Talk:2017 Catalan independence referendum

No minimum turnout required?

Is there no minimum turnout required? Do I read the referendum law correct on this? Is the only relevant part art. 4.4 : "If the counting of votes validly made gives a result of more affirmative than negative votes, it shall mean the independence of Catalonia."

This is very relevant because those who want Catalonia to remain in Spain, are faced with the dilemma of voting 'no' or stay home. If they turn out and vote 'no', the number of 'no' votes will be higher and 'no' will have more chance to win, but if 'yes' wins nonetheless, they will have given the referendum more legitimacy by boosting the turnout. If they however stay home because they don't want to take part in a referendum illegal by Spanish legal standards, the 'yes' vote will have more chance to win because turnout is not relevant according to the Catalan law.----Bancki (talk) 13:26, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, you're reading that right. It's been noticed and commented on in the media, e.g. in The Guardian (last sentence). - Toothswung (talk) 13:30, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

From a legal point of view, the answer to your question is that the referendum is illicit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.193.104.227 (talk) 18:53, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Minimum Turnout should be a red flag for any respected democracy, but when the Central Government in Spain decided to everything in its power to prevent a vote form taken place, it sort of puts legitimacy in counting the vote regardless of the shortage of votes as it is an official act of harming the democratic spirit of the Spanish people.Davilem (talk) 07:01, 10 October 2017 (UTC)I cannot see the grounds to support such sort of legitimacy, no legitimacy (even sort of) can be assigned to this so called referendum. See the Code of Good practices from Venice Commission To have legitimacy, it should be first of all legal, and this one was not; not to talk about the irregularities (multiple voting, change of rules one hour earlier to introduce universal census, voting without envelops or in the street, etc. The use of the force to comply with judicial order to close the polling stations has no relation with whatsoever legitimacyDavilem (talk) 07:01, 10 October 2017 (UTC) Look, the people who run the government in Madrid are almost as stupid as the people who run the government in D.C. (Washington, D.C. of the United States). The United Kingdom did it correctly when encountering this problem. Let them (the ethnic minority seeking independence) Davilem (talk) 07:01, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Who says that Catalans are an ethnic minority? Based on what?Davilem (talk) 07:01, 10 October 2017 (UTC) have their stupid vote and use enough resources to insure the vote turns out negative, thereby ruining the chance for independence. The Government in Madrid has such low confidence in itself, which is nailing the final nail in the coffin that it has to bully and do everything in its power to prevent a referendum from taking place instead of upsetting it by a major turnout of people against the premise of the ballot. If Spain becomes no more, well they deserve it with this stunt and anyone arguing otherwise has no idea how the law actually functions in Spain. This is not the UK, even though it should certain act more like the UK than it currently does. ~ Prince of Catalonia

Please, this is not a forum to chat on Catalan or Spanish politics. Stay focused on the task of creating an encyclopedia. Impru20 (talk) 19:07, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Date format

The dates were all over the place, with some in US-style MM-DD-YYYY format and some in Spanish-style DD-MM-YYYY format. I've gone through and changed them into DD-MM-YYYY format, as this is a Spanish (or Catalan if you like) topic. FOARP (talk) 19:25, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

While this helpful, the '9th of September' and '9th September' are not used on Wikipedia. Instead, '9 September' is the preferred style. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Formats. mgSH 21:24, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

I have reverted these changes, as the '9th of September' and '9th September' styles are not acceptable date formats as per MOS:DATEFORMAT and MOS:BADDATE. Impru20 (talk) 10:28, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

the question of the referendum in the three languages is apparently not identical (!?)

The main article contains the following phrases:

"The question of the referendum is "Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?"." "Ballot paper that the Catalan government intends to use in the referendum, in Catalan, Castilian Spanish and Aranese Occitan, the three official languages of Catalonia."

Looking at the ballot paper and knowing several Roman languages, it seems to me that the question in the three languages is itself not identical (as in the third version), or at least has different connotations (as in the first two versions). More specifically, my own translations would be the following (emphasis added for clarity):

"Do you want Catalonia to STAY an independent state in the form of a republic?". (Catalan, "sigui" resembling the word "seguir" to stay/to follow) "Do you want Catalonia to BE an independent state in the form of a republic?". (Castilian Spanish, "sea" as in the subjuntivo form of ser/to be) "Do you want Catalonia to BECOME an independent state in the form of a republic?". (Aranese Occitan, "vengue" as in "venir"/come or become)

2A02:908:5C8:63C0:7173:DD4F:CCA5:DF4F (talk) 12:39, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

It takes a simple google search to answer your own question by yourself. https://www.verbs.cat/es/conjugacion/37-ser.html You should work on your romance (not roman) languages.Gaditano23 (talk) 15:06, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Unless there's a reference showing different meanings in each of the languages this looks like original research. FOARP (talk) 19:12, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

No source is going to talk about translation errors, but it's also wrong to assume that languages use the same verbs with the same meanings. And as pointed out, "sigui" is a form of the verb "to be". --92.75.208.20 (talk) 21:22, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

So, aside from possibly being OR due to it not being referenced, the claim that no source is going to talk on this means this is not notable enough to merit inclusion in the article, then. Impru20 (talk) 21:29, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Accusations of Russian meddling

Several media outlets, including Voice of America here, are accusing Russia of interfering. Up until yesterday/today I can only find local and smaller media mentioning it though. Include or wait? Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 16:17, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Voice of America is a US government-funded propaganda outlet. If you can find a WP:RS for these claims they might be worth adding. 2601:644:1:B7CB:75C2:683E:B7D3:6409 (talk) 07:26, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I believe unlike RT, Voice of America has fared well in WP:RS conversations. If you have issues with it, go to the appropriate board.--Yalens (talk) 08:26, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

We tend to avoid using RT on articles because it is funded by a national government and is subject to conflict of interests. This applies to all state-funded media. We can't assert that American state-funded media is perfectly fine while Russian state-funded media is subject to governmental interests. We take issue with both for the same reasons. On issues devoid of opinions we may cite VoA or RT, such as stories about uncontroversial subjects such as weather, but this is an instance where it's best to not bring in Russo-American geopolitics where we unequivocally side in favor of one government and against another. BrendonTheWizard (talk) 17:50, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

America suffers from Hypercaptalism. That is why portion sizes in America are much more than they are in Europe, Canada or Australia. Any information that comes out of America must be supported and collaborated by information not from the United States that in turn holds an absolute zero financial relationship with said American source. ~ Prince of Catalonia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8805:1600:36F:1CB5:D60E:F779:456F (talk) 19:58, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, Voice of America has survived better on WP:RS board discussions. If one country happens to have more reliable media than another yes that may create an advantage on Wikipedia or whatever, but our goal is WP:RS reporting, not ensuring national parity.--Yalens (talk) 00:47, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Monitoring social media, Russia Today do appear to have an agenda, though whether Catalans themselves are habital consumers of their Spanish service remains unproven. Culloty82 (talk) 16:36, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

So far the only other claims I can find stating that there is alleged Russian meddling came from Infowars claiming that Spain blamed Russia (a claim which I can't find anything supporting); there's clearly no objective facts that can be used to support such claims now and to include them now would violate numerous Wikipedia policies, such as WP:CRYSTAL for adding speculation before having information on it. RT covering a story is not evidence of active election meddling by Putin, if anything the meddling is being done by Spain itself by very literally trying to interfere. This just doesn't belong here. BrendonTheWizard (talk) 03:15, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I saw a number of articles alleging that Julian Assange in favor of the Catalan separatists has interfered with the approval of Russia. Details forthcoming. --Yalens (talk) 04:46, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Assange was retweeting videos of the police expressing sympathy towards the referendum. And? Belgium and Scotland were more critical of the Spanish police than Russia was with its official response. Wikipedia is no place for conspiratorial gaslighting. BrendonTheWizard (talk) 17:12, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Did you read the sources below? [[1]][[2]][[3]]. The allegations are much more than Assange saying things, we have twitter bots systematically promoting fake news, allegations of a concerted media campaign... No I'm not gaslighting (ironic use), this is what WP:RS like Medium and Politico are reporting. --Yalens (talk) 17:18, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I have, and the extent of what they said was that RT covered the story ad nauseum. Once again, RT covering a story is not evidence of active election meddling by Putin. Even had there been an answer to the obvious question of how does Russia benefit from this, nowhere is there evidence suggesting that the Russian government orchestrated the referendum or produced its outcome. The idea that this is a Russian plot to destroy western democracy holds no legitimacy. None of those articles answered the questions raised. Did Russia force the Spanish state to reject years of requests for legal democratic referendums, going back to before Puigdemont? Did the Kremlin make Spain respond violently to an illegal referendum rather than ignoring it? The sources you cite assert that Russia's motivation is to destabilize the European Union, a claim so thoroughly detached from reality as Catalonia repeatedly asserts that if it achieves independence it would quickly seek to join the European Union. BrendonTheWizard (talk) 17:40, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

You're not arguing against what the sources are actually saying. Did they say there was some grand plot by Russia? No. Did they say Russia "forced" Spain to reject requests for referendums, or use force? Of course not. Did they say Russia has some plot to make Catalonia independence? No-- in fact the opposite:

“It's not that Russia necessarily wants the independence of Catalonia. What it’s principally seeking is to foment divisions to gradually undermine Europe’s democracy and institutions,” said Brett Schaffer, an analyst of the Alliance to Safeguard Democracy, a project supported by the German Marshall Fund, which monitors pro-Kremlin information networks.

Now the one thing they did say that you argued against was that Russia seeks to undermine Europe's democracy and institutions. But your complaints are WP:SOAPy personal opinions. Neither yours nor mine matters-- what matters is that these are wp:reliable and wp:secondary sources saying this. P.S. in case you think this is about American politics, you should be aware that Russia has been accused in meddling in France and Germany, and also in Poland and Ukraine before the US election. --Yalens (talk) 00:53, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

The answer to "Did they say there was some grand plot by Russia?" is yes, actually. to weaken the United States and the European Union RT & Sputnik were the furthest extent of objectivity, putting the level of meddling perpetuated by the Russian state-funded media on the same level as how American state-funded media reported on the story. I'm not really sure what you meant by that last part about American politics. You're absolutely right that this isn't the first time that Russia was accused of meddling, and if these accusations extend to full confirmations it wouldn't be the first time either, but they're accusations. In instances that have been confirmed, including as you mentioned the interference in the US, we can state clearly that it is simply an interference and not a mere accusation of interference. This is another instance of undue weight to a sub-topic of the article. The most we can say is that the state funded media that reported with a clear bias which could have influenced the vote, but that holds true with other states that have state-funded media outlets. Al Jazeera seems to have a pro-independence bias based on how they covered it, but none of us are seriously considering "Accusations of Qatari Interference" are we? BrendonTheWizard (talk) 01:18, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

We would be absolutely considering "accusations of Qatari Interference" if wp:reliable and wp:secondary sources were saying so, and extensive criticism of Al-Jazeera's Arabic service coverage can be found on the articles of some events in the Arab Spring on Wikipedia (at least they were there last I checked, I was involved in some of those articles years back). What we have now is analysts like B Schaffer and Medium's digital forensics lab backing these claims that Russian actors interfered, with goals to undermine European cohesion and spread distrust in its democratic institutions, and one claiming that Spain specifically was targeted. Neither my views nor yours matter, except with regards to what the page should say to be an informative and reliable encyclopedia. Anyhow I've added a bit about this to the press coverage section. I hope its agreeable. --Yalens (talk) 01:41, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Here's a summary [[4]], some more discussion [[5]] and some more [[6]]. The story seems to have originated with the Spanish outlet El Pais but Western outlets have looked further into it since then, and it's been noted elsewhere to that there were signs of links between some Catalan separatists and Russia in the Crimea controversy three years ago. My intention right now is not to have a --yes I agree, wp:undue-- whole subsection on it, I only added a few sentences. Unless and until media starts reporting more on it, that's how it should stay. --Yalens (talk) 16:35, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Yalens. Its inclusion is justified, but a whole subsection would be undue. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 11:45, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Russia has nothing to gain from this and unless Russians advised the Spanish government to crack down on the pro-referendum people, it is unlikely their involvement had any serious impact on these turns of events. The Government in Madrid is going to fall. Spain is a failed state thanks to their incompetent Galician Overlord of a Prime Minister as well as the political culture of Castilians that makes any union with any non-Castilians without the premise of fear or uncertainty absolutely dismal to the say the least. The people of Madrid did this to themselves. They should had been forthcoming with dialogue with Catalonians. They should had invested in actual federalism. In fact, they should outsourced Austrians and Germans and let them rebuild Spain after Franco's departure as a Germany/Austria in the Iberian Peninsula. Or they could had just asked the Belgians. Nevertheless, the people of Madrid did not consider how coercing ethnic minorities in Spain could lead to disastrous outcomes and they didn't respect the democratic spirit of the people, which they easily could have done and helped campaign for the stay vote during the referendum similar to how London did for the Scottish Referendum. What happens is what the people of the government in Madrid allowed to have happened. ~ Prince of Catalonia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8805:1600:36F:1CB5:D60E:F779:456F (talk) 19:49, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

October 3 General Strike

The general strike proposal was originally put forward by the anarcho-syndicalist CGT and CNT along with some smaller anarchist groups - not the CCOO who endorsed it just recently, as did the UGT. It was also originally proposed with a neutral view towards independence and primarily as a response to the repression of the Spanish government.

Confiscated ballots

Catalan government claim 770,000 votes were in boxes confiscated by police, mentioned by The Guardian ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/oct/01/catalan-independence-referendum-spain-catalonia-vote-live). Culloty82 (talk) 08:01, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

As a prodindependentist that was there must say this is false to be fair. I heard in real time the official account. What they said, with a bit of ambiguous language, is that >400 ballot boxes were substracted, which potentially represented a census of 770k people. But we have to be fair and admit that we need to substract from these 770 all the people that would not have voted anyways, would have voted blank/null, or ended up voting in other schools. We need to account, if I understood it correctly, the app allowed to vote twice with a digital registry, so they probably cleared the registry after each los ballot box and these votes were accounted in other schools. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 00:38, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Estimates of the number of confiscated ballots ought to be included in the results section. 24.50.161.64 (talk) 14:09, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Is there any way to put "seized votes" in the infobox? --Auledas (talk) 16:11, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

There's a "notes" field, which currently has "Provisional results" and a source. In theory "seized votes" could be added. I'm not sure if it ought to be, though. Scolaire (talk) 16:29, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

It would be more relevant to say the illegal referendum was forbidden and that the (illegal) result is not representative. (See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.193.104.227 (talk) 19:33, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

That´s quite reductionist. It was a legal referendum by the catalan law (binding indeed !!), which in turn was being turned down by the constitutional spanish court in express time. Expressing opinion is also a fundamental right by the UN. But I am agree the result cannot be considered representative because of the whole spoiled thing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 00:44, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

The infobox is incomplete because there is no information about 1. missing ballots, 2. Conditions under which the referendum was held. I hope someone with authorisation fixes it. Izitpajn (talk) 07:23, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Izitpajn I've done some stuff to handle this, with a lot of sources. There must be some way to integrate the fact that ~14.5% of the votes were estimated lost (admittedly according to the Catalonian government) into the box without breaking the template.--Yalens (talk) 08:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

The intro paras state "The referendum question, which voters answered with "Yes" or "No" [...] on a turnout of 43.03%. The Catalan government estimated that up to 770,000 votes were not cast due to polling stations being closed off during the police crackdown". This is not accurate - the 770,000 figure relates to the votes that *were cast* and were then seized by Spanish police. In addition to this there would have been many people who wanted to vote but were prevented from doing so, but there is no way to arrive at a figure for that. The 770,000 figure needs to be clearly stated as the votes seized by the Spanish Civil Guard, could someone with some seniority please make this change? Especially as this brings the vote to about 60%, which makes a big difference to the impression the article is currently making.

Thank you kindly. Violet. 220.245.138.58 (talk) 03:53, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

NPOV

The Wikipedia home page today (3 October 2017) has a news item stating that

Amidst a constitutional crisis, an independence referendum takes place in Catalonia, Spain.

This brief text appears to breach the WP:NPOV requirement, as the official Spanish government position is that "no referendum has taken place".

- BobKilcoyne (talk) 00:04, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Hundreds of reliable sources say it did take place. Are they all making it up? — Rwxrwxrwx (talk) 00:13, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Obviously, when it comes to what's going on in Catalonia, the most neutral person in this world is Mariano Rajoy. Mélencron (talk) 00:15, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

It has been a "masquerade" (an illegal masquerade), to which the independentists have come to vote; it is estimated that people who oppose (and have not come to vote) represent the majority of the population. There has been a total vote count of 100.8%, with people who have voted two, three, four times ..., a person who voted electronically on behalf of "Michael Jackson", opaque ballot boxes, ballot boxes that arrived at polling stations already filled with ballot papers, ballots that were printed at the homes, ballots introduced without envelopes, votes without control (because the computer network was down), etc. So it can not be considered as a "referendum". And also, the European Commission has confirmed that the Catalan independence referendum was “not legal”.

Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 00:34, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

This is not the place for soapboxing about whether or not the referendum was legal or legitimate, and the picture you painted raises as many POV concerns as what you argue against. Many ballots were illegitimate, and many ballots were seized or stolen. Many votes were electronically, but many websites were shutdown; with all of that being said, further discussion about varying viewpoints should cease when considering that this is not a forum. Whether one views it as an illegitimate referendum or an illegal referendum is not a factor when what is true is that it was a referendum. That is what cannot be subject to opinion, and that is what Wikipedia should display to remain neutral. BrendonTheWizard (talk) 01:09, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure the legality of it is pertinent to its description as a referendum. It's clearly illegal under the framework of the Spanish constitution, but what with regard to, say, the 2014 Crimean status referendum – which is explicitly described as a "referendum" regardless of its legality? Mélencron (talk) 00:37, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

With all due respect, on the topic of neutrality, are we seriously questioning if it's a POV fork to mention that it happened? An illegal referendum is a referendum. No matter what one thinks about whether Catalonia should stay in Spain or become a sovereign state, no matter what people think of Rajoy, no matter what people think about the legality of the referendum or the legitimacy of the Catalan will, no matter what people think of how the police forces acted, the statement that the referendum happened is objective, not subjective. Rajoy's assertion that it simply didn't happen is objectively, literally, and indisputably wrong, regardless of whether one hates or loves him; to say otherwise would be based off of WP:ILIKEIT or WP:DONTLIKEIT rather encyclopedic and verified fact. BrendonTheWizard (talk) 01:01, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

It obviously happened, else we would not have this discussion. Seems that a lot of pro-indipendence and pro-Rajoy people are clashing on this page. Right now, the lead seems very pro-Spanish government, since it directly attacks the Catalonian. I think a more neutral tone should be held.Eccekevin (talk) 02:58, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

It´s easier than that, I was there and half barcelona was in the street from 8 am in a never-seen build-up mass moment. However, not a single extra independentist vote was accounted according to the refernedum results, compared to the results of the independence parties in the last elections in 2015, when things were not that extreme and still a lot of people were in grey positions or not urged to participate. We could even argue that the only independentist people that did not vote the other day were out of the country, fearful or disabled for any reason. Which indeed means that 50% of the electoral census is allegedly independentist, which in turn means thatin case the turnout were high, we would probably have a tie.

Don't take anything literal from any of both sides. They are all frankly cherry-picking and even lying. Both national TVs (catalan and spanish one) are seriously fighting for selling an opposed point of view. Spanish national TV, for instance, has had an internal ban from the internal broadcasting comitee where even non'catalan reporters dennounced the paritality http://www.lavanguardia.com/television/20171002/431739446450/tve-referendum-1o-catalunya-periodistas-criticas.html. Most spanish media has just focused on the law and even the hurt policeman, but minimizing the boradcasting of media of the police agressions or even ignoring them. Catalan tv is absolutely positioned in the other direction (though it does not represent us all in the whole country and its alone on the spanish national broaadcasting representation). Think that catalan ministry said they were 800 hurted people, which I find it unbelievebly high number, whereas spanish ministry said there were 400 policeman hurt which is even more unbelievable. I mean, you see the videos, all policeman that used force were all dressing as antiriot chest armors and had sticks as weapons)... and still the proportion is 1:2 on hurt people... Just use international independent media, please.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 00:01, 4 October 2017 (UTC) 

NPOV

Right now, the lead is incredibly biased towards the Spanish government. I can say this as I am a foreign observer with no stake in the matter. But just reading it it feels like a newspaper opinion piece against the referendum, with the world 'illegal' coming up many times, and heave criticism of the Mossos, with no criticism of the Police or the government at all. I think it should be more neutral Eccekevin (talk) 03:02, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks God, I feel like that. I am proindependence but if you see my contributions in this page I TRY to be obejctive. An article about a political ideology should not be written by those that ban it, aside from facts and events (and criticisms if balanced with the other claims and suitable). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 00:32, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I added some information. It is important to understand, as state before, that Wikipedia is neutral. A referendum happened, regardless of one's opinions. The matter of the legality is obviously important and has to be addressed in the article, but Wikipedia cannot pretend that this event simply did not happen as the Prime Minister has said. Wikipedia has to report the data and the facts, even if the referendum was illegal according to the government Eccekevin (talk) 03:17, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Republic

Something should be said about that republic tail in the question. Was it intended to affect the results of the referendum? Шурбур (talk) 07:14, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

This is in order to avoid doubts about what kind of system would implictly bring the independence so people has more information, but it certainly appeals the non-independentist left-wing (and it seems it did). Macià did the same just before joining the second spanish republic — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 00:36, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Anti-independentists

Did anti-independentists boycott the referendum? The turnout suggests it was so. Шурбур (talk) 07:20, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Most political forces in favor of the Spanish Constitution called not to participate in the referendum, as it was suspended and deemed illegal by the Constitutional Court. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 08:02, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Absolutely without a hair of a doubt. Check the results for the non independent parties in the last elections (2015), youll se that at least 700k people did not vote in this referendum in order to abvoid the legitimation of any potential result (especially considering it was binding). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 00:50, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Unless we find a reliable source that says this (and not through WP:SYNTH of course) we shouldn't try to interpret the turnout solely off of one factor. It is also worth noting that the amount of stolen ballots, which while estimated could represent a number as high as 770,000, cannot be confirmed one way or another and thus cannot be added into the turnout rate. If there were upwards of nearly another million votes factored in, the turnout rate could surpass the needed threshold to reach a true majority. Other factors that would result in a low turnout include the Spanish state's opposition to the referendum, which came in many forms, whether through police raids or through reminding people that no matter what the central government will not recognize it. BrendonTheWizard (talk) 11:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

You are right, but it is so difficult to rationalize/dcoument common sense, since I lived the situation I am proindependence and I know very well the half of barcelona that I know and that are not independentist not a single one went to vote as everyone acknowledges. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tumbleweed87 (talk • contribs) 23:35, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello @BrendonTheWizard: In response to your request, here are some reliable sources that clearly state various calls to not participate in the referendum deemed illegal by Spanish law: [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]...

