Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:48, 30 August 2015

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

Software: Computing Unassessed

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Software, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of software on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SoftwareWikipedia:WikiProject SoftwareTemplate:WikiProject Softwaresoftware ??? This article has not yet received a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Computing.

Politics Start‑class Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics Start This article has been rated as Start-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Error: Target page was not specified with to.

Archives

Archive 1 -> June 2004 – Feb 2006 Archive 2 -> Feb 2006 – Nov 2008 Archive 3 -> Jan 2009 –

This page has archives. Sections older than 45 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present.

Template:Findsourcesnotice

Refimprove and OR tags

I have renewed the refimprove and OR tags recently removed from the article, since the problems they refer to are still very much present in the article. The article is a mess of original research and unsourced claims. For example all the images using the Freedom House study is original research, since that study doesn't mention police states, only the level of freedom in nations. The "Enlightened Absolutism" section provides no sources that connects this term with "Police state" and as such is also original research. The "History of usage" section contains one citation (not counting the irrelevant "electronic police state" citations, from which I removed some blatant original research), and while that citation is a good one, the section need a lot more citations for the specific claims made about the usage and history of the term. The "Examples of Police state" section also needs citations for 3/5 of the examples mentioned being police states.

All in all, even considering the relative briefness of the article, it is so problematic that I am tempted to suggest stubbing the article by removing all the unsourced material as well as the OR. That would in my opinion make a much better foundation for improvement than the current mess. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:56, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

As a first step to improve the article, I suggest that relevant, reliably sourced, NPOV contributions from other editors NOT BE SUMMARILY DELETED. Just a suggestion. I've tried to help, but I give up. The Freedom House material is highly relevant. An "unfree state" is obviously a police state. Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:21, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

No, obviously that's not obvious at all ... obviously, in fact, it's obviously false, since a constitutional state can obviously be unfree ... obviously. -- 184.189.217.91 (talk) 04:19, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Deletion/restoration of maps

"Authoritarian regimes" shown on maps are clearly synonymous with "police states". Ghostofnemo (talk) 12:29, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

the term "police state" is widely known and free to use. if the researchers had intended their work to reflect "police state" they certainly could have actively used the term. they didnt. for us to assume "synonymous" would then render this page a POV fork of Authoritarianism and be evidence that this should be a redirect and not a stand alone article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:22, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

and you are going against the overwhelming consensus of just a few months ago . Please stop your nonsense. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 06:49, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Instead of deleting reliably sourced material that is clearly relevant to the article, why not supply reliably sourced alternative rankings that you feel are less biased? The Economist, Freedom House, etc. are clearly reliable sources, but this doesn't mean they don't have a world view. Low freedom ranking equals police state. What other possible definition could there be? Is it logically possible to have an unfree state that is not a police state? This is "Paris is the capital of France" obvious. Ghostofnemo (talk) 14:02, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Here is a diff of the most recent deletion of reliably sourced, relevant, NPOV material from the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Police_state&diff=601352639&oldid=601352523 Ghostofnemo (talk) 14:07, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

it is NOT appropriately sourced as everyone has been indicating. The sources do not discuss "Police state" when they have ample opportunity to do so if they wanted and felt it was appropriate to the context of their material. Taking content out of the specific context of the sources is not allowed. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:09, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Low freedom ranking equals police state. -- regardless of how many times you assert this, it remains your unsourced opinion. (And you haven't even stated how low, which you could if your sources supported you.) -- 184.189.217.91 (talk) 04:23, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I suggest we try a Request for Comment WP:RFC on the "Politics, government, and law" issue area. Ghostofnemo (talk) 14:14, 26 March 2014 (UTC) Here is a possible description of the issue: The section "Rating systems", which includes the two maps to the far right on this version of the article https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Police_state&oldid=601352523 has been deleted repeatedly, the stated reason being that "police state" and "authoritarian regime" refer to two distinct and different things. Do you feel this section is relevant to the article "Police state", reliably sourced and neutral in point of view, or do you agree that it should be deleted because it doesn't belong in this article? Ghostofnemo (talk) 14:24, 26 March 2014 (UTC) The entire "Rating systems" section of the article Police state has been repeatedly deleted. It includes the text, references, and two maps which appear to the far right in this version of the article https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Police_state&oldid=601352523. Do you feel this section and these maps are relevant to the article, reliably sourced and neutral in point of view, or do you feel all this material should be deleted because it doesn't belong in the article? Ghostofnemo (talk) 09:57, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

