Talk:Killing of Chandra Levy

Racism

Why is that unsubstantiated section on "racist" media coverage in this article. What source proves there are hundreds of black women missing in Washington D.C.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.214.9.247 (talk) 01:55, 22 February 2009

Specialized Consultants

At the strong suggestion of outside "Specialized Consultants", ranging from scientific to psychical professionals. The Rock Creek Park location was re-examined again. Looking deeper into a far more dense wooded area, the police would discover what would later be her remains. In the past, many of these "specialized consultants" have been successful in similar cases before. In a related case, one of these outside "Specialized Consultants" that worked The Levy Case, became involved in California, where three female college students were reported missing. Police would later follow-up on the suggestions. Sadly two of the three female students bodies were discovered buried under the convicted suspects home. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aedwardmoch (talk • contribs) 17:56, 27 February 2009

Aftermath

This first sentence of this section suggests it will go on to discuss the impact of the case:

Levy's death had a lasting impact, particularly due to the actions of Levy's parents and friends.

However it then goes on to talk about previous cases in some detail, and how they have impacted this case. Is all the following necessary? Can it be trimmed down to maybe focus more on the impact of this case...:

Levy's disappearance came after a number of other high-profile cases which created resources for missing young adults. For example, Levy's parents quickly turned for help to the Carole Sund-Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Modesto that was established after three hikers were found slain in Yosemite National Park in 1999.[17] That foundation, which offered the Levys staff support and contributed towards a cash reward for information about Chandra's disappearance, was merged into the Laci & Conner Search and Rescue Fund in 2009.[77] In 1997, 18-year-old Kristen Modafferi mysteriously disappeared from North Carolina and her parents turned to their congresswoman for help when Kristen was deemed too old to be helped by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. As a result, Congress enacted "Kristen's Law" in October 2000, which established the National Center for Missing Adults (NCMA) within the U.S. Department of Justice to coordinate such missing person cases.[78]

--Pontificalibus (talk) 12:11, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

One would expect this case, and all of the publicity that it attracted to have a larger impact. However, because a number of earlier cases prompted reform, there was less policy change and reform required by the time that the Levy case happened. Mrs. Levy did form a foundation with another victim's family, but it does not appear to have remained active. Racepacket (talk) 22:17, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Copyright compliance

Portions of the article have been rewritten to comply with an open CCI. KimChee (talk) 22:34, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

Chandra Levy → ? – Should it be Disappearance of Chandra Levy or Death of Chandra Levy? Reading the whole article, her profile is very low, and the whole article is solely about investigation of her disappearance or death more than about Levy herself and her affair with the politician.relisted --Mike Cline (talk) 16:02, 28 February 2013 (UTC) George Ho (talk) 06:28, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

*Oppose move - eeh No this article is about Chandra Levy she has becomed a notable figure. When it comes to her personal notability read WP:NTEMP.--BabbaQ (talk) 12:46, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

• Support Disappearance of Chandra Levy per WP:BIO1E, though I could live with Death of. Personally, I think it feels a bit petulant to redirect readers who search for people like this, but that's what we do. --BDD (talk) 17:36, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
• Support Death of Chandra Levy, clearly a WP:1E article. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 22:52, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Support Disappearance of Chandra Levy per WP:BIO1E. Much more suitable; only notable for above reason. Similar to Disappearance of Madeleine McCann. 87.232.1.48 (talk) 23:30, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
• Weak support I actually thought about doing this when I read it a day or so ago. I decided that she might just have enough independent notability due to the affair. But in hindsight that is really just part of the whole disappearance. So yeah, it is a case of WP:BIO1E, and we usually move those to the incident. AIRcorn (talk) 23:41, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Prefer Death of Chandra Levy. AIRcorn (talk) 23:56, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Personally, I would lean toward Disappearance and death of Chandra Levy or Death of Chandra Levy. Unlike what happened with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the remains of Ms. Levy were actually found. She didn't just disappear and remain missing forever, and additional relevant notable events took place after her remains were found. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:58, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. 87.232.1.48 (talk) 00:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

