Talk:Critical Mass

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April 3, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted
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[edit] bunch of group think BS

“

Critical Mass participants are required to lead their own event, since there is no formal leadership. In order to moderate the flow of the group, riders sometimes use a tactic known as "corking", which involves blocking traffic from side roads”

uhh what? if you got a bunch of people corking side roads, calling for 'solidarity', forming 'core groups of social networks' to 'monitor bicycling needs', editing this page, THATS LEADERSHIP. maybe you dont think its 'leadership' because you arent 'forcing anyone' to do anything. but you sure as hell are encouraging, cajoling, and in every sense, using peer pressure during rides, calling people "uncool", basically, intimidating people to be either 'with you' or 'against you'. etc etc etc etc, and most of all, this is the same nonsense business-speak that the 'evil corporations' use. you want to start a revolutoin? start by speaking plain english and stop using doublespeak and stop talking around issues and stop spewing endless tirades about how wonderful you are and how evil your 'enemy' is.

whoever wrote the above statements obviously has some personal issues dealing with radicals in their own life, and those statements are useless. you go from speaking about some issue you have about "leadership" to slamming people for using "doublespeak", a clear attack on some radicals that you have a problem with. there is no place for that here. there IS no formal leadership, and people that cork or call for solidarity are NOT leading- that implies that the persuasion of others only serves the interests of the supposed "leader". corking serves the interests of the whole, and any riders that don't feel it neccessary to "follow" have every right not to. go join an anarchist or radical forum and post your personal rants about it there. save any true constructive work for here. Psychowontfindme (talk) 18:47, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Conflicts with Motorists"

Changed "Conflicts with Motorists and Riders of Mass Transit" to "Conflicts with Motorists" Why: there is nothing in the article to support a history of conflicts with mass transit riders. In fact CM riders are generally supportive of mass transit in all forms for environmental reasons. In addition, in East Bay California rides, riders "let the bus go" meaning they form lane positioning to allow bus drivers to pass them on the right, closin in the gap just afterwards to the chagrin of private car drivers behind the buses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.210.202.168 (talk) 18:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

>>>In regards to vandalizing the names of the motorists and witnesses that came forward to the news media in the Spring of 2007: Harlan Head came forth for several televised and newspaper media interviews in the SF Bay Area, and voluntarily made himself a public figure, as did Gabe Schnake-Mahl. This story was all over the Bay Area news media for weeks afterwards, as was the Susan Ferrando story. Do a google news search or other news search and you will see that these two are no hermits...so why are their names sacrosanct? They are newsworthy and there is no invasion of privacy here, no public disclosure of private facts, and no portrayal of them in a false light, and no intrusion upon their seclusion. I believe their names are fair game and could lead to more factual and useful development of the article and it's citations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Critical Chris (talk • contribs) 05:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Critical Manners / Influence on other groups/ rides.

I believe that Critical Manners is one of many groups that has spawned in reaction to, or inspired by Critical Mass. For instance in Los Angeles the group Midnight Ridazz in Los Angeles seems to be at least influenced by Critical Mass.


Perhaps this section should be devoted to all group bike rides that have been inspired or influenced by Critical Mass and not just Critical Manners. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.121.240.50 (talk) 18:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV tag

I believe that a series of POV edits since the beginning of the year has created some strong balance/POV problems in the San Francisco section of what had a more-or-less balanced article. Some of the issues:

