Talk:Copwatch

message: Is Sherman Austin, the convicted felon and anarchist, the same fellow who is involved in CopWatch in Los Angeles?   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.194.122.14 (talk) 22:15, August 27, 2007 (UTC) 
Yes, as seen in the following article and interview:
http://potw.news.yahoo.com/s/potw/40/somebodys-watching-you
Factcheck 4uwingnuts 00:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sherman Austin==

message: :: I moved the comments by 98.227.203.76 to the end of the page since there is currently a section on Tim Dees and officer.com and this would be a more appropriate spot for the comments. DivaNtrainin 18:44, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added citations for everything that had been tagged, and removed the statements added by Divantrainin about policies that CW does not have, since one of them was contradicted by the sources, and I could find no evidence for the other. Thanks for your help in cleaning up this article. Mycota 18:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Near-total lack of reputable sources

message: This article survived an Articles for Deletion debate. The discussion can be found here. -Splashtalk 00:23, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Articles for Deletion debate

message: I removed most of the Forums section and merged it with the Database section. It originally read like an advertisement for the forums and talked about non-notable "Civil Rights Investigators". I think it is also important to point out that the database and forums are totally separate from any actual Copwatch organizations (as far as I can tell). Therefore, any discussion and/or criticism of the websites should be separate from discussion and criticism of the groups themselves. Mycota 22:53, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changed Forums and Database 

message: I removed "from the perspective of the copwatchers" from the sentence about Know Your Rights forums. It was not clear to me why that needed to be included. I wouldn't have a problem with it if it were made more clear. Mycota 00:43, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was going to do just that yesterday, until I got disconnected and forgot. Canæn 03:41, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Perspective 

message: I've put POV-check on the page, because of the following sentence: "Each group is autonomous and self-governing, but most groups share common goals: exposing themselves, preventing criminal investigations from taking place, defending the right to be an idiot, and working towards shedding any personal accountability." erhudy 13:28, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for catching that. I've removed that vandalism and reverted back to the original wording. Mycota 18:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Retagging with POV-check 

message: Its my opinion this article needs to explore the whole Copwatch groups more in depth. As it sits, except for a few lines in the beginning, it seems to only reiterate the propaganda (as in being one sided) that the group itself posts, which is very opinionated.
:Just be mindful that blatant criticism does not equal NPOV, and since this article is about a group with a mission, the stating of that mission is not neccessarily pushing a point of view. It's just reporting facts. Also be mindful that picking and choosing facts is POV, however so is cutting out facts.  Canæn  07:21, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unbiased view needed 

message: I removed the following paragraph from the intro:
:They present themselves only as a group that wants to expose rogue and corrupt police officers. Some of their literature may appear to be against ALL police, using slogans such as "Pigs protecting the rich of America," and they are therefore viewed by some as a radical group with an agenda extending beyond simply being a "police watchdog."
This is horribly POV and includes uncited quotations. And who are these "some" who view Copwatch as a radical group, anyway? Besides this, "they" do not present themselves as a group at all. As stated in the article, Copwatch is a loose network of autonomous groups, not a centrally-organized body. If a particular group has made specific statements, that group should be named. If it comes from one of the websites listed in the article, those are not affiliated with actual Copwatch groups and statements on them should not be presented as official dogma.
That being said, this article badly needs sources for other statements as well, but I'm not as picky about them right now since they're mostly in line with what is on official Copwatch websites. Mycota 04:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed paragraph from intro 

message: Well, here's your citation source, the Copwatch 101 pamphlet. Towards the bottom (Okay, the quote was a little off, but the message is pretty clear) Saying the Copwatch movement cannot be categorized as an anti-police group because it has autonomous bodies rather than a centralized structure is like saying the KKK is not really a hate group by the same rationale. If you want to look at the top cartoon of the Democrat donkey and the Republican elephant clinking glasses as businessmen watch over the throngs of SWAT team geared pigs, and tell me there is nothing here more than a simple community group that wants to reign in rogue police officers, fine, but I think there is evidence to the contrary. For instance, it is hard to see how articles blaming the New York City Police Department for the deaths on 9/11 Top of the pagehave anything to do with their stated motive of exposing police corruption and brutality, nor does how "federal statistics show that cops jobs' are not all that dangerous" have anything to do with brutality or corruption.
The line was added merely to raise the possibility that the group has alterior motives. Many political groups present themselves as 'community services' while trying to achieve political goals. If you want to make a seperate section at the end addressing these concerns, thats all good, but to ignore them is to make the article only presenting the face that the organizers of Copwatch wish to portray, which makes it a propaganda piece, the same as if I wrote and article about Hezbollah and didn't add anything about violence.
:I think it would be great to have a well-reasoned and documented Criticisms section. Go for it. But it would need to be criticisms from other sources, not just your personal opinions. I'm sure there are websites and other sources that are critical of Copwatch. In fact, the Resources list includes critical articles from police themselves. Maybe you could summarize those articles. My point is that just putting your own opinion into an encyclopedia article is not appropriate. The favorable statements can all be backed up by published "propaganda" from Copwatch. The same needs to be said for any criticism. Also, my point about autonomous groups is that a blanket statement about all Copwatch groups is not possible, unless it has to do with the basic principles outlined by all Copwatch groups. If you have specific complaints about specific groups, please name the groups. They all have different approaches and ideological stances regarding the necessity of police, tactics, etc. Mycota 05:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  By ignoring alterior motives, the entire article becomes propaganda 

