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RfC: Should this be a list of cases or a discussion of PPD misconduct? If a list, what are the inclusion criteria be?
- The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Should this article be a discussion of misconduct in the Philadelphia Police Department or a list of cases of misconduct in the PPD? If it should be a list, what should the inclusion criteria be? - SummerPhD (talk) 00:41, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
- There is nothing much wrong with the idea of a list like this. Too often, press reports of misconduct disappear from our collective memory as newspaper reports become unavailable and incidents get handled by secret investigations.
- Lists like this are important and worthwhile. Now this particular list has problems, what article doesn't? One issue, as PHD pointed out, is only recent cases are reported. As I mentioned, too much gets lost. We can only record new cases as they occur and hope for old cases to bubble to the surface from time to time.
- Another issue is the rules for inclusion. Here I think we could take inspiration from the Biographies of Living People rule. Everything here must be cited of course. Further, a press report of an allegation ought not to be enough. Lots of allegations are made all the time. Only cases with good cites and some sort of official finding, or an admission of guilt should be allowed.
- I have not looked at this list in any serious way in months. I suspect we could and should prune what we got to be very careful and conservative. We do not want to say someone did something when the charge was never proven. I am also concerned about the inclusion of the names of people who are only tangentially notable. Here I mean I question the inclusion of the names of the people who were misused by the policemen.
- There are improvements to be made here. I encourage everyone to pitch in and get to work. Everyone but me of course, I have other fish to fry. Paul, in Saudi (talk) 03:27, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
- Do your selection criteria come from a reliable source, as required by WP:LSC? Given the broad list of things that qualify as police misconduct, and the often subjective nature, how do you propose we determine what is and what isn't "misconduct"? - SummerPhD (talk) 04:15, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
- What exactly is misconduct? I dunno, waddya think? A good cite from a reutable newspaper may be all the filter we need. If it makes the papers it counts. I am open to other ideas. Paul, in Saudi (talk) 05:59, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
- From a random sampling of the cases currently listed, the sources are not using the term "misconduct". Based on our article, accepting a free cup of coffee at the donut shop is misconduct. Even if they did, this wouldn't fit our guidelines: 1) every notable case (think List of people from Philadelphia) or 2) every entry that fails notability criteria (think List of minor characters in Dilbert) or 3) complete lists {think List of mayors of Boston). Instead, it proposes the criteria be "someone found it". Look at the three examples I just used. Every one of them could be re-titled to include their criteria without sounding utterly bizarre: "List of notable people from Philadelphia", "List of non-notable characters in Dilbert" and "List of mayors of Boston". This article would have to be "List of cases of misconduct in the Philadelphia Police Department ever that Misplaced Pages editors have found so far". (Actually, we'd need to spell out whatever criteria we decided to use for "misconduct" as it isn't as objective as being the mayor of Boston.) - SummerPhD (talk) 20:55, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
- "Should this be a list of cases or a discussion of PPD misconduct?". Who has said that it cannot be both? "If a list, what should the inclusion criteria be?" I have already suggested criteria, but you then shot them down. Instead of concentrating on semantics and technicalities - and finding excuses to delete my hours of bona fide contributions, how about using a little common sense? The bottom line is that, to me, if a police officer has cost taxpayers $250,000 to $8 million (via a lawsuit judgement) because he wrongly shot or otherwise hurt someone, it is important enough to be reported in an encyclopedia. Nearly all of the current PPD misconduct posts are for significant incidents. I have never included any offense less than a felony or a serious misdemeanor (alleged or proven), nor added any incident that did not have an official finding of wrongdoing, such as via a conviction, termination, lawsuit judgement of $100,000 or more (or a lesser amount if a case was particularly egregious), or the like. I am unsure about why I am receiving resistance to reporting serious misconduct on a police misconduct page. I understand that there is controversy about listing police line-of-duty fatalities in any PD's main article, so I have stopped pushing for it. However, you have allowed the separate fatalities article to stand intact, so I do not know why you are fighting a separate article that lists important misconduct cases.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:23, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
- An article discussing PPD misconduct is, IMO, probably a good idea. Adding a list of every case of misconduct to that same article is not. IF such a list is to exist, our general approach to such lengthy lists is to spin them off as "daughter" articles.
- I am not saying you have included X, Y or Z. I am saying there are entries in this article that likely do not belong here.