  • Driver-victim of critical mass violence described disparagingly as living "a 24 mile, 32 minute Caltrain ride from San Francisco"
  • "According to new coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle and National Public Radio, some cyclists, such as eyewitness Kate McCarthy who came forward for radio interview with National Public Radio's Richard Gonzales, claims she observed Ferrando strike a cyclist and flee the scene of the accident before cyclists chased after Ferrando surrounding her vehicle to prevent her further unlawful flight from the scene of the accident" - yes, they made that claim, but it's still POV and a BLP concern to accuse a victim of a crime
And who is the victim and who are the perps? Is it the cyclist who Ferrando struck? Or Ferrando who, apparently "out of blue," had her van vandalized? or Ferrando who attempted to flee the scene, or the cyclists who vandalized the van. I find your "victim" label also to have inherrent POV.Critical Chris (talk) 02:07, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
She's undeniably the victim of a violent act of felony vandalism. How could anyone possibly argue otherwise? Some weird biker logic where if you piss a crowd off they're entitled to smash windows, key ::::"cars, slash tires, etc? Provocation does not excuse violence. There is no a legal theory around that allows mobs to go on a violent rampage when they perceive a crime or injustice. It's preposterous that an insinuation that the driver should have been riding the subway instead is inserted into an article about driver-cyclist violence. There is no such proof that she struck a bicyclist or attempted to flee the scene, that sounds like typical implausible critical mass propaganda. But even if she did commit a crime that's a different issue. Either way it is absolutely not POV to say that we shouldn't use Wikipedia to disparage people to undermine their claims of victimization. By the same token we should not be naming names or going into personal details to disparage the bikers involved, including bikers mentioned elsewhere in this articles as undeniable victims of driver or police violence, and I have cut out some of those references too. Wikidemo (talk) 05:05, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I've read some of the Wikipedia policies on naming names, and though she's a public figure, I agree on excluding her name from the body of the article here as per Wikipedia policies.Critical Chris (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • ..."and a Bicycle Civil Liberties Union (BCLU) media release, a "motorist with his wife deliberately ran into the side of the monthly Berkeley Critical Mass bicycle demonstration" and caused approximately $3,000 worth of damage to bicycles. The cyclists said Head shouted, "I'm sick of you people," and attempted to run them over." (already in article as of 1/1 in some form) - no reliable source; BLP problems.
The major news media sources, Chron, Trib, Berkeley Daily Planet, KCBS radio, TV reports may be considered more acceptable as per the Wikipedia news source policies.Critical Chris (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "Just before the incident, some Critical Mass riders observed one of the "witnesses," Gabe Schnake-Mahl, verbally taunting the riders from the passenger window of a white BMW sedan. Subsequently, Critical Mass participants pounded on the hood and windows of the car in an attempt to get Head to stop his van and the windshield of the vehicle was cracked and fractured." - BLP problems; source does not support claim
This has already been removed if I'm not mistakenCritical Chris (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "In 1997, the Mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, was delayed on his way to dinner in his personal limousine in heavy traffic on the friday evening of the June 1997 San Fracisco Critical Mass ride. Brown subsequently issued a "declaration of war" - POV innuendo
Ahh, Willie's caravan of mayoral limousines, transporting a group of mayors from other cities, on the way to dinner in the Marina on the night of the June 97 ride...they hit heavy traffic that night and this needs to be sourced.
  • "According to a Time Magazine article, he threatened to keep both the bikes and the riders locked up, because "a little jail time" would teach Critical Mass riders a lesson" - op-ed piece is biased, not reliable source.
Steven Lopez of Time magazine...a biased unreliable source??? I'll have to reprint the discussion of this source from the Willie Brown article:Critical Chris (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
He threatened to keep both the bikes and the riders locked up, because "a little jail time" would teach Critical Mass riders a lesson. There is no reliable source for this statement. It is sourced to an anti-Brown op-ed piece[16] written by a well-known activist. The piece ascribes various motives to Brown without support, so even if one believes that Brown uttered the words "a little jail time", the statement that it was to teach a lesson, that he wanted to keep the bikes and riders locked up, etc., are all not properly sourced. The quote is an attempt to show that the mayor was vindictive or unreasonable, which needs to have a reliable source given this is a BLP. (Wikidemo)
The "a little jail time" is directly from the Time magazine article and the author whom you call a "well-known activist" ... actually Lopez was a noted Editor-at-large for Time magazine, and the LA Times for several years, and I'll have to do some digging, but I wouldn't exactly characterize Lopez as a "well known activist." If you wish to educate me otherwise I'm listening.Critical Chris (talk) 19:41, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
The Time piece speaks for itself. It is written in editorial rather than journalistic form and is advocating an argument, not facts. Lopez is well known, that's what I meant to say. I did not mean to imply that there is anything sinister about advocacy - but he's clearly a journalist. When someone is in advocacy mode it does not matter how good their credentials, they are voicing opinions rather than sourceable factual information. The fact standards are a lot lower in an op-ed piece. The claims about teaching a lesson, desire to keep bikes and riders locked up, etc., are all from Lopez, not Brown. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the quote, but for the interpretation is using a common rhetorical style where one makes up motivations and attributes them to people in order to stake out a position rather than to report on something he knows. Wikidemo (talk) 21:08, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
"...I was wrong about Lopez being an activist but the Time piece is clearly an op-ed from its tone, and the method of supporting the claims is not a journalist one. Looking through his history he seems to do about 80% straight journalism and 20% editorials and commentary, which is not unusual." -Wikidemo
I've added your comment from below here, for readability and critical discussion. "The claims about teaching a lesson, desire to keep bikes and riders locked up, etc., are all from Lopez, not Brown." Really Wikidemo? Lopez puts "a little jail time" in quotation marks, attributing the remark to a direct quotation from Brown, probably from the 31 July 1997 press conference. Lopez also placed the quote in direct context of teaching a lesson. Do you really think that a respected national periodical such as Time magazine would go to press interpreting a quotation out of context, "making up" motivations such as that? I think not, Time magazine is not exactly the American Socialist Workers Party newspaper, or the John Birch Society newsletter. Time is a respected, reliable, fact-checked, mainstream news publication of record. Time actually is considered by many to have a conservative angle, as opposed to Newsweek.Critical Chris (talk) 22:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "During the ride approximately 250 riders were arrested" - later figures given were 115; 250 comes from immediate news account
Agreed...according to further research of available news stories.Critical Chris (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "Brown was humorously portrayed by one news report as hypocritical and lacking credibility on the issue of enforcing traffic laws against Critical Mass bicyclists since Brown gained a noted reputation for flying through town with a motorcycle escort just to make his meetings on time" - POV and BLP issues
We need further clarification of this source if Phil Matier was in humor-op/ed mode. Matier works out at my gym, I could try to ask him, but I still wouldn't have a citation. So let's leave it our for now.

