Talk:Moors murders

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Recent edits

I'm concerned at the amount of recent changes that have been made to this article over the last day or so. This article is now nowhere near what it was when it was listed for FA in 2009. I would therefore propose the idea that this article is put to WP:FAR so it can be reassessed for its quality. This is in no way a slur towards those conducting these edits. Cassianto^Talk 20:37, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

This was largely Eric Corbett's article; I'd strongly advise waiting until his block expires before any FAR, so he can comment on it. ‑ Iridescent 20:42, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Advice not necessary, I wouldn't do it this side of his block. My concern is that the article has lost a shade under 9,000 bytes in a day. The version we have today is not the version that was reviewed in 2009. Cassianto^Talk 20:51, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Most of the recent edits seem to have been made to condense and summarise, i.e. fewer words to say the same thing. The sourcing and chronology are still perfectly sound, as far as I can see, but I'm not sure there has been a great deal of real "improvement". No one owns any article content, but I really don't see the point in making changes just for the sake of change. My guess is that there would be few problems arising from a WP:FAR. But after 10 years, it would seem a perfectly sensible idea. Happy to hear Ian's views. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:59, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

I would invite a comment here from User:EEng. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:12, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Blocked? Oh dear – and here I thought everyone was looking on so approvingly. In the meantime, while I confess to being unfamiliar with the esoteric ways of FA, I guess I would have thought that the substance of individual edits, not their byte counts, would be the focus of discussion. EEng 22:36, 9 July 2019 (UTC) P.S. For the record, the article's been slimmed down by about 10K in seven days (not one day as stated above). All of this is in text changes along the lines of what ME123 just said -- tighter text saying the same thing, with occasional detail dropped here and there.

Yes, seems to be Gunfight at the Arbcom Corral. *Lower-priced matinee showings, bookable now, for the coming month, get your ticket while stocks last.... Martinevans123 (talk) 22:44, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

One day/nine days, it's still a lot of slimming down in a short space of time. If you're that confident it's improved, you won't shy away from a FAR? As Iri points out above, I think we should wait and see what Eric says, if and when he returns. Cassianto^Talk 23:12, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

I know nothing about the FA process, but why not start reviewing the edits right now? They'll all bite-sized. My intention was to tighten the exposition with no change in content except (as already mentioned) the occasional dropping of what seemed to me obvious or extraneous detail here and there. ME123 and Arid Desiccant have apparently been watching and have pushed back a few times, for which I'm grateful. EEng 23:26, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

I now see that EC is blocked until August (!) so I think I'll leave things be until he's had a chance to look at changes so far. In the meantime it would certainly be nice for someone to step through them, or even just sample them. EEng 03:11, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

You're "leaving things be" now? Perhaps he has now looked and has told you privately that he's in full agreement, yes? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:16, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

EEng, I'm begging you to stop or at least pause your rewrites, as you're trimming too enthusiastically and starting to introduce errors and ambiguities with edits like this. ("Released from prison" and "released" most definitely do not mean the same thing under English law, as evidenced by this very article given that Brady was released from prison in 1985 but wasn't released from custody until his death decades later.) This is a complicated and ultra-contentious topic, and one that even people familiar with the nuances of English law and English culture struggle with, and just going through all your edits up to now cleaning them up and reverting/restoring where necessary is going to be a mammoth undertaking. ‑ Iridescent 14:24, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

(adding) Plus, you're adding outright errors, and using misleading edit summaries so it's very hard to see where you're adding them—it just took me a good ten minutes to work out where you'd added "her bids for release after confessing made her a figure of hate in the national media" (it was Longford's campaign that was responsible for the continued media obsession with her, not anything Hindley herself said) with an edit summary of "resulted in her becoming" is a long way of saying "made her". To be honest the more I see of this the more inclined I am to rollback to the status quo ante and then go through your edits one-by-one to see if they're valid, as this is already going to be a serious timesink to clean up. ‑ Iridescent 14:44, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Absolutely go through the edits one by one. That's what I've been asking for, though the fact is that since you and two other editors had made occasional reversions and comments as I was working over the last week, I had thought you were already doing that.

I'm puzzled, though, by your complaint about the particular diff you linked. The old text (grammatically fractured, BTW) said

Hindley's gender, her repeated insistence on her innocence, followed by her attempts to secure her release after confessing her guilt, resulted in her becoming a figure of hate in the national media.

and I changed it to

Hindley's gender and repeated insistence on her innocence, followed by her bids for release after confessing, made her a figure of hate in the national media

So if as you say it was Longford's campaign that was responsible for the continued media obsession with her, not anything Hindley herself said, the article's failure to reflect that has nothing to do with me, and there's nothing misleading about my edit summary, thank you very much. As for "release", if the intent is for the reader to appreciate the subtleties of release-to-freedom versus release-to-medicine versus whatever else, the article needs to do a much better job of that.

As ME123 noted earlier, most changes condense and summarise, i.e. fewer words to say the same thing. Emblematic of these changes, I'd say, is the change of

Such was the public interest that the courtroom was fitted with security screens to protect Brady and Hindley. The pair were each charged with three murders, those of Evans, Downey and Kilbride

to

The courtroom was fitted with security screens to protect Brady and Hindley, who were charged with murdering Evans, Downey and Kilbride‍

When the murderers of three children go on trial, it's hardly necessary to explain to the reader why the courtroom is fitted with security screens (though "public interest" is a rather euphemistic way of putting it), nor do they need a list of three names previewed by the information that it contains three names. A great deal of the article is like this; its research seems impeccable, but while the writing is very good it's not immune to improvement. The total time I've spent on this is several hours and it wouldn't take half that time to step through them. They're almost all very small diffs, and most are very straightforward. EEng 15:49, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Actually The pair were each charged with three murders, those of Evans, Downey and Kilbride looks better, i.e. more accurate to me. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:43, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

How so? EEng 16:45, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Only insofar as the condensed version has the slight ambiguity that the pair were charged with a total of three murders between them. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:51, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I'd say homeopathically slight. EEng 20:47, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

"Homeopaths are kissed frogs too, you know!!" Martinevans123 (talk) 20:58, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

@Ianmacm, Martinevans123, Cassianto, and J3Mrs: Do any of you fancy going through diff-by-diff from here onwards checking them all and reverting where necessary? I'm not wildly keen to spend however many hours it will take to go through 166 edits, but given that this is such a high-profile and high-traffic topic (and a BLP minefield to boot) we shouldn't be leaving errors in place any longer than necessary. The alternative is reverting to the status quo, but that will understandably annoy EEng who's been making what he thought were improvements in good faith, as it will mean throwing out the baby with the bathwater. (We'll leave to one side my opinion of jumping in to start a total rewrite on the day the main author of the article is blocked.) ‑ Iridescent 15:44, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

For the record, I had absolutely no idea EC had been blocked. I've worked on this article here and there for a year or two, and it's simply a cosmic coincidence that I really got into it the other day. Added later: In fact, EC was blocked that day after I started this round of edits, which was stimulated by this [15] pretty-awful edit by an IP. No need to apologize, Arid Desiccant. EEng 03:53, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

It is my view, Iri, that we restore to the version before EEng started on their bloodbath and discuss any of the major changes on the talk page. Sure, any glaringly obvious grammar fixes can be addressed, but I don't think we should just fix for the sake of fixing, as pointed out by Martin, above. Hopefully, Eric will return and he can also take part. This looks to be the most stable version that goes back to late-June. Cassianto^Talk 15:48, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

How about if, before condemning another's hard work as a "bloodbath", you actually look at the changes and undo or modify any you find problematic? I'm not married to any of them. EEng 15:59, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I am referring to the amount that's been cut away, not the quality of the edits themselves. I've not the time to trawl my way through them – there's nine days worth to get through. But based on the few Iridescent has highlighted, I'm pretty confident that there will be more. Cassianto^Talk 16:09, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

So pleased we've got a bloodbath, not a nasty Jo Brandish acid bath. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:13, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I'd have preferred a Cleopatraish milk bath. Cassianto^Talk 16:26, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Except that, as I explained above, of the two issues my good friend Arid Desiccant highlighted, one (re who's responsible for the "continued media obsession") turns out to have nothing to do with me, and the other (change of "released from prison" to simply "released") could hardly be said to be anything I, or most other readers, could have possibly been expected to understand from the article's presentation, and so is arguably an existing problem with the article which I have inadvertently brought to our collective attention.

When a good-faith editor puts a lot of work into an article, you have two choices: either check out the changes and undo or adjust them individually, or just trust that the editor's changes are, if not each individually improvements, at least improvements on balance in toto. Not an option is to say you don't have time to review what's been done, so it'll all just have to be thrown out. Maybe you guys could split the changes among you – three groups of 50. EEng 16:31, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

It looks like User:J3Mrs may have given up, after making a last edit to this very article, over a year ago. So I'd not be too hopeful of a response. You might want to try User:Kieronoldham who has edited here previously. As I said above, most of EEng's edits seemed reasonable to me, if a little pedantic. But I've certainly not checked methodically through them all. I must say, Iridescent, that you can spot errors, or potential errors, far more easily that me. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:03, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm all for bold edits and improving things where improvement is needed, but in my opinion, while FAs are not off-limits, they should be afforded extra care and not be allowed to be changed so freely, and to such an extent, that a GA can, for instance. If I had my way I'd lock all FAs up and anyone wishing to change them would have to request it on the talk page. Cassianto^Talk 16:20, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Except that's not the way it is. For all this discussion, no one's actually looking at the changes. EEng 16:31, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Quite right, we're too busy discussing. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:36, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Precisely. EEng 16:39, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

In hindsight, EEng, do you not think that it would've been better to copy the entire article (less cats) into a sandbox and to do what you've done here, there? A link on the talk page could've then been added in a discussion where your version could've been scrutinised. To now expect someone to go through and proof read 150 edits is, to me, an example that even you are unsure of your changes. The English language has not changed that much over the last 10 years and with Eric and Tom as the authors, I doubt that any of the problems you saw, even existed in the first place. Cassianto^Talk 16:45, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Like I've said over and over, there was every reason to believe other editors were following along. I am not unsure of my changes, except to the extent that everyone makes mistakes. There don't have to be "problems" for the writing to bear improving. EEng 17:25, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Basically, you've had the misfortune to stumble onto a topic that's far more complicated than it appears at first glance, as it's one that led to significant and profound changes to English and British laws and culture (one can trace direct lines from the Moors Murders to the rebranding of Manchester as a tourist destination, to the current tabloid-fuelled paedogeddon currently ripping through the British establishment, to the boom in conceptual art in the 1990s, and to the legislation regarding life sentences). Because it's such a complicated and confusing topic, changes that appear minor can have a radical and unintended impact on the meaning, and if you're not familiar with the quirks of English culture things that are significant can appear trivial. (This is one I raised previously; Hindley's dyed hair is arguably the most iconic British image since the war.) Given how many errors I've noticed just from ultra-quick skims, I assume there are likely to be more. As I've said above, if nobody else is in a position to do so I'm willing to go through diff-by-diff at some point repairing your inappropriate removals and changes of meaning, but it will be time-consuming and complicated; this being an article which averages around a million views per year and is on a highly sensitive topic, the issue is what we do in the meantime. ‑ Iridescent 16:53, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

If you know of any inappropriate removals and changes of meaning that haven't been fixed, why haven't you fixed them? I'm really surprised at you. I've been working on this for two weeks. You and ME123 and IanM knew I was doing it, because occasionally you corrected something I did – very occasionally, which gave me confidence. You could have just followed along, ten edits per day, and instead of you now imagining all the terrible things I must have done, the bad would be corrected and the good would remain, and the article would be the better for it. But turns out you weren't after all, I guess. So now do it. You'd be 1/3 of the way through in the time we've been discussing this. It won't be particularly time-consuming and certainly not complicated. They'll almost all little diffs. EEng 17:25, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Iridescent, I can assist, but would it not be easier to go back to the version before EEng started their edits? EEng, you can then do the edits again, more slowly, and they can be checked. Again, this isn't a slur on you, and thank you for your time, but there's more than one way to skin a cat (cue Martin and a link to a skinny cat, or something). Cassianto^Talk 17:07, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I did go slowly -- two weeks! In the name of God, just start here [16] (the latest edit) and click Previous from there. (For reasons I probably don't need to explain it usually makes more sense to work backwards.) If you don't like what you see, fix it. I keeps saying this over and over: they're almost all very small, local changes. To the extent there's anything bordering on a substantive (as opposed to stylistic) change, those were mostly in the last day or two, so you'll run into them earlier -- as you press on you'll find very little of that. EEng 17:25, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

EEng, in my view 150 edits over a two week period is not taking things slowly. It is the kind of edit count I'd expect to see on an article that is under construction, or one that is being brushed up for a review of some kind. Cassianto^Talk 17:45, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Oh for heaven's sake -- some people make a few, giant changes and others make a lot of little local changes. It's water under the bridge, as no one suggested I stop or slow down or change course or anything else, even though they knew I was doing it. Are you going to look through the telescope, or not? EEng 17:53, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

150 local edits can be as bad as one giant change; in fact, I'd say that the local edits are more problematic as proof reading them can be confusing and time consuming. There's no point in getting out of your pram over this; it's been done and now the work begins. I'll do what I can, but I really think Eric should be involved, if he wants to be. Cassianto^Talk 18:00, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

EEng, I trust that you've made all your edits with careful reference to what's actually written in the original sources, i.e. principally Ritchie (1988), Topping (1989) Staff (2007) and Lee (2010)? This was (and currently is) an FA and I seem to remember quite a lot of rather painful argument with the principal contributor over what certain phrases actually meant. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:57, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Since this is a WP:FA, it would have been better to tinker around with a sandbox version rather than the real thing. It is putting a lot of strain on the time of other editors to check through a huge number of diffs.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:58, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Credit where credit is due... he does some of the best non-breaking spaces around. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:41, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I didn't need the sources because I didn't introduce any new assertions. If there's any shade of meaning you suspect was upset, by all means revert that. EEng 18:06, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