- Your suggested criteria for inclusion are self-created and involve opinions. They are neither based on reliable sources nor objective. For example, where did you come up with the lawsuit judgement of $100,000 limit? (In addition to it being an arbitrary amount, $100,000 in 1751 would be equivalent to roughly $10 million in 1751, heavily biasing the article toward recent judgements.) I have no idea who will judge ehat is "particularly egregious", whether alleged actions were "felony or serious misdemeanor", etc. These criteria are subjective.
- There are literally millions of articles on Misplaced Pages. What I have not done with any of those other articles has nothing whatsoever to do with this article and whether or not it follows our guidelines. Somewhere out there is an article on someone's favorite gym teacher. I haven't "allowed (it) to stand intact"; I merely have not done anything with it so far. My actions (or lack thereof) are irrelevant to this discussion. - SummerPhD (talk) 20:55, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
- Actually, your proposed inclusion criteria are equally subjective and opinionated. The present article is already a "daughter" of the PPD's main article, so there is no point in further spinning it off and thus additionally watering it down. An article about misconduct in the PPD, which by the way has by far the most cases locatable online than any other police force, should include major cases of it. Sure, you can have a few summary paragraphs about things to come, but then list the incidents should readers wish to delve further. Many contributors continuously quote Misplaced Pages precedent for unrelated articles the same way that Clarence Darrow quoted case law. Prior interpretations about various encyclopedia articles are not appellate court rulings, they are merely the opinions of a limited number of contributors. Such opinions are welcomed, but they are not carved-in-stone rules. I have already outlined my inclusion criteria, but you disagree with them, even though other police misconduct articles already seem to adhere to similar guidelines. Also, I agree that only info on relatively recent PPD misconduct cases is available via summary Internet searches. Still, said info should not be excluded just because info on all possible cases is not available. Further, there is no point of having a discussion about police misconduct if all or at least many significant cases are not listed, which allows readers to draw their own conclusions should they want to research the matter for themselves. As I have said before, we should only list serious (first degree) misdemeanor or felony cases that have been reported by the major media and involve a reasonable threshold of an official finding of wrongdoing, such as, say, a $100,000 lawsuit judgement or settlement, termination, or conviction. Incidentally, the plethora of lawsuit settlements against PPD officers did not even start until 2008 or so. In fact, I could not find but one such lawsuit settlement or judgement prior to the 1990's.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:21, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
- My proposed inclusion criteria? I have not proposed inclusion criteria. I cannot find inclusion criteria based on reliable sources, as our guidelines require.
- There is no "watering down" by making an article a daughter. It is a WP:WEIGHT issue.
- How many cases are "locatable online" is immaterial. I am not "quoting...precedent". I am quoting our policies and guidelines, which this article is not following.
- A listing that heavily skews to recent cases is WP:RECENTISM. Yes, it allows readers to draw their own conclusions. Said conclusions would be based on biased information caused by an artifact in our research. This article leads to the incorrect conclusion there is substantially more PPD misconduct in the past 10 years that at any point in the past 250 years. This article leads to the incorrect conclusion there was very little misconduct in the Rizzo years, during Prohibition and during the American Civil War.
- Our guidelines require objective guidelines for inclusion based on reliable sources. $100,000 is an arbitrary amount that would serve to increase the WP:RECENTISM.
- What you cannot find is absence of evidence. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This article found ONE case of misconduct in the Rizzo years. It also includes two reports stating that misconduct in the PPD at the time was a serious, ongoing problem. This is indicative of the serious, systemic gap in how cases are being included here. Editors are pulling recent reports from the Internet because it is easy. Digging through the archives is hard. This is a systemic bias we need to avoid.
- When reporting on the problem of PPD officers not following their policies and guidelines, we should follow our policies and guidelines including WP:LSC, WP:CSC and WP:WEIGHT. - SummerPhD (talk) 13:19, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
- PPD misconduct was rarely reported until the recent past, that is why there is a minimal record of it. Since Commissioner Charles Ramsey took over in 2008, he has been extremely aggressive at exposing crooked cops, hence the plethora of media reports since then. Prior commissioners did little if anything to reduce misconduct, so there was usually no official finding of wrongdoing in the occasional publicized cases of it; as such, the alleged offenses could not be included in any Wiki article. The rare accountability that did occur was often courtesy of the feds. You have indeed proposed inclusion criteria by default of excluding mine and quoting your interpretations of Wiki's policies. My $100,000 settlement threshold suggestion could be changed to, say, any alleged felony (or first degree misdemeanor?) offense for which there was an official finding of wrongdoing. In my opinion, you are overanalyzing things. I have no intention of spending hours upon hours researching Wiki precedent and terms of use to find rationalizations that conveniently bolster my argument, as (in my opinion) you are doing to support yours (no offense is intended). What are your suggestions that would permit the current article to stay (mostly) intact, rather than gut it of all cases that do not have their own separate articles, as you have proposed? What is the point of spending valuable time to make bona fide contributions if another editor is going to find obscure excuses to delete them? Should we not be encouraging people to expand this encyclopedia? By your standards, I suspect that you could find a reason to remove almost every entry made to this website (again, no offense is intended). This is an article about police misconduct, so major misconduct cases should be listed therein. It really is that simple.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 13:14, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
- I have said your criteria are unacceptable. That is not proposing criteria.
