Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Free speech zone/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 20:17, 9 January 2007.

[edit] Free speech zone

A little something I've been working on for a while. I think it's an excellent article, and you'd be hard pressed to find a more comprehensive description of them anywhere. Raul654 03:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: should be renamed to "First Amendment Zone" or "Free speech zones in the United States" or similar. There are areas elsewhere in the world set aside for free speech, some of them covered in Speaker's Corner.-gadfium 03:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. By far and away the most common use of "Free speech zone" is to refer to the American type, and it is, by a wide margin, the most common term for them. Just google for it - you have to go all the way to #14 to find a generic use of the term. Ditto for Lexis Nexis. Raul654 03:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I agree with Raul on this. Free speech zone is distinctly different that the Speaker's corner example you mentioned, and a reading of the two articles shows quite clearly what the difference is. Jeffpw 10:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Weak support: Let me foreword this by saying that I hope that this comment is taken as constructive criticism and not a slap in the face to all of the article's editors. Anyways, I must say that there seems to be an overuse of quotations in this article. Hyperbolically speaking, this articles seems to be composed of either quotations and passages or lead-ups to those quotations and passages. Since a good portion of these citations can ostensibly be transferred into independent prose, I am led to believe that the use of all of these quotations is just to keep the article from appearing NPOV through a workaround. Furthermore,--and I do not want to seem be going over-the-top on this note--the citations of overtly large passages, combined with the frequency of the article's citations and the use of quotations that appear to be lined with only neutral, non-commentarial facts, is borderline plagiarism under the guise that "it's just quotations."
• All of that aside, there's also some minute grammar problems and the like that need to be taken care of; there are some quotations that do not have an ending punctuation (see both "History" and "Notable incidents and court proceedings"' second paragraphs). In "On college and university campuses"' third paragraph, you use a single quotation mark to start a quotation inside of a quotation, but you end the former with a double quotation mark. Lastly, some of your references are not in utmost compliance with each other, nor one of Wikipedia's proper referencing syntax.
• One last note: "Notable incidents and court proceedings"' second paragraph starts by talking about a Bill Neel throwing out charges; the problem with this is that, unless a reader reads the references in the paragraph, they would not have been told that Bill Neel was arrested for what he did and the throwing out of charges was in reference to Bill Neel's court proceedings for that very arrest. --Slof 16:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • For an article on a controversial topic such as this, the 'transformational prose' you refer to is often the first thing people claim is nonneutral/inaccurate/etc. That's why there is an extensive use of quotes from primary and secondary sources, and in fact, that's exactly what Wikipedia's NPOV policy proscribes for such instances. Moreover, plagiarism is, according to our own article, "the practise of claiming, or implying, original authorship, or incorporates material from someone else's writing, in whole or in part, into ones own, without adequate acknowledgment." Properly cited quotations are, by simple definition, not plagiarism.
  • For the "On college and university campuses", you are mistaken. It actually ends with both an apostrophe and a quotation mark (three tick marks). This is because when you have a quotation within a qutation (e.g, I quote something which itself quotes something) you are supposed to replace the quote marks within the cited material with apostrophes - which is exactly what I did.
  • I've taken care of the minor punctuation issues you pointed out, as well as your "not in compliance with each other" comment (I can only assume you are referring to citations #1 and #2, which were added by someone else and didn't include the author's name; I dug them out of the newspapers' arcives). All of the citations follow the same format: Author's name (last, first). Work name. Publisher, date. Retrieval location/date. The only exception is for works for which there is no primary author (such as the ACLU press releases).
  • For the Bill Neel comments - huh? Perhaps you misread it? Bill Neel was a protestor, not a judge. The paragraph starts out by stating exactly what he did, then describes what the police testified to at his trial, then describes the judge throwing out the charges. The reader doesn't have to consult the references at all (but they are all provided nonetheless). Raul654 17:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
    • PS - I've modified the Bill Neel paragraph to include a description of why he was arrested, which I think is what you (Slof) said was the problem. Raul654 17:47, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
      • On the Bill Neel comment, my problem was that the article never stated that he was arrested whatsoever. Anyways, it has been fixed already. After looking through Wikipedia's Quotation mark article, I recede my comment on "On college and university campuses"' quotation although I do hold that I was neither right nor wrong like the weasel I am. Speaking of which, I said "borderline plagiarism;" you can cite whatever article you want, but note that I speak in parlance.
