Talk:University of California, Riverside 1985 laboratory raid

message: I've blocked 134.161.137.162 for 24h and reverted back to what appears to be the more popular version. Given that it does appear to be the consensus, I'm ignoring SWD316's 4 reverts just this time. But don't do it again. William M. Connolley 20:04, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I noticed that my reverts are more than 3 in 24 hours as well. (I just got the timing wrong, thinking it was earlier last night when this all started). I will try to be more careful in future.-Localzuk (talk) 20:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK I'll forgive you :-). You get extra points for turning yourself in... William M. Connolley 00:14, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  3RR 

message: I notice this article says the monkey was removed at 3 weeks old, yet over at the ALF there is a caption claiming the same animals was photographed at 5 weeks with his eyes sutured shut. Unless the ALF left the monkey sutured up for a few weeks (unlikely, but you never can tell) i would suggest there is a conflict there. Anyone know the real age the animal was removed/stolen/liberated? Rockpocket 20:51, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From memory, the three/five week confusion is because the monkey was identified at three weeks as an animal they wanted to remove/liberate/steal, and the raid took place two weeks later, which caused confusion when the sources reported the ALF statement. I'll re-check the more authoritative sources later. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:05, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  3 or 5 weeks? 

message: Should primates etc. always referred as he/she? Lapinmies 21:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, not sure I understand your query. Britches is male, I believe, so he's referred to as he. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:06, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems that animals are called he/she in English. I remember my old english teacher saying that animals are not humans so one must use "it" instead of he/she. I guess she was confused. Lapinmies 23:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, she was confused. It is acceptable to refer to an animal whose gender you do not know as "it", but if you're talking about a pet then people generally prefer that you ask and use the correct gender pronoun: obviously if there's no way to tell, then you're stuck with "it". The main difference is that it is almost never acceptable to refer to a human being as "it": this is when you start stumbling into arguments like "singular they". HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 10:28, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding humans (sorry, I know a bit OTH), it used to be commonplace, and might possibly still see some use when the gender is unknown, to refer to infants or very young toddlers as "it". Nowadays, of course, this is far less common, as is the case with animals; and more so due to the ubiquity of clothing baby boys in blue and baby girls in pink (100 years ago, babies and all young children wore white gowns/dresses, regardless of sex. Very young humans, back then, effectively had no gender at all, in the most literal of senses. Firejuggler86 (talk) 20:38, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

text: Some researchers use "it" because they believe using gendered pronouns overly anthropomorphizes the subjects, and I believe some journals used to enforced this rule through their editorial standards.  However, now most researchers are quite concerned with the well-being of their subjects and some signal this by referring to them with gendered pronouns, and most journals seem to accept this.  This does not mean that researchers who still use "it" necessarily violate animal welfare codes, but it does sometimes signal a particular POV.    --Jaibe 16:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  He or it

message: I've protected this article so you'll have to sort your differences out here. Gamaliel 18:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, I think the consensus of the community has already been decided partly on this page and partly on the Talk:Animal Liberation Front page. This user has appeared before (as the IP address he uses is from a dynamic range) and done the same changes and been blocked for it, should he not have been blocked? -Localzuk (talk) 18:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As we now have calm, maybe we should have another discussion about the issue: -Localzuk (talk) 19:06, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  protection 

message: 7 entries found for stole.
steal   Audio pronunciation of "stole" ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (stl)
v. stole, (stl) sto·len, (stln) steal·ing, steals
v. tr.
   1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
   2. To get or effect surreptitiously or artfully: steal a kiss; stole the ball from an opponent.
   3. To move, carry, or place surreptitiously.
   4. To draw attention unexpectedly in (an entertainment), especially by being the outstanding performer: The magician's assistant stole the show with her comic antics.
   5. Baseball. To advance safely to (another base) during the delivery of a pitch, without the aid of a base hit, walk, passed ball, or wild pitch.
:Yes, we are aware of dictionary definitions. However, as the above discussion makes aware - it is still a weighted word. In the context it will be used in this article we must have a reference to a court case to prove that it was 'stolen' and we have not got that at present. If you can provide such a reference, by all means do so and then I for one would accept the use of 'stolen'.
:But if we are to use your definitions above then I will. First, number 1. This one states 'without right or permission' - the people who removed Britches believed they had the right to do so in order to prevent an extreme level of cruelty. In the eyes of the law this is a defence. If the animal was actually in a situation where extreme cruelty was occurring (as it appears it was, look at the statements of the industry, university and other scientists denouncing the experiment) then a judge could rule that the people who removed the monkey were in fact legally right to do so - so would not have stolen it. This would mean 'liberated' would be a better word...
:I do not believe any of the other definitions are relevent to this situation. -Localzuk (talk) 10:53, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: consider this the discussion

