Talk:Musgrave Park, Brisbane

Low quality article, bordering on racist
A lot of the article is essentially "lol, aboriginies are drunk and high". Commentary like this isn't what wikipedia is for. I've removed a picture of a sign that was put up a long time ago (and since removed) to mock he aboriginal inhabitants of the park. This sign is no more significant than someone spray painting something like "fuck abos" on one of the walls.

Is there any harm in culling the large portions of the article that seem to serve no purpose than to point out the substance abuse in the park? It feels like it was written in poor spirit 118.208.156.234 (talk) 05:30, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I would support that. - Shiftchange (talk) 05:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

With respect, 118.208.156.234, there is a very big difference between the signs, as they were designed, and someone writing 'f*ck abos'. F*ck abos is a direct racist comment and has no place anywhere in our public spaces. The signs were not racist in any way, shape or form. "If you see a drunken mob, run for your life" a mob that is acting aggressively and throwing bottles, as depicted- this is just good advice. The of the ethnic background of the mob does not enter into it. All signs were in standard international format, a black figure on a white background. This is not racisim, it is functional. The inclusion of the signs in this article had an element of frivolity, and they are no longer directly relevant. I readily acknowledge these points, and accept your deletions as a reasonable modification to the page.

The main point which I would like to get across is that the park is considered by many Brisbane locals to be dangerous place. People who arrive in Brisbane from other parts of the world do not know this and there is no one to warn them about the dangers. This is how the signs came about. Some of the people who frequent the park are intoxicated and have a tendency to be violent. This is a public safety issue. This is not a race issue, unless you choose to make it one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grave Concern (talk • contribs) 02:10, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Its not about getting your point across. If you find reliable, sources that make the claim you just have to add a reference.  Have you done a survey of Brisbane locals about the park being dangerous?  Remember content has to be verifiable. - Shiftchange (talk) 02:18, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed, Shiftchange, i did a comprehensive verbal survey of paramedics, police officers, hospital workers and patients while I was getting my face stitched back together. The overwhelming response was "what on earth were you doing anywhere near that place?". No one told me, I didn't know. The sample was probably biased because it contained a disproportionate number of people who have to deal with the aftermath of Musgrave Park incidents and therefore not representative of the broader community. However, most of the incidents do not make it to the newspapers, so the broader community is not as aware of the problem as my subsample. If you have any suggestions about where to find rigorous and legitimate information about the history of violence in the park, and the perceptions and attitudes of the broader community, I'd encourage you to share those suggestions. I have tried the Police but they were not particularly helpful.

As for bias, yes, I accept my contributions to this page have been biased. Given that they stood unchallenged for a couple of years, that, in itself, is pretty clear evidence that no one cared until representatives of another group of people, with a different set of biases, came in with a different agenda. Let me make this absolutely clear: I am not racist or anti Aboriginal, my concern is the safety of the public, and the right of all Australians to be able to enjoy public space without being harassed, intimidated, assaulted or murdered.--Grave Concern (talk) 02:56, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, I'm 118.208.156.234. I've decided to start logging into my old account so I can keep track of things.


 * Grave Concern, ou've shown your clear bias in this article. You were assaulted there and seem to hold a great deal of contempt to its "residents". Based on this, I think you're unsuitable to edit the article. While it is true that the signs do provide good advice when encountering a drunken mob, I think it's safe to assume that the signs were not put up by any official agency to warn visitors to the park. I can only work off assumptions and anecdotes, but the most common opinion of Musgrave Park that I hear is "a bunch of fucking drunk abos who don't belong there". Considering that the sign wasn't put up by an official body (it would usually be police or the city council who'd put up warning signs), I think it's a fair judgment call to assume that these signs are not legit warning signs but are instead mocking the reputation of the Musgrave park residents for being drunks.


 * A sign purely put there to mock someone is not encyclopedic. Even if it was put up in good spirit, would it be encyclopaedic?. A sign posted by a private individual is of no encyclopedic value.


 * Your talks with paramedics, police etc is "Original Research", which is forbidden by WP (see WP:NOR). Thus, as far as this article is concerned, you may as well have never hd those discussions. It's completely moot.


 * I'm concerned purely with the quality of this article; not by others' opinions of the residents of the park. I shudder at the thought of a person who has a legitimate interest in the park (a foreigner or something) visiting the article and just seeing a bunch of mocking of the people who live there.


