This article is about the 2023 Union Square riot. This was a giveaway of gaming-related items gone wrong, meant to be hosted by Kai Cenat. Any comments are welcome and appreciated. 🌙Eclipse(talk)(contribs)14:55, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In the interest of brevity I'd like to change "while not having a permit for the gathering." into "without a permit for the gathering." or even better "without a permit." I would also like for the lead to briefly summarize the consequences, including injuries, property damage and arrests. Regards. Draken Bowser (talk) 11:46, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
According to Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times, this is not Cenat's first giveaway: in July 2023, he surprised a Massachusetts woman whom he used to visit with, by giving her $20,000, saying she was "a second mother to him", and that she deserved it. The woman, Cathy Parker, was "reluctant to accept the money." Recommend removing this sentence as not relevant to the Union Square riot.
On August 25, Night, a talent management firm based in Austin, Texas, announced the acquisition of LFM Management, another talent management company based in New York, placing Night as talent management for Cenat and other AMP members. Recommend removing this sentence as not relevant as well.
Source review also completed. Currently, some cites are missing wikilinks for work titles (e.g., ref 22 not linking to BBC News) and there's inconsistency between using the publisher vs. work parameter in some ((cite web)) references. I recommend using work for all of them. Ref 40 has www.cbsnews.com for the work parameter. Please go through all of the cites again, let me know when you're done, and I'll take a look. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's no consensus as to Fox News' reliability, so I wouldn't consider it to be a high quality source per FAC criteria. Can you replace ref 10 with something else?
The ref for note a (ref 22) is from 2020. It's also unrelated to the actual event. Is there a ref that says Cenat was wrong about the tear gas? Otherwise, I would remove this note.
The analysis section begins "The incident generated discourse about the outsized influence of internet personalities", but only cites 4 sources. Can you find more analyses to cite there?
Maybe I'm just middle aged, but despite the fact that "subathon" is linked to a Wiktionary entry, I think it is worth giving the term a little more context for the reader to understand it without having to click on the link. Perhaps replace "subathon" with "continuous livestream subathon to attract new subscribers".
The serial comma is inconsistently used. I see two missed opportunities to use it before it is used in webcams, keyboards, and microphones. Make that consistent.
The way the timeline is written out in the Union Square riot section, I get the impression that Cenat was in a police car around or after 5:30, but later it says he was released by police at 5:00. How is that?
In his first public appearance after the riot, Cenat held up a New York Daily News issue and apologized in a livestream on August 9, while announcing that he would take a break from livestreaming. This sentence tripped me up. Suggestion: "On August 9, Cenat made his first public appearance after the riot in a livestream, holding up a New York Daily News issue, apologizing, and announcing that he would take a break from livestreaming." (Note my use of the serial comma, which may or may not match the rest of your article, depending on how you want to handle that consistency issue.)
smashing a man in a red sweatshirt's head – This sentence tripped me up a bit. If you remove "in a red sweatshirt", it would read better. That detail doesn't seem necessary anyway.
Is there anything else in the sources about the Civilian Complaint Review Board action? That one sentence seems lonely and also that seems an important item to be left without a conclusion.
The Union Square riot section seems to indicate that Cenat was released from police custody on August 4, but the Aftermath section says he was released August 5. Which is it?
Denzel Dennis and Muktar Din, two other people connected to the incident, paid $1,049.50 to the organization. They each paid that amount, right? The way its written, the sentence tells me they each paid $524.75.
Mark Johnson opined on the role of social media (such as the interactivity of Twitch) on the relationships between streamers and their fans. I think "role" should be "affect", if I'm reading that right.
I don't think quoting "was going to be that big." adds value. I think this would be better summarized in your own words. If you do keep it, move the period.
Subway entrance pic caption: I don't think you need to repeat what's said in the body. I recommend reducing the caption to simply "14th Street–Union Square station entrance".
I don't think it is necessary to include the citation in the infobox for the start and end times of the riot since that information is supported by citations in the body.
Infobox: I can't find any of the law enforcement figures but Maddrey in the body. If they are included in the infobox, they need to be mentioned in the body and supported there by a citation to a reliable source.
I think the first sentence could do a better job of speaking to a global audience by immediately placing the event in the US. I think this could probably be achieved by describing Cenat as American and maybe changing the "Union Square, Manhattan" to "New York City's Union Square" or something like that.
I think the phrase "purported giveaway" can give the false impression that he allegedly gave stuff away, but that he may not have. I recommend rewriting to indicate that people convened on the promise of a giveaway.
