe. The pipe was not found and it was reported that he was only threatened with a fist and a dog leash attached to a yellow lab. The shooter has not been arrested yet per Arizona's Stand Your Ground Law. Intrepid (talk) 02:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I actually followed this link, and appreciate the info, but this isn't supposed to be a forum for similar topics.--soulscanner (talk) 04:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

FYI, from WP:NOR.

"To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented."

Since the source does not mention the Trayvon Martin case, it is not directly related to the topic of this Wikipedia article. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I did not ask for it to be incldued in the article, in fact I don't think it should. I brought it up because it is similar, someone is going to try and make a court case about here on the talk page, and we can be prepared for that when it occurs. Simple at that. --Mt6617 (talk) 18:19, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

And we'll close it down. Nothing to prepare for - it's just one more irrelevance. Tvoz/talk 02:30, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Murder trial of George Zimmerman

WP:BOLD I know, but I think this is what will be getting most of the attention from now on. --soulscanner (talk) 05:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I think it is premature to title a section "Trial." There is no indication that there will ever be a trial, and an article should not predict the future course of events. A more accurate title at this point would be "Prosecution of..." -Zetrock (talk) 07:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, Trial is permature. Changed header. --soulscanner (talk) 08:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

In a news conference, the Special Prosecuter Corey said that bringing charges against Zimmerman was NOT politically motivated, which, to those of us who have been following the case, is obviously a blatant lie. Does anybody know the particulars of how her office works internally, who gives directives (whether stated or implied) to pursue certain cases, etc.? Did the political manouvres go all the way up to the Governor's office? I assume she thinks this is the Big Case that's going to get her national attention to allow her to pursue her political ambitions. This case is so screwed up that now it looks like they're going to lynch George Zimmerman. It's certainly revealing a lot about the machinations in our criminal justice system. Oops, I think I started editorializing. 108.237.241.88 (talk) 08:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Seems that everyone is. Feel free to remove your post if you are so inclined. It looks to me that the politics came in when the son of a judge wasn't even charged and the self-defense claim accepted simply on Zimmerman's word. --soulscanner (talk) 11:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

To clarify: Zimmerman's lawyers would only have to prove by a "preponderence of the evidence" (a relatively low legal standard) at a pretrial hearing that Zimmerman acted in self defense to prevent the case from going to trial. 108.237.241.88 (talk) 09:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Could go either way. The fact that he stalked then pursued a fleeing man after being told not to by the police will give any judge a dim view of that defense. Judges don't like when someone disregards instructions from the police. On the other hand, his father is a judge. If the judge is a friend of the family, who knows what they'll decide. --soulscanner (talk) 11:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

He is a magistrate, not a judge. And in a case this visible, if he did have a relationship, he would certainly recuse himself, because any connection will certainly come out in the media, and get him recalled/impeached. Gaijin42 (talk) 12:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• I totally disagree with this bold assertion that a prosecution has already started in this case. Zimmerman has not even had his "first appearance" before a judge. After he makes a first appearance, the judge will read the charges to him and advise him on his right to counsel and determine whether a bond should be granted or not. Then an arraignment will follow where he is allowed to plead guilty or not guilty. Zimmerman is then entitled to a pre-trial evidentiary hearing to determine whether the case will even go forward. None of this has even happened and yet you assume that a prosecution will take place.

It is important to remember that in our justice system, even when someone is arrested and charged, they are still afforded the presumption of innocence. Saying that a prosecution has already started is totally bias against Zimmerman and should be removed.--Isaidnoway (talk) 12:46, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

He absolutely has a presumption of innocence, but facts are not prejudicial. He is charged, he is under arrest. That is prosecution. The prosecutor made the decision to charge him. The trial has not started yet. WP:PERP and WP:BLP protections do apply, but at this point I think WP:WELLKNOWN overrides, based on the amount of coverage this case is getting. We should absolutely be careful not to indicate guilt, but trying to say repeating the facts is prejudicial means the entire article should be deleted. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:10, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The only thing that has happened in this case so far is that the state attorney has filed information before a judge who determined that probable cause existed to issue a warrant for his arrest and he be charged, he has since been arrested and is in custody. Zimmerman has not even been officially called before a court and been officially informed of the offense charged in the information and asked to enter a plea. He is also entitled to file a motion to dismiss and request an evidentiary hearing to be conducted to determine whether the case should even proceed. A preliminary hearing has not even been conducted to determine if there is probable cause to bound him over for a trial. Even RS are just reporting he has been charged with 2nd degree murder. We should follow the process that Zimmerman is allowed through the legal system and report it as such. At this point in the case, the defendant [Zimmerman] is still awaiting prosecution.--Isaidnoway (talk) 15:18, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I would support revrting the section title back to investigation, and create a new section called "Charges" or some such, and move the few lines we have down into that. see Jesus C. Gonzalez for a similar article that I broke down into the various sections of how the case evolved. (Although in that case, there was not the public notice as much, so the case itself was the source of all the info. In this instance we do have a lot of non case related info, and doing the same level of case detail as the Jesus article may be unbalanced. (Although I could see a fork with that level of info, if notability stays high) Gaijin42 (talk) 15:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I would support this approach as well. That was a good example you provided and that is what I meant when I said we should just "follow the process". The way you broke down the Gonzalez case into individual sections to describe what happened during that case would be warranted in this case as well, since we are now into legal proceedings. Good call.--Isaidnoway (talk) 15:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I am bit confused by the above, however if you are speaking of adding a section to the article covering the arrest and prosecution of George Zimmerman, then I think it should be added. An appropriate title may be Charges, Arrest, and Prosecution Procedure of George Zimmerman . And then only list VERIFIED facts about the same. Such as comments made by the State Attorney, comments by GZ's Attorney, maybe a sub-section on Florida Law, first appearance, arraignment, bond, etc. A time line like someone has done for the main article may be helpful. BTW, I like the timeline... done well. --Mt6617 (talk) 14:55, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Definition of prosecute:[10]

1. Law

a. To initiate civil or criminal court action against.

b. To seek to obtain or enforce by legal action.