      • And to comment on your refutation regarding the overuse of quotations, you should not think for one second that I do not know the NPOV policy. I just see it unnecessary to cite a quote that shows little to no slant of opinion to be used as the bulk of the information provided about the subject therein. For example, " 'It is time for the Secret Service to stop making empty promises' " is a fine example of when to quote something so as to remain neutral, but " '[The Department of Homeland Security] has even gone so far as to tell local police departments to regard critics of the War on Terrorism as potential terrorists themselves' " and sentence segments of other ones can be transformed into prose assumedly without appearing non-neutral or inaccurate (with getting rid of the "even gone so far as" part). However, since this was not an objection, I'll cease my petty bickering and give the article a weak support and hope that we can reach a consensus on all of this. --Slof 19:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment 2nd para of lead--"The most prominent free speech zones are those created by the Secret Service to protect president George W. Bush and other members of his administration." ...Is it specifically GWB or any president? Rlevse 22:57, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • While there might have been a few very isolated incidents beforehand, the practice didn't start until after the 1999 WTO protests. They were used during the 2000 election, and have become commonplace since GWB was elected. (So - to answer your question - I can't say with certainty that he was absolutely the first, but he was certainly the first to use them regularly) And they are used not just for him, but also members of his administration and foriegn dignitaries visiting the US. Raul654 23:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
• Object I think it's poorly written, the prose is not only not compelling, it makes the article hard to read. I think it really does need transitional prose, articles that are a slapped together assortment of quotes with no transitional prose just look like newspaper clippings on a refrigerator, not articles. I don't think the lead paragraph is particularly well developed or well written, so is George W. Bush the first president to have this done for him? Then say it. The history section is the most problematic for the prose difficulties. This needs a lot of hard work to be a FA, yet. However, the topic is inherently fascinating and deserves the level of work that should be put into it to get it to the point where it is featured on the main page. KP Botany 01:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I'll read through the article tomorrow, but after a quick first glimpse. I was surprised to see the use of the phrase "pro-choice". Are you sure you want to use a loaded term like that? :) Perhaps it would be better to use "abortion rights protestor" or some such. If you stick with "pro-choice" (I have no problem with it) you should wikilink the term and give a brief explanation in the article. I'm not sure if the term is understood or used world-wide. You may also want to clariy who Operation Rescue are. --Jayzel 05:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Oh, A conflict of interest. --BMF81 11:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose, interesting article, but I'm afraid I have to agree with KP Botany and Slof above: the article relies too heavily on quotations. In particular, it misuses quotations to form the prose. I oppose for that reason, but also comment: speaking as someone from outside the US, there's something about this which makes me worry a little that this is not entirely NPOV. For example, maybe I missed something, but the article appears to present only a single sentence to explain the rationale behind free speech zones, in the lead section: "the stated purpose of free speech zones is to protect the safety of the dignitary, or the protesters themselves". Beyond that, the article doesn't describe the arguments in favour of using these zones in any more detail. However, I don't really know anything about the subject, and it may just be the nature of the available literature on the topic. Just something to think about. — Matt Crypto 00:04, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • It's true that the article doesn't state much by way of justification, but there's a good reason for that - nobody is justifying it. The criticisms come from all over the political spectrum. Just look at the citations - American conservative magazine, Reason magazaine (a libertarian publication), The Nation, the ACLU, Nonviolent Activist magazine, the National Lawyer's guild. On the other side are individual police departments on a case by case basis, and the Secret Service (and that's it). Furthermore, the Secret Service isn't justifying the practice, so much as denying the reality of it. They claim that they create the zones for safety of dignitaries and/or protesters, and that they don't single out protesters (when in fact that's exactly what they do). Raul654 03:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
    • That it's supported by a group of magazines and organizations with very similar viewpoints regarding governments and the civil liberties of private citiznes (The American Conservative "a traditionalist, anti-war and paleoconservative voice against the dominance of what it sees as a neoconservative media establishment," Libertarianism, The Nation, the flagship of the left," the ACLU, Nonviolent Activist, and a group whose website futures the picture of a protestor with the tape over her mouth reading "US Government") does not place it "all over the political spectrum." In fact, many Americans could have pulled just that assortment of groups as against Free speech zone policies without much thought. I'm afraid that Matt is right, it "is not entirely NPOV" and it will wind up being problematic when written by an editor who can't see the biases for what they are. I think this topic can and should be written from a brutally