• oppose inclusion of those items - the creators of those lists and studies were very clear in what they were looking and what they were measuring and why they were looking at what they looked at. They were not looking at / measuring indications of "police state". for us to translate their work from their context into a context that is not what their work was about is a violation of WP:SYN. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:18, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
  • and commenters may wish to be aware that this was discussed at the No Original Research notice boards a few months ago. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:32, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. That section is not properly referenced. It cites four sources, three of which do not even mention "police state", while one just mentions Eritrea being a police state. Connecting those sources and their claims with the "police state" would be an original research, which is prohibited. To include the "rating systems" section, we need some sources about the rating of police states, which I do not see. Vanjagenije (talk) 11:29, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Agree with the above editors that including this would constitute original research. AIRcorn (talk) 21:07, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
• Comment If multiple human rights organizations and publications are cited which label certain states as "unfree" or "authoritarian", how can it be original research? If this material is deleted, we have no objective basis whatsoever for the concept of "police state" - it becomes just an insult that is thrown around without any precise meaning. I'm not saying there is only one, objective yardstick, but at least this was a start. Ghostofnemo (talk) 15:23, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. I think I have made my case against Ghostofnemos repeated and inherent OR tendencies above. Nothing has changed since then. --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:10, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. They are either fork of authoritarianism or WP:OR with WP:POV. "The Economist, Freedom House, etc. are clearly reliable sources", no they are not in this case. Both represent specific political positions. Sietecolores (talk) 22:50, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Another, sad Misplaced Pages fail. Ghostofnemo (talk) 01:00, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

No, this was a success ... material that did not refer to police states was correctly rejected as a source for statements about police states. To treat "police state" and "authoritarian regime" or "unfree state" as synonymous (they clearly are not; constitutional states can be authoritarian and unfree) on your say-so would have been a failure. -- 184.189.217.91 (talk) 04:40, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

United States

Before anyone asks yes I am an American and I think absolutely that the US should be listed on here, it meets all the requirements for a police state and I would say the only reason it's not on here is 1) Fear 2) Americans on here being patriotic — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.81.199.193 (talk) 22:23, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Too bad that all the reliably sourced criteria that would help readers objectively discern what makes a society a police state have been deleted from the article. I guess it's just a matter of opinion, like who is a "freedom fighter" and who is an "insurgent". But seriously, if you can find reliable sources (textbooks, journal articles, articles from respected newspapers or magazines, etc.) that say the U.S. is a police state, go for it and we'll see what happens. Ghostofnemo (talk) 10:46, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

This appears to be a reasonable secondary source which says that the US could be turning into a police state: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/former-top-nsa-official-now-police-state.html Smk65536 (talk) 11:40, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

A blog entry is not a reliable source and what something "could be turning into" is not relevant to Misplaced Pages (http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Future_event). -- 184.189.217.91 (talk) 04:48, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Im German and I also think that the USA is a Police State like Iran and China.--95.113.237.137 (talk) 14:46, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what you or 173.81.199.193 think and this is not the place for your opinions. (And no, the U.S. does not "meet all the requirements for a police state", since it's a Rechtsstaat ... see the lede.) -- 184.189.217.91 (talk) 04:44, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

The USA has the largest prision system of world this country is an Unrechtsstaat.--95.114.36.218 (talk) 18:48, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Lack of Examples

Buenos-Ding-Dong-Didly-Dias:

I liked the part that says: "Political control may be exerted by means of a secret police force which operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state." Yet the article doesn't provide any examples in modern times. Is Canada such an example? Is the US? Surely there is some honest intellectual out there who would be able to provide an example of this kind other than the typical common examples everyone is taught in grade 12 social studies classes. Are there any Internet radicals out there that would like to bring to light the truth?

Saludos,

70.72.45.131 (talk) 00:21, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia. Bring sources. -- 184.189.217.91 (talk) 04:45, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Pinochet

The cited source describing Chile under Pinochet is of dubious quality, being merely one line lacking any argument, and bizarrely asserting that the free-market requires a police state, again without any argument. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.162.33.89 (talk) 18:04, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages controversial topics
• Unassessed software articles
• Unknown-importance software articles
• Unassessed software articles of Unknown-importance
• Unassessed Computing articles
• Unknown-importance Computing articles
• All Computing articles
• All Software articles
• Start-Class politics articles
• Mid-importance politics articles
• WikiProject Politics articles