 * The fact that no one has challenged your edits for years is not proof that the edits are suitable. All it is proof of is that no one has challed your edits for years. It provides no evidence to suggest why the article has remained more-ore-less the same.


 * If The council or Police release any official warnings or post signs I think they're welcome here, referenced.


 * Hugzz (talk) 10:26, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Hugzz- If you have a look through my edits, which are all under Grave Concern, you will see a reasonably careful use of language. The contempt that came through in this article was from a previous editor who, presumably, had something to do with the council work that was occurring at the time. Please check revisions carefully for evidence before you start making assumptions about my level of contempt. I am aware of 5 serious assaults in this park in the few years before my incident. I'm sure there have been many more, both before and after, but as previously mentioned it is difficult to obtain detailed information. These are not the sort of statistics that the BCC publish in an annual report.

Your assertion that "the most common opinion of Musgrave Park that I hear is.................." seems to be an uninvited statement that uses a very broad brush to paint Brisbane residents as crass and racist. I'm not sure why you would want to perpetuate that view, it seems counterproductive.

There are plenty of non-official additions to our urban spaces that are worthy of mention in wikipedia. One person's graffiti is another's street art. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_art

The fact that no one challenged my edits proved that they were not unsuitable. If you went to the wiki page on thermodynamics and started putting in statements about perpetual motion, they would be corrected within minutes. The fact that the page remained unchanged for two years demonstrates that the people who were interested in the reputation of the park and how it is portrayed on the internet did not have a problem with the content of the page.

If you genuinely believe that Musgrave park has been a safe place to hang out, day or night, over the past 20 years, and there have been no problems with drink, drugs or violence, then that's an interesting point of view and you're entitled to your beliefs. But it is certainly at odds with conventional wisdom, and the daily observations of anyone who has lived or worked in that area. The problems of this park and the people who frequent it, will not be solved unless they addressed in an open and direct manner. Burying your head in the sand is not a step forward.--Grave Concern (talk) 14:27, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

"I shudder at the thought of a person who has a legitimate interest in the park (a foreigner or something) visiting the article and just seeing a bunch of mocking of the people who live there." Hugzz, I shudder at the thought of someone from out of town visiting the park and being assaulted. It's happened before.--Grave Concern (talk) 14:47, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * "The fact that no one challenged my edits proved that they were not unsuitable. If you went to the wiki page on thermodynamics and started putting in statements about perpetual motion, they would be corrected within minutes. The fact that the page remained unchanged for two years demonstrates that the people who were interested in the reputation of the park and how it is portrayed on the internet did not have a problem with the content of the page."
 * The thermodynamics page is for more active than this is (many more viewers and editors. I removed blatantly junk errors on this page that had been there for years. Doesn't mean they were right.
 * "If you genuinely believe that Musgrave park has been a safe place to hang out, day or night, over the past 20 years, and there have been no problems with drink, drugs or violence, then that's an interesting point of view and you're entitled to your beliefs. But it is certainly at odds with conventional wisdom, and the daily observations of anyone who has lived or worked in that area."
 * What I believe is 100% irrelivent to wikipedia. Wikipedia isn't for editors' opinions
 * "conventional wisdom, and the daily observations of anyone who has lived or worked in that area.".
 * Conventional Wisdom is another term for Original Research. Oh, by the way.. I live near Musgrave Park and went to school at BSHS which is attached to Musgrave Park
 * "I shudder at the thought of someone from out of town visiting the park and being assaulted. It's happened before"
 * Indeed. Does Musgrave park have a statistically higher rate of violence than anywhere else in Brisbane that we can cite? People have been assaulted on every street in Brisbane- are you suggesting that every place page in Brisbane should have a violence warning?
 * " are plenty of non-official additions to our urban spaces that are worthy of mention in wikipedia. One person's graffiti is another's street art."
 * Cool. Edit the article to claim it's street art. At the moment the sign is being passed off as a legitimate warning. AEven better is to find a source talking about Musgrave Park's street art, using this sign as an example.
 * -Hugzz (talk) 23:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Grave Concern doesn't understand that his advice doesn't belong here. Wikipedia is not a how-to guide to avoiding violence in Brisbane.  We aren't burying our heads, we just don't care about your or others' anecdotes. - Shiftchange (talk) 23:21, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Hugzz- "....demonstrates that the people who were interested in the reputation of the park and how it is portrayed on the internet did not have a problem with the content of the page". That's all I said. No one with an alternative bias was interested until the tent embassy was set up.