• Support - changing my !vote as a name change is the better option.--BabbaQ (talk) 23:17, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Change to Death of..--BabbaQ (talk) 18:38, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support moving to Death of Chandra Levy. This is more in line with the way we handle articles about the victims of crimes. "Disappearance" is less good since as BarrelProof points out, her fate is not unknown. --MelanieN (talk) 01:44, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
• Relisting comment: As of now there is consensus to move, but no consensus as to what title to move to as there are three different suggestions above. Please choose one and continue the discussion. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:02, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

---

• Support. I prefer "Disappearance of Chandra Levy". Eight years is a long time to be 'missing', and the coverage reflects that. I feel that her death is incidental. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 09:27, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Actually, she was missing for only one year (May 2001 – May 2002), not eight. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:58, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
    • In any event, she was never notable, BLP1E applies; it was the circumstances surrounding her death that was notable, so the article definitely ought to cede the current namespace. I just feel that for the length of time the circumstances of her death were speculated upon, 'disappearance of' would be more appropriate; 'death of' would be my second preference. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:16, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. It is the height of pedantry to title this article anything other than Chandra Levy. She is notable not just for the disappearance, but also the affair (if not for the affair there probably would not be an article, as there are hundreds of missing people for which we have no article). Her name is commonly known by everyone who paid any attention to US news 12 years ago. The article is of course predominantly about the murder, affair and disappearance, but there is a section on her "life and background", as there should be. This article is about Chandra Levy, or at least everything that is known about her in reliable sources. And so it should be. May she rest in peace. --B2C 19:20, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Umm... Levy's dead (or still disappeared I don't trust autopsy reports sometimes.). Condit's denial and confession varies from reliable sources and Condit himself. Investigation of her disappearance led to suspicions about Condit, the suspect of her disapperance. Suspicions led to Condit's denial and confession. Then investigation led to her remains found. Because Condit is still living, WP:BLP may apply to info about involved living persons, even if Levy is dead. --George Ho (talk) 00:27, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
    • I don't understand what point you're making here. Only the title of this article is at issue here, not the content. --B2C 00:40, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
      • The quasi-notability of the affair with Condit is only a side issue, for it probably would never have surfaced had she not disappeared, but I'm speculating and so are you. Yes, I agree that if not for the affair there probably would not be an article. But it's one more element that made the case notable, but not the person. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:25, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose: It is demeaning to a person to be only defined by their death. Article titles should also be simple, straightforward, and no need to explain notability in title. We don't title things "Warren G. Harding President," or Sex tape of Paris Hilton after all! Montanabw^(talk) 23:37, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
  • To your logic, would Suicide of Tyler Clementi be a demeaning title? --George Ho (talk) 00:31, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
    • That's different for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that his form of death was his personal choice, and his name is not nearly as well recognized as Chandra Levy is. But I would not be opposed to renaming that article (to just his name) as well. --B2C 00:40, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
      • Actually, I would agree that it is a very analogous case, though not filled with as much tabloid-fodder. Tyler Clementi also deserves his article to be named after him without qualifiers. People deserve their names, not to be labeled for one event of their life. Their whole life matters; even if they only are famous for one tragedy. The BIO1E standard is for people who are famous for one thing like George Holliday (witness), which was redirected to Rodney King. Here, we all appear to basically agree that Levy is notable and worthy of a stand-alone article, not just a redirect, and thus, the article should remain with her own name. Montanabw^(talk) 21:31, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
        • I don't know... Even I don't even know Clementi very well other than as closeted and vulnerable and an aspiring violinist. Information of his life is not very predominant, and he didn't have a notable career. Back to Levy; she had a career, but she did not publish her own works to the public. Even she never made televised and public appearances as a celebrity. You can't be named exactly after yourself for just death, disappearance, and scandal. Even you can't be named exactly after yourself for just suicide, video, college, and having a selfish, vindictive dorm mate. As I said below, Lewinsky proved herself to be notable (and brave) by doing things for herself, while other two... I won't go there. --George Ho (talk) 22:37, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
          • But that is the kind of value judgement we need to avoid. If notability is sufficient for a WP article, then that article title should be that person's name. Period. If they are not notable, then they don't need a wikipedia article at all. "Notability" is broader than accomplishments, and accomplishments can be pretty dubious; for example, if "Lawnchair Larry" died, would he get a WP article, or one titled Death of Lawnchair Larry? Montanabw^(talk) 23:20, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
            • Straw man argument, eh? As for the "naming" issue in general, let's wait until this discussion is closed. Therefore, we can take this to WT:BIO, WT:N or WP:VPP. Back to the topic and your original argument; defining Levy by only death... what's wrong with that other than as "demeaning"? Maybe we can read WP:CRIME and WP:BIO1E again to figure whether renaming should happen... or not. --George Ho (talk) 00:18, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. This is not a WP:BLP1E situation. Levy is known for her disappearance, the affair with Condit, the false accusations of Condit, the murder, and some aspects of her life which were covered in reliable sources and are covered in this article accordingly. A BLP1E situation is when there is a single event of relatively short duration, and reliable sources cover the person in question only in conjunction with that one event. This is not the case for Levy. RS are replete with stories about her disappearance, her affair, the trial about her murder, etc. Let's not botch this one. That said, I'm done here. --B2C 00:56, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, that would be WP:BIO1E... --BDD (talk) 01:47, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

