Talk:Jack the Ripper/Archive 3

Archives
January 2003 – February 2007

Semi-protection

The page seems to attract a vandal almost every day. I suggest we ask an admin for semi-protection, so it cannot be edited by anons. It's disheartening to see the edit history filled with so much useless clutter. MattHucke^(t) 12:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Lewis Carroll has a similar level of trouble and was inexplicably denied, but go for it. I'd love to see it happen. Viledandy 14:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Not a chance, it's nowhere near the level on Dwyane Wade and I've been denied twice when asking to get semi on there. Quadzilla99 02:52, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

We now have a one-week reprieve from the anonymous vandals:

16:02, 18 April 2007 Royalguard11 (Talk | contribs) m (Protected Jack the Ripper: lots of annon/new vandalism [edit=autoconfirmed:move=autoconfirmed] (expires 22:02, April 25, 2007 (UTC)))

Thanks Royalguard11 ! - MattHucke^(t) 22:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Jill the Ripper

I have created an article on the Jill the Ripper theory, (I was surprised that wasn't already one though), and I would appreiciate help expanding it.

List of proposed Jack the Ripper suspects already covers the couple of Jill the Ripper theories, and Jill the Ripper redirects to that article now. There's really not any way to expand it beyond what's already there, and certainly not much reason to, as it's an extremely minor theory. I also undid your change to mention Jill the Ripper in the lead, as, again, very minor theory, and even people who talk about Jack the Ripper possibly being female still call it the Jack the Ripper crimes, as that's the well known name. DreamGuy 02:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

References

Why are there hardly any references in this article? A very shoddy piece of work indeed: disorganised, incoherent and tendentious. This article needs a complete overhaul.Colin4C 19:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This article could use some improvement, yes, but you've shown from your history of edits here that your idea of what would improve the article was often very shoddy itself and often based upon a gross misrepresentation of the sources to foist your own particular views onto the article. If this is your way of announcing that you've come back to start that all over again, I would advise against it.DreamGuy 23:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I would like to start adding references to the article proper, as we could get it up to GA status without too much work. It might be best reading through the article, and seeing what statements we can attribute to books on the subject. Ideally every statement of fact should have a source. I'd suggest we mainly draw from Sugden's The Complete History of Jack The Ripper and Evans and Skinner's The Ultimate Jack The Ripper Sourcebook. They seem to be the most authoritative and least biased accounts. Thoughts anyone? Martin 16:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Those are two of the better ones, yes. Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates by Evans and Rumbelow additionally has the benefit of being much more updated and recent, and at least less biased to the author's opinions than most. Even all those will only get you so far, as research into the field is very active and ongoing. DreamGuy 23:26, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Canonical five victims

Re. the assertion that horrific attacks against women were endemic during the period --

In an essay on Casebook: Jack the Ripper, Alexander Chisholm reports the following:

Statistics compiled for Joseph Loane's Sanitary Reports [for the Metropolitan Board of Works] - more recently given wider currency in Bruce Paley's "…The Simple Truth" - provide a valuable corrective to the popular image of Whitechapel as a murderous abyss, typified by Jack the Ripper's autumn of terror. They clearly testify to a scarcity of murder in Whitechapel, and provide compelling support for Superintendent Arnold's [head of H Division] belief that; "With the exception of the recent murders crime of a serious nature is not unusually heavy in the District." (MEPO 3/141 ff. 164-5).

Loane found that no homicides occurred in Whitechapel in 1887. Chisholm points out several flaws in Loane's methodology, principally that non-resident deaths, deaths by ambiguous means (e.g. head injuries) and unidentified bodies were not included in the findings. So murders probably escaped the account, but the low figures for the district, for London as a whole (eighty murders in a city of three million), and Superintendent Arnold's note must be taken into account. And if we look to Charles Booth, we see many 'respectable' streets chockablock with the hell of poverty. The murders were a sensation partially because violence on their scale was extremely uncommon, even in the East End. This is borne out by the contemporary press. (Why should Polly Nichols' death get extensive coverage in The Times, which was the newspaper of record for the civilized world?) The victims were not drops in a sea of blood. The press and public wanted to attribute Mackenzie, Coles, etc. to the Ripper because he was the resident bogeyman. --Viledandy 19:29, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• Further to this, refer to Israel Lipski, who killed Miriam Angel in the neighbouring parish of St George's on 28 June 1887. If the area was truly a jungle, why was the case a cause celebre?