Anyone who writes anything in wiki has some sort of interest, motivation and the associated bias that comes with the whatever triggered their interest. In some cases it may be small, but it is there. Your interest may be that you grew up in the area, went to school across the road and never saw any problems in the park, and are offended that someone would suggest that it is a dangerous place. If that's the case, that's great and I envy your good fortune, but it is still a bias.

There were a number of things that I did not like about the page when I first started editing it, including the slightly racist tone, but I was reluctant to create conflict with the previous editor- they had the hallmark of edits that had been made after first or second hand experience (i.e. someone who had an interest in the park). The Bora ring of musgave park cannot be confirmed, because no one wrote it down in a book and put it in a library. Our historical and scholarly conventions detract from the perception of the traditional owners verbal accounts, and make it difficult for them to legitimise their claims over the land, irrespective of what the truth is. This is a significant bias and could prevent that story from being told effectively on this wiki, but for other stories, a link to that bastion of absolute truth, the Courier Mail, is perfectly legitimate. Perverse?

Shiftchange- You seem to be very active in the wiki community, there's no need to be patronising towards people who are not.--Grave Concern (talk) 01:11, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Central Park article as a semi-templace regarding violence?
I've checked out the Central Park article because I'm aware of violence and murders commited there.

The article has far more editors and viewers and has probably even been a feature article. That might make it a good thing to base our controversial "violence" issue on.

The Central park article has a section titlied "Crime". In it, it states actual numbers of crimes rather than just vague statements saying that it's a dangerous place. It does have far too many unsourced things such as "Manyy former negative perceptions have waned" (needs a "by whom?" tag or something.

But then it has actual facts:
 * The park has its own New York City Police Department precinct (Central Park Precinct), which employs both regular police and auxiliary officers. In 2005, safety measures held the number of crimes in the park to fewer than one hundred per year (down from approximately 1,000 in the early 1980s). New York City Parks Enforcement Patrol also patrols Central Park.

None of those figues are cited, which they should be, but at least the crime section for Central Park is based on facts and figures. It does not focus on individual murders or assaults that have happened here. Also note the size of the "Crime" section in comparison to the size of the article, and lets not forget that Central Park probably gets millions more visitors per year than Musgrave Park, so if we're going to claim that the Musgrave Park article deserves information on violence to warn potential visitors to the park, then we have to consider that Central Park's "crime" section should be several thousand tmes larger than ours, to warn their millions of visitors of the potential risks of visiting.

- Hugzz (talk) 23:22, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

All the way across the other side of the world, and you're aware of violence in Central Park. Doesn't sound like they need any sort of warning.

Un-cited facts are no better than a general statement. Probably worse because they add a sense of false authority- 78% of Americans agree.--Grave Concern (talk) 00:07, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I know about crime at Central park only because I googled things like "Central park murder" and "central park assault". This was to give me an idea of whether the central park article should talk about violence like this one does. I became aware that there were murders and assaults, so I checked the page for comparison.


 * You're right that uncited facts and opinions are both equally worthless, when uncited. I was working more-or-less along the thought that the Central Park article was at least trying to be objective, which is what Wikipedia should be.


 * You got assaulted in Musgrave Park and you are now trying to edit the article to reflect your experience. This is biased and contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia. This article does not exists of a way for you to tell the world that you got assaulted so everyone should be careful.

- Hugzz (talk) 00:17, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

You knew to type "Central park murder" into google.

"This article does not exists of a way for you to tell the world that you got assaulted " Agreed. That is an unfortunate side effect of getting involved in this discussion page.--Grave Concern (talk) 01:27, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Grave Concern, I was going to respond to your comments above but I see on the article page that you've done some research on the topic and have decided to leave it be. I'd just like to thank you for your maturity there =) Hugzz (talk) 07:10, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Ironically, those statistics are incomplete/ incorrect in terms of some of the incidents that I know of. The key unknown weather each incident was mapped where it started or where it ended (as victims run away from their attackers)- irrespective of that, the trend is pretty clear. I am not dogmatic. If my position is not supported by the evidence, I'll revise my position, or do more research into the details of the evidence. --Grave Concern (talk) 08:54, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Moved the crime section
Hey I moved the "crime" section but messed up my edit summary. Please message here if you're unhappy with the edit and I'll explain why. Hugzz (talk) 07:29, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Assessment
I've given the article a mid importance rating because the park seems to have historical significance for Aboriginals as well as significance to current minority groups. --Spuzzdawg (talk) 15:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)