- IMO, our policies and guidelines, as quoted and cited, are not being followed here. If I am incorrect about our policies and guidelines, please explain specifically what you feel I have gotten wrong.
- I have not proposed that we "gut (the article)". I have stated that that is one of three options spelled out in the applicable guideline.
- Our policies and guidelines are not "obscure excuses" to delete "bona fide contributions". Thousands of editors make "bona fide" contributions that simply do not belong here. Your suggestions are neither objective* nor based on reliable sources** and have overwhelming, inherent biases***, per WP:LSC.
- Not objective: "Alleged felony", "official finding of wrongdoing", etc.
- Not based on reliable sources: We do not get to make up our own criteria. We need reliable sources to clearly spell out objective criteria for us.
- Overwhelming, inherent biases: "summary web search" (WP:RECENTISM), dollar limits (more WP:RECENTISM, due to inflation), etc. Your claimed lack of reporting in the past (if correct) is further indication of bias. We cannot decide if an incident is a "serious misdemeanor", "major misconduct", "significant", a "(first degree) misdemeanor or felony case", "particularly egregious", "felony or a serious misdemeanor (alleged or proven)", etc. Please see WP:SYN.
- Not based on reliable sources: We do not get to make up our own criteria. We need reliable sources to clearly spell out objective criteria for us.
- Not objective: "Alleged felony", "official finding of wrongdoing", etc.
- This is not digging through "precedent". These are our policies and guidelines. This is not a vote. If we cannot arrive at a consensus, "votes" without reasonable accompanying rationales will receive little consideration and may be ignored. Please support your arguments with citations to relevant policies and guidelines. - SummerPhD (talk) 14:27, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
- I am unsure about why using a felony or first degree misdemeanor allegation, accompanied by an official finding of wrongdoing (a conviction, lawsuit settlement, termination, etc), qualifies as being a "subjective" criterion. Your arguments to exclude all of my criterion suggestions, the former (in my opinion) being themselves biased and based on subjective interpretations, could also be applied to exclude most if not all other contributions that have ever been made to Misplaced Pages. You are obviously enlightened about Misplaced Pages's policies, given that you have spent possibly hundreds of hours researching them, so what are YOUR suggestions for inclusion requirements? What angle do you suggest using that permits inclusion of major misconduct cases (those referenced in the first sentence of this post)? I will greatly appreciate your assistance.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 11:26, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
- 1) You do not have reliable sources giving your proposed criteria for inclusion in this list, as required by our guidleines.WP:LSC
- 2) You will need reliable sources for each and every case to be included that directly state that the alleged wrongdoing would qualify as a felony or
seriousfirst degree misdemeanor, in violation of one of our core policies.WP:SYN This will not happen in the vast majority of cases. - 3) I do not have suggested inclusion criteria as I am unable to find independent reliable sources that specifically spell out such criteria, as required by our guidelines.
- I repeated cite our polices and guidelines. You repeatedly say it is my interpretation/opinion. No, the policies and guidelines are the policies and guidelines. If you feel I am misinterpreting them, you will need to be more specific. - SummerPhD (talk) 14:35, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
- You repeatedly cite YOUR interpretations of and opinions about Wiki's "policies and guidelines". Anyone could argue that ANY Wiki entry violates its policies, if he looked hard enough.