There are many more. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 12:47, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate that you have found RS sources for this. As previously said, we shouldn't phrase mentions of this in the article in such a way that would lead readers to believe that this is the sole reason for a lower turnout. We can mention using these sources that there were calls to not vote as you have found, but mentions of factors that influenced this turnout should not be without stating other known factors as said in the previous reply. This would give readers a more thorough understanding of the complications.

We could fairly mention the following without giving undue weight to any of them:

* There were calls to not participate in the referendum as the referendum was deemed illegal under Spanish law; those opposed to the referendum or to Catalan independence may have not participated as a result of this.

* Spain's Operation Anubis used the Guarda Civil to raid polling stations and stop people from voting, in the process preventing a maximum of 770,000 from voting.

* The Spanish government would not recognize the result regardless of a "yes" result or a "no" result as they have deemed the referendum unconstitutional, reducing the incentive for voters from either side.

It would also be reasonable for editors to deem this speculation and oppose the inclusion of this, but I would support a section elaborating on the turnout so long as it uses reliable sources for several factors as to not make it seem that there was only one or two contributing factors. If we do add this, it would need to be worded better than I have presented it on this talk page, words such as "may have" shouldn't be displayed on Wikipedia because they are weasel words and a better wording would eliminate them.

BrendonTheWizard (talk) 14:27, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello @BrendonTheWizard: The sources were in answer to the first question. I do agree with you that all three statements are relevant. I would however not add figures to any of them, and if they are added the number would need to have attribution. For the third point I would probably add that it may have been less of a factor for the yes voters as the organizers said that they would carry out the result regardless. It may also be worth mentioning the documented cases of alleged multiple voting, towns with more votes than their registered population or the video of a person that slipped and the ballot box seemed to be pre-stuffed with ballots (see here). This last part is not 100% conclusive as it is not proven if they were going to take them out once in the polling station but since there was no electoral commission there is no way of knowing. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 15:03, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Here ypu have it. Cannot be proven factually, but the missing 700k unionist votes are exactly the amount of people that cheered in the street this morning in barcelona for the first mass-convoked non-nationalistic celebration (though a lot of people came from the rest of the spain). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 23:45, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Results by veguerias

Hi. I added to the results section the results the Govern showed by vegueria. I thought it would be interesting to show the only results by territorial division the Govern published.

In other way, I see very few things about "the pro-Unity side". I mean, interesting things that would be shown like the support to the Police and the Guardia Civil when they departed from several provinces or the demonstrationa on September 30 in all Spain for the unity of the country. I don't know if I did not read well or if they were really omitted. Asturkian (talk) 08:29, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Resutls by vegueria and municipality can be found at [12]. There are some strange results because voters could vote outside their own municipality:----Bancki (talk) 12:52, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

comarca	municipality	registered	turnout	valid	"yes"
Alt Camp	El Pont d'Armentera	393	967	958	899
Pla de l'Estany	Palol de Revardit	354	1.002	999	982
Noguera	Os de Balaguer	783	1.463	1.457	1.382
Vallès Occidental	Polinyà	5.910	10.247	10.215	9.717
Vallès Occidental	Palau-solità i Plegamans	10.891	15.491	15.459	10.869

--(corrected)----Bancki (talk) 09:46, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Number of injured

About this edit: (890 civilians and 39 agents received medical treatment (scrapes and bruises are not injuries...))

Of course scrapes and bruises are injuries. Let's see the medical definition: An injury is damage to your body. It is a general term that refers to harm caused by accidents, falls, hits, weapons, and more. (...) Wounds are injuries that break the skin or other body tissues. They include cuts, scrapes, scratches, and punctured skin. (...) Other common types of injuries include Animal bites Bruises (...)

In adition, the references do not specify the type of injuries of civilians, we do not know how many of them have just scrapes and bruises or other types of injuries. We can not, therefore, separate numbers but give the total numbers. Our duty is to adjust to the references.

Also, an injured person is an injured, whether medical care is immediate or not.

I adjusted once and I will adjust again to fit the references.

Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 10:49, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

References

Well, finally on 2 October, only four of all that injured people were hospitalised. ([13], [14]) Could this fact be useful for your discussion? Asturkian (talk) 11:23, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Asturkian. Of course is useful. It reaffirms my argumentation. Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 12:13, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

This is considered WP:OR and is against Wikipedia's policy to include in the article. Wikipedia must reflect what reliable sources state, not your personal opinions or analysis. 2601:644:1:B7CB:75C2:683E:B7D3:6409 (talk) 07:42, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Content not explicitly stated by any of the sources

I agree with this, it is evident that is necessary to include for NPOV, but the edit had several irregularities. I have not been able to find where the sources specifically support the added text.

I have made these adjustments, per WP:OR, WP:SYN ("Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.") and WP:CITEKILL.

Please feel free to readd the previous text ("The Spanish government under the guide of Mariano Rajoy has come under international scrutiny over its use of force on civilians to prevent the referendum") if you find verifiable references that specifically support it.

Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 12:10, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Edgarmm81 (talk) 22:21, 5 October 2017 (UTC) Other political parties, groups and sub-national goverments • SCOTLAND: Nicola Sturgeon backs Catalan referendum calls http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-41350999

Press coverage

Like in the "falsehood and photomontages" epigraph, Spanish unionist media sprang to life the idea that kids were going to be used as a "human shields" during the Referendum: http://www.larazon.es/espana/puigdemont-usara-ninos-como-escudos-humanos-en-los-colegios-KA16344916 https://okdiario.com/espana/cataluna/2017/10/01/utilizacion-ninos-referendum-primero-escudos-humanos-luego-votantes-1374571 http://www.libertaddigital.com/espana/2017-09-19/los-separatistas-usaran-viejos-invalidos-y-ninos-de-pecho-como-escudos-humanos-1276606097/ http://www.eltitular.es/adoctrinando-los-ninos-escudos-humanos-referendum-1-octubre/

Reference 6: It is flaw, partial and biased: • An electronic database system was used. Spanish police could hack it for a couple of hours, but it existed http://www.elperiodico.cat/ca/politica/20171001/govern-cens-electoral-universal-6323219) • http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/05/europe/catalonia-referendum-covert-operation/index.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edgarmm81 (talk • contribs) 16:36, 7 October 2017 (UTC) • International observers: “We saw numerous and repeated violations of civil and human rights” http://www.catalannews.com/politics/item/international-observers-we-saw-numerous-and-repeated-violations-of-civil-and-human-rights).

It is ironic that the Spanish institutions actively boycotted the referendum and then argued that the referendum did not have guarantees.

Delict of civil disobedience

I changed "delict of civil disobedience" to "dereliction of duty", but was reverted. The cited source says "delito de desobediencia" (in Spanish). The most literal translation of this would be "delict of disobedience", but very few English speakers are going to understand what that means ("delict" is an obscure legal term in English). More understandable translations would be "breach of duty", "dereliction of duty", or simply "disobedience". I'm not trying to change the meaning of the wording here, just trying to make it understandable to our readers. Opinions? Kaldari (talk) 19:09, 3 October 2017 (UTC

(criminal) act of disobedience? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 02:38, 4 October 2017‎

IMO simply "disobedience" is okay. Thanks! Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 02:12, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Democratic spirit

I think the artilcle should mention that despite of isolated cases, the resistance was done in the peacefulest manner, applauding policeman that did not want to push too hard (especially regional one), and considering the streets were full of independentists and outnumbered in 1:10 the constitutionalists according to the results (and due to the call for non-voting from the unionist parties) there were memorable scenes of democratic fairness like: http://www.ara.cat/politica/Marcel-Ezquerra_0_1880212090.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 01:01, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Edgarmm81 (talk) 22:10, 5 October 2017 (UTC)The Catalan Referendum has been the most significant "legality vs legitimacy" case in the European recent History.

Please, note that:

• Spanish Constitution accepts the Self-determination right by abiding by the UN Charter's norms and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In its art. 10.2, the Spanish Constitution states "The principles relating to the fundamental rights and liberties recognised by the Constitution shall be interpreted in conformity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international treaties and agreements thereon ratified by Spain" However, the conservative party Partido Popular, which is ruling Spain, keeps a passive attitude and says self-determination to be out of the law. • There is no real separation of powers in Spain. The 12 Constitutional Court members are appointed as follows: 4 members by the Spanish Parliament with a 3/5 majority (unionist hold over 70% of the Parliament); 4 members by the Senate with a 3/5 majority (Unonists hold 80% of the Senate); 2 by the Government (Partido Popular, unionist), and just 2 by the judge's body. • 32 Catalan laws crossed, canceled or in 'standby' by the Constitutional Court in 2016 • Nationalist parties leave the Senate in protest for the renewal of the Constitutional • The Constitutional Court chairman says the Constitutional Court cannot sort out the "Catalan issue" and calls for political dialogue • The Constitutional Court broke the constitutional pact by disavowing the pact between parliaments and ignoring the referendum (Javier Perez Royo, Spanish Constitutional Law Professor at the University of Seville). • Unionist parties hold the 71.4% of the Spanish Parliament ((134+84+32)/350) but only 38,5% of the Catalan Parliament ((11+25+16)/135). Minority unionist parties in Catalonia used their power in Madrid to veto the referendum. • Rajoy keeps responding it is "impossible" to negotiate a referendum • International personalities signed the "Let Catalans Vote" manifesto, including 3 Nobel Peace Prizes. For instance: Desmond Tutu, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Dario Fo, Rigoberta Menchú, Ahmed Galai, Mirta Baravalle, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Yoko Ono or Viggo Mortensen • Switzerland, Estonia, Ireland and The House of Lords(through the "All-Party Parliamentary Group on Catalonia") requested a political solution: and • After 6 year-in-a-row rallies in Catalonia, with over 1 million people (20% population) claiming for the independence in each one, the Spanish government keeps refusing to take any action to sort out the situation. • Over 76% of Catalans support a referendum • The referendum holds the support of 712 of 948 municipalities of Catalonia. • Mr Puigdemont, Junqueras and Ms Colau 's letter to Mr Rajoy and the King Felipe VI requesting a legal solution for the referendum • Barcelona mayor Ada Colau send a letter to 700 mayors to protect the Catalans rights • Spain’s attempt to block Catalonia’s referendum is a violation of our basic rights • Catalan leader calls for mediation with Spain over independence after the Referendum • According to the art. 56 of the Spanish Constitution: "The King is the Head of State, symbol of its unity and permanence, arbitrates and moderates the regular functioning of institutions", but the King Felipe VI did not act as he should have. Catalan president accused Spanish king of being government mouthpiece • European values, civil rights, freedom of speech, freedom of information and freedom of assembly are being violated by Spain’s central government, which has sent the police to search newspapers, printing companies and private mail services; ban political meetings; seize referendum material; and threaten to imprison democratically elected politicians • Spain must guarantee respect for fundamental rights in its response to the Catalan referendum

But the own all the law and the media (a.k.a the official voice). How are we gonna prove the evident to the world if our only representative forces are local and obviously positioned for the cause? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 23:55, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Falsehoods

Why is this section necessary? If some claims are false, why repeat them? It's pretty common for numerous different stories, claims, exaggerations, etc. to be told during a tumultuous event. It seems like the main purpose of this section is to try to discredit the protesters on the basis of a few questionable claims, which violates WP:DUE/WP:NPOV. 2601:644:1:B7CB:75C2:683E:B7D3:6409 (talk) 07:24, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Yeah I agree. Since there's clearly a dispute here, I'm tagging the section. --Yalens (talk) 08:33, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

They are documented facts, correctly referenced. Not only is it not a lack of neutrality, but quite the contrary. Wikipedia has to reflect the facts, the reader will come to their own conclusions. The personal interpretations you make about the purpose of the section are just your point of view. Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 12:11, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

It's a violation of WP:UNDUE and part of the issue mentioned by many others that this page is written with a tone at many parts that is vastly pro-Spanish government. I would add that there are other sections that are vastly pro-Catalan independence which come ultimately come together to leave a very POV page that also has a POV identity complex.--Yalens (talk) 12:40, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

This section is repeatedly being removed violating Wikipedia policies, by newly registered users or ip's who have only globally edited once or twice. Remember that WP:UNDUE: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources". And also, we must apply WP:NPOVHOW.

The sources are perfectly reliable. In particular, this of Le Monde provides very clear evidence for part of the content and events not yet included in the section.

Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 15:14, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject. I disagree with attempts to entirely delete it from the page, especially as the proliferation of interesting stuff on social media regarding the controversy by bots is now discussed by the media (see Russia interference section). But on the other hand this cannot take up this much space and does not deserve its own section unless we have WP:RS saying that the impact of these things is enough to put it on par with the relevance of other sections.--Yalens (talk) 16:43, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE does not apply in this case, Weather the use of force by the police while carrying out the court order of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia was excessive or not is a key issue. Both sides of the story must be presented. That falsehoods were used to support the claim of excessive use of force is a very relevant issue and its notability is established by the many reliable sources that have sourced it. It should not be removed, as we should not remove the information about the person injured in the eye by a rubber ball or the use of batons by the police etc. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 18:04, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

With little more discussion here, conflictual editing on this section has continued: BrendonTheWizard [[15]] and Munci [[16]] have tried to remove the section while BallenaBlanca and Crystallizedcarbon [[17]] [[18]] have reverted. I think we should discuss more here, rather than revert each other. (sorry for absence) My own view is that, yes, WP:UNDUE still applies (although I prefer the shrinkage of the section and it being subsumed into another, rather than complete removal), as although CrystallizedCarbon makes a reasoned point that falsehoods were used to support the claim of excessive use of force, I would personally much prefer to see outside sources (preferably English speaking ones, the Spanish/Catalan media have been uhh emotional lately, sorry) rather than Wikipedia making this point. Indeed, as far as I could tell, the video that really drew peoples attention (at least my colleagues who talked about it) was the viral one of the Spanish police attacking Catalan firefighters, not any of the ones the section discusses, so the above claim about it being notable because the falsehoods were what buttressed those claims might be not undisputable.--Yalens (talk) 00:43, 6 October 2017 (UTC) EDIT : my bad, I pinged you all to nothing as the section was subsumed by Impru -- thanks for that. I had meant to post this earlier but actually entered it much later.--Yalens (talk) 01:09, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I also agree that this is WP:UNDUE. BrendonTheWizard (talk) 00:53, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

--> IT SHOULD SAY: Only 9 police agents were attended in Catalan public hospitals (https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/10/04/catalunya/1507116174_996319.html)

Spanish unionist media sprang to life the idea that kids were going to be used as a "human shields" during the Referendum: http://www.larazon.es/espana/puigdemont-usara-ninos-como-escudos-humanos-en-los-colegios-KA16344916 https://okdiario.com/espana/cataluna/2017/10/01/utilizacion-ninos-referendum-primero-escudos-humanos-luego-votantes-1374571 http://www.libertaddigital.com/espana/2017-09-19/los-separatistas-usaran-viejos-invalidos-y-ninos-de-pecho-como-escudos-humanos-1276606097/ http://www.eltitular.es/adoctrinando-los-ninos-escudos-humanos-referendum-1-octubre/

Hello @Yalens: Thank you for your analysis. In response to your request here are some English speaking sources that establish the relevance of the information:

• The Dayly Mail wrote: 'Police broke my fingers one by one and touched my breasts': Horrifying claims of police brutality at poll stations emerge as Spain faces political crisis after Catalonia votes for independence. This is an example of an international article that uses her testimony as a "Horrifiying claim of police brutality". This was echoed by other media, Barcelona's ex-coach Pep Guardiola or the Major of Madrid Manuela Carmena, so it seems clear that it had a relevant impact and weight on public opinion and claims of excessive use of force.
• Latter it also published: Woman who said Spanish police sexually assaulted her and broke her fingers 'one by one' during Catalan referendum violence admits she 'exaggerated' her injuries so they also found it to be notable.
• Catalan referendum: Spanish foreign minister claims photos of police brutality are 'fake' another example of an English speaking source that deems the matter notable.
• This two are published English by El País, is a Spanish reliable source that I think you will find useful: There’s fake news in Catalonia too and How many people were really injured during the Catalan referendum?

On the other hand I had not seen the video of the firefighters before now. It seems clear that WP:UNDUE does not apply in this case. Regards. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 13:00, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Edgarmm81 (talk) 16:58, 6 October 2017 (UTC) Disagree with the idea that "El País" is a Spanish reliable source. "El Pais" used to be a relatively objective newspaper 10 years ago, but not now (as almost all the Spanish and Catalan media). "El Pais" has a clear unionist bias.

You are entitled to your opinion, but with all due respect, I have fully disagree you. You are of course free to bring the matter up at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Regards. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 17:07, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Regarding the Daily Mail, I direct to this article which is about how Wikipedia no longer classes this website as a reliable source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia-bans-daily-mail-as-unreliable-source-for-website Munci (talk) 14:33, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Here are more sources that viewed the incident as an example of brutality: BEATEN IN THE STREETS Catalonia independence referendum voter accuses Spanish of horrifying brutality as government minister claims photos of referendum violence are ‘fake’, Catalan referendum video: Woman 'dragged from polls, assaulted & had her fingers broken', Pep Guardiola: I Would Not Have Played Barcelona Match Amid Catalonia Referendum... there are many more. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 15:10, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Crystallizedcarbon Umm, yeah Munci is absolutely right regarding Daily Mail, and you just linked more similar British tabloids that also aren't reliable. By the way these sorts of tabloids also published stuff "on the other side" about the firefighter affair that is similarly HYSTERICAL IN TONE : [[19]] [[20]]. Now, as for El Pais I don't know as much since I speak English not Spanish -- my feeling is that it does not violate WP:RS and although it seems a bit biased its voice is still worth reporting.

On the other hand, while as a Spanish speaker you may be unaware, that video of the police beating the firefighters tore through English social media -- and also some other domains. Here's South China Morning Post, [Police vs firefighters: officers clash in defining images of Catalonia referendum] -- so they were the defining images, apparently. And there was lots of Western reporting on this [[21]] [[22]] [Videos from earlier in the day show police hitting people in the crowd with batons while voters hold up their hands, police dragging voters from polling stations by their hair and Spanish police attacking Catalan firefighters] (8:10 post from 5 days ago). Not just British media, but American media published this in headlines too [[23]]. Although this is OR, I must also remark that colleagues of mine brought up the video at work and while the narrative had previously been mostly sympathy for Spain ("first austerity and now this mess"), this has changed things a bit more to "what the hell are they doing" (note though that these are people who had never heard of Catalonia before so their opinions are quite fluid). I think if stuff along these lines is added to the section alongside the apparent reports of the fake news and what not (in the violence section), that will show you are supporting proper balance and coverage on the page, and I will support you. Different things have played in media in different domains and this should all be acknowledged inclusively, as long as it doesn't get too long. --Yalens (talk) 17:22, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I of course agree. It is obvious that different places will put the emphasis on different news. And I fully agree that the violence and its repercussions are obviously notable and should be included. It is also natural that there should be a lot more coverage in Spain and that within it some media, still being reliable, may put more emphasis on some facts over others. That does not mean that Spanish sources including those from Catalonia should be excluded. Regards. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 17:38, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello @Yalens: I added the information about the firefighters. As for the alleged finger breaking, as I said there are many other sources that covered the story like [24], [25], [26], [27], [28] etc.

The Generalitat has sued the police and Guardia Civil for the violence. The judge in charge confirmed that of the 843 people that asked to speak with doctors 130 were actually injured and of those 2 remain hospitalized. I am thinking of the best way of adding the information. I will also add information on the irregularities of the voting process and the report issued by the "unofficial" international observers. Regards. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 18:35, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Is true that catalan firefighters protected voters from police action. And there also were fakes, as pictures from the 2013 protests: [29]

Crystallizedcarbon, you can use this same source for adding information on the irregularities. It clearly documents some of the irregularities committed. Among them, some as serious as that there was no control over the votes, with people who voted up to four times at different polling stations with pictures that prove it. And this other, already present in the page [30].

A proof of the importance of the false claims of the woman with the "broken fingers" is that Mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau used it to accuse the police (I put a reference in English, there are several in Spanish) "Speaking to a local radio station, Colau commented that one of these sexual assaults occurred in Barceloneta, although it would also have to add the case of the young woman who was at the polling station in Pau Claris. Spanish officers had sexually assaulted her and broken her fingers ‘deliberately one by one’ and, as reported in a video, one of the agents who repressed the crowd, allegedly touched her breasts laughing and shouting “I do not like your boobs’.”". --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 01:22, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

False reference, please remove

This sentence: "With the aim of magnifying the intervention of the police, the independentists spread through the social networks images of civilians injured in other events of five years ago and at least there was two reports of injuries that resulted to be false." is followed by a reference that doesn't corroborate it. 1. The reference mentions one case where a woman first claimed her "fingers were broken one by one", while in fact she was "just" thrown on the floor and dragged down the stairs (as clearly seen in the video) 2. In the reference there is no mention whatsoever of the "images of civilians injured in other events of five years ago" This is not only a Point of View issue, it is a direct forgery. (edit: Wow! That was quick!) Izitpajn (talk) 07:42, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the reference supports the text. It may be a problem of understanding Spanish.

1. Otro de los heridos es el hombre de unos 70 años que sufrió un paro cardiorrespiratorio cuando la Policía desalojó un colegio electoral en el barrio de La Mariola, en Lérida. Sin embargo, fuentes policiales confirmaron a ABC que esta persona no formaba parte del grupo de personas que protestaban por la ocupación de los centros y que fue la propia Policía quien atendió al anciano al poco de sufrir el infarto.

Edgarmm81 (talk) 00:32, 6 October 2017 (UTC)Disagree with the above: the 70 year old man is receiving a CPR and, although the Spanish police is helping, the crowd is calling them "Asesinos" ("killers"). At the end of the video, another charge is started in the area.

