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Archive 1

Wikipedian and parent detained by campus police

I'm a Wikipedian who was detained by Union County Campus Police for a half an hour on April 1, 2011. (By the way, this is NOT a joke even though it did happen today on April 1st). My crime? I had been taking pictures for a Wikipedia article on Union County College. Buildings. Plaques. Science labs. I had been trying to improve this article to make it comparable to that of other colleges and universities. Two pictures I took had students in them (but I asked for their permission: they consented, and gave me email addresses and names for confirmation -- don't worry I won't post these pictures). Apparently I ran afoul of Union County College's "no pictures" policy. Not even buildings? I asked. Not even buildings, they said. I asked the campus police officer if I might take a picture of him? He looked like he would arrest me if I tried. He requested identification from me; he refused to provide official documentation about himself. (He said his name was John Britton.) So, I'm alerting other Wikipedia volunteers about the UCC policy, okay? Don't take pictures otherwise you could be detained, arrested, tried. And volunteers who wish to contribute to this article should not identify any buildings, no faces. Drawings apparently are allowed. FYI.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:13, 1 April 2011 (UTC)--Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:32, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Not sure why but these images are not loading correctly for me. -- Avanu (talk) 02:39, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Me either. Only one loads. It just may take time. I just uploaded them minutes before to Wikimedia Commons. Sometimes clicking on it to enlarge it, then you can see it. Took me about 2 minutes for each one to draw it. Yes, I've been compared to Michelangelo (in case u were wondering.) -Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:42, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
Here's another link: Nomahegan Hall --Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:46, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
Another: Union County College police (artist's rendition) --Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:47, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
Although I can appreciate how you might be feeling, I'm not sure that the 'drawings' that you're considering using would be very useful. They certainly seem to convey the frustration you probably feel. My suggestion would simply be to use what photographs you have so far in a professional and scholastic fashion, and if you desire, make an appointment to speak directly with campus officials about this incident by simply explaining the facts. -- Avanu (talk) 03:05, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes others have convinced me that the drawing of the police officer was basically me being frustrated with being detained by a police officer. It got deleted, but unfortunately one of the other drawings got deleted as well, which was neutral in tone. My thinking is this article needs a revamp anyway, and that's where I'm headed and I'll try to be fair.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:20, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Speaking as a freelance photographer (and NOT as an attorney, which I'm not), the college has the authority to restrict photography on its property, whether it's a public or private college. If you had stood on the sidewalk by the street and photographed a building that was visible from that vantage, they couldn't have said anything. But when you went inside a building and started photographing students, faculty or staff, it crossed their line. "Generally, photographers have a right to take pictures so long as they do not invade their subjects' privacy or make a public nuisance of themselves, but there are some limits." (DuBoff L and King C, The Law (in Plain English) For Photographers, 3rd ed. NY: Allworth, 2010.) In short, it's always best to ask permission first. Just my 2p worth. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 15:01, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Reply from Union County College

