Wikipedia:Featured article review/Moors murders/archive1

Moors murders

Moors murders (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/Moors murders/archive1

• Featured article review/Moors murders/archive1

Notified: I think everyone involved is aware of this....

I am nominating this featured article for review because it is clear that concerted efforts are being made to degrade the article with the removal of sourced information. The recent removal of inverted commas also introduces plagiarised text into the article. Good faith attempts to sort perceived problems have been obstructed. SchroCat (talk) 09:05, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Moved to talk page. Victoria (tk)

Unverified passages

Okay there are numerous ways we can do this, the important thing is that on this page, people list in a neutral manner the issues that are outstanding. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:52, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

EEng: The ball is sort of in your court here. I can always copy over your diffs but I don't have the sources (and don't want to get capital letters involved) so I can't do much more than that. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:48, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

For convenience, below is a bulleted list of the tags I found in the most recently reverted of EEng's versions of the article. Please refer to the article history for the context of each disputed snippet. This does not include the other reverted changes of EEng which were more in the nature of copyedits rather than factual/sourcing disputes. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:32, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Note: You may need to consult the context to understand the issue with the quoted text. Points 1-55 are by EEng, and all page refs are to the editions cited in the article's bibliography.

List moved to Talk:Moors murders 20:11, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Moved to talk. Victoria (tk) 15:14, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

• I'll help out as much as I'm able to satisfy any concerns that the article isn't up to standard. I've requested some of the books via ILL. I suspect most of the issues can be resolved by adding additional citations. As Eric pointed out, this was not as much of a focus 10 years ago when the article was promoted. --Laser brain (talk) 00:01, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
• DCS Benfield's 1968 account of the case (Benfield, A. (April 1968). "The Moors Murders". Police Journal. 41 (4): 147–160. Retrieved 17 August 2019.) seems like it might be of some use in verifying some of the text currently attributed to Topping. Non-exhaustive examples: point 25 (the uniform comment) at 151; seems to clarify point 35 ("five days later") to mean the site was found and dug on 21 October, at 156; on point 37 (the officers' reasoning for continuing the search after Kilbride was found) it makes clear they were specifically concerned with Brady's boast of killing and burying "three or four", at 154. Triptothecottage (talk) 01:23, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

  Good work. After reading Benfield myself, however, I'm reminded that one of the problems we face is evaluating the reliability and appropriate use of the many tellings and retellings of this story -- official, legal, journalistic, novelistic, scholarly, popular, it just goes on and on. EEng 14:43, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

  Perhaps it would be better to use a secondary source that uses Benfield 1968 as a source, rather than use Benfield directly. For example, Cummins, et al. 2019 [1] uses Benfield in a couple chapters [2] [3], as does this paper. FWIW Harrison uses Benfield, the man, as a source. – Levivich 17:26, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

  I thought that too, but in the limited time I had, finding direct verification of that problematic passages – which, to be blunt, are often about fairly trivial aspects of the case – was not easy. Sources like Topping and Benfield are by their nature going to be heavy on details which might be overlooked in a more theoretical text. I actually looked for Benfield after seeing him in Cummins' bibliography, which I was browsing through for any more recent minor works.

Worth noting that a fairly recent PhD thesis bemoans the lack of scholarly analysis and historiography on the case (although has any doctoral candidate not thus complained?) which underlines the difficulty of the task at hand here. Triptothecottage (talk) 00:58, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

fairly trivial aspects – I'll agree with that if we modify it to "relatively minor details". But this is supposed to be an FA, and we're supposed to sweat the details. As for dissertations, yes it's true: it's a rare dissertation that says, "My topic has been treated in comprehensive detail already". The dissertation's conclusions we'd have to use with great caution if at all, but we can certainly raid its bibliography. EEng 01:37, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly, on both counts. By "trivial" I mean it would be, in most cases, quite acceptable to not mention them at all if we can't be sure of their veracity. As for the thesis, it may be a moot point anyway unless you happen to know a friendly Manchester librarian. I know far too many English postgrads to be able to agree that kind of thesis is "rare", though. Triptothecottage (talk) 02:27, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Concern about lead

The current version of the lead of the article gives no indication of why there might be any ongoing interest in this topic. I'm sure it was a sensational crime for its time, and in all the news media of the time, but that was over 50 years ago. Why do people today care about some mass-child-murder-and-abuse scandal from 50 years ago, which would barely be a one-day scandal by modern standards? Has the case had any lasting effect on society and the law? Was it some sort of high-watermark in the public visibility of awfulness from which we have only escalated? Why? Why should this be a topic on which we have such a long and detailed article, beyond the mere existence and documentation of these facts? That sort of evaluation is missing from the lead, and belongs there. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:26, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

