Talk:Ryan Coonerty

Biographies of living persons

Some research about wikipedia's policies on biographies of living people made me aware of some things that need to be corrected. Here are the noteworthy standouts:

The views of critics should be represented if they are relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to side with the critics; rather, it needs to be presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. Be careful not to give a disproportionate amount of space to critics, to avoid the effect of representing a minority view as if it were the majority one. If the criticism represents the views of a tiny minority, it has no place in the article. Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation is broadly neutral, in particular, header structure for regions or subsections should reflect important areas to the subject's notability.

While I think the criticism of Coonerty is valid, the criticism section should be edited for length and succinctness, so as not to be disproportionately represented.

Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully. Without reliable third-party sources, it will violate the No original research and Verifiability policies, and could lead to libel claims. Material about living persons available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should not be used, either as a source or as an external link (see above). Self-published books, zines, websites, and blogs[5] should never be used as a source for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article (see below).

It is challenging to find sources for things that happen in a small town when the main (only?) news source is owned by a large conservative conglomerate. Many times indymedia is the only source that will cover an event or happening, but indymedia is a self-published source and so is not sufficiently reliable for wikipedia.

Again, I'd suggest reading the Wikipedia's Guidelines for Biographies of Living Persons. As I'm responsible for some of the edits that are against this policy, I will do my best to correct them. --Rico (talk) 06:41, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

In the last year, a BLPdispute warning was added to this page. I do not believe facts of sources were disputed, but certainly better sourcing would improve the article (see notes below). After careful reading (and notation here about) the Biographies of Living Persons policy, I reduced the severity of the warning from BLPdispute to BLPsources. --Rico (talk) 21:26, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Advocacy

This piece is written like a campaign brochure. Does it meet the standards of Wikipedia? --128.114.163.48 (talk) 20:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Electoral History

I changed "Electoral Success" to "Electoral History," since the former read like a political campaign brochure (or more rightly, what this article might be, a way for his publishers to promote his book). To be truer to the informational nature of the project, I re-added Coonerty's aborted bid for State Assembly since supporters had dropped it off the Wikipedia page after he'd bowed out of the race. --Rico (talk) 01:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Criticism

Coonerty is not an un-controversial figure in his hometown. It is only fair to add a Controversy section. Though it could easily be titled "Criticism." Not sure of the wikipedia convention here. --Rico (talk) 01:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Attempts to Weaken Criticism Section

March 2008: Appreciate edits made by Mateonixon (one of the original contributors to the article) to clarify some points in the original article as well as the controversy section. Most changes felt like they were in good faith, though some felt like they were made to weaken criticism. I made additional edits to correct some typos, and clarify some fine points.

• The local ordinance that prohibits outdoor sleeping within the city of Santa Cruz, is referred to as a sleeping ban, not a camping ban, in the press, in the ordinance, and in city council -- reversed this linguistic shift. In the ordinance it is referred to as a prohibition against outdoor sleeping except in designated areas.

• Clarified claim that citizens and business requested parking lot restrictions, added citations to City of Santa Cruz meeting minutes to support this.

• The downtown ordinances were NOT just "restrictions on aggressive panhandling" but more accurately "sitting, standing, performance, and panhandling restrictions."

• "Some public opposition" isn't supported by the well-documented dozens and dozens of arrests made in direct opposition to the downtown ordinances -- further, the stepped-up enforcement was talked about openly in Sentinel headlines and in the downtown association as a "clean-up" -- reversed those changes.

• It was definitely not merely "discussed" that police had infiltrated community groups, they talked openly and proudly of it in City Council and in the press. And while the police claimed that "organizers refused to share their plans with the police," they later admitted that they'd made no attempt to contact organizers -- reversed these changes.