neutral POV. There is nothing subtle about this type of manipulation of the reader, showing only one side of the argument and dismissing the others without a thought--they see right through it, and dismiss it for what it is: personally biased writing, not a neutral presentation of facts. Then they simply go elsewhere to get the real story. If you're as outraged by the situation as many Americans are, why not be the person to show the world, via Wikipedia, what is really going on, in terms so neutral that even W himself couldn't question your neutrality? KP Botany 04:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I think that this problem may be due to the poor prose, in general, this inability for anyone not intimately familiar with the subject to comprehend it--it's not just you, Matt. The slant is decidedly not neutral, and will be hard to attain unless the editors are very careful. I see editors who want to make powerful political points instead of letting the facts speak for themselves. In many cases, this, the Armenian Genocide, all sorts of articles mired in controversy due to political spin, the facts do speak for themselves, and further attempting to spin it only makes it sound like you don't have supporting evidence, or that other people aren't smart enough to see what is going on. I have a cartoon strip by an Afghan cartoonist about free speech zones--it doesn't require any spin, and if it did there are plenty of folks out there giving it the spin already. Still, it's probably courteous to the editors to let them see all of what is wrong, and mention this looming difficulty. KP Botany 02:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Object per Matt Crypto, KP Botany, and Slof. Also, the writing needs to be polished a bit (e.g. "The Supreme Court found in Thornhill v Alabama that picketing and marching in public areas is protected by the United States Constitution as free speech. However, subsequent rulings found that it is less than that afforded to pure speech due to the physical externalities it creates. Regulations for such activities, however, may not target the content of the expression." left me with a headache). By the way, what were the subsequent rulings? The article doesn't say or give a reference. --Jayzel 02:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Done Raul654 03:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
    • You added the source, but the sentence still needs to be re-written. The last clause in the quoted text is confusing.--Jayzel 04:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Another Comment Almost forgot. The introduction says "Critics, however, suggest that such zones are 'Orwellian'". Who are these critics? This desperately needs a cite. --Jayzel 02:29, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Done (twice). Raul654 02:58, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Yet another Comment One more thing, Slof was wrong calling the use of extended quotations culled from articles "borderline plagerism". What we have here is a violation of the fair use law. I believe the law states you cannot use more than three sentences of an article for fair use. Someone correct me if I am wrong. --Jayzel 02:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Your understanding of fair use is wrong. Fair use considers (among other factors) to the size and importance of the excerpted section relative to the entire work. Your 'three sentences' limit is bogus. Raul654 02:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Bogus or not (I'm not a lawyer), there is no reason why the quoted passage regarding Neel couldn't be re-written in your own words. It does appear, as others have mentioned, that the quotes are used as a "workaround" to keep the article from appearing POV. For example, (due to your lack of response) I take it you feel the term "pro-choice" does not merit an explanation in the article to non-American readers who may not be familiar with US political terminology, yet article space is used to quote a protestor's sign "The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us" when the sign offers no information to the topic of the article and comes across as just an opportunity to get in a political dig without looking biased. Regards, --Jayzel 04:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I agree with those who find the article POV; if I came across the article at random, I would consider a {{NPOV}} tag. At the time I viewed it, one example I found was the article was attributing ACLU statements to broader populations. The extensive reliance on quotes is a tipoff to the POV, which is not at all subtle. I'm seeing this as a WP:SNOW, so not objecting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:58, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Just to clarify, only my initial Object was written before users who objected per my comments. My addition comments were added later. KP Botany 20:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Object Average prose, borrowing of quotes, non-NPOV categories. I haven't spotted anywhere in the article mentioning that some protests are violent (eg the Seattle ones). "has even gone so far as to tell local police departments to regard critics of the War on Terrorism as potential terrorists themselves." is not directly attributed, merely cited and put in quotes. The article is put in "George W. Bush administration controversies" even though they did not start with him. I'm also worried that wikipedians first called the zones Orwellian, and only later on got citations - it looks as if people were doing original research and just looking for whatever agreed with their research. A citation in the introductory section is also a problem. Some "see also" things to how the US government dealt with protests before Vietnam might also be nice. Andjam 15:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