1. Montajes y mentiras. Tal como denuncia hoy también ABC, el secesionismo difundió el domingo imágenes de heridos en otros eventos de hace cinco años para magnificar la actuación policial del 1-O. (1-0 = Catalan independence referendum, 2017) Sucedió con la fotografía de un chico joven que exhibía una brecha en la cabeza, con la sangre corriéndole por el pelo largo moreno. La imagen del herido, que fue difundida por militantes independentistas en plena jornada, no tuvo nada que ver con el proceso independentista. El chico, de 13 años, fue golpeado precisamente por los Mossos d’Esquadra –la policía autonómica que ayer se abstuvo de impedir la votación ilegal– el 14 de noviembre de 2012, en la huelga general convocada en Cataluña. El entonces consejero de Interior, Felipe Puig, calificó de «fortuito» el incidente del chico, que necesitó cuatro puntos de sutura. La imagen era de Tarragona.

But I realize that in fact, point 1 could correspond more with an error, while the woman made false statements.

I also recognize that this sentence: With the aim of magnifying the intervention of the police, although it is supported by reference, is not encyclopedic, we must use more neutral language.

There are more references about the images that were broadcast but did not correspond with the 1-0 or even montages, as for example this [31]

Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 12:01, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I can confirm, even catalan media acknoledges it: http://www.ara.cat/politica/Policia-escales-avall-coces-marta-torrecillas_0_1879612220.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tumbleweed87 (talk • contribs) 23:44, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Edgarmm81 (talk) 11:56, 8 October 2017 (UTC)Edgarmm81 (talk) 00:32, 6 October 2017 (UTC) Wikipedia, please be careful with the propaganda and anti-propaganda. Fake news have been created and widely distributed through unionist Spanish media (i.e.: Antena3, El Mundo, El Pais, etc), but Catalan people do not recognize them (except the case of the girl who said her fingers were broken and who retracted the following day). It is anti-propaganda in order to discredit the nearly 900 injured people who had to be checked in public hospitals (and there is an official record of those visits). I am really concerned about the fact that Wikipedia got fooled so easily!

So all major reliable sources from Spain are suddenly not reliable? Please note that according to a Catalan judge that is investigating the police actions the number of injured people is down to 103 and mostly minor. Would't you call that propaganda? --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 20:46, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Remove "results by county" map in leading section

Now it is three days after the referendum and the map is still blank. I think the map can be temporarily removed until reliable data comes out. Esiymbro (talk) 10:44, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. No county-by-county results have been made available. FOARP (talk) 12:46, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

"repression and brutalization"

This sub-heading is clearly POV, as well as being bad English ("brutalization" refers to becoming brutal). If this refers to the actions of the Spanish riot police (and other authorities) then lets say that. FOARP (talk) 11:21, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

"repression" and "brutalization" (this actually is an acceptable use of the word) are flagrant POV language-- better just not to use adjectives like that. This page is besot by flagrant POV pushing by both sides, it's pretty frustrating. I've removed it--Yalens (talk) 13:13, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Edgarmm81 (talk) 16:54, 6 October 2017 (UTC)"Unofficial Spanish police apologies, not signed by the senior management"

Medium range Spanish police officers recognize that in the action there were police excesses. They affirm that they could have prevented the vote without necessity of evictions. "We present our most heartfelt apologies for the excesses that may have been produced, reiterating that the very essence of the catastrophically determined service entrusted to us inevitably entails such scenes."

Lost votes -- what sources say

Impru has repeatedly deleted info about the lost votes, claiming that the estimate represented electors and not actual votes. While I find this plausible, it is not what the sources are saying. I made this very clear and was transparent, by making inlines in the references (which Impru deleted without explanation [[32]] -- and nowhere in the edit summary was a justification for the deletion of the inline quotes which disputed what they were saying ). Here is what the sources say:

The Guardian:

"Officials said 770,000 votes were lost due to disruption which resulted in polling stations being raided by Spanish police."

The Independent:

"...total voting figures remain incomplete and provisional because a much larger number, an estimated 770,000,, are either inaccessible or lost after some polling stations were closed and ballot boxes were seized by police."

At Wikipedia we are obligated to state what sources say -- not what we think happened -- and absolutely not to claim in edit summaries, as Impru did, that sources are saying one thing and not another, when there were clearly inlines that show the contrary [[33]].

There is also another issue here -- Turull claims that because of the police action, turnout was driven down -- obviously the Catalan government isn't neutral here, but this is a plausible claim and must be reported (in an NPOV way of course). Impru simply wipes this from the page with the limp edit summary of "Fixing misleading statement on this in the lead + removing duplicate sources". Look, I'm not some pro-separatist edit warrior -- actually the reason I came to the page just now was to add stuff about the allegations of Russian interference, an issue which is certainly not favorable to the separatists which does not have adequate coverage yet and which I have been gathering sources on -- but while I am willing to assume good faith here at least for now, I find this sort of behavior to be incredibly unconstructive and the opposite of good editing practice. --Yalens (talk) 13:04, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

The Catalan government source is very clear on this: "770,000 votes not cast due to polling stations being closed off". When sources say "they were lost", they mean that up to that number of votes did not even had the chance of being cast (this is, electors who could cast a vote. Sources in Spain and Catalonia (provided in the article as well) are much clearer on this. English ones just cover this in a single sentence at most). However, you try to imply that when sources say those votes were lost, they mean that 770,000 votes were actually cast and then lost, which is false (and also, impossible to determine). Then, you also failed to say anything about the "universal census" allowing people to vote even if their polling station was closed (and it's not a minor thing, given that, for example, Puigdemont himself had to resort to voting in another polling place due to his own being raided). Impru20 (talk) 13:13, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Adding some local sources that provide a much more in-depth coverage of the "770,000 votes" issue. Also note than when speaking of voters", sources may be also referring to "registered voters" (which means the same as "elector" in Spanish/Catalan context where all voters within the national territory are automatically registered, rather than having to apply for voting as happens in the US, the UK or some other countries): [34], [35], [36], [37] (this one is VERY explicit on it, even with charts), [38]. Impru20 (talk) 13:45, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I said that because that is what the sources I had said (the Guardian literally says lost, you can look in the quote right below), while I didn't know about the "universal census" affair -- I would have added it had I known and had time. While certainly that may be a factor, not everyone has the luxury of hopping to a different voting station and the reported turnout of 42% was much lower than the intended turnout in polls which was 50-70%, with both the largest and most recent poll indicating intention to vote at 62%, 20% higher. It is fine to state the universal census affair, but this cannot justify simply erasing Turull's statement, especially when that's hidden in your edit summary.

Thanks for the sources. I will incorporate these to the article if I get a moment and adjust it accordingly. But this does not warrant removal -- the material still warrants mention. And none of this justifies your removal (without stating in the edit summary) of Turull's statement about the effect of the police driving down turnout. --Yalens (talk) 15:05, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

PS that isn't exactly the definition of "electors" in the American context, far from it. Interestingly, while I dislike using Spanish/Catalan sources if not necessary (both sides' media sounds really emotional right now), the last one [[39]] goes more in depth about Turull's argument in a way that is not represented on the page.:

Els encarregats de donar els resultats des del Centre Internacional de Premsa, el vicepresident, Oriol Junqueras; el conseller de la Presidència, Jordi Turull, i el conseller d'Exteriors, Raül Romeva, han remarcat contínuament que, tot i que els 2.248.000 vots no suposen 'per se' el 50% del cens, els càlculs dels experts apunten que sense pressió policial i tancament de col·legis s'hauria pogut arribar al 55% de participació. -- Google Translate: "Those in charge of giving the results from the International Press Center, Vice President, Oriol Junqueras; The counselor of the Presidency, Jordi Turull, and the foreign minister, Raül Romeva, have remarked continuously that, although the 2,248,000 votes do not suppose "per se" the 50% of the census, the calculations of the experts suggest that Without police pressure and closing of schools it could have reached 55% participation." (bold mine)

Obviously this needs to be readded.-Yalens (talk) 15:14, 4 October 2017 (UTC) PPS Impru20 sorry that I may have bit unpleasant at points here, bit grumpy. --Yalens (talk) 17:00, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Yalens I think the text is fair enough right now. Agree on your claim about "electors" (in Spain they're called electores, so that would be its translation. I actually think we were meaning the same thing all along; "potential voters" seems a pretty decent compromise). Impru20 (talk) 18:51, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

References

"Violence and Injuries"

"On the day of the poll, the Mossos d'Esquadra failed to execute the direct order issued by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia to close the voting centers before they opened and to confiscate voting materials."

This is actually a point of contention between the Spanish police and the Mossos d'Esquadra. It is undisputed that the Mossos closed hundreds of polling stations on election day, where they encountered no resistance. However, they were under strict orders from their chain of command not to use force in doing so, because to do so would be disproportionate to the objective sought. (I think the Mossos' view is this: Arguably, though the poll may well be illegal, preventing votes from being counted does not justify the use of force against groups of civilians, and nothing in the judicial order implied that the objective was sufficiently important to warrant the use of such force.) Thus the Mossos claim that they complied with the judge's orders to the extent reasonably possible. It is possible that at some point there will be prosecutions of the Mossos leadership by the Spanish authorities for dereliction of duty on October 1, but it is important to understand that this passage is not neutral as currently written. 24.50.161.64 (talk) 05:02, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I have to disagree. The sentence as written is accurate. They failed to execute the order given by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia. It is obvious that they failed in closing the voting centers and in confiscating the voting material.

The failure in the execution of the order is objective regardless of the analysis of the reasons that motivated that failure. and even though it has no impact on the reliability of the statement, I would like for you to also consider this facts:

• Seven separate judges from different cities in Catalonia (Barcelona, El Vendrell, La Seu d'Urgell, Lleida, Cerdanyola del Vallés, Santa Coloma de Gramanet and El Prat de Llobregat) have opened proceedings for disobedience against the Mossos (see here)
• There are multiple videos that show Mossos not only not stoping, but actually cooperating with the organization of the referendum (see video where Mossos are carring ballot boxes on their official car and carrying them inside the voting center)
• Mossos is Sant Joan de Vilatorrada tried to prevent the police from accessing a voting center and had to be pushed aside (see article that sources tha incident, and others)
• Catalan judges and prosecutors have lost their faith in the Mossos after the incident (see here)

The failure in the results is clear, and the intent of the Mossos led by Trapero, that was appointed by the separatists is, at the very least, questionable. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 07:59, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

The Mossos closed hundreds of polling stations. That is undisputed. And if you think that failure is only measured by the result that the polling stations remained open, then the Civil Guard and National Police must also have failed. For if they had used live ammunition, they probably would have managed to close all the polling stations, thereby fully complying with the judge's orders. Yet most polling stations were left open. In the present situation, I don't think that the fact that the Mossos are being investigated means that they are objectively guilty of what you say.24.50.161.64 (talk) 08:14, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

This entire section appears biased to minimize the violence. It reads largely as though it's mainly trying to rebut what is commonly reported in the media. I think it would be useful to include general statements by international media that characterize the overall scale and the severity of the violence. For example, international media were struck by the fact that these were peaceful, passive protesters, including people of all ages. In contrast to riot police action at the G8 and so forth, these were really ordinary people being attacked. It is important to report things this way, because this is what has had such an impact on public opinion, through the videos especially. Also, statements from Amnesty International and other human rights organizations would be useful.24.50.161.64 (talk) 10:45, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes the Mossos failed and I agree with you that so did the police and the Guardia Civil. I think the reasons of their failures are different, but that is not relevant. Here you can read the direct testimony of a Mosso that reports that they were ordered not to act "La Policía pidió ayuda y nos ordenaron no acudir". Some Mossos declared to be ashamed of their superiors 'Mossos' indignados quieren pasarse a Policía o Guardia Civil: "Están avergonzados"

Even though we are getting off the point here, It is clear that the police used force and some of the scenes in the videos seem excessive. What is not clear is that they all were peaceful passive protesters as you said. There is usually more than one side to a story. You seem to have missed information about this incident or the 431 agents that were injured (see Interior asegura que 431 policías y guardias civiles resultaron heridos en el dispositivo del 1-O) bruised, clawed, kicked and some even bitten. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 12:32, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

§"the Mossos d'Esquadra failed to execute the direct order issued by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia". FALSE. It has not been proved! Not even started the investigation. On the other hand, the Spanish police brutality has been condemned ref: http://www.elnacional.cat/en/news/european-parliament-unanimously-rejects-police-repression-in-catalonia_198528_102.html

I suggest you read more sources. This article by Bloomberg may be helpful: EU Defends Spain’s Right to Use ‘Proportionate’ Force. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 11:54, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Neutrality of sources

Though Canadian, I have been following developments closely in both Spanish- and Catalan-language media. I would like to warn everybody that many reports in the press are extremely biased, depending on the position of the newspaper, to such an extent that almost everything needs to be double-checked in different sources. Even on straightforward factual matters, Madrid dailies like El País, ABC, El Mundo, etc., can't be trusted on their own, to say nothing of Catalan nationalist sources. Generally, the non-separatist Barcelona press, especially La Vanguardia and El Periódico, has steered a middle course and seems most reliable.

For example, the article currently contains this passage, citing Madrid-based ABC and El Confidencial: On the other hand, a councilwoman of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ECR, for its acronym in Spanish) accused the police of pushing her down the stairs, breaking all the fingers of her hand one by one and sexual abuse during a polling station evacuation. However, the scene was recorded and the images show that the woman threw herself to the ground when the agents asked her to leave. She has just an inflammation in one finger.[139][140]

Reading this, one gets the impression that she fabricated the whole thing. But the truth is much more nuanced than that. It turns out that she was wrong initially about the extent of her injuries, and once she visited the hospital she found out that her hand injuries were less serious than broken fingers. But read the description in La Vanguardia of the same video: Su relato dio la vuelta al mundo por la dureza de sus palabras y el desgarrador vídeo donde la zarandeaban, la tiraban al suelo y la arrastraban escaleras abajo.[...] Los vídeos muestran como el agente se ensaña con su mano izquierda, aunque finalmente donde sufrió la inflamación fue en la derecha, seguramente fruto de la caída. [Her story was heard around the world both because of the harshness of her words and because of the heartrending video in which she was shaken, thrown to the ground and dragged down stairs.[...] The videos show the officer tormenting her left hand, though in the end the inflammation was in her right hand, undoubtedly as a result of the fall.]

[40]

Although I don't want to go into too much detail here, another example is the reporting of statements by foreign governments, UN officials, and international election observers. What I have found is that, even when reporting on the very same statements, Catalan nationalist media and the Madrid press emphasize the facts that favour their own side and downplay or ignore the rest, to such an extent that the intention of the statements can be seriously distorted to readers. Both sides are equally guilty of this.

To give a final example of what I'm talking about, the journalists' union ("Consejo de informativos") at the Spanish state broadcaster, TVE, called on the entire leadership of their news division to resign over the network's coverage of the referendum, writing that TVE "did everything in its power to disseminate a partial and biased view of events." [41] Unsurprisingly, the statement was prominently reported on in the Barcelona press (both separatist and unionist), but featured much less prominently, if at all, in the web portals of the main Madrid newspapers.

To put things succinctly: Spanish media have taken sides in what is becoming something of an information war, and even reporting of factual material has become biased and unreliable. Checking sources on different sides is essential in order for this article to remain neutral.24.50.161.64 (talk) 06:15, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for this analysis and the links. I suspected as much. Munci (talk) 07:05, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

There are many examples of bias of la Vanguardia articles towards the independence side. I can provide examples if needed. In the case that you mention, the problem is that in the original article published by la vanguardia: “Me han roto los dedos uno en uno y me han tocado las tetas mientras se reían”, The article claimed that the police broke all the finger in her hand one by one and that another agent was touching her breasts while others watched and laughed. The articles you mention were in response to this claims. She did not fabricate the injurie, but it seems that she used her injurie to make false claims of torture.

From reading the complete article from el confidencial it is very unlikelly that a reader could interpret that she fabricated the whole thing as the article does include in bold that she was dragged a few steps and that she had a "capsulitis" in her hand that caused her fingers to be stiff so she could not move them. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 08:25, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I am saying that the Wikipedia article appears to imply that she fabricated the story. At 0:12-0:16 of the video in the article you linked to, it is clear that the police officer is doing something to her hand. And there is no evidence that she is lying about any part of her account, just that the extent of her injuries is less than she thought. La Vanguardia is simply reporting what she says, and everything is attributed to her and to the video.

Remember that La Vanguardia has just issued an editorial warning against independence. So it is clearly not pro-independence. However, it differs from the Madrid press in that it calls a spade a spade, when it refers to this as one example of the violence of the police on that day. That statement may appear to be biased to an observer from Madrid because the press there systematically minimizes the extent of the violence, but this is in fact what almost all foreign journalists present in Barcelona thought of the police action, and in my view it is perfectly objective. Anyway, you should realize that there's a problem in your definition of bias if the local newspapers in Barcelona most sympathetic to unionism are carrying reports you consider biased. It's much more difficult for them to hide the truth from their readers because the readers saw what happened that day with their own eyes.

This source from El Confidencial [42], which was used as a source for the Wikipedia article, is clearly not neutral.

Finally, I'd like to point out that parts of the public in Spain are apparently well aware of the sharply differing viewpoints of the Barcelona and Madrid press. National television crews have been verbally attacked in Barcelona, and today a reporter from Catalan-language TV3, reputed to be a pro-sovereigntist outlet, was spat on in Madrid. 24.50.161.64 (talk) 08:52, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

It's as simple as watching the video of one of her own statements to the media, in ABC reference. Incidents begins in the second 40 and there is a subtitle with the translation from Catalan to Spanish: "Me han cogido los dedos de las manos y expresamente me los estaban rompiendo. They have taken my fingers and expressly they were breaking them"

And curiously, the hand we can see that they are holding (not breaking fingers one by one) in the images of the event is the right one but the one that has bandaged on the statement is the left hand.

Her statements imply a cruelty that is clearly not seen in the images. And she also confused the hand. The reader can draw their own conclusions.--BallenaBlanca (Talk) 09:21, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't know why you're referring me to that video. Look at the video in the article from La Vanguardia. It shows more of the interaction. [43] It seems that an officer is doing something to her right hand. At the same time, it looks like an officer is also holding her left hand, but it isn't as easily visible to the camera. This is the video where she's also dragged down the stairs: [44] Interestingly, a police officer tries to prevent all of this being caught on film. 24.50.161.64 (talk) 09:41, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Little can we advance if you refuse to accept the videos of the incidents, where we can see what really happened. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 10:23, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm confused. I do accept the videos. La Vanguardia's account is centred on the videos and the victim's statements. On the other hand, I also see that not everything that happened can be seen in them.24.50.161.64 (talk) 10:35, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

We have to seek neutrality. It is our mission. Not all of manifestants were "pacific" (and nor all the diffused images corresponding to the 1-O). The agents have been expressly attacked, as this video certifies: [45] --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 10:59, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Of course we have to seek neutrality. In this video, I see many policemen hitting civilians with batons and then one civilian (whose respiration was blocked by a policeman's hand) punching a policeman. What do you see in it? Munci (talk) 14:36, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

The same video is posted in El Confidencial and in La Vanguardia. The hand that can be seen that the agent pulls is the right one and the injurie is on the left one. There is no evidence anywhere in the video that her fingers were broken one by one as there is no evidence either that while her clothes were lifted up an agent touched her breasts while others looked on and smiled.

I do agree with you that this source [46] should not be used. But it is not from El Confidencial. it is from el confidencial digital. They are not related. I have replaced it for the one from El Confidencial.

Please look again at the video and please confirm if you see there any evidence that the fingers of her left hand been broken one by one, or if you see the agents touching her breasts while her clothes are up or even if they are laughing. The description from El Confidencial does seem less biased.--Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 11:35, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

You are correct 24.50.161.64, I would suggest to rely on international media for the controversial parts of the article. --Auledas (talk) 18:16, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

There is no greater neutrality than images. There is no reason to rely on international media.

Few times we have the opportunity to have sources as clear as in this case, that there are videos of the incident in which everything is collected.

In addition, there is a video in which we can clearly see how just when she leaved, moves both hands perfectly and grabs a fence with total normality: [47]

This same woman participated in violent attacks to the Civil Guard a few weeks ago in Barcelona and spread images in the social networks seated on a Civil Guard destroyed car: [48] --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 09:05, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Cherry picking a few videos or personal experiences is not neutral. There are thousands of videos and images from thousands of protesters and the way to obtain a coherent explanation of the facts is not by commenting a few of those images/experiences. The most neutral point of view is achieved by relying on neutral journalists who can explain the whole situation. --Auledas (talk) 03:15, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

This is not a "simple personal experience". She is a is a Republican Left of Catalonia councillor and participated in violent disturbances on September 20, who then falsely accused the police of "horrific" violence and sexual abuse, and whose accusations provoked the accusations to the Spanish police by the mayor of Barcelona. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 09:03, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

The thing is that Ada Colau didn't accuse the Spanish Police only because of her message "Speaking in RAC1, Colau commented that one of these sexual assaults occurred in Barceloneta, although it would also have to add the case of the young woman who was in a school in Pau Claris" (http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20171002/431742168473/ada-colau-denuncia-agresiones-sexuales-policia-1-o.html). And if she participated in a demonstration on 20 September 2017 I don't see how that affected the injuries received on 1 October. And it seems pretty obvious to me that this is a personal experience and not a global report of what happened that day.--Auledas (talk) 11:50, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if it was the only one or not, Ada Colau has been based on it for her accusations. Her previous actions put into context her subsequent actions. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 18:16, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Here is the latest example. The international press (BBC, The Guardian, etc.) are leading their coverage of Catalonia with the fact that the Spanish government is apologizing for the police action on Oct. 1. At present, this information is nowhere to be found on the front pages of the websites for El País or ABC.24.50.161.64 (talk) 14:13, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Please read this ABC article or this one from El Mundo. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 14:50, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

The ABC story, as far as I can tell, is not on the front page of the website. The fact that the Spanish government has apologized is in the subtitle, but not in the headline as it is in the international press. The El Mundo story is some way down the page. El País still has nothing on this on its front page. 24.50.161.64 (talk) 18:20, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Edgarmm81 (talk) 16:37, 6 October 2017 (UTC)URGENT: Wikipedia is including opinions, non-specifications and matters not yet proved. Wikipedia is getting so biased that is looking like a tabloid! Please, be more objective!!!