I looks like that is what's happening now, so a section title "Prosecution of George Zimmerman" would be OK from that consideration. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:50, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I just think it is premature to call this a prosecution when Zimmerman has not even been afforded the due course of law provided to defendants by appearing before a competent court of jurisdiction and having the charges officially presented to him. Even the state attorney must follow the due course of law to begin an official and legal prosecution against a defendant. So far, she has only established there was probable cause for an arrest. As far as whether she can proceed to prosecute him on the charge has yet to be determined by a court of law. I think we should let the court's do their job and we should follow the process from their standpoint.--Isaidnoway (talk) 16:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It looks to me that the prosecution started when Corey formally charged him,[11] according to the definition in my previous message. If the court decides that it shouldn't go to trial, then that's when the prosecution ends. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, WP:BLPCRIME, WP:VICTIM. Let's not complicate the matter and go off the deep end. I'd still opt for 'Death of Trayvon Martin' as the case will relate to the 'Death of Trayvon Martin' and even with a charges of 2nd degree murder. Much like the Casey Anthony case where the charge of murder didn't stick. For neutrality we should keep neutrality and not respond to the charges. This article is as much about what happened and its results then about a trial which hasn't even begun. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I would support 'Death of Trayvon Martin' for the section title and then just follow the process and let the court's do their job and then include the RS information that flows out of that process. Calling it a murder trial or prosecution seems a little premature.--Isaidnoway (talk) 18:04, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Most importantly because there is no trial yet. It is a pre-trial hearing to find whether or not a case can be brought forth at all. The burden of proof to assert Zimmerman's ill-will and intentions are great while the defense only has to have a preponderance of self-defense. This is far from a trial point. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:19, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I think Gaijin42 presented a really good example in Jesus C. Gonzalez up above in how to proceed. We have to follow the court's direction and maintain a NPOV.--Isaidnoway (talk) 18:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry! I was putting for article title, rather then section. Agreed with Gaijin. Didn't mean to confuse, my placement was poor.ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:41, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Seems like there are two discussions going on here: one for the article title and one for a section title. I was just commenting on the one regarding having a section of the article titled "Prosecution of George Zimmerman", which I thought was OK. It looks like the original message that started this section was regarding the article title. In that case I don't think "Prosecution" etc for the article title would be appropriate at this stage. --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

My position is that I do not support the "section" title of prosecution at this time. It is premature and I didn't see a consensus reached on this title, but rather a bold assertion that this is what the section should be called.--Isaidnoway (talk) 19:11, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Clarified above, restating here. I support Gaijin's suggestion. Anything to prevent incorrectly attributing the current legal stance in the current legal phase. Prosecution should come if it goes to trial and then when the Prosecution lays out their arguments. Same would go for Defense. As we are not yet on that point. 'Charges' or something neutral must be chosen. Article title should be 'Death of Trayvon Martin' under convention as discussed previously. Sorry for my earlier confusion. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It is not premature to label this as a prosecution. The prosecutor filed charges. That means Zimmerman is being prosecuted. It does not mean he will be prosecuted, he already is. If the charges were tossed during the arriagnment, that does not mean Zimmerman was not prosecuted, it just means the prosecution ended when the charges were tossed during the arraignment. 95% of cases never make it to trial and that absolutely does not mean that the defendants were not prosecuted; it means the cases were plead out or tossed before trial. If you are implying that there is a colloquial meaning of prosecution that might be misleading to a layperson reader, I guess there is an argument for that. But in terms of accuracy of the language, prosecution is absolutely the correct term for the current procedural posture and not a premature label. Zetrock (talk) 06:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The accuracy of the language is not in dispute as to when the prosecution starts and ends. Prosecution is also often used to refer to the state attorney and is generally considered referenced when the state presents their case against a defendant at trial. At the time when the section was titled "the prosecution of Zimmerman", there was one sentence that stated he had been arrested and was in custody and the accompanying paragraphs in the section stated that he had not been charged and there was no grounds to arrest him and a grand jury would be convened, etc. all dated material that did not support the section title. I understand the editors intention, but in this instance, it was premature for that title.--Isaidnoway (talk) 13:54, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

An alternative to using a section title with the word "prosecution" would be using the title of the legal case that is specified in the formal charges, "State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman".[12] The section would start with the formal charges. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:20, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

That is a good suggestion worth considering. Although I think it will probably end up being the final title when all is said and done in this case, either way, I would support it.--Isaidnoway (talk) 16:34, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed that in the article there is a section Court proceedings which seems to be doing the job OK. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:08, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Mike Tyson says suprised Zimmerman not shot/dragged from home yet

Interview before prosecution, and probably not notable/important enough, but I thought I would link it for completion. Could fit in with the spike lee etc calls for vigilantism etc.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/mike-tyson-sex-drugs-trayvon-martin-222803402.html Gaijin42 (talk) 14:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I was not using a forum ,I made a clear suggestion of where the information might be useful in the article. If you disagree, feel free to make a comment, but don't take unilateral action. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:10, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Re "probably not notable/important enough" — Sounds like you're saying it shouldn't be in the article, so I think that may have prompted the "not a forum" action by another editor. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:11, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The WP:FORUM thing is more about 'i like puppies' or 'ooh did you guys see this. Zim's a bad man' rather then actually looking at material and asking whether or not it could be included. As the source is a blog and Mike Tyson may be notable, but is he not involved in the case and his comments are not suitable. Just because a notable person makes a statement about something else doesn't mean it should be put in just because we can attribute it. If Mike Tyson likes pie we shouldn't put a bit on the article on pies saying 'Mike Tyson likes this pie!'. Same applies here. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I feel it should be added. Mike Tyson is a notable individual. We included statements by other notable individuals. It is definitely part of the "aftermath". Now... saying that I have not checked the link, and assume it is accurate as no one is debating that. However, if is an accurate, reliable, source... it should be included. --Mt6617 (talk) 01:26, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