So you think that the lead should explain to you why you might be interested in the violent deaths of five children? Don't you think that's a little absurd? Wasn't it Socrates who said when a student asked him what value it was to him to study geometry replied "Give him a penny"? Eric Corbett 17:08, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't think Socrates had pennies. In Greece they use Euros. EEng 19:11, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

David Eppstein's asking rhetorically. He knows the answer. But he's pointing out that the lead should give the reader, who doesn't know what he's about to read, some indication of the case's ongoing importance. EEng 17:17, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I do think the lead should explain why we should care. WP:NOTNEWS and all that. Countless other mass murders have occurred before or since, without even being recorded here as articles; why should this one be featured? History should reflect on the present, neither merely being a dry recitation of facts nor being violence-porn for the readers who like to think about such things but not enact them. The article is missing that reflective aspect. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:23, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, this is one of the things that struck me as soon as I started thumbing the sources: the article has almost nothing on the social and cultural impacts of the case (which were seismic -- as a friend pointed out, this was the UK's version of the Manson murders) how it fits into the understanding and typology of murder and serial killing, etc etc. Appropriate treatment of this will take a lot of work, because it will require going beyond book sources; that kind of stuff might only be in journals and such, and lacking book-length scholarly overview, it will be very hard to know how to find NPOV. EEng 17:17, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

(ec) I'm unsure when it was lost, but a phrase that appeared in the FA-promoted version of the lead was more impactful IMO (emphasis mine): "The murders, reported in almost every English-language newspaper in the world, were the result of what Malcolm MacCulloch..." --Laser brain (talk) 17:25, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, this would have helped. Perhaps the comparison to the Manson case explains the reaction here. I think most informed Americans would agree that the Manson case was and still is highly significant, enough so that they might forget to explain why in an article about it and become bewildered when people from other parts of the world asked for an explanation of its ongoing significance. Perhaps the editors of this article have been similarly surrounded by the trees so long that, similarly, they forget to explain that they're in a forest. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:44, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

(responding to ping but I have no intention of getting involved in this; the article was only on my watchlist because I made a single one-line comment at the FAC a decade ago) As EEng says, with the arguable exception of Jack the Ripper (which realistically only retains its fame because the murders were unsolved), there's no other murder case in British history with a similar cultural, legal and even economic impact. It's hard to convey this in a style suitable for Wikipedia because it's so self-evident that the sources don't bother to explain it; fifty years after the murders and years after both Hindley and Brady's deaths, their mugshots are still two of the most recognisable images in British culture. Also in a parallel with the Manson case, the MMs were the first major capital case in a jurisdiction that had just suspended the death penalty, which led to more sustained media interest in the case than there had been for anything comparable, owing to both Brady and Hindley living for decades after the event and constant media updates about appeals, hunger strikes, the ethics of whole-life sentencing without the possibility of parole, and so on. (The pair were captured in October 1965 and the death penalty was abolished for murder in November; had the trial taken place sooner the pair would undoubtedly have been executed and would have drifted into obscurity to anyone other than true-crime aficionados.) ‑ Iridescent 19:31, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

it's so self-evident that the sources don't bother to explain it – I'd modify that to say it's so self-evident that most sources don't bother to explain it. But I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that there are numerous academic articles analyzing those impacts. EEng 20:43, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Would you believe there's a book-length study published just this year? Cummins, Ian (2019). Serial killers and the media : the Moors murders legacy. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783030048754. Triptothecottage (talk) 06:09, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

David Eppstein, this 2002 Guardian article is worth reading: "Brady and Hindley were the first modern serial killers. Hindley was the first woman. She was as much part of the Sixties as the Beatles and the Pill. She was the end of innocence." SarahSV ^(talk) 20:11, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer, but I'm less interested in my own edification and more on article content. Can we maybe get some sense of this into the article itself? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:39, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

[Off-topic comments moved to talk]

David, the problem is that the editors most familiar with the topic, and most able to convey it, don't want to take part in this because of the personal attacks. It would be good to know from them which version in the article's history is the most reliable/compliant. This is the version that was promoted. It would be easy enough (for editors familiar with the issues) to take the best version and start updating and adding sources as needed. Pinging Casliber in case he has any ideas. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:54, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