In your 5th paragraph, we can read, for example:

"On the day of the poll, the passivity (CATALAN POLICE PASSIVITY IS A UNIONIST ARGUMENT USED AS AN ALIBI FOR THE SPANISH POLICE BRUTALITY) of the Mossos d'Esquadra (the autonomous police force of Catalonia) prevented the closure of the polling stations (MOSSOS D'ESQUADRA CLOSED 90 POLL STATIONS! BESIDES, A COUPLE OF MOSSOS D'ESQUADRA WERE LOOKING OUT MANY FACILITIES IN ORDER TO PREVENT ANY INCIDENT. THE WHOLE BODY OF MOSSOS D'ESQUADRA FOR ALL DUTIES AND ALL THE TERRITORY IS MADE OF 16,783 OFFICERS AND THERE WERE 2,315 POLL STATIONS! PLEASE, BE MORE OBJECTIVE!), following which the National Police Corps and the Guardia Civil intervened;[31][32] 893 civilians and 431 agents of the Nacional Police and the Guardia Civil (ONLY 9 AGENTS ACCORDING TO CATALAN PUBLIC HOSPITALS REPORT) were reported to have been injured.[33][32][34] The Mossos d'Esquadra are being investigated for disobedience, for not having complied with the orders of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia to prevent the referendum (THAT'S JUST AN INVESTIGATION, BUT NOT GUILTY. AND THE SPANISH POLICE, WHICH ALLEGEDLY FOLLOWED THOSE INSTRUCTIONS AND PREVENTED THE REFERENDUM, HAS BEEN CONDEMNED BY THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT! SO PLESE, BE MORE OBJECTIVE).[35] Josep Lluís Trapero Álvarez, the Mossos d'Esquadra Major, is being investigated for sedition by the Spanish National Court (THE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE DOES NOT REQUEST PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES FOR TRAPERO).[36] The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al, urged the Spanish government to probe all acts of violence that took place to prevent the referendum, through impartial and independent investigations."

http://www.diarimes.com/noticies/actualitat/catalunya/2017/10/01/els_mossos_informen_que_han_tancat_col_legis_electorals_arreu_catalunya_25491_3029.html</ref>

Edgarmm81 (talk) 16:44, 6 October 2017 (UTC)Spanish unionist OKdiario lacks of rigurosity, like almost all of the Spanish press.

For example, they assured that Catalan government already had a new coin, with the Catalan's president face.

References

Here is an article on the BBC website about how one-sided the Madrid press and the Catalan nationalist press have both become: [49] "Such contrasting interpretations of what is happening in Catalonia reflect the deeply divisive nature of Spain's territorial crisis and the media has been a key factor in fuelling the polarisation. Newspapers, radio and television have been mobilised on both sides."24.50.161.64 (talk) 18:20, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

This is so evident... that a catalan like me has to spend time switching channels (both national TVs) to understand what happens in every incident. I think catalan TV brings nationa view/sentiment to an unseen extent, but is still much more truthful in voicing facts and events (for instance today in the biggest unionist celebration in barcelona ever, they did a 24h following, giving voice to a lot of people in the street, whereas in the referendum, no national TV did that, and only expressed pro-unionist voices and facts, like the policeman injuried). The other day a reporter from a public spanish tv was caught live telling people on the street to place the spanish flag in a more visible way and waving it for the shot. http://bluper.elespanol.com/noticias/pillado-reportero-telemadrid-pidiendo-ensenar-bandera-espana

or this: http://www.huffingtonpost.es/2017/09/11/un-camara-de-tve-aparta-a-empujones-a-una-manifestante-en-pleno-directo_a_23203953/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 00:15, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Checking sources on different sides is essential in order for this article to remain neutral. Ahh, you must be new here! In a perfect world, this would be how Wikipedia works, but the reality on the ground is much different. In the normal course of editing Wikipedia articles, editors choose carefully the sources that fit their personal systemic bias, and minimize at all costs the impact of any sources that do not toe their party line. This is perfectly legitimate behavior according to Wikipedia policy. And it enables editors to enforce a twisted brand of "neutrality" where they can say: "Look! All my sources agree and are in harmony! I am neutral and following the sources!" Outlying or contradictory sources are assailed as not sufficiently reliable or some other technicality found in WP:IRS. So it's all well and good that you are interested in maintaining a higher standard of "neutrality" but I am sorry to say that it will not be realized in the foreseeable future. 72.201.104.140 (talk) 00:40, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree with 72.201.104.140. see WP:BIASED.--Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 10:31, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Demonstrarions

Hi again. About the demonstrations that are mentioned in this article and in the Operation Anubis one, looking to the articles it seems there were only demonstrarions against the police, but I think we must not ignore the demonstrations there were supporting the CNP and the GC in several cities of Spain (Madrid and Barcelona indeed) when they left their headquarters for going to Catalonia (La Vanguardia, Murcia, El Mundo about Castellón, Santander) and also on 30 September "for the unity of Spain" (Diario Levante, El Confidencial about Madrid, with 10,000 people, SER, talking about Barcelona, Alicante).

An actual neutral POV must show the movements in both parts and in this one, it is currently only showing the demonstrarions for the referendum. Asturkian (talk) 07:33, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Mention should also be made of these facts per WP:NPOV, supported by the sources you provide. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 09:25, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Albanian & Luxembourgish position

Following the press conference and the journalists’ enquiry as regards the current events in Spain and the parallelism between Catalonia and Kosovo, Albanian and Luxembourgish Foreign Ministers Bushati and Asselborn voiced that any comparison to Crimea and Catalonia is ungrounded. "The decision of the International Court of Justice on Kosovo has closed any further discussion from the standpoint of international law" - Minister Bushati pointed out. On his part, Minister Asselborn underscored that "In Kosovo, there was a war, while in Catalonia there is no war and this is the main difference between these two cases."

http://www.punetejashtme.gov.al/en/press-office/news/bushati-receives-his-luxembourg-s-counterpart-asselborn-in-tirana-2018-may-be-a-very-good-year-for-albania-to-open-negotiations1507031481 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.171.53.113 (talk) 13:21, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Economic reactions

FYI, I have added economic reactions about the move of Banco Sabadell and others in the reactions article. I'd like you to help me improving it, thanks. Asturkian (talk) 13:32, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

"Subsequently the European Commission confirmed its illegality."

Since when was the EU an authority on Spanish law? The EU can state that they agree it is illegal, but they cannot "confirm" it as the only people who can confirm what is illegal or illegal in a matter of Spanish law are the Spanish. I suppose "subsequently the EU stated that they also regard the referendum as illegal" might be more accurate. FOARP (talk) 18:58, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 20:11, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 08:29, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

• «EU an authority on Spanish law?»: Not sure: I assume the European court of Justice (the EU one, not any other) might have a say if it is questioned on this topic, but I believe that nobody in Catalonia legally disagreed with the justice decision(s) which made the so called referendum illegal.
• «EU can state that they agree»: Additionally, during the parliamentary EU debate about Catalonya, most leaders of most political groups gave their position on those topics. I would have say that EU leaders consider Spain & rule of law, and have been informed by the people of the illegality, as some european political parties have catalan and so spanish MEP among them.
• «European Commission»:There is on Internet a video in the strasbourg Europarl of a statement of someone for the European Commission at the closing of the debate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.193.104.227 (talk) 10:29, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

1-0

Why call it that? Needs explanation. 174.17.207.124 (talk) 08:10, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

1–O means "1 October." Don't know in English but in Spanish is very common to refer to important dates as this: 11-M, 23-F, 11-S… Asturkian (talk) 08:11, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I see. I read that as 1-0, score at a soccer match. You should put "also known as 1-O (for October 1) in Spanish and Catalan media" in the intro. 174.17.207.124 (talk) 08:16, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

It is already present in the lead: "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Catalan_independence_referendum,_2017&oldid=804033387 The Catalan independence referendum of 2017, also known as 1-O in Spanish and Catalan media"]. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 08:27, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

No, it's not. There is no explanation what 1-O means. You are writing for people who read English, and 1-O has no meaning. Add "(e.g. October 1)" or something like that. 174.17.207.124 (talk) 08:30, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Oh, okay, I understand. Perhaps something like this: "The Catalan independence referendum of 2017, also known by the numeronym 1-O (derived from 1 October)? --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 08:53, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Social media

The whole paragraph beginning "Catalan independentists spread through the social networks..." is unencyclopaedic. Social media abounds with fake news, photoshopped pictures etc. on every conceivable topic. That's hardly a revelation. Unless it can be shown that the images had a significant impact on reporting by news media, the reaction of foreign governments, or something similar, it's a non-story. It looks like just another attempt to get anti-independentist bias into the article through the back door. Scolaire (talk) 12:48, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I tend to agree. I already had to make a fix to the initial wording which was put as "The Catalan independentists" (refering to the whole of them). For the last days I've seen like if there was some attempts to make up for Spanish police violence by giving too much weight to fake pictures/news/claims (such as repeated attempts to create an entire sub-section for these, or the whole ERC woman paragraph—removed by now—using some biased language). Falsehoods and exaggerations that, while I agree that may have happened, I don't think are relevant enough to deserve so much detail. Indeed, if the whole social media issue is unencyclopaedic (which I'd tend to agree, as fake news and claims happen in social newtworks in a day-to-day basis on a wide variety of issues, not just this one), it should be removed unless it can be proven it has had a significant impact and/or relevance so as to deserve such attention. BALANCE must respect DUE. Impru20 (talk) 13:00, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

This has been discussed previously. social media impact in this case has received in depth coverage by multiple reliable sources as you can see in the section titled falsehoods. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 15:33, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

The consensus in the "Falsehoods" section seems to be that both the falsehoods and the confutation of them should be omitted from the article. I'm not seeing any RS that talks about the impact of social media on e.g. reporting by proper news media or the reaction of foreign governments, as opposed to the fact of fake news on social media, which as I said is a non-story. Scolaire (talk) 16:05, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

How do you come to the conclusion that the consensus is that it should be omitted? All RS used as examples are reporting on the impact that the videos had. Reactions by notable people to them and even by the Spanish Foreign Minister. What else do you need? Do you think the sources are not WP:RS? It has received in depth coverage is relevant and it has a very direct repercusión on the subject as discussed before. Since it does not violate any of our policies, so it should be included. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 16:27, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

What do they say the impact of the fake pictures on notable people was? How were people's reactions changed by the fake pictures on social media from what they would have been if they'd just watched the television? I can't see that in the sources so you'll have to quote them for me. Scolaire (talk) 16:39, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Even though it is not a requirement for notability, if you bother to read some of my previous comments or the content of the many sources used as an example you will be able to see that reliable sources did covered the reactions by notable people like Pep Guardiola, Ada Colau, Manuela Carmena and the Spanish Foreign Minister among others and they have even prompted a legal investigation. Please review the section Falsehoods and sources used as examples there. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 09:29, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I didn't ask for links to Wikipedia articles on notable people, I asked you to quote from your own sources. How did the fake pictures cause Pep Guardiola, Ada Colau, Manuela Carmena or the Spanish Foreign Minister to view the situation differently from how they viewed it when they were watching genuine video from legitimate news media? Just saying you've shown they had an impact doesn't help if you don't say what that impact was. Just saying that this or that person or organisation criticised fake pictures on social media does not demonstrate that they had an impact. Scolaire (talk) 16:06, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

And what I asked from you is to please read the reliable sources used as examples that I posted on the section titled Falsehoods so I don't have to re-post them again here. There you will find different articles from reliable sources with coverage on the impact of the video relating to all four of them. It even includes a request from the Foreign Minister to the prosecutor to investigate a Major over it. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 19:54, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Scolaire you asked for a quote-- while a lot of the sources Crystallizedcarbon posted were flaky tabloids that Ithink he didn't know that we don't use, he did also post El Pais' story by David Alandete [[50]] which does some work to fix what I previously thought had been a quasi-WP:SYN issue and does discuss the impact of certain information or rather disinformation propagation. Here are some notable quotes. First, there's the connection to previous disinformation campaigns and the attempts to use these to try to throw tar on Spain's democratic apparatus by spreading the "Franco" narrative. Even if you disagree with Spain not allowing the vote like happen like Britain did (that is in fact my own view too), it seems absurd to portray this as some sort of return of Francoism, wouldn't you say?

The network of social media profiles that helped propel Donald Trump to the US presidency, saw Brexit win through in Britain, and got extremist parties into power in France and Germany have successfully completed their first foray into southern Europe. From this Sunday, with the use of real and fake [emphasis added by Yalens] images and interpretations in line with the international views that prevail in Russia, the Catalan crisis has become a crisis of European democracy in ultra-nationalist and anti-globalization circles on the internet. According to tools from the national security advocacy group Alliance for Securing Democracy, the referendum has become the most-commented-on issue by these profiles... Among the highlighted topics in the tweets from English-speaking pro-Russian accounts were not only words like “Catalonia” and “Catalan,” but also “Franco” and “Francoism.”

.. but, images, both real and fake, are being used to support this narrative, as Alandete explains. Example :

Several anonymous accounts shared a video on Twitter of police officers with riot gear hitting a defenseless young man, captioned “Spanish police attack Catalan voter.” The posts received thousands of retweets[emphasis mine] within hours. But in reality, the incident took place on November 14, 2012. The photo of the injured boy was shared alongside real photos of people who were wounded yesterday. Photos of police during a mining disturbance in July were also passed off as from the day of the referendum.

Alandete goes on to explain how the same fake news propagation by twitter is being used to further a narratie that the EU is in some sort of disarray with internal fighting over this. As for more of the fake stuff, here's another good one from El Pais that I found [[51]]. Alandete connects this to the story of Russian interference that has a few sentences on the page right now under press coverage-- I'd recommend you take a look there too. This isn't to say that all the stuff that has been exploited by these accounts was fake-- indeed much of it was real and I made this argument earlier, the article must not imply that-- but clearly the fake stuff contributed.

Now, Scolaire, there are a number of complaints you have I do agree with. The unencyclopedic one is true but it that is how the text was written, not the content -- in particular, I think there is way too much info about individual incidents, and I would add also that the naming of people involved could cause quasi-WP:BLP issues as of course libel is a crime (oh, the irony), though I think at the moment the naming has been mostly removed. As for El Pais, it's been brought up that it has a Spanish unionist POV (as most people in Spain do, and are entitled to), which is true, but I think it is still high quality reporting from what I can tell.

I think the page should have a lot less of the discussion -- which is annoying to readers anyways -- about individual incidents like this finger breaking episode (no one not from Spain cares a bit about this), and more of the analysis done by David Alandete. Additionally, especially as he ties this into the issue of Russian interference, I think it may be appropriate to have a "Press coverage and social media" section, especially as many people use the latter for the former. Thoughts everyone? Also, my apologies that this got very long; I'm quite busy and lack the time to trim--Yalens (talk) 21:04, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

@Yalens: Thank you for taking the trouble to post the quotes. They illustrate exactly what I was saying: that people criticised the fake photos because they were bad things, not because they misled people like Pep Guardiola and Ada Colau into thinking that the police action was excessive when they previously believed it was proportionate. So the details of this image on social media being from 2012 or that one being from Turkey are not relevant to the discussion of police violence, which did actually happen in Catalonia in 2017. Crystallizedcarbon knows this, which is why he keeps trying to fob me off with his "read what I posted before". The Russian thing is a separate matter, and it's covered in a separate section. Scolaire (talk) 07:54, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

What I think is very easy to understand from those reliable sources is that the violence by police has been used by the separatists (Pep Guardiola included) to support their cause. Multiple reliable sources are also putting emphasis in the fact that many knowingly exaggerated the extent of that violence to the level of torture and sexual assault and being echoed by notable people obviously contributed to that effect. The proof of those exaggerations, and their legal repercussions or even claims of Russian meddling to destabilize Spain, have been deemed notable by the multiple reliable sources that covered it. Removing it makes no sense. Here is another article published today in the main page of El Mundo that summarizes and gives a detailed overview of most events as they developed: Marta 'dedos-rotos' y la gran mentira del 1-O. A Catalonian judge is looking at the incidents and will decide if the violence was excessive or proportionate, justified or not. The results of that investigation is what should be reflected here, in the mean time due balance requires that this very relevant information is included to help maintain neutrality. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 08:45, 8 October 2017‎ (UTC)

Changing statistics

It seems clear to me that the figures from the Spanish Interior Ministry for injured policemen changed dramatically from the tens on the 1st to the hundreds on the 2nd, apparently because their criteria for inclusion changed (including also bruises and not just interactions with the emergency services, like the figures for the Catalan civilians). I have tried to put in sentences about this but have been removed. They could have probably been better worded. How could it be better worded? Munci (talk) 14:30, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I think it's a question of due weight. Yes, the Spanish Interior Ministry upgraded its figure from 39 to 431 on the basis of scrapes, bruises "and even bites" – a fact that the Vanguardia article makes quite pointedly. But the fact remains that world media (and even politicians who support the Spanish position) are concerned with the violence of the police towards would-be voters, i.e. hair-pulling, kicking down stairs, swinging batons and firing rubber bullets, and hasn't taken the "on the other hand hundreds of police were kicked in the shins" stance that the Interior Ministry would like them to. Quoting the two figures for civilians and police side by side without comment is giving undue weight to the anti-referendum and pro-police-violence side. Scolaire (talk) 14:55, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

This article may help to better understand things: How many people were really injured during the Catalan referendum?. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 15:20, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

It's not that I don't understand, it's just a question of due weight. International news media are the only sources we have for a current event, so the article should reflect the weight given in those media. In line with WP:NPOV and WP:DUE, the article should therefore say (1) that police acted with violence at a number of polling stations, and that images of that violence were shown around the world, including young and old people alike streaming with blood; (2) that the Spanish government stated that the police action was proportionate, and that Madrid-based media agreed with it; (3) that the Catalonian authorities said that nearly 900 people were injured, although only four were hospitalised; and (4) that the Spanish Interior Ministry initially said 39 officers were injured, but subsequently increased the figure to 431, including those suffering from "bruises, scratches, kicks and even bites". Any survey of coverage over the last five days will show that (1) should be given more weight than (2), (3) and (4) combined. We can now add that Enric Millo, the government's representative in Catalonia, has apologised to those injured. He hasn't asked Catalans to apologise for hurting the police. Scolaire (talk) 16:33, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

The way you are presenting the information is neither accurate nor is it neutral. In developing stories like this one things change as information is reported and analyzed. There is no point in reporting that the 413 reported injuries were 39 the previous day, as It does not seem to neutral to use the exact figure there and use almost 900 for what the Catalonian authorities reported instead of 844. Also at this point it is clear that the figure reflects the number of people that spoke with a doctor so injured is also not the most neutral word. A Judge investigating the claims of excessive use of force by the police has confirmed that the number of injured people is 130 and only 2 of those remain hospitalized (an unrelated heart attack and the person hit in the eye by a rubber ball): El juez que investiga la actuación policial del 1-O baja el número de heridos a 130. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 16:56, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

The figure given by the Catalan authorities was 893, not 844. I don't have a problem with using the exact figure. Neither do I have a problem with saying a judge said it was only 130. What I do have a problem with is this numbers game being strung out to the point where it takes over, and minimises what is the central fact – the violence shown by police in polling stations and on the streets. I also have a major problem with the insinuation in the first sentence in that section that the Mossos were the ones that really caused the trouble by failing to carry out their orders. Scolaire (talk) 17:13, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Scolaire. Parts of this article are skewed towards presenting the Madrid view of things.24.50.161.64 (talk) 23:33, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a Madrid view, you probably meant the Spanish government's view. I on the other hand, see a clear effort to skew information towards the independentists side. There was no counterweight and when it was added along with reliable sources it has been deleted. I do agree with one point made by Scolaire There is no need to get lost on figures. We should use the one that being supported by sources and is the most reliable. There is no point in saying it was 840 then 843 most said 844 and some even 893. as there is no point in doing the same with the injured policeman. It is clearly stated that there were incidents in which the police used force to against citizens blocking their access to the polling centers.

As far as the other point made about the Mossos. Consider that their numbers in Catalonia (16.783) are much greater than those of National Police and Guardia Civil. Their instructions given by the courts of Catalonia were to prevent the schools from even opening at 6am and to close any that were open at that time since some people stayed over night on some of them. Their Major, Trapero that is now under court investigation for secession, said on previous days that he would execute the courts order. If the Mossos would have prevented the people from accessing the voting centers there would have been no need to remove them and no need to give orders to do so to National Police or Guardia Civil. But again, it is not our place to do original research, we have to try ensuring that the article reflects what the reliable sources say with due weight. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 07:03, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Crystallizedcarbon.

By the way, it is necessary to explain better what were the orders of the Mossos de Esquadra, that had to comply and that they disobeyed.

We should also review this recent edit, made on the page Operation Anubis. The Mossos d'Esquadra had specific of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia. Who gave them these last orders early on the day of the referendum? Why were the centers allowed to be open? It is not clear in that wording. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 08:33, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I think it is very relevant that the statistics have changed, seeing as statistics don't normally jump by an order of magnitude from one day to the next like that and that the criteria for inclusion are not the same. I also suggest we bring this either to WP:DRN or WP:RFC. Munci (talk) 17:08, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Please try to find English translations or references!

English speakers familiar with common-law or constitutional freedom of speech (and actions similar to speech) are puzzled by the orders of the Constitutional Court of Spain such as sending police to restrain people and seize ballots. In the United States, for instance, a ruling that a process was invalid would simply have made the results meaningless, not sent police to arrest local officials or voters. A court can not make a finding of contempt or order of mandsmus contravening something which is a fundemental right.

In this regard, more information about the legal reasoning of the cited court decisions is needed.

25. "La mitad de los catalanes cree que el Parlament se someterá al TC". La Razón (in Spanish). 12 August 2016.

26. "Baròmetre d'Opinió Política 38. 2a onada 2016" (PDF). CEO (in Catalan). 22 July 2016.

73.81.149.203 (talk) 23:45, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I must disagree. The police did not go to restrain people, it was ordered by the Catalonian courts to seize the voting material and close the polling centers. The States in the United States were sovereign at one point. That is not the case in Spain at least not as Catalonia is concerned (it was part of the kingdom of Aragon that joined Castile in the XV century). Still I find your assumption quite unreasonable, Lets imagine for example that the Texas secessionist movement gained support among close to 50% of the people in the State but that with less than half of the votes they got over 50% of representative in support of secession, and lets imagine that those representatives tried to hold a referendum to separate from the US and voted state laws to allow it. I think it is safe to assume that The Supreme Court or another national court would declare those laws illegal and order the suspension of such referendum, as all of the citizens of USA should have a say on whether a part of its country should be separated. Most likely the confiscation of voting material of the illegal process would be ordered by a judge, and on the day of the referendum state police would be ordered to confiscate the material to carry the court order and prevent the suspended illegal vote from taking place. If the state police failed to seal of the voting centers, other federal police would be tasked with carrying the judges orders, (confiscating the voting material and closing the voting centers) if citizens were blocking the access to those voting centers due to the failure of state police to do so the federal agents would try to access and if they were being stopped and insulted they would most likely try to remove the citizens obstructing justice as the only way for them to try to carry their orders and confiscate the voting material as ordered by the judge.

