Talk:Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association

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Untitled[edit]

  • I intend to start doing some of the merging mentioned above. Please let me know if there is a problem with me doing that. iwahashi (talk) 11:27, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It makes no sense. I don't see a point in merging the two separate court cases, one before the Supreme Court of the State of California and the other before the US Supreme Court. It makes no sense. --Rastko Pocesta (talk) 16:37, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added the external link to this article that was just published in the Northwestern Interdisciplinary Law Review called "Electronic Games & the First Amendment". The abstract directly references being about EMA v. Brown, but apparently it went to press when it was still called EMA v. Schwarzenegger (that's what the actual PDF says). Definitely could be used to expand the history section and info on important cases. Has a lot of info that the Duke review article didn't cover. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.208.182.152 (talk) 19:00, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of decision quote[edit]

To the IP that removed the quote: first, be aware that we use WP:BRD - that is, you can make a change but if that is reverted, its up to you to discuss it, not those reverting it. Yes, I know there were a couple small things I reverted which I was going to go back and reinsert, but the quote restoration was needed.

That said, the removal of the quote is unwarranted. This is a major case for the video game industry that basically certifies the medium as a form of art like movies and books. The quote from the Scalia decision that was in a block quote was significant in that it identifies that states cannot make a law just because the medium may have social harm, a fight video games have had for years. You may claim it is not a new law, which technically is true, but is a strong affirmation that states cannot regulate free speech. --MASEM (t) 19:37, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you include that quote then you might as well quote the entire opinion. There is nothing special about the quote you included, it is simply a reference to the Stevens precedence. If we're going to include something important to the VG community, then how about including a quote that actually says something about video games? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.65.98.162 (talk) 19:49, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The replacement quote is fine; either way works (depending if you are looking at it from a first amendment law or a video game side). Either way, this is not a trivial case as resolved so a highlighted quote to assert the court's ruling is very helpful. --MASEM (t) 19:58, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely, agreed. A hugely important decision.

Removal of speculative third paragraph in intro[edit]

The third paragraph "Though the ruling was seen as a victory..." strikes me as completely speculative and I'm not sure why it exists. Wikipedia has a policy against speculative content, and this seems overly opinionated considering it brings up the alleged double standard of societal attitudes towards sex and violence. There aren't even any verifiable sources. Especially considering this is touched on in the responses to the verdict, I'm not sure what the purpose is, and it seems to call the neutrality of the article into question. -OmegaflareX — Preceding unsigned comment added by OmegaflareX (talk • contribs) 23:44, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As it is in the lead, it is to be summarizing the rest of the article, and no sources are required in the intro (only if we were quoting material would we need it) The sourcing for this is in the Response section of the article that supports these. --MASEM (t) 02:44, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have to disagree and agree with original poster. If you are going to refer to "some sources" you need to cite those sources otherwise in original paragraph. Otherwise it strays into POV. That's particularly true if you fail to mention that "other sources" disagree with your "some sources" as surely they do. Otherwise you are presenting only one set of analyses, suggesting they are going to hold sway and that is POV. At very least that paragraph is going to need to be edited to reflect multiple views otherwise it is POV. A year after the decision, I see no "fallout" from Brown v EMA to the video game industry; by contrast supporters of regulation, particularly in the scientific community, have come under increased criticism. 69.91.76.231 (talk) 04:39, 10 June 2012 (UTC)MVGuy[reply]
No, this is against what WP:LEAD allows which does not require a lead that is summarizing the contents of its article to use inline citations. We are not directly quoting any statement, so we are not required to use citations. The third paragraph is not introducing anything new as it summarizes the section "Reactions" in the article. (Yes, if this was completely new material not summarized anywhere else in the article, and talking about opinions, yes, citations would be needed, but this is not the case.) The language may need to be adjusted given the relative lack of further events from it, but removal is not warranted, particularly on the basis that the paragraph is supposedly "uncited". --MASEM (t) 04:55, 10 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, fair enough. Yes, it probably needs to be updated though as I don't think that view prevailed. I'll see what I can do to update in new few days. 69.91.76.231 (talk) 14:19, 10 June 2012 (UTC)MVGuy[reply]

Holding summary[edit]

Why does it says "Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed", while both Ninth Circuit Court and Supreme Courts held that the act is unconstitutional? vvvt 07:01, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Red Phoenix (talk · contribs) 13:22, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

This article came up for review at WP:GAN. After reading through it thoroughly, I'm placing the article on hold for a couple of minor issues to be tweaked. Before I begin with a step-by-step list here, I would like to begin by commending the editors of this article for a job well done. It reads very well, it is cited very well, and I believe it is likely a future FA candidate.