SlimVirgin I don't see how it matters what their personal reasons are for not participating, nor for what historical processes might have led to the article being substandard by current standards of sourcing and explanation of its significance. What matters is whether the article can be brought up to standard. If the article is going to remain protected so that little or no concerted effort can be made to fix these issues, if the only people who care about the article enough to fix it refuse to participate in the process for whatever reason, or if participants continue personalizing critiques on the article as attacks on them and sidetracking these discussions from being productive, then the obvious alternative is to speedy-fail the FAR. It would be a shame to do so, because more articles that are genuinely FA are better than fewer, but it would not be in any sense a disaster, any more than the fact that most other Wikipedia articles are non-FA is a disaster. Do you have any suggestions for keeping the FAR process going and helping direct it towards a successful outcome? Apologizing to the tender feelings of certain editors for calling the perfection of their ten-year-old edits into question and calling the whole review off is not an option. Neither is what you suggest above, asking those same editors to choose an old perfect version of the article to go back to. There is no old perfect version. We should be asking here how the article can be improved, not looking for excuses to not improve it. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:30, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Although referencing was not as assiduous, promoted versions can be good for prose, flow and comprehensiveness. I suggest folks keep an eye on both to ensure we end up with the best version. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:03, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

You're seriously proposing using a version from ten years ago as some kind of benchmark? There have been 3000 edits in the meantime, the word count has gone from 9000 to 10500, and the citation count has gone from 180 to 240 [4]; the 2009 version is completely defunct. We editors today can handle prose and flow ourselves, and as for comprehensiveness, as seen on this page the 2009 version was clearly not comprehensive. EEng 13:32, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I think he meant that the 2009 version went through a serious vetting process, the most stringent we have on Wikipedia, and so it may be safe to assume the prose was at a professional standard at that time. --Laser brain (talk) 16:16, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Thankfully, we don't have to assume anything, we can just read the 2009 version. Ignoring the red template errors and yellow harv errors (did those exist in 2009?), I can't help but notice that none of the BBC News citations are formatted correctly. They don't include the author's name, and the publisher is listed as "news.bbc.co.uk", which of course is the publisher's web address, not its name. Citation format is a simple stupid thing, but a serious vetting process, the most stringent we have on Wikipedia? Plus, there are the other issues that have been brought up here, on the article talk page, and also in the 2009 FAC (where's the "source check" section?). The lack of coverage of social/cultural impact was also pointed out in the 2009 FAC. The nom argued The murders had absolutely no influence on music or art. Other editors pointed to Myra (painting). The Moors Murderers, and elsewhere. Doesn't seem that their concerns were really addressed before promotion. – Levivich 17:36, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

We didn't used to have source checks like we do today. There were incidents over time where editors were found to have plagiarized or misrepresented sources, so the community moved into more formalized processes for source spot-checks and other things. --Laser brain (talk) 20:39, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I very much hope that's not you're suggesting that we did? Everything, absolutely everything in this article is verifiable, but the citation density may not match current expectations, agreed. Eric Corbett 20:46, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Me? Not at all. I've said above that I think all of this can be addressed by adding some additional citations. I've yet to review very many of the prose changes. --Laser brain (talk) 21:46, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Additional sources

A bunch of sources which I feel an up-to-date FA on this subject might like to address:

• Syme, Anthony (1966). Murder on the Moors. Sydney: Horwitz. – apparently rare outside Australia because it contains images that were at one point prohibited from publication under UK law. I could get access to this but would need several weeks' notice. Might not be worth the trouble. Note by EEng: There was a UK edition in 1966, yet almost no libraries hold it worldwide. Plus it's only 130 pages. All this together suggests it's trash. EEng 13:27, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
• Cummins, Ian (2019). Serial killers and the media : the Moors murders legacy. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783030048754. – addressing concerns about ongoing significance Note by EEng: I've got it. Excellent.
• Bingham, Adrian (2016). ""Gross interference with the course of justice": the News of the World and the Moors Murder Trial". In Brake, Laurel; Kaul, Chandrika; Turner, Mark (eds.). The News of the World and the British press, 1843-2011 : journalism for the rich, journalism for the poor. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137392039. – cf concerns above about impact on journalism etc Note by EEng: Chapter preview at [5]. Should be useful. "A study of the press in 1985 found that the ‘Moors Murderers’ featured more prominently than all other ‘sex criminals’ in custody put together; Ian Brady still had sufficient news value in 2013 to earn several front-page lead stories." / Note by Levivich: Isn't it written by Adrian Bingham? Note by Triptothecottage: Yes, turns out among my many other failures I can’t read.
• Kozubska, Joanna (2014). Cries for help : women without a voice, women's prisons in the 1970s, Myra Hindley and her contemporaries. Sherfield-on-Loddon: Waterside Press. ISBN 9781909976054. – importance to criminology Note by EEng: Summary at [6]. I wouldn't expect much.