The previous was just science fiction. This has been possible in Spain only because of the high degree of autonomy given to Spanish regions and because of a political system that gives a non-proportional and very large representation in the national parliament to the regional political parties. Through many years separatist have used this influence (their votes were necessary for the national level political parties to rule) to gain control of many areas that should have remained centralized like education. Some text books for children show Catalonia a a nation and incite separation from Spain. Years of this are obviously having an impact. They even passed and enforced laws preventing business from using Spanish on their store fronts by the use of heavy fines. The main reason given by the separatists is their desire to have their own country as they consider themselves different and because according to them they contribute more to Spain than other less buoyant regions like Andalucía or Extremadura.

The violence has been a very undesirable side effect. It showed lack of planning, there should have been a backup plan to ensure that the Mossos with help of police did closed the centers at 6am. It was very naive to give the task only to them when its Major was appointed by the separatist and a few days before did not give order to aid a group of Guardia Civil that was under siege by a crowd and destroyed their patrol cars. The very unfortunate incidents of 1-O are being used by the separatists, now they have added police repression to their justifications.

The issue is a lot more complex and I am sure there are many other angles, But again, I doubt that USA would ever allow a secession referendum to take place. And there when a civilian stops a policeman from executing a court order they do use force. The issue that is before a judge now in Catalonia is if that violence was proportional and if it was necessary to fulfill the courts order).--Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 08:21, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

I did not intend to state opionion about Catalonia that one could agree or disagree with- the opinion was about the need for more information in English about the legal reasoning of any orders.

As far as your other points: whether Catalonia was a "state" in 1137 doesn't make any difference to the present population's desires. "With less than half of the votes they got over 50% of representative[s]"- this happens EVERYWHERE now in the United States. It is called Gerrymandering and is a big problem.

"The Supreme Court or [a lower] national court would declare those laws illegal and order the suspension of such referendum". No, that is my point. The court would declare the laws illegal, but would not order any action that would constitute prior restraint. In fact, only the lowest Federal District Court would have jurisdiction, and any injunction that had a direct effect would be appealed and diluted in the Circuit Court of Appeals for months. It would be years, after the vote/demonstration/etc, that the Supreme Court would decide whether the local municipality had the right to endorse or sponsor a vote.

As an example, in the 1960's much of the population (with money) of Huntsville, Alabama (United States) jokingly wanted to succeed from the State of Alabama and join Tennessee, to separate themselves from state policies regarding civil rights. Huntsville was the location of the U.S. Army Redstone Arsenal in WWII, put there for chemical weapons work in a location no one would care about. After the war, the Nazi rocket scientists were sent there, and Redstone Arsenal became an ICBM research site. By the 1960's, much of the population was younger, educated, and from Northern states. If citizens had wanted to raise the money, the City Council and Madison County government could have sponsored a vote as you mention. Quite possibly the state government could have seized any local government funds used in the process, but state police would not have tried to physically stop anything.

In fact, the most famous case of governments trying to stop things was when George Wallace personally tried to stop the university from choosing to follow a Supreme Court order. I can't think of any case where Federal action (as in Arkansas in that time) was used to supress a demonstarton or a local political action.

So, what were the legal arguments for/against that order you mention?

73.81.148.23 (talk) 18:01, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

I still think that the scenario in Catalonia is unthinkable in the USA I remember what I read in history books about the last time that some states from the south tried it. My point was that in the hypothetical scenario that a judge in the USA did instruct the police to confiscate voting material, the police would try to execute that order. If people would block their way and refuse to let them follow those orders they would probably be removed by the police and even using force if necessary. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 10:53, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

You cannot prove its 50% as that was 4 years ago, and still, theres a 50% of votes of the remaining 50% that are nationalistic but more socialist dialogue pro-referendum parties where some of them in a binary yes/no independence would vote yes/null/blank. Come on, even Ada Colau, major of Barcelona, who collaborated on the illegal referendum, is not representing an offitial pro-independence party (neither a clear pro-unionist). There was more than twice as people in the illegal refernedum demonstration (even the fear) than in today´s union demonstration (where a lot of people came from the rest of spain) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.111 (talk) 00:29, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

You are right, I can only report what happened then. Now could be more or less than 50%, but my point was the lack of legitimacy for such a profound change that affects all those in Catalonia and all in Spain, when the support in votes in the last election for the separatist political parties was less than 50% of the votes in Catalonia. Puigdemont has vowed to declare independence unilaterally and most think he will do it tomorrow. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 10:58, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Your open question looks like containing several questions in one; so:

• For:«English speakers familiar with common-law or constitutional freedom of speech (and actions similar to speech) are puzzled »
  • For common law, see, for instance Northern Ireland & Bloody sunday
  • For freedom of speech, see for USA for instance McCarthyism
  • And what is direct rule in Northern Ireland?
• For:«by the orders of the Constitutional Court of Spain such as sending police to restrain people and seize ballots»
  • At some point, I assume that each state has its own rules, and while they may similar on some topics, they may be different on other ones (for instance guns or death penalty might be more or less forbidden in Europe, while more or less liberalized in other countries)
  • For the role of police in justice, see Judicial police
  • There may be a question of balance: would such a right be more or less important than such other one right? For instance, right to live vs death penalty? Approach might vary according to the Country... based for instance but not limited to social norms, local history, local religion,
• For «In the United States, for instance, a ruling that a process was invalid would simply have made the results meaningless, »
  • And so, once, such an illegal & forbidden referendum has led to a meaningless result which is used as a basis to declare independence, that is, once independence is decided, and enforced, how do you ensure the meaningless result remains meaningless?
• «not sent police to arrest local officials or voters. »
  • What's about for instance Oregon cow-boys: [52]
  • What's about New_Mexico: New_Mexico#1848_cession_of_land
  • For the role of police in the USA, see Police power (United States constitutional law)
  • Last but not least, For vote + police in the USA, see Police brutality in the United States
• For: «English translations or references!»
  • The Spanish Court Decision That Sparked the Modern Catalan Independence Movement [53]
  • Spain Catalonia: Court blocks independence referendum [54]
  • Spain: Constitutional Court Finds Catalonia Sovereignty Declaration Unconstitutional [55]
  • CONSTITUTION PASSED BY THE CORTES GENERALES IN PLENARY MEETINGS OF THE CONGRESS OF DEPUTIES AND THE SENATE HELD ON OCTOBER 31, 1978 RATIFIED BY REFERENDUM OF THE SPANISH PEOPLE ON DECEMBER 7, 1978 SANCTIONED BY HIS MAJESTY THE KING BEFORE THE CORTES GENERALES ON DECEMBER 27, 1978 [56]
• In Spain, for instance, there is a Spanish constitution rather than an US constitution. This does not remove nothing to US constitution which remains applicable in the USA. But it is slightly different, for instance some Spanish constitution extracts:
  • «The Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation, the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards; it recognizes and guarantees the right to self-government of the nationalities and regions of which it is composed and the solidarity among them all»
  • «The mission of the Armed Forces, comprising the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, is to guarantee the sovereignty and independence of Spain and to defend its territorial integrity and the constitutional order»
  • «Justice emanates from the people and is administered on behalf of the King by judges and magistrates members of the Judicial Power who shall be independent, shall have fixity of tenure, shall be accountable for their acts and subject only to the rule of law»
  • «Provisions relating to the fundamental rights and liberties recognised by the Constitution shall be construed in conformity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international treaties and agreements thereon ratified by Spain.»
  • «Freedom of ideology, religion and worship is guaranteed, to individuals and communities with no other restriction on their expression than may be necessary to maintain public order as protected by law.»
  • «The seizure of publications, recordings and other means of information may only be carried out by means of a court order.»
  • «In the case of meetings in public places and of demonstrations, prior notification shall be given to the authorities, who may only forbid them when there are well founded grounds to expect a breach of public order, involving danger to persons or property.»
  • «Secret and paramilitary associations are prohibited.»
  • «Citizens have the right and the duty to defend Spain.»
  • «The President of the Supreme Court shall be appointed by the King, on the General Council of the Judicial Powers’ proposal in the manner to be laid down by the law.»
  • «No authority may adopt measures which directly or indirectly hinder freedom of movement and settlement of persons and free movement of goods throughout the Spanish territory.»
  • «The State shall have exclusive competence over the following matters: (...) Authorization of popular consultations through the holding of referendums.»
  • «The Constitutional Court shall consist of twelve members appointed by the King. Of these, four shall be nominated by the Congress by a majority of three-fifths of its members, four shall be nominated by the Senate with the same majority, two shall be nominated by the Government, and two by the General Council of the Judicial Power.» — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.193.104.227 (talk) 20:45, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I was trying to clarify, but by your answer I am afraid I may have failed. To put it simply, no the police were not ordered to restrain people. Yes they were ordered to seize the ballot boxes because what was being voted is illegal according to our constitution and because a Catalan courts ordered it so. The people that the police used force upon were obstructing justice by preventing the police from accesing those ballot boxes and refused to obey when asked to let them through. You obviously know a lot more about the US legal system. do I understand you correctly? If Texas decided to hold an statewide independence referendum they could vote without it being stopped? I am an engineer, not a lawyer, so a simple answer would be appreciated. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 22:15, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Three answers:

1. Read the future, and you will know.
2. for Caifornia: «If the measure passed, it would then be up to California to convince the federal government to let it leave, a process that isn’t at all clear in the law. Yes California explains their two options this way:»
3. for Texas: «Daniel Farber, a law professor at UC Berkeley, pointed to a Supreme Court decision, Texas v. White, in 1869 that said Texas “entered into an indissoluble relation” when it became part of the United States. The case related to bonds sold by Texas during the Civil War.» «The Supreme Court ruling determined “the Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.” Texas could only revoke its inclusion in the union “through revolution or through consent of the States,” the court rule.».

Request for Comment

There are multiple issues on the page on the Catalan independence referendum. They are mainly regarding POV, relevance and wording. They involve several recent editors: myself (User:Munci), User:BallenaBlanca, User:Crystallizedcarbon, User:Impru20 and User:BrendonTheWizard.

Specific issues include the changing statistics, prominence of the word 'illegal' and the relevance and description of injuries described in different ways by different sources.

The statistics for injuries to Spanish policemen changed dramatically from the 1st October to the 2nd October. The change involved having much wider inclusion criteria: rather than just including those who had received medical treatment, the Spanish government started including those who had just received scratches or bruises. This resulted in the figures being ten times as high as those of the previous day. Some users feel that this information ought to be included whereas others do not.

Prominent inclusion of the word 'illegal' is proposed on the basis of the Spanish government position on the matter, and opposed on the basis of the multiple viewpoints. The fact that the Spanish government is opposed to the idea is already mentioned elsewhere in the same paragraph.

Description of specific violent incidents and injuries are disputed, including an injury to an ERC politician which was described differently in different sources. It is also being discussed to what extent footage from previous demonstrations is relevant (apparently presented as being of the current vote) and to which extent this matter deserves its own independent section.

Also, there are often differing descriptions between Spanish, Catalan and international sources.

And there are other problems which arise also.

Munci (talk) 16:34, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

@Scolaire: is also involved, as am I. For good measure, also notifying Asturkian about this RfC. Comment regarding "illegal" -- I believe the legality or lack thereof of the referendum should only be discussed, in prose, when it is topically relevant. Usage of illegal as an adjective every time the referendum is mentioned outside of this (as I have seen on this page, and removed on one occasion) violates NPOV and also just doesn't look like good, detached and dispassionate, writing. --Calthinus (talk) 17:01, 8 October 2017 (UTC) I just changed my username, sorry for any confusion.

As Calthinus says, the use of the word illegal was absurdingly excessive at times. It should be used when it is topically relevant (i.e. when it comes to explain the Spanish government position), not at every turn the word "referendum" is used in the text, nor the illegal nature of the referendum be mentioned at every opportunity, as it violates NPOV. There were also some wrong statements, such as the Constitutional Court declaring the referendum illegal on 6 September (it didn't; it just suspended the laws allowing for the referendum for a period of five months until it ruled on the issue. It was the Spanish government who declared it illegal). The statistics for wounded Spanish policemen were weirdly explained at times. It is just non-sense to say that there were 39 injured on 1 October, but then these were 431 on 2 October, without offering any explanation as to why this was so (the current text, explaining that "according to the Ministry of the Interior 431 agents were injured, 39 of them required immediate medical treatment and the remaining 392 had injuries by bruises, scrapes, kicks and bites" is ok and in line with sources and with what actually happened). As for the "falsehood" claims, giving them their entire own sub-section would violate UNDUE. International media give these little coverage, with the events on 1 October being mostly reported in English reliable sources because of the actual police violence. Some previous "falsehood" edits were written as if these diminished the impact of the actual violence during 1 October, or as if these had equal relevance. Of course these must be included for the sake of BALANCE, but their weight adjusted to their actual impact. And while the ERC woman controversy may have relevance (since it led to Colau's statements and prompted an action by the Interior Ministry), I'm unsure of the relevance of the "social media fake information" thing (there's only one (not English) international media source referenced to back such claims, the rest being Madrid-based media which can't be argued to be actually neutral on this issue). Impru20 (talk) 17:19, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

You'd want to think long and hard about the wording of an RfC. There are several threads running on this page at the same time, referring to different sections, or parts of sections. There's no point in asking "do you think the article should be slanted more towards the independentists or more slanted towards the unionists?" On the other hand, "Do you agree or disagree with (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), (g)?" is going to be mighty complex. It would also be essential that the wording of an RfC should be scrupulously neutral. Finding a neutral wording for an RfC could be just as difficult as finding neutral wording for the article. Possibly it would be better to go straight to the DRN. --Scolaire (talk) 17:26, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Against removing the word Illegal. Catalonia is a region of Spain one of it's 17 autonomous communities. It is unquestionably under Spanish law. If you want to challenge this please provide reliable sources. The Constitutional court of Spain suspended the referendum and the regional law that supported it and it was the High Court of Justice of Catalonia that ordered the Mossos and police to prevent it as celebrating it was illegal. This is unquestionable and has also been ratified by the European Commission. The separatists whose support was less than 50% by votes and slightly over by representatives on the last regional election want to ignore this simple fact and they are ignoring the separation of powers. They pretend to make their own laws and ignore the judicial power. The Referendum did not even comply with the minimum regulations needed to be valid See here. Ignoring all of this, today the leader of the separatists has vowed to unilaterally declare the independence of Catalonia. Many of the mayor companies of the region have already moved their headquarters out of Catalonia in response and many more have pledge to do so as soon as there is a declaration. Today there was a massive demonstration in Catalonia where hundreds of thousands of people in favor of the constitution and the unity of Spain were also supporting the police and protesting against the division created in Catalonia by the separatists. This is not stopping Puigdemont who is also under investigation for corruption. So yes, the celebration of the referendum was illegal. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 19:36, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

So, when a referendum or election is legal, do you keep repeating all over the article that it is a legal vote each time the word "referendum" or "election" is mentioned? No? Then there is no justification here, either. It may be unquestionably against Spanish law, but there's no point at repeating it is illegal every time the word referendum is mentioned, and that has nothing to do with sources. You may provide a context section so as to why it is illegal, and explain why it is illegal according to sources and Spanish law. But the disproportionate use of an adjective even in sections were the legality of the vote is not warranted or explained at all is excessive and may constitute a clear bias. It is not in question that the vote was illegal, so please, do not violate NPOV. Wikipedia must not take sides in any conflict, and from your comment, one could easily argue you are seeking to favour one side here. I also think this should probably go to DRN. Impru20 (talk) 20:18, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

I would also like to note that in the current version of the article the word illegal is not been used "as an adverb" "at every turn the word referendum is used" The words balance and NPOV are been used, but the actions taken don't seem to be coherent. Another example of apparent bias is mentioning that 39 policeman had injuries and the remaning 392 bruises scrapes and kicks but failing to mention that the 893 are not injuries. A Catalan judge brought that figure down to 103 and those also include bruises with only 4 treated, one was the person that exaggerated her finger(s) injuries. Of those 4 only 2 were serious. One being an unrelated heart attack and the other the person hit in the eye by a rubber ball when a group of police was surrounded and was been harassed and driven out by demonstrators. Not mentioning that I feel is against WP:NPOV. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 20:16, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

@Impru20: I did not see your previous comment, but I think I answered it as you were writing yours. Please search the document and look at the 9 times the word illegal is mentioned and let me know where you would remove just that word. The word Referendum is mentioned 193 times and "illegal referendum" is not present anywhere in the document. If you are looking for Bias you may want to look elsewhere. DRN sounds fine to me. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 20:26, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Edit conflict... Hi, definitely support removing "illegal" except for its first appearance making reference to the ruling by the relevant Spanish or other tribunal exclusively for informative purposes, repetion sounds like lecturing, an emphasis on the Spanish government's position. I would reduce all undue weight given to 'fake' news or social media, including it all in a section related to media coverage and/or echoes in social media, not very long, just citing most relevant cases. I will state clearly my position anyway, I consider the Spanish corporate media, heavily subsidized by the Spanish government, to be fully engaged in a propaganda war, so any pieces of information not getting down to details, should be regarded with extreme caution as far as I am concerned. Iñaki LL (talk) 20:39, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Please provide proof to your claim that all major media from Spain(except some from Catalonia) considered reliable sources up to now are biased. Please share the information used in this article from those sources that you found to be unreliable? --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 20:56, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Pretending to delete the term "illegal" seems like an absurd discussion. Appears seven times in total and correctly employed:

1. but declared illegal on 6 September 2017 and suspended by the Constitutional Court of Spain because it breached the Spanish Constitution of 1978.[4][5]
2. The law is illegal according to the Catalan Statutes of Autonomy which require a two third majority in the Catalan parliament for any change to Catalonia's status.
3. The referendum itself is also illegal according to the Spanish constitution. It was suspended by the Constitutional Court on 7 September 2017,
4. The Government of Spain opposes any Catalan self-determination referendum,[23][24] because the Spanish Constitution does not allow for a vote on the independence of any Spanish region while also deeming it illegal without its consent.[
5. A discussion event in favour of the referendum was organised in a public venue but relocated following the Spanish Conservatives' cancellation demand to the mayor of Madrid Manuela Carmena, on the grounds that it "incites illegal actions", "defies institutions and constitutional legality" and "offends the monarchy"
6. On 2 October, the European Commission released a statement on its webpage declaring the referendum illegal.[118]
7. The King of Spain, Felipe VI, who called the Catalan referendum "illegal", appealed to the union [of Spain] and called the situation in Spain "extremely serious."--BallenaBlanca (Talk) 20:59, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Clarification -- BallenaBlanca, for the most part I have no issue with the use of illegal where it is topically relevant, as it is in many of the examples above (I'm not engaging at the moment with the more nuanced argument between you and Inyaki on the details of some of these). In the past, it had been other places where it was really not useful -- for example [thousands of people protested against the illegal referendum] removed by myself of course. There the term as an adjective is totally unnecessary, violating not only NPOV but also good writing. Also adverbial use like [it was illegally held on 1 October 2017] looks bad for similar reasons. I (and I believe Impru20 among others) are saying this because it keeps getting removed from the page... and then reappearing in some way. Please do not make this happen again.

In general I also think there has been NPOV breaches regarding especially the use of adjectives on both sides at times in these pages; I and others remove them and then they reappear in other places-- and this has appeared from multiple POVs. Example from one side: "the violent attack" (all attacks are violent) [[57]]; for the pro-separatist version of this sort of bad writing, there has been a section for one notorious example... --Calthinus (talk) 02:12, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Upon second inspection, it appears that actually most of these adjective issues have been fixed -- my apologies, I didn't mean to derail the RfC with a mostly fixed problem. Of course if they are reinserted the commentary here still applies. --Calthinus (talk) 03:21, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

"I consider the Spanish corporate media, heavily subsidized by the Spanish government, to be fully engaged in a propaganda war" Please, Iñaki LL refrain to argue based on your own beliefs. You have to do it based on reliable sources. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 21:09, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

On the statements above, on a quick look, there are at least two not sticking to present-day facts, like "is also illegal according to the Spanish constitution”. Well, no, the Spanish constitution does not state that a Catalan referendum is unconstitutional; however, if I am wrong correct me. The news is "It was suspended by the Constitutional Court", or deemed unconstitutional by that organ. I would put all considerations by parties involved in quote-unquote, news style, especially now that is still all so fresh. Secondly, "the law is illegal according to the Catalan" sounds like a conclusion by the editor, does it mean that the Catalan Statute requires 2/3 of the vote to change Catalonia's status? Well, that sounds much more balanced and precise, any reader can infer what that means.

BallenaBlanca, come on I do not need proof to indulge in a statement to make clear my general position, I have been quite long around and I consider WP’s policy to be flawed when it comes to accept these sources as ‘reliable’ on a critical issue for them like this-would anybody accept Istanbul sources to talk about the Kurds? A foregone conclusion. But listen, I have not got time now to waste in another discussion on WP policies. Regards Iñaki LL (talk) 22:21, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

So, looking at the page's section on violence and injuries currently, this is what I found (current version here, for the purpose of accountability [[58]]). Not counting text inside references, reference numbers, or spaces, here is the breakdown of the section's text. I've broken it down not by separatist vs. anti-separatist, but as "potentially pro-Guardia Civil action" versus "potentially anti-Guardia Civil action", henceforth pro-GCA and anti-GCA

1. . 735 characters devoted to the police action. Of these, 183 characters describe the use of force; a non-overlapping 41 characters describe people being hospitalized (it does not say they were hospitalized as a result of these actions; this further doesn't include the text devoted to false injury reports, which is included in a separate category). Thus, I put this in as 224 characters in the "anti" column.
2. . 104 characters devoted to endorsements of the police action. Obviously this goes in the "pro" column.
3. . 174 characters devoted to the prior inaction of the Mossos. Although I think others may put this in the "pro" column I'm leaving it aside for now, but keep this in mind.
4. . 233 characters devoted to a combination of describing what could be called aggression of Catalan civilians on the Guardia Civil, or injuries incurred by the latter. Although this could better be described as anti-protester, it goes in the "pro" column as it illustrates how the Guardia Civil may have had a difficult situation on their hands. Thus the "pro" column now stands at 337 characters, and is in the lead. But wait.
5. . 1016 characters devoted to describing cases where injuries among Catalan civilians were misleadingly reported. This is what is being discussed elsewhere. This is much more than any other section, and obviously this goes in the "pro" column, bringing it up to 1053 characters.
6. . 260 characters criticizing one of the latter reports as misleading-- this of course goes in the "anti" column, bringing it up to 593 characters.