  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
    The prose is well written and the article is laid out very well. There are, however, a couple of areas that need some minor tweaks. First and foremost, the last paragraph of the section on the district court opinion reads like one quote, but is not indicated that way, especially this section: "But, the labeling requirement of "violent video game" is not factual information. The Act has not clearly and legally provided a way to determine if a video game is violent so the sticker does not convey factual information. Consequently the statute is unconstitutional." If it is a direct quote from the reference (the case), it needs to be indicated as such, and if it is not, it needs to be reworded to be explained that this was the court's opinion on the matter. This will help to avoid confusion and improve sentence fluency. Likewise, as we continue down the article, a lot of paragraphs begin the same way, as in "The court then went on"... or "In (insert month and year here)". While I wouldn't call rewording these a requirement for a GA, it would help future FA status to make sure the article reads fluidly; reusing the same opening to paragraphs over and over has a tendency to make articles read very choppy.
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
    Again, a little concerned with the way the last paragraph of the district court opinion reads. Without the quote, it reads saying that labeling something a "violent video game" is original research because it's not clear in the writing where that definition comes from. I don't think it is original research, but rewording that section will resolve this. Also, there are a few red links in the article and references, which I would recommend delinking unless they later show enough notability to warrant an article.
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
    I like the coverage here. Very broad, and hits all the main points
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
    Reads very well and draws in both sides of the argument.
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
    Looks to be quite stable.
  6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
    Image use is nice, and it all fits well.
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:
    Really, only one paragraph actually needs significant work, and everything else is pretty small. I'm going to leave this on hold, and I'll let you guys get back to me when you're ready.

Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 13:53, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. I've reworded the problematic section, which also sometimes conflated the district and Supreme courts. I'd like to deal with the other points in the future, but I'm about to go on a vacation for two weeks, so maybe this wasn't the best time for a GA nomination. I'll notify another interested editor who can follow up if you have additional concerns; otherwise, if you're willing to do me the courtesy of further holding until I return at the beginning of June, I'll be happy to do further work as necessary. --BDD (talk) 20:46, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just noting that I was the one that had offered help to BDD if there were any issues post their work on this, as I helped flesh out the article on the SCOTUS case. --MASEM (t) 21:07, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Good work! That one paragraph was really the only issue I was terribly concerned with, and it reads much better now. I'll be bold and snag your red links for you. While I do believe the sentence and paragraph fluency needs some help and the article could use a copyedit in order to advance to A or FA status, this is not required as one of the five MOS categories evaluated; therefore, I'd say we clearly meet the GA criteria at this time. Keep at it; I'm sure this can be an FA in a short amount of time. Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 00:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I want to note as well that there are a few dead links in your references, but all of them are references that are not web-exclusive; i.e. magazines, newspapers, and one amicus brief. I still will pass this because the references are still there and because they exist in forms other than the web links, but again, for moving the article forward to A or FA, these links will have to be taken care of. Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 00:56, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Toolserver is being weird but I think I can deal with all the redlinks in time through WAyback. That shouldn't be a problem (I've done a few already). --MASEM (t) 03:37, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Second para of lead[edit]

The second paragraph reads:

California Senator Leland Yee introduced the original law in 2005, believing a connection between violent video games and aggressive behavior in children, and sought to regulate the voluntary video game industry ratings review system, the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Though similar laws were passed in other States, they were challenged by video game industry groups like the Entertainment Software Association, and defeated in lower courts. The California law was similarly blocked and ruled unconstitutional in lower courts, but then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger continued to take the case to the Supreme Court in 2009, which the Court accepted. Oral arguments were heard in November 2010, with the decision announced in June 2011.