There's also a significant amount of scholarly literature on the ethics and practice of the pair's incarceration, which could be looked at in depth by someone with more than my passing interest in the thing. Triptothecottage (talk) 09:18, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

@EEng: Thanks for the comments, I don’t have much interest in the article topic, just been following the saga with bemusement and thought I’d offer what I could. I agree the Syme source would be almost certainly crap from an article writing perspective but it struck me any press coverage of its prohibition in the UK would probably make it worth a mention somewhere – in the same way the infamous suppression of Underbelly (TV series) in Victoria during the trials of its protagonists received extensive coverage. Anyway, godspeed to all involved. Triptothecottage (talk) 15:19, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

...he said as they prepared to journey into hell. EEng 15:35, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

...you mean we're not already there? It's going to get worse?! – Levivich 15:37, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

First circle doesn't count. EEng 00:57, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

FYI some of these (and others) are listed in a {{refideas}} tag on the talk page. – Levivich 15:45, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, @Levivich: I was hoping never to have to go near that page again. Actually, I did my tour of inspection on mobile, so you’ll forgive me for not noticing. Triptothecottage (talk) 23:22, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I would have forgiven even on desktop. – Levivich 00:09, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Comments from Victoria

A few preliminary comments:

• I've read this FAC version top to bottom and in my view it satisfies WP:Featured article criteria, so I think it's a good template to work from. Not suggesting we roll back to that version, but use it to build on.
• I've read the current version from top to bottom and see deterioration in prose (lots of bloating), citation placement, etc. I have some examples and might post them later. It does need some trimming back and cites seem to have been moved, etc.
• I've started to make my way through EEng's edits. Have looked at about 50 of them. From what I've looked at, there are some good edits there but there's a lot of trimming that seems excessive. Again, I have some examples. Certainly at this point the article isn't stable but it would be a shame to delist it for that reason.
• There are more sources available than there were a decade ago and very few editors had access to pay-walled sources then, so identifying and evaluating additional sources needs to be done. I've looked at the sources noted at the top of the talk page but don't have access to any of them. I've ordered Staff's updated edition but ILL takes weeks, and reading takes longer, so none of this will be solved immediately.
• The organization and structure might need some work. I noted some repetition between the top of the article and the lower section ("victims" vs. "perpetrators") and am wondering whether sub articles can be split out about Myra Hindley and Ian Brady (both are currently redirects to Moors murders, with appropriately placed hatnotes. Some of the biographical info re both Brady & Hindley (which is fascinating) can be moved out of the main article and expanded in the sub articles. I see there was an AfD in 2009 re Brady, but surely there's enough material/sources that each satisfy having their own articles?

To soapbox to a small extent: in my view we should all be working together, not pointing fingers, trying to score points, etc. It would be best to have all the editors back and on board because every voice is important, and in the end the goal of the project is to collaborate constructively. There are some cultural issues here that might need translation (taking multiple attempts to pass a driving test was one that struck me, having lived in England). FAR isn't a quick process, we can't just congregate and chat and then cast an up or down vote. Eventually when the sources have been read & synthesized the text will get updated and appropriately cited. Personally I can't work in an atmosphere like this but I was living in Manchester in the summer of '87 and remember the media attention then when Hindley was brought to search the moors. The topic is interesting and when the books come, I'll take a look at what's what and comment again later. Victoria (tk) 16:32, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Victoriaearle, I can't tell you how happy I am that someone is actually looking at my edits (and, I assume, the edits of others who worked on the article during July). Please make a list of diffs you think should be reverted -- just the diffs, no need to bother explaining your concern unless you want to. I expect there will be few or no cases where I'll want to push back, and if so I'll comment here and then we can discuss; again, I doubt that will happen. Then when protection comes off we can all get to doing real work on the article as quickly as possible. Anyone else with diffs that concern them can add them to the list as well -- let's just have one common list. I think the article talk page would be the best place to do this, since doing this should satisfy El_C's concerns about lifting of protection. EEng 18:20, 17 August 2019 (UTC) P.S. I hope you weren't seriously injured when you were struck during your driving test.

::It needs a more holistic approach. Instead of deciding which is the "right" version or which edit stays in and which doesn't, I'm familiarizing myself with what's going on and assessing/evaluating as I go along. Looking at c. 200 edits and making a list isn't the right approach in my view, but I will, in due course, post some with explanations. So far I've only reached July 4, so there's a way to go and I don't have a ton of time for this. P.s., I hope you don't mind, but images like those give me a migraine so I've commented them out. Victoria (tk) 22:42, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

• Casliber, question for you. I've decided not to continue here and to unwatch the page/s. I've never been involved in a FAR & don't remember unwatching a FAC review. Can I strike my comments, or hat them, or just walk away? I keep getting pinged and would prefer that stop. Thanks. Victoria (tk) 04:00, 18 August 2019 (UTC) Actually, never mind, I've stricken. Victoria (tk) 04:22, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

  Gosh, Ve, I wish you'd reconsider. We were just starting to get somewhere. EEng 04:06, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Staff