"I didn't need the sources" is not a phrase that one encounters too often here. Given that we're obliged to paraphrase everything, to avoid copyvio, I suspect this is a strategy that may have some degree of risk. But yes, what we see as errors of grammar, or even poor sentence construction, can be tackled like that. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:24, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

To a first approximation, copyediting might be defined as everything you can do to an article without looking at the sources. The article has precious little in the way of grammar errors or "poor" sentence construction, but those aren't the only opportunities for improvement: very good writing can still be made better. The possibility that I'll accidentally copyedit a passage into an exact wording that also happens to be in some source doesn't keep me up at night. EEng 20:47, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I was thinking more of "Chinese whispers" (if one is still allowed to use that phrase without being accused of racism). Martinevans123 (talk) 10:08, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

"The possibility that I'll accidentally copyedit a passage into an exact wording that also happens to be in some source doesn't keep me up at night." -- all the more reason why these articles should be locked. Cassianto^Talk 07:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Cassianto, I'm afraid I don't understand. What is your concern in this regard? EEng 13:40, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

My concern is that FAs are open to such vulnerabilities as you mention above, and that you don't really seem to care. Cassianto^Talk 19:31, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Cassianto, we were discussing the risk that an editor who has never seen any of the sources might insert into the article a phrase that, by complete coincidence, matches phrasing in one of the sources. Are you seriously proposing that that's a "vulnerability" we're supposed to worry about? Or are you talking about something else? EEng 20:12, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Of course we should worry about copyvios, innocent or otherwise. It's realising that it is a copyvio, that's the tricky part; and we won't know that until we have lawyers knocking at the door. That would be enough to keep me up at night. Cassianto^Talk 00:09, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I cannot tell you the sense of inner serenity it gives me to know that I am able to relieve your anxiety and grant you untroubled slumber. Copyright infringement can only take place if the infringing party actually makes use of the copyrighted work; independent creation of material that happens to be similar to copyrighted material cannot be copyright infringement no matter how striking the similarity. Since, as I keep saying, I've never seen and never intend to see any of the sources, by definition I cannot infringe their copyright. EEng 02:47, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

That's not my experience with regard to Wikipedia policy. I'd invite User:Diannaa, who recently left a warning with a threat of a block on my Talk page, to clarify for us here how close, to the original, text is allowed to be. Or is the key distinction that one does not have (or in other cases can simply claim not to have) access to the existing or non-exiting sources? It's assumed that editors who have access to an existing source will need to check. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:58, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

You were warned because you inserted material – while, according to your own edit summary [17], you were working from a website – which too closely matched the text on that website (apparently – I can't see the revdel'd edits). When you're working from source material, it's your job to be sure you don't draw too much water from the well. That's not the hypothetical we're discussing here, which is that an editor, never having seen a particular work, happens to come up with a phrase that turns out to be in that work. As explained above it's black-letter law that that cannot be copyright infringement, period – the legal phrase is "independent creation". I really know this stuff because intellectual property was my bread and butter for quite some time.

Of course, being innocent and proving you're innocent are two different things, so Wikipedia may very well say to an editor, "Look, even if it's entirely coincidental that you came up with a phrase that matches Source X, in order to avoid any question we need you to tweak that wording a bit", and that makes perfect sense, if someone happens to notice the situation. But the idea that every time an editor makes any edit they're supposed to scurry about checking all sources just in case one of those sources contains a similar phrase by sheer chance, is lunatic.

One of the 10 woks listed under Bibliography

Look, the article lists 10 woks under Bibliography, so the idea would seem to be that I'm supposed to get all those from the library and check each of my recent 150 edits against them. Not clear how I'd even do that, but since this is a lunatic discussion we'll let that pass. OK, well, Further reading lists another 12 works; am I supposed to check those too? And a search of a handy university library catalog for moors murders returns 1719 general articles, 1302 news articles, and 1182 books; I guess I'm supposed to check all those too. And why stop there? Why not check all true-crime literature unrelated to Brady and Hindley, on the chance that a general phrase relating crime in some way might appear somewhere? In fact, why not check the entire literary and journalistic output of humankind over the ages (or at least those falling under copyright protection in the US)? How would one even do that?

Oh, wait. There is in fact a way of doing that. It's called a copyvio detector. I believe we even have one or two kicking around the project somewhere. My impression is that someone runs it now and then against all articles, or against recent changes, or something like that, and brings similarities to editor attention for remedying (or in cases of chronic problem, scolding I guess – I don't know your history on this, ME123). Good. I'm glad someone's doing that, and no one expects me, or any other editor, to duplicate that effort individually. To have such an expectation would be, as mentioned, lunatic. EEng 12:51, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Ouch, seem to have touched a nerve here. Sorry if you think I'm "scolding". Like I said below, yesterday, I was thinking more of "Chinese whispers". Hence the 10 woks, I guess. Of course it's not so easy to run copyvio detectors with print sources. I'll await clarification from Dianaaa. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:59, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

(ec) I think you already know my opinion on copyvio; the amount of copying permitted is essentially zero. The odds of someone inadvertently duplicating what's in sources that they have not seen is vanishingly small and should not in my opinion be used to justify throwing out a weeks' worth of work. Expecting a copy editor to have access to all the sources and use them while working is not practical nor is it done in practice, not even at the FA level. If you're having trouble assessing EEng's changes I suggest making a giant diff like this one and then using wikEdDiff, which highlights additions in blue and removals in yellow. This situation reminds me of my work on Nazi Germany, where I spent 5 hours a day for a month working on it without anyone commenting or complaining or interrupting, and then spent the following month answering questions and responding to queries on the talk page about what I did. No one presumed that it would be necessary or desirable to throw all my work away and start over. I admire EEng's calmness at the suggestion that his work might all have been in vain — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 13:10, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to that tool. I certainly haven't suggested just "throwing out a weeks' worth of work." Martinevans123 (talk) 13:18, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Not you specifically; but others on this talk page did make that suggestion. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 13:31, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Diannaa. Shall I wire the money to the usual numbered account? EEng 13:33, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Great to see some real collaboration at last. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:45, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Followup comment: a drawback of a single giant diff, as linked by Diannaa, is that you don't see the edit summaries (which in some cases explain changes that might otherwise not be obvious). EEng 17:08, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

You might find the Wikiblame tool helpful for locating the particular diff for any addition or removal. For example, hunting for removal of the phrase "first victim was 16-year-old Pauline Reade" finds it was removed with this edit, which does include an explanatory edit summary. You can get at the Wikiblame tool from the revision history page of any page - click on "Find addition/removal" — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 17:40, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

As I'm sure you know, we wiki-snowflakes do not tolerate the "b-word", as I'm sure the original "toxic tinkerer" EEng will testify. But yes, it is useful. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:59, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Those wonderful tools do come in handy when you're trying to untangle some puzzling change lost in the mists of time, but in this case by far the easiest thing to do would be to simply STEP THROUGH THE GODDAM EDITS SEQUENTIALLY. In the past 3 days there have been an incredible 110 posts to this thread, totaling 40K of text, all to discuss the abstract existence (but not the substance) of my 150 edits to an article which itself consists, in total, of a mere 65K. Most of these edits are no more complex than

One hundred and fifty officers were drafted to searchsearched the moor, looking for locations that matched for locations matching the photographs. Initially the search was concentrated, initially concentrating along the A628 road

and

Brady returned alone, carrying a spade that he had hidden there earlier. When Hindley asked how he had killed Bennett, Brady said that , and told her he had sexually assaulted the boy and strangled him with a piece of string

and

sexually assaulted the boy Bennett and strangled him

and

The examination involved an analysis of the dog's teeth, which required a general anaesthetic from which Puppet did not recover, as he suffered from an undiagnosed kidney complaint.

and

Superintendent Bob Talbot of the Cheshire Police arrived at the back door of 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, wearing his uniform covered by a borrowed baker's overall to cover his uniform.

and

Brady and Hindley offered 12-year-old John Kilbride a lift home on the pretext that saying his parents might worry that he was out so late

and

Twelve-year-old Keith Bennett vanished on his way to his grandmother's house in Longsight, Manchester, early in the evening of 16 June 1964, four days after his birthday.

There, that's seven of them – 5% of the total – right there. They can be reviewed in 15 seconds each, and if you think officers were drafted to search is better than just plain officers searched, or that readers will benefit by knowing about the dog's teeth and kidney complaint, or about how many days past his birthday Keith Bennett was when he was killed, go right ahead and change those things; I'm not married to anything. But in the name of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the saints and apostles, at long last you bunch of old ladies stop pearl-clutching and hand-wringing (you gotta love the imagery there) and either look at the edits or shut the fuck up now. I've spent far more time in therapy with you lot responding to your hypothetical anxieties than I did making the changes themselves. Really, it's unbelievable.

This obviously isn't directed at you, Diannaa. Looks like that calmness you were admiring above ran out. EEng 21:10, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Last week: Diannaa (airborne) confronts another copyright violator

-EEng

This week: Diannaa helps a copyright violator to see the error of his ways

-EEng

I guess that was my point about my story about GA prep of Nazi Germany: if people had a problem with specific edits, they could have challenged as you were going along rather than waiting a week. Or they could (like happened with my big project) post particulars of any additions or changes here on the talk that they think need to be addressed. But the ways of FA are a mystery to me; that's why I have zero nominations to FA-class. I gotta go; there's still a lot of copyvio reports to assess before dinnertime. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 21:29, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

No one needs to "challenge" anything. Just revert or adjust. It's no big deal. EEng 21:45, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

... "pearl-clutching and hand-wringing"... I just lolled. Oi vay. It's like Jimmy McGill paid a surprise visit to 16 Wardle Brook Avenue. But deep desire to re-add a detailed footnote on the Fablon tablecloth and formica sideboard, already. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:24, 12 July 2019 (UTC) p.s. your image makes Diannaaaa look too cuddly.

You are correct; no need to challenge or discuss on the talk page, just quietly fix it with a suitable edit summary. No huhu. By the way the attack dog approach is sooo last week. Do it at your peril — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 01:06, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

One month later

• I would be all in favour of this article being taken to WP:FAR. My view is that simplistic, childish edits, based on word count rather than nuanced meaning, have eviscerated it to the point where I doubt it would now get through FAC. Eric Corbett 23:12, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

• I would agree. These recent edits have been a backward step for this article and they need to be scrutinised. I'm sure you've meant well, EEng, but I really wish you'd left well alone. Cassianto^Talk 06:14, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

+1. Although nobody is banned from editing a WP:FA, wholesale changes need consensus, and there is little sign of it here.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:19, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

One of the FA criteria is stability. I can see discussion going back over a month. It would would appear might be an issue that requires addressing.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:40, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

To avoid a WP:FAR, I am tempted to revert all of the edits by @EEng: over the last month or so, and allow these changes to be made in a WP:SANDBOX version of the article, so that others can comment on them. It's clear that they haven't gone down well.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:05, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh bullshit. It's been a month and there hasn't been a single specific comment about any edit. Edits don't get reverted because the article's owners are too busy wringing their hands to review them. Repeat: either say something specific about one or more particular edits or shut the fuck up. Pinging Diannaa since it looks like some not-in-the-club level heads will be needed before this is over. EEng 09:21, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

"Edits don't get reverted because the article's owners are too busy wringing their hands to review them." and there it is, right there, EEng resorting to the cliched "own" ad hominem when challenged about their edits. Cassianto^Talk 09:34, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, sure, right, whatever. You've challenged nothing about these edits, simply whined endlessly about their very existence. Repeating again: either say something specific about one or more particular edits or shut the fuck up. EEng 18:01, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Your edits are shit, all of them. There. The best version was the one at the beginning of July before you started mucking about with it. Cassianto^Talk 18:40, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I would have to agree with Cassianto. I wonder if anyone else remembers the story of the boss who used to weigh any report before he read it? I am similarly not a great fan of EEng's style of editing, which simply boils down to fewer words are better. Such Brutalism has some merit when it's done sympathetically, but that hasn't been happening here. Eric Corbett 19:35, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Your edits are shit, all of them – he said pretending he'd actually looked at them, which you clearly haven't since at least a few correct straight-out grammatical errors and examples of the text contradicting itself. You lot are so transparent it's laughable. EEng 20:57, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

And your request that I "shut the fuck up" is contrary to what you want me to do which is to look at each and every edit you made and comment. As you say, so transparent. Cassianto^Talk 22:27, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

No, I told you to say something specific about the edits or shut the fuck up. Instead you keep whining but still say nothing specific about the edits. EEng 09:18, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

No, this would take a considerable amount of time, which I don't have, frankly. You do not seem to understand that your butchering of this article, to the tune of 8,000 bytes, has taken it so far away from the FAC version in 2009, that an FAR is almost inevitable. Take this version there and see what folk think. Cassianto^Talk 09:25, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

No, this would take a considerable amount of time, which I don't have, frankly – Well, then, we're back to what I said earlier:

When a good-faith editor puts a lot of work into an article, you have two choices: either check out the changes and undo or adjust them individually, or just trust that the editor's changes are, if not each individually improvements, at least improvements on balance in toto. Not an option is to say you don't have time to review what's been done, so it'll all just have to be thrown out.