This section needs a lot of clean-up. This is just to get it back to something neutral. Some of these things are simply deletable as POV problems and should be summarily changed. Others need to be worked through. I'm hesitant to wade through this at the moment so for now I'll put an NPOV tag in the SF section. Wikidemo (talk) 10:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think for a lot of the unreliable, unsourced material, it can simply be removed, as they don't add much to the article. The statement regarding "Gabe Schnake-Mahl" is half sourced. The Willie Brown intro doesn't need to mention the "private limo". If the 115 is sourced, let's use that, etc... -- MacAddct  1984 (talk • contribs) 17:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I can find the sources (though I'm busy today). The 250 and 250+ figures for arrests in the SF police crackdown of 1997 are based on initial media accounts, and are widely repeated. However, subsequent accounts in the SF Chronicle all say 115 so that is likely the official police number. Given the police conduct in the incident, I would not trust them 100% and I'm not familiar enough with police arrest and booking procedure to know if the official arrest count might be misstated (for example, if they released people without booking after realizing they were wrongly arrested). I know it all has to be sourced at some point, so I'm speculating here only to try to figure out how and where to find those sources. Wikidemo (talk) 17:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Some shoe leather at the Hall of Justice might get you into the blotter and booking log.Critical Chris (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikidemo, I have a serious question for you that I believe you should confirm or deny in the interest of ethics and possibly Wikipedia Policy if I can find one: Are you Willie Brown's publicist, or part of his publicist team? You seem to have taken a strong protective ownership of the Wilie Brown article making "ownership" statements on the discussion page there such as: "you need to slow down" this smacks of frowned upon ownership statements as per Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. Now you seem to be highly concerned about critical material on him here on this Critical Mass article. You also have a sudden interest in editing this article and possibly to disguise your true motives, you're attacking all the material here, and not just the Willie Brown stuff. If this is the case, your game is very transparent to me. If it's not the case, you'll have no problem denying it, right? ...and working constructively to avoid POV statements such as those that you've made on the Willie Brown article and talk page such as "Critical Mass -blocks- traffic" treating it as fact and foregone conclusion.Critical Chris (talk) 00:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I will not answer your question. You have been singlemindedly and persistently adding inappropriate content to the Willie Brown article. Because I was interested in finding more information and sources about the "corking" method of blocking traffic I reread this article (this article has some good stuff on that), only to find that the same exact material had recently been added here. This kind of effort to slant articles to an extremist position, and make personal attacks when you do not get your way, is antithetical to the building of an encyclopedia. I'll give you an WP:AGF / WP:NPA notice on your talk page momentarily. Wikidemo (talk) 00:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikidemo, I haven't accused you of being on Willie Brown's publicist team, just as you asked me If I'm involved with Critical Mass on the Willie Brown talk page, I'm asking you, again, are you his publicist. I think this is a perfectly responsible question per WP:Conflict of Interest policy. This doesn't automatically disqualify you from editing the article, but it does beg the question since he just released an autobiography 2 weeks ago. Please note, I've assumed good faith for the past few weeks. Extremist is a harsh indictment of my edits, they are all well sourced from mainstream news periodicals such as the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, PBS Newshour, Time Magazine. If you think market-based congestion pricing of center city road use is extreme, you should take a look at Michael Bloomberg's platforms and George W. Bush's Transportation Secretary Mary Peters' public statements on this topic.Critical Chris (talk) 01:55, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikidemo, I'm taking a few days off of editing the body of articles to collect my thoughts. You seem very frustrated by my WP:COI conflict of interest