• Today I picked up Duncan Staff's The Lost Boy ISBN 9780593056929 that's finally arrived at the library. I put in the order 8/15; I ordered the most recent available and received the 2007 edition. Working from this version of Moors murders, I've checked the source against the article text through the "Trial" section. Below are the bits that were tagged in-text in the article followed by the text copied verbatim from the source. Nikkimaria and Casliber while I have this source available I'll check all the sentences or passages that were tagged and continue to provide the relevant text from the book but to let you know that this is tedious (and also the topic matter isn't exactly cheery) and real life issues prevent me from working quickly (if either of you needs an explanation I'm happy to elaborate in email). As for the rest, I leave it to all of you to decide. Victoria (tk) 20:10, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

  Take all the time you need - FARs have been left open for an extended period (months) if there is active work going on Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:17, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

  Thanks Cas, I've just ordered Topping but these books are coming from many states away and it's taking a long time. Will continue as I can, when I can. Victoria (tk) 20:29, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

  Thanks for this, Victoria! I've posted some notes inline below. – Levivich 02:50, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

text source verification - Staff

• Shortly after 8:00 pm,[failed verification] continuing down Froxmer Street,[failed verification][6] (137)

"On a warm summer's evening I [Duncan Staff] walked down Taylor Street, turned right opposite the Steelworks and, a minute later, left into Froxmer Stree - the site of the first abduction....The account of the first abduction, in Myra Hindley's letters to me, is extraordinary in its detail. It was just after eight on Friday, 12 July 1933 ....

• a friend of her younger sister, Maureen.[failed verification][7] (Staff 146)

Now they [the police] were questioning poor Amos and talking about dredging the canals and reservoirs. What did Myra think? asked Nellie. Ian smiled. He had warned her to act normally, told her this was bound to happen. Oh, she hardly knew the girl, Myra replied. Pauline was Maureen's friend really, wasn't she? (Staff, 146)

• Staff 146 doesn't say H recognized Reade as a friend of Marueen; rather that H agreed when prompted that Reade was Maureen's friend. (this is from the list that was here on the FAR page last time I looked in here; haven't a clue what happened to that list)

Pauline Reads, whom Myra had known since she was little, turned and smiled in recognition (Staff, 138)

• where Brady beat him with an axe and strangled him to death[failed verification].[17] (Staff, 184-6)

Myra looked through the serving hatch and saw Ian grappling with Edward Evans....Myra stood and guarded the bottom of the stairs as the scuffling subsided. It was replaced by the rhythmic thunk of Ian's axe going home (Staff, 186)

• Throughout the previous year Brady had been cultivating a friendship with Smith,[failed verification] who had become "in awe" of the older man, something that increasingly worried Hindley, as she felt it compromised their safety[failed verification].[19] (Staff, 183-4)

She [Myra] was deeply worried at Ian's recklessness. It had been safe when there was just the two of them. Myra understood that while she was in love with Ian, David Smith was in awe of him, and she did not feel that their bond was strong enough. (Staff 183-4)

• Although Brady admitted to hitting Evans with an axe, he did not admit to killing him, arguing that the pathologist in his report had stated that Evans's death was "accelerated by strangulation". Under cross-examination by the prosecuting counsel,[failed verification] all Brady would admit was that "I hit Evans with the axe. If he died from axe blows, I killed him."[55] (Staff - 226)

The court transcript records that, ten days in, the Attorney General cross-examined him [Ian Brady] for the second time:

'You admit that it was you that killed Evans?'

'I admit that hit Evans with the axe.'

'Are you suggesting that you did not kill him?'

'No. Somebody else did.'

'Who?'

'The pathologist said it was accelerated by strangulation.' (Staff 227)

• Throughout the trial Brady and Hindley "stuck rigidly to their strategy of lying"[failed verification],[60] (Staff, 229)

She and Ian stuck rigidly to their strategy of lying (Staff 229)

My thoughts on the above:

