Talk:Timeline of Animal Liberation Front actions, 2005-Present

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 Timeline of Animal Liberation Front actions, 2005-Present is part of WikiProject Animal rights, a project to create and improve articles related to animal rights. If you would like to help, please consider joining the project. All interested editors are welcome.
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[edit] Secondary Sources

Everything from 20th October 2007 onwards is sourced only to the ALF website, which obviously isn't a reliable source for establishing notability. This page is not for simply duplicating everything on that site, actions must be notable and verified by secondary sources. Please source the material per WP:V or it may be removed. Rockpocket 07:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

We need some independent sources for this list. ALF primary sources may be used in this article, but the article shouldn't be based entirely or primarily on them, and it currently is. I'd also suggest that some of the images don't really tell the story. The McDonalds one, for example, just shows a chain and a window.
We might want to consider changing the title to "List of notable acts claimed by the ALF." SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 12:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Apologies for not responding earlier, I have taken on board what you have said.

Initially I presumed this article was specifically for including all the actions known from the ALF, i.e actions "claimed" not actions "credited". I have gone back through the recent two months that I have edited and deleted the reports that did not have a more substantial source, although I have left the actions that included a picture(s) and/or video, which is evidence of the action taking place I presume, most of the time anyway. In regards to the McDonalds picture, the source of the action should have the other pictures there which shows how the chain is attached from the inside as well as a picture from the outside (showing that it's McD) and that employees are having to stand outside to tell people they were closed, or were almost anyway. Untileveryoneisfreeet 20:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. You're right that the title is a little misleading. I created the page because people were adding the actions to the article on the ALF, which was causing problems there, so I was hoping we could list them here instead. So it's all my fault — as usual. :-D SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 20:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quotes

I think there are way too many quotes in this (and accompanying) pages. The quotes are all lifted from unreliable sources and, while a few are good to establish the sort of messages the ALF leave behind, by reproducing them all we are beginning to look like a conduit for their propaganda, especially when we are not quoting the justification for the businesses the ALF attack. There are few other articles with even have the number of quotes as this one. I propose a (humane) cull. Rockpocket 18:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed there are too many, I was getting a bit lazy explaining what the ALF had done, so was overly quoted. I've trimmed it down 3KB from quotes, mainly those that are propaganda orientated and repetitive. I understand that there are a lack of quotes to justification for the businesses the ALF attack, although I have tried to include has many as I could find and included them.
However, I think this can be balanced by leaving the intimidating and threatening quotes, although not the repetitive ones, as people will surely be concerned by these quotes and will want to read them, like the media quote. Therefore the balance comes from taking away the ALF's apparant "compassionate" edge, and putting into perspective what sort of things they threaten etc; which most people dissagree with.
Finally, as I was going through the FBI list, I noticed that they consistently said what relationship the businesses had with HLS, therefore the resource for the "connection" with HLS is not through Bite Back, but confirmed by the FBI. This was exactly the same for the number of animals taken, as well as the most of the vanadalism done. However, if the FBI confirm an act of "vandalism" has taken place, the claim on Bite Back is surely as reliable as can be, as it is only a matter of choice as to whether the mainstream quote them, which most of the time they do when they report on actions. So I don't see the problem with the descriptions etc (as long as not NPOV contradicting), because the FBI have confirmed the action has taken place, and only done so because activists have reported it and they have checked it has happened.
Let me know what you think. Talk / TomLovesCake 00:42, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
We are allowed to use the ALF as a source in this article (as a primary source), so long as the list as a whole is not based primarily on the ALF. That is, we need other sources too, though not necessarily another source for every single claim. Having said that, we also need to be careful not to include everything someone in the world claims the ALF has done, or we'll end up with a list of which butchers' stores' locks have been superglued overnight.
I think we should also leave out the quotes most of the time. The page needs to read as though it's not either an attack page (look how evil they are!) or a platform (look how active they are!). Adding quotes has the unfortunate effect of appealing to both sides (supporters and opponents) though for different reasons. We want to appeal to the folks in the middle -- the people who are looking for encyclopedic information. So if we're going to include quotes, they should be quotes that are in some way notable or particularly informative.
We also need to be careful to include only material that has been claimed by the ALF, or that very reliable sources (e.g. FBI) attribute to the ALF. We shouldn't include attacks related only to SHAC, and especially not attacks claimed by the ELF. We also shouldn't include attacks that only highly partisan sources have attributed to the ALF, as they have a tendency to say that anything connected to "animal rights extremists" is an ALF act. If in doubt, leave it out, I would say. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 04:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)