- According to the article, User:A Nobody/Inclusion guidelines:
- I am unsure about why using a felony or first degree misdemeanor allegation, accompanied by an official finding of wrongdoing (a conviction, lawsuit settlement, termination, etc), qualifies as being a "subjective" criterion. Your arguments to exclude all of my criterion suggestions, the former (in my opinion) being themselves biased and based on subjective interpretations, could also be applied to exclude most if not all other contributions that have ever been made to Misplaced Pages. You are obviously enlightened about Misplaced Pages's policies, given that you have spent possibly hundreds of hours researching them, so what are YOUR suggestions for inclusion requirements? What angle do you suggest using that permits inclusion of major misconduct cases (those referenced in the first sentence of this post)? I will greatly appreciate your assistance.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 11:26, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
- PPD misconduct was rarely reported until the recent past, that is why there is a minimal record of it. Since Commissioner Charles Ramsey took over in 2008, he has been extremely aggressive at exposing crooked cops, hence the plethora of media reports since then. Prior commissioners did little if anything to reduce misconduct, so there was usually no official finding of wrongdoing in the occasional publicized cases of it; as such, the alleged offenses could not be included in any Wiki article. The rare accountability that did occur was often courtesy of the feds. You have indeed proposed inclusion criteria by default of excluding mine and quoting your interpretations of Wiki's policies. My $100,000 settlement threshold suggestion could be changed to, say, any alleged felony (or first degree misdemeanor?) offense for which there was an official finding of wrongdoing. In my opinion, you are overanalyzing things. I have no intention of spending hours upon hours researching Wiki precedent and terms of use to find rationalizations that conveniently bolster my argument, as (in my opinion) you are doing to support yours (no offense is intended). What are your suggestions that would permit the current article to stay (mostly) intact, rather than gut it of all cases that do not have their own separate articles, as you have proposed? What is the point of spending valuable time to make bona fide contributions if another editor is going to find obscure excuses to delete them? Should we not be encouraging people to expand this encyclopedia? By your standards, I suspect that you could find a reason to remove almost every entry made to this website (again, no offense is intended). This is an article about police misconduct, so major misconduct cases should be listed therein. It really is that simple.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 13:14, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
- Actually, your proposed inclusion criteria are equally subjective and opinionated. The present article is already a "daughter" of the PPD's main article, so there is no point in further spinning it off and thus additionally watering it down. An article about misconduct in the PPD, which by the way has by far the most cases locatable online than any other police force, should include major cases of it. Sure, you can have a few summary paragraphs about things to come, but then list the incidents should readers wish to delve further. Many contributors continuously quote Misplaced Pages precedent for unrelated articles the same way that Clarence Darrow quoted case law. Prior interpretations about various encyclopedia articles are not appellate court rulings, they are merely the opinions of a limited number of contributors. Such opinions are welcomed, but they are not carved-in-stone rules. I have already outlined my inclusion criteria, but you disagree with them, even though other police misconduct articles already seem to adhere to similar guidelines. Also, I agree that only info on relatively recent PPD misconduct cases is available via summary Internet searches. Still, said info should not be excluded just because info on all possible cases is not available. Further, there is no point of having a discussion about police misconduct if all or at least many significant cases are not listed, which allows readers to draw their own conclusions should they want to research the matter for themselves. As I have said before, we should only list serious (first degree) misdemeanor or felony cases that have been reported by the major media and involve a reasonable threshold of an official finding of wrongdoing, such as, say, a $100,000 lawsuit judgement or settlement, termination, or conviction. Incidentally, the plethora of lawsuit settlements against PPD officers did not even start until 2008 or so. In fact, I could not find but one such lawsuit settlement or judgement prior to the 1990's.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:21, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 | This page in a nutshell: If a topic has received coverage in reliable primary as well as at least one reliable secondary source independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article. |
- "...guidelines inclusion of articles on Misplaced Pages is based on objective evidence and appropriate sources, rather than on subjective feelings of importance or usefulness." Your opinion of importance is not relevant.
- "In order to be included on Misplaced Pages, the content of our articles must be verifiable through multiple reliable published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." All of the sources listed meet that standard. Please cite even one that does not.
- Please allow me more time to research the matter.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:42, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
- Before you go much further down that road, User:A Nobody/Inclusion guidelines is an essay. While it might provide you some thoughts on the topic, it is one person's opinion. In general:
- Policies have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards that all users should normally follow.
- Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus.
- Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or group of editors (such as a WikiProject) for which widespread consensus has not been established. They do not speak for the entire community and may be created and written without approval.
- There certainly are independent reliable sources discussing "misconduct in the PPD". I fully support the existence of an article discussing "misconduct in the PPD". I am unaware, however, of such sources for a "list of incidences of misconduct in the PPD that are covered on the web".