EEng 09:34, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

What about the good-faith editor(s) who got this article up to FA in the first place who spent time and money writing the damn thing? We are not here to wipe your backside after each and every edit; we all have other things to do. A decrease of 8,000 bytes is too far removed from the 2009 FAC for the FA status to be left in situ. If you insist on having your version, go ahead, but I will be seeking its removal from the FA library. Cassianto^Talk 09:39, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

If those good-faith editors really care about the article, they have to invest time and energy dealing with others' edits -- and not by mass reversion. It's incredible you keep talking about "removal from the 2009 FAC" -- as I pointed out on El C's talk page, the FA version in 2009 was 88K, and the version from late June of this year is 108K. The article's "removal from the 2009 FAC" happened long ago. I'm taking you up on your kind offer and reverting to the version ten editors have been building over the last month. EEng 09:50, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

In truth, your axe is towards Eric, isn't it. You couldn't give shit about this article, really, could you? It's all about oneupmanship, isn't it? Cassianto^Talk 09:58, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Short answer: Projection. Long answer: From the bottom of my heart, I don't give a shit about Eric except when he's abusing others. (I myself can take it, so I don't mind.) What I care about is that the article make the best presentation possible. Honestly, if you don't like something I've done, just revert or fix it. I can't imagine there would be more than a tiny number of cases in which I'd push back. I've done scores of articles this way and never run into this kind of rigidity. EEng 10:06, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

You've been obsessed with this article for years; changing stuff that doesn't need to be changed, just so you can keep prodding Eric. For the last time, I will not not be undertaking such a mammoth feat as WP comes secondary to other things in my life. As soon as I've worked out how to list something at FAR, I will, and if it passes, then great. But I simply cannot allow this to masquerade as an FA, when in all probabilities, it might not be. Cassianto^Talk 10:14, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

You've been obsessed with this article for years – Well, we are well and truly in Crazy Town now: before this year I'd made a total of 8 edits to this article. BTW, some were quite necessary grammar fixes (e.g. But on returning home and relating to Maureen what he had seen, she insisted and Her parents beat her regularly as a young child); see, the writing really can be improved here and there. EEng 10:44, 7 August 2019 (UTC) In an abundance of transparency, I rush to point out that apparently I introduced one of those two grammar goofs.

So this and this wasn't you then? There are *some* necessary grammar fixes, sure, always room for improvement, but 8,000 bytes worth? Cassianto^Talk 11:43, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I opened one talk thread, participated in another, and made eight edits to the article itself – that's your idea of an obsession? I didn't imply that all the edits were grammar fixes, merely that some were. Unless you say something about the edits themselves, which you've said you won't do, I think I'll stop responding now. EEng 14:50, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• Right, so far, that's me, Iridescent, zzuuzz, Eric Corbett, Ianmacm, and BabbaQ, either all in favour of, or reverting back to, the version before your edits, EEng. Might I suggest that you now recognise this rather clear consensus and leave it how it is and, if you must, file at FAR and see what the community thinks compared to your version? Cassianto^Talk 20:22, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to ask that you strike my username from this list. I reverted a sockpuppet of a banned user, which is no comment on the content. In terms of policy it's as if the edits didn't happen. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• I second that. Either EEng drops the stick or we take it to FAR. Eric Corbett 20:27, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I haven't edited the article in a month, so my changes are long in the past. But other editors – including most of you lot, by the way – have made various changes like citation fixes since then; the version that's evolved over that time is the established version; and your desire to chuck out what others have been doing for six weeks is the bold edit, and you should be offering reasons (not a headcount) to support it. But since all of you openly admit you won't look at the edits, you're offering no reason at all to revert them, because you don't know what's in them. And the fact that your revert reintroduces unequivocal errors while you're at it is a very strong reason against.

Even if we turn the tables and suppose that everyone who's been working for six weeks are the bold ones, implicit in BRD is that you look at the edits before reverting; selectively reverting individual edits, for a reason even as vague as "I think old wording was better" is fine, but blindly en-masse reverting edits made by several editors over 6 weeks, because of a vague dread of what might be in them, is not BRD.

we take it to FAR – You guys keep saying that like moms used to say, "Wait until your father gets home!" What's the big deal? Am I supposed to be afraid or something? I've said a million times I'm not married to any particular change. But let me ask: Cassianto, you say you have no time to step through the edits in place. Yet you have time for some elaborate formal review of every change? How can that be? Working from the history page, I just opened 30 of the diffs in less than a minute. Allowing 15 seconds to review each one (they really are mostly tiny) and allowing for three of the 25 to take longer (say, 1 minute) gives 12 minutes for 30 diffs. For the full 150 that scales up to 60 minutes total, and that's generous. Really, is all this arguing worth it, all this arguing over the shape of the negotiating table? Why don't you just do it? Change whatever you want, just not an en-masse reversion.

Both you, Cassianto, and you, EC, have said, "OK, we'll keep your edits and take the article to FAR". Fine with me, though I didn't know FAR was for choosing among competing versions. So... We cool? EEng 23:44, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

rfc on consensus version to return to

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is no consensus in favor of either version at this time. In practice, this means that the last version of the text that had consensus was the version that existed just before the current conflict; however, substantive objections to that version have been raised, and discussion needs to continue to reach a new consensus. The best place to do that is the Featured Article Review that has just been opened. Also, to be clear, this RfC only refers to the prose. Verifiability concerns were not discussed substantively, and if there is reason to believe that the text fails WP:V in any significant way, then it cannot be said to have consensus, by definition. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:27, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

---

Right then, to try and structure this so it isn't a wall of text, let's try and get consensus for the shorter vs longer version. Comparison here. There might be a few minor improvements of the opposite 'version', but for the moment we have to pick a preferred version for now. Any more complex and we will drown in text....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:13, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Instead of the jumble of the giant diff, a more systematic way to get a sense of the changes, including their edit summaries, is to start with this diff [18] and click Next as many times as you care to. EEng 00:22, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Pinging @Iridescent, Eric Corbett, Ianmacm, BabbaQ, EEng, Martinevans123, and Diannaa: as they've all commented above (not Zzuzz who has explicitly said they just reverted a sock), and @El C: to watch this. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:13, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I have now listed at RfC - for newcomers, please just stick to the version for the next starting point so we can unlock the article. It is not declaring that either version is perfect. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:18, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Support older/longer version

For reference, this is here. Please place your signatures below:

• Support. While I can see merits in some of the condensing and clarifying, the changes do change the flow of information and amount of detail quite significantly as well as changing the context of some of the statements made. The changes can then be approached in a more appropriate piecemeal way to enable collaboration rather than BRD. Koncorde (talk) 23:45, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support - per previous statements.BabbaQ (talk) 23:48, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support - as I've said elsewhere, my problem is not with the quality of edits EEng has made - I've not checked them all - my issue is with consensus. But what I do know is that there has been a change of nuance, which this article very much relied on as an instrumental part of this subject. This article, over the past month or so, has been reduced in size by over 8,000 bytes, which is the size of an average start class article. This kind of reduction, in my view, compromises the consensus that formed at FAC in 2009, which saw a group of people get together, read and critique what had been presented to them, and support its elevation to Featured Article status. Sure, it's been 10 years, and there's nothing wrong with someone requesting an FAR to freshen things up after so long - in fact, I think that's what should happen, as things can decay (see Theatre Royal, Drury Lane as an example) - so I would welcome any FAR after a period of time. But this hiatus, plus huge, prose cutting edits in the meantime, is a slam dunk certainly that it should either be restored to the last FA-achieving version, or be open up for scrutiny once more, this time at FAR. Of course, I don't expect featured articles to be frozen in time, but I do think think extra, extra care should be taken when editing them. In a lot of cases, FAs are a result of hard work, expense, and time, and that should be respected. This RfC seeks to determine if the 200-or-so edits, in quick wp:succession, by an editor who I'm in no doubt means well, is too far and removed from the FA version from a little over a month ago. In my opinion, it is. If it is thus determined that an improvement has been made, then great, a new consensus has been formed. Cassianto^Talk 07:22, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support More or less what Cassianto said. I have no doubt at all that this string of edits was made with the best of intentions, but machine-gunning 200+ edits in quick succession, with a cumulative effect of making a substantive change (and a side-effect of making the individual edits un-undoable, meaning any revert has to be done manually), is unreasonable. As I've said somewhere in the verbiage above, as an absolute last resort then as someone with almost no previous edits to and no history with this article I'm willing to volunteer to go through the edits in question one-by-one to see which are appropriate, but I can't say when I'll have the time to do it and I'd much rather not be put in a position where I have to. ‑ Iridescent 07:37, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support until consensus is found for wholesale changes. ——SerialNumber54129 08:33, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support I had concerns about some of the changes, but did not have the time to get involved in slanging matches on the talk page over them. There doesn't seem to be consensus that the recent changes are a big improvement, and there are worries about the article going to WP:FAR. Also, who is doing the WP:SOCK routine?--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:47, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  Ahem, ""slanging matches"?? Ian, surely you mean "vibrant and engaging discussion with fellow editors"? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:23, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  Changes don't have to be a "big improvement"; they merely have to be improvements, even a tiny improvement, and I tire of inviting people to simply revert any edits they think don't qualify. This constant talk about FAR is completely irrelevant. Either a change improves the article or it doesn't; if it does, it should go in, period, and if an accumulation of changes means a periodic review is needed to maintain the gold star then you'll have to put in that work if that gold star means something to you; you can't declare changes verboten to save yourself the trouble. EEng 14:44, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support The changes are not necessarily improvements, and certainly don't seem to have any consensus. The byte size is a relatively unimportant metric: this one comes in at a whopping 141,077 bytes and desparately needs to be trimmed/rewritten (a four-line single sentence as the opening para of the lead?). The key point is whether the article puts across the story in the right level of detail without missing out important points, and the longer version certainly did that. - SchroCat (talk) 12:02, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  The changes are not necessarily improvements – Then revert the ones that you think aren't. It's a simple as that.

  As for Phineas Gage, I really do hope whoever closes this RfC takes into account how completely lunkheaded (I was going to say moronic, but then I thought better of it) are so many of the comments on this side. Case in point: the 141,077 figure you quote is the size of the wikisource, not what the reader sees on the rendered page. The Gage article renders at 6000 words; this article, Moors Murders, is almost twice as long at 11000 words. (Gage's source is so big because of the large bibliography and detailed citations, but this has nothing to do with the word count.) Next time, do your homework. But first learn the basics. EEng 14:37, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  "Then revert the ones that you think aren't. It's a simple as that." They have been. Yours were not very good and they've been removed, it's as simple as that. As for your incivility, I've seen it all before, so take it elsewhere. - SchroCat (talk) 15:14, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

not very good – Uh huh. Right. You know because you reviewed them. One of the passages you want restored is this:

Topping refused to allow Brady a second visit to the moors, and a few days after his visit Brady wrote a letter to BBC television reporter Peter Gould, giving some sketchy details of five additional murders that he claimed to have carried out. Brady refused to identify his alleged victims, and the police failed to discover any unsolved crimes matching the few details that he supplied. Hindley told Topping that she knew nothing of these killings. On 24 August, police called off their search of the moor. Brady was taken there a second time on 1 December, but he was once again unable to locate the burial site. Earlier that month, the BBC had received a letter from Brady, in which he claimed that he had committed a further five murders‍

– which tells us about the five-murders claim twice, and contradicts itself by telling us Brady only went to the moor once, followed immediately by the information that he went a second time. So when I fixed those things, that wasn't an improvement? Or is it, perhaps, an FA requirement that adjacent passages repeat and contradict one another? Or how about this gem –

Even her mother insisted that she should die in prison, partly for fear for her daughter's safety and partly out of the desire to avoid the possibility that one of the victims' relatives might kill her.

– in which her first refers to Hindley, then to Hindley's mother, then back to Hindley again, all in the same sentence – ? Is that kind of confusion, which I had fixed and you're now arguing should be reinstated, another fancy FA rule known only to the elect? Please point me to where those rules are listed so I can learn to use such best-practice techniques myself.

I see you've quietly abandoned your incompetent attempt to drag poor ol' Phineas Gage into this. As for incivility, being called uncivil by SchroCat is like being told you're ugly by a toad. EEng 07:53, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

'Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable[B1]:19 survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life‍—‌effects sufficiently profound (for a time at least) that friends saw him as "no longer Gage." [H]:14' ouch... - SchroCat (talk) 08:48, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

You're just jealous because your transmission is stuck in simple-declarative-sentence gear. I guess you have nothing to say about the illiteracies and blunders I listed above. EEng 09:39, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support While text can sometimes be improved by being more concise, that should not be achieved by simply reducing the number of words at the expense of subtlety of meaning, as has happened here. Eric Corbett 17:08, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  So tell us, Shakespeare, when I changed:

One hundred and fifty officers were drafted to search the moor, looking for locations that matched the photographs. Initially the search was concentrated along the A628 road near Woodhead

to

One hundred and fifty officers searched the moor for locations that matched the photographs, initially concentrating along the A628 road near Woodhead

what's the subtlety of meaning that was lost? And when I changed the grammatically incompetent

Hindley's gender, her repeated insistence on her innocence, followed by her attempts to secure her release after confessing her guilt, resulted in her becoming a figure of hate in the national media

to

Hindley's gender and repeated insistence on her innocence, followed by her bids for release after confessing, made her a figure of hate in the national media

– that tossed out what subtlety of meaning, exactly? Finally, in the change from

Brady reappeared, alone and carrying a spade that he had hidden there earlier. When Hindley asked how he had killed Bennett, Brady said that he had sexually assaulted the boy and strangled him with a piece of string

to

Brady returned alone, carrying a spade that he had hidden there earlier, and told Hindley he had sexually assaulted Bennett and strangled him with a piece of string

– all those extra words had been there to convey what subtlety of meaning, I crave to know? And while we're here I'll just pass on what the deathless Fowler said about constructions such as killed Bennett ... assaulted the boy:

It is the second-rate writers, those intent rather on expressing themselves prettily than on conveying their meaning clearly, and still more those whose notions of style are based on a few misleading rules of thumb, that are chiefly open to the allurements of elegant variation.