The attacks on Annie Millwood, etc. during autumn 1888, along with the reports of stalking, knife-brandishing, etc. should be very familiar to us. A well-publicised murder spawns copycats and fear mongering. When the Ripper disappeared, so, mostly, did they.Viledandy 19:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately the statistics cited by Loane (and by authors with older books following that lead, such as Rumbelow, etc.) have been proven in more recent research to be wholly misleading. There were TONS of knife attacks all over. Trying to cite that would require citing a long, loing list of individual newspaper reports. It can be done, of course, but it's not typically how things are sourced here.

AS far as your claims about publicity for the murders, I'm afraid your trying to argue that there weren't many is nothing more than original research, and particularly misinformed OR at that. The Miriam Angle case was big news because it was a Jew committing cold blooded murder on a neighbor for sexual purposes, and of course there was a lot of antisemitism at the time.

Annie Millwood was not attacked during "autumn 1888" and her case and others like it did not get very well publicized. Millwood COULDN'T be a copycat of the Ripper as the Ripper officially didn;t even show up for months and months later. Nichols' death was the first major publicity push based upon the nature of the abdominal wounds and the (perceived) link to Tabram a few weeks before.

And trying to claim Mackenzie, Coles etc. were assigned to the Ripper by the press is POV-pushing to the bias that the Ripper *didn't* commit those murders. You seem to have a number of copycat theories and ideas and so forth that are clearly biasing you against the idea that the Ripper killed beyond the canonical five, which led you to to delete the statement saying that it's difficult to know who was killed by the Ripper or not. That is a clear violation of the WP:NPOV policy. I suggest you go read it before making any more edits. It's nice that you have strong opinions. Take it to the Casebook message board or somewhere else, because Wikipedia is not a place for you to advance your ideas. DreamGuy 23:20, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

There has to be a source for the statement though, otherwise it will have to be removed or rewritten. Crime figures that show a disproportionately high number of attacks against women for instance, or even a quote from someone would be acceptable. I'm not really convinced as to its relevance anyway, as it's rather ambiguous. Is it referring to all crime committed against women in Victorian London, or the Whitechapel Murders? If the former, it's obviously nonsense, as only the most crazed conspiracy theorist would surmise the Jack the ripper is responsible for all crime in the 19th century, and if the latter, then there has to be a way to rewrite it to remove any ambiguity. I don't get the impression from reading the police-reports that they had trouble telling who was a Ripper victim and who was not because they were deluged with the bodies of dead women. It's difficult to tell because the series of murders all shared some similarities, yet they all had subtle (and not so subtle) differences, and no two "witnesses" (in the sense that they saw a man would could have been Jack The Ripper) give exactly the same description (though some agree more than others). When a killer is unknown, any opinion as to the extent of his crimes is, to a large extent, conjecture. The only way to truly know how many the Ripper killed would have been to catch him and extract a truthful confession. That this was not done is the "major difficulty in identifying who was and was not a Ripper victim". If you want to rewrite it to say that there were many crimes with a similar MO around the same time, and so it's difficult to pin any of the crimes on one killer or killers, that would be acceptable. Martin 15:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Ripper location article nominated for deletion

Loading my watchlist today, I find that Dorset Street, London has been nominated for deletion. As the articles for the other four locations are of similar length and content, I fear they too may be nominated next. If you think these articles are worthwhile parts of this project, please assist in improving them (particularly Dorset Street, as it's in immediate danger), and participate in the deletion discussion. MattHucke^(t) 21:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

The Whitechapel Murders

Should we put all the murders that the contempory police force listed as 'The Whitechapel Murders' in one list? At the moment they are all mixed up with some very dubious and even imaginary (Fairy Fay) victims. Colin4C 12:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