In no way should this be included. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not TMZ (website). Redredryder (talk) 04:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I think if this is presented properly, it could potentially be included. If you look at the totality of Tyson's quote, you see a much more diverse statement than just "Zim should have been shot". As with many other people involved in this case, Tyson has mixed feelings. On one hand, he expresses a regret that it happened, and he acknowledges that he wasn't a witness to it, so he can't say for sure what happened. At the same time, Tyson recognizes that the United States, while being an example to the world, still has laws that would embarrass even the least civilized nations. He acknowledges peacegful methods of protest, and then off the cuff, his more base and vengeful insticts kick in for a moment as he suggests we simply shoot or drag him to death. In one interview, Tyson expresses a complexity of emotions and reactions that span nearly the breadth of the entire crowd of spectators. As I say, presented along with other similar material, and supporting sources, this could show how conflicted some people are between a desire be become civil while still a savage lies within us. And that, my fellow editors, would be a neutral tone and be acceptable for this article. -- Avanu (talk) 05:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Mike Tyson is a unique individual with his own personal demons inside him, and his comments can't be expected to represent the feelings of any group in general. Any conclusion by editors in that regard that they would like to imply by putting the Tyson info in the article would be OR. In other words, you'd need another reason for putting it in. --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:24, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Many famous people have made many comments about this case, yet it seems that the ones that stay quoted in the article are the outrageous ones that are anti-Zimmerman. Where is Bill Cosby's reasoned comment about gun violence, for example? Al Sharpton's calls for justice but only via non-violent protest? This is exactly the problem I've mentioned before - a concerted effort to present the people who supported the Martin family's quest for an arrest in the most negative light, and the responsible voices among them practically invisible in the article, while any controversial attacks on Zimmerman were highlighted. Mike Tyson's comments are not notable, nor are Louis Farraquan's. The Spike Lee matter is marginal to include, but at least it did get some coverage - I am not convinced that it has staying power however. The Black Panther story also got some coverage, largely because the Zimmerman family talked about it - but does it continue to be significant? Not clear. We have to think about what in this section, and in the article overall, has lasting significance, not the flash-in-the-pan, sensational, one-sided news of the day. Tvoz/talk 08:20, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The quotes on the Martin side have been strong, under neutrality we should have some for support of Zimmerman, but they do not come from such figures of similar public note. Obama and Sharpton are about as important as you can get, anything in support of Zimmerman has been kept down because of the earlier ties that anyone supporting Zimmerman is a racist. While Obama was blasted for is comments by many people and Jesse Jackson said Zimmerman shot Martin in the back of the head, these kinds of comments are steps away from the importance. Almost all shows of support on Zimmerman have been on the basis of the evidence and not on basis of going free, we just don't have material which points to that in the mainstream media. It may be unbalanced, but there is not much to raise the opposing view with. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Neutrality does not mean tit-for-tat, or for every positive that you add you have to add a negative. But that's not what I was talking about -read what I said again - I wasn't talking about the nature of the people speaking out in support of Zimmerman. I am talking about the way that section read before I edited some of it out. The most outrageous commentary that attacked Zimmerman was included in great detail: Farraquan, Tyson, Black Panthers, Spike Lee - their comments, unacceptable to most people who supported the demands for an arrest of Zimmerman, were included in detail, but responsible comments by equally or more prominent people, like Bill Cosby for example, or the content of what Sharpton said repeatedly about non-violence, or Marian Wright Edelman, or many others, were not there. I am not asking to add them, I am questioning why the outrageous comments were highlighted to the degree that they had been, having the effect of making the "pro-Martin" side look like rabid attack dogs. That is not NPOV - stressing the sensational over the responsible is not neutral. It's better now (last time I checked, that is), but I was pointing this out so that we all are more aware of it. Tvoz/talk 22:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

You have a difficult task, Tvoz, making a lynch mob, aided and abetted by the lamestream media, look pretty. --Kenatipo ^speak! 23:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Is your comment designed to help improve the article, as mine in this thread were, or are you here just to throw around your nasty barbs? "Lamestream media"? No bias on your part in editing this article I see. In case you haven't read anything beyond your usual sources of information, the facts are that the vast majority of the protests were peaceful, non-violent, and in no way a lynch mob. The family, their attorneys, Al Sharpton and others publicly called for an arrest, a trial - not in any way a lynching. That there were extremists on both sides saying outrageous things is not surprising, but emphasizing them here is inflammatory and not representative of what actually went on for those few weeks of protest. No responsible supporter of the Martin family's position supported any suggestion remotely resembling lynching, and the family went on many news venues saying that, including on The O'Reilly Factor and Nancy Grace's show - those bastions of the liberal, leftwing media. But you ignore that and spew that garbage here. I am not trying to make anything "look pretty", Kenatipo, I am trying to bring this article back into balance rather than a piece that has been veering into an argument for the defense. Can you say the same thing? Do you even care about a neutral presentation? Tvoz/talk 01:05, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

This article does not, repeat, does not need you whitewashing it, Tvoz. It should quote those nitwits in Congress (who's the female in the cowboy hat that said Trayvon was gunned down like a mad dog? and the other clown who said Trayvon was executed? those people are in Congress????? Good grief !!!!!!!!!) How many of your moderate voices were heading up counter-demonstrations while Al and Jesse were down there race-baiting and rabble-rousing? Where's the long section in the article detailing media malpractice by NBC, ABC and CNN, just to name a few? Where are Obama and Holder when the New Black Panthers need to be told to BACK OFF! If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. WTF! How's that hope and change thing working out for you, Tvoz? Don't you just love the way he's "fundamentally changing America"? --Kenatipo ^speak! 02:13, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

2. Please feel free to list all the biased edits I've made to this article. --Kenatipo ^speak! 02:30, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Once again your comments here speak for themselves. Your insistent personalizing is tedious and of no help in writing fair articles. But this is not the first time it's been pointed out to you, and you go about your merry, insulting way, disrupting talk pages with obnoxious invective and your own benighted opinions, that have no place here. This isn't a blog - no one cares about your views on Congress or the president or the media or this case, and your injecting them into what is otherwise a conversation more or less focused on the writing of the article, which is what talk pages are for, is disruptive and really unacceptable. We all have opinions on this case, but most of us try to keep them in check and only occasionally mention them here, and when just about everyone else editing here does mention his or her opinion, it isn't in the obnoxious way you just did. I wasn't addressing your editing, I was talking about your behavior here. You really don't get it - try reading WP:CIVIL. Tvoz/talk 03:13, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

We'll have to disagree. I think the article should document the irresponsible things "leaders" said in the aid of inciting racial violence, and the complete abdication of responsibility by Holder and Obama in dealing with the NBPP, and the malpractice of your favorite liberal media sources. Two or three moderate voices raised in dissent don't make it any less a lynch mob. Shame on the liberal elites in the media and in the regime. --Kenatipo ^speak! 03:53, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Tvoz is right. We do not have many reasonable mentions for calls to action. It should be noted and showed that the public figures called for arrests and charges, but a fair amount of prominent people also made direct attacks on the judicial system and threats on Zimmerman's life while making calls for vigilante justice. The Pew Research Center had a great poll on public opinion and they are among the best for polling, but at the risk of being accused of bias (as everything I do seems to raise the allegations), anti-Zimmerman rhetoric was the defining face of the movement. Al Sharpton is huge because his show broke and followed the story on a mainstream media platform, his comments are directly attributed to this coverage, his words and actions provoked the response, while a call for 'calm, cool heads' and 'reason' are great it was not the tagline of the media, the blogs and the internet which lead to comments like 'armchair CSI-experts' already trying and convicting Zimmerman in the court of public opinion. According to WP:Balance the majority viewpoint on media was anti-Zimmerman, minus that 1 week issue of pot on Martin. Public opinion was more rational, but still strongly against Zimmerman and we have a duty to accurately portray that gross imbalance as it existed. We should have the minority view of reason, but it was not the prevailing sentiment in the media. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:42, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