question, whether you have a conflict of interest with Willie Brown and the Willie Brown article. As much as you resent it and see it as a personal attack, that's not my intention. My apologies if you see it as such. My intention is not to cause undue stress or frustration for you. However, I stand by my position that it's a responsible question. My intention is to see you affirm or deny the question so that, in the spirit of WP:COI we can all collectively make constructive, fully informed edits. I believe it's only fair and responsible for me to ask, given that you asked me if I ride with Critical Mass. For the record, yes I have done a critical mass ride or two in my time. Given that association, I will continue to collectively construct and improve content with others here on Wikipedia.Critical Chris (talk) 02:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Please mind your own editing and do not try to pin motivations or mental states on me for holding the line on policy. I asked you whether you had anything to do with critical mass because you repeatedly inserted POV content into two articles having to do with a critical mass event under the user name is "Critical Chris." An entirely fair question under the circumstances. You said no, so I will accept that at face value and leave it at that. You have zero basis for your admittedly tit-for-tat accusations that I am Willie Brown's publicist and all that other stuff. Whether you backpedal or having done it or not, it's an AGF and NPA problem. No stress at all, I'm just not going to play that game. Wikidemo (talk) 02:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
You asked me: "By the way, may I infer from your "Critical Chris" wiki name that you are somehow connected with the Critical Mass rides?" Wikidemo (talk) 10:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC) ...my answer: "...the "Critical" in "Critical Chris" refers to critical thinking, not Critical Mass." That's if you're asking me what's-in-a-name? If whether I'm "connected with the rides?" I have gone out on some Critical Mass rides in my day, if that's what you're wondering. If that makes me "connected" perhaps it's a conflict of interest quite possibly, and if so, perhaps I should recuse myself from editing this article. I need to review Wikipedia WP:COI policy in further detail. Keep in mind Critical Mass has no leadership structure, and the rides are non-hierarchical. It's not a "club." There are no dues, no grants, no offices, no official website, no centralization, no structure, no organization...other than a group of cyclists showing up at 6pm and riding together. I don't represent or speak for CM, anymore than you would if you came out on a CM ride, dig? Please understand, I'm not accusing you of anything. Given the circumstances of your -apparent- sense of ownership over the Willie Brown article, I'm asking you to disclose whether you are "connected with" Brown's publicist team. No one has a gun to your head, you are not in front of a Grand Jury, this is not a deposition. This is my own (possibly silly...possibly important)ethics inquiry. In terms of you and your edits, I can only assume, a good faith independence of Brown's interests on your part, that you are not beholden to Brown's interests, that you are denying my interrogatory, and are not part of Brown's publicist team, absent your answer in the affirmative. Is it fair to say that's "assuming good faith?"Critical Chris (talk) 17:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
So let's discuss the article and our edits. This language is straight from the Chronicle article: (the cyclist)"smacked into the front driver's side of his car," ...I take this to mean he literally "smacked" or "slapped" the front fender with his open hand, and not that he "hit" or crashed into the fender with his bike. "Hit" could imply that there was a collision. What do you think? Moving on: "..the cyclist however, told Police Officers that he only hit the car with his lock after Webb had gunned his engine (throttle)." Why not stick to the Chronicle article language that the cyclist made statements to police, whereas your use of the word "claim" is significantly more ambiguous and could imply that the cyclist made "claims" to the press, "claims" to bystanders, etc. Critical Chris (talk) 20:25, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
The general term "hit" is better than "smacked", which is a meaningless colloquialism. Similarly, "claims" is a more useful general term for asserting the truth of a matter, when the details of exactly who he claimed what to and when is not relevant. We summarize events here on Wikipedia. Wikidemo (talk) 23:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed most obvious BLP vios