The hyperlink is not, of course, in Fowler's original; I added it in case you want to read up. EEng 09:31, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

If you seriously believe that I will be engaging in any discussion with an incompetent gutter-snipe like yourself you had better think again. Eric Corbett 11:53, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

In point of fact I did not believe you would be engaging in any discussion, because your M.O., for years, has been to do exactly what you did here, which to emit some lame Elizabethan insult (guttersnipe, cuntstrumpet, fustilarian, slough of ignorance – stuff like that) followed by a declaration that you won't lower yourself to addressing what the other person has said. But in this particular case, strangely, just a few minutes later someone impersonating you decided to take up the challenge – see #Out on the moors below. EEng 14:34, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Your reading skills as are almost as bad as your writing skills, but both are admittedly better than your comprehension skills; this is the only thing I have to say to you. Eric Corbett 14:37, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support FAs are supposed to be stable; these were substantial changes made too quickly and without consensus.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:18, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support The sample of individual edits I looked at were mostly not improvements, and some were losses. That and those supporting above. Johnbod (talk) 15:20, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Support more recent/shorter version

For reference, this is here. Please place your signatures below:

• Support - I've read the discussion above, looked through the work on the page itself, and generally agree with the handful of editors who've been working on this for the last month. I think there can be an issue of making a page about an important crime like this overly terse, robbing it of its context, but that does not seem to be the case here. Also, neither version seems to be "closer to what was promoted at FAC", seeming as it was promoted a decade ago, so the header for the previous version seems a bit leading and irrelevant. Parabolist (talk) 00:24, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support The edits streamline the prose and sometimes drop unenlightening detail, for example:
  • Wearing a donkey jacket and balaclava, she was driven, and walked around the area. (No need for a serial killer fashion report.)
  • Detectives arranged for Puppet to be had Puppet examined by a veterinary surgeon.
  • The examination required a general anaesthetic, from which Puppet did not recover. On hearing the news of her dog's death, Hindley became furious and accused the police of murdering Puppet.
  • One hundred and fifty officers were drafted to search searched the moor.

And Parabolist is right: the idea that there's some "FA version" to cling to is complete mythology. At FA approval ten years ago this article was 90K; the "closer to FA" (i.e. "long") version is 110K. Here's the diff [19] – they're hugely different. EEng 00:32, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

But that, EEng, whether you or Parabolist like it or not, was the last consensus. Cassianto^Talk 07:56, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Then shouldn't you be arguing to revert it back to the 2009 version? Parabolist (talk) 08:37, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

No, since those edits made from between 2009 and EEng's edits have been checked and either implemented or reverted. The trouble is, when someone peppers the article with 200 edits in little over a month, such checking proves to be highly difficult to conduct. Cassianto^Talk 09:56, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

• Weak support - on the basis of occasional sampling of EEng's edits as they were being made. I saw nothing that I profoundly disagreed with, and those I did object to were undone or adjusted. But my weak support would be conditional on (a) finding an independent volunteer who has the time and inclination to check each edit and report here, listing any that might be problematic for discussion, and/or (b) submitting the shorter version to WP:FAR (which I think might be a good idea in any case). I assumed that other interested editors were monitoring and (wrongly assumed) that silence meant tacit agreement. EEng's sequence of edits were done rather rapidly and we might have benefited from some kind of alerting message here on the Talk page of even the "Undergoing major maintenance" template on the article. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:27, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  check each edit and report here, listing any that might be problematic for discussion – How many times to I have to say it? There's no need for "reports" on edits that "might be problematic". If someone doesn't like an edit, JUST FUCKING REVERT IT. IT'S OK. I WON'T CARE. At least, that's what I said for a month as all these edits sat live in the article waiting for anyone to take a look. But apparently that normal approach – the one used on all Wikipedia articles except this one – of various interested editors reverting whatever edit here or there they're uncomfortable with, so that maybe 10% of the edits are reverted, and the other 90% are just left in place, isn't possible here, because the approach being advocated (not by you, Martin) is that the 90% that are OK all need to be cataloged and voted on here on the talk page, and then laboriously manually installed. EEng 12:09, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  Well, I'm still intrigued to see which of these edits are "problematic". I suggested reporting here as I suspected that any "problem" might rest more on a subjective judgment of clarity and context, than on an issue of fact or sourcing. But, if you have a major problem with my !vote, I might consider changing it. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:18, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  You may have missed the (not by you, Martin); none of this is aimed at you. It's just that this entire discussion is insane. This single thread is now 70K of text (longer than the article itself) generated by an incredible 215 posts, all to debate how to deal with the fact that the article's gatekeepers haven't found time in almost six weeks to review these 150 tiny changes-- and if they don't have time, well then that's that. However, there is hope, in that there's some suggestion that there could be another discussion after this one, in which consensus might be formed to allow, in principle, that there might be some changes made to the article, subject of course to the special rules applying to FAs that somehow involve referring changes to some special "FAR" Supreme Court that decides whether any given change to an FA is acceptable. And of course the framework for proposing and debating any such changes would have to be decided on in a third discussion. EEng 13:21, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  Ok, I'll hold off switching my !vote to the older/longer version for now. The usual arrangements, via that anonymously named Paypal account, will do nicely, thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:54, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support While I'm always in two minds about what is bold and what is reckless, and recognise the difficulties reviewing a large number of edits, I agree with others the FA stability requirement etc do not mean that significant copy editing is disallowed or needs to be done in a piecemeal fashion. I'm generally supportive of the R part of BRD, but I also expected something more than 'we need to discuss' and to be clear 'it's an FA' or 'it went through a great FAC in 2009' are not the 'more'. 'More' would be some clear problem with the edits. Sadly for all the extensive discussion this has been lacking. As I said before, reviewing a large number of edits is difficult. However reviewing 10 random or the first 10 edits is easier. If someone had done this, and there were clear problems with many of these edits, I'd support reverting. But instead, we only have about 2 problems highlighted. As no one owns the article, and there's no clear reason to think the earlier version is better, I'm going to support the new version with changes made in good faith in an attempt to improve the article. Nil Einne (talk) 07:53, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support with a recommendation to read WP:YOUDONTSAY. FAs should be engaging without embellishment, and a summary of the topic, not a screed. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 10:27, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support – FWIW I took me half an hour to read the diff. I don't agree with all of the changes, but I find the vast majority to be improvements. This is the better version to proceed with. – Levivich 15:35, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Editors should always seek to be concise and clear in order to follow the project goal of serving a broad audience. The vast majority of the changes I reviewed serve that purpose, many of the arguments above (when editors actually articulate a coherant one) do not. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:38, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support – Much more readable, hence better for our readers. FA status is not a sacred cow (especially when it's full of errors, per EEng's diligent parsing of book sources), and brevity is the mother of clue. — JFG ^talk 00:34, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
• K.I.S.S#Variants --GRuban (talk) 20:33, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

Please don't rehash points above. Keep it brief and drop any ideas about ad hominem comments. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:20, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• Koncorde, it would be helpful if you could give an example or two each of change [in] the flow of information and amount of detail quite significantly as well as changing the context of some of the statements made. EEng 00:22, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  Off the top of my head there is a particular edit that changes phrasing from "admitted" to "told" for instance. I haven't read the sourcing, but that to me is a fundamental change of intent and outcome. One is indicating something revealed to police, the other is something that came up in conversation. The change may in fact be correct and more accurate, but at this point difficult to assess as unclear where the phrasing originated from in any case as no direct source is supplied. Koncorde (talk) 08:03, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

You're talking about the change from Brady admitted under police questioning that he and Evans had fought to Brady told police that he and Evans had fought. There cannot be any question of accuracy, because if Brady admitted under police questioning is true then Brady told police must also be true – no need to consult sources. But anyway it doesn't matter, because I'll now say for the quadrillionth time: if it bothers you, revert it and you'll get no argument from me. So along with When Hindley asked (below) we have two reasonable concerns, easily resolved. Any others? EEng 15:01, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Admitting something to Police indicates guilt, we are informed that he did so as a pointed response to a question or investigation being conducted. Telling them is just a transfer of information. There is nuance there that is being lost. I also don't know from the sourcing without looking if he did in fact admit to the crime under questioning or not. So, your change may be right. But how can that be verified without checking the original sourcing for the statement? Did your edit summary explain the change at that time? Did you check if your change in fact reflected the intended meaning or the sources description of events? Is it even an improvement? Koncorde (talk) 23:03, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

So if you think it matters, revert. To repeat, there have been two reasonable concerns stated, easily resolved by reverting. In your review of all the changes, is there any other you see as problematic? EEng 01:41, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

You asked for an example or two, they have been given. I am not in this discussion going to be going through every edit one by one. That can be done post RFC and with wider consensus and collaboration. Koncorde (talk) 07:25, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes you supplied an example, and what we found is that your concern (debatable as it may be) is trivially addressed by reverting that change. Elsewhere EC supplied an example, and we found the same thing. And if those are the only examples you can point to, then it's hard to see how that's the basis for reverting 200 edits by ten editors over six weeks. You don't have to go through every edit one by one; you can skim the diff. EEng 12:53, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

No, I can point to dozens (to do so I skimmed the diff as you suggested) which is how I came to my decision to support the original version in whole. If I thought a significant amount of the changes were positive then I would have supported version 2, obviously. You subsequently asked for one or two examples. That has been done. I stand by my support for the original. Koncorde (talk) 17:25, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Even if one accepts "dozens" as not something you just pulled out of the air, and we very generously interpret the plural as meaning that, say, three dozens of edits are ill-advised and ought to be reverted, that's only 36 our of 210 edits. So you'd have us reinstall 174 good edits instead of undoing 36 edits. That doesn't make sense. EEng 02:17, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Bla bla literalism bla bla argument ad nauseum bla bla many edits were to the same or close related sections paragraphs or sentences so can be taken as a whole (or in some cases must be) because independently they make even less sense bla bla your edits as a collective whole didn't convince me of their relative merit bla bla it makes perfect sense. Koncorde (talk) 07:55, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

• The changes aren't a package that have to rise and fall together, and it's a shame the question is framed that way. As I've said a million times, I'm happy for people to simply revert any change they don't think is an improvement. EEng 00:22, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  Agree with this as well. I have no idea why we're having an RFC about some random benchmark, rather than actually discussing the edits themselves. Parabolist (talk) 00:25, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  Yes, in principle I agree, however as I pointed out we need to start from somewhere to just try and move from here. Also I concede the point about comparison to FAC version and have removed it Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:44, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  As there have been so many edits and reverts regarding these disputes, and the issues are in contention by many editors, perhaps the best way to resolve this is to list paragraphs or chapters in particular dispute to ultimately reach a consensus?--Kieronoldham (talk) 02:47, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  Kieronoldham, remember when I got into Fred West, and at first you were pissed off but then you looked at my edits and understood what I was doing? Same thing here, except for one thing: they that want to revert out the last six weeks of edits (including yours) can't be bothered to actually look at them [20]. It's so sad. There's no dispute about the edits, because I've said over and over that I'm happy for anyone to revert any one of them -- but only after actually looking it. But some are content to declare work they've never looked at to be shit [21] and just throw it away en-masse.

  If you want to see the edits being proposed for reversion, they're here [22]. You refer to confusion from so many edits and reverts, but actually the only reverting has been by the mass trashing starting Aug 5 (look for the +/-8292 in the history). EEng 05:01, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  EEng. Okay I have lookeed a little deeper here. I can understand a few of the edits removed valuable information, and certainly did not like the position of the map as it was, but overall, I prefer the version as it was (esp. the early chapter structure).--Kieronoldham (talk) 00:31, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

• Picking just one of the edits that EEng has put forward as his best, I would like to state why I believe that it's not an improvement, and loses some subtlety of meaning. This is the original:

Brady reappeared, alone and carrying a spade that he had hidden there earlier. When Hindley asked how he had killed Bennett, Brady said that he had sexually assaulted the boy and strangled him with a piece of string

This is EEng's version:

Brady returned alone, carrying a spade that he had hidden there earlier, and told Hindley he had sexually assaulted Bennett and strangled him with a piece of string

My contention is that the shortened version gives an altogether different impression, of Brady freely admitting to his crime unprompted, whereas the original quite clearly says that he did not offer the information on Bennett's murder until after Hindley had asked him. This is just one example of the kind of nuanced meaning that has been lost in the shortened version.

Eric Corbett 12:10, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

This is the sort of thing I observed also. Often concise, but nuance lost (but without reviewing the source I don't know if it's now accurate or not). The first part of the sentence however is an improvement. Koncorde (talk) 13:54, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

don't know if it's now accurate – I can't let that pass. It's ironclad logic that if the original When Hindley asked how he had killed Bennett, Brady said X is true, then Brady ... told Hindley X must also be true. EEng 14:43, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

They are both true. But they are not both equal. The point about accuracy is about the chain of events as presented. It is the difference between "Pele scored the second goal after a crossed assist from Garrincha on the left wing" and "Pele scored the second goal from a cross by Garrincha". They are both potentially right, but they are not equal in content and fidelity of information may have been lost such as the significance of a left wing cross if a later paragraph says something like "the third goal was also created by Garrincha, this time from the right flank". With the multitude of changes it is / was difficult to ultimately track what parts flowed into others and unpicking such references piecemeal is tedious (although I do not deny it could be done). Koncorde (talk) 23:03, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

<BEEP> If you think the detail should go back, just revert the change. <BEEP> We now have a total of two issues raised, and there's no argument about how to resolve them: revert those two changes. <BEEP> Out of all the changes, are there any others you see a problem with? <BEEP> This has been a recording. <BEEP> EEng 01:41, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

I'd agree your observation about the first half of the sentence, the conciseness works there, but not in the second half. Eric Corbett 13:58, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

I didn't put anything forward as "my best", just as typical examples of where the exposition can be tightened. We might debate whether the detail of Hindley asking, versus a spontaneous utterance, is truly significant enough for inclusion, but as I've said a million times – nay, now a million million times – OK, fine, if you see something I'm missing then go ahead and revert or adjust as you see fit, no discussion needed. So that's one reasonable concern easily resolved. Any others? EEng 14:34, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

• So EEng admits that he fucked up, but says that it's down to everyone else to fix his fuckups. I really don't find that to be very satisfactory. EEng ought not to be allowed within a country mile of any FA/GA. Eric Corbett 17:36, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

For the record, I do not believe that EEng completely fucked up the article, but do believe that the sum of the changes was not a great improvement. As I've said previously, substantial changes to a WP:FA are best proposed in a sandbox version, not 175 live edits.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:49, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Far from being "not a great improvement", it was not an improvement at all. Eric Corbett 17:52, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

As I've also said previously, it is unfair to imply that nobody else can edit a WP:FA except the person who took it there. The real problem here is too many changes too quickly, and I would be happy to go back to the stable version and have another more detailed look at the proposed changes in a sandbox version if they are going to alter large amounts of the text.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:56, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Who has ever said or implied that nobody but the original editor can edit an FA? I've edited many FAs that I didn't write, but I always try to do so sympathetically, not like a bull in a fucking china shop. Eric Corbett 18:00, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Eric still hasn't mastered charm school. But he has a point about the changes being too rapid for other editors to review them properly, and there doesn't seem to be much consensus that the recent editing spree led to an improvement.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:07, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

You couldn't be more wrong. In real life I'm about as charming a person as you're ever likely to meet, with one exception; I have absolutely no time at all for idiots. Eric Corbett 18:11, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

I've never met Eric in real life, so I'm not sure if his daily routine scrupulously avoids calling people cunts and idiots when they disagree with him.[23] I can only judge by how he behaves on Wikipedia.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:17, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

I expect you think you're being clever, but you're a long way off with your stupid comments. If you can, try to confine yourself to the issue of this article. Eric Corbett 18:55, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Things will go better if you stop misrepresenting what I say. I prefer one wording (because I don't think a certain detail is worth the extra verbiage) and you prefer the other (because you think it is). But since you feel strongly about your preference, and I don't feel strongly about mine, I'm happy to do it your way. That's not "admitting that I fucked up"; it's "collaborative editing".