message: The article cites "according to reports filed by the university with the government", but the footnotes are to Latern Books publications.  Can anyone firnd the reports? Rich Farmbrough, 11:21 20  December 2006 (GMT).
:We don't need to - just look at those references and they explain perfectly.-Localzuk(talk) 23:34, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources

message: The people on the WP:NPR page are saying (among other things) that "poster child" articles may have inherent POV issues, because Wikipedia is not a soapbox.  This could actually be grounds for a deletion, but that would seem a waste of some decent content to me.  Maybe this article could be changed into a more neutral-perspective account of the break in & thefts / removals?
Notice that they also discuss the importance of the references.--Jaibe 22:14, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV fixed by merge or move? 

message: I can't tell from reading the article if this was a name given by the technicians in the university, or a name given to the monkey by the ALF. Are there some independent secondary sources that use this name? Tim Vickers (talk) 17:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There are no third party sources that refer to the name Britches that have been included in this article to date. It is used by ALF, PETA, Newkirk, and Steve Best. The claim from those parties is that the UCR lab name for the monkey was Britches. However POV or unreliable those sources may be, the process of naming laboratory monkeys is quite common, and Britches would not be an unusual name in the context of the lab monkey names I have come across. --Animalresearcher (talk) 18:34, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Who named the monkey?

message: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." This particular statement of WP:V would seem to apply to the article on Britches. --Animalresearcher (talk) 00:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We do have reliable, third-party sources. Also I found a reference to a congressional hearing that calls it the "well-known" raid at UCR. If you want to look it up, it was a hearing before the Committee on Agriculture to discuss the Farm Animal and Research Facilities Protection Act of 1989, published 1991. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  There are no third-party sources that use the name "Britches" or describe the path of Britches from "rescue" to "sanctuary". Also, when you say you found a reference, does that mean you saw the congressional hearing text (please transcribe if you have), or that you saw a reference you have not yet looked up in a book written by an activist?--Animalresearcher (talk) 01:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  From Wikipedia:Verifiability 

message: UC Riverside ALF Raid. I propose that this page be linked in to the various testing pages in lieu of the Britches (monkey) page as it reflects the third party reliable references on the event, and because articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. The Britches page relies on non-third party sources, and unreliable sources. --Animalresearcher (talk) 14:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've redirected that page to here. AR, you can't write two pages on the same issue. If your main objection is the name of this one, I'm perfectly willing to discuss another title, though I'm not keen on "UC Riverside ALF Raid" for a number of reasons. But if your objection is the sources the page uses, it will use these sources no matter what the title is. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 12:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  The issue is that the article, including name and content, should principally rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. I do not think the two pages are about the same issue. The Britches (monkey) page is about a monkey the ALF claims they rescued, the state in which they found this monkey, the veterinarian report they say describes the monkey, and the ultimate disposition of the monkey. The UC Riverside ALF Raid page was about the raid. It makes only very loosely tangential references to an infant monkey. The UC Riverside ALF Raid page was largely based on reliable third party sources. The Britches page is largely based on reliable non-independent sources and extremist group sources. The content referenced in the animal testing pages should be a reflection of third party NPOV reporting on the event (as I tried to write, and jossi cleaned up - thanks!), and not a reflection of non-independent accounts, and extremist groups, version of uncheckable events. I really think the accounts of the raid should be minimized on the Britches page, and referenced to the Raid page, and vice versa, and that the Raid page should be referenced from the animal testing and non-human primate page for NPOV reasons. I have no stock in the name "UC Riverside ALF Raid", I read the criteria on Wikipedia naming conventions and did the best I could with the event and its notability from third party reliable reporting of the event. If you have another name, go for it. But I think this re-direct is wrong, and is a significant POV error. --Animalresearcher (talk) 13:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We're not having POV forks of this article. All the sources can (and must) be given space on the same page. I don't really see what difference the title makes, because all the alternatives can be redirects, which means they'll show up on Google under a search for that term. So I'm a bit confused as to why you feel so strongly that the title should be changed. Also, Britches was the reason for the raid, according to PETA. The ALF was tipped off about the lab by a student who was upset by the way Britches was being treated; perhaps I should add that to the article. He was also what made the university stop some of the funding, so he really was the focus of the raid. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 14:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I do not consider this a POV fork. Britches the monkey is minimally an issue in the UC Riverside ALF Raid page that I wrote. Britches the monkey is the principal topic on the Britches page. The name should be chosen to reflect what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize about the third party reliable source content of the page. Wikipedia pages, in general, are about reliable third party source content. The name and story of Britches outside of UC Riverside do not appear in any third party sources. --Animalresearcher (talk) 14:47, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  An example of a page based on the UC Riverside raid third party reliable references 