I've removed some obvious BLP vios and cleaned up some sections in the process, while trying generally to preserve the useful content. Material that disparages or discredits parties to the confrontations, providing names and home cities of people accused of serious crimes, and mentioning the names of minors who are crime/accident victims are not permitted per WP:BLP even though all these things are sourced and in public record. We take a step back from that here. Wikidemo (talk) 01:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikidemo, you want to "stick to (news source) article" than let's stick to the article. I've reverted the text to more closely align with the Chronicle article. Please take a look and let me know what you think.Critical Chris (talk) 11:25, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sticking to what the source says, not directly quoting the author. The summary was more accurate without the selective choice of words you've added, which I see have been partly reverted by another editor.Wikidemo (talk) 23:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Refernce formatting

Hey Ilke2beAnonymous, thanks for cleaning up some of the reference formatting. It does look better.Critical Chris (talk) 06:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Conflicts with motorists San Francisco March, 2007

I've reverted eidts by Ilike2beanonymous for clarity: "blocked the driver's path of travel." I believe this in necessary to avoid confusion. The cyclists blocked the limousine from traveling forward in it's path. To leave out the word travel implies that the cyclists blocked the driver's path of escape from the doors of his limousine, which could be considered false imprisonment or false arrest. None of the cyclists are alleged to have prevented the driver or the occupants of the limousine from exiting the vehicle and fleeing the area. Merely leaving it at "path" could imply that the driver was prevented from escaping if he felt his personal safety was at risk. In regards to the word throttle: most all of us know what this means, however, it could be considered to be slang colloquy and Wikipedia is an international resource. I believe the article could be more useful to an ESL user if we included the word "throttle" which is more easily translated than something that might come off to an ESL user as "the driver fired a gun at his engine."Critical Chris (talk) 23:30, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

You're gaming this excessively. It's obvious what blocking travel means, and what gunning the engine means. Gunning engine throttles is not a real expression. Sourcing material is not a game of selectively reproducing authors' linguistic quirks in detail. This description is a deliberately mild statement of what happened. For goodness sakes, a mob surrounded the limo and assaulted the driver - surrounded him, prevented him from leaving, banged up the car, took his cell phone and keys, and slashed the tire, and one got arrested for a felony in the process. Your constant attempt to tilt events to seem sympathetic to violent biker mobs is getting really tiresome. Wikipedia is not a place for propaganada. Wikidemo (talk) 23:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
..."blocking his path of travel" is fine to me, whereas "blocking his path" is a bit more ambiguous. Also what do you mean by your claims that the two (or more?) cyclists "prevented him from leaving?" I believe there's a significant difference between corking the driver from driving forward into a mass of passing bicyclists and "preventing him from leaving" the area on foot all together, which would clearly be false imprisonment or false arrest. To color the action this way is arguably propaganda in its own right. If you can source that out than I'm listening. Also at what point did the two cyclists "assault the driver." You seem to be tilting events yourself sir. Do you have any citations for these allegations? If this is what happened then I'd be appreciative and better informed as to the true facts of this event with your reliable, fact-checked news sources confirming these details.Critical Chris (talk) 06:46, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree that you're just playing semantic games here; "blocking the path" of an automobile is entirely clear (except perhaps to an ambulance-chasing lawyer seeking to find a legal loophole somewhere) that it means the forward path of the automobile; anything else is redundant nonsense. Same with "engine throttle", a phrase I've never heard used. "Gunning the engine" is 100% clear and needs no further reinforcement. +ILike2BeAnonymous (talk) 07:02, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I notice you did not address Wikidemo's allegations that the "violent biker mobs" "assaulted the driver."Critical Chris (talk) 07:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikidemo, you belive I'm "Gaming this excessively?" I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm not playing games, I'm trying to improve the accuracy and usefulness of the article. Critical Chris (talk) 07:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this is getting awfully petty. Please read the source cited. It describes blocking the driver's path (which corking is too, but it does not support that it was corking). It also clearly describes reports, by multiple witnesses including a police officer, that the cyclists surrounded the vehicle and prevented it from leaving. Ability to escape on foot is simply not an issue. You can call it false imprisonment if you want and it probably was given the events described but the bikers were not charged with that and we're not here to do legal analysis. This ongoing issue is an unnecessary waste of time and your tit for tat accusations of bias are out of place. I'm keeping this article neutral and in line with the better of the sources. Wikidemo (talk) 07:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

