Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography

Writing better crime-related articles

While assessing numerous crime-related articles, I have found myself repeatedly referring to certain guidelines and saying the same sorts of things time and time again. Editors seem to be insufficiently aware of these specific issues when writing about crime-related topics. The general advice about contributing to Wikipedia that is offered at Wikipedia:Writing better articles is quite general. It does not highlight issues related to specific topics. Also, there are other more specialized essays about writing about specific topics, such as:

• Wikipedia:Writing about breeds
• Wikipedia:Writing about cannabis,
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction,
• Wikipedia:Writing about women,
• Are there other essays or guidelines about writing articles about specific topics that I have missed?

I see this essay about writing better crime-related atricles as being something different from a style guide or part of the Manual of Style for Crime-related articles. The essay would set out the basic issues that editors might encounter when writing about crime-related topics and provide advice and considerations that editors should take into account. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 00:03, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

@Cameron Dewe This seems like a good idea, I have no opposition. I can't think of any suggestions for it off the top of my head, though. PARAKANYAA (talk) 14:03, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

@Cameron Dewe I agree that something like this (or even a style guide) is sorely needed. It's a little alarming how widespread the lack of editorial standards for crime-related articles are and a bit surprising that a style guide doesn't already exist. The Professional Wrestling style guide is one that's pretty good and is also about a topic area that requires a lot of editorial guidance: Wikipedia:WikiProject Professional wrestling/Style guide. BoldGnome (talk) 04:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA and BoldGnome: Thanks for your feedback. I have started drafting an essay in my sandbox. Some of the advice is pretty general. While other advice is specific about crime related articles, such as writing articles about crimes in the past tense because these are historic events. I would welcome comments and further specific ideas. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 04:50, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on this, it looks great so far! I wonder if there would be more value in centralising it to the Project Page and perhaps making it specifically a style guide? Essays are easily dismissed by stubborn editors whereas a style guide can be more easily relied on as the consensus of editors involved in the project, and can be more easily changed to reflect evolving consensus. (Plus it would lighten the burden on you.) Totally understand if that's not what you intend for this piece of work. BoldGnome (talk) 07:07, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

My initial thoughts were to draft something in my sandbox before moving it to an essay. But your suggestion of a style guide makes sense for some of the content that is specifically crime related. There is other content, about the 5 W questions, that is more content orientated that would probably make sense to be in a stand alone essay as it is good advice about writing articles generally. - Thanks for the feedback. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 07:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

@Cameron Dewe One specific issue that always tends to cause a lot of controversy is when exactly a perpetrator of a high profile crime warrants a separate article from the main crime article - it's often accepted, but usually as a sub-article from the main one, and even then. There was an essay that gave guidance along these lines, but IIRC that essay gave backwards guidance from how it was usually handled (it advised making an article on the perpetrator first, and not an event one - though that basically is how we deal with non modern serial killers). I have some thoughts on this myself but I definitely feel as if it's an issue that a crime style guide would need to handle.

Our handling of this area is kind of a mess, especially with serial vs mass murderers (who we treat very differently page-structure wise in most cases). Guidelines are sort of unwritten here in this respect. And we don't have any clear cut guidance on how to treat aspects of crime perpetrators in articles, except for the broad BLP guidance which obviously applies to crime in the "be careful about naming people" thing. This has to do with WP:BIO1E and WP:BLP1E - however, these guidelines explicitly notes "if media coverage of both the event and the individual's role grow larger, separate articles may become justified" and "if the event is highly significant, and the individual's role within it is a large one" then an article may be warranted (which everyone ignores) so where do we draw the line?

I think it should probably be noted that in any case, splits of that nature shouldn't be done unless it would improve the original and split pages, which is something no one seems to understand so we have people trying to make half baked split articles for notorious murderers even when it covers no new ground. Someone actually went and wrote a decent (but kind of overdetailed) article for Elliot Rodger that did cover what the main page didn't recently, after years and years of people saying he should have an article but not actually writing one. Content split is useless without the content after all.

Anyway I'll try to think of more things to cover. PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:05, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA: Yes, I was involved in the debate about the Elliot Rodger article, as well as other proposals by the same editor for other proposed biographies where WP:BIO1E and WP:BLP1E were involved. There is also WP:CRIMINAL and WP:BLPCRIME which, I think, over-rides the other policies, too. I will go back over some arguments on these topics to see what has been put forward and accepted. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 05:27, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:The Color of Crime (1998 book)#Requested move 2 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:The Color of Crime (1998 book)#Requested move 2 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Wikiexplorationandhelping (talk) 02:20, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

What to do with British crime project template?

We discussed this template a while ago (several times actually) and since all articles that would be under their scope are under ours, and that project have not been active in many years, and given the scoping issues (it is overlapping with us and UK, nothing unique) I don't think there's anything with it that needs to stick around. We can just leave their project pages as defunct but interesting archives, but the continued existence of their talk page banner annoys me, since even to this day well meaning users will tag new articles with that very defunct project instead of this one.

Should I simply redirect it to the main crime & crimebio template? That will make duplicates annoying, but it would handily deal with the non zero amount of articles that are tagged under that dead project and not this one. That is also how the new WP Firefighting project handled it, as a merge between two old defunct projects. PARAKANYAA (talk) 14:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA: project page currently advised using "... Wikipedia:WikiProject United Kingdom and Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography ..." Looking at the talk pages that link to the British crime template, there are about 1,700 articles. I suspect many of these already have a Crime and Criminal Biography banner. While redirecting to the Crime and Criminal Biography banner would bring these articles into this WikiProject, I wonder if having a human, or a bot, visit the articles that are linked and change or merge the banners might be a better solution. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 05:47, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

@Cameron Dewe For now I'll just remove them when I see them. Maybe I'll do an WP:AWB run at it at some point. PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:06, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA: Today, I have been looking at pages linked to Template:WikiProject British crime and editing some articles talk pages to remove the defunct banner template and replace it with Wikipedia:WikiProject United Kingdom or Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, or both of them, where these banners are missing and appropriate to add. After editing about thirty articles it looks like more than half the articles already have a Crime and Criminal Biography banner, but many are missing a WikiProject United Kingdom banner, but most of these might still have a more specific country or regional geography banner like England, Scotland or a county banner. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 06:01, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Murders of Tylee Ryan and J. J. Vallow#Requested move 19 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Murders of Tylee Ryan and J. J. Vallow#Requested move 19 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject.–CaroleHenson (talk) 23:38, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza#Requested move 3 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza#Requested move 3 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 09:47, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Tel al-Sultan airstikes#Requested move 27 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Tel al-Sultan airstikes#Requested move 27 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 05:47, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Prosecution of Donald Trump in New York#Requested move 31 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Prosecution of Donald Trump in New York#Requested move 31 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 18:49, 2 June 2024 (UTC)