No problem everyone. Just find reliable sources for those ideas and put them in the article. Also, if you would like to discuss your own ideas about the case that don't appear in a RS, may I suggest you do it on user talk pages instead of here. It would be OK with me for anyone to post a message here inviting editors to one's talk page for such a discussion, if someone is so inclined. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:46, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Changing status

If Zimmerman is successfully arraigned, he will be one of the most notable/most-covered defendants since OJ Simpson. If that happens, we should _try_ to create a fair bio of the person as a person, rather than cover him exclusively in this article. That's going to be a big challenge, but George Michael Zimmerman is going to be needed, me thinks. --HectorMoffet (talk) 14:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm inclined to disagree. Aside from all the race / ethnicity stuff, I've seen very little discussion of his background and history. Unless we have sources that discuss his life beyond the scope of this event, it doesn't make sense to be writing a biography that is distinct from what appears here. Dragons flight (talk) 15:18, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I admit it's difficult-- I just wish there was a good biography on him available on his life as a whole, rather than just this incident. I want to read such an article and wish it already existed. Difficulty not in doubt-- I'm not touching it, but I wish it was there.--HectorMoffet (talk) 16:55, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

By the same reasoning, a bio article for Trayvon Martin should be considered since there was a bio article for Nicole Brown Simpson in the OJ case. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:14, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:PERP , WP:VICTIM and WP:BLP1E says we pretty much should not have a stand-alone article about him. Making a fair article would be almost impossible, as he had 0 notability before, and every story on him from here on is going to be in the context of the shooting/case. Both OJ and Nicole were already notable prior to the murder, and are not a good example to follow in this case for this reason. Perhaps Sirhan Sirhan, or Lee Harvey Oswald or something would be a better one, since they were themselves unknown until the event (although obviously their targets are super famous). In any case, I think standalone articles would need to require someone doing in-depth biographical research and publishing major works, not just news articles. Maybe that will happen, but IMO if books are written about this case, its going to be more about the aftermath/context of race rather than the actual participants. Certainly things could change in the future, but right now there is nowhere near the WP:RS available to correctly do such an article Gaijin42 (talk) 15:19, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Re "Both OJ and Nicole were already notable prior to the murder" — I don't know whether that is true regarding Nicole, but it certainly isn't true about the other person who was murdered in the case, Ronald Goldman, who was clearly not notable before he was murdered. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I think an argument could be made that when Nicole married O.J. she became notable because of that fact and was covered in the media more than what she would have been (zero) before she married him. In Zimmerman's case, he is notable for this shooting only as far as I am aware.--Isaidnoway (talk) 16:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Re "In Zimmerman's case, he is notable for this shooting only as far as I am aware." — That doesn't seem to matter since, for example there is an article on John Hinckley, Jr. that corresponds to the shooter, and as I mentioned before there is an article on Ron Goldman, a person who was killed in the OJ case. Both John Hinckley, Jr. and Ron Goldman were definitely not notable before their respective events. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I believe the analog here is Bernhard Goetz, a NYC subway shooter who alleged self defense, was tried for attempted murder and found non guilty of those charges. He is biography worthy. --17:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I was only commenting on Zimmerman's notability before the shooting, I agree with you on the other people you listed, there are plenty of readers out there who are interested in reading biographies about people that became notable because of a crime they were accused of or committed. I read one on Timothy McVeigh. I am not opposed to a bio on Zimmerman.--Isaidnoway (talk) 17:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Good analog. Note : that article is not just a biography, it is very similar to this artcile, covering all aspects, reaction, trial, etc. So its primarily a naming difference. Perhaps if Zimmerman had shot several kids, this article would be called George Zimmerman, or shooting at the retreat, or something since you wouldnt make "shooting of X, Y, and Z". In any case, Goetz does not have a bio article, and an event article. I too am not opposed to a bio article, but I think sourcing one is going to be very hard unless its just a small stubGaijin42 (talk) 17:30, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

From the clearing out of the psuedo bios we have more then enough to cover childhood through adulthood. We have sources which point to activism and could give 4-5 good paragraphs of neutral commentary even without his 2005 arrest or other incident with his ex. While the majority will fall on allegations of his injuries and statements made on behalf of his family for the Trayvon Martin case I still think we could push for an article on Zimmerman. This court matter will bring up a lot more, but it will take many months before all the examination and info helps paint Zimmerman's past best. Its just more work and more potential mess given that he is on the border of 1E and his own article. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Right. The arraignment is still six weeks away, after all. By that time, we'll know quite a lot about him. BLP exists to protect living persons, and we're not doing him any favors by only covering 1 event in his life. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:04, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Then what about a bio article on Trayvon Martin? His life has ended, he's become extremely notable, and there is precedent in the bio article of one of the persons killed in the OJ case, Ronald Goldman, who wasn't notable before he was killed. --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Suggesting that this case has received as much attention as the OJ trial is, in my opinion, silliness. Neither Zimmerman nor Martin are so well covered at this point that they exceed the definition of a BLP1E. Incidentally, the Ron Goldman article is pretty borderline too with respect to notability and depth of coverage. VQuakr (talk) 06:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

About a bio of Trayvon Martin, I don't think so, Bob. In cases like this, of a crime by a previously unknown person on a previously unknown person, I think you'll find that the victim's bio is usually subsumed into the crime article - as in Murder of Meredith Kercher, Murder of Laci Peterson, Murder of Kitty Genovese. Those articles would also generally have a significant section about the perpetrator, and only when it becomes too long or unwieldy would we go for a sub-article with more detail and a summary in the main article. But what's happened here is Zimmerman's bio section has been truncated. I think we should first try to flesh out the Zimmerman bio section here and see if it eventually needs to be forked off into a separate article with a summary section here, rather than starting out by writing a separate bio. Seems premature to me. And I agree with VQuakr that the Ron Goldman article is borderline. Tvoz/talk 07:09, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Let's not rebuild the psuedo bios in the article. Keep it as userpage offshoot and then we can view and comment on it without inserting a lot of material into the Zimmerman side. We'd end up having Martin get his own psuedo-bio back and almost all of that is negative smear. Let's do this where it isn't on the article space for all to see, no works in progress if the conclusion is only to rip it out and put it in an article on Zimmerman himself. Doubt we will even have enough to warrant his own article right now. A start-class or low B class is the best I can see, and most of it related to this article. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 07:37, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Would not The Trial of George Michael Zimmerman (when it begins) with informative un-biased bios of both Martin and Zimmermann subsumed into the article do the trick? ```Buster Seven Talk 15:46, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Bail Hearing