- I am not discussing my "opinion of importance or relevance". I am stating that I do not believe this list complies with our policies and guidelines. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:17, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
- You are entitled to your opinion, just as I am entitled to mine. Neither of us have more authority than the other; I am awaiting a response from a higher-up who does have more clout. I disagree with your premise that anyone can selectively quote certain Misplaced Pages policies (and have a black-and-white interpretation therefrom), while conveniently ignoring policies that would hurt their argument. I am not going to spend untold hours researching Wiki's guidelines, as you no doubt have done. Even if I would do so, you would probably attack my reasoning as you have done thus far, every step of the way. Other contributors to other police misconduct articles, who are probably as well read as you on Wiki's rules, list specific cases of major misconduct in their articles, so I am not alone in my thinking that they belong there. Looking at the bigger picture, at some point Wiki policy suggests that "common sense" be used when establishing inclusion criteria. I interpret that principle to mean that significant incidents should be listed on a page about police misconduct. I have already proposed criteria, but you claim they are not criteria. I welcome any suggestions that you may have that would allow a PPD misconduct article that lists major cases yet still meets your demanding standards.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:12, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
- I have cited our policies and guidelines, which this list seems to violate. Please explain how it does NOT violate those policies. You have said I am "conveniently ignoring policies". Unless you can explain which policies, this is a baseless personal attack. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:16, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
- (Disclaimer: No part of the following response is intended to offend or inflame any user). There are no "our" guidelines, just your interpretations of them. I am not personally "attacking" you; you are attacking my bona fide contributions and trying to get them deleted. You have also attacked me with condescending comments like "you just don't get it". Actually, I have understood all of your posts, and did not need your analogies and hypotheses to do so, but thank you anyway. However, you are not looking at the bigger picture and injecting "common sense". Rather, you are more interested in holding others to the letter of the law if they do not care to spend the time necessary to debate with you. I am not going to spend untold hours reading through hundreds of pages of Wiki's guidelines, policies, and the like. I do not intend to engage in semantics games with anyone. I will not repeat my prior reasoning which you have chosen to ignore. The bottom line is that if a police department has an inordinately high amount of major misconduct, that fact should be included in an encyclopedia, accompanied by a list of the most egregious cases (references: Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules AND Misplaced Pages:You Can't Follow All The Rules, All The Time. I realize that "an inordinately high amount", "egregious cases", and like terms will be deemed subjective by you and used as a reason to nuke the article. Please allow me time to consult with a Wiki expert who is more familiar with Misplaced Pages's policies. And if it means anything to you, I admit that you are INFINITELY more sophisticated than I about Wiki's policies and their real-world applications.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 13:19, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
- Yes, certainly: Ignore all rules, when there is reason to do so. We have rules and guidelines for specific reasons. When you are trying to do something that flies in the face of numerous rules and guidelines, you should probably stop and ask why. I am not deeming "inordinately high", "egregious", "serious", etc. to be subjective. They are subjective. If 10 people looked at the current list and marked off which ones are "egregious" and which ones are not, you would get 10 different lists -- 10 different opinions. The terms are subjective. "Hot" is subjective. "Over 90 degrees" is objective. "Guilty of a serious crime" is subjective. "Convicted and sentenced to 10 or more years in prison" is objective. I am not asking you to spend untold hours, I am asking you to look at one specific guideline: WP:LSC. - SummerPhD (talk) 17:09, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
- The rules (only as YOU interpret them) should be ignored because there ARE reasons to do so. Telling readers that Philadelphia has a police misconduct problem trumps technical reasons to shield them from such info. Also, I have repeatedly asked you to stop using hypotheses, as they are condescending. I have already addressed your understanding of the referenced guideline.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:33, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
- I'm not sure if there is a language barrier or what. You do not seem to understand what "subjective" means. "Hypotheses" is clearly not what you mean to say. You have not addressed WP:LSC other than to say you want to ignore it. Why? You've said we need to make sure people know that OMG the PPG will kills you! You are certainly allowed to have an opinion about the PPD or anything else, but the lack of reliable sources giving your opinion does not mean we should ignore rules to allow you to construct a list demonstrating your opinion. There are, of course, sources discussing PPD officers doing wonderful things. We do not have an article listing kind acts in the Philadelphia Police Department for the same reasons we shouldn't have this list. - SummerPhD (talk) 00:06, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