  • (A) No, there is nothing wrong with having references in the intro. A number of featured articles do this. (b) The word Orwellian was added there less than a week ago, *LONG* after the cited articles were published, so your claims that it was OR are demonstrably false. (c) Regarding the DHS's critics-as-potential-terrorists - it's properly cited to two reliable sources, and attributed to the original claimant (the DHS). So unless you are claiming that both cited sources are wrong, it is a waste of my time to go digging around for an original press release from the DHS that I am unlikely to find. (D) If you think the categories are not NPOV, put them up for deletion (I suspect they will be kept). The four categories this is currently tagged with - Censorship in the United States, Freedom of expression, George W. Bush administration controversies, Political repression in the United States - are all perfectly applicable to this topic. So while they exist, the article is going to be tagged with them. (E) As far as its placement George W. Bush administration controveries, you are wrong. The practice was virtually nonexistant before he came into office. The fact that there might have been a trivially few uses prior to his taking office is irrelevant. Raul654 17:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment I want references in the introduction. Stylistically it may be better not to have them, and they shouldn't be necessary, I now realize, as everything is to be expanded below. But I'm a slow reader, and sometimes that is all I read, the introduction, so I want it referenced. No knockdowns for this point. KP Botany 20:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I withdraw my comment about Orwellian. I based it upon the transcript of the FAC and a recollection that the article previously had uncited opinion. I probably was thinking of "dictatorial", which I've asked for a citation for. About the DHS thing - the second source (Austin Cline) seems to be heavily citing the first source (James Bovard), albeit citing a piece published in The American Conservative rather than the San Francisco chronicle. I' doubtful about an opinion piece as a reliable source on his own. (Bovard's fan club seems a bit diverse, though that isn't the meat of my objection). As far as I can tell, the body of the text doesn't really explicitly say (backed up by a reliable source) that the practice was virtually non-existant before Bush came to office - it merely lists a lot more examples of it during his presidency. Andjam 00:01, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
      • The Nation article says they are the ones who "institutionalized" it - "Once ensconced in the White House, the Bushites institutionalized the art of dissing dissent, routinely dispatching the Secret Service to order local police to set up FSZs to quarantine protesters wherever Bush goes. " - which is another way of saying they took a practice that had occured a few times before they got to the white house and made it common place. Which is 100% in line with the National Lawyer's guild ariticle (which implies that they didn't become common until after the WTO 1999 protests) Raul654 00:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
        • More digging revealed this blog post on the history of free speech zones by freelance journalist David Neiwert. The post says that while they were used in a legal, non-distriminitory sense going back to 1996 (and with case law going back to Nixon), it's under Bush that they have been used in an illegal, discriminatory way. Raul654 00:21, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
          • A blog post by a freelancer and someone who uses the term "Bushites" as RS. Hmm.
          • On a different note, shouldn't the article cover the entirety of the history of free speech zones, not just the misuse of them? Wouldn't even the most ardent anti-Bush activist be interested to know that they were abusing an existing (partially abused) term rather than creating a new term? Andjam 01:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support. A well-written, well-reasearched piece which, unlike Fox News, is fair and balanced.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 13:26, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • A dig at an unrelated subject does not increase my confidence about this person's description of the article as being NPOV. Andjam 13:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
• Object, per Matt, and per the comments on the talk page. The article is not presented in a NPOV fashion. Among other significant problems, the article repeatedly treats statements from obviously partial sources as if they were established fact; an egregious example is noted on the talk page. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
• Object: 1a (like "As of November 2006, the lawsuit was still ongoing." —redundant word) and 1c (POV). I find the conflict of interest in a nomination by the director of this process inescapable. If you want to nominate, step down from the role as judge and jury, or get another contributor to nominate and respond to the reviews. That's basic. Tony 00:54, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I disagree, Raul does a good job with this, and good luck trying to find someone else. This article doesn't stand a chance for now. Raul is not really finding for promotion, so much as following the consensus. However, just ask someone else to do it for Raul's articles if it is really a concern. No reason he can't bring article here. KP Botany 01:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