message: Do people feel the title should be changed, and if so, does anyone have suggestions for an alternative? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 18:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes.  The title of the page should represent the entirety of the event, i.e. that individuals under the auspices of the ALF raided a lab belonging to the Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside and removed animals, lab equipment, and records, as well as, vandalized property.  Earlier people were discussing the possibility of two pages.  Precedence for for such does exist.  For example, we have a page for the "September 11, 2001 Attacks" and "American Airlines Flight 77."  Obviously the latter was a subject of the former, but the former describes the totality of the event.  I, too, would argue that Britches is not notable, but rather the event of breaking in to a university and vandalizing and removing property is notable 68.46.183.96 (talk) 08:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Please. If it is not already obvious, the only people who have read the relevant third party sources on this topic are you and I. I already suggested something that I felt was in keeping with Wikipedia naming conventions with respect to the subject matter covered in third party reliable sources. However, I also find it possible that the best solution would be undoing the re-direct, and keeping the Britches page about Britches, and keeping the UC Riverside ALF Raid page about the third party reliable sources on that raid. Both pages would be edited to reflect their content, and refer to and link to the other related page. MOST of what is in the Britches story occurs AFTER Britches was removed from UCR. MOST of the UC Riverside ALF Raid is about the morning the animals were removed. These articles would only overlap minimally in the events they covered. --Animalresearcher (talk) 18:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A third-party source just means someone other than the subject or the main actor. So PETA is a third party source, as is the Foundation for Biomedical Research and BUAV. I've opened up this section so that other people can make suggestions about the title. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 18:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  PETA was the press agent for the ALF Raid, and Ingrid Newkirk runs PETA. Steve Best later ran the ALF press office. Both PETA and ALF were involved in the incident, so Newkirk and Best are not third party. --Animalresearcher (talk) 18:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Steven Best is an academic who much later (15 years after the raid roughly) was a spokesperson for the ALF. Ingrid Newkirk publicized the raid for PETA, as she does with every animal rights issue she can think of. Neither of these things means they're not third parties. You really are stretching things here. I concede to you that they both have the same POV, which means we need additional sources with other POVs, or none. But it doesn't mean they can't be used as sources. As I said above, your main aim at Wikipedia seems to be to remove the AR perspective entirely, and that's not acceptable. As much as you hate it, it has a right to be heard. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 18:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  First party reports  comes from participants in the event. Second party reports come from a spokesperson or agent for a participant in the event. Third party reports comes from someone who is neither a participant or agent thereof. That Steve Best was not an ALF spokesperson in the mid 1980s does not matter. He is now, and was when his book was released. PETA acted as the ALF press office during the event. Your suggestion that Best is not second person would be like saying the current White House press secretary Dana Perino gives third party accounts of things that happened in the Bush White House before she was press secretary. The current press office can NEVER give third party accounts of the organization for which it is the press office - simply because the events occurred prior to their involvement with the office. --Animalresearcher (talk) 22:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Dana Perino is paid by the White House, so she is officially a first or second party in WH related events. PETA, which is interested in AR issues, publicizes some ALF related events simply because such publicity serves its agenda, not because it is under any contractual obligation. To use your example, if some Republican organization picked up a WH related story and publicized it, it would still be a third party, even if it shares the WH POV and publicizes some related events. Crum375 (talk) 23:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  The difference is not whether one is paid, but whether one is a proxy ie: whether one is authorized to present the ALF versions of events. You can note that the NY Times reports that PETA is speaking as a proxy for ALF here when it leads its story "The Animal Liberation Front said today that it had rescued 260 laboratory animals " and the only communication it had was a phone call from PETA. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9400E1DC1E38F932A15757C0A963948260&scp=1&sq=vicky+miller+raid&st=nyt
--Animalresearcher (talk) 23:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The source says there is a pattern that PETA informs the media about ALF actions, but doesn't say that PETA acts a proxy. Unless there is some contractual obligation, PETA is acting voluntarily, and can pick and choose what it reports or ignores, based on its own interests. Therefore, it is not an involved party. I think you are assuming that all organizations or individuals with the same POV are first or second parties, and that's clearly false. The first party is the party that performs the action, second it the one the action is performed upon, and third is any else, even if they share POV with the first or second parties. Crum375 (talk) 02:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Confused logic. The source reports the PETA phone call as authorized from ALF to report the actions from ALF's perspective. There has never been any dispute of this to my knowledge. You are also confusing "involved party" with "authorized spokesperson" aka proxy. --Animalresearcher (talk) 03:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So by your logic, if CBS News gets an exclusive video tape from Bin Laden of an Al Qaeda operation, CBS News is now a first or second party with Al Qaeda, right? If not, please explain the difference. Crum375 (talk) 05:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