We've had this discussion before. Your desire to completely rewrite the section to not fous on the canonical five was attempted before and rejected. Please get approval here before doing something you know goes against long-standing consensus. 71.203.223.65 15:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

There was no consensus, just you and Dreamguy blindly reverting valid material. Dreamguy has now been disciplined by the admins for his abusive edits here and elsewhere: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/DreamGuy 2. What I have written is valid and referenced. Colin4C 16:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

There was plenty of consensus, and still is. You just ignored it and demanded you have your way, and then ran off when you couldn't get it. 71.203.223.65 21:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Citations

I've supplied some references as per wikipedia guidelines. More to come. Colin4C 10:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Reasoned revert

An editor recently blind reverted my changes with no comment other than that they were not discussed... to the contrary, they have been discussed on these pages time and time again:

• restoring "or killers," which has been long supported, because we do not know how many killers there are and of all the alleged Rippe victims listed all authorities say that at least some of them were by a second killer
• removing a link to Ripperologists, which was an article that was not even named correctly and was only a dicdef, against Wikipedia policies
• putting the WVC info ahead of modern research so that the whole section followed proper chronology
• removing a trivial and nonencyclopedic minor stupid fictional reference that is already covered on the Ripper fiction article

I have restored my edits to remove the recent edits that had no place here and to return those sections to the long standing consensus-approved wording. Other recent changes that were valuable and encyclopedic remained untouched. By blind reverting me and saying I needed to discuss the changes, the editor in question missed completely that the changes I undid were not discussed in the first place. New changes that are contentious should be discussed and approved before they are put in, not the other way around. 71.203.223.65 15:16, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

For the most part, I've responded to the issue here, hoping that my reply will suit you, if not, oh well; its going to be a bumpy ride from here on out. (I was the editor he was referring to.)

To begin with, I removed the 'or killers' bit, because it could easily be misconstrued that killers were acting in concert, or that there were more than one killer. As the article says that no conclusive proof exists either way, we aren't going to take that leap, either.

When you remove citations, you need to discuss them first, and not after. Period.

The other bits actually need discussion. While you may think certain parts are "valuable and encyclopedic" others might consider them "trivial and nonencyclopedic, minor and stupid". You either know - or are about to get a crash course in - how language is everything here. Calling edits stupid is going to get you ignored most of the time and flamed pretty much all of the time. Be polite, even when reverted. Discuss your edits. That bears repeating because it appears from your own talk page that you have had some apparent difficulty working with others. Quite simply, you aren't the smartest person in Wikipedia - you aren't even the smartest person currently working in this article. Acting like you are is simply serving to marginalize what I am sure can be solid, reasonable edits.

I could go on, but as I said, a lot of it has already been said on your discussion page. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 18:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The "or killers" bit has been long supported as absolutely necessary, especially because no sources claims one killer was responsible for all the victims listed in the victims section. Some people DO think that killers were working in concert, or that there was more than one killer. Removing that line is adding your very extremely one sided opinion that it's not true. Go take a look at the NPOV policy, not to mention standard encyclopedic standards here, for why your way is completely wrong.

No, when bad citations are added, they can be removed at will. You can;t just demand we discuss it first, as you didn;t discuss putting there in the first place. Peopple can edit here freely, especially the ones who have more knowledge of the topic at hand. Period.

It's been long standard here that the fiction goes in the fiction article. Plus we also have policies on trivia here, and the Sweetheart nonsense is an EXTREMELY minor fiction reference, so by our policies it does not belong here, even if there weren't already a fiction article for this stuff. YOU are the one who needs a crash course. We discussed all these topics time and time again on these pages. Too bad you either weren't here or didn't pay attention. Fact of the matter is I remember you and Colin here in the past trying to push your nonsense and getting nowhere. You only went ahead with this because you thought other more experienced and knowledgeable editors were no longer paying attention. Give it a rest. You can't lecture me, because you do not come from a position to do so by any respect. 71.203.223.65 21:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Citations Needed

