Talk:Ottawa Panhandlers' Union

Notability

Although I'm sure the current article shares a lot of content with the article deleted on notability grounds, there are at least 4 references here to significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject, as well as one to an extensive interview with Infoshop News, which is probably the most reliable source in anarchist media for conveying accurately the views of the group. There is more than enough coverage in these sources to write a well-referenced verifiable article. the skomorokh 14:15, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that Infoshop news is a reliable source, I think most other Wikipedians would too. I think the article as it stands might or might not pass another AFD, so I encourage those who have worked on providing references so far to keep up the good work and provide more. delldot ∇. 19:33, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Your position lacks nuance, to say the least. It is simply not credible to posit that Infoshop News would fabricate or otherwise present inaccurately the views of an anarchist activist it interviews; the interview is a reliable presentation of the perspective of its subject. the skomorokh 19:44, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't doubt that it's telling the truth, but the question is whether it would qualify as a reliable source. Are articles subject to editorial review the way a mainstream newspaper or magazine would be? Or is the content user-generated the way Wikipedia and Indymedia are? Either way, I believe the article still needs more citations to reliable sources to really nail down notability and verifiability. delldot ∇. 00:23, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:BLP

I've removed an unreferenced section about a living person. Please review WP:BLP and understand that it's of utmost importance that this and every article comply with that policy. Thanks delldot ∇. 19:33, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

What does it actually do?

The article is short on what this so called Union actually does. It says it is not a Labour Union, which makes the choice of name confusing if not outright amusing, but it doesn't give any guiding mantra of the organisation (the use of the term "strike" is similarly odd, how exactly do people without jobs go on strike?). How is the OPU helping panhandlers? Do they do any legitimate work fighting poverty in the tradition of social agencies like the salvation army or red cross? Or are they a couple of lonely communists looking for some warm bodies to help disrupt commerce on May Day and throw eggs at things they dislike? If that is the case, I would say the notability of the organization is not particularly obvious to me. TastyCakes (talk) 16:14, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• Leave your POV out of this. It's not going to help the article at all. Yours was an entirely reactionary and ignorant response. Read the press to find out what the union does.MiltonP Ottawa (talk) 02:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd rather read the article. Which is the point, I believe. Are you calling me a reactionary in the communist perspective of the word? Do you see the irony of you saying that while accusing me of bringing a POV? TastyCakes (talk) 15:15, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The article says this about the group's purpose (four paragraphs in):
The purpose of the union is to bring together panhandlers, street artists, buskers and any other street-affected person to lobby city hall. One of the aims was to create a counter-measure against some of the recent legislation which had been passed by Ottawa City Hall and by the Ontario government.[4]
So lobby city hall on what? What "recent legislation"? To what degree is this an anti-poverty group versus a communist/anarchist political action group? Those are very different things and it seems odd that the wikipedia article would not make the distinction clear. TastyCakes (talk) 15:26, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

• Not sure what your problem is exactly but it's clearly ideological. The union is strictly apolitical as it is a shop of the Industrial Workers of the World. The IWW has a 100 year history. I added a citation for the Nellis arrest which was discussed at length on Talk Ottawa on Rogers 22 (a local call-in show). There was also an article about Nellis' arrest in the Industrial Worker. I have yet to find the specific issue for which this story was covered. But it was indeed covered.MiltonP Ottawa (talk) 04:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
  • It was the June 2008 issue of the Industrial Worker #1706 Volume 105 No. 4. It has no been cited.MiltonP Ottawa (talk) 05:14, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

My problem with this article is in how it is written and its apparent lack of substance. I am quite open to the possibility that the OPU is a notable organisation (for better or worse), but the article is written poorly enough that I really can't tell. I am aware of IWW's long history, but do not see how that translates to notability of this offshoot. If they are so linked, could this article not be merged into the IWW article? And I'm not sure I follow your logic, it's apolitical because it's a shop of the IWW? Are you suggesting the IWW is apolitical? The title of the article you cited, "Capitalism Cannot be Reformed", suggests otherwise. As for the OPU itself, is "shutting down Rideau street" apolitical? "lobbying city hall"? Getting thrown in jail for unruly protesting? TastyCakes (talk) 09:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

