Talk:Vincent Simmons

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First off, I'll just say: I would rather not be doing this, because my sympathies are NOT with the Louisiana justice system. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if everything in the article turned out to be true.

But articles on Wikipedia need to meet certain rules. I'd encourage those involved to read Advocacy and WP:GREATWRONGS for starters, then WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, WP:OR, and WP:Verifiability. Some of the problems with this article:


 * Sourcing - claims made in the article need to include a specific source where those claims appear. It's not enough to have the sourcing be "somewhere in one of the external links". This is particularly important in an article about living people. By my reading, the article comes very close to accusing certain people of corrupt conduct - unless they have been CONVICTED of such conduct, that's completely against WP guidelines. (It's fine to report that somebody else has made that accusation, if the "somebody else" is a notable source - but it needs to be presented as "Source X has alleged that Y is corrupt", not "Y is corrupt". Otherwise the entire article is at risk of deletion. I've added a couple of "citation needed" tags here, but honestly, it needs many more.
 * Objectivity/NPOV - the article includes words like "overwhelming evidence of innocence". "Overwhelming" is a very subjective word; clearly it's not 'overwhelming' to everybody, or Simmons would be a free man already. Again, if a notable source has described the evidence as "overwhelming", we can report that opinion, but it needs to be cited and attributed as opinion. If you're trying to free a man who you believe to be wrongfully imprisoned, I can understand that it's difficult to stay dispassionate when writing - but it's not just the rules, it's better for your cause. If the article comes across as written by Simmons' cheer squad, readers are not going to trust it (especially without sourcing).
 * Original research - lines like "Apparently Knoll was that confident in the outcome of the trial" and "due to its suppression, Simmons is legally entitled to an evidentiary hearing under Brady v. Maryland". Wikipedia editors should be presenting facts, not offering their own interpretation of the causes/ramifications of those facts. Again, if some notable source has offered these interpretations, it's fine to cite them, but it needs to be attributed.
 * Copyvio - the entire "further analysis" section seems to be a direct quote from some unattributed source. If so, it's probably copyright violation, which is a bad thing.

I've made a few edits accordingly, but this article needs a lot more work - if these issues can't be resolved it will probably end up being deleted. Which would be a shame, since it seems like a case that ought to be covered. --GenericBob (talk) 00:35, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Some editing to this article would improve its reliability and readability. A Google search for reliable articles about Vincent Simmons only brings back articles about The Farm: Angola, USA and the HBO documentary.  There is an external link in the article to a free-Vincent website, which appears to be well written, and documents ongoing legal challenges.  However, none of these challenges seem to have been documented in any newspapers.  I'd suggest the article be trimmed to what has been documented: he is a prisoner at Angola, and was mentioned in two documentaries.  A well-sourced paragraph about the documentaries would be helpful too.  Neutral-tone, well-sourced Wiki articles are of the most benefit.  Magnolia677 (talk) 14:52, 25 March 2014 (UTC)