Now I ask again: are there any other edits you have concerns about? EEng 04:48, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

How many times do you have to be told? All of them. That's why I reverted them all. Cassianto^Talk 17:50, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

So you keep saying, but you refuse to give specific examples, and I when I list examples of indubitable blunders which you've restored, whichever one of you I'm addressing simply falls silent. Now here we are at the bottom of the thread, where you can't pretend you don't notice what I'm writing, and I'm going to list some of them again:

• Topping refused to allow Brady a second visit to the moors, and a few days after his visit Brady wrote a letter to BBC television reporter Peter Gould, giving some sketchy details of five additional murders that he claimed to have carried out. Brady refused to identify his alleged victims, and the police failed to discover any unsolved crimes matching the few details that he supplied. Hindley told Topping that she knew nothing of these killings. On 24 August, police called off their search of the moor. Brady was taken there a second time on 1 December, but he was once again unable to locate the burial site. Earlier that month, the BBC had received a letter from Brady, in which he claimed that he had committed a further five murders‍ (Repeats itself on one point and contradicts itself on another point)
• Even her mother insisted that she should die in prison, partly for fear for her daughter's safety and partly out of the desire to avoid the possibility that one of the victims' relatives might kill her. (Her refers first to Hindley, then to Hindley's mother, then to Hindley again)
• Hindley's gender, her repeated insistence on her innocence, followed by her attempts to secure her release after confessing her guilt, resulted in her becoming a figure of hate in the national media (Makes no grammatical sense unless changed to read Hindley's gender AND her repeated insistence on her innocence, followed by ...)

Now, are you truly sufficiently lacking in integrity – shameless enough – to continue pretending that when I fixed those blunders, those fixes were not improvements? To save you time, I've precomposed some answers for you:

A. You're right, those are blunders which I should not have blindly restored to the article by reverting all of your edits, and the edits of ten other editors, en masse. You have correctly surmised that I never looked more than superficially at them (or even looked at them at all, if truth be told) and now I realize it's possible, for all I know, that I'd actually agree with many or most of them, if I took the time to look.

B. Mumble featured article mumble! Mumble too many changes mumble! Mumble consensus mumble! Mumble BRD mumble! Mumble I don't have time mumble! Mumble sources mumble! Mumble copyvio mumble! Mumble Abracadabra mumble!

C. Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?

D. Other (fill in) ____________________________________________________-

EEng 19:43, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

It is truly shocking that you have been conducting edits which you now know to be "blunders", on a featured article, and that you consider it now to be someone else's job to clean up after you. No. People do not have the time to run around after your bull-in-a-china-shop frenzy and fix what wasn't broken before. The easiest thing to do, as you've been told countless times already, is for the whole damned lot to be reverted. Cassianto^Talk 20:07, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Now you're just pretending to be stupid. The blunders I list above were in this "featured article" before I began editing it – passages which I corrected and which you have now restored to their prior, uncorrected form – that is, you restored the blundering versions shown above [24] and they are still in the article at this very moment. But you knew that, because despite your pretense you're not actually stupid. So please answer the question: are you truly sufficiently lacking in integrity to continue pretending that when I fixed those blunders, those fixes were not improvements? EEng 21:06, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Clearly you think some of your edits were below the par as you're asking people to go checking for you. Cassianto^Talk 21:44, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

No, what I have done is to repeatedly ask you to back up your assertion that every one of my edits, and every one of the edits of ten other editors over six weeks, is worthless, and to acknowledge the undeniable fact that you have restored illiteracies, duplications, and contradictions (some listed above) to the article. You refuse to do that, instead dodging and weaving at every turn in an attempt to confuse any third parties reading this thread. You have proved yourself shameless and wholly lacking in honesty and integrity, and your desperation to maintain ownership of this article is laughably transparent. EEng 02:10, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

And I've told you that I'm not your personal lackey. Your edits, all of them, should be reverted to safeguard what we had which was a featured article, on a notorious, murderous subject, with the correct nuance needed to give the subject the appropriate feel. Your edits have not only done away with that, they have fundamentally changed an article that was a featured article through consensus. Cassianto^Talk 06:47, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

We understand that that's your vague, unsupported story and you're sticking to it; meanwhile you simply ignore what I'm saying. You are shameless and wholly lacking in honesty and integrity, and your desperation to maintain ownership of this article is laughably transparent. EEng 11:11, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

And your tedious attempt to try and turn this into a behavioural issue on my part, rather than acknowledge what it actually is, which is series of hit and miss edits that were made against consensus and an expectancy on your part for others to mop up after you, is equally transparent. Cassianto^Talk 11:24, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Except you've offered no evidence that there's anything wrong with anyone's edits, while blatantly ignoring that you restored to the article the blunders listed above, which remain in the article even now. You are shameless and wholly lacking in honesty and integrity, and your desperation to maintain ownership of this article is laughably transparent. Now you go ahead and dance and weave and lie one last time, and I'll just leave it alone and unresponded to for all to admire. EEng 11:37, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Both of you, back off now. This shade-fest is turning into blatant slander. It’s time to stop. And let this !voting procedure have it’s course. BabbaQ (talk) 11:48, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

BabbaQ, while your attempt to mediate is admirable, this is a discussion (the header gives it a way a bit) so let's not suppress it. It is not me who is making this personal; I have given my view and that should be respected, not be met with bludgeoning and ad hominems Cassianto^Talk 12:04, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

• For my own sanity, and as a result of the rubbish being spewed over at AE and elsewhere, I've taken this page off my watch list and will have nothing more to do with it. Knock yer selves out. I couldn't care less. Cassianto^Talk 20:06, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  Don’t kid yourself. You be back within a few days or weeks.BabbaQ (talk) 20:24, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• Neither, instead follow the process we have and list it at Wikipedia:Featured article review. It's being discussed on lots of pages and it's impossible not to be aware of the situation. I glanced at the talk page but it's a huge wall of text; I glanced at the article history to be met with more edits that are possible to parse complete with off-putting edit summaries. I've seen mention that the article will be brought to at least to GA status (couldn't tell you where, because the discussion is sprawling across so many pages) but for that to happen it would have to delisted and we have a process to follow and we should be following it.
  The FAR process is clear: 1., discuss on the talk page; if that doesn't achieve resolution (and I'm not seeing resolution), then 2., list at FAR. There's nothing wrong with having a decade-or-so-old article listed at FAR, and honestly the FA system wasn't set up for FAs to keep their stars for eternity. A decade ago was an eon in internet terms; new sources are available, we do stuff differently now, etc., etc. and stewardship is a bitch. One person has been blocked, others are upset, others are piling on (both pro and con) and there's not a ton of goodwill, collegiality or collaboration between the various editors going on. So at this point, my suggestion would be to follow the process, go to FAR, and take it from there. At least there's a structured process to follow, which at this point would be helpful. Sorry Casliber for parachuting into your Rfc like this. Victoria (tk) 01:58, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
• Neither / close RFC as moot. I haven't formulated an opinion about which version might be better, but this sort of prix fixe menu where we have to go for the whole full course dinner or nothing at all was never the right way to settle the issues here. The discussion has since moved on and it has become obvious that neither version has the full consensus of everybody. And now we have an FAR (as we perhaps should have had all along once the difficulties of getting any change through a cabal of owners became apparent) where we can actually discuss individual issues and address them. That process is clearly now the appropriate process, this RFC only gets in the way of the FAR, and a close of the RFC in favor of one version or the other will only get in the way even more. Just call it off, stop with all the politicizing, and get back to the normal process of actually considering individual changes and individual complaints about inaccurate sourcing for what they are. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:14, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but that still leaves the question of what version the article will be left in. If there's no consensus, that's no consensus for what? As far as I'm concerned, no consensus means no consensus to revert the article to two months ago i.e. no consensus to let this stand edit [25], which sent the article back to June 26 by unilaterally tossing out 200+ edits by ten editors. The edit summary for that edit cited "BRD", but if that made sense then you could arbitrarily send any article back any amount of time by claiming that everything in between "lacks consensus", no matter how long it's been there, how many editors participated, and how friendly the editing involved, just so long as there wasn't an explicity pow-wow somewhere putting an explicit imprimatur on everyone's edits. Therefore, I submit, the edit I just linked was the bold edit, its proponents bore the burden of justifying it, and no consensus means they failed to do that. And that's before you consider that their primary not-really-an-argument argument ("The June 26 version is a high-quality FA version") has now been exposed as complete nonsense.

Certainly the closing logic cannot passively be that there's no consensus so therefore the article stays in the WRONGVERSION it accidentally happened to be in when protection was applied.

Though if truth be told it was no accident. When protection was first applied, the article was in the current version all editors had been working on up to that very day. Then three editors swooped in at the protecting admin's talk page and pressured him into reverting the article -- still under the protection that admin had imposed -- to June 26; the admin's comment was "I relent" [26]. And that's why it "just so happened" to be in the June 26 version when the RfC started. Truly an extraordinary sequence of events.

Combine all this with the fact that the three major proponents of reverting to June 26 have all declared that they no longer care, have unwatched, don't give a shit, won't participate, and so on ([27][28][29]) and the conclusion as to how to close the RfC becomes inescapable. EEng 21:10, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Protected

I have protected this at the wrong version due to edit warring. The debate above is... not great. Guy (Help!) 21:14, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

A) I don't see any edit warring. B) There is nothing wrong with the debate, not least from where I'm sitting. C) What is the wrong version you are mentioning? Cassianto^Talk 21:49, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

This is beyond stupid. There haven't been any edits at all to the article since the 7th. Eric Corbett 21:54, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

It’s not stupid. The article needs full protection until some resolution has been reached. From the !voting above I can see that the current version within the protection is the one most editors like. Secondly, some editors above in the Discussion section are borderline slanderoud towards each other. BabbaQ (talk) 12:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

You miss the point. There has been no editing since the 7th. Eric Corbett 13:11, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

"failed verification" section

In this edit EEng tagged several points with "failed verification" tags; the edit summary was 'marking 22 source verification failures in a single 7-paragraph section of this "featured article"'. As it completely messes up the text for anyone wanting to read the page, it's probably best moved here for any discussion about retaining or editing to take place. I spot-checked several tags and found they were supported by the text, so removed them; a retired user has emailed me about a second, which I will also remove. I do not have access to the book sources, so cannot look through those, nor do I have time or inclination to buy the books/visit a library to go through the others. I have no dog in ths fight, and do not intend to comment further unless pinged to respond to questions about the move of the text to this page. The version this was taken from was this one. - SchroCat (talk) 15:15, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

TEXT RETURNED TO LIVE ARTICLE

• I'm surprised so much is referenced solely to Topping: The Autobiography Of The Police Chief In The Moors Murder Case. The police chief–who received much criticism over this case– does not seem like an unbiased source of information on this subject. At the very least, statements sourced only to this book should be attributed rather than in Wikivoice. – Levivich 15:49, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Don't forget, this is only one section, and it concerns part of the investigation, so Topping will be a good source to use. Over the course of the whole article, there are numerous other sources used. - SchroCat (talk) 15:52, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
    • The rest of the article has numerous sources, but the Investigation section is largely sourced to the autobiography of the guy leading the investigation, who was criticized for how he led it. More independent sourcing would be better. – Levivich 16:33, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
    • Partly, not largely. His investigation may have been criticised, but (as far as I am aware), the veracity of the source has not. - SchroCat (talk) 16:39, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
• And this was my point from my comment @ 23:03, 9 August 2019. If the original article is fatally flawed, it needs fixing to reflect the sourcing which may reveal that EEng's edits were more faithful, or in fact continued to differ from the source material. Koncorde (talk) 16:16, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Only if they did fail verification (and language like "fatally flawed" is crass and misleading). I've only checked one point and it didn't fail verification, someone else has emailed me about another one that didn't. This isn't the place to re-hash the same !votes in the above section, but to look at the tagged material in an objective manner. - SchroCat (talk) 16:22, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
• Re this one: the quote provided from the source doesn't say that the body had to be identified by the clothing, just that it was identified by the clothing. – Levivich 20:09, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Our text adequately reflects the source, bearing in mind common sense, reality and a need to avoid plagiarism. Can you think why they used the clothing to identify the identity, rather than the body itself, given the body was in fact "badly decomposed"? If a body can be identified by the police through its physical features, it is (given clothes can be swapped, etc). When they can't be identified by looking at the face, they resort to other methods. - SchroCat (talk) 20:29, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

I dont think thats true actually. Dental records being the most obvious way that a badly decomposed body could have been identified. The source says that the clothing made the body easily identifiable, not that the clothing was the only way to identify the body. nableezy - 21:00, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

That's one way, yes, but the fact that they didn't should tell you something. We can get very pedantic tying ourselves in knots over a common sense approach to this, but in any normal interpretation of what is known, our text reflects it. - SchroCat (talk) 21:06, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

It tells me that using the clothing to identify them was the easiest way to do so. It does not tell me it was the only way. That is not pedantic, sorry. nableezy - 21:42, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