I took the liberty of writing a polite letter to the college, please understand that this is their point of view on the situation, and I'm sure that given a different set of circumstances, they would be very happy to work with Wikipedians. It sounds like a misunderstanding that led to a less than desirable conclusion. Below is their reply. -- Avanu (talk) 14:41, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for calling our attention to problems associated with a Wikipedia photographer's visit to Union County College's Cranford Campus on Friday. The "parent and Wikipedia contributor" you have identified created an unnecessary commotion when he allegedly entered into the College's Counseling offices and began taking photographs of students (as Counseling's administrators indicated) "indiscriminately and without the students' permission."
After that, our Safety & Security staff intervened and the photographer went to the College Relations office not only to protest this treatment but also to threaten to print something negative about the College. If you check the "Discussion" tab under Union County College, you’ll see that he kept his word.
All of this could have been avoided, of course, if he had visited the College Relations office initially. Executive Director Ellen Dotto and her staff would have made sure that he met no resistance in taking photographs of buildings. Moreover, he would have been apprised of the rules associated with the use of student and staff photographs; that is, unless they give their verbal permission and/or sign a release, this photographer does not have a right to use their likeness in print or Internet materials.
As the President's executive assistant, I am offering myself as the official source for future guidance concerning Union County College issues and information. If you have any questions or additional concerns, let me know.
Thanks,
Stephen Nacco
I'm the parent who was detained. Your report is inaccurate. I did not take pictures indiscriminately of students without asking their permission. This is untrue. First, there were NO signs saying that picture taking was prohibited -- no signs whatsoever on campus that I could see. As far as I was concerned, the school is a public place like any other. I was taking pictures of buildings, grounds, facilities to try to improve Union County's lackluster Wikipedia article. My intention was to improve the article substantially; my daughter attends this school and I wanted to learn more about it as well as make its Wikipedia page more presentable. In a few instances, I took pictures of students only after asking them first for their full permission, getting it, and getting their email addresses as well to check. While in the counseling area, I was confronted by a UCC campus security guard who detained me for half an hour; he required me to walk to several buildings, to meet with various officials, who themselves couldn't help much. He refused to give me his official identification (even after I had asked him) although he said his name was John. He took my drivers' license information information, and who told me point blank that I was prohibited from taking any pictures anywhere on campus. Period. Why? I asked. That's the rule. Well, that's the first time I had heard of it. I felt like a criminal. I have always respected individual freedom and privacy; it is my personal ethic not to post anybody's picture without their consent; this has always been my policy on Wikipedia, and elsewhere, in all my writings. When I looked over photos I had taken, I blurred over the faces of the people regardless, even though I have their full consent to post their photos. I am going out of my way, further, to protect their privacy; in addition, some photos captured email addresses and names; these too were blurred over digitally to prevent any possible privacy issues. This is me being careful, and protecting privacy as I do for everybody.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:25, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
That said, in retrospect, I agree these issues are complex. If I had to do it over again, knowing what I know now, I would have consulted the administration first; I realize there are numerous agendas at work here (privacy, protecting students, crime issues, parental relations, marketing purposes, etc etc). Still, I urge the school to post signs clarifying their position on photos. And I urge you to tell campus security to be more polite dealing with parents; if asked to produce identification, then they should produce identification. When police refuse to identify themselves publicly, it is a dangerous precedent. tom sulcer --Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:25, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
Further, if your college has endured negative publicity from this incident, it is not my fault. In my view, I was acting in good faith, within the law, within my rights. While trying to act freely, I was detained unfairly, unnecessarily, illegally by a campus security officer who refused to provide any official documentation regarding his identity. My detention was not a threat only to me, but to all contributors of Wikipedia, to all reporters, and it is proper and just that I should focus the attention of the entire Wikipedia community on this incident.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:32, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
As a tangental sidenote...my understanding of the law (and again, I am NOT an attorney and am not qualified to give legal advice) is that anyone presenting themselves as a law-enforcement officer MUST present their credentials on demand. A uniformed law-enforcement officer may be exempt from that requirement, since they are required to wear their department badge in plain view, along with (in most jurisdictions) a name plate. In almost all cases, private security guards are NOT considered law-enforcement officers in the eyes of the courts; they do not have the legal authority to issue citations, and can only arrest someone under the same laws that govern "citizen's arrest". Consult a licensed and practicing attorney in your area for definitive legal advice regarding your particular situation. Having said all that, while I applaud your efforts to obtain photographs to improve Wikipedia articles, the topic of photography for publication (whether paid or not) has become very complicated in recent years, especially after 9/11. One of the texts for a photography course I took is the book I mentioned in the section above, The Law (in Plain English) for Photographers. I'd strongly recommend acquiring and reading that tome, or a similar one, if you intend to pursue photography as more than a means of filling your family albums. (Additional disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with the authors or publishers of that book, other than having read it as a textbook and reference.) --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 15:42, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
Interesting. Thanks. Photography is only one way I have of improving articles. Agree that things are complex in today's society. And I am only a bit player here. While I've been angry at my treatment, I am resolved not to let my anger jeopardize my impartiality; I'm revamping the UCC article in my sandbox and I'm going to give people a chance to comment before anything gets switched in. OVerall, I think it's an instance of a clumsily-handled episode, and it's really being blown way out of proportion, possibly.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:17, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The above correspondence indicates that someone from Union County College may read this page, and since this issue has been discussed in other places, it may be worth misusing this discussion page a little more by posting my thoughts on useful ways to interact with security officers. If a security officer asks you to stop to taking photos, the sensible response would be to stop. Debating procedures with a security officer is pointless—it is quite possible that they have no idea why they have been instructed to enforce some rule, or they may be mistaken in thinking that they were so instructed, or they may have a relevant law degree and understand the regulations precisely. Whatever the circumstance, there is no possible benefit that can arise from debating a security officer. After making it clear that one intended to immediately comply with the direction, it may be reasonable to quietly ask how one might proceed to obtain permission to take photographs. Johnuniq (talk) 06:58, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes. This is sensible advice. I stopped photographing. And I know it's pointless to debate people carrying badges and guns. (I was irked and resented being detained and I said so; maybe I should have remained silent?) But I don't think we're misusing this discussion page by talking about this. Like it or not, this incident has touched on some important issues. Freedom. Privacy. Rules. Rights. Information. Marketing. Cameras. Publicity. What happened is important to Wikipedia since all other contributors, in varying ways, do what I did -- photograph, write, post, quote. What happened to me could happen to others in different contexts. My sense is that technology is changing so rapidly, with the legal system racing to catch up, with so many agendas coming into conflict from so many angles, that everything is quite up in the air, with serious lurking problems which make everybody on edge (eg the possibility of crime or terrorism; officials worrying over possible lawsuits; schools trying to market themselves; etc etc) and we're not going to solve such complex issues here. Do people have a right to take pictures of publicly financed school buildings? Which parts -- inside? outside? Empty classrooms? To post them? What about people's pictures? What exactly are the rules there? What ages? What about a picture of a name? Or a picture of an email address? I do not think anybody fully has all the answers here; but what's best is to do the best we can (to preserve privacy and freedom) as best we can. These issues are complex, and there is much more to it than a fingerwagging about how a citizen should respond to being detained.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Revamp proposed in sandbox page