- There is no language barrier. Please do not tell me what I meant to say. "Hypotheses" are examples or theories supposed to be true so that conclusions may be drawn. You excessively use them, such as the one in your present post, as well as analogies because you think that people will not otherwise understand your points. Trust me, I am not as dumb as you think and thus fully comprehend your arguments sans the hypotheses and analogies. "Subjective" means based on opinions rather than facts. I have already addressed WP:LSC, but you have chosen to ignore my responses, just as you have ignored most of my other arguments. "Kind acts" do not belong in any police department's article because cops are expected to do them, not commit the wrongdoing noted in misconduct articles. I repeat, I do not want to spend hours sifting through hundreds of pages about Wiki's policies just to find reasons to save the referenced article, which you will debunk anyway. I again request your (or anyone else's) assistance in finding a loophole that will allow a PPD misconduct article, replete with a major cases list, to persist, just as similar articles exist for other police departments. Are you ONLY interested in finding reasons to destroy the contributions of others, or are you most concerned about making Misplaced Pages better? What possible harm will come to the world if a list of neutrally-sourced police misconduct is maintained?--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:20, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
- Please explain how "inordinately high", "egregious", "serious", etc. are facts. Rescuing kittens from a storm drain is a not a police officer's job, it is a kind act. Yes, you want there to be policies and/or loopholes to allow your heavily biased list based on your personally selected, vague, subjective criteria to remain. It is, however, directly contrary to the letter and spirit of our policies and guidelines. Allowing it to remain would be editorial misconduct. - SummerPhD (talk) 14:22, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
- Your attempt to nuke the article is based on YOUR (not "our") "heavily biased" interpretations of Wiki's general, not-carved-in-stone policies. And seriously, "editorial misconduct"? Give me a break. I repeat, this is an article about police misconduct, so major misconduct cases should be included. It really is that simple.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:24, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
- Your subjective interpretations had included the suicide of an ex-cop as an example of police misconduct. Your edits have repeatedly included allegations of misconduct as misconduct. You have repeatedly suggested your personal definition of misconduct in place of sourced criteria. You have heavily biased the article toward including recent cases while ignoring the past in an attempt to educate the world as to your opinion of the PPD. Your
- My "personal definition of misconduct" is based on what other editors have already established as such, editors who are no doubt as Wiki-knowledgeable as you. Said editors usually include allegations that have had an official finding of wrongdoing, which is not necessarily a conviction. I have already admitted that I was wrong to include suicides not involving on-duty crimes. That ship has sailed, so please stop trying to sink it.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 13:21, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
- Your subjective interpretations had included the suicide of an ex-cop as an example of police misconduct. Your edits have repeatedly included allegations of misconduct as misconduct. You have repeatedly suggested your personal definition of misconduct in place of sourced criteria. You have heavily biased the article toward including recent cases while ignoring the past in an attempt to educate the world as to your opinion of the PPD. Your
- Your attempt to nuke the article is based on YOUR (not "our") "heavily biased" interpretations of Wiki's general, not-carved-in-stone policies. And seriously, "editorial misconduct"? Give me a break. I repeat, this is an article about police misconduct, so major misconduct cases should be included. It really is that simple.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:24, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
- Please explain how "inordinately high", "egregious", "serious", etc. are facts. Rescuing kittens from a storm drain is a not a police officer's job, it is a kind act. Yes, you want there to be policies and/or loopholes to allow your heavily biased list based on your personally selected, vague, subjective criteria to remain. It is, however, directly contrary to the letter and spirit of our policies and guidelines. Allowing it to remain would be editorial misconduct. - SummerPhD (talk) 14:22, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
- There is no language barrier. Please do not tell me what I meant to say. "Hypotheses" are examples or theories supposed to be true so that conclusions may be drawn. You excessively use them, such as the one in your present post, as well as analogies because you think that people will not otherwise understand your points. Trust me, I am not as dumb as you think and thus fully comprehend your arguments sans the hypotheses and analogies. "Subjective" means based on opinions rather than facts. I have already addressed WP:LSC, but you have chosen to ignore my responses, just as you have ignored most of my other arguments. "Kind acts" do not belong in any police department's article because cops are expected to do them, not commit the wrongdoing noted in misconduct articles. I repeat, I do not want to spend hours sifting through hundreds of pages about Wiki's policies just to find reasons to save the referenced article, which you will debunk anyway. I again request your (or anyone else's) assistance in finding a loophole that will allow a PPD misconduct article, replete with a major cases list, to persist, just as similar articles exist for other police departments. Are you ONLY interested in finding reasons to destroy the contributions of others, or are you most concerned about making Misplaced Pages better? What possible harm will come to the world if a list of neutrally-sourced police misconduct is maintained?--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:20, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