Zimmerman's attorney announced that a bail hearing will be held next Friday, April 20. I Added the relevant info and source under the Pre-trial section. Intrepid (talk) 13:23, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done--Isaidnoway (talk) 03:19, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Removed additional photos of Martin

I've removed the second and third photos of Martin, they are unnecessary and they are not CC released. I do not see the particular need to have 3 photos of the subject scattered throughout the page. We already have issues with too many photos (Norm Wolfinger for one). Under WP:IUP we should not have 3 photos of Martin in the article. Also WP:F. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:46, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Under WP:IRELEV I've removed Chief Bill Lee's photo. As it is unnecessary. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The hoodie photo was widely used in protests, making it specifically relevant. The "baby-faced" photo was the object of media coverage. Seriously though, these photos are "(C) Media handout" or something like that - if one person here can actually contact the right person associated with the family, I'm sure we could have them all for Commons at full resolution. Probably someone should... Wnt (talk) 15:28, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't change the fact we already have a picture of Martin. The hoodie photo is not a key photo and was not the main photo used during the initial breaking of the story and while it was used in a few protests was not the only photo used. I doubt when we have the subject of the photo that we need to have the photo carried by some people in a protest. WP:IRELEV applies to it, just like Chief Bill Lee. The only protest upon which it was used was the 'Million Hoodie March' which by all accounts was misleading as according to NPR. "ADLER: It was called the Million Hoodie March, but that was not the number at the gathering. It was a call for a million signatures by the end of the night on a petition calling for the shooter's arrest. There were apparently 800,000 signatures before the rally began." [13] So the claim about it being 'widely used in protests' doesn't hold up because it wasn't widely used in protests or as an icon. Even on the media where it had the widest reporting the young photo of Martin in the Hollister t-shirt was more important, and at least that one would back up the media spin section, however I do not think it has substantial importance for that picture to be included either. If we were to apply the same detail Zimmerman's 2005 mugshot would be used as it was used in protests too, and it was the main picture of Zimmerman prior to the charges in which the new mugshot was now used. Even if they were CC or public it would be a violation of WP:BALANCE.ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:40, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Say what? The President of the United States has talked about what Martin looked like. If he looked different than in the hoodie photo, he might well be alive. White supremacists have distributed a fake photo with the gold teeth (already another thread started about it below) - if we had any wit we'd have that photo here by Fair Use in addition to the other three, so that people reading know it's fake and to illustrate the tactics being used more effectively. This is one article that really, really, really needs a lot of photos of the subject. (On the other hand, I'm not sure multiple photos of Zimmerman are important; so far I haven't noticed much in the way of discussion of his appearance, besides some articles calling him "beefy") Wnt (talk) 22:33, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Source for the photo being "fake" and "distributed by white supremacists"? Collect (talk) 22:36, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I put it all in the article here - of course, no trace now remains. Admittedly, editing this article is a waste of time. Wnt (talk) 23:27, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Who cares if its the president, he also is heavily quoted out of context stating 'If I had a son...' when the White House released a statement about it being about being a parent rather then race. Also your attribution of fake photos being released by white supremacists is just terrible. Several pictures float about, but we have a duty to be neutral and 'gangsta' photos are not something to be added when perfectly neutral ones are already present. This article is on a proper path and including certain inflammatory content will only serve to low the standards of the entire article. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:17, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Don't be so sure. Family members sometimes refuse when they realise the full implications, e.g. commercial use and derivatives. Nil Einne (talk) 03:01, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Phone Calls Section / Audio panel size

The current phone calls section has audio templates for Zimmerman's call plus seven bystander calls to 911, as well as a complete transcript of Zimmerman's call. Personally, I think that is about five audio files and one transcript more than most readers are going to need. However, I think the bigger nuisance is that the tall audio template is interacting with the collapsed transcript in a way that creates about a half-screen of whitespace on both computers I routinely use (different resolutions, but admittedly both on the larger side). I tried to improve this be decreasing the size of the audio box [14], but Bob K31416 reverted. The width of the text is still essentially the same (at least as my browser renders it) but the height of the total package is about half which avoids the large dose of whitespace.

Personally, I think the smaller audio panel looks much better, and the full width play buttons are unnecessary, but apparently Bob disagrees, so I'd like to get other opinions. Of course we could also solve the problem of large excess whitespace in other ways (such as not including every single 911 call), but I thought reducing the size of the audio panel would be the least controversial. Dragons flight (talk) 17:13, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The 911 Calls are a bit questionable, but since we have them and they were publicly released we should keep them. Perhaps have a collapsed window with one for Zimmerman's call and then the others in a collapsed section for the other 911 calls. That way the section could be expanded and heard by the readers, and Wikipedia is the top resource which has them listed in a proper and easy method. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:45, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The transcript of Zimmermans 911 call is helpful for folks that can't download a media player at work (like me!) Of course I guess we should be working and not reading the article! --Mt6617 (talk) 18:06, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I made a suggestion about the transcript a few sections up.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I meant the audio itself. If we can, the transcripts would be proper under their own section as they are directly relevant to the case, but interpretation of them should be left to secondary sources under WP:PRIMARY, most of which were not, except for the separate interviews as on Anderson Cooper 360. Those interviews have analysis and commentary, but the 911 calls largely do not. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:18, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

We can quote from, link to, and reference his 911 call without necessarily including the full transcript. Personally, I think having the whole transcript in the article is excessive. Devil's Advocate's suggestion that it be moved to wikisource and linked from here seems reasonable enough, though I'm not familiar enough with wikisource to know how to accomplish that. Regarding the other 911 calls, we might also link to Commons:Category:Shooting of Trayvon Martin 9-1-1 calls rather than embedding them all here. Dragons flight (talk) 18:24, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

You make a good point, but I to do not know how to accomplish it either! The audio should be sufficient on this page with full transcripts listed elsewhere with a link. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:37, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

UPDATE: I restored Dragon Flight's edit and modified it. I hope that works for everyone. --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:25, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

As creator of part of that-- I actually with Dragonsflight on this. Transcripts and audio should be left to a sub-article. There is far too much detail in this main article-- this why summary style exists: we need to farm out details to smaller articles. This isn't a NPOV need, but it is a stylistic/effective communication need. Trying to shove everything in to one article isn't going to work. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Could you explain what you have in mind, e.g. sub-article title, etc. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:44, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The full transcripts are unnecessary for an encyclopedia article. For at least the next several months this should stay a single article with the length controlled by copyediting; splitting should only be considered when the subject's long-term significance is more clear. VQuakr (talk) 02:35, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

American

In the section Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin#George_Zimmerman there is "the son of American Robert Zimmerman Sr, a former magistrate,[33] and Peruvian Gladys Zimmerman." AFAIK, all the people connected with the case are Americans. Any suggestions about what to do with this sentence? --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:43, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done yes, redundant. will correct. — DocOfSoc • Talk • 20:36, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

