Talk:2011 England riots/Archive 8

Far too long

This article is far too long and filled with irrelevant newsy and gossipy bits. It needs VAST cuts to become encyclopedic, and less of the armchair commentary and more emphasis on the factual. "Rap music" to blame? Really, was this well researched and encyclopedic or someone's comment who just thinks Elvis needs to stop his hip shakin'? You darn kids get off my lawn!

Seriously though, this article is a mess, and I'll attempt to make cuts, but the community as a whole needs to exercise additional restraint in what gets added. -- Avanu (talk) 15:52, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed but the state of this article is not unusual for an ongoing situation. Everyone wants to be first to add the latest bit of information so, instead of an encyclopedic article, the result is a "blow by blow" account of events (see Recentism). There are whole paragraphs here that could be summed up in a sentence. Having said that, is it worth attempting a rewrite until the situation is determined to be over? Also, the level of detail has been useful to people like me trying to find a safe way home in recent days. Stanley Oliver (talk) 17:45, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

No doubt it has helped to get you home safely but Wikipedia is not a manual or how to guide WP:NOTHOWTO :-). Seriously though I agree that it needs cutting down but at the moment it is likely to get bloated again quite quickly, waiting until things quieten down my make the task more manageable.--wintonian ^talk 14:30, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Infobox collage?

A collage of multiple photos would be good for the i box--93.137.141.45 (talk) 16:05, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Racism as a Cause for riots.

Why is racism not listed as a possible cause for the riots under the "Causes" section? This has been suggested by the liberal blogger Darcus Howe: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/london-riots-bbc-interview-with-west-indian-writer-gives-insight-into-causes/2011/08/09/gIQAil3t4I_blog.html Also the following news story and video from 15:20 on: http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2011/8/10/over_1_000_arrested_in_uk 198.82.2.178 (talk) 17:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Big claim, and needs big sources. Alexandre8 (talk) 17:31, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Does blaming rap music not require similar sourcing? SirNewtonNinegames (talk) 17:46, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Blaming rap is like blaming baggy pants and kids named Pete. Its always their fault. -- Avanu (talk) 17:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

It's all nonsense, it should all be sourced very well. Alexandre8 (talk) 18:03, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• We would need very good sources which indicate that ethnicity is significant to start labeling the ethnicity of participants in this story. Currently, I do not see that. --John (talk) 18:17, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

John I don't think that's what he's saying. He's implying that white racism towards blacks is the reason for the rioting as per the opinion of a west indian poet and writer. I think think he's talking about ethnic tagging throughout the article. Alexandre8 (talk) 18:22, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

My point still stands. You claimed consensus when you edit-warred the ethnic labels back into the article. Where is that consensus? --John (talk) 18:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

As this is a current event, ANY view on the causes is at most speculation. We know that the event was prompted by the killing of a guy by the police, and this is not disputed by any source. Other than that, I think we would do well to either not include any speculation as to the deeper causes, or if we do, make it clear by attribution and direct quoting that these are early speculations. In addition WP:UNDUE does require we consider how prevalent these views and opinions are in the RS, clearly blaming rap music shouldnt be mentioned, but Darcus Howe, for example, as nephew of CLR James and a long-time Afro-Caribbean activist, does have notability and standing to speak on these matters, if only as a partisan for a POV.--Cerejota (talk) 18:48, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

First of All, being malay is not an ethnicity, it's a nationality. There's a huge difference and as per the sources should be mentioned. Alexandre8 (talk) 19:01 10 August 2011 (UTC)

"Black" is an ethnic labeling term which you also edit-warred into the article. Please be more careful. --John (talk) 19:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. All this insistence on classifying everybody is, to put it very politely, inappropriate. There is no reason for anyone's nationality or ethnicity to be singled out for a mention unless they are relevant to the incident in which they were involved and in this case there is no basis for that. Rubywine . talk 19:58, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Eh? Please see Ethnic Malays. Malay clearly can be an ethnicity. It can also be a race, please see Malay race. What it can't be is a nationality, at least by most definitions of nationality and not counting a few extremists in places like Malaysia as there is no 'Malay nation'. I haven't bothered to look in to what's being discussed here but from following the news I'm guessing it's regarding someone who is of Malay race/ethnicity and Malaysian nationality. Whether this can be sourced and has any relevence to the article I can't say. Nil Einne (talk) 00:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

2011_England_riots#Police

The assistant chief constable of Norfolk police, Charlie Hall, slammed people who used Twitter and Facebook to post “fictitious and malicious rumours” that civil unrest had moved to many to safe, including Norwich. Looters had never struck in Anglia Square and PC World

What was it supposed to say? please fix grammar.Imgaril (talk) 18:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Infobox miltary conflict?