• 1st bullet: This item is tracked at Talk:Moors murders#Verification failures #3. For anyone who has the book, is "just after eight" on page 137, or a different page?
• 2nd and 3rd bullets: Both of these tracked at Talk:Moors murders#Verification failures #5 and resolved with a cite to Lee and copyedit to the prose.
• 4th bullet: Tracked at Talk:Moors murders#Verification failures #16. The article currently says "throttled with a length of electrical cord" cited to Williams. I've posted a note on the talk page about this item.
• 5th bullet: Tracked at Talk:Moors murders#Verification failures #20. I guess "compromised their safety" is implied by Staff? Posted a note on the talk page for follow-up.
• 6th bullet: Tracked at Talk:Moors murders#Verification failures #43. I posted a note there.
• 7th bullet: Tracked at Talk:Moors murders#Verification failures #46. I posted a note there for follow-up. – Levivich 03:12, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Levivich, I have the book in hand, I've not been feeling well and have been asleep, find a ping when I wake, see that you've posted to Moors murder talk on my behalf, interpreting the text (which you apparently don't have) on my behalf, without discussion? Please stop. I don't have that page on watch, can't find where all the cite errors, which in fact are not errors have gone, zero communication here, and won't be traipsing from page to page. Once I've finished going through Staff will be changing the text of the article back to reflect the source. Victoria (tk) 04:40, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
    • I'm sorry but for a second time you are accusing me of vaguely malicious acts, and I just have no idea what you're talking about. I didn't ping you. I didn't post on your behalf anywhere. You write "zero communication", but you write that in response to my reply to your post–a bit more than "zero" communication, wouldn't you agree? And you write "without discussion" in response to a reply of mine in which I am... discussing? Did you want me to first post to discuss... what I'm about to post? Your comments make absolutely no sense to me. I really don't understand how to work with you productively, so I will stop trying as you request. Hope you feel better. – Levivich 04:52, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
      • Hi, Levivich I'm not accusing you of anything malicious (nor have I done so in the past) but if it feels that way to you, I certainly apologize. It wasn't intended to come across like that. I'll try to explain: I can't work quickly, and it's best if I muddle along at my own pace. On the one hand I thought about not accepting the book I'd ordered last month, but it's sitting there, I decided to pick it up and take a look. What I found is that the so-called "verification errors" that were widely advertised throughout the project to get the most views (the "Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Featured article complete fraud! Content creators exposed as poseurs have feet of clay just like other editors!" talk page posts; the allegations of "fraud fraud fraud fraud fraud fraud" on the article talk page) are in fact not verification errors, per Staff.
        Posting on the talk page on my behalf isn't at this point necessary; I'll get there when I sort out what's happened to the long list on this page, what's going on there, and decide whether or not to jump in. Please strike that post.
        There's really nothing to discuss because the source is what it is, black and white, and quite clear to parse. First and foremost we always assume good faith, and asking me to supply exactly where on the page the "just after eight on Friday" statement is is an assumption of bad faith (second para, second half of the line). I'm happy to take a picture and upload if you all have doubts or provide scans or whatever, but this goes beyond the collegial and collaborative way to work on articles.
        I was pinged to this conversation, as you know, but the edits made on my behalf to article talk, [7] could have come with a notification. All of that said, it appears that you all have little interest in working within the confines of the established procedure of FAR; I see that Laser brain has dropped out, which is unfortunate, but I can't say I disagree with him. If you all (i.,e you Levivich, EEng, David Eppstein and whoever else is working on the article) don't want to be inclusive, then I agree with Laser brain. Casliber and/or Nikkimaria should move to the FACR stage and we can go ahead with the delisting. In the meantime, until a decision has been made re moving to FACR, I'll work in a sandbox instead of posting here again. Victoria (tk) 15:39, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
        • @Victoriaearle: You've articulated well why I felt the need to drop out. I can't work like this, early calls for restraint and caution were largely disregarded and the text was deteriorated while the "fraud" calls were ongoing, which according to my spot-checks are all false alarms. I'm interested in improving the article but I can't do it this way. --Laser brain (talk) 20:14, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
          • Yes it is best to keep all discussion in one place in these situations, which is best placed at FAR. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:57, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I long ago exhausted the language of astonishment and incomprehension at the bizarre things that go on, and the alternative-reality things that are said, in this hermetically sealed "review" of a three-month-old version of an article which, on the comprehensiveness criterion alone, cannot possibly be salvaged as an FA. The verification failures are listed at Talk:MM, and they're still failures. Each includes a precise statement of what's wrong: you have to read the statement, look at the tagged text and its context, compare it to the source, and think about what the statement says. Victoria's post above is a complete waste of time because she obviously didn't do that. (Exception: She's right that Shortly after 8:00 pm turns out to be in Staff 137 after all – as just after eight, which apparently my eye didn't catch. Sorry 'bout that.)

There's a claim made above that spot checks revealed false alarms, but – surprise! – no evidence for that's been offered. In the unlikely event any of you takes up the challenge, please do so by annotating the list at Talk:MM; of course, if you guys don't want to go there to engage what editors actually developing the article are doing, and instead prefer hanging around here pretending you've rebutted issues you haven't bothered to understand, that's up to you.