text:  That is not the same, because CBS does not have authorization. No one would expect CBS to present a story on the video to be the Al Qaeda version of events. They would not present the video in its entirety, and would further solicit other expert opinion on the video, its accuracy and authenticity. PETA presented ALF's version of the story. Newkirk presented ALF's version of the veterinarian report. In the exampled from the NY Times above, it is clear that a publisher with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy considered PETA to be the ALF proxy in the Riverside case, because they made statements they directly attributed to ALF, when their only sources came from PETA. --Animalresearcher (talk) 10:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Title

message: I further take issue with the assumption that PETA is a reliable source "as a publisher". The film Unnecessary Fuss was demonstrated to be full of errors such as water in contact with an animal being misidentified as an acid spill, and footage of one animal being misrepresented as footage of multiple, different, animals. This establishes one incident in which the source footage and edited footage were both analyzed, and PETA was found to be unreliable in its edits. More specifically, Ingrid Newkirk was the voiceover for the acid/water spill, indicating that she personally is unreliable as a source. Her voiceover was found to contain 25 errors by the OPRR in its analysis.--Animalresearcher (talk) 00:28, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: AR, we have been though this, ad nauseam, on Animal Testing talk. You are again incorrectly assuming that "reliable" means "truthful," but that's not Wikipedia's definition. By reliable we mean a published source that has a reputation for fact checking and legal scrutiny. In this case, the acid spill was called an acid spill by the researcher, which Newkirk merely repeated. Had she called it a "water spill," that would have been inaccurate. As far as the multi animal vs. single animal, the source I saw, merely said that the film showed the same animal over and over, but never said this was not representative of all the rest. The source there also mentioned numerous violations by the institution. But we are off topic — wrong article, and wrong criterion. Crum375 (talk) 02:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  This speaks directly to fact-checking and accuracy. OPRR analyzed the SOURCE VIDEO, and the EDITED VIDEO and found it inaccurate. They further found Newkirk's voiceover inaccurate. --Animalresearcher (talk) 10:20, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  PETA, PETAtv, and Ingrid Newkirk as reliable sources 

message: http://dels.nas.edu/ilar_n/ilarjournal/40_1/40_1Roots.shtml
OPRR refused to act on the basis of evidence contained in an edited tape. The University of Pennsylvania claimed that Unnecessary Fuss was a caricature of the actual proceedings that had taken place in the laboratory. For more than 1 yr, PETA refused to turn over the evidence it had to OPRR. In the spring of 1984, PETA sent the unedited tapes to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA1), which in turn sent them to OPRR. OPRR asked 18 veterinarians, mostly diplomates of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine, who were for the most part employed by various institutes within NIH, to review the tapes and report on their findings concerning violations of the PHS Policy or the AWA....OPRR discovered that Unnecessary Fuss presented the case history of only one of approximately 150 animals that had received whiplash. By clever editing and inaccurate voice over, the viewer was led to believe that the inhumane treatment depicted on the film was repeated numerous times. In actual fact, one baboon was badly treated, and the film repeatedly showed the particular mistreatment while the commentator narrated that the mistreatment was repeated on a long series of different animals.
I don't think evidence on source, and publisher, unreliability get much more clear than that.  --Animalresearcher (talk) 10:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third Party reporting on PETA unreliability, and Newkirk unreliability 

