Talk:Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

Article's intent?
There needs to be a serious discussion as to the intended scope of this article. At the moment, it would more properly be titled something along the lines of Public response to the 2009 arrest of Roman Polanski. At the moment it's definitely not focused on the topic of the arrest, but rather the reaction. Furthermore, this should not become a coatrack of everybody's commentary who decided to comment on the issue. That would perhaps be more suitable for a Wikiquote page (though it may be the first of its kind, it would fit the mandate of that project better than this project). Does anyone have a clear idea as to how this article could be focused and what criteria and organizational paradigm we should apply to the "Reaction" section?
 * Peace and Passion &#9774; ''("I'm listening....") 22:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It is a genuine Cause célèbre. When famous people get arrested, famous friends talk. It's notable and its notability rests upon and largely exists, as it is wont to do, through the quite notable expressions of heads of state, actors, lawyers .... and the cultural translations of the chattering class. A true 'cause célèbre' is quite rare, but this is clearly one of epic international and cultural dimension. Recording the various pronouncements and reactions is appropriate here, it is the very meat of it's notability.99.141.254.118 (talk) 00:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Umm, I understand that. But there's a mandate to this project and we need to work out how this article ought to fit into it without defying some of its own policies and procedures.
 * First of all
 * The title of the article, suggestions?
 * The relation of the title to the content. 99.141 above seems to support it just being the "reaction."  Is this the "arrest" and the surrounding events, including the "reaction"?  Or is it just the "reaction"?
 * The amount of coatracking of commentary which will be allowed. How will we decide what is significant enough to be kept to produce a quality article. Quotes right from primary sources probably don't make the cut; if they were significant enough, they were probably repeated by another party (i.e., in a newspaper, by a journalist, etc.).
 * Understanding that Wikipedia is not a place to store "repositories of associated topics such as quotations." If you really want to make a coatrack, go to Wikiquote.  They won't appreciate it though, because many of the quotes won't pass their quotability guidelines.
 * As the Pope down below says, I think the first thing we need to quickly decide is the naming of this article.
 * Peace and Passion &#9774; ''("I'm listening....") 01:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * PS 94.141, if you're going to reinsert that awkwardly tangential commentary by a French blogger, at least clean up its grammar and English. Some of it doesn't even make sense in English.  What the hell does "doing pure corporatism" even mean?


 * I don't think we really disagree, it's just a matter of tenor and tone. And yes, I should have polished the reinsertion. I'm just running short of wikitime at the moment. Oh, and yes let's reconsider the title. 99.141.254.118 (talk) 02:51, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems problematic to me that an article ostensibly about his arrest never actually mentions why he was arrested. cmadler (talk) 18:15, 2 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. It seems like somebody assumed that this is a public case about which everyone is well infomed, and forgot that they were writing an encyclopedic article. Maziotis (talk) 20:14, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Ambiguous title
"Arrest of Roman Polanski" is ambiguous. Polanski has been arrested more than once (his original 1977 arrest and the 2009 arrest). How about "2009 arrest of Roman Polanski"? Urban XII (talk) 23:15, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ummm, as I said just above?
 * Peace and Passion &#9774; ''("I'm listening....") 01:18, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * not moved. Station1 (talk) 01:27, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

2009 arrest of Roman Polanski → Response to the 2009 arrest of Roman Polanski — As mentioned by several editors, the current title is ambiguous. I don't think this is controversial but it also needs to be updated at Roman Polanski which is locked. Abby Kelleyite (talk) 17:45, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not even really an arrest. He was taken into custody for a crime he already pled guilty too, he is now just being held until he is extradited back to the United States to serve his jail time for raping the 13 year old girl. I'm not sure either title is correct.  TJ Spyke   23:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It is so an arrest, he was arrested in response to a extradition request from the Americam authorities. He will be held on remand if his application for bail is refused in swizz whilst the extradition request is debated in the swizz courts. Also he was not found guilty of rape of a 13 years old girl, he pled guilty to.. and was found guilty of the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. Off2riorob (talk) 18:03, 4 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The title is perfectly acceptable as it stands. It is 2009, he was arrested and there is no doubt about the identity of the subject. The public reaction obviously follows the arrest, but the arrest itself is the notable event. Where else do we put public reaction ahead of the event which is the uniquivocal fact? What followed is reaction and opinion and should be trimmed, not made the article subject. Leaky  Caldron  18:51, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree with Leaky caldron. Off2riorob (talk) 18:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Notable, well referenced but not encyclopedic
This is an attempt at an analysis of a new story. It is not encyclopedic. I am not prepared to nominate it for speedy deletion but some one should do so. JimCubb (talk) 00:32, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * "Recentism is not by itself an argument for article deletion" WookMuff (talk) 03:03, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Just a few sources re: the about face by the French government, and the semi-about face by the Polish government
Politicians face backlash over Polanski http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7ad75dca-ae06-11de-87e7-00144feabdc0.html?catid=75&SID=google