Here is a proposed revamp of Union County College. There has been some controversy regarding this so I hope other contributors will weigh in; I'm trying to be fair and not let one incident cause me to lose my impartiality. If people have opinions, let me know. Here's the sandbox: proposed revamp awaiting consultation. It's not viewable yet most readers. Asking advice.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:21, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Hey people. Nobody raised any objections to the revamp. I will swap it in soon unless I hear otherwise from an administrator. Btw I believe (my POV) it will be the BEST county college Wikipedia article of all of them -- check out these: List of New Jersey County Colleges. Camden's is pretty good (cool graphs) but I think the new and improved UCC article will be the best. I challenge others to improve the other articles for their counties.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:55, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
Here's a diff of the full proposed change. Might take editors a day or two to digest the full extent of this new version. The "Groups" section seems to lump lots of unrelated things together, and the "Students" section within it similarly lumps together things that *relate to* students along with *groups of* students. The overall feel is the popular "portals" layout of a typical website (sectioned by target audience) rather than an encyclopedia article organized by topic. Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines has some suggestions for sectioning. For example, put together all the "student-activity groups" (not "groups whose activities affecting students") so exclude parking and enrollment there. The "Student life" section needs major overhaul...it lumps together residential, enrollment, and student-quality/achievement--none of that seems to be related to itself, and it's not really "student life" in the usual sense of the term in campus settings. DMacks (talk) 16:11, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
Hmmmm. Interesting. It's fine by me if you'd like to re-organize this; do you have time now to do it? Otherwise I propose swapping in the revamp now, and then working on it later along the lines you suggest. I agree the organization could be improved; kinda clunky.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:20, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
I swapped in the revamp; nobody objected to the revamp. In my view, it's much much improved, with 87 references. It's better than any other county college (NJ) article in my view -- closest runner up => Camden's. Agree it could be better organized as per comment above. Feel free to imrove it. I'm not going to fuss with this article any longer.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Deletions

