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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 24.21.148.155 (talk) at 04:18, 26 May 2009 (→‎The fence.: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Renaming of anti-LGBT victims

Recently, a number of articles have been renamed to make the victims of anti-LGBT violence the object rather than the subject of their articles:

I am moving these back to their original names because:

  1. The person's name is most likely how a reader will look for the articles (ie. use the most common name as per WP:NAME).
  2. The "Murder of" prefix is unprecedented for others who are notable because they were victims of hate crimes. For examples, see Category:Ku Klux Klan crimes, Category:Racially motivated violence against African Americans, Category:Victims of religiously motivated violence in the United States, Category:Lynching deaths in the United States, and Category:Lynching survivors in the United States.
  3. The new name lacks consensus and in at least one case the new name has been used as justification to remove other pertinent information: see here.

I respectfully request that these articles retain their original names unless it is decided, through a consensus-based process that a different name would be more appropriate. Queerudite (talk) 03:18, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Respectfully these moves are not policy. See the naming policy for articles about murder victims at Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts)#Article title. The articles are supposed to be titled "Murder of...". It's the prefered way anyway. I don't think there was any attempt at an "ant-LGBT" enforcement here. However, I think Matthew Shepherd is better named after the victim given his status. But he is the exception not the rule.Nrswanson (talk) 04:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As per the policy you cite: "If an article has already been created with a title not conforming to this convention, a discussion on the article's talk page should be attempted prior to moving the article to ensure that there are no editorial reasons for it remaining." Can we please follow this policy? Queerudite (talk) 04:24, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fairly certain this is a situation where everyone is right. You're both quoting different policies correctly. What's needed is a broader discussion to determine which policy is the "most" correct. AniMate 04:27, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well Queerudite if you actually bothered to read the talk pages at Amanda Milan and Gwen Araujo you would see that I did just that. We talked about it first. There was already a consensus to title those articles in that way. As for this page I would not support Matthew Shepherd being retitled. I can't say about the other articles becuase I haven't read them or been involved in editing them. I would say that this should be determined on a case by case basiss which is what Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts)#Article title suggests. Cheers.Nrswanson (talk) 04:34, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
By my count, three editors in support of the move to "Murder of" and three (including me) in support of the original name is not consensus. Queerudite (talk) 04:41, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As noted a the top of the Notability (criminal acts) article, it is only a proposed guideline, and not yet adopted. References to the article's content, such as 'murder of' prefixing, "should not describe it as 'policy'". —ADavidB 08:24, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the "Murder of " prefix simply makes no sense in most cases. If the person's identity is truly non-notable, then there should be no article whatsoever; or the name of the article should be something different entirely, such as a name based on the location and year of murder. The "Murder of " prefix serves no purpose whatsoever, as nobody would conceivable type in the article title, or look in a category under "M" for "Murder". I expect to find Matthew Shephard under Category:1998 deaths under "S" for Shephard, not "M" for Murder. If a person isn't important enough that somebody might look it up, why exactly are we making an article? --Rob (talk) 06:23, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think WP:Notability (criminal acts) supports Murder of X titles, because it's not even policy yet. Morever, Murder of X titles are not supported by WP:Title. For starters, by far most readers will wind up on these articles through redirects, the titles are distracting and could be/are taken as PoV/muddled/needlessly long by many readers and lastly, these titles objectify human beings. These crimes are about people, otherwise they wouldn't be notable. Calling an article Jane Doe does not make it a biography drawn from claims of wider notability about the person's life any more than the title Berlin makes that one an article about a music project. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please read Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts)#Article title. The policy does state that "Murder of..." is the prefered way to title these articles. I think the benefits of the "Murder of..." titling outway any negatives. First of all, articles titled after victims tend to turn into biographies which is not acceptable for an encyclopedia or by wikipedia's guidelines regarding victims which says, "Victims of high-profile crimes do not automatically qualify as notable enough to have a stand-alone article solely based on their status as victims. Notability with regards to this is defined as satisfying some other aspect of the notability of persons guideline that does not relate to the crime in question. As such, a victim of a crime should normally only be the subject of an article where an article that satisfied notability criteria existed, or could have properly been created prior to the crime's commission. Thus, attempts at inclusion prompted by appearance in the press should not be excluded if notability can be otherwise asserted." Second, articles entitled after victims tends to attract a lot of personal information about the victim's personal life which can be tasteless, disrespectful, and an invasion of the privacy of the victim and their family. Third, articles entitled after victims can tend to memorialize the person and wikipedia is not a memorial. Those are just a few of many reasons that I prefer the "Murder of..." titling. In some cases, as in Matthew Shepherd, I think the person became an icon so they deserve their own article. That is my two cents.Nrswanson (talk) 12:24, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The pith is, Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts)#Article title isn't policy and so far I don't see a consensus to make it so. Murder of X titles are not supported by policy. As an editor (and as an aside) I don't think slapping Murder of in front of a crime victim's name does anything but muddle the sway of WP:RS/WP:V over article content. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:43, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I could be swayed either way for most of these articles except for Matthew Shepard, Scott Amedure, and Gwen Araujo (do not count that as consensus to do it!). However, stripping them of the category of LGBT hate crime victims because they are now not people but articles about murders or crime, in my opinion, is utterly ridiculous. F-bomb ridiculous. Similarly, I hope the renaming of crime victim articles crusade will extend to other victims based on race and religion as well. I have a feeling that this issue will be quickly clarified if all these articles are renamed. Starting with LGBT-related articles makes editors who write about bias and discrimination (perhaps justly) suspicious that these folks are being singled out. --Moni3 (talk) 15:45, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, in the individual case of Glenn Kopitske, the article had been moved from "Glenn Kopitske" to "Glenn Kopitske murder" about a year and a half ago by another user; the recent move was from "Glenn Kopitske murder" to "Murder of Glenn Kopitske" in accordance with the fact that no matter what the result of this debate between "Person" and "Murder of person" is, "Person murder" is nobody's idea of the preferred naming convention.