The third instance of "riot" is Wikilinked; it should be the first, if you're going to Wikilink it at all. If you're going to Wikilink it in the lead, I think the first instance in the body should be Wikilinked as well. Having said all that, I think the term is broadly understood enough to not need a Wikilink.
I think that's everything. All in all, this article looks like it may well be comprehensive, though this is the first I've heard of the event, so I'm not familiar with any details or analysis that isn't included. I have not looked at the sources, trusting that they have already been vetted above. Aside from the comments above, I think the prose is well written and uses WP:NPOV. Earwig's Copyvio Detector says plagiarism is unlikely. Dugan Murphy (talk) 03:27, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Lunaeclipse: It looks like you're getting close to addressing all my comments. Ping me like this once you feel like you have addressed them all so I can take another look at the article. Dugan Murphy (talk) 12:37, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
(courtesy ping Dugan Murphy) lunaeclipse(talk)13:38, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I just read through the article again and found that the only one of my above comments not yet resolved is the one about Duke/Denzel Dennis. I also made a few minor edits of my own. During the re-read, I developed these additional comments:
I see someone has added an "about whom" tag in the lead. I think that's an appropriate question that can easily be answered by summarizing what's in the last section of the body. Something like "discussion by a variety of public figures" or something.
Can you find a reliable source on Cenat's birth year, his age at the time of the incident, or the year of his graduation? I think it would be helpful for the reader to have an idea of his age.
including many people who were drawn to the event Is this phrase about people who were drawn there by Cenat's promotions or people who were drawn in by the sight of those already assembled?
The sequence of events at the riot lists Cenat arriving, being swarmed by fans, then released by police. Was he arrested or detained at some point?
Is Muktar Din the legal name for one of the other Internet personalities?
Capitalisation goes a little awry in places (FNs 5,6, 9, 11, 17, 26, 30, 33, 34, 40, 41 & 43 all go with first letter capitalisation; the others are sentence case)
The NYPD called on an estimated 1000 officers to respond as part of a level four mobilization—the NYPD's highest response level—at around 4:30 p.m.[18]
The source doesn't say support "the NYPD's highest response level". I also don't see anything about 4:30 pm.
and NYPD chief Jeffrey Maddrey was among officers who had objects thrown at them.[26]
the source does say that Maddrey was attacked, and it does say in a different section that objects were being thrown at the police, but it's a little bit of WP:SYNTH to put those together and conclude that Maddrey had objects thrown at him. He could have been referring to being on the bus when the bus was attacked.
The bus was attacked by other people attempting to free those on board. In a press conference, chief Maddrey claimed that multiple police cars and food carts had been destroyed.[29]
The source does talk about the attempt to free people on the bus, but I don't see anything about police cars or food carts being destroyed.
Kai Cenat is an American live streamer and YouTuber. He attended Frederick Douglass Academy and the State University of New York at Morrisville, which he later dropped out of. Cenat joined a group of Internet personalities called Any Means Possible (AMP) in 2020. The following year he gained popularity after producing a series of live streams with Drake, 21 Savage, Toosii and Lil Baby. In February 2023, the United Talent Agency announced they would represent Cenat during his subathon (a continuous live stream where a new subscriber extends a descending timer).[1][2]
Only [1] mentions Cenat. But it doesn't say he's American, or mention Frederick Douglass Academy, SUNY Morrisville, AMP, Drake, etc.
I wasn't keeping careful track of the citations I looked at which did check out, but I'd say the sampling of problems I found represents about 1/3 of all those I looked at. I suspect that all of the facts that are stated in the article are indeed true, but they're not cited to the right sources (for example, I did see the "NYPD's highest response level" statement in one of the sources I read, just not the one it was cited to). Overall, I'd say I turned up sufficient problems in the spot check that I can't support and suggest somebody take a deeper look at this to see if the problem really is extensive or if I just got unluckly and found a few unrepresentivie problems.
By 3:30 p.m. the NYPD had mobilized dozens of officers to the area and established a perimeter. The crowd took down barriers and conflict broke out between police and members of the crowd. Some people climbed on a gazebo, street signs, vehicles (including a bus), and a statue of George Washington,[16]
Source doesn't say anything about 3:30, "dozens of officers", establishing a perimeter, climbing street sign, or a bus.