No, you're completely missing the point. It's quite irrelevant whether this particular nomination is promotable, and whether you might trust him to do "a good job", or whether it's hard to find someone else to do it. It's about due process, justice being seen to be done. Allow one and it's a slippery slope. The director needs to distance himself from this process, or he'll lose respect. He has four options: get someone else to shepherd through the nomination; get someone else to rule on it (stating that he will do this); disist from nominating articles, directly or indirectly; or resign. Tony 01:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Response and CommentNo, I'm not completely missing any point, although I may have stated it poorly, I agree with you that Raul can address the conflict of interest by having someone else do it. My main point is that in this instance the article simply needs to be removed from FAC for now, and sooner rather than later, there's simply too much time spent on something that won't become a FA already, without adding conflict of interest concerns to the mix. Then, fine, he can get someone else to do the FAC monitor role for the article in the future--or you can bring it up next time, if necessary. I would really like to get articles that are NOT going anywhere near a FA to be pulled from the board in a much shorter time, though. There's just too much time expended on them that could be spent on articles that have a chance at FA status. KP Botany 02:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, KP; I just want to say that it's a larger issue at stake here; Raul has judged his own nominations more than once in the past. The system needs to be clean, neat and totally transparent. I'm not accusing Raul of personal lack of integrity—I hope that he's not offended. It's a systemic matter. Tony 04:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Response and Comment I hadn't considered that, that it's not a first or one time thing. Whatever. Raul, would you ask someone else to do the closures and moves on your FAC nominations starting with this one? Maybe you can con Sandy into doing it, I don't know how this is decided on Wikipedia, who does these things, as long as I am left out of it. I do think overall you're doing a fine job. I asked a question about this on the discussion page, then went and looked at about a dozen and found I agreed with the timing on closure for those pulled and that you left enough time for discussion and corrections on all articles. I think the appearance of a lack of conflict of interest does matter--like the admin who closed his own RfC, it can just look bad, whatever was behind it. KP Botany 16:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Alternately, he can just keep going with the status quo, which certainly hasn't caused him to lose any respect thus far. Since, as you say, Raul's personal integrity is untainted, there is no problem with him playing both roles. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

No, you're not getting it either: it's not about Raul's integrity, in particular. It's a systemic matter. Otherwise, I could say that it doesn't matter that that particular judge didn't disqualify herself from ruling on a case because she knows the key witness, or the defendant, because she's a trustworthy judge. Nope, that's not good enough, in the US legal system or mine. Justice has to be seen to be done, and we must be scrupulous in that respect. It's such a trivial effort to explicitly have someone else judge your own nomination, anyway, compared with the strength that it bestows on the system. Tony 07:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Tony, this is very basic. I also disagree with the criterion used to nominate Raul, we should have some meritocracy instead of jimbo's dictatorship.--BMF81 22:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose To start, citation 39 is for a blog. Next, I am also concerned about this article's POV, and the majority of the sources used in this article. Over and over again, I am only seeing one side of an argument, that of the protester. From the start of the history "During the 1988 Democratic National Convention, the city of Atlanta set up an official "free speech area"[3] so the convention would not be disrupted. A pro-choice demonstrator against an Operation Rescue group said Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young "put us in a free-speech cage."[4] Where is the other side of the issue? What did the Mayor have to say? I am sure he said something. Next, "The free speech zones organized by the authorities in Boston were boxed in by concrete walls, invisible to the Fleet center where the convention was held and criticized harshly as a "protest pen" or "Boston's Camp X-Ray".[7] Where is the other side of the issue? Did the cops have no statement about this? And another quote used, "The policing of the protests during the 2004 Republican National Convention represents another interesting model of repression. The NYPD tracked every planned action and set up traps. As marches began, police would emerge from their hiding places—building vestibules, parking garages, or vans—and corral the dissenters with orange netting that read 'POLICE LINE – DO NOT CROSS,' establishing areas they ironically called 'ad-hoc free speech zones.' One by one, protesters were arrested and detained—some for nearly two days."[9] This is cited to a Nonviolent Activist Magazine. Clearly not a reliable source as they most defiantly have a POV on the subject, and are thus not independent. Another poor source, the Nation, the self-described flagship of the left gives us the following used in cite 10, "Prominent examples of recent free speech zones are those set up by the Secret Service, who scout locations where the president is scheduled to speak, or pass through. Officials will target those who carry anti-Bush signs and escort them to the free speech zones prior to and during the event. Reporters are often barred by local officials from displaying these protesters on camera or speaking to them within the zone.[10]" The magazine of the left is not a good choice when talking about a president on the right. How about something from CNN, ABC, NBC, or even a normal newspaper without a stated agenda. These are just a few I pulled out. But I keep asking myself, what is the other side of the issue here? Also, looking through the citations, they all have a predictable slant on this issue. This article would be much better served with more neutral sources on the subject. KnightLago 02:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, has this article been through WP:PR? KnightLago 02:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.