After outcry, France softens tone on Polanski case http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/entertainment/6129813/after-outcry-france-softens-tone-on-polanski-case/

The Polanski Case: A Gallic Shrug http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/weekinreview/04kimmelman.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&hpw

The first two seem mostly to "boil down" the change in position within the named governements, but the last one is of particular interest, as it describes "A case of morals" (une affaire de moeurs), which was a phrase from the petition, as being the french equivalent of "yada yada". WookMuff (talk) 03:01, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


 * "A case of morals" is an incorrect translation; I suspect the petition was written in France and then hastily translated into English. "Affaire de mœurs" is a somewhat old-fashioned euphemism for a legal issue pertaining to sexual relations (e.g. the "brigade des mœurs" was the police unit that dealt with prostitution). See for instance, how this official biography recalls the "ballets roses" scandal as an "affaire de mœurs". Teleogenic (talk) 07:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * what would be a correct translation then? If mœurs means mores, as in societal and social mores, then case of morals seems to be fairly accurate. WookMuff (talk) 09:15, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The word "mœurs" means something like "lifestyle habits", and it can be used in this sense in, say, ethnology. It is however sometimes used as a old-fashioned euphemism or code-word for unsavory sex issues. Fourty years ago, most people would not have discussed sex openly, especially if dealing with "alternative" sexuality. If you talked about the "mœurs" of somebody, it meant that there was something "wrong" or "unusual" about that person's sex lifestyle - maybe that person engaged in echangism or homosexuality. In the same way, criminal cases dealing with sexuality (e.g. using under-age prostitutes; remember that at the time majority was at 21 and it was a crime to have homosexual sex with anyone under that age) would often be described as "affaires de mœurs". Teleogenic (talk) 09:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * "Vice squad" is what we always hear in American police shows on TV. And isn't it something similar in Britain, too? Seems like a pretty exact correspondence; it's about upholding (sexual) "morals" in the one language, or dealing with (sexual) "vice" -- i.e, lack of morals -- in the other. Funny thing is, BTW, it's the exact same euphemism in both languages: The "sex" part, which is what distinguishes this kind of crime from other crimes like thievery and battery and public drunkenness and reckless (which are just as immoral and therefore just as much a vice as sex-related ones) is never mentioned. But anyway, apart from being exact opposites, it's the same thing! :-) i.e, it's the corresponding term for "sexual or sex-related criminality", just using the word for "lack of morals" in stead of "morals" itself. HTH!--CRConrad (talk) 09:35, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Regarding the apparent about-face of the French government, it is actually quite obvious once you understand French politics. Nicolas Sarkozy was voted in partly on a law & order platform - you know, put criminals behind the bars, or as Frédéric Lefèvre suggested recently, chemically castrate sex criminals. However, as he tries to reach out to a broad majority, including artists, he hired Frédéric Mitterrand as Minister of Culture. Mitterrand, however, is hardly representative of Sarkozy's majority in Parliament or Sarkozy's voters. Teleogenic (talk) 08:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Odd level to break out
I have to suggest that some of the above contretemps would be avoided if this article were about the entirety of the case from the 1970s forward. Just talking about an arrest for a crime for which there is no article seems to turn BLP a bit on its head, and it does make it seem to be all about the current-day media flap and thus lean toward murky analysis and reaction rather than encyclopedic events. When I was able to edit regularly I often saw this sort of disagreement about an article a symptom of a mistake in scope or framing. --Dhartung | Talk 09:07, 12 October 2009 (UTC)