Nine people were injured, according to the NYPD. Four people were taken to Mount Sinai Beth Israel, while two others were taken to Lenox Hill Hospital.[26] Three officers were injured,[10]
The source doesn't say nine people (in fact, it implies seven), and doesn't mention specific hospitals. More interestingly, the title in the ref is "Twitch streamer's giveaway sparks mayhem in Union Square", but the URL points to a story titled "Twitch streamer Kai Cenat charged over Union Square riot".
Maddrey also reported that a 17-year-old was wounded by a large firecracker.[26]
Basically verified, but the source just says "a firework injury"; it's a bit of WP:OR to turn that into "a large firecracker"
Following the event, Mayor Adams stated in a press briefing that "children cannot be raised by social media",[37]
The quote in the source is "Our children cannot be raised by social media". It's often appropriate to take a portion of a long quote, but in this case, leaving off the single word "our" isn't useful for trimming the length and changes the meaning slightly.
Keith Dorsey, founder and chief executive of...
This isn't a sourcing problem per-se, but the previous sentence explicitly refers to PRWeek. The way this sentence is introduced, it lulls the reader into thinking we're still talking about that same source; in reality we've moved on to a NY Times article but you wouldn't know that unless you clicked through the trailing citation.
Also, as a minor nit, the PRWeek article is a reprint from campaign.com; it's probably better to cite the original directly.
As of August 2023, Cenat had a cumulative 11.1 million followers across YouTube and Twitch.[6]]
This isn't quite wrong, but the source gives the number of followers on each of the two platforms. It's slightly misleading to just add them up and say that's how many followers he has because many people will have followed him on both platforms, so they're getting double counted. I'll admit, I'm probably being a bit pedantic about this one.
In a live stream on August 2, Cenat claimed that he would give away gift cards, headphones, gaming chairs, computers, webcams, keyboards, and microphones to attendees who could correctly answer questions about YouTube and live streaming. He called this "get off the streets and go stream".[9]
The first part of this verifies, but the source doesn't contain the "get off the streets" quote. Also, the title in the citation ("Twitch streamer in custody after giveaway draws huge crowds to Union Square in New York City") doesn't match what the URL points to ("Twitch streamer charged with inciting a riot after giveaway draws huge crowds to Union Square in New York City"). I suspect the on-line title just got updated sometime after it was originally posted, but I'm more concerned about the lack of the quotation.
I should add that (assuming I'm doing the time-zone math right), a substantial part of this article was written within a couple of hours of the event. It's common for news websites to put up something quickly and then keep updating it as more information becomes available. And it's not just low-quality sources that do that; the NY Times does the same thing. And it's a reasonable thing to do; if they wanted to wait a full day to update a story, they would be printing a newspaper :-) That might explain some of the discrepancies I found; they might have been accurate at the time but the source evolved in a way that it no longer says what we were relying on it to say. That's one of the dangers of writing articles about current events. Be that as it may, by the time things get to FAC, that stuff needs to be sorted out.
(break)
I've taken yet another look at this, and have to come down firmly in the oppose camp. In a previous comment, I pointed out that the NYPD's highest response level was not in the source cited. The response was to just delete that phrase from the article. While that technically resolved the problem, the right response would have been to find the source which actually did say that, especially since I had already stated that there was another source for it. It only took a few minutes of searching to find it again: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/10/us/kai-cenat-twitch-nyc-violence/index.html. Likewise with chief Maddrey claimed that multiple police cars and food carts had been destroyed; this was removed, apparently without any effort to find the proper source, which is https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/union-square-kai-cenat-giveaway-police/. The goal is to fix the article, not to just make the complaints go away by deleting the offending text.
I also just found On May 21, 2024, the Manhattan District Attorney's office announced that Cenat would not face any charges for the riot. They claimed that he had already paid $55,000 in restitution to the Union Square Partnership, the neighborhood's nonprofit organization for economic development.[39]. The cited source ("Why a Sculptor Was Drawn to Sewer Alligators") says nothing about any of these things.
In short, the sourcing is a total mess, and the nom doesn't seem to be putting in any serious effort to fix the problems. More fundamentally, the majority of the article is sourced to media reports written within hours of the event. This was a chaotic situation, so it's to be expected that the on-the-spot reports would get details wrong based on the incomplete information available at the time. This really needs sourcing from after the event, when people have had time to fully understand what went on and research the details.
I am deciding to withdraw this nomination per RoySmith and SchroCat's comments (especially the primary sources one). If I happen to fix the remaining issues above, I will renominate this article. lunaeclipse(talk)14:26, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]