  • I removed this para with the comment: "removed legislative history / procedural posture as not sufficiently notable per WP:LEAD. It's really background information for the subject of the article (the SCOTUS case."
  • Masem put it back with the comment: "nearly 1/2 of this article is about the lower count challenges. Not mentioning the history in the lead is inappropriate."

Masem, I don't think the lead section needs to reflect the body proportionately. There's nothing inappropriate about leaving out a large number of relatively minor background facts that appear in the body. As the first sentence indicates, the article is about the Supreme Court case, not about the lower courts. I believe the only reason the lower courts get so much real estate in the article is because those sections were developed before the Supreme Court appeal was decided. Look at other articles about Supreme Court cases and you won't see any where such material gets the largest paragraph in the lead section. A decent analog is NFIB v. Sebelius (the Obamacare case). You'll see that the legislative history and the lower court proceedings, which were extensive, are relegated to a "Background" section and aren't even mentioned in the lead. --Nstrauss (talk) 01:24, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, LEAD does say that it should summarize with reasonably equal weight, and while the SCOTUS conclusion is the key of this entire article, understand in the lead the basis and initial challenge of the law is a critical part of the article and thus a critical part of the lead. Just because the article is named after the SCOTUS case, it incorporates contents from another article that was about the distict case, so implicitly this article is the entire history of the case. The lead should summarize that, yes, and while the focus is the SCOTUS decision, ignoring the background is not really appropriate. --MASEM (t) 01:57, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So are you saying the lead sections of all the other SCOTUS cases (such as NFIB v. Sebelius) are inappropriate? --Nstrauss (talk) 04:51, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given that NFIB v Sebelius is a start-class article, I wouldn't use it to judge its lead. Instead, I look to the examples in Featured status Wikipedia:FA#Law and a spot check there shows all leads giving enough of a background to understand the law and lower court challenges (if such existed). --MASEM (t) 05:12, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

According to Wikipedia:FA#Law there are only five FAs about U.S. Supreme Court cases:

  1. Afroyim v. Rusk: Nothing in the lead about proceedings in the lower courts, despite two paragraphs in the article on the subject ("Beys Afroyim").
  2. Ex parte Crow Dog: Nothing in the lead about proceedings in the lower courts aside from a single, notable sentence about the trial, despite a large paragraph in the article about the subject ("Trial").
  3. United States v. Lara: The lead only has 3 sentences on the barest bones of the enactment history, equivalent to the second half of our first sentence ("a California law enacted in 2005 that was intended to ban the sale of certain violent video games to children without parental supervision"). There's nothing about legislative history or proceedings in the lower courts, despite a sizable chunk of the article addressing the proceedings below ("Procedural history").
  4. United States v. Wong Kim Ark: Nothing in the lead about legislative history or proceedings in the lower courts, despite sizable chunks of the article addressing those issues ("Citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment" and "Challenge to Wong Kim Ark's claim of citizenship").
  5. Washington v. Texas: The lead has only the barest bones about proceedings in the lower courts ("but was blocked by Texas courts because state law prevented co-defendants from testifying for each other, under the theory that they would be likely to lie for each other on the stand"), despite a section of the article addressing the issue ("Washington's trial").