I find it somewhat distressing that the entire article draws its citations from two books and one website reference. It would be more proper to note the original sources of the statements in the article, and then noting the book from which they came. As it is, the article is a bit weak. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 18:13, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

No, the article most certainly does not draw its citations from two books and one websites. There are a ton of books listed as reference, and there were citations that were removed in the blind reverts you and Colin were doing. Please take the time to look at the article before making such claims. 71.203.223.65 21:23, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Frankly

Frankly, the article is a mess. Many of the points that led it to be delisted as FA haven't been addressed at all. We have two duplicated sections which cry out for merging together, to begin with, we have little in the way of diversity when it comes to citations, there are no pictures, esp the most famous and gruesome one from the last "canonical" (no clear provenance for that term has been provided, btw) of the last killing, and that picture is in practically every single book on the killings. The article needs some definite work - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 18:23, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, if you think no clear provenance for the term has been provided, or all the other citation tags you threw on here, you just haven't been paying attention. 71.203.223.65 21:21, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The 'Canonical Five'

I have supplied a reference for the 'canonical five' victims of Jack the Ripper. Note however that my ref refers to the existence of the canonical five as a notion of Ripperological investigations, not to the unproven assertion that were as a matter of fact five victims of Jack the Ripper. My source (Evans and Rumbelow's 2006 book Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates) states (on page 260) that the probable victims of 'Jack the Ripper' range between three (Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes) and six (the previously mentioned victims plus Stride, Kelly and Tabram). However at the time of the original investigation eleven victims were explicitly documented by the police as the 'Whitechapel Murders' and ascribed at one time or another to Jack the Ripper. Maybe the readers of the wikipedia can look at the evidence and make their own minds up about the case rather than having wikipedia editors telling them what to think? Colin4C 20:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I would agree completely, were it not for one small fact: the official police count is how many? That's the number that is canonical, not five, three or one hundred and thirty-seven. Anything else is reasoned commentary. I am not dismissing the commentary, but I think that, as an encyclopedic source, the legal records hold precedence. The number that the police ascribe to the Ripper trump any other speculation, "ripperology" aside. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 21:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

For my part, I think a reasonable way to deal with it would be to state the canonical five, and deal with the other murders in an 'apocrypha' section. As long as the official version is made clear, and the status of the other murders is noted, with full references to reliable sources, I don't see any problem with detailing them. The current layout goes some way to addressing that issue, but I would like to see conclusions drawn from more than one source, on such a contentious issue (although that's possibly a higher standard than editors might normally be held to). Is there a source for the 'legal' records?

An early conclusion of just about everyone has been the state of referencing in this page, and that is a priority to address throughout the article. Cheers. Kbthompson 23:31, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The primary data are the eleven Whitechapel murders. These were numbered and listed by the police at the time of the original police investigation in 1888-91. They are listed there in black and white in the records if anyone cares to consult. These records have been published in book form quite recently by the way (in The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook by Stewart P. Evans and Keith Skinner, (2002)), so need to rummage in the archives! (But if you do want to rummage in archives see [1] for details of the case and where the primary documents are to be found). Evans and Rumbelow state the facts about the contemporary police investigation and the Whitechapel Murders file and list the eleven murders in their Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates (2006). 'The 'canonical five' are only canonical for the church of 'Ripperology'. There is nothing in the police files which prioritises them and Evan and Rumbelow call the 'canonical five' a 'myth'. So maybe its the 'canon' which is apocryphal rather than the other way around. As for other murders of the time not listed as amongst the official Whitechapel Murders, anybody could produce an unending list of people who died in mysterious circumstances at the time and then ascribe it to the Ripper. Some of these others such as 'Fairy Fay' seem to be completely fictional entities. Mixing these dubious entries up with the others does not seem very useful or scientific. Some of them here are not listed in any Ripper book I own (and I own several) but seem to derive from internet speculation. What is the main subject here, Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel Murders, which did actually happen in real time and real space or the devotions of self-styled 'Ripperologists'? Colin4C 09:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

As for references I have made a start. If anybody has what they consider better refs from a greater range of sources feel free to add. Colin4C 09:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)