Since elsewhere in this thread it was stated [8] – falsely – that citation requirements were considerably more lax in those days, and since, no doubt, this episode will for quite some time be Exhibit A for how brilliant Übermensch content contributors were relentlessly maligned and hounded by envious inferiors intent on destroying anything whose beauty and perfection forces them to confront the insignificance of their own existence, I'll just quote here for the record from a "History of the featured article process":

By June 2006 ... featured articles were expected to have some form of inline citations, either footnotes or Harvard style. This was partially due to the December 2005 introduction of cite.php, which allowed the method of referencing that is most widely used on WP today.

So no, citation requirements were not "considerably more lax" in 2009 (when this article became an FA), and you'll have to find some other threadbare excuse for why the article's sourcing is a complete mess (though considerable progress has been made, not by denying the problem, but by facing it). EEng 02:29, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

References

• I suppose the biggest issue for me with the 2009 FAC version is that there are even larger chunks of crucial text sourced entirely to Topping. There’s no reason to discount Topping in the circumstances, but it strikes me as entirely odd to have three full-length accounts by independent authors – Goodman, Harrison and Williams – languishing in the Further Reading, and more available besides, while we rely on an obviously partial source. I agree it’s nothing that can’t be fixed, but "building on" something from 10 years ago is more than likely to perpetuate structural issues with sourcing. Triptothecottage (talk) 00:29, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

  The Glasgow Herald wrote that Topping "hoped the Home Secretary would reconsider letting Myra Hindley by hypnotised in the hope of finding more information about the location of Keith's body. He said criticism levelled at him during the search for Pauline's body was unpleasant and had come from people who did not really know what they were talking about." That was in 1988. His autobiography was published in 1989. I think you're right to be cautious about using this source. There seem to be potentially better sources available like Staff and Cummins. – Levivich 02:26, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

  Agree 100%. EEng 02:40, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

July 26 version

What are people's opinions at this point about restoring the July 26 version (prior to initial page protection)? Here is the combined diff between that version and current. (Intervening changes can be merged in by hand.) This is the same RfC question that was punted to FAR. I've read through it and think it's the better version to go forward from, though it still needs further editing, e.g., tightening sourcing. If there are objections, maybe we can put together a list of what parts need discussion, and then we can make the remaining uncontroversial/agreed-upon changes while we discuss what's on the list. – Levivich 03:49, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Absolutely. Obviously. 100%. The intervening edits needing restoration are, I believe, [9][10][11][12][13]. That doesn't count the {failed verification} tagging, but those are listed above; it's as complete as I could make it for the sections it treats, though I haven't yet checked anything cited to the following: ONDB, Keightley, Cowley, Carmichael. EEng 09:10, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

I have not had time to evaluate most of the edits starting in early July to even begin to offer an opinion. Basically this FAR could go two ways at this point: We can restore the version from late June and add citations to address the failed verification issues. Or, we can restore the July 26 version and the prose needs to be entirely reassessed to see if it still meets criterion 1a. Random pot-shots are not encouraging—for example this edit was intended to make the prose more concise but in my opinion it transformed the writing from engaging to dry. --Laser brain (talk) 13:56, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Points:

• The edit you linked (re Brady's contemplated suicide) changed

He might have achieved this in 2006, when a female friend sent him 50 paracetamol pills, stored in two Smarties tubes hidden inside a hollowed-out crime novel. The potentially lethal dose of tablets was intercepted.

to

In 2006 officials intercepted a potentially lethal dose of 50 paracetamol pills hidden inside a hollowed-out book sent him by a female friend.

with edit summary Now that would be one fucking painful way to die. That's not a potshot at anybody, but a genuine exclamation of horror; death by Tylenol overdose is singularly excruciating. As for the revised text, it seems to me it communicates everything significant (female friend; hollowed-out book; paracetamol tablets; intercepted) while dropping two details worthy of true-crime books and TV shows (crime novel; Smarties tube – though thankfully it wasn't WP:SKITTLES); but if you think the Smarties and crime novel really add value, feel free to put them back.

• More importantly, there's no way this article can remain an FA in the short (or even medium) term. It's undeniable now that the sourcing is full of holes, and while a crash effort might mostly fix that in a few weeks (remembering that we all have other lives, believe it or not) that wouldn't be time enough to resolve all the known problems (depending on how hard the last few sources are to obtain), much less identify the remaining unknown ones (ditto). Even putting that aside, it's clear that it also fails, at least, the comprehensiveness criterion, just on the fact that it says nothing about social impact, effect on news reporting, etc., and that will take many months at least and probably much more, because there are myriad sources and they're mostly not in monograph form -- they're book chapters, journal articles, etc. Amid all this the prose is the proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic. If the purpose of this review is to determine whether FA status can be salvaged in the short term, the answer is no.
• I continue to be flabbergasted by the blind insistence that because this article passed FA ten years ago its writing is necessarily some delicate and precious flower that must be protected. It's not. The passage above is a beautiful example. Reasonable editors might disagree as to whether the Smarties and crime novel are worth including, but He might have achieved this is complete surplusage; no reader needs it explained, immediately after being told that Brady was contemplating killing himself, that the hidden cache of 50 prescription tablets about to be described was for that purpose.
  And then there's the potentially lethal dose bit. I hadn't gotten this far in source-verifying the article, but now that I check it turns out there's nothing at all in the source about this, and this is naked OR that needs to be removed. I'll forego mentioning which editor added it, but suffice it to say it was there at the time of the FA review.