If anyone questions my calculations here, I have it on a word file that I can send by email if necessary. I draw four conclusions from this : first, a very large portion of the section supposedly about "violence and injuries" is actually about the media coverage of them. Second, obviously the section has much more "pro-GCa" material than "anti-GCa" material (I didn't want to equate unionist with pro-, that would seem unfair to me, I suspect many unionists, especially those on the left, opposed some of the things that happened here). Third, too busy to do a detailed media analysis but in my observation at least, this portrayal here on Wikipedia is verrry different from much of the English-language media which falls much more under the anti-GCa column. Fourth, a disclaimer-- despite the apparent lack of balance, I don't think the right thing to do is to simply delete the "pro-GCa" material, as various users have tried to do. In fact, I think having theses things here gives us a more nuanced page- much more so than a lot of the English media which often had the tone of "wtf is happening in Spain". The issue is that they seem to be dominating the section.

So, proposal-- let's expand the parts of the section that are critical of the Guardia Civil action, and/or move parts about social media and media coverage into the press coverage section, until it is not quite as lopsided as 1050 pro - 600 anti (and no more after that point, preferably). That way we can keep informative material here, and maintain NPOV and BALANCE. I don't think doing this should be that hard. I have some thoughts about how it may be done, but first I want to know if its worth it-- namely, would the various people involved here support this? I think it's important to get a feel for people's thoughts before attempting section rewrites on a page like this. --Calthinus (talk) 05:07, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I do not have more time now, but I want to say one thing. This discussion does not make sense from the basis of "pro-Rajoy" and I refuse to accept that view. Please, modify it so that we can move forward.

We have a Constitution, which all the Spaniards approved in 1978, which is what is being violated. It is the union of Spain against the independentists who have worked outside the law. Those would be the two positions to be valued.

Also, weight is not measured by counting characters only. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 06:32, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Modified: Pro-Guardia Civil action. However, I don't accept your logic that there are only two positions here. A unionist could theoretically oppose what happened and it's even possible (though unlikely) that a separatist could support it. Agree that pro/anti Rajoy was not the best way to capture the distinction. --Calthinus (talk) 06:58, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

<<EDIT CONFLICT>> Labeling "Pro-Rajoy" or "Anti-Rajoy" is not accurate. If we need to find labels it would be much more accurate to use "separatists" and "anti-separatists" or "pro-Spanish" or "Constitutionalists" since close to half of the pro-Spanish that defend the territorial integrity of Spain would not identify themselves with label of pro-Rajoy, quite the opposite. I am not too keen on the idea of using just the number of characters as a way to gauge balance or the lack of it, as some powerful concepts can be explained with very few words and others may need more, so I would be against expanding one view just so it has more characters. But having said that, the proposal made by Calthinus about a rewrite, if done correctly, seems reasonable. All notable concepts should be covered we can try to synthesize the contents trying to keep all relevant information so the reader can make up his or her own mind. The information on the use and repercusión of videos and images that were latter proved to be fake by some separatists as a way to use the violence of that day to further their cause is notable. It is also notable that some of those claims had also been echoed by very notable people (that clearly contributed to the international media coverage). If the examples are covered elsewhere in the article and they are linked I think that could be ok. A good idea may be to make a draft on a sandbox and try to reach a consensus. Finally, I beleive that international sources are great, but many lack direct knowledge of relevant details. RS is RS, so it makes perfect sense that RS from Spain at a national or regional level (Catalonia) be the main source for thorough coverage of the event. I do agree that opinion articles however should be used only for facts avoiding oppinion.

If you want we can review the notable material that should be a part of the section to try to reach a consensus. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 07:33, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I should clarify -- I'm not proposing to expand the whatever-we're-calling-it-"Guardia Civil action was bad" (I think many Unionists/Constitutionalists who are totally against Catalan independence may also have been against that, judging from some news reports) for the sake of expanding the view. The section also lacks info about some of the events that was covered in at least some media, and I think a lot of the complaints about the claimed lack of balance in the section ultimately arise from the relative size of the fake news area of the section. If there wasn't a size disparity, the section wouldn't appear to be biased and complaints would be less salient. I've started it in my sandbox here. --Calthinus (talk) 07:58, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

@Calthinus: Condensing the fake news and moving its contents to the media section could be an acceptable solution if it is done right. What do you think of what I proposed?

I think you will find this article from the NYT interesting as there is coverage of relevant content for this section: ‘I Am Spanish’: Thousands in Barcelona Protest a Push for Independence at least 350 000 people (more than twice according to organizers) protested in Barcelona against Puigdemont saying that he should represent all Catalans and not just half. They also criticized the apparent refusal to follow orders by the Mossos and showed clear support for the actions taken by the National Police. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 08:14, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Forgive me -- where is this proposal?

As for the nytimes article about the unionist protest in Barca -- yes absolutely that should be included if it isn't already. --Calthinus (talk) 08:17, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

@Crystallizedcarbon: the potential rewrite is at an embryonic stage right now, so to speak, in the sandbox link I gave above. I've included a bit more info on the operation, and Puigdemont's statement (placed next to the El Pais report that the GC was ordered to pull out to avoid violence, for contrast and balance), for what I think should bring things into a more equal balance in the section (haven't done a count yet). What remains left to do is tie the sentences of the new format together, move some around, and integrate the stuff that is to be moved into press coverage logically into the section. Since David Alandete makes a lot of the necessary connection points himself, we can rely on his various articles for El Pais to avoid WP:SYN. The only issue left would be a potential POV issue -- which I think is fixed better, if others complain, by including any contrary views that exist in RS (if there isn't any, not much we can do, oh well). Still eager for the thoughts of others as well of course. --Calthinus (talk) 08:31, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

@Calthinus: My suggestion was "The information on the use and repercusión of videos and images that were latter proved to be fake by some separatists as a way to use the violence of that day to further their cause is notable. It is also notable that some of those claims had also been echoed by very notable people (that clearly contributed to the international media coverage). If the examples are covered elsewhere in the article and they are linked I think that could be ok." I looked at your first draft. I agree with some of the changes, but I think in its current state is not neutral and has some problems. If you will allow me and others I would like to make some changes to it and insert suggestions. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 08:51, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I agree with that. As I'm sure you've seen elsewhere, I think establishing the notability by the role they've played in disinformation propagation is the way to go -- the request by Scolaire that one has to show how individuals like Ada Colau changed their mind seems like undue burden, although I do have a source on my hand showing how the German paper Deutsch Welle was fooled. The claim is not that all or most of the stuff foreigners saw that led to criticisms was fake -- that's a citation nightmare -- but rather notability is established as this fits into a larger pattern of a new and greater role of disinformation propagation during political crises, making heavy use of the internet and going back at least to 2008. Thankfully this point isn't WP:SYN as El Pais sources make it and now Anglophone sources are picking up the cue on it as well. I think this should all be covered in the Press Coverage section, not the Violence and Injuries section, but a small bit of it should be left in the latter. That way, we don't have a scenario where there is more text devoted to fake news about police action than the actual police action, which I believe was a major source of the complaints about balance by users like Impru20, etc.

As for issues in my rewrite currently, it's not a completed draft, but I've fixed some potential NPOV issues [[59]] (one of which was present there from the original text -- i.e. the unnecessary repetition of the tinged word "force"), and also I've completed the expansion of the police action stuff but I haven't yet incorporated what I want to using Alandete about the recruitment of fake I'm ages and the like by disinformation campaigns (i.e. by some Catalan nationalist actors on the web documented by El Pais, and of course some non-Catalan foreign actors...).

I can see how editors more on "the other side" (can't find a good way to say this) might perceive this as POV-- I ask that they add, not delete, material about fake news on the other side if it occurred, as I at least think given its role in political developments elsewhere over the past three or so years, it should be documented. @Crystallizedcarbon:, Feel free to edit my sandbox page, all I ask is please don't take it personally if I revert at a couple points as I'm trying to get it ready for proposal and sometimes I find it easy to revert and then integrate material elsewhere as an editing technique, and also, if multiple people end up editing it, please (I beg of you all) don't edit war in my sandbox haha. Cheers, and sorry I got long as usually. --Calthinus (talk) 16:01, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I do not know if I've read all the messages, it's hard to keep up. Thank you very much for your work, Calthinus.

About the firefighters. If we say "The firefighters formed a" human shield "separating Catalan voters from the police." seems to have been a situation throughout Catalonia. But it happened in Sant Julia de Ramis: "A video shows firemen in uniform and helmets standing shoulder to shoulder at the head of a crowd as they march forward in the face of riot police outside a polling station in Sant Julia de Ramis." We have to stick to what the sources say. And there was a reason: this is where the president Puigdemont was expected to vote: [60] and that's why the firefighters were reinforcing.

It is as in the case of rubber bullets: just as it was written the page, it seemed that they had been used throughout Catalonia, when it was only an incident in Barcelona. Look how the page was before my edit: [61] But: “Officers have used batons and - in one incident in Barcelona - rubber bullets to remove people from polling stations across the region, with separate footage showing police seizing ballot boxes and smashing their way in to polling centres.” And we have the video, which shows that the police were escaping harassed by a crowd of demonstrators. I was horrified when I saw the description it had: "Spanish National Police officers shooting rubber bullets indiscriminately at the crowd and hitting a protester in the face on 1 October 2017 in Barcelona."

When I first entered this page, it was plagued with this kind of clearly biased content. That fact was the one that made me start editing outside my comfort zone Medicine. This is the kind of edits I'm making trying to seek neutrality. I may not always have been successful in my writing, I am not native speaker of English and I do not normally edit in these subjects, my specialty is Medicine. I'm glad that there are more editors checking now, I hope we will get balance and neutrality. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 17:14, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Calthinus. I have added some comments on the edit summaries and on the document itself. @BallenaBlanca: I have recommended that only the first phrase about the firefighters involvement be kept as the second one is repetitive and expreses the view of the source on the intent, but I provided a source in which a few days before they declare their intention would be to prevent police from seizing the ballots or closing the schools as its already mentioned on the current wording: Catalonia referendum: Barcelona firefighters promise to DEFEND polling stations. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 18:16, 9 October 2017‎ (UTC)

BallenaBlanca, I've edited the draft so that it mentions that it occurred specifically in Sant Julia -----[[62]]; Crystallizedcarbon fair enough although by the way you should avoid using Daily Express, as it is not respectable; it's a tabloid (here's the NYTimes lambasting them, as you can see not only are they unreliable they are also often biased [[63]], and occasionally this anti-European bias can take an anti-Spanish form if you read some of their stuff on the supposed catastrophic rise of anti-British tourist xenophobia in Spain...). If you see in my edit, I've condensed the two sentences about the firefighters into one, and I hope it makes clear that the goal was to block access to the voting process. Ballena, I'm sorry that this page has caused you woe, I agree there has been a lot of POV pushing here, by both sides, and I hope as the situation cools, so will the Wiki page (I think it is already cooling, maybe I'm being wishful). Carbon, as for the rest of your suggestions, these are not as easy to fix quickly-- the one about the King I agree with, so no issue there; I'll consider your thoughts that you left in comments in a bit, for now I gotta take a break from Wiki. Cheers all. --Calthinus (talk) 19:36, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

@Calthinus: Yes, it seems it's cooling. :-) I really appreciate your work! You're very kind.

The progress on this page will also serve to review related pages, such as Operation Anubis, Catalonia, Spain, etc... where the content was even more biased than here and still are biased in many of them and biased edits are being made (see for example this section Catalan independence#2017referendum and see for example this recent one...).

Kind regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 20:38, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Would it be possible now to reword the following sentence from the lede: "893 civilians and 431 agents of the Nacional Police and the Guardia Civil were reported to have been injured" I propose "893 civilians and 39 agents of the Nacional Police and the Guardia Civil received medical attention, while 392 further agents of the Nacional Police and the Guardia Civil were reported to have minor injuries" I think that this way would have more equivalent stats, we can compare apples with apples instead of apples with oranges. Munci (talk) 03:56, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

The only way to compare apples with apples would be to use a single reliable source. That would have to be 99 civilians vs 20 agents then as confirmed by the judge investigating the claims of police violence: Un juez abre investigación por las cargas: “Hubo afectación de la convivencia ciudadana” The 893 included people with anxiety and minor irritations, even some that came with anxiety from their homes after watching the violence on TV "Contamos como agresiones hasta las ansiedades por ver las cargas por televisión". --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 07:07, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, Munci but it seems you have not read the references on this nor what has already been discussed here on this page. Please, see #Number of injured. In addition, we have a new reference that says that, according to the judge who is investigating the denounces, the majority of the civilians injured had bruises or scrapes."most bruises or scrapes." --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 07:17, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello @Calthinus: About the Daily Mail, now that I know it is not RS I will avoid using it. There are plenty of other reliable sources that can be used to reference that information. I don't read that publication. I used it as an example because it was what Google returned when I searched for it in English. Thank you for your work with the draft, It is starting to take shape, I will contribute some more today. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 07:23, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

I propose to add a sentence on the lead that says something like "after judicial investigations, the number of injured was reduced to 99 civilians and 20 agents" and expanding it on the corresponding section with these new refs. BallenaBlanca (Talk) 07:25, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

The judge's figures seem to be more reliable and comparable then. There are also questions of media bias in the context of the referendum. Munci (talk) 09:20, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Here are sources that claim bias from each side and one that claims bias from both. I personally don't think it is worth mentioning, but if it is included it must be done respecting NPOV: About TVE bias:Truly independent? State TV sorry for burying Catalan sovereignty march, About TV3 bias: Catalan TV Network Reflects Separatist Fervor, About both: Spain's media spin on Catalonia. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 11:21, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Both the Spanish and Catalan nationalist media have been criticized for non-objectivity and I think it is fair to mention this, so long as it doesn't go into cherrypicking against either side.--Calthinus (talk) 19:22, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

References

Excepting the part about the injury stats -- haven't delved into this yet -- how does the current revision of the sandbox look [[64]]? --Calthinus (talk) 00:45, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Good morning @Calthinus: I just completed that part adding the judge that opened the investigation into police violence and the latest figures as reported by La Vanguardia this morning. Thank you for all your work. It looks reasonably complete and balanced to me. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 07:31, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Good morning @Calthinus:. I agree as @Crystallizedcarbon:. But perhaps we need to add a clarification saying that Sant Julia de Ramis was the place where the president Puigdemont was expected to vote: [65], that the councilor was a "interventora" (I do not know how to translate this properly) in a polling station [66] and that the Civil Guard has denounced that the Mossos d'Esquadra not only did not help but had a premeditated plan to obstruct their work, and even helped the referendum, such as putting ballot boxes into some polling stations [67] (in another newspaper I saw that there were 30 videos that prove it, but I do not have more time by now). Thank you both for your work! --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 08:32, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your help and cooperation! If no one objects to the current version [[68]] I will add it in 12 hours.

BallenaBlanca I think the role of Mossos d'Esquadra seems relevant to the page but I'm not sure it belongs in a "violence and injuries" section, and so it shouldn't be part of this proposal. Perhaps add it to a different section? --Calthinus (talk) 14:20, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the role of Mossos d'Esquadra could be included in another section.

I made some modifications, look what you think. And for my part, I think it is adjusted. Good work!!

And please, very important: from this draft, we have to review related pages to eliminate bias. There are several ones, as I have already mentioned. Kind regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 17:02, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

 Done --Calthinus (talk) 02:56, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Comment: I may be late to the party, but I think that the word "illegal" in this case should always be attributed to the source, not stated in Wikipedia's voice. As I understand it, the illegality or not of the referendum is a question of constitutional interpretation by the courts. I'm not an expert on Spanish government, but as far as I know there is no statute explicitly banning independence referenda. On the other hand, international law protects the right of self-determination. So then, according to whom exactly is this particular referendum illegal?

Compare this with some U.S. states fully legalizing cannabis, and even setting up state-run dispensaries. Are those states acting "illegally"? Cannabis is banned at the federal level, so I guess it depends on whom you ask. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 17:57, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

The Spanish Constitutional Court expressly suspended it, and it expressly notified authorities that celebrating it went against that order and that it was illegal. This was the same interpretation that the Catalan Supreme Justice Courts took and it was also confirmed by the European Union. There are plenty of sources that you can check in the article itself. As far as the right to self-determination it is meant for de-colonization. It does not apply to regions of democratic countries like Spain. The UN for example refused to send any observers. I hope that helps to clarify. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 18:58, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps this explanation can help, from The Economist: "THE Catalan regional government of Carles Puigdemont is preparing to hold a unilateral referendum on seceding from Spain on October 1st, which it says will be legally binding. Catalans will be asked whether they want to form an independent republic. But there is a problem: Spain’s democratic constitution of 1978, which was approved by more than 90% of Catalan voters, gave wide autonomy to the regions but affirmed “the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation”. Only the Spanish parliament can change the constitution. Mr Puigdemont’s referendum is therefore illegal". --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 19:03, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Sangdeboeuf I agree, but if you check currently on the page, every time the phrase illegal is used outside of quotations, it is in fact attributed to source -- namely Spanish courts, the Spanish King or the EU. --Calthinus (talk) 19:05, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Actually, the lead section currently states, "The referendum itself is also illegal according to the Spanish constitution [...] the Spanish Constitution does not allow for a vote on the independence of any Spanish region while also deeming it illegal without its consent". Unless the Spanish Constitution expressly says, "this here referendum ain't legal" then this is an interpretation that should be properly attributed or directly quoted. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:06, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

the Spanish Constitution expressly says: «The State shall have exclusive competence over the following matters: (...) Authorization of popular consultations through the holding of referendums.» So I do not understand how it can be understood as an interpretation...

The Constitutional Court Suspended the celebration of that referendum Before it was celebrated and the Supreme Justice Courts of Catalonia ordered all voting material confiscated and voting centers closed also before it was celebrated. The electoral commission was also informed that it was illegal before it was celebrated and they all resigned to avoid prosecution. The referendum was celebrated without an electoral commission for that reason. Here are a couple of sources that explain it: [69], [70]

The text you mention could be changed to the secession of any region from Spain is also illegal according to the Spanish constitution. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 16:01, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Obviously none of us are experts in constitutional law. However the constitutional court in Spain, which is, said so. It should be attributed to that court. Readers can think or not think what they want about it. --Calthinus (talk) 23:11, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Sangdeboeuf my apologies, I checked and you are right, it did find its way back onto the page as an adverb. I changed it to attributing it to the Constitutional Court. Imo this is more inline with WP:VERIFIABILITY as constitutional interpretation is indeed its own profession that I as a wiki editor would not pretend to know, even when things seem obvious. --Calthinus (talk) 16:08, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

@Calthinus: I restored the fact that the referendum was held illegally. The original complain was that it was been used as an adverb every time that referendum was used, as in "illegal referendum". In that phrase is just reflecting what most sources do confirm, that since the Constitutional Court of Spain suspended it, celebrating it was illegal. The Catalan courts ruled the same way and even the European Commission confirmed this objective and extremely relevant fact. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 07:08, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Crystallizedcarbon: I have discussed this a lot in the past. There are many, many issues with adverbial use of "illegally" in the lede of all places. NPOV is one. V is another. There's others too. Wikipedia itself is not an arbiter of legality. Nor are its editors no matter how obvious it seems (I see some editors have disputed this; I personally don't and my interpretation matches yours but that's not the point), as law is to be interpreted by legal experts. We must quote -- and attribute -- to authorities who rightly or wrongly say so. The policy-correct and conveniently also more NPOV solution is to simply say "Constitutional court X deems it illegal" at an appropriate place, which the page already does. Carbon, I know you're not POV-pushing because if you did, you'd do a lot better of a job than this -- using "illegal" as an adjective/adverb unnecessarily on a neutral encyclopedia doesn't convince readers it is such, all it does is convince them that the page is written badly. This is the same issue as with all the other adjectives I've complained about. --Calthinus (talk) 19:58, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Also imo given the issues of a lede, adverbial "illegally" is just as much of a POV breach in the first sentence as repeating it 5 or so times adverbially/as-an-adjective elsewhere in the article. Is it really that hard just to say that the court said so?--Calthinus (talk) 20:11, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I do not see the issue as in that case it was not just a complement to the word referendum, it was trying to convey that the thing that was unequivocally illegal under current law was celebrating the referendum while it was suspended by a competent court. However to try address your concern I have reworded the phrase to make clear that its celebration while suspended by the Constitutional Court and also because the Catalan courts also ruled about its unlawfulness due to the same reason was the cause for the illegality statement. I hope you find the new wording acceptable. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 21:36, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I assume you mean this one [[71]]. In that case the only problem I have is the statement "holding the referendum on that date was illegal" -- this once again has Wikipedia taking the role of arbiter of constitutional law. It doesn't matter whether we think it's disputable or not. We have to say Constitutional court said x. Somewhere not in the lede, if the page doesn't already say so, we can also quote the violated clause, whether it concerns how Spanish territorial integrity cannot be violated or that regional referendums must have the consent of the central government. But we can't make the statement ourselves. That's my take at least. If it's possible to do it succinctly in the lede, we could also put a quoted clause there too (so long as its the one the court referred to, can't violate SYN of course), if that would work for you. --Calthinus (talk) 21:48, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Sorry I may have lost the thread, since it has now come here, so coming here. I will not repeat the points I provided here, I think I have been sufficiently clear and detailed. It is pointless to keep discussing that the word illegal should be there because an editor has a fixation, it does not add new necessary information and makes it more unbalanced. Iñaki LL (talk) 21:56, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I am bringing what I added in my comment below, i.e. the passing of the referendum in the lead, see here, making the information more complete and down to detail. Iñaki LL (talk) 22:01, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I disagree with you Iñaki LL on you edit your removed the word illegal completely from the lead. That in my opinion rendered the lead clearly biased and that is why I reverted it. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 22:19, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

This is a very difficult RfC - normally an RfC would be brief and clearcut. I agree that the word illegal needs to be attributed and not stated in Wikipedia's voice, and that it shouldn't be repeated every time the word "referendum" is mentioned. Note that I was asked about this on my talk page, but this particular issue seems pretty cut and dried. Doug Weller talk 18:31, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Doug Weller for your input. Just wanted to point out that I made a change to the article before you posted your comment that addressed the first issue in response to to a comment made by Calthinus. The second issue was already taken care of before this RFC was opened. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 19:02, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your input Doug; Carbon, sorry for any confusion that might have resulted from the fact that a solution was (I hope) reached right after I made the 3O request. --Calthinus (talk) 20:27, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Not a problem, It was really not a factor, your last comment was enough, but more eyes from experienced editors are always welcomed. I am specially happy to have reached an acceptable solution to the “illegal” issue. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 21:48, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Neglect to include Franco-Catalan electorate in referenda

From the wikipedia articles and media coverage thus far in 2017, it seems that there is a glaring lack of inclusion of the "Franco"-Catalan People, I mean Catalan community in territorial France, and their Right to be included in the historical movement, declarations, articles, etc. Perhaps wikipedia needs to expand info on this segment of society, while consolidating the several-dozen articles associated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 126.209.40.121 (talk) 18:22, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

The referendum didn't concern them (also "Franco-Catalan" might not be best, may I suggest "Gallo-Catalan"). Nor did it concern the population of Valencia or the Balearics who have internal divisions on whether they see themselves as "Catalan", nor the population of Eastern border areas of Aragon which speaks Catalan. This page is not the place to discuss any of these. See also Catalan people, Catalan nationalism, etc. --Calthinus (talk) 19:21, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

If by Franco Catalan you mean the french national who live in Catalonia, they should have the right to vote in a referendum, as long as this referendum is done in accordance with the rule of law, which give, by treaties, European citizens the right to vote.

