Talk:Gu Kailai

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A news item involving Gu Kailai was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 20 August 2012.

Wikipedia

"Horus L. Kai"

Can someone provide a source that she was indeed known by this somewhat strange-sounding name? Colipon+(Talk) 01:28, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wall Street Journal, among others:[1]. Homunculus (duihua) 01:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Xinhua is not a reliable source

I don't think Xinhua should be cited as a source for a statement that is written as fact. So I'm going to change the text added by Addrigon and BrightStarSky today. Klortho (talk) 02:30, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. I'm not really sure how to handle this issue. In general, per the WP:BLPCRIME, there's no problem stating that someone has admitted to and/or been convicted of a crime. But under the circumstance that there are a lot of unanswered questions in this case, and that the admission may have been elicited in a manner that would not hold up under a more....developed legal system, I think qualifiers are certainly in order here. Homunculus (duihua) 04:31, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gu's surname

I'm actually curious about why her name would be rendered as "Bo Gu Kailai" - it is probably more absurd as it appears to be. In China (or at least Mainland China), a married women pretty much never switches to her husband's surname upon marriage. Indeed, she was never known as "Bo Gu Kailai" before this incident; Calling her "Bo Gu Kailai" would be about as absurd as, say, calling Michelle Obama "Michelle-Barack Obama". Despite this, no explanations have been given so far. All we have are mere speculations, and I think they should be presented as such. Blodance the Seeker 21:35, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that this is quite unusual. Are you referring to this rendering appearing in the infobox, or in the article body? If the latter, it seems to be contextualized fairly well there. Homunculus (duihua) 01:11, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the article. I have already changed the wording, just put my rationale here in case someone disagrees. :) Blodance the Seeker 19:15, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aha, I see. In that case, well done. Should we take the alternate name out of the infobox, or leave it there? On another note, I've had a couple general BLP concerns about this page, and was wondering if you had any thoughts. I mention one of my concerns above — that is, I have a vague sense of unease about declaring Gu a convicted murdered, given that the legal proceedings were...unusual. There remain many unanswered questions, as well as a fair bit of reliably published speculation that she may have been a scapegoat. I've also been unsure of how to handle the (also reliably published, and probably notable) suspicions that the woman who stood trial may have been a stand-in. Wikipedia is generally not a forum for speculation, but there may be a way to address this appropriately, without verging on tabloid narratives. Your thoughts? Homunculus (duihua) 21:52, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say leave the alternate name in. As for your concern - as.. uh.. controversial as the legal proceedings may be, she is still convicted of murder in an official court, so I see no problem in stating that "Gu was convicted of murder" as this is merely a fact. We do need to avoid statements like "Gu is a murderer", though. About the "body double" claim - this is basically claiming that "the woman you thought was Gu, was not actually Gu", and I think it definitely meets the definition of an exceptional claim that requires exceptional sources. And that should be more than Internet rumors and claims from unnamed "experts". As such, I would recommend that it be removed until we can find more reliable sources covering this topic. Blodance the Seeker 07:35, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]