Talk:Mark Kennedy (police officer)

Untitled
Surely there is more than 1 police spy in the whole world that is noteworthy? IS this really noteworthy if none of the others are??

For example is not Simon Brenner also noteable? If he is not notable for the German Wikipedia and Kenndy also not notable even though asked about in Parliament there then the category POLICE SPIES should be removed.

Also what has he done that is noteable? There seems to be little in the article that is actually noteable or useful in an encyclopedia rather than yellow press article. And nothing notable in the spying aspect for which he is actually listed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.113.96.60 (talk) 18:44, 22 January 2011


 * I think that there has been sufficient coverage to meet WP:BIO meaning that we can have an article on him. The fact that he was an undercover officer for so long is clearly notable, even you think that he has not done anything notable. I'm afraid I don't know how Simon Brenner is, but if many sources have discussed him directly, then he would meet our notability requirements. Note that the English + German wikipedias have different guidelines, so I am not sure what they require for an article. In some ways, I'm inclined to think it would perhaps be better to merge this into an article on the whole undercover issue, since that is more what this article is about than him and there were other officers uncovered at the same time. 19:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC) (This was left by me, but I obviously didn't use enough tildes when I signed SmartSE (talk) 20:09, 16 November 2011 (UTC))
 * He is notable, that is why I am here looking for him. Most notable (in my opinion) is that he is now known about! 'IS this really noteworthy if none of the others are??' Meaning you want to remove mention of the concept even ?? 188.220.186.57 (talk) 12:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Duncan Money's letter to LRB
While fixing ref citation parameters, I also checked every link to make sure they were still available. I followed one to the letters page of the London Review of Books and decided that it didn't stand up to scrutiny as a "reliable source". The section removed was a verbatim quotation from a letter written by "Duncan Money, Balliol College, Oxford" to the LRB. Money writes "Kennedy was reportedly..." (my emphasis); reported by whom? I'm not doubting the information, but a reader's letter to a book review isn't a RS in this instance. Keri (talk) 13:39, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Title
Why is the title (police officer) but not (former police officer)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hopper1010 (talk • contribs) 00:00, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Because he was notable for his activities as a police officer. Likewise Henry Moore (police officer) has the same parenthesis even though he not only retired but also died some time ago. Leutha (talk) 01:10, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Police spy?
I feel that the removal of Mark from the category, was in appropriate and regret that the matter was not discussed here first. As the lede says "whilst attached to the police service's National Public Order Intelligence Unit,[2] (NPOIU) infiltrated many protest groups between 2003 and 2010", now if that is not spying, then what is? User:Collect has suggested that this is "POV claim not sourced as statement of fact", however as we do not have a method of citing inline sources for categories, User:Collect can easily scan the profusion of newspaper reports which clearly show that Kennedy was indeed a police spy. It would be nice if they could correct their inappropriate deletion.Leutha (talk) 15:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * "Police spy" is a non-neutral term in the best of circumstances. "Undercover agent" is a neutral term.  BLPs must be written conservatively, thus a neutral term ought to be used. I trust this answers your question.  Else every single undercover cop could be labelled a "spy" in Wikipedia's voice.  Collect (talk) 15:28, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I've made a new category "Category:Undercover police agents", perhaps this is a solution everyone will be happy with. I'm neutral on whether to use the term 'spy' or 'undercover agent'.Jonpatterns (talk) 16:10, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Danke - certainly a lot less confrontational in esse. Collect (talk) 16:39, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Powerbase and Police Spies Out of Lives
Whilst I agree that these should have been removed from "External links", these are both reliable sources - in their quite different ways - for the material which has been added: Powerbase is a media response that has arisen from the Mark Kennedy case, and likewise Police Spies Out Of Lives is part of the aftermath that has arisen from his activities. Whether or not either would constitute a reliable source about PC Kennedy's behaviour is not the issue here. Leutha (talk) 00:03, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

See WP:RS: ''Content from websites whose content is largely user-generated is also generally unacceptable. Sites with user-generated content include personal websites, personal blogs, group blogs, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), the Comic Book Database (CBDB.com), content farms, most wikis, and other collaboratively created websites.  Also ads on commercial cites are not considered RS either:  the content guidelines for External links prohibits linking to "Individual web pages that primarily exist to sell products or services,"   And in WP:EL:  This specifically includes e-commerce and other commercial-sales links, which are prohibited in External links but allowed in footnoted citations. and Open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors''. Collect (talk) 00:10, 29 March 2016 (UTC)