If by Franco Catalan you mean the french who live in south east France, the word Catalan is not accurate as there would be no definitive agreed definition of which part of France should be considered as Catalan. Also, I am not sure of how Spaniards would understand the word Franco in topics where fraquist Spain might be considered. Anyway, as stated by Calthinus, so far, the event this wikipedia article deals with is limited to the administrative autonomous region of Catalunya, which might be wider or narrower than the place were people speak Catalan.

Anyway, I confirm Calthinus, statement that this page is not the place to discuss any of these. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.193.104.227 (talk) 22:13, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of sources

I took the time to go through the sources, and I am quite astonished to see they do not support the statements added. There are still other statements that would be recommended to go through, given the latest edit evidence. Plus please do not keep reverting automatically, be as precise as possible in the edit summary, since they do not hold water in the latest reverts to my clean-up edits. For other concerns with the latest bring them also here. Thanks Iñaki LL (talk) 09:52, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Please BallenaBlanca, stop edit warring, you have reverted again when the discussion was open here, which comes across as not very cooperative. First of all, the version you reverted does not stick to content of the source, it is not accurate, the observers are not saying it was not 'valid', as cited in El País, what they are saying is the circumstances overall may not be meeting the necessary conditions for a regular referendum according to international standars. That is the accurate attribution to the observers, as I put it and you have reverted again. If you want to imply anything else, it needs further sourcing, I can see it is delivered by SER, putting together their own wording and jumping to their own conclusions, albait less accurate and more tendencious. So these two sentences need modifying. Iñaki LL (talk) 13:51, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

If we follow WP:BRD the version before the reverted changes should be kept util a consensus is reached. The "not valid statement" is indeed covered by the second reference published by Cadena SER: "referéndum fallido e inválido, incapaz de cumplimentar las normas internacionales mínimas." "inválido" can be translated as "not valid". Even though I don't agree with your argument I have removed it from the text because I think that we should attempt to reach consensus over our different interpretations here and not by repeatedly reverting in the page. and because in the current version the meaning is not completely lost and we need to shorten the lead, not expand it. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 08:37, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

That is welcome, and I think it is more balanced, it is not in the words of the observers anyway, but SER's conclusion. Regards Iñaki LL (talk) 18:45, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Iñaki LL. Sorry, I did not see your first message. Anyway, it is a bit broad/ambiguous, maybe it helps to be more precise, as you did in the second one. I see that Crystallizedcarbon fixed this particular issue. I agree. Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 22:52, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Supposed illegality of "approved law"

I see four problems with the following sentence: "The approved law is illegal according to the Catalan Statutes of Autonomy which require a two-thirds majority in the Catalan parliament for any change to Catalonia's status."

1. The expression "the approved law" is ambiguous.
2. The source article pre-dates the event, stating that "the law of the independence referendum will be approved [...] with a simple majority" (my translation). It does not contain any information regarding how parliament actually voted.
3. The source does not say any law is illegal because of a failure to respect a two-third majority. The article merely states that a) the reform of the Autonomy Status requires two-thirds of the parliament; b) the referendum law "will be approved" by a simple majority. A legal argument would still be required to conclude that the "law is illegal". In particular, and not being an expert, I wonder if the referendum law can even be identified as a reform of the statutes (notice that a break-up is not a reform).
4. The same source also states earlier that the law creates "an exceptional legal regime, in whose application it prevails over all norms that could be in conflict with it" (my translation).

As it is, this sentence does not convey any reliable information. It should either be removed or edited to address these concerns.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.193.104.227 (talk • contribs)

I pointed before to the problems posed by that sentence. Just another one, the whole article seems to be fraught with loose interpretations or WP:OR, instead of sticking to say what the source actually says, if not literally at least without jumping to a hotch-potch of combined ideas. I agree that a categorical adjective like 'illegal' needs a source stating so, else say just whtat the source says. Here it is problematic in that the source was published before the date, so it is not reporting on sth that took place. This could work: "The referendum law does not meet the requirement of two-thirds majority set out by the Catalan Statute of Autonomy for any change to Catalonia's status." Iñaki LL (talk) 20:02, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

At any rate, the whole lede needs shortening instead of this profusion of data, which may find a better place thoroughout other article sections. Iñaki LL (talk) 20:15, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Level of detail on the lead

As discussed before by few users the lead was too long. I have removed information that was not crucial leaving only what I consider to be the mayor issues of the event. I have also removed the "lead to long" tag accordingly. Comments are very welcome. We can use this section to discuss and reach a consensus on the appropriate level of detail on the lead. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 09:49, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

The result seems very good. I just made this little edit. Are you agree? --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 09:54, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, the lead's first sentence as it is now is conspicuously charged to influence the reader's view, so I do not see how it can be kept: "it is illegally", "suspended",... Keep the objective data (date, place) and any other relevant detail. Just take "illegally" somewhere else in the corpus as far as I am concerned. Iñaki LL (talk) 10:25, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

That was suspended and held illegally are objective data. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 11:57, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

But that it was suspended and held illegally because, as you added, "the Constitution affirms the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation" (and with the only source provided being the Constitution itself) is not. In fact, it would be a clear case of WP:SYNTH, because you're connecting two separate facts not connected by any of the sources. The referendum, for example, would be illegal just because of the fact that the central government did not authorize it (article 149.1.32 of the Constitution). Maybe we should wait until the Constitutional Court actually rules on why it was illegal... Impru20 (talk) 12:09, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

<<EDIT CONFLICT>>Hello @Iñaki LL: Wouldn't you agree that the fact that the referendum was celebrated illegally in violation of Spanish law because it was suspended by the Court is important enough for the lead?. We have already discussed this, and I fully agree to avoid overusing the term "illegal referendum" instead of referendum, but I can't see how this fact covered by multiple sources, supported by national and Catalan courts and confirmed by EU could be considered to be subjective. I don't think the argument of influencing the reader is a valid one, as it could also be used to argue the need to remove other relevant information from the lead like the violence, injured, or the request for the probe of violence by the UN. The most important and relevant facts that received coverage from multiple reliable sources seem to be present in the lead, I think that the reader has the right to make his or her own mind about them. Regards. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 12:14, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

It is not about "it is true" or is not, that comes across as fact picking, it may be illegal according to that Spanish tribunal, but this is not an article on the legal aspects of the referendum. The referendum was passed by the majority of the parliament, the representative organ of popular sovereignty, that is for example a relevant information missing in the lead, so we can go for ever about where authority lies. Objective data could do the first sentence, with the next one adding data referring to the referendum's inception and the Spanish tribunal sentence on it. That would be balanced. Iñaki LL (talk) 12:45, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

It is not fact picking, as I said before, the same could be said about other relevant information in the lead. That it was held illegally is a crucial fact of vital importance to the article. Trying to remove or negate such an objective and sourced fact could be regarded as a lack of neutrality. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 15:05, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Crystallizedcarbon: Excuse me, excuse me, what are you talking about? First of all, there is no consensus whatsoever, so be short in your edit summaries instead of adding irrelevant noise. I have seen that others have raised their concerns that the lead is violating NPOV by insistingly adding 'illegal'. You have removed sourced, reliable information that contained relevant data, plus I have removed an opinion article as a source that you have reverted. I had to remove previously misrepresentation of sources and unsubstantiated statements, which is a matter of big concern for the WP community, I did not check who added it, but that undermines the trust on this article or WP altogether.

It is clear that the version you are trying to add in the edit comes across for many as controversial. First of all, one of the sources is an opinion article. Secondly, you are trying to make a specific piece of information (EU Commission "called the referendum illegal") that has been cited by now below a categorical statement that suits your view, this is a clear case of POV-pushing that does not add more information (since immediately it is stated that the Spanish Constitutional Tribunal suspended it), but conditions the colour in which the reader will look at the article. Iñaki LL (talk) 17:38, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Iñaki LL: Again, please review other sections like the one titled Request for Comment, where it was established that the use of the term illegal in the article was correct, clarifying only that in previous versions it had been abusively used as an adverb. You yourself added "Definitely support removing "illegal" except for its first appearance making reference to the ruling by the relevant Spanish or other tribunal exclusively for informative purposes, repetion sounds like lecturing, an emphasis on the Spanish government's position". Now it is only mentioned once in the lead, and with this edit you tried to remove even that. In my humble opinion that would be a better definition of POV pushing. If you check the recent edits you would see that I shortened the lead where the word illegal was mentioned 3 times and reduced it to just once also eliminating a subsequent edit were it was added again to reflect the fact that the European Commission declared it so, it was not incorrect, but I did it as suggested by Impru20 and in an effort to try to avoid any possible bias. The WSJ is clearly a reliable source, subject to editorial control, when the WSJ article states that the European Commission Calls the Catalonia Vote Illegal, that has been checked, but if you want I can provide you with as many reliable sources as you need including an official statement from the European Commission itself and you know that it is not just the EU declaring it, but also both national and regional courts. If why it is illegal is not explained in greater detail in the lead as some other editors like Ballena Blanca tried to do with their edits that were also backed by reliable sources is as a result of what has been agreed here. The length of my edit summaries is because I assume good faith in your edits, and I would like to continue doing so by resolving our different points of views regarding content or ways to improve the article here.--Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 18:37, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Crystallizedcarbon:I am pointing to specific problems, sorry but you are not. I do not see any comments referring to the lead, yes I do see a section pointing to its biased pro-Spanish governmental nature. As it is tagged above, the whole lead needs a good clean-up, and I pointed problems related to the statements not reflecting the source, which is a misrepresentation of sources, I think I commented that before. It is not my intention to refute the EU Commission, in the slightest, the problem lies with using sources for whatever may suit your view. The source says the EU Commission "called the referendum illegal", that is the information, right?

Please do not keep IDHTing, the matter is not about the use of 'illegal' or not throughout the article, that is not the question, but its use at all costs in the lead. In fact that is implied in the next sentence declaring that it was suspended by the Spanish Tribunal, it is a redundancy that does not add any new information but slant. The idea of illegality is further repeated in other sections when it is appropriate, by specifying who is saying what in its context, not in the lead no matter how, taking the point made by Calthinius. The problem is twofold: 'illegal' is irrelevant information where you want to add it since the concrete fact is revealed next, suspended by the Spanish Tribunal, the highest court in Spain; secondly, the source does not state such thing. I should add, you have reverted an opinion article as a source for a statement, which can not consider acceptable. Lastly, you have removed a fully valid source with relevant information (diff specified above).

Hello @Impru20: There are a multitude of sources that state that objective fact and two of them are currently used as references in the lead itself. That itself is reason enough to justify inclusion and renders the WP:SYNTH argument moot. But to answer to your reasoning, regardless of what the future ruling of the Constitutional Court may be, the fact is that it was suspended so celebrating the referendum before that suspension was lifted was unquestionably illegal as was notified to the Catalan government beforehand. The Catalan courts also advised of the illegality of celebrating it while explicitly suspended and ordered the close of voting centers and confiscation of material. As you probably know the electoral commission resigned after been notified that they could be prosecuted. Even the EU officially confirmed the illegality of the act on 1 October. I hope that helped clear the matter. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 12:27, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I just noticed that you used the above comment to remove the contents of the Constitution as the reason for the illegality of holding the referendum. Since I was just answering Iñaki on why Illegal should be in the lead, I completely misunderstood the final motivation of your argument. I can agree with that edit. Regards. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 12:37, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Crystallizedcarbon: Hi. I absolutely know that the Constitution does indeed acknowledge the indissoluble unity of Spain, and that there are sources showing this. My protest came because such a fact was used to justify the illegality of the vote, which is by no means what the sources say nor the reason of the vote being illegal (indeed, a regionwide referendum needs the Spanish government's consent. The lack of it (such as in this case) means the vote is illegal without any further explanation. This has nothing to do with the "indissoluble unity of Spain"). On the "illegality" issue, my edit just complained that it was used too many times in so little space. It's fine right now. Impru20 (talk) 12:42, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 14:58, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I recovered the sentence about the indissolubility of Spain (and the Constitution ref) thinking that had been erased by mistake in previous edits (it was not my original contribution). But you're right, Impru20, that was WP:SYNTH so I also agree to withdraw it.

Iñaki LL, you're not right. Please listen and cooperate with the other editors. As Crystallizedcarbon are saying to you, it is a subject already discussed and a consensus was reached. The only reason to question illegality is from a biased and non-neutral point of view and that can be considered a clear POV pushing. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 19:40, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Iñaki LL please don't do edits like this [[72]]. Labeling the intervention as "violent", in the lede of all places, does the opposite of make the page more balanced. It's completely your right to see it as such but not to make Wikipedia say so. I've been ranting about this forever now. All the unnecessary adjectives/adverbs by either side aggravate issues between editors and also make the page crappy regarding both NPOV and overall quality. With the exception of "illegal", the other side so to speak has stopped adding these to the page. Please don't do it again yourself either.

Regarding the illegality, I have made it clear that I don't want to see that used in Wikipedia's voice, and only as attributed to sources as I explained in my last post in the Request for Comment section. Our job isn't to discuss whether it the referendum was legal. Our job is to discuss what reliable sources on the matter say. That is what Wikipedia is. --Calthinus (talk) 20:29, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi Calthinus, thanks for your comment, I have taken my latest concerns here (above) if you want to participate. I am not dwelling on the word 'violent' since it was reverted some time ago and I actually let it go in search for a consensus if you noticed. I actually fully agree with your point of view, getting down to the details, forget adjectives, only when they are necessary and relevant to the description. Regards Iñaki LL (talk) 21:04, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Iñaki LL Okay, that's great, and sorry for harping on that; I saw that before and was a bit irked and didn't have a chance to respond to it at the time.--Calthinus (talk) 21:07, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Iñaki LL although one might interpret my criticism of that one edit of yours as cherrypicking (wasn't my intention and I hope it didn't come off that way) personally I prefer not to engage in convos where both sides are accusing each other of POV pushing, IDHT etc despite admitted hypocrisy on my part on this page (lol). So let's focus on the article. Are you in agreement with this? [[73]] --Calthinus (talk) 21:19, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Calthinus O, no worries, it took me by surprise, but peanuts. Your attitude is appreciated, only that sometimes things appear no to add up. Now comming to the subject, that is an inprovement, but for a more comprehensive picture I should defend the inclusion of the its passing by the Catalan parliament, the wording flows naturally. Iñaki LL (talk) 21:35, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

What the lead is no longer reflecting, is the very important fact supported by multiple RS, that celebrating the referendum after it was (suspended/deemed illegal/etc) by the Constitutional Court and by the Catalan courts is what is unquestionably illegal. The distinction I am trying to make is that while one notable thing is that the courts state that doing something is against the law another more serious thing (legally speaking) is doing it after having been warned of its illegality. So it needs to be in the lead because according to today's news it's already having legal repercussions and most likely more will follow. Iñaki reverted my last edit once more, I suggest going to the previous version or working from my proposed new wording, but if we don't address that concern the article will be clearly biased. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 21:58, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

(EDIT CONFLICT) ... Hello. This is becoming a bit of a deaf dialogue. You refuse to make technically valid points, but insist on categorical statements like X is Y, and patronize the reader as if s/he was not aware of what s/he is reading on the lead and the rest of the article... What I propose is to add also the passing of the law by the Catalan parliament, as basically it is an article on the clash of two authorities, and it is relevant to cite the inception of the law, as phrased here. Regards Iñaki LL (talk) 22:21, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Crystallizedcarbon is right. The order of events must be clear in order to put into context all subsequent events. I support his latest edit. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 22:05, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Surely there is a way to cover that without having wikipedia appear to be arbitrating law. I.e. "[the referendum], having gone ahead in contravention of the earlier ruling of [X constitutional court] which declared it to be illegal/contrary to hte constitution" or something along those lines, no? It makes it clear that the court order is being held in contempt by the organizers of the referendum (i.e. the Catalan government). --Calthinus (talk) 22:23, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is becoming a deaf dialogue, the timing thing at this moment is irrelevant, that was not an issue and I do not know why is should be raised now, it really feels a way to push through 'illegal' at any cost. Also, it is pretty unconstructive to keep adding information to the lead, to emphasize a specific view, it should be pointed, when the article has a clear tag calling to shorten it. Iñaki LL (talk) 22:36, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Calthinus:Readers not familiar with the topic may not know that both the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Justice Court of Catalonia are indeed the competent courts where the referendum was held and that the organizers decided to hold it anyhow ignoring even the Catalan justice system. That is notable and can not be hidden. I thought we had agreed that there is nothing wrong with using the word Illegal specially since it is sourced by multiple reliable sources and it accurately describes what happened. Wikipedia should not take sides, it should just reflect what the reliable sources say respecting due weight. I reduced the mentions of the word Illegal from 3 to one in the lead, but I must insist that we should not hide or mask the decision of the judiciary power. We have to avoid leaving room for misinterpretation. Under current Spanish law celebrating the vote on that day was indeed illegal. @Iñaki LL: Rather than defending your arguments here you seem to have chosen to go back to reverting. If you want a short version we can go back to this version or we can work on the proposed new wording, but such a relevant fact should not be hidden or masked.--Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 23:06, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Calthinus: Today my brain is already fried. If you don't think the new proposed wording reverted by Iñaki is OK, I will try to come up with a new version by adding some text after the phrase on the suspension by the constitutional court in line with the wording you proposed in your last comment and also mentioning the TSJC, it may be just a bit longer, but it is a concept that I feel needs to be covered one way or another. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 23:18, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Crystallizedcarbon: Okay, the material concerning the courts can similarly certainly be incorporated in some way without making Wikipedia the one to say "illegal". I'm not arguing to mask the decision, in fact I'm arguing to include it. We just can't have illegal used as unattributed adjective/adverb (while using quotes around it here would come off to me as POV in the other direction...). My stance has not changed, rather the page has, as Sangdeboeuf was the first to point out. You can see that since we had that conversation, the word "illegally" as an unattributed adverb found its way into the lede [[74]] (or it was before the latest revert). I'll wait for your proposal. Personally I think NPOV and V take precedence over MOS for the lede on a contentious page like this. Have a good night,--Calthinus (talk) 23:25, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

@Crystallizedcarbon: Alternatively -- what do you think of this version ["held in contravention of the Spanish justice system"]? --Calthinus (talk) 23:35, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Good Morning @Calthinus: I do appreciate your efforts to reach an inclusive consensus, but we really should not censor the term illegal. It has been used in one way or another in reference to the referendum by the great majority of sources. Here are just some examples:

International:

• Reuters: Spain, Catalonia clash over policing as illegal independence vote nears: "the regional government pressed ahead with plans to hold an illegal vote next weekend".
• Bloomberg: How to Stage an Illegal Referendum: "activists have hidden the ballot boxes they plan to deploy in an illegal referendum on independence next month".

Spanish:

• El País: La justicia desmonta la organización del referéndum ilegal de Cataluña: "El mayor golpe al referéndum ilegal de independencia del 1 de octubre no lo han asestado ni el Gobierno ni la fiscalía, sino un juez de instrucción de Barcelona".
• ABC (newspaper): Las numerosas irregularidades (constatadas) del referéndum ilegal: "El referéndum ilegalizado por el Tribunal Constitucional está incumpliendo todas las garantías mínimas".

Catalan:

• La Vanguardia: 1-O.- Comisión y Eurocámara censuran el referéndum "ilegal" y alertan del peligro de una declaración unilateral: "El Parlamento Europeo y la Comisión Europea han censurado este miércoles el referéndum de independencia "ilegal" celebrado el pasado domingo en Cataluña".
• El Periódico de Catalunya: ¿Qué es el referéndum de independencia de Catalunya? Fecha y 5 claves: "La consulta de autodeterminación sobre la independencia de Catalunya es ilegal según el ordenamiento constitucional que en su momento una mayoría de catalanes respaldó en referéndum".

There are countless more. Please do a search both in English and in Spanish and you will see that the term is widely used by reliable sources also and even in oficial documents of the EU. There is no reason to censor it. There is a difference between saying "illegal referendum" to stating that it was illegally held. But again, if that is the problem, we can find alternative wording, what I feel we should not do is censor a relevant and sourced term if it is backed by reliable sources. Two courts have already ruled on this matter, so I do not see how including it could go against any of our policies on the other hand I consider that not including it would be a violation of WP:NPOV as it states:

Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.[3] Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views. For example, the article on the Earth does not directly mention modern support for the flat Earth concept, the view of a distinct minority; to do so would give undue weight to it.