Even looking at the non-U.S. cases (which aren't properly analogous) I can't find a single one that has nearly as much material in the lead about legislative history and/or proceedings below as our article. --Nstrauss (talk) 21:54, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think that they do say more but it does seem that they all focus on the SCOTUS-level arguments and not the developments up to that point, so that second paragraph could be trimmed. My concern is that as we're talking about taking this to FA, at least under present FAC approaches, they may want to see a better lead and that paragraph would be appropriate. But at worst it remains in the history and can be restored from there. --MASEM (t) 18:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If your concern is about the length of the lead, then in my view we could include a bit about the reaction from the proponents of the bill. That viewpoint is arguably excluded in favor or viewpoints from within the gaming industry. Other than that I think our bases are pretty well covered. --Nstrauss (talk) 19:11, 29 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's not so much length, just that the lead should be an appropriate summary of points in the article; as you've shown, SCOTUS cases and other landmark cases use leads that seem to skip that. As that's the consistent style with law articles, it seems reasonable to keep that (read: remove the 2nd para) but I just caution that this might be challenged at FA and it might have to be restored even though it breaks that consistency. --MASEM (t) 19:25, 29 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think your concern is alleviated by the fact that WP:LEAD says the material should reflect its "relative importance to the subject" and summarize its "most important points." Along these lines I made some further changes to reflect what seems to be most notable. Now that I've given the lead careful scrutiny I think an additional paragraph may be warranted explaining the reasoning for the court's decision. In particular this sentence from the body seems quite notable: "The Court's decision also determined that from the evidence, there was no 'compelling' link between violent video games and its effects on children." Want to take a crack? --Nstrauss (talk) 19:32, 29 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's okay considering your point. It's one of those things I'm not used to seeing in normal articles I work on (video games, mostly) but that's not to say it isn't appropriate. If the issue is raised at FAC, it's relatively easy to fix back up. --MASEM (t) 19:37, 29 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Landmark[edit]

If we're going to call this case "landmark" then we should have a reliable secondary source stating that it's landmark. If anyone finds one please post it here or cite it in the article. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:48, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's only "landmark" in the realm of the video game industry, not the general population. (it is a far far cry from something like Roe vs Wade). I can see calling it landmark in that light (Which I think we already do in the lead) in context of video games, but should not be a word in the lead unless we have non-video game industry sources that use that term. --MASEM (t) 21:57, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think it has been considered "landmark" in the sense that it specifically delineated 1st amendment protections, sure in the context of video games, but it would probably apply to other media. So it's probably "landmark" in the sense of clarifying 1st amendment protections. By the way in terms of the use "landmark" I assume a source that points to the decision as notable is sufficient (we're not really fighting over the specific word are we?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.100.165.246 (talk) 01:43, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we're fighting over a specific word -- "landmark" and "notable" have quite different meanings. Per WP:V, all of our assertions have to be verifiable. There are lots of First Amendment cases that few people would call "landmark." --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:14, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If clarification is needed, the decision was considered very important from the VG industry (a point we can source), but likely not as significant outside of it, so "landmark" may be considered too strong a word. --MASEM (t) 05:23, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not so sure about the above comment. I think the case is considered important on 1st amendment grounds because (as I understand it, not a lawyer) it is the first to specifically say violent content can't be regulated (at least until strict scrutiny is reached). Although video games are the medium my (again naive, admittedly) understanding is that this likely sets the ground for other media as well. I guess what I'm confused about though is, if we are arguing over the specific word "landmark" what kinds of documentation do we need for use of the word? What would Dr. Fleischman consider documentation for this? I'm not sure it's such a critical issue one way or another, but I just want to be sure we're clearly delineating what kind of documentation is required. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.100.165.246 (talk) 05:18, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's not about violence, because we've had the Miller test for some time (which violence clears) and as noted in the article, there was a case just before this one about videos of animal violence that were shown to be constitutionally protected. In terms of landmark, we'd be talking about a case that would be covered broadly and in text books, ala Roe vs Wade. This is an important case for video games and free speech, but as it really didn't change the norm, it's difficult to argue that it is going to be considered landmark. --MASEM (t) 05:29, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"What would Dr. Fleischman consider documentation for this?" Any reliable source not tied to the video game industry. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:44, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Child protection groups"?[edit]

Is "child protection groups" really the most accurate label in this sentence: "The ruling was seen as a significant victory for the video game industry and a defeat for child protection groups." (relevant edits by User:DrFleischman): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchants_Ass%27n&diff=prev&oldid=587191541

I'm sure it applies to some child protection groups, but certainly not all. I'm having trouble thinking of a neutral sounding label for the defeated group here, but the article doesn't have one now. Maybe this sentence should be removed. It doesn't really add any information that's not obvious from context, and is framed basically as "evil corporations vs children".

...dissimilar username... (talk) 04:18, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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