Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Busking/archive1

Busking

Object to the article's discussion of U.S. law relating to busking. The discussion is one-sided and misleading, making it sound as if virtually all regulation of busking is unconstitutional, which is not the case. Further, it's description of the legal parameters applicable to busking regulation is inaccurate, and appears to be an attempt to describe the legal standard applicable only to regulation in a "traditional public form" such as a street or sidewalk. Regulation of space in subways, parks, and other publicly-owned property may fall under the standards applicable to "limited public fora," or even "nonpublic fora." These standards are all different, and confer a greater or lesser degree of regulatory power depending on the characterization of the fora (i.e., as traditional, limited, or nonpublic). Finally, the list of relevant U.S. cases is woefully incomplete; e.g., the description of the St. Augustine FL case stops at the district court decision, and omits the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision which upheld the city's prohibition against busking in certain areas of downtown. This section of the article needs a fair amount of work in any event, but revision is certainly as a prerequisite to FA status.

• Object. Lead needs expanding, lists need converting into prose, needs copy-editing, sub-sections in "History" section need expanding or merging. Image layout is messy. Almost every footnote (4 - 19) are in the same place. Most of the article is unreferenced. Unnecessary bolding needs removing in "Pitfalls" section. "Practitioners" section is too short. Please see WP:LEAD, WP:FOOTNOTE, and Wikipedia:What is a featured article?. — Wackymacs 10:34, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Object. There are major problems here, as there is a strong original research tone that permeates throughout the article. For example, the two sections "Motivations" and "Pitfalls" are uncited, are written in a somewhat personable way. (It feels like someone just sat down and wrote those sections off the top of their heads). To build on Wackymac's comments, the long list of footnotes is misleading as most of the them belong to one section, and the rest are links to dictionary definitions. This pretty much means the whole article is not referenced. (Hope I'm not being too harsh, but this is certainly not FA material.) --P-Chan 15:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

re wackymacs comments

"The discussion is one-sided and misleading, making it sound as if virtually all regulation of busking is unconstitutional, which is not the case." apparently WM did not see this.

~In the USA about the only reasons that can be used to regulate or ban busking behavior are public safety issues and noise issues in certain areas that require silence like hospital zones, around churches, funeral homes, cemeteries and transport terminals where announcements need to be heard. Such laws must be narrowly tailored to eliminate only the perceived evils by limiting the time, place and manner that busking may be practiced. They must also leave open reasonable alternative venues.~ ~In the USA any form of regulation on artistic free speech must not be judgmental, and permits must not be so restrictive, complex, difficult or expensive to obtain that they inhibit free speech.~

WM mistakingly states parks are not public fora and they are specifically mentioned as public forums in most of the legal decisions. Subways are a limited fora but free speech is allowed and it is the volume which is at issue. There were sevral cases among them the decision of Jews For Jesus, Inc. vs. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority that resolved that issue.

WM wrote, "the description of the St. Augustine FL case stops at the district court decision, and omits the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision which upheld the city's prohibition against busking in certain areas of downtown."

The appeal to which WM refers occured in 2001. The decision by the city council to acquiecse and allow busking in the St George St. area occured in 2003. Unfortunately all the newspaper links to that occurance have vanished. The inet is a fluid medium constnatly changing content. Even though the links disappeared it doesnt mean it didnt happen and wasn't there.

Re P Chan The pitfalls area is common knowledge among buskers. It is likme asking someone to provide cites that the sky is blue.