message: I make these proposals in light of the fact that it still remains principally based on second party reports from unreliable sources. 
1) Remove unreliable sources This includes Ingrid Newkirk's book, and the ALF reports. However, a short sentence indicating the existence of the ALF video, and providing a link to it, and noting the existence of Newkirk's book are fine. But copious sourcing from those sources violates WP:V and WP:RS
2) Base the content on the scope, significance, notability, and POVs found in third party reliable sources. These sources include the NY Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Philadephia Inquirer, Glamour magazine, the CRISP archive, and the Behavioral Neuroscience article written by David Warren.
3) Complement the content with material found in second-party reliable sources. This includes the Best book. 
These proposals, particularly the first one, are strongly rooted in Wikipedia policies. People and agencies who intentionally falsify and misrepresent their reporting have no place as sources in Wikipedia. Articles should be principally based on third party reliable sources, and POV and significance should reflect the range and prevalence of POV in third party reliable sources, and significance within those third party sources. Second party reliable sources can in many cases complement an article, but have no place in dictating POV or range of POV, or significance or prevalence of ideas/POVs. --Animalresearcher (talk) 13:48, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposals for moving the page forward 

message: As further evidence that PETA acknowledges itself as a second party (ie: spokesgroup) for ALF actions, see http://epw.senate.gov/109th/Exhibit_6.pdf 
It is a PETA factsheet that was entered in evidence at a Senate hearing. James Inhofe referred to PETA as a spokesgroup
for ALF during the hearing. He said "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (“PETA”), a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization has given money to ELF [Chart #5 – PETA tax return] and ELF/ALF members while acting as the spokesgroup for ELF and ALF after committing acts of terrorism. [Chart #6 – PETA document stating they are spokesgroup] "
Inhofe goes on to talk about Steven Best " Dr. Steven Best, a University of Texas professor, is an example of a spokesperson for ELF and ALF ..."
The issue that PETA and Best are spokespersons/groups for ALF is salient as to whether Newkirk and Best should be treated at third party sources or not. A spokesperson or group is a second party to the actions of the group it speaks for, and not a third party.  The US Senate URL for this hearing is http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=247266
--Animalresearcher (talk) 22:50, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: PETA acting as a spokesgroup for ALF

message: I am not sure I see the point in nitpicking the accounts of Newkirk about the animal. There are no reliable reports, whatsoever, about what happened to the animal after it left UC-Riverside. This material should be removed, wholesale, and only elements contained in reliable accounts should be included, weighted by how they are represented in reliable third party reports. Newkirk is a known fabricator of events related to raids on animal testing sites.  --Animalresearcher (talk) 18:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: For as long as the material is here, it makes sense to ensure it is accurate. If there are no third party reports we either have a situation where we have no information for our readers, or we provide them with Newkirk's account (and permit them the make their won judgment about her reliability). Rockpocket 20:11, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Newkirk was not involved in this raid. She took the information about it and published it, just as she does with every single report of animal abuse that she receives. This repeated denigration of her has to stop, for BLP reasons as much as anything else. The policy applies to talk pages too. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 20:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Source: WP:V. Newkirk is a known fabricator of events relating to mid 1980s raids on animal testing centers. This is sourced information - with high third party reliability, and BLP concerns are not warranted when material comes from reliable third-party published sources and there is a clear demonstration of relevance. Obviously, we are quite free to discuss Ingrid Newkirk's reliability, backed by good sources, when we discuss whether her sources should be included in an article. Further, PETA was acting as a proxy for ALF - as a mouthpiece - as a spokesgroup - according to all sources, which makes them and Newkirk a second party to these events, not a third party. Irrespective of 2nd vs 3rd party designation, Newkirk is unreliable in this case. The material that can only be sourced to Newkirk's book should be removed, wholesale, and that includes the name "Britches", as well as the sections "Medical Report" and "Britches after the raid". In these cases, when we cannot be reasonably sure an unreliable party is misleading us intentionally, the material needs to be removed. --Animalresearcher (talk) 10:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Why nitpick the retirement issue?

message: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7243221390535322676#  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.197.76 (talk) 23:40, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  url of video is dead 

message: Can't get the video to load fully. 117.207.235.129 (talk) 19:04, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I deleted it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  video broken?