RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Cop Block

Cop Block | Result: Beaten with a truncheon

Cop Block (edit|talk|history|protect|delete|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Delete

1. Whatever you think about police abolitionism and anti-police activism, as it currently stands this article is absolute dogshit. It's a stub with no depth of content, only two citations, reeks of editorialization, and runs the risk of being called a strawman, for good reason. I support a hasty delete. Carthage (talk) 03:58, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
2. Yeah, it's pretty crappy, and the site is basically dead. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 01:15, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
3. Hopelessly tiny stub; site has become irrelevant now and not worth the effort. As others have said, this site, though missional, is long dead. --Goatspeed. _{Stop the War On Secularism}🎄CircularRasoning🎄^{See my latest prototypes} 20:28, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
4. Sorry, put my vote in the wrong spot.-Flandres (talk) 20:31, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
5. Bongolian (talk) 20:24, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
6. WP version is more authorative and covers everything the RW stub does and more. I say delete our version until if/when someone actually has something more to say about CopBlock that WP refuses to cover [of which we can then re-create the page]. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:14, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Keep

1. Stub isn't a great reason to delete unless maybe if it was a really stubby stub. The page isn't a straw man at all, other than maybe the "Bitcoin = libertarian" thing. A "user upload system for police brutality complaints" sure sounds like it could be prone to the sort of hoaxes that VAERS is. Chillpilled (talk) 04:58, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

   There are only two citations. And there's no real analysis of complaints issued on the site. "Provocative articles" doesn't really tell me why the content is so objectionable. For example Wikipedia lists at least two controversies regarding alleged privacy violations by the site (although one can also argue that documenting police brutality to ensure public accountability is of more interest to the public than any "privacy" that allows abuses to continue unchecked) neither of which are covered on this page. There is also the issue of the editorialization. Carthage (talk) 05:01, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

   It seems like whoever wrote it may have been sympathetic to some of their aims. Keep in mind RW doesn't only have pages on objectionable people or websites but, also people or websites who themselves criticize the objectionable. Which police brutality certainly falls under. But we may also document their shortcomings where they're found, which this page doesn't really elaborate on much, true, but that's not necessarily reason to delete it, moreso to expand it if desired. Chillpilled (talk) 05:11, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

   Fair, but we've deleted articles for less (Maoist Rebel News comes to mind here). Put it in draftspace? Make it a work in progress? I don't think the article as is is mainspace-worthy, at the very least, but you raise some valid points. I also have to question the notability of this site. Is anyone citing Cop Block in 2023? Carthage (talk) 06:02, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

   The site does look pretty slow now, which could've been one of the better reasons for deleting the page, in that many people would see it as a reason to. Personally though I favor retention of articles that were notable at a time, as you never know when they might become relevant to the timeline of some other article (aside from more general "historical value"). Apparently they were notable enough to retain a Wikipedia article, which is a higher bar than RW tends to set. I think putting it in draftspace would just be a less-formal death sentence absent anyone vouching that they'd expand it there. Maoist Rebel News is one I would've wanted to retain if I had been at the vote, since I know how kind of "iconic" he is/was in the online Maoist Third-Worldist space regardless of his follower count, in part for his eccentricities and controversies, although this is a little off-topic. Chillpilled (talk) 07:21, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

   I could perhaps see a more general article about anti-police sentiment being written. Anti-police sentiment is now a lot more mainstream in 2023 than it was in 2011. Of course, that's also contingent on which community we're talking about. Anti-police sentiment definitely wasn't fringe in poor black communities in 2011. Our articles generally reflect a sort of critical approach to law enforcement too, which is reflective of that shift in sentiment (although the community as a whole tends to take a more skeptical stance towards outright abolitionism as opposed to reformism, although I don't think it's seen as equivalent to advocating for the gold standard anymore). There is also a lot of bullshit spread about, say, "defund the police" (like that cities that saw a legislative push to defund the police caused a correlated rise in crime, that's questionable to say the least, and the "evidence" cited in support is largely anecdotal. There is also problems with the methods used, which are obviously subject to bias and the reports released tend to be incomplete. A study done in 2019 showed that between 2010 to 2015 declining arrest rates had no measurable effects on homicide rates: ([1]). However, the same study showed that "targeted policing" has a measurable effect on crime prevention. It has also been found that the 2020-2021 rise in homicide rates have a clear correlation with the effects of the pandemic: ([2]) Others deliberately conflate defunding efforts with abolitionism (defunding would merely see a transfer of funds that go to overmilitarized police departments to other city service agencies that deal with, say, social work and social security that can be just as crucial to preventing crime as policing). However, this article itself I'm not sure we need. Maybe a section about how decentralized user reporting, which while crucial to covering things that would otherwise go unreported, can also lend itself to hoaxes? Carthage (talk) 08:09, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

2. This site seems to be moribund now with only 1 post in 2023 so far, but people have been archiving this site quite a bit over the years,[3] and in 2017 for example there were quite a lot of posts on the site.[4] Bongolian (talk) 08:36, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
3. If it's a stub but on mission-then the solution is improve - not delete.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 19:12, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
4. I have to agree with the historical value argument. Luigifan18 (talk) 20:35, 27 November 2023 (UTC)