OK. I'll change Peruvian to Hispanic American since the source said Hispanic. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:19, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

That's an improvement, however, Robert Zimmerman is described by his occupation, and Gladys Zimmerman by her country of origin/ethnicity? Shouldn't she be described by her occupation as well, or just as her name? If editors think it's useful to include information about her Peruvian 'roots', then shouldn't we find a better source for that? [4]relevant quotes: "His mother is Latina." and "Why are they calling him white, wondered Paul Ebert, the Prince William County commonwealth’s attorney who knew Zimmerman’s mother, Gladys, from her days as an interpreter at the county courthouse. Zimmerman’s mother, Ebert knew, was Peruvian, and he thought of her as Hispanic." That is a bit thin for sourcing; that someone from who knows how long ago remembers her as Peruvian. Does it matter? George Zimmerman defines himself as Hispanic on his voter reg. Isn't that enough? [34] quotes on ethnicity are only about George. Sorry, long winded. ArishiaNishi (talk) 22:41, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Whether or not it was long winded, I thought it was useful wind. While we were discussing it, someone changed it to "Peruvian-born Gladys Zimmerman". That seems OK. At the beginning of the article, Zimmerman is called Hispanic American, so maybe that's enough as far as Hispanic is concerned. Peruvian-born implies where his hispanic background came from. I'm satisfied with what is in there now, or more precisely, what was in there the last time I looked. --Bob K31416 (talk) 23:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Hispanic?

The reference[[15]] given does not say Zimmerman is Hispanic. <-- In fact, it's a dead link. (Fixed link) --> The title appears to imply that his race or nationality is not clear cut. The police report lists him as white, while other documents report him a Hispanic.

I suggest writing "Zimmerman, described by different sources as either Hispanic, White, or of mixed race ... " along with links to the appropriate sources.

Better yet why not exclude his race entirely? It is irrelevant to the controversy. If Zimmerman did racially profile Martin (which is at the core of the controversy), it doesn't make it better if he is Hispanic or worse if he is White. It's what you do, not what color you are, which is precisely what racial profilers forget.

In any case, any description referring to Zimmerman exclusively as White or Hispanic is WP:POV as it does not document all the significant views on the subject. --soulscanner (talk) 05:32, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to invoke Wikipedia's MOS:IDENTITY rule here. Just as Code Pink activist Midge Potts self-identifies as a woman, and thus that's how the article is written, Zimmerman has self-identified as Hispanic (e.g. that's the box he's checked on official forms), so that's how he should be described in this or any other article. 67.233.246.107 (talk) 06:45, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Zimmerman is Hispanic, he idenitified himself as Hispanic and so does his father. If we are going to exclude Zimmerman's ethnicity, in all fairness, we should exclude Martin's ethnicity too. But as I see it (and I am not alone in that) race does in fact play a large part in this case. Martin being black was the main reason people said the shooting was racially motivated, then when it turned out the shooter was not, in fact, a "white man", but in fact Hispanic, things became more complicated, apparantly. There are sufficient sources to claim Zimmerman as Hispanic, though. It should not be left out. Mythic Writerlord (talk) 07:47, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

MOS:IDENTITY doesn't refer to issues of self-identity, so it's a moot point here. WP:POV is the point. It states that significant points of view must be accounted for and presented in a neutral manner. The legitimate source [16] used to back-up that Zimmerman is exclusively Hispanic does no such thing. It cites that the police report indicates that Zimmerman is white, that it is possible to be both white and Hispanic, and that it is not a cut and dry issue. Hence omitting that some could legitimately see him as white would indicate that the police officer who arrested Zimmerman, for one, is marginal. But the police view here is pivotal, as there are accusations that the police treated Zimmerman differently than they would have if he were black, and that Zimmerman benefited from it by being released.

The article also fairly considers the view of right-wing commentators who want to present Zimmerman is Hispanic. Right-wing commentators have been clear: '“I’m actually happy that George Zimmerman is Hispanic so the usual white people are all guilty by virtue of their skin color stuff won’t work,” said a March 22 tweet by John Hawkins, who described himself as a professional blogger at Right Wing News.' Hence saying that Zimmerman is exclusively Hispanic could be seen as POV-Pushing to make blacks shut up.

The article further goes on to say that you can be both white and Hispanic: "Hispanic people can be black, white, Asian or mixed. Some 18 million Latinos checked the “some other race” category on their 2010 Census forms — which admonished in bold letters that Hispanic is not a race. So many Hispanics identified themselves as white, the overall number of white people in the United States increased."

So to conclude, firstly the Wikipedia article as it stands ignores important points of view in the intro while including others, failing NPOV standards. It is also factually innaccurate WP:AD because the given citation actually does not support what is in the article (or more importantly, what is excluded). --soulscanner (talk) 10:01, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

The Uniform Crime Report classifies most Hispanics into the "white" or "white Hispanic" category, see this DEA website or this, or FBI website. Official statistics and police reports are misleading. For example, if someone attacks a Hispanic for racial reasons, he becomes a Hispanic victim of a hate crime. However, if the same Hispanic commits a hate crime against a black, he is classified as a white perpetrator. Tobby72 (talk) 16:58, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

We already have the father's source, saying: "My son (George Zimmerman) is Hispanic and grew up in a multiracial household". Whether or not the police has at some point described Mr. Zimmerman as white is not relevant, as both Zimmerman and other members of the Zimmerman family describe him as Hispanic, his mother is Peruvian and he votes as "Hispanic". That's enough ground to call him Hispanic, although he could also be (perhaps more neutral) described as simple "of mixed descent" or "multiracial" (without further specifying his exact ethnicity). Mythic Writerlord (talk) 11:14, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

"MOS:IDENTITY doesn't refer to issues of self-identity, so it's a moot point here." Uh..... Better check it again: "When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself." 67.233.243.137 (talk) 00:37, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Attorney Mark O'Mara

I thought it was interesting that Mark O'Mara was a former Assistant State Attorney.[17]Should that be included?

Past Employment Positions Seminole County State Attorney Office, Assistant State Attorney, 1982 - 1984

Also, should we have a photo of him since we have one of the State Attorney?--Mt6617 (talk) 21:18, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

heck yeah! anyone who can get a free image of him gets a barnstar. HectorMoffet (talk) 22:48, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

This is suppose to be a free image--Mt6617 (talk) 01:31, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

LINK REMOVED BY --Mt6617 (talk) 01:56, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, Evidently not, I was told it was. So I will look for something else.--Mt6617 (talk) 01:56, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

EDIT REQUEST

"On the recording of the call, Zimmerman is heard commenting "these assholes, they always get away."[85][86]" This did not happen and the second reference used makes not claim of this happening. Please remove this statement as it is unfactual.