WTF? This is not a military conflict. This is the wrong infobox. --John (talk) 18:46, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The name might be wrong, but I find it appropriately informative and useful as currently used. A "riot infobox" wouldn't be significantly different in information, so why create one? --Cerejota (talk) 18:50, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Well I don't. This is not a military conflict so we don't use this infobox on the article. There is a proper infobox already and we should go back to using that; we don't need to create one. --John (talk) 18:53, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Any infobox that creates two "sides" to this is not appropriate. I just removed "4 killed" from the rioters side as 3 of the deaths are clearly not "rioters".--Pontificalibus (talk) 18:55, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I see that point, but what is the alternative?--Cerejota (talk) 19:06, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I've just removed the grossly-misleading 'casualties' section entirely. We shouldn't use infoboxes at all where parameters are unclear. And who put 'arrests' in the casualties section anyway? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

There is a parameter to rename that section.--Dorsal Axe 19:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

International reactions

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-14471921 Useful? Pascal (talk) 19:08, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I think there should be a section for international reactions - e.g. this reaction from Iran http://www.metro.co.uk/news/872046-uk-riots-un-told-to-step-in-by-iran (User talk:davymast) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.178.113.213 (talk) 11:08, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

2011 England riots - 2005/2007 civil unrest in France

Maybe I'm the only one (right now), but is there some sort of connection between these riots (the way II've seen it, it's about being unemployed, no future can be seen, etc.) and the civil unrest in France in 2005 and 2007? I mean, for me it all sounds a lot alike; people from the banlieues/ outer London feel that they are deprived of the chances that other citizens do seem to get. Is there some sort of similarity? And, maybe in a broader sense, it can be fused with the Arab spring, the 2011 Israeli housing protests, the 2011 Spanish protests, and the 2010–2011 Greek protests? Might there be any connection between them all? 「Robster1983」^{☞ Life's short, talk fast ☜} 19:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Possibly - but unless these links are discussed in reliable sources, they are of no relevance to this article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:18, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

But there is enough similarities prima-facie to includ ein the see also, yeah? I mean, without any political or socio-economic context, at the very least these are large riots in large urban areas in large European countries. That doesn't require an RS or OR to connect via "see also".--Cerejota (talk) 19:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I've found this Dutch-language source from the NOS (Dutch National Broadcast Ass.), which talks about similarities. See/listen: frankrijk-benauwd-om-rellen-engeland.html/france-worried-about-riots-england.html or rellen-in-londen-overeenkomsten.html/ riots in Londen: similarities. I guess that the Dutch news is on to this, but it would be even better if some English-language source saw the same, or at least some, similarities. 「Robster1983」^{☞ Life's short, talk fast ☜} 19:33, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Found it! See: plus-ca-change-riots-in-london-and-paris I reckon this, an article in The New York Times, should be at least been added as a reference in the article. I mean, there's enough stuff in this article to write at least half a A4-page with! 「Robster1983」^{☞ Life's short, talk fast ☜} 19:39, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Included it in the article, creating a subhead in the "Causes" section. 「Robster1983」^{☞ Life's short, talk fast ☜} 20:09, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Accusations of UK Media Censorship of images sympathising with rioters

Resolved

There are many papers reporting UK government, ordering censorship of the riots to not sympathise with rioters. This is mainly in foreign papers, French, Russian, Greek, Spanish. Here is one link translating the French article: http://economicsnewspaper.com/economics/the-riots-in-london-and-the-mainstream-press-censorship-54792.html

There are many more. Can someone with good knowledge of Google translater help cite some of these articles? Also Wikileaks IRC room has reported a large number of embarrassing leaks which are not being put on the site until later. --94.195.194.144 (talk) 19:21, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The source you cite doesn't say anything about the UK government 'ordering censorship'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:27, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, not sure if you can cite non-english articles in an english article, but we will wait until Jean-Claude Dassier's advice letter to number 10 is publicized. Jean-Claude Dassier was a French TV director who admitted censoring the 2005 French riots, and information of him advising number 10 on what to cover or not is apparently leaked. Will raise more links once English articles appear. Since there is nothing about him in the English wikipedia, here is an article worth reading http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/nov/10/france.tvnews. Thanks --94.195.194.144 (talk) 19:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Timelines

The timelines of this article need to be carefully reviewed.

Listed under 10th August is the attack on a man in Ealing when it was in fact on the 8th: [1]

The item regarding Wolverhampton with the link to the guardian article was reporting on facts from the 9th August NOT the 10th. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.151.162 (talk) 14:38, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

£200 Million of cost

Under the title Property damage, it should give the estimated cost so far, more than 200 million pounds ($323 million).

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/11/us-britain-riots-cost-idUSTRE77A46920110811

Arson, criminal damage, theft as the means of damage, and by the effects of some business's closing earlier on the days that rioting occurred and those still closing early in the effected areas.

It should give details of who is picking up the bill. Government, Insurers, Police etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chief Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 16:52, 11 August 2011 (UTC)