The entire article's like this. Its writing in general is very good, maybe even excellent, but far from beyond improvement, and the sourcing is shoddy and punctuated by OR. It's long past time for it to start moving forward. EEng 18:35, 22 August 2019 (UTC) P.S. Oh wait, I see now the source doesn't mention Smarties either, just sweets. A Google search finds that the Telegraph does supply this detail, but still no source for potentially lethal – other than sources obviously based on this article, that is. What a mess.

I meant that I was taking pot-shots at the intermediate changes without a holistic review. I have no reason to believe that the editors responsible for this content were making stuff up or adding OR. The citation requirements were considerably more lax in those days and I'd rather AGF and find the sources—a process which I've already begun. I have a long history of working with the principal authors of this article, and know them to be excellent writers and researchers. The old version was engaging; the new version is dry and spartan. I'd appreciate it if you'd tone down the hyperbole so we can get to work on making the article the best it can be. --Laser brain (talk) 18:58, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

The combined diff given at the top of this section involves rearrangements of text that make some of the changes of wording difficult to determine. But looking, for instance, at the first two paragraphs of the "Initial investigation" section of the diff, I prefer the tighter wording of the July 25 EmilePersaud version. I think the more convoluted wording of the August 10 JzG version (e.g. "what they were looking for" instead of the simpler "the suitcases"), while giving the superficial impression of more carefully crafted prose, is unnecessary, circumlocutory, and actually impedes understanding. For an encyclopedia, we should be aiming for prose that is simple and to the point. I realize that "engaging" is prominent in the FA criteria but it should be the content that is engaging, not the padding, and it shouldn't come at the expense of readability. So I agree with the suggestion that we go with the tighter-worded of the two versions as a starting point and then add back any removed detail that is actually important, rather than working in the other direction. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:00, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree with the approach you describe. You seem to equate tightness/conciseness of writing with better readability. That may be true of technical manuals and whitepapers, but here being engaging means grabbing the reader with a cohesive narrative that includes phrasing and descriptions that creates a good experience. The prose hasn't been improved by the last two months' activities. --Laser brain (talk) 20:19, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, we disagree then. I happen to think that clear readable to-the-point prose is helpful in all articles here, not just in the technical ones. And if what you're aiming for is to create a "good experience" for the reader, then this article seems an unlikely place for it, unless you want to completely rewrite it to be a story about fluffy bunnies instead of the sad events of the subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:40, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Even there we face challenges:

• Bloodthirsty 'Thugs Bunny' who attacks humans
• Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident

EEng 05:24, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

I think both of you know I wasn't referring to how agreeable the subject matter is, but rather the overall reader experience. If you're going to act like dickheads, then let's just delist this and move on. I'm not looking forward to working with either of you. --Laser brain (talk) 12:40, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

That was uncivil and uncalled for. I am trying to have a discussion about content and style. You are the one making into something about personalities. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:55, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

• Well, that was a lively round! Let's see how our candidates did, shall we? I award one point to Laser Brain for starting the list of prose items needing discussion, one point to EEng for the Carter killer rabbit reference, and one point to David Eppstein for using the word "circumlocutory". (Well done, David!) All tied up, let's move on to round two.
  I think we can all agree that the only option here is to improve this article until it meets 2019 FA criteria, which neither version currently does. We're going to need to go paragraph by paragraph anyway, plus write at least one new section, so the only question it seems is whether we begin this with the July 26 version or the current version. I'm seeing three editors in favor of the former and one in favor of the latter. Do we need more time for people to read and discuss, and if so, how much more time before we make a call one way or the other? – Levivich 16:30, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Well I for one think the circumlocution reference was gratuitous. It’s a private matter and parents should feel free to make the decision they’re most comfortable with. EEng 20:12, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't care to have anything else to do with this, as I don't agree with the manner in which it's being carried out or the end-goal for how it should read, and it seems I'm in the minority. --Laser brain (talk) 16:00, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Evidently, the majority want nothing to do with this. ~ cygnis insignis 16:06, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Looks like we're ready to go ahead then, with the July 26 version. So...

List of things to do etc. transferred to Talk:Moors murders EEng 19:32, 26 August 2019 (UTC)