OK, one more. No, it's not BIO1E. This article is not about one event, nor should it be. It's about ALL the notable events related to Levy: her disappearance, the Condit affair, suspicions and political ramifications, the discovery of her body, the finding of her her killer, the trial, etc. There is no consensus about how to title "this one event" because it's NOT one event. It's about a person, Chandra Levy. Now I'm done. --B2C 02:33, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

She became notable only because she was killed. The investigation of her disappearance is what led to the cloud of suspicion around Condit and the revelation of their affair. The details of her life only became interesting to the general public because she was killed under circumstances that cast suspicion on a noteworthy person (a congressman). Before she was killed, she seems to have been a non-noteworthy student and intern (and after she was killed, she obviously didn't go on to do anything noteworthy later). —BarrelProof (talk) 02:36, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with B2C on this one. Many people only turn out to have many notable things discovered about them after they die, how about Emily Dickenson? Shall we retitle her bio Poetry of Emily Dickenson published posthumously just because it was only after she died and they found all her stuff in a drawer? WP:BIO1E is for determining if an article should be written at all, and that is NOT what is being discussed here. And frankly, yes, I'd agree that ALL of these sorts of articles need to be just named after the person. It's demeaning and insulting to their personhood and to their family's memories to define their whole life only by what happened to make news. The person either passes WP:NOTABILITY and WP:BIO1E and gets an article, or they don't. If they do, it deserves to simply be named after them. It's an issue of human dignity and respect. Montanabw^(talk) 21:31, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

• Why comparing Emily Dickinson to lesser-known Chandra Levy? Why not Monica Lewinsky? She appeared in Saturday Night Live, while... Levy did not make appearances herself because she disappeared... and then died. --George Ho (talk) 22:18, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Again, if she is notable enough to have an article, then it deserves simply to be named with her name and nothing more. If she is not, then we have List of unusual deaths. Montanabw^(talk) 23:20, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
  • A set of literary works is not "one event", and Dickenson is known for her poetry, not for how it was discovered (something I wasn't even aware of until mentioned above). There is no policy saying that articles involving authors should generally be about what the author wrote rather than about the author who wrote them. —BarrelProof (talk) 06:05, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. No reader trying to find this article will have trouble if the title remains "Chandra Levy". "Chandra Levy" is the shortest possible name to give the article, and there is no competition for this title. No matter what wording is used for death/murder/disappearance/affair, the part about "Chandra Levy" will lead them straight here.
  Levy's career was borderline notable on its own but her affair with Condit pushed her into true notability. The media flurry surrounding the disappearance and death are, of course, more notable situations, unfortunately. I see no need to saddle this article with a name that focuses on only one of several important aspects of Levy's life and death, when affair and disappearance and death/murder are all critical pieces. Binksternet (talk) 01:46, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Any other people known for just "affair" and disappearance and/or death? --George Ho (talk) 01:54, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

