User talk:Gaijin42/Ferguson effect

Opener[edit]

Cwobeel Mandruss I am obviously not a wordsmith, but I saw enough articles using this term that I think an article is justified. At this point, is mainly just a list of refs, with some pseudo-content summaries and plagiarism. Feel free to contribute on it to whip it into shape prior to going into mainspace. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:43, 3 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, thanks for the invite! I think I'm a fair wordsmith, but the skills needed most in a new article are in areas like research and synthesis, which content to include and which to omit, and so forth. I continue to dabble in those areas, just enough to know I still don't care for them much and I'm still not particularly good at them. That's why I've never considered doing article creation. If you guys want to handle those areas, I'm happy to smith some words here, as well as the usual assorted cleanup duties.

What little I've read about this was distinctly cop perspective. I assume you feel there's enough from the opposing perspective to be NPOV, or we wouldn't be here. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:27, 3 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Mandruss The way you intended the question, I think the answer is yes, as I've found two sources already critical of the "crime wave" pov (particularly questioning McDonald's research). However, I think you misinterpreted WP:NPOV. NPOV is a restriction on us, not reality, or the media's coverage of reality. If the topic is notable, it doesn't really matter if there isn't a balancing POV out in the real world. As examples on the other side of the fence see Ferguson Action (previously Ferguson October) or Organization_for_Black_Struggle which really have no critical voices in them (in the article, or probably in the real world either - though some of that may be due to their marginal notability past their initial PR blitz). Gaijin42 (talk) 21:19, 3 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, bring it on!

. I will see if I can contribute, way busy this week with work, but I'll try. - Cwobeel (talk)

Author name format[edit]

For past articles the three of us have collaborated on, we have used "last, first". I have felt that was more suitable for books and academic sources, and unnecessarily formal for what is primarily news articles, especially given that the news articles invariably use "first last", and that it doesn't justify the additional work to code two template parameters for each name. I lacked the confidence to implement my feeling, but that was then. I'd like to use "first last" (author=) in this one if there is no objection. Since I do my refs manually, without using a tool, I haven't a clue how this would affect those who use a tool, but I'll be standardizing refs at least in the initial development phase, anyway. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:01, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Im using RefLinks (ReFill) to convert bare citations to full cites. It unfortunately does not support last, first (but if you manually fix them, I think it will leave them alone). I don't object to last, first, but I also don't see a ton of value in it but its your dime :) Gaijin42 (talk) 13:53, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm proposing "first last" in this article. Drink your coffee. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:59, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. It appears that reflinks is doing it that way, so all good then. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:39, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ref substitution[edit]

This Toronto Star piece has a byline of Todd C. Frankel, Washington Post. It appears to be derived from this WaPo piece. Ok to make the substitution? It would make the citation a bit less problematic. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:54, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Mandruss They are very slightly different (c/e changes), but I'm certainly ok with the swap at this point. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:00, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done. A thought not worth its own thread: How do we know others aren't duplicating this work at this very moment in their respective user spaces? ―Mandruss ☎ 21:15, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We don't. Might be worth trying to get a minimum viable article by just having lots of WP:OVERCITE for a few sentences to get something out there for everyone to share. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:18, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'll leave that to you. Worst case, someone else gets there first and this will be a list of useful references. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:03, 12 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]