No, it's pedantically trying to find fault where none exists and being over-literal with both the source and our text. I'm sure if the text read "the body was identified by the clothing", many would be jumping up no down with claims of plagiarism. - SchroCat (talk) 22:02, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Please read and internalize WP:OR. The source does not say that the only way to have identified the bodies was through their clothing. It says the bodies were easily identifiable through their clothing. You can keep pretending that the inferences you are making are obvious but they are not, and dismissing them as pedantry is both silly and indicative of the fact you dont have any actual reasoning behind your argument. The source does not support the text, and that is obvious to anybody who reads both. nableezy - 22:08, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

"Please read and internalize WP:OR: please try not to be so patronising. I can see you are being over literal with both texts, and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. - SchroCat (talk) 04:21, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

You have repeatedly called me pedantic (quite patronizing) while engaging in textbook OR. So both hypocritical and thin-skinned, all the while being wrong. What a trifecta. nableezy - 14:52, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I can add additional sources to address many of EEng's concerns. To list just one, Lesley's mother identified the clothing and jewellery she was wearing (trinkets given to her by her brother Terry) then visually identified her body. Pages 73 - 75 of For the Love of Lesley ISBN 978-1-852-27160-2 state this. The book was co-authored by Ann West and John Stalker. If this book is not considered reputable, I could find other sources to address EEng's concerns. The books Beyond Belief and On Trial for Murder (which I also own), could also verify these concerns.--Kieronoldham (talk) 02:20, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm sure there are lots that support what's written (and I've seen a few already): I've initially been concentrating on removing those where the text is supported by the source. It's probably time to move to the additional/alternative sources phase now. - SchroCat (talk) 04:21, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• As EEng has decided to ignore this constructive attempt to go through the text in a subjective manner, and play silly buggers instead, I'm out. - SchroCat (talk) 08:57, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  I believe you're talking about the fact that I moved the tags back into the live article (reversing your action, yesterday, of making a copy of the tagged section here). We can't be juggling parallel copies of the text for at least two reasons: (1) Others are editing the article (the live article) at the same time, and we'd have to manually sync those here; (2) tinkering here and moving the result back loses the edit history and edit summaries, which are really important in a complicated situation like this. And all this goes quadruple since I've tagged another four or five sections now. EEng 09:05, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  As I said in an earlier edit summary, movements of text from talk or sandbox into main space are absolutely fine as long as the edit history is recorded in the edit summary when transferring. Unfortunately this bull in a china shop approach combined with an uncollegiate approach is hindering the constructive efforts of others to work through things. You crack on: there is no point in me trying to sort out many things that are non-problems. - SchroCat (talk) 11:12, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  There is quite literally no reason for material that has failed verification to not be tagged in the mainspace as having failed verification. nableezy - 14:52, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• But it's a Featured Article! A Featured Article! Featured Article! Featured Article! Featured! Featured! Featured! Featured! Featured! Featured Article! Featured Article! Featured Article! Don't you know it's a Featured Article? Featured Article! Featured Article! Featured Article! Featured Article! EEng 16:18, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  An edit summary, pointing to a sandbox or talk-page version of a chunk of text being inserting into an article, satisfies licensing requirements but does nothing to help editors untangle who made which of the many changes reflected in that chunk, or why. And what Nableezy said. EEng 16:13, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Glasgow Herald

I looked through one source's {{failed verification}} tags, Glasgow Herald, and there are changes to the text that should be made to match the source, which are:

• "deliberately"
  • What the article currently says: "...the collar of Reade's coat had been deliberately pushed into this wound."
  • What the source says: "...a throat chain and the collar of the girl's coat had been forced into the wound...[The coroner] added: 'The pushing of the coat collar into the neck appears to be deliberate. It may have been carried out in an attempt to reduce the amount of bleeding.'"
  • What our article should say: "...a throat chain and the collar of Reade's coat had been deliberately pushed into this wound. According to the coroner, the coat collar appeared to have been pushed into the wound deliberately, in a possible attempt to reduce the bleeding."
• "blow to the head"
  • What our article says: "Her throat had been cut twice with a large knife."
  • What source says: "He found two throat wounds...There was also a blow to the head done either with a fist or blunt instrument...There was a cut across the throat at the level of the voice box...the only other significant injury was the swelling on the front of the forehead...the throat wounds were consistent with 'being caused by a large knife'."
  • What our article should say: "Her throat had been cut twice with a large knife and she had been struck in the forehead with a fist or blunt instrument."
• Uncited
  • What our article currently says: "Reade got into the van with Hindley, who then asked if she would mind helping to search for an expensive glove she had lost on Saddleworth Moor. Reade said she was in no great hurry, and agreed. At 16, Pauline Reade was older than Marie Ruck, and Hindley believed that there would be less of an outcry over the disappearance of a teenager than there would over a child of seven or eight. When the van reached the moor, Hindley stopped and Brady arrived shortly afterwards on his motorcycle. She introduced him to Reade as her boyfriend, and said that he had also come to help find the missing glove. Hindley claimed Brady took Reade onto the moor while Hindley waited in the van. Brady returned alone after about 30 minutes, and took Hindley to the spot where Reade lay dying. Her throat had been cut twice with a large knife. The larger of these wounds was a four-inch incision across her voice box, and the collar of Reade's coat had been deliberately pushed into this wound."
  • What the source says: The entire above passage ends with a single cite to the Glasgow Herald article, but that source only supports the last two sentences (starting with "Her throat..."). Everything up to "...lay dying." is not in the Glasgow Herald article. I'm sure it's in another source, maybe Staff, but it's {{cn}} until a cite can be provided (I don't have Staff).

If there are no objections, I will make these changes when the article is unprotected, along with changing "had to be identified by clothing" to "was identified by clothing" per discussions above and below. – Levivich 19:01, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• On further reflection, I'm not going to touch the mainspace article with a 10 foot pole, I don't need the stress. If I happen to find more errors, I'll post them here, and if they want to, someone else can go ask somebody else's permission to make that change. – Levivich 22:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Gibson

Gibson is used to cite one sentence in the article: "But after he returned home and related to Maureen what he had seen, she insisted that he call the police, which they did from a nearby phone box (bringing a screwdriver and knife in case Brady should confront them)." Every single clause of this sentence fails verification:

• Our article: "But after he returned home and related to Maureen what he had seen, she insisted that he call the police..."
  • The source: "The single most important break in the investigation was David Smith's telephone call to the police...'Smith was tough but what he witnessed horrified him and in the early hours of the next morning he made an emergency call to police...', according to one analysis.[cite]...According to Wilson and Seaman, Smith convinced Brady that he would return the next day to help him dispose of the body. Instead, when he got home he became violently sick, and told his wife the whole story. The next morning they called the police. Newton concurred with these accounts...At 6:07 in the morning on October 7, 1965, Smith called the Hyde Park Police Station from a roadside phone booth."
  • No mention in the source that the wife "insisted that he call the police"
  • No mention in our article about him getting violently ill
  • Our article implies that he made the call shortly after arriving home, whereas the source says it happened the next morning
• Our article: "...which they did from a nearby phone box..."
  • Source: "...from a roadside phone booth." (not "nearby")
• Our article: "(bringing a screwdriver and knife in case Brady should confront them)"
  • Source: The source says nothing about them bringing a screwdriver, knife, or any other weapons with them, or that they fearing that Brady would confront them during the phone call. The word "screwdriver" is not in the source (according to Google). "Knife" is, of course, five times, but each time it's describing a murder, unrelated to Smith's phone call.

I want to emphasize that not only have we got the details wrong about the single most important break in the investigation, but also we only spend one sentence on it in our article. There's a whole book by Smith, who was the "whistleblower" and chief prosecution witness; it's listed in Further reading but not used at all as a source. I think that's a red flag. – Levivich 22:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• For comparison, here's the GA version:

• Once back at home, however, he woke his wife and told her what he had just seen. Maureen told him that the only thing to do was to call the police. Three hours later the couple cautiously made their way to a public phone box in the street below their flat, Smith taking the precaution of arming himself with a screwdriver and a kitchen knife to defend themselves in the event that Brady suddenly appeared and confronted them. At 6:07 am Smith made an emergency services call to the police station in nearby Hyde and told his story to the officer on duty.[30]

• And the FA version:

• "but after returning home he woke his wife and told her what he had seen. Maureen told him that he must call the police. Three hours later the couple cautiously made their way to a public phone box in the street below their flat, Smith taking the precaution of arming himself with a screwdriver and a kitchen knife to defend them in the event that Brady suddenly appeared and confronted them. At 6:07 am Smith made an emergency services call to the police station in nearby Hyde and told his story to the officer on duty."[31]

• That's as far as I've got. Haukur (talk) 23:16, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• The original version of this text was as follows in two paragraphs:

• "After agreeing to meet Brady the following afternoon to help dispose of Evans' body, Smith promptly left the house. He frantically ran home and vomited in the toilet, sick with fear and disgust. He then woke his sleeping wife Maureen (Myra's sister) and told her of the brutal murder he had just witnessed. Maureen burst into tears and eventually told him that the only thing to do was to call the police.

• Three hours later at six o'clock on the morning of October 7, David and Maureen Smith carefully made their way to a public phone box on the street below. Before leaving their flat, Dave armed himself with a screwdriver and a kitchen knife in order to defend the two of them in the event that Brady might suddenly appear and confront them. Smith made a 999 call to the police station in nearby Hyde and related his story to the officer on duty."

• This text was added to the article in 2006 at a time when the article had no references listed.[32] Haukur (talk) 23:32, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• The Gibson citation was added to the paragraph by User:Malleus Fatuorum on July 6, 2009, in what I would describe as a beneficial edit. A detail is added to the last sentence of the paragraph and the citation does indeed back up that sentence.[33] This revision, however, had the unfortunate side effect of leaving some ambiguity in the text, since—when not looking at that exact diff—one could take the citation as covering the whole paragraph. This ambiguity probably contributed to the rest of the paragraph never having been properly referenced. This underscores two things to me: a) It is very tricky to start out with an unreferenced text and bring that up to standard by adding citations. A rewrite from the ground up is safer. b) Our FAC process could gain from more emphasis on reviewers checking the sources and comparing the article against them. This should perhaps be some sort of formalized sub-process at FAC. Haukur (talk) 23:55, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• And for what it's worth the screwdriver story checks out and is mentioned in multiple easily found sources. I don't think I'll dig deeply enough into this that I'll be able to recommend a particular source or a particular rewrite of this paragraph. But I also don't think this example of an accurate (more or less, at least) but inadequately referenced paragraph is so concerning that prominent warning tags need to be inserted at this point. This article has a lot of eyeballs now and I imagine these issues will be addressed. But if no-one does that within a reasonable amount of time then, sure, tags could be added or some text removed. Cries of "fraud" are, however, inappropriate. It is obvious that no-one was intentionally trying to mislead anyone here. Haukur (talk) 00:17, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

  It is obvious that no-one was intentionally trying to mislead anyone here – Sure they were. They misled the community into believing that they'd checked the sourcing during one of those sacred FA reviews, and they obviously didn't. EEng 01:48, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

  Can you never quit while you're ahead? Maybe show a little charity to your perceived opponents? Or are you going to be, to the end, a Spiderman pointing accusingly at another Spiderman? Haukur (talk) 02:16, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

  Am I ahead? Do tell. EEng 02:24, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

  Well, you went to the library and got the sources, which was an excellent move. Now you're in a much better position to edit the article. And you've found some genuine problems which do need to be addressed. Maybe this is all some campaign of spite against Eric but if this is a game to you then you have at least made some reasonably skillful moves lately. A great follow-up move would be to show some grace and charity now. Haukur (talk) 02:32, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

  Thanks, Haukur, for running that down, that was interesting history to read. Yes, the screwdriver story checks out. David Affleck Marchbanks's 1966 The Moor Murders says "a sharp, long-bladed kitchen knife and a screwdriver" [34] (not a source used in the article). But Martin Fido's 2002 A History of British Serial Killing says "hammer and screwdriver" [35] (not a source used in the article). Luckily, the owner of the screwdriver in question, David Smith, wrote a memoir (mentioned in the article and listed in "Further reading" but not apparently used as a source), in which he says it was a knife and not a hammer that accompanied the screwdriver, but he also says that he brought for protection his large dog, and relays how all three of them (him, his wife, and their dog) squeezed inside the phone booth to make that fateful call [36]. Does it matter whether Smith brought a knife or a hammer or a screwdriver or a dog? Not really, no, but of course it does matter that if we provide that detail, we make sure it's verifiable. Plus the large-dog-in-the-phonebooth detail is kind of too good to omit. – Levivich 02:56, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

  David Affleck – Hey, is it really true that he and Matt Damon are secretly lovers? EEng 03:13, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

  How do you like dem apples? – Levivich 03:28, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

  Better than republican sour grapes, that's for sure. Believe it or not, there's actually been a WP edit war related to that very scene -- see Talk:Farmers_and_Fishermen:_Two_Centuries_of_Work_in_Essex_County,_Massachusetts,_1630–1850#Good_Will_Hunting_reference. EEng 04:11, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

  Anyone planning to work on this could sign up to the Wikipedia Library (list of "partners") for access to news sources. A subscription to Gale will get you access to The Times, where you can read the court reporting from the trial. It states that Smith was holding "a carving knife in one hand and a long screw-driver in the other" ("Boy tricked into seeing murder, moors trial Q.C. says", The Times, 20 April 1966, issue 56610, p. 16). SarahSV ^(talk) 03:39, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

BBC

Passage in our article, ending in a cite to BBC:

Brady was taken to the moor for a second time on 1 December, but he was once again unable to locate the burial site. Earlier that month, the BBC had received a letter from Ian Brady, in which he claimed that he had committed a further five murders - including a man in the Piccadilly area of Manchester, another victim on Saddleworth Moor, two more victims in Scotland, and a woman whose body he allegedly dumped in a canal at a location which he declined to identify. The police decided that there was insufficient evidence from this letter to launch an official investigation.

