Talk:Bromley London Borough Council

Criticism section

I've twice removed some additions to the Criticism section, because in my opinion they violated WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:SYNTH. This was first added by an IP a few days ago, and it's clearly a violation of the above policies. It was reverted soon afterwards.

Very similar material, expanded, was added by User:MrPhibbs here, and I reverted it. It contained all the same problems as the original.

Next, User:Ehrenkater made this attempt at compromise, but I thought it was still problematic. A private email is not a reliable source. The statement "This is contrary to some expert opinion and to the core message of the UK police's Speed Awareness Courses attended by motorists found guilty of speeding offences.{{fact}}" is unsourced. And the statement "The council has declared that it is philosophically opposed to standard traffic-calming measures such as speed cushions" is not supported by the cited source.

I tried my own compromise, to produce this, which is the only content with any reliable sourcing (I thought). User:Ehrenkater noted that what was left is not criticism (In fact, nothing that anyone has tried to add has been supported by any actual sourced criticism - the criticism has been pure OR/synthesis), and placed the material in its own section to be neutral, which seemed fair.

But then it struck me that the only source left was the map, and that is uploaded as "own work" by the uploader, User:MrPhibbs. MrPhibbs has since stated that it is not actually his own copyright to release, so I'll go and request its deletion as a copyright violation as soon as I've posted this.

My conclusion is that none of this material was supported by any reliable sources (even after all the POV editorializing is removed), and so there's nothing of it than is currently valid. I have removed what was left, and I now seek discussion and consensus on whether any of it should go back. Perhaps the statement about 20-mph calming would be OK in its own section (as suggested by Ehrenkater) would be acceptable if sourced to the original source of that map? Opinions welcome please. 823510731 (talk) 17:56, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

• As this is within the scope of WikiProject London, I've requested assistance at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London#Opinions sought at Talk:Bromley London Borough Council please. 823510731 (talk) 18:01, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks for this. I have just now written to 20splenty to ask them for copyright permission to use this map... but I'm not sure how I would upload it, even then, because the question you get asked is "do you have copyright?"... do you happen to know what the procedure is?

Concerning the substance of the matter. I note that user Ehrenkater used this phrase about "minority of Labour-run councils". It's not difficult to characterise this as highly non-neutral, and indeed irrelevant, and therefore unacceptable.

It is perfectly plain to me that a description of aspects of the traffic policy implemented by BLBC, and criticism thereof, are of interest, and germane to the subject of the article.

As soon as I have permission to use the map I shall therefore feel it is reasonable once again to try to upload it, and display it in a large enough size to be legible.

I shall also attempt to draw attention to the statement of intent about speed cushions, etc. on the BLBC website. But perhaps instead of "Criticism" I can entitle the section "Policy relating to traffic-calming" or some such.MrPhibbs (talk) 18:24, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi. I think we can probably get together a section on traffic calming (Ehrenkater suggested "Traffic management philosophy", although I'd suggest "Traffic management policy" might be better), as long as we can source it properly. The copyright policy links I gave you over in your Welcome message should cover getting the map released - though we don't actually need the map itself to be released for upload, as I suggested on your talk page, we really only need a link to the site page that holds it (I couldn't find it myself, so can you tell us where the link is?) I've also explained on your talk page why we do not show images at full size by default - policy is to show them thumbnail size and you just click on them to see full size. As for criticism of the policy, we'd need actual reliable sources voicing such criticism. We cannot do our own research to deduce that criticism is warranted and cannot express any criticism in Wikipedia's voice. I'll be happy to help with it, but I don't have time now. I suggest we leave this discussion open for a while and I'll see what I can propose tomorrow? In the meantime, I would ask you not to reinsert the disputed content until we have a consensus here first - I know it's a lot of alphabet soup and it's confusing for newcomers, but please have a read of WP:EW, as I'd hate to see you fall foul of it and get blocked. 823510731 (talk) 18:50, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)First, figure 2.1 on page 4 of Review of 20 mph Zones in London Borough, a TRL report prepared for TfL, shows one or more 20 mph zones in every London borough except Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea in November 2002. I'm surprised at the claim that there are less now than there were in 2002 and would like to see that substantiated with a reliable source. Second, the "Criticism" section of a Wikipedia article is not a blogging space for editors to raise their own criticisms, it is a space in which we may describe criticism and as ever our descriptions are constrained by policies and guidelines on notability, sourcing and neutral point of view. NebY (talk) 18:53, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Good points. While I don't mean to doubt 20splenty's honesty, it is an advocacy site and something up-to-date from a more neutral source is probably what's really needed. 823510731 (talk) 19:04, 15 November 2015 (UTC)