• And lastly, it was not "some opposition" to the Coast Development project, it was "widespread" as reported in numerous articles. --Rico (talk) 23:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

April 2008: Attempts have again been made to weaken the criticism section (formerly controversy). Again, it is meant to be criticism, the other side of the glowing Ryan Coonerty story, not a softball pitch. Some attempts to give controversial actions a positive spin, were moved to the accomplishments section and removed from the criticism section. But two important points:

• While the outdoor sleeping ban may be titled "camping," the bulk of the ordinance is subsection (a) which specifies the following prohibited activities: "Sleeping -- 11 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. To sleep at any time between the hours of 11 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. in any of the following places: (1) Outdoors with or without bedding, tent, hammock or other similar protection or equipment;(2)In, on or under any structure not intended for human occupancy, whether with or without bedding, tent, hammock or other similar protection or equipment;(3)In, on or under any parked vehicle, including an automobile, bus, truck, camper, trailer or recreational vehicle." So this is hardly a law that merely restricts where I can pitch a tent or park my RV. It is a law -- like similar laws in other places -- intended to be used against the homeless, indigent, poor, down-and-out, tramps, and hobos. We can debate the public relations value of this or that semantic phrasing of the law, but it is what it is and might be better titled "Homeless Ban."

• Contrary to edits made by Coonerty or his supporters, Coonerty did NOT support a call for an independent investigation of police spying until after the city auditor panned the SCPD's own investigation of itself. Tony Madrigal called early on for an independent investigation, and only Tim Fitzmaurice voted with him in support of it. In fact, Coonerty's primary concern was for the due process rights of... the police officers who had done the spying. I know he is a civil liberties expert, but this was baffling beyond comprehension.

I know Mr. Coonerty prefers to write off his critics as cranks and fringe lunatics, but I believe these valid criticisms are well supported by documentation. --Rico (talk) 02:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

March 2009: Again whole sections of the criticism section were removed, though well-documented and well-sourced. The changes were reversed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rthunder (talk • contribs) 20:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Looking further into it, the restored sections, do cite indymedia sources, which for a BLP is not sufficient. However, those articles feature original and undisputed documents. As I've said ehre before, we have a challenge in this small town in which events that effect the lives of people here are simply not reported by the conservative corporate-chain owned press. Is it the desire of the wikipedia community that those things are simply not relevant for wikipedia? And if so, what is the point of having wikipedia at all if we only record here what is deemed suitable for the mainstream corporate press? --Rico (talk) 21:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

While I personally support Mr. Coonerty, it appears Rico has well-sourced the criticisms in this article. While perhaps the article is a little improportionally critical, that is more a function of the brevity of the article than any apparent attempt to misrepresent the Councilor. As to the indie-press point, I second Rico that news in Santa Cruz is almost exclusively provided by independent presses, and so unless contradicted elsewhere they are acceptable. That being said, should there be documented controversy (i.e. conflicting media accounts) of events enumerated under criticism, I believe we should err in favor of un-inclusiveness, seeing that Mr. Coonerty is a public official subject to the whim of voters, voters whom may be swayed by this very article, and not knowledgeable whatever editorial controversy may have gone on behind the scenes here. Just my 2-cents. --MonsieurKovacs 09:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MonsieurKovacs (talk • contribs)

I came based on the mention at WP:BLP/N. As someone who has absolutely no previous connection to this article or the subject, I do think that it has some issues with NPOV and V. Specifically, I'm confident that Indymedia does not meet WP's definition of a reliable source, and I support the immediate removal anything that is sourced solely by it. While I'm sympathetic to the challenge of documenting issues in city served by a small media presence, in a BLP unless the information can be cited to a reliable source, it really shouldn't be there. There also seems to be a bit of synthesis going on, particularly with the citations from 1994, well before the subject began his political career, and this also could be problematic in a biography. I don't really question that these criticisms have been made, it's just without better sourcing it just can't properly be included. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 17:25, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the intro pararaph. It reads

While courting progressive votes in the historically progressive community of Santa Cruz, critics of Coonerty argue that his record tells a different story. To charges of conservatism, Coonerty responds, "I believe we're in a different era. It's time to make the table a little bigger, to maybe not have big fights but instead look at a number of targeted policies."

I want to strongly consider Xymmax suggestions, but feel that it is the gist of the criticism that Coonerty ahs faced in his hometown. It is reasonably well-supported by the Metro article (as much as anything critical of our great leader can be in a town with few media alternatives). And I think it is fairly-presented. I am open to your suggestions regarding this and to the consensus of the wikipedia community. --Rico (talk) 20:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Police

I cam here via the Sentinel article, and noticed this sentence "Predictably, police cleared themselves of any wrongdoing." This is highly NPOV. The paragraph that contains this sentence is not sourced at all and many of its claims are not seen in the article that is cited. Copysan (talk) 03:04, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

References

Unsigned Deletions

A user from IP 63.194.190.100 made an unsigned deletion of the Controversy section. This IP resolves to

County of Santa Cruz SBCIS990913-81 (NET-63-194-190-0-1) 63.194.190.0 - 63.194.190.255

suggesting that maybe an individual in the County of Santa Cruz offices made the changes to protect Mr. Coonerty from controversy.