¿Do you agree?. Regards. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 07:52, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

You seem to have a lot of time, right? I urge you to please stop POV pushing, it comes across as disruptive. It has been repeated time and again, the word illegal is in the body, and its suspension by the Spanish tribunal is right in the first paragraph, the specific action informing of its illegality according to Spanish tribunals. X is Y feels as and is judgemental and patronizing. Remember that we are talking about two authorities, the Catalan parliament's authority, and that of the Spanish tribunals, and that is relevant to the understanding of the reader. Iñaki LL (talk) 08:33, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I propose the first paragraph along these lines. Iñaki LL (talk) 08:41, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, It is a lot easier to revert than to defend arguments in talk but I think this matter to be important for the article and even if it takes longer I want to avoid been drawn into an unproductive edit war. I am trying very hard to assume good faith, but I do not appreciate accusations of POV pushing from a user that has a "This user opposes the policies and views of Mariano Rajoy." userbox in his page. There is nothing wrong with stating your political views, but since you are repeatedly reverting and arguing to eliminate any mention of the term illegal from the lead you should probably refrain from accusing other editors based on neutrality. The edit you propose is clearly biased: It fully removes the term illegal from the lead. It replaces a reference from the WSJ used to source a term widely used by other RS, on claims that it is an opinion article. It introduces the issue of the approval of a law by the parliament of Catalonia without clarifying that it was also deemed illegal by the competent courts and that it did not even meet the precepts of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia by being passed by less than 2/3. All that information was removed before by me, along with another two previously accepted uses of the term illegal on the lead and information on the indisoluble nature of Spain when I shortened it. You however seem to be adding only what suits your point of view and removing what does not. Please be open to the contributions from other editors and to wider points of view and try to reach consensus before insisting on changes. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 09:25, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I have finally restored the article to eliminate such clear bias. Iñaki, before eliminating the only mention left in the lead of the fact that holding the referendum on that date was illegal under Spanish law, please present sources or arguments as to why you think it violates our current policy or try to reach a consensus but please stop reverting. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 09:43, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

(EDIT CONFLICT) Bla-bla-bla, and keep insisting on leaving your trace, which speaks volumes of your not very humble attitude. Your ideology is not my concern, building the article properly is. Stop the tantrum and POV pushing, the last imposition of a lede has not even integrated my input in previous comments and summary line, has removed the source added, which is pretty revealing of the alianating behaviour shown by you here. Stop the tantrum, details are given later, this is about a balanded lead, not about an accumulation of data to demonstrate how right your position is. Iñaki LL (talk) 13:09, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Iñaki LL, you are doing unilateral editions. Please stop reverting and respect the consensus and Wikipedia policies.

You are pawned on mentioning the (irregular) approval of the Catalan Parliament ("The vote, passed by majority in the Catalan parliament"), when both the law and the referendum violated the Constitution [75] . They both have no value. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 13:04, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I left a comment on your talk page. It is a matter of big concern the use of rollback rights to impose a political view, the one you are showing above, it is clearly disruptive. Iñaki LL (talk) 13:27, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

@Iñaki LL: if your concern is to build a proper article, then use reliable sources or policy based arguments and not the revert button. I have left a warning on your page, I hope we can have a constructive discussion here, I am open to anything that is reasonable. We can discuss including the law passed by the Parliament of Catalonia, but if we do so then we should also include that it had been suspended and it now has been canceled as illegal and the issue about not meeting the 2/3 of the vote. I think is too much detail for the lead but if enough editors would like to see it back I would have no problem with it. If you on the other hand insist in reverting I will have no choice but make a request in the noticeboard so an experienced admin can clarify things for us. I really would prefer not to have to do that, so please try to be constructive and give your arguments here. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 13:51, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Do it, remember that you will also be scrutinized and that will actually shed some light. Iñaki LL (talk) 14:54, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Iñaki LL please, cooperate and listen to the other editors and refrain from commenting on other editors, remember "Comment on content, not on the contributor: Keep the discussions focused upon the topic of the talk page, rather than on the personalities of the editors contributing to the talk page" and remember WP:TPNO.

You are also wrong about my "rollback rights", in English Wikpedia I do not have rollback rights. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 14:25, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Listen, stop mirroring my comments, BallenaBlanca / Criztallizedcarbon, that is old news. I do not see any difference actually. Iñaki LL (talk) 14:54, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Sorry Iñaki LL I don't understand what you mean by old news, are you referring to the law passed by the Parliament of Catalonia?. Here you can see that in the last stable version of the document before I shortened the lead it was included along with its suspension and the 2/3 issue. I removed all of it as it seemed excessive for the lead, but as I said I am open to discussing it. I do appreciate the fact that you have stopped reverting. Thank you. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 15:38, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Crystallizedcarbon regarding "illegal" and the news, that's a strong point but I'm not quite convinced (also one of the sources you used has the word in quotes so that doesn't quite count). Wikipedia has to be held to a higher standard than the news, especially on contentious topics. Flat earth doesn't apply as the flatness or roundness of the earth is strictly factual whereas legality or illegality are subject to varying interpretations of the law (hence why there are whole professions that people must train for years to enter, which concern the interpretation of law). What still does apply is that we should say that the referendum is considered illegal-- and attribute. I did not hear complaints a week ago when the word "illegal" was not used as an adjective in the lede. Could you tell me what exactly is the problem with replacing it with "held in contravention of the Spanish justice system"? Not only does this cover the same semantics but it does so in a way that avoids making the voice of Wiki take a stance on "legality", and it is also more informative, illuminating the point you yourself made earlier about the fact that the referendum was prepared and then held after the ruling. I thought this would be a good compromise -- perhaps you could explain why it isn't so? I disagree that it's "censoring" the word illegal; it's not, what it's doing is avoiding LABEL-esque adjectives that don't constitute a detached voice and avoiding making Wikipedia present itself as an authority on Spanish law. On the other hand, I do think the current version is more neutral than the version that existed at the start of this discussion, so that is good.--Calthinus (talk) 19:40, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello @Calthinus: You raised many points so I will try to answer to all of them in order:

• As far as the observation that one of the Catalan sources has the word illegal in quotes so that doesn't quite count: There are countless other Reliable Sources that use that term. If that happens to be the issue I can easily provide as many as may be needed. Here is another example for your reference from that same source (La Vanguardia) that does not use quotes around illegal: Unas 700 empresas han abandonado Cataluña desde el referéndum de 1 de octubre: "...desde la celebración del referéndum ilegal del pasado 1 de octubre..."
• I agree with you that Wikipedia has to be held to a higher standard than news. We have both policies like Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not or guidelines like WP:CRIME to cite two examples that make clear that there is content that may be suitable for the news but not for Wikipedia but my current understanding of our policies is that contentious topics is not one of them, and I can not find any justification to exclude the term illegal on that basis when two courts have already ruled on the matter. Legality and illegality is indeed subject to varying interpretations but that I understand that that is so until the legislative branch makes a decision through the courts. They indeed are the legal authority. As editors our job should be easier. We do not need to, and should not interpret what the sources say. Wikipedia can not take a stance on its legality or illegality, we just have to reflect in the article what the majority of the sources say. that was the point of citing our policy on neutrality. if there would happen to be two versions with similar weight over its illegality both should be presented and if one of them is just marginal it should be excluded.
• About not hearing a complain a week ago when the word illegal was not used as an adjetive in the lede: Yes, there were no complains at that time, but please note that the document at that time mentioned the term illegal 4 times in the lede. I opened this section after shortening the lead and leaving just a single use. You argued about using it as an adverb in "illegally held" so as you can see, following your advice, in the current version the only mention of the term has been changed to "was illegal under Spanish law". How can that be worse than the four times("declared illegal", "The law is illegal", " referendum itself is also illegal" and "deeming it illegal") it was used one week ago and that without any complains (as you point out) I myself reduced to just one "was illegal under Spanish law"?
• The main problem with changing it to "held in contravention of the Spanish justice system" is that that is not the wording used by the majority of the sources including oficial statements by supranational bodies like the European Commission and also because illegal is much easier to understand to and uninformed reader and finally because it seems less ambiguous and again I don't see any reason based on our policies to censor the term used by so many sources.
• I am glad that you think that the current version is more neutral, I also agree. I feel that it is a good compromise and I hope that my arguments may have convinced you that current version may be an acceptable compromise. If not please let me know why. Best regards. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 21:23, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I should completely disagree, and I should take this again as sheer pointview bulldozing, by WP:IDHT and by sheer repetion. It is not only about what the sources are saying, it is where you put it. Saying that "it is illegal", fits perfectly with BallenaBlanca's argument that since it is 'illegal', the passing of the referendum law by majority in the Catalan parliament I added can not be cited, a political statement in itself, full-blown POV. I should remind that the United States Declaration of Independence was illegal, right? Do you understand that? You might as well go there and put illegal.

I fully support Calthinus' edit "in contravention" as more balanced and precise to say basically the same, if the source supports the same concept, this is about informing, not shaping the opinion of anyone. I should disagree though with Calthinus that the present lede is more neutral, furthermore it is 'dirtier', both in shape and content. Let me illustrate what I said: after defining the objective data in the first sentence, we find the following: "the referendum (...) was illegal", "previously suspended", "who declared it a breach", ·had issued orders to the police (...) to prevent it", "including detention", "due to the many irregularities", "failed to meet the minimum", is this really 'neutral'? All in the first paragraph, is this a proper WP entry? (...) I propose a revert to Calthinus compromise ("in contravention with") plus adding a short phrase on the passing of the law by the Catalan parliament. Iñaki LL (talk) 22:22, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I will not repeat my arguments to you Iñaki. I guess we will have to agree to disagree, because I do think that yes, it is about what the sources say. once again the issue with the referendum law is not that you included it, it is that you failed to also include, along with it, the other associated key aspects that were present in the previous version of the lead, and that you deleted the last "illegal" in that same edit. It may seem like you only want to see one side of things. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 22:49, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Iñaki LL, sorry, it is clear that I have not explained myself well. I meant to mention the approval of a law by the parliament of Catalonia out of context (without explaining the irregularities and that was suspended), which is a bias. If all this is explained adequately, I have no problem in mentioning it. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 22:58, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Carbon, I've explained at length why I think the current wording in the lede is unacceptable, whereas the version where it existed 4 times in more attributed ways in the body was acceptable. I appreciate your efforts to compromise here but I'm not convinced. It is about the voice of Wikipedia taking a stance on "legality" (attribution to usable actors/sources fixes that problem). I'm a bit busy at the moment so I can't play a huge role here. I'm thinking of asking an uninvolved editor senior to me for a 3O on this. --Calthinus (talk) 15:37, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello @Calthinus: That reasoning I can understand and also share, The motivation of my argument was the full removal of the term while adding partial information that was done by another editor. I have restored the wording of the version from a week ago we were discussing, adding the word "declared", as you suggested, but I have kept the part about it been done at instance of the Spanish government that was also changed from that version. This was tedious, but I'm glad we could find a solution and I want to thank you, Ballena and Iñaki for doing so using arguments. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 17:10, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

As a final note, I just want to reiterate that holding it after it was declared illegal is clearly illegal under Spanish law but as I said unless there is strong opposition from Ballena or other editors and as a way to contribute to reach a consensus I can be OK with not including that fact in the lede, as it is now in the current version, since the reader could also draw that same conclusion and that way we can avoid the issue you raised. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 17:34, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

As I enumarated above about the lede, I can not take the first paragraph as balanced, there were many other sides to the referendum other than legal procedures that are not being included, but it is not my intention to drag this on for ever, so I take onboard BallenaBlanca's comment above and re-add the phrase lost in the removal sequences, and that's it. Iñaki LL (talk) 19:52, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

We are having a communication problem here. Both Ballena and I have said that if you want the information about the law included in the lede that is fine, but only as long as you also add the fact that the law was declared illegal and that it did not obtained the 2/3 majority of the Parliament required by the Statutes of Autonomy of Catalonia, otherwise it is biased. If you want I can make the edit. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 20:15, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Alright, great that we reached a solution on this and I appreciate the cooperation.--Calthinus (talk) 20:20, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Crystallizedcarbon, it seems that we are having a communication problem here. Iñaki LL, remember this, please do not misunderstand our words. Thanks. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 21:22, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes..., you are not understanding anything I am afraid, but you are keeping confrontational, therefore I reverted your edit. I made my point above, the lede is charged with negative legality references, inequivocally unbalanced, I thought this could have brought to an end the dispute. Still you, Crystallizedcarbon/BallenaBlanca, keep bulldozing your POV. You are portraying yourself, please stop WP:DISRUPTing. Iñaki LL (talk) 22:06, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Please, Calthinus or Crystallizedcarbon, can you make a summary of this content (from previous versions) for the lead, to balance the edits of Iñaki LL?

The referendum was approved by the Catalan parliament in a session on 6 September 2017 along with a law which states that independence would be binding with a simple majority, without requiring a minimum turnout. Opposition parties refused to participate in the session and called on their voters to boycott the vote, except Catalunya Sí que es Pot who abstained but supports participation. The law is illegal according to the Catalan Statutes of Autonomy which require a two third majority in the Catalan parliament for any change to Catalonia's status. The referendum itself is also illegal according to the Spanish constitution. It was suspended by the Constitutional Court on 7 September 2017, with the Catalan government stating the court order was not valid for Catalonia and proceeding to gather the support of 712 of 948 municipalities of Catalonia, including a partial support by Barcelona.

Thank. Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 22:32, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

BallenaBlanca/Criztallizedcarbon, stop overwhelming users with random data that do not add anything to this specific problem. We are in the summary, first paragraph of an article, you have loaded with negative legal and not legal comments the lede. I think that is enough, stop the tantrum. Thank you Iñaki LL (talk) 22:38, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Gonna be a bit blunt here: on the one hand, it appears to me, looking at the edit history, that the only one of Inyaki's edits to the lede left standing is effectively this one [[76]] which is not exactly what I would call a major change as most of its text is in citation and it adds only 9 words to the actual text. I'm a bit confused about how those few words require a group effort to be "balanced". The other bigger deletion that he did [[77]] was mostly undone by myself [[78]] and appears to have stayed this way [[79]].

On the other hand, Inyaki, please do not refer to Ballena's comments as "tantrums". You're better than this. I've seen your work elsewhere, I know. And please don't take this to be patronizing, I mean every single word I said: you're better than that. Anyhow, I have to take a break from wiki for awhile, but I wish you all the best of luck.--Calthinus (talk) 02:41, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

The talk page is meant to discuss how to improve the article, not to be constantly making personal attacks on other editors. I want to write only about content here, so I am sorry but I must protest for this continuous level of unwarranted attacks. Referring to BallenaBlanca and myself as one person in "Still you, Crystallizedcarbon/BallenaBlanca, keep bulldozing your POV" and repeating "BallenaBlanca/Criztallizedcarbon" again in the next comment, is not acceptable as it implies a serious violations of our policies, so I ask Iñaki to clarify exactly what he means.

Iñaki LL Before accusing others of POV pushing or Bulldozing, please look yourself in the mirror, the userbox from your page (copied here on the left) with a crossed ballot box seems to indicate that you have a strong POV on this matter. At this point I have to assume that your behavior is a due to a case of editing under a (conflict of interestbiased POV). Iñaki you have proven to be very useful to the project, and I thank you for your contributions in other articles, but your personal attacks here are not helping so I ask you once more to please be civil and keep your contributions here centered on content. Please don´t take this suggestion as being patronizing either, but don't be afraid of basing your arguments just on sources and policy, good reasoning will take you much further than personal attacks.

Now back to content. @Calthinus: I think we have to try to avoid keeping score of who was right or wrong or who got/didn't get their way. That in my opinion is not important, what is important is improving the article. If we decide that this 9 words edit improves the article, it should be kept. But If we decide that it introduces bias to the article it should not be included or it should be neutraliced. I agree, it is short and it is backed by a RS, it does not need to be changed (other than including the word law) but adding it just by itself is clearly biased because it is missing two very important pieces of information that both Ballena and myself insisted should be included along with it if he chose to add it. One is that the law was suspended (and recently annulled: Spain’s Constitutional Court strikes down Catalan referendum law) so it has no legal value and two that it was approved by only a simple majority (72 out of 135) violating also the Statue of Autonomy of Catalonia that required two thirds of the vote (incidentally those 72 representatives represent 47% of the votes: Catalan pro-independence parties win majority in regional election). That annulled law along with the referendum have been used to declare (and temporarily suspend) the independence of Catalonia, I think it is very relevant to include those 2 very relevant facts (suspended and annulled by CC and simple majority instead of 2/3). Otherwise it could be argued that by not mentioning this in the lead we could be using Wikipedia to give validity to an annulled law. What we repeated many times in the past to Iñaki was for him to feel free to add it as long as he also included those needed details. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 07:59, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

@Iñaki LL: Feel free to add the suspension and annulment by the C.C. and the two thirds issue to the lead yourself or give your arguments why you feel it does not need to be mentioned together, alternatively you could also return the article to the version before of your edit it if you think it would be too much information for the lead. If no changes are made and no valid arguments are given, I will add it this afternoon, as it provides the needed context for your edit to be neutral. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 10:04, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Agree with Crystallizedcarbon. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 10:15, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

That is funny Crystallizedcarbon, you are actually commenting on me, and breaching WP:AGF, that is serious, so refrain from doing it, while I have commented on more than dubious actions you have taken to reinstate your point of view, so I urge you not to add noise. Editing walls instead of coming straight down to the point is WP:LISTEN, and pushes away productive editors. The fact that I add a userbox being honest on my political stand, does not make you less political in your own actions, the difference is I am stating clearly my personal views on my personal page. My drive is to build a better WP, just in case you did not understand. I do not need lecturing me on contents, so you are welcome to comment on WP:LEDE and MOS:BEGIN.

The lede is still very long, but I am not sure this is going to be worked out now. Quick answer to you comment on second sentence information: the legal concerns (C.C.S.) you are citing are included by now in the second line, so what are you talking about? (...) Please do not waste may time. MOS:BEGIN states clearly this is an overview, I see you are eager to add all your detailed legal points, but they do not belong here. I brought up above my point on the negative enumeration in the first paragraph that does not bring a full picture. It is not even answering one of the important Ws, WHO. Who organized it? Secondly, there is not even HOW. The stubborn inclusion of references to laws that prohibit and tribunals that suspend has make it impossible to see the forest, they stand there like stumbling logs that prevent from advancing (since it so bad...). I should be fine if these problems are addressed. It is not my intention to let the tediousness continue. By the way, do not ping me, I have the article on my mind, thanks. Iñaki LL (talk) 13:57, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I see no reason not to mention objective facts, such as the framework in which the law was passed in the Parliament of Catalonia. They are included among the most important points and must appear in the lead. Is necessary to mention them in order to put everything in context. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 15:12, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I am glad to see that we are getting somewhere, that is welcome. I hope we agree that it is a key information WHO, and HOW, and that they are fine in the second line. And we can get to another thing once and for all. Regards Iñaki LL (talk) 20:58, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

<<EDIT CONFLICT WITH BallenaBlanca>>It's not funny to me Iñaki, I'm really trying to assume good faith on your part, but repeatedly accusing Ballena and me of POV pushing when you have what seems to be a ( clear WP:COI clearly biased POV) does not help. I insist. I do not want to be drawn into this kind of personal argument, I am sorry I was forced to post my previous comment, but it was motivated from your serious accusation when you referred to Ballena and me as one which would be a case of sock puppetry. I want to think it is a misunderstanding, but I ask you to please confirm it so we can move on and refrain from any further personal attacks and I guarantee you that you will not get any from me if you stop using the revert button(intended for vandalism) and use arguments instead.

To answer your comment I will again assume good faith on your part and assume then that you do not realize that the referendum and the law of the referendum are two separate things, both of them suspended by the C.C. and one of the (the law) also annulled. Being that the case our problem has an easy solution, The answer to the WHO is that the referendum was organized by the Generalitat, it was the law that was approved by the parliament. I will change your edit accordingly and I hope that will finally settle the issue. If you also want to include information about the law then the fact that it was suspended/annulled and that it did not meet the 2/3 requirements should also be included. Please answer my question and let me know if this is finally acceptable. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 15:46, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

^Please stop commenting on me and making up things WP:NPAWP:TEND I have decided to take my response to your conduct problems to your talk page, personal matters do not belong here WP:TALK.

As for the content, this is an article on the referendum, its inception, development and conclusion. I hope you understood what the lede is about, as well as its first paragraph, it is about the referendum. Then come objections that others made and development issues, yes? For secondary details, like the 2/3, I should be fine adding it somewhere in the lede, since it is pretty large, but not going to engage in further tediousness for that, clear. It must be concise for the reader to get an overview, yes? The C.C.S. decision is more relevant than 2/3 in that it totally conditioned the normal development of the referendum. I hope that ends the talk we both want to finish. However, should I see a conspiculously charged first paragraoph again, the discussion will not subside I am afraid... Iñaki LL (talk) 21:58, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Sigh... had to revert your revert, it was a misrepresentation of sources, which is a serious concern in the WP, I had to clean up myself sources that did not support statements. Plus the WHO or HOW if you want is the Parliament, the one who gave the mandate to the Generalitat, the defining moment that called the referendum, info supported by the source. Please do not keep modifying it, and let's give it a rest. Iñaki LL (talk) 22:42, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

About the personal attacks I am glad you finally decided to take them off this page. That is a start. My pointing out of your possible violations of policy are not personal attacks and were done only in response to your actions, but since I agree with you about WP:TALK, this is the last I will say about that here.

About the content, I have restored the wording from the stable version from a week ago. Now it is clear that it was called for by the Generalitat and approved by the parliament and added references to source it. I agree that if we include info about the parliament the 2/3 should be elsewhere in the lead so I have included it along with the most basic info about the law on the next paragraph.--Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 03:44, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

References

"The Guardian" about fake news of violence

Hi, I think it would be interesting to add this article of the The Guardian, that says all news that appeared on 1 October were published without any check or investigation. Asturkian (talk) 14:54, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Agree. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 15:00, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I think it is an opinion, so I would not add it. Like the very fake news it mentions, it is extremely inespecific, mixing fake news of miners with others that seem to come from the referendum day... That is my take. Iñaki LL (talk) 22:48, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Remove sentence

Hello, since this is a controversial topic, I don't remove the following sentence by myself yet: "and is also illegal according to the Catalan Statutes of Autonomy which require a two third majority in the Catalan parliament for any change to Catalonia's status.". This is wrong: in the reference it says "La reforma del Estatuto de Autonomía exige dos tercios del Parlament, la misma mayoría reforzada que se reclama para elaborar una ley electoral catalana que aún está pendiente o para el nombramiento de determinados cargos.". This means: "two thirds of the Parlament are needed to change the Catalan Statues of Autonomy, to create a still pending electoral legislation or to appoint certain people for certain roles". Common sense would suggest you should need a similar consensus to pass the referendum law, but this would be law-fiction. This law is not illegal according to the Catalan Statutes of Autonomy. --Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 22:38, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

According to the Economist: "Catalonia’s own autonomy statute, which Mr Puigdemont’s law would replace, can only be amended by a two-thirds majority of its parliament.". According to The Daily Star: "Catalan Statutes of Autonomy requires a two-third majority in the parliament for any change to Catalonia's status". I will add both sources to the article. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 23:02, 22 October 2017 (UTC)