Also, the article claims the the Black Panter's wanted to "capture." They actually offered a $10,000 bounty for Zimmerman, "dead or alive." I believe whitewashing this issue violates NPOV. 214.13.90.35 (talk) 09:05, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

 Not done The references that are cited concerning the statement on the recording of the call do indeed state he was heard commenting "these assholes, they always get away", and are reflected accurately in the article, and the reference concerning the statement from the NBPP is accurate as well.--Isaidnoway (talk) 13:10, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I looked into the "dead or alive" claim - I'm not seeing it in the top-of-the-line news sources. Some sources like [18] do indeed show a picture of such a "wanted poster", but, note that in the link above it is credited to a "citizen journalism" site. It is not clear to me that this is their poster, that the headline isn't something that one person leafletting one neighborhood added. Can we get more proof one way or the other? Wnt (talk) 00:26, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Isaid: the first source is a blog on HuffPost, which is hardly reliable, especially given the extreme bias of both the website the blog appears on and the author of the blog, and the second source does not mention anything about Zimmerman saying any such thing. 67.233.243.137 (talk) 00:57, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Left the Huffington Post and added two more sources saying "these assholes, they always get away". In addition, the audio recordings of the calls are listed in the article if you care to listen to them yourself and hear it, and there is a written transcript of the call if you care to read it.--Isaidnoway (talk) 01:48, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "top of the line news sources". The source referenced is from the Orlando Sentinel which has been at the forefront of covering this case and is used several times in the article as a reference. But, I added another one anyway, that says the same thing.--Isaidnoway (talk) 01:15, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay, that's much better. Note: I'm not disputing that he said it. I'm disputing the sources used. I still say a HuffPost blog is not appropriate, but I'm glad to see the other one -- which you have to admit says nothing about that statement -- is gone. 67.233.243.137 (talk) 06:36, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

That author of the Huff Post is actually tied pretty closely to the case and its initial publication. While not typically a reliable source it had proved itself to be at least on point and direct in its role to bolster support and get attention. A few 'unreliable' sources have played major roles in aspects of this incident. Newsbusters for breaking the 911 editing issue, but thanks for adding more just in case. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:46, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Zimmerman Skittle portrait

Interesting little article. A Denver artist has created a portrait of Zimmerman made out of over 12,000 skittles --Isaidnoway (talk) 03:24, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Someone in Denver has time on their hands!--Mt6617 (talk) 04:30, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Request for Comment

A proposed title change between the current prefix 'Shooting of' and the proposed, 'Shooting Death of' and proposed 'Death of'. Discussion has taken place with a formal request for move having not yielded results after almost 2 weeks. I've made this Request for Comment to discuss this ongoing problem. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:16, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Isn't 'Shooting Death of' just plain wrong in wikipedia terms? If we wanted that, surely it would be 'Shooting death of' Nil Einne (talk) 14:46, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:TITLE and WP:CRITERIA agree as well, but as I keep getting attacked for bias on any thing I say in this article, RfC is the best option to get some outside opinions on the matter. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:17, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I really think "Shooting Death..." sounds awkward. It also sounds sensationalized. I hear the guy's voice from Unsolved Mysteries when I type it. I can see "Death of..." working, or I could see "Fatal Shooting of..." working. However, I think I most support leaving the current title over anything else. Zetrock (talk) 17:42, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how it is an ongoing problem. People do this all the time at high profile articles. In the end, Wikipedia has a rule called "Ignore All Rules". I don't think we've done that. There are other articles named the same way ("Shooting of"). Its been pointed out that this isn't just about the event of that night, but the aftermath as well. After all, there was an incident pointed out above that a black man in a car at Taco Bell shot a white retarded man walking his dog. Similar type of event, yet it received very little media attention. So my suggestion is leave the title alone for now. There is no timer on how fast something has to happen on the title. Once things settle down, and maybe even after the trial or not is over, we can decide. I REALLY hope they don't end up dragging this out and it coming to be more of a media circus. We definitely will have to split the article then if that happens. -- Avanu (talk) 19:11, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I think eventually we will see The Death of....be the final outcome, but I just don't see the urgency in changing it "right now". I think the media will probably lay off this story a little bit now too since his lawyer will have to be given time to get up to speed on this case. The Sandusky trial starts the first week of June, so the media will be obsessed with that case for awhile.--Isaidnoway (talk) 19:55, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Zetrock, both about sensationalism, and the title "Fatal Shooting of...." I think "Fatal Shooting of...." would be an appropriate change. --70.119.53.11 (talk) 21:23, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Seems like "Shooting of" is the common option for such cases in Wiki: Shooting of the Romanov family, Shooting of Kayla Rolland, Shooting of Hosie Miller, Shooting of Tyler Cassidy ... I think the term "fatal" is unnecessary. TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 23:15, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Concur with Zetrock and TheDarkLordSeth. Current title is good, not too vague, not too specific.Fletcher (talk) 23:56, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Saying Shooting of is the common option is completely false. Please see Talk:Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin#Closing_the_discussion. Redredryder (talk) 03:29, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to read in your link connected to frequency of the use of the term "Shooting of." Can you show me how what I said was false? TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 15:53, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Easier links: Special:PrefixIndex/Death of versus Special:PrefixIndex/Shooting of and Special:PrefixIndex/Shooting Death of. The term 'Shooting of' is limited in scope and that should be noted in your own links. Kayla Rollands article is a mess. Hosie Miller is also a mess and he died 10 days after his shooting. Tyler Cassidy article is two sentences and probably should go up for WP:AFD. The Romanov family shootings were more of executions, but that article is at least better, but again the title choice is terrible. Titles should be made by following WP:TITLE and the specific criteria of WP:CRITERIA. Convention points to 'Death of Trayvon Martin'. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

From WP:TITLE: "Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia." Good advice. While stimulating to those still participating in the Title discussion it begins to un-necessarily polarize us and will effect future collaboration efforts. The current title works. Readers will find it. Also from WP:TITLE: "The choice of article titles should put the interests of readers before those of editors, and those of a general audience before those of specialists."```Buster Seven Talk 16:12, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

By that argument 'Shooting Death of' is controversial and not concise. The current title is not accurate as it resulted in immediate death. To continue going against convention, policy and put up such a stalwart defense of it could easily apply to the opposite viewpoint if not more so on grounds of 'Shooting Death'. This is far more then a 'Shooting' and now that it going before the courts it is growing ever more erroneous to continue to label it otherwise. As for the current title; the subject is deceased, the title should properly reflect that. Also it is typically bad form to scold other editors with their choice of contributions. If your comment was directed at me, less then 1% of my edits correspond to the article. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

