Talk:Discretion

Untitled
What does discretion mean in all those online personal ads on usenet and craigslist?

for example:

Family Guy Guy 17:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Answer: In this context, "discretion" means "The ability and intention to keep secretive about information that, while not convicting of a crime, is humiliating, dehonesting, defaming, defacing etc." Examples: People should be discreet when they accidentally witness two people having a sexual intercourse, or when they witness someone who forgot to zip his trousers etc. - if you are indiscreet, if you tell others, the person "caught" may have trouble arising from the fact that at certain society levels, you're supposed not to do certain things (or do them at certain places or under certain circumstances). Alcator 19:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

BRAVO
My Family Guy made my Hero List http://www.youtube.com/user/ubuibiok DAV USAF, Man= -/+? Ubuibiok (talk) 10:21, 1 FEB 2009 (UTC)

Too Get on "My Hero List", You have to Impress me Beyond Belief and Have & Hold 99.9% of the Pieces to "The Big Picture". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ubuibiok (talk • contribs) 10:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Planned improvements
A brief outline of what I intend to do with this topic TheTurf (talk) 16:31, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

this is an outline of major changes, as such we will not mention little changes with minor effect like changing the meaning title to definition (which I intend to do) instead we will focus on what will be added in each heading to flush out the article.

Introduction

Meaning
 * add some examples of why discretion matters

In law other context
 * add a mention that law and the application thereof is an act of discretion (cite Shane, Peter M) -done
 * 1) criminal
 * outline each participant in a crime (the victim, the perpetrator/the accused, the officer(s) involved, the prosecution, the defense, the judge, the jury, dispatch, etc and list what acts of discretion each has (there will be several citations on this one) -done
 * 1) civil
 * talk about acts of discretion like evicting a person due to lack of rent payment (we need some research on this topic I think)
 * 1) Abuse of discretion
 * talk about the bounds of the discretion given to any one person, we could easily link to other wiki articles like police brutality or the recent shootings as examples. self defense can go here as well.

references
 * maybe look into what other acts of discretion can be made outside the parameters listed above (belief/religion maybe?)


 * this will fill in as we go along so don't even bother

Let me know any thoughts you have on this TheTurf (talk) 18:10, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Concerns for improvement
The Opening paragraph, what needs to be written here to adequately summarize the article

Civil, we are having trouble finding sources for this section

Other contexts, should we add, remove or change? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheTurf (talk • contribs) 18:07, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions for revisions and expansions
The opening section needs some work. It makes sense to state that there are positive and negative views of discretion, but discretion is a much wider topic than just law enforcement. The couple of sentences about law enforcement would make more sense somewhere in the "In Law" section. The last two sentences of the introduction to the "In Law" section might violate Wikipedia policies about neutral point of view and no original research. The way it's written sounds like the author is taking a side in the argument about whether discretion weakens the rule of law. This part would be more balanced with discussion of both sides without coming to a conclusion unless there is a clear consensus in the research about the relationship between the rule of law and discretion. If the latter is the case, then there should be multiple sources cited to show such a consensus. The "Criminal" section has some writing and grammar errors that need to be fixed, including the lack of a period at the end of the paragraph. Also in that section, police officers don't file charges. That's the prosecutor's job. The section would be more organized by starting with the victim, then talking about police officers, and then court actors. The page might also be better organized by making the "Abuse of Discretion" section a primary section with subsections dealing with different aspects such as abuse in law enforcement, the courts, etc.

As for the specific questions concerns for improvement, I'd suggest that the opening paragraph give more attention to the various aspects of discretion covered in the article. For instance, discretion is an element of law and other areas, and there has also been some debate about abuse of discretion (what constitutes abuse and is the use of discretion an abuse of power in itself). For now, it makes sense to focus on developing the criminal law parts rather than civil law section. It makes sense to leave the "Other Contexts" section as-is for now. As the article is expanded, others might be able to fill in that section. Profmwilliams (talk) 18:06, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

in the part about  "...laws cannot be written without using discretion..." it seems a little unclear to me about the "using" part as i would think it would be more about the law be written and discretion is what individuals use "in applying" the law. I'm not quite sure it comes across that way as written. When i first read it it seemed like it was saying the law had to either be written with discretion pieces in it or that the law was written vaguely at to be open for interpretation.

adding a little bit more to explain/clarify this would help to make it clear

your ideas/suggestion for what you would like to see done to improve the topic (from the talk page) i think covers many options/areas that can be worked on/improved going forward. I think it will just be a matter of what areas you want to focus on to improve with what few weeks we have left for the project

''There are some arguments that implementing discretion overrules or weakens the rule of law. However, laws cannot be written without using discretion and therefore the rule of law serves to guide discretion towards societal expectations, norms and, at least in part, public interes''

I think that "however" might be better to come after the word "Law". ( Laws, however, cannot be written....)

 But, where law ends and discretion begins lies in implementing those laws.

Starting the sentence with "but" reads a little strange. perhaps a phrase such as " an important piece of where law ends..."

''The Dispatch officer decides the priority of the call, an officer responding has discretion to take statements from witnesses as well as detain potential suspects. ''

Perhaps combining the two sentences together such as ( The Dispatch officer decides the priority of the call and an officer responding has...)

The suspect/the accused has the discretion to obtain a lawyer, how they will plead and to accept a plea bargain.

kind of the same problem. Try combining the two sentences with "and" Shadowbolt7 (talk) 18:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

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