These unexplained and undiscussed changes were reverted.

Public figures are often the focus of controversy. The additions made to this article are well-documented and follow wiki-style. Perhaps if supporters of Mr. Coonerty wish for an uncontroversial campaign brochure, perhaps they should print one rather than using Wikipedia for that purpose. --Rico (talk) 00:17, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Most of it is in fact neither well-documented nor following typical Wikipedia style. Frankly it reads like POV-pushing by a single disgruntled editor. --Delirium (talk) 18:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I have some worries here about Rico. He seems to demonstrate quite a bit of WP:OWN. I'll put this one up on the BPL noticeboard. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

No worries. I really don't have an axe to grind, but I have an interest in seeing the record more accurately represented. As a resident of Santa Cruz for 20 years, for better or worse, I am close to the events covered here. As an occasional journalist, I can report on subjects that I am passionate about while still remaining objective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rthunder (talk • contribs) 20:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

And that is a part of the problem. Wikipedia is not about reporting. But I notice some BLP folks are taking care that the article will follow our policies a bit better. If you are truly honest about your contributions, then hopefully you can see some of the reasoning about why we are so strict on these articles. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Totally understand and eager to learn wikipedia convention and standards. There are several other articles I help maintain. --Rico (talk) 21:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Lou Dobbs

Would the public dispute exchanged between Coonerty and Dobbs qualify to be added? I'm not a big Wiki expert, so I wouldn't really know, but I'd like to know more about it.

If you can still remember it in 6 months, consider it. Otherwise, not notable. --Rico (talk) 06:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, why at the bottom, does it link to "1960 births?" Coonerty was born in 1974, it says so right in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.134.208 (talk) 14:51, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Fixed the 1960 births problem.--Rico (talk) 06:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

In the news

Editing on this page is covered in an article in today's Santa Cruz Sentinel. This passage is particularly disturbing:

Wes Modes, a Santa Cruz activist and outspoken Coonerty critic, said he is responsible for many of the changes to Coonerty's Wikipedia page. "I just have an interest in seeing the record accurately represent the repressive nature of Ryan's rule in this ostensibly progressive town," Modes said.

Since only one editor of this article could possibly be Wes Modes, I would suggest that editor be prohibited from further editing of this article. Wikipedia isn't the place to push your opinions about "repressive rule" and whatnot. --Delirium (talk) 20:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes that line has me concerned as well. However we can probably not issue a ban on the basis of our assumption that the editor in question indeed is the person making these statements in the article. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:11, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I also note that the editor hadn't made any significant changes here since April 2008. Likely only after he gave the interview, or when the interview was first published or something, he returned on March 2nd 2009. So lets not go on an immediate witchhunt for something that played mostly in april 2008. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems reasonable. I do think this is one of Wikipedia's bigger blind spots in general, though: BLPs which have a few people who care a lot about them (on either side), but are neither non-notable enough to delete, nor notable enough to attract much attention from neutral editors. One I was involved in a while back, Erwin McManus, was fought over by partisans for over a year before they mostly went away and some more neutral editors showed up. I guess the BLP noticeboard is the best way to pull non-involved people into these sorts of articles? --Delirium (talk) 21:18, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

It is perfectly reasonable that other parties effected by actions Coonerty takes in public office would want the record to accurately reflect broader concerns. It is unreasonable to suggest that because an editor has a strong opinion about a topic, stated elsewhere, that they should be banned from editing an article on that topic. Keep in mind the context here. Coonerty and his supporters created the page as "an admittedly glowing" testimony to his achievements. That's a fine start, I suppose, for a wikipedia article, but hardly the complete story. The addition of the criticism section was made in good faith, and over the last few years has approached something closer to consensus. There is not one item in the criticism section that is personal, defamatory, or unsupported by cites (though better cites are needed). These criticisms have been deleted in whole several times, so note that it is not one editor with an axe to grind against a bevy of non-involved and impartial wiki-editors. As I said above, I'd like to see a balanced article, as well as work with wiki editors and better understand wiki conventions. --Rico (talk) 22:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