Relevant parts of the source:

... In a letter to BBC news reporter Peter Gould, Brady speaks for the first time of five deaths in addition to those he has already admitted. Brady, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1966 along with his accomplice Myra Hindley for the murder of three children, talks about "happenings". But the revelations in his letter are not clear. He mentions "a man on a piece of waste ground near Piccadilly in Manchester", "a woman in a canal", "a man in Glasgow" and "another one on the slopes of Loch Long". Finally, he talks about "another on the other side of the moor road". His only clarification in his letter is to say that the latter two victims were shot at close range. ... But MP Ivor Stanbrook, a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee, has urged caution. He believes the allegations should be treated with scepticism ... Myra Hindley has denied all knowledge of any further killings ... [In a sidebar:] Following preliminary inquiries by the police into Ian Brady's claims that he had information on five other killings, it was decided there was insufficient evidence to pursue an official investigation. In the 1980s Brady and Hindley admitted killing two more children, Pauline Reade, 16, and Keith Bennett, 12. Pauline Reade's body was later found on Saddleworth Moor but despite assistance from Hindley and Brady, Keith Bennett's body has never been traced ...

Issues:

• "Brady was taken to the moor for a second time on 1 December, but he was once again unable to locate the burial site." is not in the source (probably in another source)
• "...in which he claimed that he had committed..." – the source does not say "committed", but rather "involved in" and "had information on", and the source notes "the revelations in his letter are not clear" and "His only clarification in his letter is to say that the latter two victims were shot at close range", but this isn't reflected in our article
• "...a further five murders..." – the source goes out of its way not to use the word "murder", instead calling them "deaths" or "killings"
• the word "including" should be struck, as it's preceding an exhaustive list, not a partial one
• "...at a location which he declined to identify." – "declined to identify" is not stated by the source, which is significant in light of the source specifying that the police did receive "assistance from Hindley and Brady" in locating at least one body
• "The police decided that there was insufficient evidence from this letter to launch an official investigation." – The source doesn't say "insufficient evidence from this letter", but rather insufficient evidence from "preliminary inquiries" following the letter. The difference is that the source notes there was at least some "preliminary inquiries" but not an "official investigation", whereas our article makes it sound like the police did nothing at all after reading the letter
• Hindley's denial is in the source but not in our article, which is significant given that the source itself notes that Hindley herself did admit to two more murders in the 1980s
• Govt officials' skepticism of the claims in the letter is in the source but not in our article – Levivich 02:31, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Going forward

I've reverted to the last clean version to remove the tags/red error messages from the text. EEng this isn't SOP and unhelpful to anyone who might actually want to read the article in main space. Copy it to a sandbox (with proper attribution) if you want and then link to the FAR and make your arguments there. Also, read the instructions at WP:FAR and make the appropriate notifications: the Wikiprojects in the banner at the top of the talk page, the top ten contributors, and the two FAC nominees. Then go to the FAR page and explain why you're challenging the text and follow the process. Victoria (tk) 16:25, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

And I've reverted your revert and restored the tags -- see WP:FAILEDVERIFICATION. I see no "red error messages" -- maybe something to do with your preference settings. The article's sourcing is a disaster. Everywhere you look the sources don't support the text, in large, medium, and small ways (and all those count, because this is, after all, allegedly an FA). if you want the tags gone then start doing the work of finding sources that actually support the text.

It seems some people think FAR is a court of special pleading where decisions about what should be in the article, and how it's presented, are made for FAs. AFAIK all it is is a place people who care about bronze stars give them out or withhold them or take them back. I don't care about such things. What I care about is that the article makes literally scores of unsourced statements -- and I've only gone through half of it. I just checked ten random instances of those verification failures, and every one was there when the article passed FA. What that says about the FA process I don't know, and I don't care. EEng 16:43, 14 August 2019 (UTC) P.S. What's "SOP"?

It seems that your confusing WP:FAC with WP:FAR. Go read the second page. It's a long standing process and how we go about this. We don't deface the article in main space. Victoria (tk) 17:09, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Victoriaearle, the FAR template at the top of this page literally says Please feel free to leave comments or be bold and improve the article directly. Do I need permission from FAR to edit this article, because it's an FA? Surely that is not the "long standing process". The red errors are not visible to readers, only to editors who have a special preference/gadget installed (I forget what it is, but I have it). I was in the midst of correcting those red errors when you reverted everything and SarahSV full-protected the page. Fixing the red errors is simple and I'm happy to do it as soon as the page is unprotected. If there are too many inline tags in a section, we can easily fix that with a {{cite check section}} or some other section-level hat note. But more importantly... are you really telling me I have to get permission at FAN before I can fix errors in this article? – Levivich 17:15, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Levivich, yes that's the process. To boldly improve the text in a structured setting and then !vote whether or not to delist the article. It seems from the little I've looked at there have been months of "improving", talk page discussion has deteriorated & is no longer cordial, collegial, or collaborative, the two editors who nominated Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Moors murders/archive1 should be given an opportunity to chime in, as should the other stakeholder (i.,e Wikiprojects and other main editors), and hash it out there. This is a mess and going much too fast. There's zero reason at this point not to follow the long-established process and hash it out at FAR. Victoria (tk) 17:22, 14 August 2019 (UTC) fixing ping, Levivich. Victoria (tk) 17:23, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Levivich, red error messages are not the only problem. The overuse of {{Citation needed span}} makes the page hard to read. If anyone wants to use that template a lot, please post the article into a sandbox and do it from there, or post sections here on talk, or just make a list of text you haven't found in the sources. SarahSV ^(talk) 17:30, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm not confusing anything. It's a long standing process and how we go about this – who's "we"? You "we" people go about whatever you want to over there if you want. It doesn't limit normal article editing or discussion, which happens here. EEng 17:49, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Re "we" I was referring the enwp community. Haven't looked at any diffs, haven't looked at a single source, haven't made a single judgment beyond wanting the huge red letters gone and trying to make the article readable. Haven't a clue where all the animosity is coming from. Just very fucking sick of this place. Victoria (tk) 20:51, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

EEng, that's not how it works. You can't just ignore the fact that it's an FA and "try to bring it to GA level." It goes to FAR. At least there we can have a structured process rather than just edit warring. I'm losing count of the times the article has been full-protected.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 17:11, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I am quite aware it has FA status, but what I'm pointing out is that it doesn't meet the FA standards, nor even the GA standards, because of the catastrophic sourcing screwups. That's what I mean when I say it's not even at GA level. So yeah, you can do whatever you want with the article's FA status, I'm addressing its quality level. EEng 17:47, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Tag bombing

This needs to stop because it's making the page unreadable. As do the personal attacks. EEng, I'm posting this here because your talk page is taking too long to load (2153 kB)—that also needs to be fixed asap, as does your user page. Pinging Vanamonde93 and GoldenRing. This situation has gone on for too long. The article is now at FAR, and issues can be dealt with there in the usual way. SarahSV ^(talk) 16:32, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

The article's completely readable. If you're seeing what someone else referred to as "red error messages"m I don't see them and I can only guess those originate in some gadget you have installed -- check your preferences. The "usual way" is normal article editing. You guys at FAR do whatever you want to do over there, I'm too busy identifying verification failures, gathering sources, and preparing to bring this to at least GA level if possible. EEng 16:47, 14 August 2019 (UTC) P.S. [37]

The tags have been removed three times, and you keep restoring them. You're edit warring and posting serious personal attacks, including in headings and edit summaries. People are unable to post on your talk page because you won't archive it. They also have difficulty finding the link to your contributions because you've posted images over your sidebar. This all needs to stop. SarahSV ^(talk) 17:02, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• I've protected the page for 24 hours. I can lift or extend that according to whatever the editors who are working on it at FAR prefer. Casliber, perhaps you could let me know what you think best. No matter what's happening on this talk page and at FAR, the article has to be readable. EEng, it's not only the red error message, but the number of tags, and the tag you're using that highlights the text. It would be better to make a list here on talk: sentence X, not in source, and so on. SarahSV ^(talk) 17:07, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  SlimVirgin, OK, so I take EEng's {{failed verification span}} tags and reformat them into a list and post it here. Then what? We're going to get consensus about each one before changing it? WTF is that, you know what I mean? If we do that, we should delete WP:BOLD, and also change that tag at the top of this page that says "or be bold and improve the article directly". The list of problems is right there in the tags, with page sources and quotes and everything. Just one example, the discussion above. Where the article says ... body of John Kilbride, which had to be identified by clothing., it should say "which was identified by clothing", because that's what the source says (page cite and quote is in the tag EEng left). There's a difference between "was identified" and "had to be identified", and if the source says the former, we cannot say the latter. This has already been discussed to death above, and should be fixed now, and would be, if not for editors reverting (for no reason I can tell) and, now, the page protection. I honestly can't believe that you're saying we need FAN's permission to make this fix, because that sounds nuts! The fact that there are 50 others like it is a reason to get started with the fixing, not to freeze the inaccuracies on the page. – Levivich 17:41, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  Levivich, when you find an issue such as the John Kilbride one you mention, you could just fix the text. Change "had to be" to "was". What is the point of adding {{failed verification span}} to something as simple as that? (I wonder whether you're mixing this up with another victim.) The usual FAR process is to start trying to fix the article in good faith. I would suggest waiting until Eric is back. SarahSV ^(talk) 17:48, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  For those playing along at home, the tagged version, showing some sixty verification failures in the first half of the article, is here [38]

  The "had to be identified" example is just about the only one that can be fixed on sight, by weakening the assertion. The only easy fix for the rest to just excise the unsourced text -- need I quote WP:BURDEN? Is that what you want? Of course not, none of us wants that. I made careful notes in each tag – hover on the tag to see it – explaining the problem so editors can address them one by one and remove the tags as they go. That's what such tags were invented for, and you are WAY out of line removing them. WP:FAILEDVERIFICATION is policy; it provides

  Material that fails verification may be tagged with or removed. When using templates to tag material, it is helpful to other editors if you explain your rationale in the template, edit summary, or on the talk page.

  That's exactly what I did. If the article looks like a mess, that's because it is a mess -- a sourcing mess -- and has been for ten years, just until now no one realized it. If you don't like the mess, then start doing the work of finding sources.

  As far as your idea turning the tags into a list, that's just plain stupid as Levivich explains so well above; but if you want to compile a table here – with columns for the unsourced text, the alleged source as shown in the article, the reason= I put in the template, the correct source once someone finds it, and a status column showing whether the fix has been installed in the live article – then knock yourself out and, once you've done that, I'll be happy for you to remove the tags.

  I've protected the page for 24 hours. I can lift or extend that according to whatever the editors who are working on it at FAR prefer – let me repeat that: according to whatever the editors who are working on it at FAR prefer. WTF? What wikiplanet are you from? You lot over at FAR can discuss whatever you want, but it's got nothing to do with the rest of us working on the actual article here on planet earth. How dare you put the protection status of an article into the hands of some self-selected group?

  I'll say it again, you are WAY out of line imposing full protection to enforce removal of the tags which embarrass the FA elite – as described elsewhere almost all these verification failures were in the article when it passed FA. You protection summary was Edit warring / content dispute. Content dispute? Tagging unsourced material is not a content dispute.

  At AE you claimed that errors were introduced into an FA on an important topic, one that's harder to get right than it looks [39] and when I challenged you to back that statement up [40] you conveniently fell silent. Now that it turns out that there are errors in the article -- scores of them -- and that the FA crew is the source of them. Huh. I guess it really is harder to get right than it looks.

  Pinging Swarm, Bishonen, Fish_and_karate, Vanamonde93, Dlohcierekim, Nil Einne, Cullen328, Parabolist, Atsme, Only in death, JFG, David Eppstein. EEng 19:00, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  I am going to take the view that the protection was deliberately made to the wrong version and per WP:AGF I am going to assume without actually checking the edit history that the protecting admin did not revert to a different version before protecting. On the other hand, I also take the view that the claims of sourcing errors are serious, and should be considered seriously and one-by-one, rather than mindlessly reverting the way we have repeatedly seen here. I think the new FAR (despite its prejudiced nomination statement) provides an excellent opportunity to do exactly that. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:23, 14 August 2019 (UTC) PS: I did check later and my AGF was justified; see my response in the AN thread. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• Parrot of Doom, I'm pinging you to make sure you're aware of this and that a FAR that has been opened. Are you likely to become involved? It would be helpful, not least because you may still have access to the sources. SarahSV ^(talk) 17:54, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  EEng, we have a process that needs to be followed. SchroCat has opened the FAR, so discussion should continue there. The aim of FAR is to retain FA status wherever possible. As things stand, very few people have access to the sources, so editors wanting to work on this will first have to obtain the books, which will take time. There is no rush. Meanwhile, the article must be readable for the ordinary reader; in the last 90 days, it has averaged 2,449 pageviews a day. Using the span template so much interfered with readability. If you want to do that, please copy the page into a sandbox. It will be just as useful there. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:12, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• The discussions on this talk page are making me regret ever looking into this mess. If it's the format of the tags that's the problem, there's so many possible workarounds; neither the edit-warring, nor the full-protection, were necessary. For instance, it's possible to add a refimprove-section tag, and then to list specific issues on the talk page. Any of you could have done this. SlimVirgin, I would much prefer it if you undid your protection: it doesn't look good at all for us to protect an article against verifiability tags whose accuracy has not been substantially questioned. EEng, would you be willing to commit not to reverting those tags in again? Though they're convenient for documenting specific issues, readability is indeed a problem, and that (also, the unhelpful focus on readability over verifiability) is hampering discussion. I would recommend copying your unified diff into a new section, and giving the opportunity to interested editors to address them without the distraction, real or imagined, of the formatting. Now that the article is at FAR, documented verifiability issues are a clear criterion for failure; so I think it's a lot more important to discuss the nature and extent of the verifiability issues, than to ensure that these are visible at high resolution on the article itself. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:28, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  The thing is, Vanamonde93, nothing substantive can be done with the article at all until the RfC higher on this page is resolved. It's delicious that in that RfC, my changes such as altering