I favour "Person" rather than "Murder of person" as the naming convention, though I'm not fundamentally opposed to accepting "Murder of person" if there's really a consensus to do so. I'll elaborate my reasons in more depth later, however, as I have to head out to run some errands right now. But as food for thought, I will put out right now that my reasoning starts with the principle that articles should always be at the simplest possible title. Bearcat (talk) 17:48, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Moving hundreds of articles to "Murder of" is a terrible idea. We could quibble over each case and come up with some gory rubber-necking justification for how much slaughter there was, and all sorts of rather distasteful discussions that would only serve to enliven those who enjoy murder scenes. Blech! We have current notability guidelines in place and at last count those were simple and direct enough so that drilling down to determine which side of Person X vs. Murder of Person X an article falls will do little but engender heated battles about murder victims. So the real question remains where does the precedent of "Murder of" conventions go? In addition to the festive round-abouts previously touched upon I invite all to consider the many nuances and possibilities. We can effectively rework thousands of articles not to focus on the human being but on the one thing that they are actually notable for.
    • "Homicide of"
    • "Manslaughter of"
    • "Suicide of"
    • "Execution of"
    • "Euthanasia of"
    • "Drug overdose of"
    • "Exsanguination of"
    • "Asphyxia of"
    • "Poisoning of"
    • "Hanging of"
    • "Rape of"
    • "Marriage of"
    • "Divorce of"
    • "Pop hit song of"
    • "Movie career of"
etc. ad nauseum. You get the point. "Murder of" usage, IMHO, only serves to dehumanize murder victims and that's fine for a blog or someone's book but not a title of an encyclopedia article. -- Banjeboi 23:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I just checked out Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts). Basically, it says if Matthew Shepard is notable on his own the article should be Matthew Shepard, and if he's only notable for his murder the article should be Murder of Matthew Shepard. I know that's not a policy but I think it's a good idea. I actually think we should focus "on the one thing that they are actually notable for." Not to dehumanize Matthew or be biased against LGBT, but to keep an encyclopedic focus on what's notable. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 03:26, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts) is not Wikipedia policy. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:40, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He specifically says that he knows it isn't - but I agree, and have tried to point this out above: WP:N/CA does not yet have consensus as a guideline. Fritzpoll (talk) 20:53, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Much less a policy. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:50, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Policy or not it is a good idea, and in practice very few unnotable in life murder victims, LGBT or not (LGBT having nothing to do with it) have a bio article, and for good reasons. I see no reason to make this an exception. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This article isn't about Matthew Shepard, it's about how he was murdered and the aftermath. (Well, 9/10 of the sections.) I think the title should reflect that. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 01:51, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Which is to say, it's about Matthew Shepard. Gwen Gale (talk) 01:53, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tori Amos?

It looks like the song listed here is for Kosovar refugees, not Matthew Shepard, should this be in here? 24.215.174.11 (talk) 16:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If it doesn't relate to this article, it shouldn't be included. Is there a reliable source that contains the lyrics to this song? —ADavidB 20:31, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]


medical info

the information released by the hospital to the press, including the statement from the parents, is available on the hospital website [1] not sure how that could be included 81.151.117.72 (talk) 17:22, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Murdered because he was gay

The phrase "because he was gay" in the first sentence of the lede has repeatably been removed by IP editors without any edit summary or discussion. And of course those changes were reverted. User:Sam has just improved the lede by adding a new paragraph restating the mainstream motive in a better more neutral way. Although there are opposite views, they are handled in a separate section as appropriate. The only disagreement I have is that Sam's last version reordered the position of the motive and reaction paragraph with the verdicts paragraph. Placing the verdict paragraph first sets it out of chrono order, and also implies that the verdicts are more important that the motive and public reaction. The verdicts are not what made this subject notable and important, it was the horrific manner of death, what most say was the driving motive, and ultimately the press and public reactions. Comments? — Becksguy (talk) 07:55, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Funny, in my eyes, it seemed more important located at the end, because it implies the lasting effect of the crime. Either way is fine with me. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 03:11, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Get this to GA or FA

I have access to a university library and its associated databases. Last year, I considered the 3 highest profile articles in WP:LGBT that should be improved are the Stonewall riots, Harvey Milk, and Matthew Shepard. I've brought two of those articles to FA. I've offered a couple times at WT:LGBT to send as much information to any editors interested in improving this article to get it to GA or FA. In light of Virginia Foxx's stunning dumbassery, it seems it's even more important to make sure this article is accurate without question.

My offer is still open. There would be an incredible amount of reading and copy editing involved. I will assist. Think about it and let me know if you're interested. --Moni3 (talk) 13:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The fence.

So yeah..where in Laramie is the fence seen in all the photos? And yes, I do need an answer on this. --24.21.148.155 (talk) 04:18, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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