- I'm not sure if there is a language barrier or what. You do not seem to understand what "subjective" means. "Hypotheses" is clearly not what you mean to say. You have not addressed WP:LSC other than to say you want to ignore it. Why? You've said we need to make sure people know that OMG the PPG will kills you! You are certainly allowed to have an opinion about the PPD or anything else, but the lack of reliable sources giving your opinion does not mean we should ignore rules to allow you to construct a list demonstrating your opinion. There are, of course, sources discussing PPD officers doing wonderful things. We do not have an article listing kind acts in the Philadelphia Police Department for the same reasons we shouldn't have this list. - SummerPhD (talk) 00:06, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
- The rules (only as YOU interpret them) should be ignored because there ARE reasons to do so. Telling readers that Philadelphia has a police misconduct problem trumps technical reasons to shield them from such info. Also, I have repeatedly asked you to stop using hypotheses, as they are condescending. I have already addressed your understanding of the referenced guideline.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:33, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
- Yes, certainly: Ignore all rules, when there is reason to do so. We have rules and guidelines for specific reasons. When you are trying to do something that flies in the face of numerous rules and guidelines, you should probably stop and ask why. I am not deeming "inordinately high", "egregious", "serious", etc. to be subjective. They are subjective. If 10 people looked at the current list and marked off which ones are "egregious" and which ones are not, you would get 10 different lists -- 10 different opinions. The terms are subjective. "Hot" is subjective. "Over 90 degrees" is objective. "Guilty of a serious crime" is subjective. "Convicted and sentenced to 10 or more years in prison" is objective. I am not asking you to spend untold hours, I am asking you to look at one specific guideline: WP:LSC. - SummerPhD (talk) 17:09, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
- (Disclaimer: No part of the following response is intended to offend or inflame any user). There are no "our" guidelines, just your interpretations of them. I am not personally "attacking" you; you are attacking my bona fide contributions and trying to get them deleted. You have also attacked me with condescending comments like "you just don't get it". Actually, I have understood all of your posts, and did not need your analogies and hypotheses to do so, but thank you anyway. However, you are not looking at the bigger picture and injecting "common sense". Rather, you are more interested in holding others to the letter of the law if they do not care to spend the time necessary to debate with you. I am not going to spend untold hours reading through hundreds of pages of Wiki's guidelines, policies, and the like. I do not intend to engage in semantics games with anyone. I will not repeat my prior reasoning which you have chosen to ignore. The bottom line is that if a police department has an inordinately high amount of major misconduct, that fact should be included in an encyclopedia, accompanied by a list of the most egregious cases (references: Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules AND Misplaced Pages:You Can't Follow All The Rules, All The Time. I realize that "an inordinately high amount", "egregious cases", and like terms will be deemed subjective by you and used as a reason to nuke the article. Please allow me time to consult with a Wiki expert who is more familiar with Misplaced Pages's policies. And if it means anything to you, I admit that you are INFINITELY more sophisticated than I about Wiki's policies and their real-world applications.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 13:19, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
- I have cited our policies and guidelines, which this list seems to violate. Please explain how it does NOT violate those policies. You have said I am "conveniently ignoring policies". Unless you can explain which policies, this is a baseless personal attack. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:16, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
- You are entitled to your opinion, just as I am entitled to mine. Neither of us have more authority than the other; I am awaiting a response from a higher-up who does have more clout. I disagree with your premise that anyone can selectively quote certain Misplaced Pages policies (and have a black-and-white interpretation therefrom), while conveniently ignoring policies that would hurt their argument. I am not going to spend untold hours researching Wiki's guidelines, as you no doubt have done. Even if I would do so, you would probably attack my reasoning as you have done thus far, every step of the way. Other contributors to other police misconduct articles, who are probably as well read as you on Wiki's rules, list specific cases of major misconduct in their articles, so I am not alone in my thinking that they belong there. Looking at the bigger picture, at some point Wiki policy suggests that "common sense" be used when establishing inclusion criteria. I interpret that principle to mean that significant incidents should be listed on a page about police misconduct. I have already proposed criteria, but you claim they are not criteria. I welcome any suggestions that you may have that would allow a PPD misconduct article that lists major cases yet still meets your demanding standards.--PhiladelphiaInjustice (talk) 12:12, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
- Before you go much further down that road, User:A Nobody/Inclusion guidelines is an essay. While it might provide you some thoughts on the topic, it is one person's opinion. In general:
POV misreading of sources
"On December 10, 2013, philly.com revealed that 134 Philadelphia police officers had been fired for misconduct in a five-year period ending in October 2013. That averages out to about 27 terminated cops per year."