• Read the constitution of the IWW [1]. The IWW is apolitical in that IWW members do not support any particular ideology. Its premise is based on direct action which makes it more radical than most unions. IWW members also don't support any particular political party as well. I personally don't see how one shop of a union can be merged into a 100 year history of its own union. Where would that fit in exactly? This is a very local effort. If there are articles for individual characters from really bad pop culture like Joey Gladstone then why should the OPU be forced to merge if these articles are not?MiltonP Ottawa (talk) 10:16, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Well the IWW seems to lean towards a certain ideology to me... Perhaps the OPU is officially apolitical, but would you not agree there is a political dimension to the things described in this article? As for Uncle Joey, that man was a cultural treasure and his article must remain! But I suppose you can also have a look at the Wikipedia:Pokémon_test. TastyCakes (talk) 21:53, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I have some actual understanding of what the OPU does, and I agree that the article is unclear. What it does should be in the very opening sentence, not further down. Yes, it gathers panhandlers and street vendors and buskers together, and opposes the Safe Streets Act. But its main activity is fighting tickets in court, tickets issued under the Safe Streets Act. THAT should be in the opening sentence. Later in the article, you might even want to cover why they are opposed to the Safe Streets Act and how the OPU feels the Safe Streets Act is being misused. But -- sorry Milton -- your critics are absolutely right. The article is a bit of a mess. --Nik (talk) 12:56, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I just made a sloppy start of trying to fix the opening a little. Obviously the line about every ticket the union has fought being thrown out of court -- that needs a reference. But I suspect, Milton, that if you write the article along those lines, your critics will back off. The article needs to be more to the point, and less rambling. Hope this helps. Let me know if you want more advice / assistance. --Nik (talk) 13:03, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to bring back a dead debate (particularly seeing as how Milton's account has been deleted) but asking 'what is this?' is a good point. Whatever the political particulars of the group, it would be nice for this article to refer solely to those representational issues that pertain to the group. What does it do for members? A history of its events is OK, but what is it for? Someone who knows should write something here - otherwise it isn't obvious that this page should exist. Pwilliamhughes (talk) 22:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

As you'll see from my comments in the section below, I can answer your question and provide you with any information you need if you want to work on this article, since I'm the official spokesperson for the OPU. The problem is that despite numerous problems with this article (including factual errors), I can't work on it without violating WP:COI. Our members and the people we serve tend not to be technically oriented, so our online footprint is small and the number of people who have both the technical expertise and the knowledge of the subject (and media sources) is vanishingly small. Part of the problem is that the media themselves are concerned only in a tiny part of the OPU's activities, so their coverage of us is spotty. We're certainly notable, but going by only what the mainstream media has written about us, most people will, like you, scratch their heads and wonder why we exist. Some of the radio and television interviews I've done would probably be helpful in filling in some of the gaps, but these are not generally available online. SmashTheState (talk) 01:20, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

If there are inaccuracies in the article, you can fix them in the article or bring them up here. If you read the COI page, it's not meant to muzzle those directly involved in a subject, but to avoid the insertion of controversial or opinionated material. If you stick to adding uncontested facts with some sources, I don't think people would have an issue with you helping to improve the article, and if they do it would be on an edit by edit basis, not a blanket over all of your edits. TastyCakes (talk) 19:03, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Tags

Responding to the edit summary:

• The article is one-sided, containing no criticism of what must be a controversial group.
• That an article survives an AFD nomination hardly means that sections discussing pigeons and other trivia are encyclopedic.
• Many many unreferenced facts in the article that aren't tagged.

I'm restoring the tags. THF (talk) 09:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The article contains a number of factual errors. I would correct this, except that I am the spokesperson for this organization, and while my knowledge is therefore intimate, I do not want to be accused of conflict of interest or bias. The problem is that, as you indicate, the OPU is a controversial organization. People tend to line up on one side or the other. And the political enemies of the OPU have no interest in adding polite, dispassionate criticism. There is a history of vandalism of this article by someone inside Ottawa City Hall (something which was reported by the CBC), and I, personally, had death threats consisting of a photograph of myself with a gun in my mouth posted around the city. The first RfD of this article was an ugly affair which involved a false flag campaign by someone who wished the article to be deleted, and may have been part of the campaign of harassment against me, personally, which was occuring at the time and has been reported in the media. And while I would welcome an outsider with no preconceptions working on the article, you illustrate the problem with this with your comment about "discussing pigeons" being trivial. The mayor of Ottawa compared panhandlers to pigeons, saying that they would go away if people stopped feeding them. This was an extremely controversial statement which produced a lot of media attention in the city. In fact, "PigeonGate," as it's called here in Ottawa, has its own section in the mayor's Wikipedia article.

