Talk:Victims Compensation Tribunal

message: I have reverted the article to an earlier version from 2009, before Bachaven began contributing. The article was in a very poor state. I think it is important to point out that Wikipedia is not a place to publish personal essays, and articles should maintain a neutral point of view.
There were numerous problems with the previous state of the article:
* The background section quoted a lengthy portion of a speech made by a politician opposed to the original establishment of the tribunal. Information about the political debate at that time is appropriate to include in an encyclopedia article. However, lengthy quotes should be avoided where possible, and authors ought to try to work briefer quotations into sections that summarise the views expressed. This Wikipedia essay on the use of quotations provides helpful guidance. Further, authors should avoid representing only one side of a debate. In this instance the Labor government of the day controlled the state legislature and succeeded in passing the act that established the Victims Compensation Tribunal; I believe their point of view should therefore be considered notable and summarised in this section.
* Several instances of "essay-style" writing. For example, "Is the tribunal inquisitorial in nature?", "No authority has established that S.140 of the Evidence Act (NSW) does otherwise than reflect the common law. The principles are well known.", "A reasonable person could well ask how a Tribunal of Fact that does not seek evidence from the nominated defendant and does not permit an appeal by that person know that it has always make a correct judgment?", and "NO SUCH WORDS HAVE EVER APPEARED IN VICTIMS COMPENSATION LEGISLATION IN NSW". This type of language is not appropriate in an encyclopedia article.
* Excessive criticism of the Tribunal without inclusion of opposing views. This violates the requirement for articles to express a neutral point of view. The article said that the Tribunal awarded compensation to claimants who made "probably fraudulent" claims, called the Tribunal "inadequate, unbalanced, and unfair", and accused the NSW government of a "cover-up".
* Original research. For example, the 'High Probability of Fraudulent Claims' section not only included several uncited statements, where claims were cited, they were often used to reach original conclusions. This violates Wikipedia's policy of no original research.
* Inadequate referencing. Many sections included no references at all.
I will try to improve the article from its current state in the near future. I encourage any users wishing to edit the article to familiarise themselves with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines so that their future contributions can help to improve the article. In particular, the neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research policies are applicable here. --superioridad (discusión) 23:53, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revamp 

message: The single reason I am not reverting Bachavens edits again is that I suspect it will result in edit warring. I draw attention to the introduction:
The purpose of this article is (...) to demonstrate that due to its policy not to notify nominated defendants the very real possibility that fraudulent awards have been made and that these procedures are in breach of International Law. As evidence of this position the article analyzes the contradictory judgments... 
This is a long and winding personal essay, which should not be on WP. Superp (talk) 21:44, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seriously problematic article 

message: Once again I have gone through this article and replaced Mr Stals' name with a pseudonym.
Bachaven defends the use of the name with the following comment:
As both cases were open to the public with the Marsden judgment and hundreds of interlocutory judgments available on the internet, it cannot be claimed that Stals' name is subject to a non-publication order.
While someone conducting a very specific search may well discover his name within Austlii or Hansard online documents, I believe it is an unnecessary invasion of his privacy to have his name published throughout this article on the readily searchable Wikipedia.  I do not see how the use of his actual name lends any extra weight to the points that Bachaven makes in the article.  
Hashisan (talk) 13:00, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of Actual Name