SECTION BREAK

So let's discuss the article and our edits. This language is straight from the Chronicle article: (the cyclist)"smacked into the front driver's side of his car," ...I take this to mean he literally "smacked" or "slapped" the front fender with his open hand, and not that he "hit" or crashed into the fender with his bike. "Hit" could imply that there was a collision. What do you think? Moving on: "..the cyclist however, told Police Officers that he only hit the car with his lock after Webb had gunned his engine (throttle)." Why not stick to the Chronicle article language that the cyclist made statements to police, whereas your use of the word "claim" is significantly more ambiguous and could imply that the cyclist made "claims" to the press, "claims" to bystanders, etc. Critical Chris (talk) 20:25, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
The general term "hit" is better than "smacked", which is a meaningless colloquialism. Similarly, "claims" is a more useful general term for asserting the truth of a matter, when the details of exactly who he claimed what to and when is not relevant. We summarize events here on Wikipedia. Wikidemo (talk) 23:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
In a transportation, streets and traffic context, which this seems to be to me, "hit" could imply accidental or intentional collision between bike and car, whereas "smack" or "slap" implies a direct and intentional use of force by the cyclist's upper extremity against the side of the car. Thus I believe "smack" or "slap" is more accurate and less ambiguous. "Claim" implies allegation and not necessarily fact or truth. Is the details of "who he claimed what to and when relevant?" I believe it is as most criminal defendants (represented or not, when talking to police and prosecutors, through an attorney or in pro per without an attorney) are generally more cognizant of lying and perjury problems especially if plea bargaining, than someone telling a story or making a claim to a reporter. I have no problem with "claimed to the police" or "made claims to the police" or "told police." I do believe the defendant's statement to police is relevant here to describe the circumstances of the incident in an encyclopedic context.Critical Chris (talk) 07:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I am not going to debate this semantic quibble further. You are wasting time. If we were to reproduce the entire article there are plenty of lurid and disturbing details of what the cyclists did. However, we are trying to summaries and stick to what's relevant. Wikidemo (talk) 07:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikidemo, I'm sorry you feel I'm 'wasting time' editing this article..."boss." Please "mind your own edits," as you say, and please don't express your managerial tenor to me. I'll spend as much of my own time editing whatever I choose here. For the record, I believe there's a point of clarification to telling the reader that the cyclist "told police" or "claimed to police" as opposed to making claims to the newspaper reporter.Critical Chris (talk) 07:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Have we addressed all the POV concerns at this point? I'd like to remove the POv tag if so. If not, please chime-in here.Critical Chris (talk) 02:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I would be happy to see the tag removed. Wikidemo (talk) 03:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Seeing no objections for now, I've removed the tag.Critical Chris (talk) 17:42, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A citation a day!

Can we all take a time out from our busy wiki schedules and promise to fix at least one citation format every day? Someone put a citation format tag on here, so I think it's good to pitch in to get the citations into templates rather than raw URL links. It's calming, it's productive, it's good for the world, and it's something we all agree on, right? Wikidemo (talk) 02:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Ha, ha, what a comedian...I'm ok with the spirit of your suggestion, but will admit that HTML is not my strong suit. That being said I will try to take note of format fixes I see here, and learn from them.Critical Chris (talk) 08:58, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Someone could add a little bit about Go Skateboarding Day, which is held on the first day of summer each year. I think that would be an event related to critical mass. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.76.161.139 (talk) 11:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC) Y Done I added a link to the See also section. Skomorokh 12:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Wikidemo, thanks for cleaning up the vandalism..."dirty hippie parade" :) ...pullease.Critical Chris (talk) 04:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)