  Brady admitted under police questioning that he and Evans had fought

  to

  Brady told police that he and Evans had fought

  were said to destroy the "nuanced meaning" inherent in the source, when (as it turns out) the source says "Brady had made a statement admitting he had had a fight with Edward Evans" – nothing about admitting or police questioning. It was to investigate these "nuanced meaning" claims that I obtained the sources, and given the resulting list of verification failures that David Eppstein has so helpfully compiled over at FAR [41], at this point I think I can say without fear of contradiction that the idea that there's some high-quality version of the article that needs to be protected, like a precious flower, against the unwashed masses who would sully it, has been thoroughly exploded. So I hope that RfC can be appropriately resolved now, and then we can get to work on sourcing and other problems. EEng 02:09, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

  Vanamonde93: I tried that yesterday, pointing out the readability problem, but the effort was in vain. - SchroCat (talk) 19:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  @SchroCat: I did notice that conversation, but what I'm suggesting is slightly different. Tag the section, so that interested individuals are alerted to the problem. Then list the issues here. EEng's comment about the problems of two parallel versions are valid; but you don't have to have two parallel versions, all you need is to be able to discuss individual issues. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:40, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  (ec) Vanamonde93, I'm concerned about the exchange you had with EEng on your talk page where you allowed him to continue the personal attacks. What has happened here is not acceptable. Ignoring WP:STEWARDSHIP (which is policy), massively reducing the article, reverting when others restored the material, attacking its authors, then tag bombing it so that it's hard to read. Everyone needs to slow down, and that's what the page protection is for. It's only for 24 hours. Meanwhile, EEng can post the article to a sandbox and use the span tag there if he finds it helpful. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:42, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  (edit conflict × 2)@SlimVirgin:, if I were to censure EEng for what he posted on my talk page, I'd have to censure several other editors for their behavior too, and I was uninterested in having a second round of the AE discussion on my talk. I am well aware of what WP:STEWARDSHIP says: I've written 8 FAs and 40+ GAs, and I rely on the principles expressed there often enough. Yes, that policy requires editors proposing or making changes to move slowly, and to discuss their changes when challenged. It also requires those claiming stewardship over an article to engage substantively with the issues raised, and to abide by WP:CIVIL, etc. This substantive engagement hasn't happened, whether with the language concerns raised above, or with the verifiability concerns here. In both cases valid concerns over EEng's approach to the page have been used to completely derail any conversation about his concerns with the article. That substantive engagement has to happen: I don't give two hoots as to where. I'm concerned that your protection is going to be used to ignore the verifiability issue, but that's really secondary; keep it protected if you feel strongly about it, but please, don't let's let this drift away from concerns with content. FTR, I don't possess the sources, and I don't endorse or reject EEng's comments on the article; I'm just trying to keep this discussion constructive. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:06, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  @Vanamonde93: I take your point about not wanting to sanction EEng. But you seemed to encourage him. He posted (this is only on your talk; there's worse elsewhere): "Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Featured article complete fraud! Content creators exposed as poseurs"; you responded: "I did see that comment, and I see that you've placed some tags in the article. I'm watching the discussion with interest." And so he continued: "this gang", "this emperor has been naked all these years", "the ecstatic, hypnotic dancing of the whirling dervishes all around him", "superb (cough) FA", "unimpeachable (hack, cough, retch) sourcing". You then come here to criticize me for adding 24-hours protection? SarahSV ^(talk) 20:33, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  SarahSV, I'm not interested in getting into the "who was ruder" conversation again. I said what I had to say about that at AE; the bottom line was that a number of people were rude; and that's that. Also, I didn't come here on EEng's behalf to criticize you; you pinged me, remember? In any case: I have also made my opinion clear that the "failed verification span" template makes things difficult to read. I didn't think EEng would be fool enough to try to edit war it back in, so I asked you to consider lifting your protection. If you'd rather not, fine; but regardless, what we ought to be focusing on is the content. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:22, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  @Vanamonde93:, "valid concerns over EEng's approach to the page have been used to completely derail any conversation about his concerns with the article", I'm afraid that is untrue. Just 90 minutes ago you responded to my comment where I pointed out that I had been trying to deal with some of the concerns. If you're going to post bold statements about what has and hasn't happened, please try not to ignore things you know have already happened. - SchroCat (talk) 20:12, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  @SchroCat: I appreciate the effort you put in to engage, but that didn't last very long, did it? I quote: "As EEng has decided to ignore this constructive attempt to go through the text in a subjective manner, and play silly buggers instead, I’m out". I've already told off EEng for making too many reverts, but the least you can now do is to actually take up his concerns (even if he is playing silly buggers) because it's about the article, not him. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:17, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  @Vanamonde93:, I'm sorry, but did you actually read what I wrote last time? No, it didn't last very long, because EEng decided to delete the text from the talk page and dump the tags back in the article. No, I won't "take up his concerns": I tried and it was tossed back back in my face. I don't have the inclination to deal with nonsense like that at the best of times, but particularly when coming from the incivility machine. - SchroCat (talk) 20:21, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• @EEng: Good grief! This seems a mess. I think you've done all you can do. I think you should give the other interested others time to fix the problems. I think your commentary has stirred things up, maybe too much. I think everyone will think more clearly if everyone calms down and focuses on problem solving.-- Dlohcierekim 19:54, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
• (EC) I am reporting SlimVirgin's actions here at AN as a flagrant abuse of full protection and outright asserting ownership of an article by a wikiproject per their comments in the section above. No one is required when improving an article to abide by a wikiprojects internal rules. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:04, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

SV, WP:STEWARDSHIP says Explaining civilly why sources and policies support a particular version of a featured article does not necessarily constitute ownership. The problem, at least from my perspective, is that nobody is doing that. Objections about the verifiability, a core value of this place supposedly, have been met not with civil explanation about sources and policies, but instead outright dismissal and refusal to engage. The example you say could have been easily fixed? Well not when people are arguing that there is no problem even though the source does not support the material. That is not stewardship, that isnt even good ownership. nableezy - 20:28, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Nableezy, think about the sentence in question (was v had to be). It's England, 1965. The boy in question was 12. He might not even have been to a dentist, much less had work done that would have allowed a dentist to identify him. So when we see that his body was badly decomposed, and that he was identified by his clothing, the distinction between "was" and "had to be" is minor or non-existent. To make a fuss about it bodes ill for the rest of the tagged material. Are there really sourcing problems, or are minor differences being blown up? I don't know the answer, but to have this discussion while the main author is blocked, and almost no one has access to the sources, seems unproductive. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:41, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree there was an easy fix, though I disagree on how minor the issue is. But for some reason people are taking the bronze star to mean that nobody can question the material. If somebody in good faith challenges the verifiability, or even worse says that the material is flat out not supported by the source, the correct course of action is to address that good faith complaint. Not revert the challenge. I do not pretend to be a wordsmith or a copy-editor whatever you want to call somebody qualified to write FA level prose. But I can read English, and I can see that somebody has very specifically challenged whether or not the sources support a huge number of statements made in this article. And they have been largely ignored. Because of red warnings in the references section? Seriously? nableezy - 20:53, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I do agree however Eric should be allowed to respond to whatever has been challenged. I do not however think he needs to have people reverting out the challenges supposedly on his behalf. nableezy - 20:54, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I complained about the red warnings! I'm sick as a dog, would have wanted to at least look at the material before 25 more challenges were dumped straight into the text. No one is brushing this aside; I asked to follow the process and here we are. Everyone fighting. Victoria (tk) 20:57, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Nableezy, it's not only the red error messages; those are caused by a script that the average reader won't have. It's the template itself: {{failed verification span}}. It made the article hard to read because it was used so heavily. See this version. Why not post the article to a sandbox and do it there? Then people can send off for the books and begin the checking process. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:10, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Why not? Because in the meantime anybody reading the article may be taking as factual what has been challenged. At the very least a tag on the section is in order. Though whether or not there is a tag is a small issue. Whether or not there are factual inaccuracies is the big one, one that has not been addressed. nableezy - 22:01, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Featured-article review

Further information: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Moors murders/archive1

I'm posting this to make sure everyone is aware of it. SchroCat has opened an FA review, and opinions about how to proceed are welcome there. This is the process we follow when there are problems with an FA that can't be fixed quickly. Many thanks, SarahSV ^(talk) 20:02, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

The Red Errors

Since the "red errors" mentioned by Victoriaearle in the version she reverted are mysterious (don't appear to everyone) I thought it would be helpful to explain what I see in that version:

(in footnote 25): Topping (1989), p. 120–121 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "FOOTNOTETopping1989120–121" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).

(in footnote 38): Topping (1989), p. 37 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "FOOTNOTETopping198937" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).

(in footnote 43): Staff (2007), p. 18. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "FOOTNOTEStaff200718" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).

The first error appears to be caused by using the |p= parameter for one of the two Topping 120–121 references, and the |pp= parameter for the other one. I imagine the other errors are similar.

This is all minor and has little or nothing to do with the claimed issues of sourcing errors and overly verbose off-topic wording that are causing bigger disputes here. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:01, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't have the script installed and I also looked at the page logged out; they were still visible. Beyond that, I would have submitted to FAR this morning, but while I slept overnight these edits were added, [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], making it impossible for the reader to read. The article has been like this for a decade, there's an established venue & way of dealing with these issues, but tag bombing the article is, in my view, unnecessary and pointy. Instead we (we, as in everyone and anyone who wants to opine) should have the time (and it takes time) to look at the relevant diffs, text & sources, and then fix. At this point we could just roll back to the version that passed FAC & work from there. To me it seems that the sourcing issues had been well document and it was counterproductive to do that to the text in the main space. But if people think I'm off base, I can buy that. I do, however, think it would be better to use the time & energy to actually look at the issues that need addressing instead of blowing up into a huge wiki fight. Which is why I thought going to FAR would be the right step. Anyway, I'm done here. Victoria (tk) 21:23, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I can confirm what David Eppstein said above; the errors are not the result of EEng's preferred template, but because of some unrelated changes to source formatting that have somehow gotten bundled together with the other changes. That said, we're getting sidetracked again; I think there's a fair degree of agreement that the "failed verification span" template isn't ideal for readability, and so long as we discuss the content, it shouldn't matter how we do it. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:55, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

From here on

This talk page is for serious discussion about the content of this particular article. Focus on that. Concerns about editor behavior can be discussed on editor talk pages or at appropriate noticeboards. You all know where to find them.

EEng, since you pinged me here, I will make a deal with you: I will make a substantive comment about the content dispute when you fix your wretched talk page, which makes it impossible for smartphone editors like me to have conversations with you. Do you have a grudge against us? I hope not. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:33, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

You're too late [47]. EEng 04:42, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

EEng, ping me again when you have solved your own accessiblity problem, once and for all. A "couple of days" is not really good enough, when this has been an accessibility problem for you for years. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:23, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I’m with Cullen on this. @EEng: - I was going to ask you why I was pinged twice, once on my talk page and once here, about this article, as I’ve never had any involvement with it. However your talk page borks my phone browser too. Fish+Karate 07:01, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Cullen328, Fish and karate: I have given in to your blackmail [48], Let me suggest archiving this thread to simplify this page at least that tiny bit. EEng 13:41, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I can see why someone might want this archived, having bruised their ego and potentially disrupting their attempts to contribute improvements. So, @EEng:, how about you carry on wearing a hair-shirt while trying to edit for a wee while, see how it appears on stage with your rick-rolling comedy routines. ~ cygnis insignis 15:26, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

@Cullen328: and I now realise that this is defying your wish [Standard Operating Procedure of talk pages] for non-personalised discussion, but the boot is on the other foot and I mourn the loss of time in trying to communicate these concerns. On that basis, I have no objection to archiving. ~ cygnis insignis 15:32, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I have no idea what you could possibly be talking about. You speak in riddles. EEng 15:38, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Page protection

@El C: Hi, what are the requirements for ending the page protection? – Levivich 15:45, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

At this point I think it's just as well to keep it protected until the "which version?" RfC is resolved. Since the idea that the June 26 version, which the article is frozen at now, is something special is now defunct, if sanity prevails the pre-revert version (the version that evolved through normal collaborative editing -- the version on the left side of this diff [https://en.wikipedia.org/?diff=909503501) will be restored and then we can get to work fixing the sourcing and expanding the article. But if people have edited the live article (the old June 26 version) in the meantime, then those edits will have to be laboriously re-integrated. So like I said, to prevent that it's just as well to keep it protected until the RfC is behind us. EEng 16:51, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

That RfC is not going to resolve; there's no easy policy-based rationale to break the tie, and if we tried to analyze the language aesthetics under the MOS, it'd end up like one of those self-harm-inducing megathreads about commas, you know the ones that have subheadings like "Shut the fuck up already". Also, we'll be in month three by the time it's closed as no consensus. Also also, let's face it, this is going to end up with a not-insignificant re-write and expansion. Unfortunately, your initial round of edits that brought concision without changing meaning may all have been for naught if it turns out what's needed is to change the meaning. To be blunt, it's making me roll my eyes that we are waiting for people to get books from the library before we can fix errors sourced to online sources (i.e., waiting for FAR before the page is unprotected or changes are allowed, if that's indeed what we're waiting for). – Levivich 17:07, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree with everything you say, but there's an additional point: I have no doubt that 90% of the unverified material currently in the article is nonetheless verifia-ble, and we'll find sources to support it; the 10% will be dross that will be deleted. So the verification effort, while essential for getting this article into defensible shape, is really orthogonal to stylistic issues. Plus, many editors other than myself were editing during the six weeks that have been reverted out, and there's no reason to throw away their effort. Certainly there's no reason to unprotect leaving the current WRONGVERSION in place just because that happens to be the version present at the time of protection. EEng 18:02, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

OK that is a good point and I agree this is not like hoax situation and the content is verifiable (it's mostly text-source integrity and source selection issues), but here's another point: in the time it took me to write those talk page threads above, I could have just fixed those errors. – Levivich 18:29, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

@Levivich: If editors from both sides of the dispute tell me they reached a tentative resolution, the page may be unprotected early. El_C 19:48, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

For myself, I couldn't care less what happens to this article, and as Cassianto and Schrocat have also indicated their unwillingness to take any further part in this discussion I think it's very unlikely that you'll see any agreement from at least one side of this argument, however long you wait. Eric Corbett 22:45, 15 August 2019 (UTC)