    Undoubtably, but I'm not going to go digging now. Montanabw^(talk) 20:48, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

  • To me, it seems like several of the comments in opposition here seem to basically be disagreeing with the WP:BIO1E policy. The wisdom of the policy is a broader topic. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:56, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
    • Yes, I take issue with BIO1E policy, in that the most pertinent, accurate and brief name is always going to be Person's name rather than Significant event related to Person. This particular case is more awkward because of the question of whether Levy was most famous for her disappearance, for her revealed affair, or for her murder. The answer to that is ignore the silly rules when they are at their most awkward. Binksternet (talk) 03:14, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

      Not really, while I agree with Binksternet that people should have articles with just their own name, I don't think BPO1E applies at all here, this is a renaming issue, not a creation issue. Montanabw^(talk) 20:48, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

      • I really thought that her affair with Condit was reduced to just one paragraph or one section. After reading it again, Condit's affair is mentioned thereafter, and "Media Coverage" section discusses the way that they cover the investigation and Condit. Nevertheless, the whole investigation about her disappearance and then death predominates, and her affair is nothing more than a movie's subplot. --George Ho (talk) 04:47, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
      • By the way, the affair could have hypothetically been Condit's motive to kill, but Condit is not an actual killer, according to evidence and Condit himself. --George Ho (talk) 04:50, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support Death of Chandra Levy per WP:BLP1E. Her notability derives solely from dying. She "disappeared" because she was dead. Her affair was discussed because she was dead. Having said that, Disappearance and death of Chandra Levy is OK if others prefer it. —  AjaxSmack  05:25, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
• Support Disappearance of Chandra Levy slightly over Death of Chandra Levy. While I agree with Ajax above that her disappearance was due to her as yet unknown death, it was her disappearance which received the bulk of media attention, and it was only later found that her disappearance was due to her death. B2C's comments are not entirely offbase, but the entirety of her life only became notable because of her death/disappearance, and even then to date has basically only been in effect sub-topics discussed because of the single notable event, her disappearance. Now, if, in time, there are for instance books or articles which substantively deal with her life aside from the matter of her death and disappearance, and I assume it is possible that the Condit affair may eventually gather such coverage, then maybe it might make sense to restore the article under her name then. But that is a bit of crystal-balling at this point, and we try not to do that. John Carter (talk) 18:08, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

  Continue to oppose on the grounds that either option is demeaning to the person's memory. Truly, how many articles on wiki ARE named this way? Seems like only the ones involving women or gay men, it seems, but am I wrong? Montanabw^(talk) 20:48, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you're probably wrong. Happens to the best of us. --BDD (talk) 21:32, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Not to mention Schicklgruber. Seriously, check out all of pages starting with "Death of" or "Murder of". —  AjaxSmack  02:40, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I do notice that many of the "death of" articles are actual redirects to the main biography, however. We also have several where the "death of" is a spinoff from the main biography that also exists. So it's much more complicated than it looks. Seems to me VERY demeaning to a person to be defined only by their death, and painful to the families left behind. No matter how this debate turns out, it is, to me, extremely disrespectful and though I don't have the time or energy now to fight this battle, I think that there should be a broader policy discussion of this. Montanabw^(talk) 20:22, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sue how it's disrespectful. Levy is not eligible for an article at Wikipedia since she is not notable. And the text of this article is not about her life at all but a history, a report, about her disappearance, death, and the events surrounding it. We should not censor Wikipedia and allow the presence of potential aggrieved third parties to dictate an article title that does not represent the content of the article. —  AjaxSmack  23:08, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I guess people view things differently, but I would have thought it would be just as, if not more, disrespectful to have an article titled with a persons name that focused unduly on their death. By changing the title we essentially turn the topic of this article from being about her to being about the incident. Unfortunately we can't do that easily without mentioning her name. AIRcorn (talk)

