Talk:Ryan Coonerty
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[edit] Biographies of living persons
Some research about wikipedia's policies on biographies of living people made me aware of some things that need to be corrected. Here are the noteworthy standouts:
- The views of critics should be represented if they are relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to side with the critics; rather, it needs to be presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. Be careful not to give a disproportionate amount of space to critics, to avoid the effect of representing a minority view as if it were the majority one. If the criticism represents the views of a tiny minority, it has no place in the article. Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation is broadly neutral, in particular, header structure for regions or subsections should reflect important areas to the subject's notability.
While I think the criticism of Coonerty is valid, the criticism section should be edited for length and succinctness, so as not to be disproportionately represented.
- Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully. Without reliable third-party sources, it will violate the No original research and Verifiability policies, and could lead to libel claims. Material about living persons available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should not be used, either as a source or as an external link (see above). Self-published books, zines, websites, and blogs[5] should never be used as a source for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article (see below).
It is challenging to find sources for things that happen in a small town when the main (only?) news source is owned by a large conservative conglomerate. Many times indymedia is the only source that will cover an event or happening, but indymedia is a self-published source and so is not sufficiently reliable for wikipedia.
Again, I'd suggest reading the Wikipedia's Guidelines for Biographies of Living Persons. As I'm responsible for some of the edits that are against this policy, I will do my best to correct them. --Rico (talk) 06:41, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Advocacy
This piece is written like a campaign brochure. Does it meet the standards of Wikipedia? --128.114.163.48 (talk) 20:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Electoral History
I changed "Electoral Success" to "Electoral History," since the former read like a political campaign brochure (or more rightly, what this article might be, a way for his publishers to promote his book). To be truer to the informational nature of the project, I re-added Coonerty's aborted bid for State Assembly since supporters had dropped it off the Wikipedia page after he'd bowed out of the race. --Rico (talk) 01:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Controversy
Coonerty is not an un-controversial figure in his hometown. It is only fair to add a Controversy section. Though it could easily be titled "Criticism." Not sure of the wikipedia convention here. --Rico (talk) 01:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Attempts to Weaken Criticism Section
March 2008: Appreciate edits made by Mateonixon (one of the original contributors to the article) to clarify some points in the original article as well as the controversy section. Most changes felt like they were in good faith, though some felt like they were made to weaken criticism. I made additional edits to correct some typos, and clarify some fine points.
- The local ordinance that prohibits outdoor sleeping within the city of Santa Cruz, is referred to as a sleeping ban, not a camping ban, in the press, in the ordinance, and in city council -- reversed this linguistic shift. In the ordinance it is referred to as a prohibition against outdoor sleeping except in designated areas.
- Clarified claim that citizens and business requested parking lot restrictions, added citations to City of Santa Cruz meeting minutes to support this.
- The downtown ordinances were NOT just "restrictions on aggressive panhandling" but more accurately "sitting, standing, performance, and panhandling restrictions."
- "Some public opposition" isn't supported by the well-documented dozens and dozens of arrests made in direct opposition to the downtwon ordinances -- further, the stepped-up enforcement was talked about openly in Sentinel headlines and in the downtown association as a "clean-up" -- reversed those changes.
- It was definitely not merely "discussed" that police had infiltrated community groups, they talked openly and proudly of it in City Council and in the press. And while the police claimed that "organizers refused to share their plans with the police," they later admitted that they'd made no attempt to contact organizers -- reversed these changes.
- And lastly, it was not "some opposition" to the Coast Development project, it was "widespread" as reported in numerous articles. --Rico (talk) 23:39, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
April 2008: Attempts have again been made to weaken the criticism section (formerly controversy). Again, it is meant to be criticism, the other side of the glowing Ryan Coonerty story, not a softball pitch. Some attempts to give controversial actions a positive spin, were moved to the accomplishments section and removed from the criticism section. But two important points:
- While the outdoor sleeping ban may be titled "camping," the bulk of the ordinance is subsection (a) which specifies the following prohibited activities: "Sleeping -- 11 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. To sleep at any time between the hours of 11 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. in any of the following places: (1) Outdoors with or without bedding, tent, hammock or other similar protection or equipment;(2)In, on or under any structure not intended for human occupancy, whether with or without bedding, tent, hammock or other similar protection or equipment;(3)In, on or under any parked vehicle, including an automobile, bus, truck, camper, trailer or recreational vehicle." So this is hardly a law that merely restricts where I can pitch a tent or park my RV. It is a law -- like similar laws in other places -- intended to be used against the homeless, indigent, poor, down-and-out, tramps, and hobos. We can debate the public relations value of this or that semantic phrasing of the law, but it is what it is and might be better titled "Homeless Ban."
- Contrary to edits made by Coonerty or his supporters, Coonerty did NOT support a call for an independent investigation of police spying until after the city auditor panned the SCPD's own investigation of itself. Tony Madrigal called early on for an independent investigation, and only Tim Fitzmaurice voted with him in support of it. In fact, Coonerty's primary concern was for the due process rights of... the police officers who had done the spying. I know he is a civil liberties expert, but this was baffling beyond comprehension.
I know Mr. Coonerty prefers to write off his critics as cranks and fringe lunatics, but I believe these valid criticisms are well supported by documentation. --Rico (talk) 02:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Unsigned Deletions
A user from IP 63.194.190.100 made an unsigned deletion of the Controversy section. This IP resolves to
County of Santa Cruz SBCIS990913-81 (NET-63-194-190-0-1) 63.194.190.0 - 63.194.190.255
suggesting that maybe an individual in the County of Santa Cruz offices made the changes to protect Mr. Coonerty from controversy.
These unexplained and undiscussed changes were reverted.
Public figures are often the focus of controversy. The additions made to this article are well-documented and follow wiki-style. Perhaps if supporters of Mr. Coonerty wish for an uncontroversial campaign brochure, perhaps they should print one rather than using Wikipedia for that purpose. --Rico (talk) 00:17, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Lou Dobbs
Would the public dispute exchanged between Coonerty and Dobbs qualify to be added? I'm not a big Wiki expert, so I wouldn't really know, but I'd like to know more about it.
- If you can still remember it in 6 months, consider it. Otherwise, not notable. --Rico (talk) 06:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Also, why at the bottom, does it link to "1960 births?" Coonerty was born in 1974, it says so right in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.134.208 (talk) 14:51, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
