Talk:Wickham Laboratories Ltd

Latest comment: 14 years ago by Bullzeye in topic Possible POV issues

Possible POV issues

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Hi, I believe there may be some serious WP:POV issues in the article.

Use of "raided" and "removed" based on book written by the subject

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The use of "raided" to describe the act of breaking into the laboratory, and especially "removed" to describe the act of stealing the mice violate WP:WEASEL and should be neutrally reworded. These weasel words are both from the autobiography of the same guy who broke into the lab and stole the mice! This grossly fails standards for neutrality, reliable sources, and about a dozen other policies, and serve no purpose other than to minimize the author's perceived offense.

More amazingly, the only other reference in the article mentioning the break-in that wasn't written by the subject is the The Portsmouth Today reference, previously added by User:SlimVirgin, which uses the term "terror tactics" to describe the break-in!

I've added a neutral reference from The Independent, and (per it) I'm changing it to "burglary" and "burglarized". These are official legal terms and are supported by the reference. In case you were interested, in his other book, Mann himself states on page 31 that he and his associates "had gone there tooled up to break-in (headlights, crowbar, screwdrivers, cutters, saw and so on)".

Cursing at rabbits

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The Times Online citation here states "The filming, compiled over a period of eight months, included a sequence in which a member of staff made a number of attempts to inject a rabbit. She is recorded calling the animal “a little shit” and “a disgrace”.

a)This is the only example cited of the aforementioned cursing, and the wording ("included a sequence...") makes it appear that this was the only such incident captured. Therefore, it needs to be in the singular.
b)Furthermore, the Times Online article points out the circumstance, i.e- the lab worker is trying to inject the rabbit and is struggling with it and cursing at it out of frustration. Allegations aside, at the VERY minimum this sentence needs to include the explanation of the circumstances that is in the original reference, to avoid POV by deliberate omission.

Quotations

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The removal of the quotation marks from the directly quoted threat that Bishop's "troubles had just begun". This is both directly cited from the Portsmouth Today reference previously added by User:SlimVirgin and largely abbreviated for some reason. Both have a serious POV context. Thus, I've restored the full and unabridged quote with the appropriate inline citation. I've even added one from the judge in the case in order to flesh it out better. Again, these are all 100% directly quoted from the references.

Thanks! Bullzeye contribs 07:35, 29 December 2009 (UTC)Reply