The source, of course, says nothing of the kind. It says, "Since 2000, the most cops fired in a single year (including officers later reinstated) was 2011 when 31 cops lost their jobs. Since taking over the department at the start of 2008, Ramsey has fired 134 officers (through October of this year) from his 6,600-member force."
People get fired from jobs all the time. The PPD is no exception. Took too many sick days? Always late to meetings? Your paperwork is always late? You regularly mouth off at your boss? You're probably going to end up looking for work. Being fired, however, is not evidence of "police misconduct", however you choose to define it. - SummerPhD (talk) 21:47, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
- As you have not responded, I assume you accept that the assumption that every firing is the result of "police misconduct" (however you are defining it) is incorrect and that such additions are inappropriate. - SummerPhD (talk) 14:17, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
Moving forward
The RfC (above) was based on my question: "Should this article be a discussion of misconduct in the Philadelphia Police Department or a list of cases of misconduct in the PPD? If it should be a list, what should the inclusion criteria be?"
The result, per JzG's closing was: "This article is about the subject of misconduct in the Philadelphia PD. It may contain a brief list of notable instances. If many notable instances exist, they may be spun out into a separate list. Any list must be duly mindful of WP:BLP, WP:NPOV generally and WP:WEIGHT in particular, WP:TABLOID and sundry other WP:TLAs designed to remind editors of the virtue of good editorial judgment."
I read the finding as:
- The article should be a discussion, not a list.
- A list of notable instances can be included.
- All of our content policies and guidelines apply.
This article, at the moment, is a list of non-notable incidents. A total re-write will be needed. To salvage what I could, I copied over all of the sources from the article to a sandbox page (User:SummerPhDv2.0/Misconduct_in_the_Philadelphia_Police_Department). I have made a first pass, trying to remove all of the individual cases that another editor decided were "misconduct". I have also removed primary sources (i.e., case filings) and clearly worthless sources (youtube and such). There are probably others that need to go.
The next step would seem to be reviewing the existing sources and searching for additional sources to see if a reasonably detailed article exists. In the meantime, we have this biased mess. I am replacing the article with a redirect back to the parent article, with the intent of continuing at a later date. If anyone else would like to take a crack at it in the meantime, feel free. - SummerPhD 14:53, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
- As discussed above, the finding of the RfC was that there was room for an article about misconduct in the PPD. That said, an indiscriminate list based on one editor's POV (or that of several editors) is not that article.
- Restoring the problematic list in the place of such an article in no way moves us toward having such an article. - SummerPhD 20:58, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
- This article should either be deleted or redirected with any appropriate sections moved to the main article on the Philadelphia police. Simply redirecting it to an article that makes no reference at all to misconduct makes no sense. Lard Almighty (talk) 15:27, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
- The RfC (above) clearly found that the list of incidents here is inappropriate, though an article about PPD misconduct might be possible. Restoring the article is not an answer to that, it is over-ruling that by fiat.
- As extensively detailed in the talk page archives, the list of incidents in this article are one editors opinions of what constitutes "misconduct". There is no way to salvage that. A retired cop committing suicide is neither "misconduct" nor appropriate for inclusion in the PPD article. Reports of a PPD officer dying in a diving accident, peppered with an unsourced, untenable conspiracy theory is neither "misconduct" nor appropriate for inclusion in the PPD article. And so on.
- If you feel there are sections here that are appropriate for inclusion in the main PPD article, suggest the material you feel should be merged; then follow Misplaced Pages:Merging#How_to_merge. - SummerPhD 19:38, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
- What I am saying is that, if someone is looking for information on misconduct in the Philadelphia PD, they are redirected to a page that contains no information on that topic. That is the issue. It's a misleading redirect. Redirection is not the solution without including a section on misconduct on the PPD page. Lard Almighty (talk) 19:45, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
- This article should either be deleted or redirected with any appropriate sections moved to the main article on the Philadelphia police. Simply redirecting it to an article that makes no reference at all to misconduct makes no sense. Lard Almighty (talk) 15:27, 12 January 2020 (UTC)