User talk:Brannansmith

Laurie Smith (Sheriff)
I am reverting the edits you made today to the article, because you removed referenced material. Wikipedia policy is to have references, and for the most part the version you wrote has the same information, only without references.

I can see why you might not want the controversies section, but since the info is a part of the public record and does not reflect badly on Sheriff Smith, I do not think there is enough reason to remove it. Do you have any info to add on either of the items mentioned there that would make it even clearer that she was found blame-free?

Your username suggests a conflict of interest; you should know that Wikipedia policy is to avoid editing in areas where one has a strong personal interest, because it's hard to adhere to the Neutral Point of View policy when writing about oneself, one's employer, one's family, and so on. Yngvadottir (talk) 06:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I reverted your changes again. I appreciate that you left the references there this time, but by moving your version of her career in ahead of them, you had several of them referring to a sentence that they do not apply to, and you had unreferenced statements in the body of your text.  I waited to revert in case you intended to work further on the article to get the references with the statements, although I still consider you are giving substantially the same facts in a more confused and less neutral/encyclopedic way.


 * You mention her having received many awards. Can you list them specifically, with references? If so, I agree, that would be good to have in the article.


 * I left out her husband's profession and any information about her child both because they are not relevant to her career and to preserve their privacy. (Similarly with the city the family resides in.) I had some doubts about putting the 2 names in the infobox but included them because the Sheriff's Department website gives the information. I suggest that anything beyond the names is inadvisable in the article.


 * Reviewing sources, I found that her divergent position on the De Anza case is prominent in coverage of her, so I put it in. I had initially left this out as a flash in the pan thing, but it continues to be a major part of coverage of her.


 * I am not an admin or even a longstanding Wikipedia editor, but someone should welcome you here and give you places to look up the neutrality policy, the use and format of references, the conflict of interest guidelines, etc. So I found the best welcome template I could and put it above; I hope you find it helpful.

Yngvadottir (talk) 13:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)