general comments on the criticisms section

It seems the criticisms section really covers two kinds of things. One, are things specific to Coonerty, which obviously belong here if well-sourced. The other, though, are criticisms of Coonerty's side in ongoing Santa-Cruz-area controversies. For example, Coonerty's role in the sleeping ban, which as the article says has been around since 1978, was to participate in a debate in favor of upholding it. Presumably we aren't going to have a paragraph on the sleeping ban in the article of every single person over that 30-year history who participated in a debate for or against? It seems like this sort of general/ongoing issue ought to be covered in a "Controversies" section of Santa Cruz, California instead, with a shorter mention here that he was involved on one side of the controversy. --Delirium (talk) 20:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The issue is sort of tied into the state Supreme Court case, but it needs to be clearer/better-sourced if it is going to stay in the article. If, for example, the state Attorney General gave an opinion that all the laws in all cities were invalid after the court case, but Coonerty continued to push for it, that might make sense in the article. However, right now we have no basis to say that the city's law is anything other than perfectly proper - especially since it has been on the books for 30 years. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 21:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Is the state Supreme Court case notable enough to have an article itself? If so, that'd be an obvious place to centralize such discussion. --Delirium (talk) 21:24, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know. I can only find reference to a case called In re Eichorn which involved a homeless man, as did Tobe v. Santa Ana. Neither one appears to have a WP article. If I'm reading these correctly though I don't see where the supreme court said anything was illegal - in one the city won, in the other the homeless man was allowed to raise the defense that he couldn't help violating the law because he was homeless and had no place else to go. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 22:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Notability?

I was linked here by today's Wikipedia Signpost (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-03-09/In the news), but having looked at the article, I'm not sure this person actually meets our notability guidelines. The references don't provide clear evidence that he's been the subject of significant coverage from multiple, independent, reliable sources; as it is, this article could potentially be nominated for deletion (which would be one way of solving the BLP problems). If additional references exist to demonstrate this person's notability, could they please be added? Thank you. Robofish (talk) 17:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Wholesale Deletions

Seems an anonymous user from IP 75.37.23.40 systematically cleared out a large amount of content from the article without remark on the talk page. I understand that this may have been an effort to make the article more concise, which I applaud. However, concise at the expense of depth of content seems pointless.

While it might be quite possible to make wikipedia as bland, neutral, and uncritical as the Encyclopedia Britannica (whose uncritical neutrality on issues such as capitalism or racism are itself a kind of advocacy), it would be a great opportunity lost in having a people's encyclopedia. In other words, institutions, those in power, and advocates of the status quo always have the resource to tell their story, wikipedia is an opportunity for ordinary people to tell theirs. --Rico (talk) 23:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

While I do not have any opinion wrt the deletions, I completely disagree with your second paragraph. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a place for advocacy or a place to highlight the "people's views". Aside from quibbling over the definition of "people", Wikipedia has very specific policies. Articles are to adhere to a Neutral point of view and all facts must be attributable to credible primary or secondary sources (WP:V). There is no policy regarding highlighting the views of the powerful or powerless, and I would argue NPOV would preclude giving undue weight to either side for the sake of promoting a viewpoint. If the weight of the information from reliable sources happens to reflect what you view as the voice of the powerful, then NPOV and V dictates that is the information to be conveyed. Copysan (talk) 04:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I should add that in the case of biographies, Wikipedia policy is to default against including information that could be considered libelous or harmful unless there is a reliable source to back any such assertions up. Copysan (talk) 04:14, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

A few points

• This person is the vice-mayor of Santa Cruz, California. Confusingly, the mayor of the city, Cynthia Matthews, does not have her own article.
• There are no links to this article in the article namespace. This should either be corrected, or taken to indicate something about this person's notability. AniRaptor2001 (talk) 20:36, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

He seems to have been mayor twice now, and eight years on the city council, plus some other notes. Does seem to have wikilinks now, so I will remove the notability complaint. He was even mentioned in the Signpost. W Nowicki (talk) 20:22, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

The biggest problem I have with this article is that seems to have a couple sections that look like they were cut-n-pasted from his political campaign site with glowing promotion, and then another section with "Criticism" that cites at least some sources. As a reader it would make more sense to be in roughly chronological order, with the unsourced and promotional comments removed. There were a bunch of dead links too. Willl work a bit on fixing, but probably needs several passes. W Nowicki (talk) 22:45, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

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