May I ask why we're deleting blocks of sourced content, here and here? Or even here?  Unician ∇  06:02, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Good question. I reverted the removals but wondering why they were done.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 11:28, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
Penguin05, I notice that you have deleted content from this article on a number of occasions, always without an edit summary, and always without comment on this talk page. For example: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. I also see from your edit history that this is the only article you have edited since you began more than four years ago. Clearly you're interested in Union County College. Since you've seen that the unexplained deletions have always been reverted, may I ask why you're doing this? Better communications may help us all work together with less friction.  Unician ∇  19:16, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Probably just vandalism; users like that get blocked, don't worry about it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 19:48, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Penguin05, thank you for starting to use edit summaries, they are very useful. Based on the information you've provided, some questions arise:
  1. Although you said you were “updating the site with current information” (here), your changes are overwhelmingly deletions rather than updates. For example:
    • The table of freshman acceptance rates only covered the years 2007––2009; you didn't update that information (you didn't add columns for 2010––2014), you deleted the entire table.
    • You deleted the section mentioning that UCC is a “commuter” school with no dormitories, which cited articles from The New York Times and The Star-Ledger. If there has been a major change in the student on-campus housing situation, you're welcome to add that information, but not just rip out existing, correct, and sourced content.
    • You deleted the entire section on traffic and parking, also sourced content.
    • You deleted mention of a student athletic team's victory, also sourced content.
    • You deleted mention of a UCC professor's book, “which received critical attention from The New York Times”, and which cited that NYT book review.
    • You deleted mention of notable public events at the College involving speakers such as a Governor of New Jersey and a President of the United States.
  2. This edit summary is disturbing for multiple reasons: “was requested to remove because it did not directly relate to College programming”.
    • There is no reason to delete anything because it does or does not “directly relate to College programming”. This article is not about College programming, it's about all aspects of the College.
    • What did you mean by “was requested to”? Are you making edits to Wikipedia under instructions from some third party? That's actually a very important thing to know here.
  3. You deleted the entire sections of Finances, Budgets, and Tuition and expenses here, with the edit summary “outdated financial information - from 2010-2011 for accurate information should go to our website”. The same concerns as before apply here:
    • You're welcome to add newer information beside the existing information, or to update or correct information which was never correct, but not to just rip it all out.
    • Tell us about “go to our website”. Are you editing on behalf of the College administration? It's important to know that.
I'm afraid we have to revert these mass deletions in order to preserve the verified content that other editors have contributed. Remember that the goal here is to provide a complete and objective picture of the College, including its history; and since Union County College is the first of New Jersey's community colleges, it has significant history. There are facets of the College still to be added here. Let's build up a full description rather than tearing it down.
 Unician ∇  12:26, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

This article has been edited for years by an employee of the college (see [6]) whose sole focus on Wikipedia is this article. Accordingly, it may need to be checked to ensure that content is verifiable and neutral. I do see in the edit history disputes in the past. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:29, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl, thanks for being observant. I am non-affiliated with UCC. A few years back, my daughter attended UCC, and I revamped the article, expanding it substantially, and I can assert that most of the information from that period is neutral, verifiable; then as now, I have no financial interest in UCC. As time passes I have been monitoring this article less and less, and this can cause problems apparently, so in future, I will try to continue to monitor it more effectively. My sense is the UCC employee wants to update the information but does not understand how Wikipedia works. So if the UCC employee would like any changes made, I encourage him or her to call them to our attention here, on this talk page, and I will try to see what can be done.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:22, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Tomwsulcer. Your review is certainly sufficient to resolve my concerns. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:30, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

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