@ User:Chris...I'm not scolding anyone, least of all you. My comment was meant for any editor that would listen. Please don't hear "scold" when my intent is "collaborate". ```Buster Seven Talk 23:46, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there's any really clear precedent here. Looking at cases that can be said to be analogous to this one, I've seen name only (Emmett Till), shooting (Amadou Diallo shooting), shooting of..., death of (Death of Vincent Chin), murder of..., and I'm sure there are far more that I'm overlooking, too. There's no "shooting death of", though, as I think that obviously violates recommendations of concision. Realistically speaking, a person searching for information on this case is at bare minimum going to type in "Trayvon Martin" (or "Treyvon Martin", its common misspelling, which adds confusion and difficulty to the search). Why make it more difficult to find than that? Why not just use his name, period. The argument that the title must reflect the subject's status is a non-starter. When have titles ever reflected if someone was alive or dead? When has a title needed to tell the whole story? The purpose of the title is to make it easy to identify and find, and any more information than that is only necessary or important if the page needs to be distinguished from another page, such as if the name is common. If he was John Smith, then "The Shooting Death of John Smith (Florida)" might be a wise choice. But someone searching for information shouldn't have to get all that down in order to get the right page, or to create the right link when they're editing another Wikipedia article. The bottom line is that given that WP:TITLE calls for Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, and Consistency, the title that most serves those functions is simply his name. Lengthier names to include shooting and/or death aren't concise, and aren't precise either given the growing scope of the case. Consistency isn't possible given the variety of different ways these things have been titled, though that means we have a small pool of patterns to choose from, with the name alone being the most basic and of a very common pattern that can be seen with many analogous cases.QuizzicalBee (talk) 20:07, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

For common misspellings and similar choices we use redirects. Trayvon Martin redirects to this page. The article space itself can have only one title and redirects cover the others as needed. That is how the 'Shooting of' largely redirects to 'Death of'. The article is hosted under the name 'Death of', but if you search that term it will bring you to the article anyways. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:09, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

[edit conflict] We have talked about this several times at length and reached no consensus, and no consensus means maintain the status quo of the stable title we've had for most of the life of this article - Shooting of - until circumstances change and there is something new to talk about. So I don't know why you've gone for an RfC now, but perhaps new blood here will help.

• Death of does not in any way indicate that this death was not an accident, not a suicide, not an old-age death, not an illness-caused death. Shooting of at least indicates that much.
• I would prefer Shooting death of, as I have said, because it both indicates that the victim is dead as well as shot. But Fatal shooting of, a new offer, is fine with me as well. Shooting death of or Fatal shooting of are not controversial - there is no sane person who argues that Trayvon Martin was not shot to death by George Zimmerman - Chris, I don't know what you mean regarding "controversial" and perhaps if you would explain that we'd have a better understanding of why you are so strongly urging the title Death of, so much so, that you are not willing to let it sit at no-consensus=leave it alone at Shooting of.
• The shooter is accused of murder, and Murder of may soon enough be seen as the most appropriate title, as is commonly used throughout the encyclopedia, but that's likely not going to be agreed to now.
• As for conciseness, I have yet to hear why a title that is one word longer than the current title is so wildly inconcise as to rule it out. One word.
• And I think DarkLord was saying above that Shooting of was most common for articles of this kind - articles about circumstances that are in some way similar to this one - not the numerical count you get with that prefix tool which also includes redirects so is quite misleading. In any case, a count is not the determining factor in choosing an article title.

So - although I do not think it is the best title, I think we should stay with Shooting of for now, unless we can get some traction with Fatal shooting of. This article exists because this unarmed teenager was shot to death - neither "shooting" nor "death" alone is enough, but if I have to choose only between those two, then I think it is the act of being shot that makes Trayvon Martin's story notable for the encyclopedia. And it has been stable, so no consensus still means no change. Tvoz/talk 21:42, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

TheDarkLordSeth is wrong though. 'Shooting of' and 'Shooting Death of' are not conventional and definitely not the norm. A good comparison would be Death of Neda Agha-Soltan or Death of Linda Norgrove. Shooting does not equate with death. Remove two words for one. This article clearly means something to a lot of us and I really and honestly wish discussion could take place which compare and contrast on the other points. As we have a lull in the reporting, getting some key information up to par and maybe hit GA status is one thing I wish this page could achieve. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:09, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I simply searched for various title possibilities and got more results for "Shooting of ..." and I listed a few. It's not the most exhaustive or the most professional research but it's still something and to me it seems like the current title is the most commonly used option. I don't see how I'm wrong about that. TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 00:56, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

This story is more about Zimmerman than Martin. Long term, the Zimmerman name will be attached to this story a lot more than Martin. who has already started to fade away. Whether its done now or later, the title will be "The Zimmerman Trial".True Observer (talk) 01:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Sabrina fulton interview with bill oriely

Video included, could probably use a better source for any commentary on the interview though., but I think the interview itself is a reliable WP:PRIMARY source for the statements by Fulton/Oriely. http://www.irishcentral.com/news/-Bill-OReilly-sat-down-with-Trayvon-Martins-mother-and-calls-on-Al-Sharpton-to-apologize---VIDEO-147428475.html

Gaijin42 (talk) 13:17, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

It is not like this is requiring anything to in deep detail, but here's the source for you. Full transcript from Bill O'Reilly's on Fox. [19] ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:40, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

What info in the interview do you think would be useful? --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:51, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Page Rating

Please pardon another question from a newbie, but is the page rating at the bottom of the article very accurate? It seems to go up and down like a roller coaster. Can people "bomb" it, to try and make a point for "their side"?--Mt6617 (talk) 20:35, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

(ranty comment) Personally, I think it is a dumb feature. We're a Wikipedia, not a Facebook. -- Avanu (talk) 20:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

It matters for material related to the Wikiprojects. I think we are at B class, but I hope to get this to GA as that is ideal. Given the issues, my belief is that C-class is probably accurate under the scopes of those projects. Assessment is one of those things most people don't mess with, but they do matter. As for importance to the Wikiproject it ranks them accordingly, neither seem wrong either. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:13, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Article still missing entire "other side"

Needs criticism of political and other assorted "activists" who are only involved in this case to further political careers or other agendas. Also missing Alan dershowitzs criticism of the prosecutor. This looks like another nifong/duke rape scandal going from his observation of the case thus far, that Corey's actions are also only political/career motivated and divorced of the facts of the case.68.115.53.79 (talk) 01:49, 17 April 2012 (UTC)