• Like it or not, much of this article is about Chandra Levy, and rightfully so, and properly supported by reliable sources. Sections like Chandra_Levy#Life_and_background, appropriate and properly supported, wouldn't even make sense if this article was retitled to "Death of ..." or "Disappearance of ...".

  This is one of the rare cases where the title matters. Not only is it disrespectful, but if you're going to go with a descriptive title, it should, you know, describe the topic of the article. The proposed titles do not do that, not for the content and scope of this article.

  If this article is moved, and no one else appeals the move, I will. --B2C 23:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

• If moved, then I must change heading levels (or rename sections). --George Ho (talk) 01:27, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

  Then this is a proposal of an article content/scope change, not a mere title change. --B2C 04:28, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

  How does just one mere affair make a real-life person more highly or marginally notable than a fictional character? The whole prose content wouldn't be affected by a title change, would it? The whole says a lot more about the whole disappearance case than her activities. --George Ho (talk) 07:36, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, let's look at Petraeus scandal to see whether every involved person is independently notable from the whole topic... or not. --George Ho (talk) 07:40, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Her death was one event. The disappearance was caused by the death, so I can see saying that was not a separate event. But her affair with a Congressman was an entirely separate event. Either of these alone would probably not make her notable. But the combination did. In addition, the eventual finding of her body and the subsequent trial of her killer, so many years later, is all arguably separate events too, making her very notable. Countless articles, several books. The idea that we not have an article about someone (not just their death) who has had so much attention in reliable sources makes no sense whatsoever. The article is not about, and will not be about, just her death. It is and will always be about her and everything notable in RS about her. Any title other than Chandra Levy is plain wrong. This was true in the first version of this article when it was first created, over 10 years ago! [1]. For crying out loud, this isn't even a close one. --B2C 01:34, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, even passing the notability line doesn't make a title accurate forever. "Chandra Levy" is no exception. Combination of events don't make a title accurate, regardless of notability. To sum up, she is dead, and she couldn't admit the affair because she's dead. Or, to put another way, notability does not equate title accuracy. Even if she is "notable" to your definition, I wonder how her "notability" makes the title comprehensively accurate. --George Ho (talk) 05:11, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

To me, this is a classic example of the inherent, institutional sexism in wikipedia. She's female. If this were a similarly-situated straight white male, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Yes, I know there are some "death of" articles about straight white men, but here we are taking away the dignity of giving this person an article just named with her name. I think the entire policy stinks. If she's not notable, then why do we have this article at all? (My god, we must have thousands of articles about nonentities who played one season of professional cricket in Sri Lanka or something, none are titled "Cricket career of person X", which is the best analogy I can think of) NO ONE should have a biography titled "[Actions of]..." Either they are notable or they are not. If they are notable enough for a stand-alone article for whatever reason (life, death, tying their own shoes) then the article should be titled with their name and just their name. The only time a "death of" title is appropriate is for a spinoff where the person's biography already exists and a spinoff is needed due to additional content. If Chandra Levy is notable for her death, than clearly that becomes the focus of the article. For example, we have many articles about people infamous for a single act, say, Lee Harvey Oswald. No one cares if that person also played tiddly-winks in second grade or something. Montanabw^(talk) 18:57, 7 March 2013 (UTC)