In any case, plastering the article with a blizzard of tags is unnecessary, aesthetically unappealing, and accomplishes nothing except discouraging casual editors who may wish to work on the article. Perhaps you can remove some of the tags and replace them with a smaller number of tags which express broader problems? -- SmashTheState (talk) 11:16, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I just removed some tags, thinking myself that it had too many, not realizing there was already discussion ongoing with regards to the number of tags. Please feel free to revert them if you feel appropriate, but I think the general tag of "this article contains some info that may be unencyclopedic" covers most of the issues, and ten tags makes it look real ugly. Baiter (talk) 21:22, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I cannot agree with THF about the "unenc" tag. If "pidgeons" is a problem, that sentence can be struck. To tag the entire article as unenc smells like a broad attack. When I get back here later, I'll del that tag and address the specific concern.Wjhonson (talk) 07:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

To be added

I lifted the following text from a the Wikipedia Review forum, and was thinking it could be added to the article if it were toned down a little, made less POV, and referenced. For example, I know the action involving the Ottawa Police headquarters was filmed, and may still be on YouTube. The text would certainly address the whole "What does the OPU do?" question. It was all written by Andrew Nellis. The irony is that Andrew doesn't want to edit the OPU article himself, but what he has written is one of the better summaries available.

Text follows. Maybe I'll eventually add it to the article. Anyone else wants to tackle the challenge, feel free. --Nik (talk) 21:02, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

We do a lot of small direct actions with specific goals in mind. For example:

* We shut down the local police station -- twice -- to force them to get rid of a cop who was beating up street people. We occupied the street outside their doors for an hour the first time, and warned them if the cop was not fired we would be back. He wasn't and we were, this time marching right inside and occupying the lobby, flags waving and megaphone blaring, while 200 angry cops surrounded us. This time they acted, and the cop was taken off the street. (They promoted him to detective, presumably because it's easier to promote a cop than to fire him. That's fine with us, as long as he's off the street and not beating up homeless teens in empty parking lots.)

* We helped one of our members sue the Rideau Centre, a large shopping mall in downtown Ottawa, for $70,000 after he got beaten badly by three members of their security staff for the crime of looking poor. The Rideau Centre settled out of court, and the member used the money to buy a car, get an apartment, acquire his A-Z license, and is now earning $25 an hour driving a truck. He also now assists us in organizing the union.

* One of our members is schizophrenic and spends time occasionally in hospitals for that reason. In Russia, before he emigrated here, he was a lawyer, and he is trying to update his skills at university. The hospital would not let him go to classes because they said they did not want to be responsible if he went nuts or something. Another member volunteered to go with him, and we told the hospital they'd face a picket line if they didn't let him go. They complied.

* While one of our members was being held in a detention centre, they denied him the use of his wheelchair because they said it could be used as a weapon. He was forced to literally crawl on his hands and knees to use the bathroom or move anywhere but his bed. They said if he was willing to go into isolation -- alone in a tiny room with no one to talk to, no television, no radio, and nothing to read -- they'd give him his wheelchair back. We paid them a visit and told the detention centre they'd have a picket line outside their gates if he didn't get his wheelchair back. Their response was to pressure the court and release him before our date for the picket.

Alot of this is either untrue or very distorted. They never shut down a police station. They demonstrated at a police station. The story about the demonstrations being about a cop beating up the homeless is untrue. The account of the detention centre incident is distorted. A guy in a wheelchair got arrested and then he was eventually released. Its not clear that union pressure had anything to do with it. The only reason a hospital can prevent a schizophrenic from doing anything is if they are not in the hospital by their own choice. All these incidents happened, but in all the cases the union and the threat of union protests had no real impact on the situations. 75.17.125.215 (talk) 01:25, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

What it actually does

In answer to an earlier question, the Union (not so-called) is an organized association of workers, in street trades and professions, formed to protect and further their rights and interests as workers. Panhandling and being homeless is work just like any kind of work. They have interests in lobbying against laws that hurt them as workers, lobbying for laws that increase their trade and professional opportunities and working to protect them in their work from groups like the police. There is nothing odd about the term "strike". A strike is a refusal to work organized by a body of workers as a form of protest, typically to gain a concession or concessions related to their work. The street trades can refuse to work just like any other workers. The OPU helps panhandlers in the way all unions help workers. By organizing and representing them. The Union is not a social agency like the red cross. Eggs were thrown when local politicians said that street workers should be managed like Pidgeons. All strikes disrupt commerce. The notability of the organization is very obvious. 75.17.126.120 (talk) 04:06, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

redirected from Jane Scharf but no mention of her in article ?

It's really strange to have a redirect from a person but have this person not be mentioned in the article? What's up with that? Is Jane Scharf relevant to this? Have vandals deleted content and it was missed?--Tallard (talk) 16:56, 14 August 2021 (UTC)