message: The statements repeatedly added by DivaNTrainin about Copwatch's lack of policies about obeying the law, etc. is ridiculous. First of all, there is no single Copwatch entity, so it makes no sense to talk about Copwatch's policies on anything. Each group has its own policies. That is what is meant by the statement "Each group is autonomous and self-governing". Aside from that, the list of policies that Copwatch groups do not have is infinite. They don't have policies about how long members can wear their hair, or how many times they should brush their teeth in a day, or whether to make fun of police officers behind their backs. And since these policies do not exist, there is no way to cite them. Therefore, they should not be mentioned in the article, unless another source has mentioned the lack of these policies. I have pointed out one specific policy that is held by some Copwatch groups regarding police non-interference (with a link to a page with that policy listed), but I made a point of stating that it may not hold true for all groups. When it comes to generalizing about CW policies, that's about the best one can do. However, if someone wishes to start a Criticism section (which is badly needed), please do so! It is clear that the statements from this user are meant as criticism, so why not go out and find some reputable sources that criticize Copwatch and use them as the basis for a Criticism section? You might want to start with the sources in the Further Reading section. Mycota 02:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The above paragraph was deleted by DivaNTrainin and replaced with other text. Then his/her comments were deleted by an anonymous user. This behavior is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Mycota 04:56, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Mycota. And I had to re-add the above comment after DivaNTrainin removed it, and altered the title of Mycota's statement. This is absolutely unacceptable. Murderbike 22:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The list of policies that Copwatch doesn't have is infinite 

message: Does anybody have a link to an archive that shows more than about 9 seconds of this footage? I know there's a lot more than that out there and I don't understand where the rest of the video is.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Factcheck 4uwingnuts (talk • contribs) 19:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  FULL Cardenas video? 

message: :Image:Cardenas-YouTube.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot 18:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Cardenas-YouTube.jpg

message: I came to the talk page to bring up the question 'who is this Tim Dees guy and is he notable enough to have his opinion in an article?' but I see that's already been hotly debated here!  I think it's worth restarting the discussion though.  I'm hoping we can do it in a calm and civil way.  IP 67, namecalling and edit warring are not acceptable.  For transparency: I support copwatch.  However, I think I can provide a nonbiased opinion here.  We can agree that it's not appropriate to cite the opinion of some random guy from the internet in an article, right?  So this guy would have to be notable or some kind of authority to be cited here, agreed?  Or anyone could just start up a website, right?  I'm not saying that officer.com is necessarily not notable, I'm just saying I haven't seen any evidence that it is so far, and I'm hoping people can offer supporting evidence. delldot ∇. 14:32, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Whichever we decide, I'd argue that we need a reliable source for "Dees notes that a Superior Court commissioner found the officers justified as Cardenas was actively resisting arrest" because it's fact not Dees' opinion.  delldot ∇. 17:31, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Officer.com and notability

message: I'm not sure when this tag was placed or if the article has changed, but I'm not seeing what the tag is referring to.  "Many" doesn't show up, there are a couple 'some's and 'most's, but they look pretty ok to me (well, not that those words are ever great to use just for precision and prose).  The problem, I think, is that copwatch isn't an organization, it's a concept.  Anyone can start a group and call it copwatch, so we're not going to find many reliable sources that say "all copwatch groups do this or that".  Maybe we could go more into the history and approach it like "the original idea behind copwatch was this and that".  I'd also recommend making that point, that it's not an organization or even really a network (because groups aren't really in touch) but more just an idea.  If we can find a source for this.  So I'm asking if we can remove the tag, and if we can make those additions.  Thoughts?  delldot ∇. 17:51, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Are there any objections to me removing this banner?  If not I'm going to go ahead.  If so please point out the sentences that are problematic.  Thanks! delldot ∇. 20:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Peacock words?

message: I've continuously removed the "citation needed" edits that Gobonobo has been inserting into the criticism section because I am unclear as to what kind of reference Gobonobo is looking for. The paragraph pertaining to the Tim Dees editorial has a reference that links directly to the article online. The paragraph is a good representation of what is said in the editorial, so why do we need more references? What is Gobonobo looking for that isn't covered by the online article?
Now, when I recently opened up the Officer.com page, it seemed that the article opened up slowly. This could have been my connection or it could be the server that hosts Officer.com. Either way, the article is available for viewing and is a valid reference. DivaNtrainin (talk) 04:25, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh. I see it now. Sorry about that. Don't know how I missed that. Gobonobo T C 16:26, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  What kind of reference is needed? 

message: If this is helpful, here are some links to media coverage of copwatch.  Sorry, I don't have time to add anything these days.  
*Copwatcher arrested in Tarpon Springs
*list of media coverage in Atlanta
Peace, delldot ∇. 04:30, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Media coverage of Copwatch to add to article 

message: This article has been grotesquely vandalised, including an obscene background rendering the page illegible, and logos from Encyclopaedia Dramatica.  I am unable to figure out how this vandalism was effected, or how to revert it.  Would someone please do so?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.246.173.144 (talk) 19:18, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grotesque vandalism 

message: There was a poorly sourced statement in the Criticism section
"Critics argue that the group has displayed signs of an anti-police agenda."
Copwatch is a controversial organization and the statement is most likely true
(You my even find some of the membersof copwatch to agree with it) unfortunately the article cited
is very weak as an argument to this effect. Anyone who reads it will see that. I feel a either a better citation should be found or the line should be dropped. (as it does not add any information 
not found in the next paragraph)
--Paul the less (talk) 23:04, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very weak citation 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Copwatch. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080907125425/http://www.phoenixcopwatch.org/about.html to http://phoenixcopwatch.org/about.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 07:11, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified