Langbahn Team – Weltmeisterschaft

Talk:William Dwane Bell

Untitled

This article has no sources at all, this needs correcting. --Thenickdude (talk) 07:12, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Scope

I'm really not sure whether to focus this article on Bell or the "2001 Panmure RSA killings" (as I'd propose the event title be). The crimes themselves are notable, but in this case other than the one dispute there is not actually a lot of retrospecting on the event, relative to the coverage of Bell's actions. It may be outclassed by Bell's repeated other crimes committed both before and after prison for which he makes the news to this day, the fact that he committed this crime while out after the previous crime, and the fact that until 2020 he had the longest sentence ever given in NZ (probably the most notable thing here). Every background to the event just seems to be his life of crime. I worked on this article a while ago, but the question of how to organize it bothered me so I stopped. If I or someone else pick it up again we will have to commit to one way or the other. PARAKANYAA (talk) 12:04, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cameron Dewe Sorry for the tagging, but you are a Kiwi and tend to give reasoned opinions on these sorts of BLP1E vs event scope articles. What are your thoughts? PARAKANYAA (talk) 12:05, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@PARAKANYAA: The "2001 Panmure RSA killings" were the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the name William (Dwane) Bell. He is one of New Zealand's notorious criminals and remembered in this country primarily for the vicious crime he committed when robbing the Panmure RSA in 2001. I am surprised that Wikipedia has an article about him when it doesn't have an article about the RSA killings. The two are inextricably mixed in New Zealand criminal history. I see the sources of this article include Patrick Gower, when he was Crime reporter for the New Zealand Herald, and criminologist Greg Newbold, writing in the (official) Te Ara encyclopedia. While I think BLP1E doesn't apply here, the guideline WP:CRIMINAL does. Bell primarily notable for robbing the Mt. Wellington-Panmure RSA club and killing three people in the process and attempting to kill a fourth. As a result, he received a 33 year non-parole period when sentenced to life imprisonment. The only reason he is mentioned in Te Ara is because of that fact, and there is TV coverage of his sentencing, although that has since been removed from the website, hence the archived link. Since all the sources deal with the RSA killings, too, but Wikipedia does not have an article about those killings, all the information about the killings has been crammed into an article about Bell. the result is a sort of pseudo-biography. The biographical information about Bell, before the RSA killings, amounts to little more than three paragraphs of the article, none of this information came to light until after the killings happened. The biographical information that is included is therefore the result of Bell being considered notable for the crime he committed and good investigative journalism uncovering "why this happened". In many respects, this article is not actually about the person William Dwane Bell but primarily about the "2001 Panmure RSA killings" (and robbery) and the failings of the New Zealand justice system that allowed it to happen in the first place. I think moving the article is a good idea, because how can one have an article about the criminal without first considering crime to be notable? - Cameron Dewe (talk) 20:22, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
By comparison, Ronald Jorgensen, another infamous New Zealand murderer, redirects to the Bassett Road machine gun murders. While there might be an argument to have a separate article about him, because he disappeared in mysterious circumstances, the trouble is finding the sources to write anything more than a pseudo-biography. Also the 2021 Auckland supermarket stabbing includes a biography of the perpetrator, who had previously been reported about in the New Zealand news media because WP:CRIMINAL is also applicable when WP:1E is not - this avoid unnecessary content forking too. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 20:22, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Cameron Dewe I agree with your argument on BlP1E vs the wp:criminal guideline, and after reading what you said largely agree it should be moved to event-based. Though, if this is an event article, it's probably going to still be mostly about Bell, since the notability of the killings is largely in, as you said, the failure of the justice system. When it comes to deciding what the scope should be, where an article stands now is of less relevance to me than how this would hypothetically look at its most comprehensive, and my one reservation is that I feel it will somehow look odd to have an event article where most of the information is on one guy. Though I suppose that can go for a lot of crimes. I should probably look to see if this was ever mentioned in academic literature or books (I wasn't very good at finding sourcing when I first started editing this article).
The Auckland stabbing perpetrator had a separate article until my friend suggested it be merged last year after a discussion we had - though he is not really BLP1E, it is more of a NOPAGE/wp:criminal situation where the topics are so interconnected that having two articles on it is pointless and there's not enough information to justify otherwise. If there is enough, then it may become justifiable to split it off, but IMO you should always develop the main event article first, not just having a page to have a page. With a lot of articles it's pretty random if we have a perp article. Virtually all serial killers have biography articles, while most mass attackers have event articles, except for older familicides and some assorted other ones. And as to "how can one have an article about the criminal without first considering crime to be notable?", this has always confused me, because people like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, it is biographically focused to little complaint. While Bell is obviously not a serial killer, there clearly are some situations where we focus it on the person instead as the main topic, not a size split subtopic. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:20, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are, in fact, academic/book sources
Probably more. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:39, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@PARAKANYAA: Interesting. Susan Couch's pursuit of the Crown for damages as a result of the failings of the Probation Service over the way they handled Bell is an additional aspect of focussing on the the crime, rather than the criminal. If Wikipedia has an article about the crime then issues such as the treatment of a victim of a crime can be explored in far more detail than in a biographical article about a criminal. A separate article about Couch, and her claims, faces the uphill battle of WP:BLP1E and WP:VICTIM as well as other WP:BLP policies. Couch is primarily notable because she was almost killed by Bell, but survived to give evidence against him, as well as challenge the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) law that barred her pursuing a claim for exemplary damages - a uniquely New Zealand situation that does not occur in other countries. Wikipedia's policies discourage writing about victims of crime and focus on avoiding further victimising such people. This means the "2001 Panmure RSA killings" are notable as an event, not only for Bell's conviction, but also for the issues it raises in relation to ACC litigation. In other words, it is the crime (i.e. Bell's actions) that has a lasting effect. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 01:26, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I don't disagree. I will rename/rescope it sometime. Thanks for the advice. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:02, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@PARAKANYAA: Your observation that "Virtually all serial killers have biography articles, while most mass attackers have event articles, ..." is probably another outworking of WP:CRIMINAL and WP:BLP1E working in combination. Biographies about serial killers would seem justified because the restrictions imposed WP:BLP1E and WP:CRIMINAL do not apply, and naming an article with all the victims in each case the title is unwieldy. Wikipedia guidelines also tend to restrict biographical articles to be about a single person, or perhaps a couple of related people. Also, it is far easier to justify a single notable event article for a mass killing or similar attack because such events are often reported internationally and receive broad coverage that is in-depth and diverse. I think it would require a significant change in the rules to change this situation. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 02:05, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Cameron Dewe I am not sure if I agree that the same considerations from BLP1E and WP:CRIMINAL do not apply to serial killers as they do to mass killers. Why wouldn't they? They usually receive no attention as people prior to them being caught. Obviously I don't want them to be focused this way, because it is very unwieldy as you said, but look for example at Gilgo Beach serial killings - we can't name it after the (probable) perp because he hasn't been convicted yet, but I wonder if he does get convicted will we move it to be a biography? However this is beyond Bell at this point so to continue this conversation we may want to take it to the project talk page. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:08, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@PARAKANYAA: Yes, I think the application of WP:BLP1E and WP:CRIMINAL to serial killers and mass killers is worth exploring in a different venue, such as the WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography talk page. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 02:44, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 1 January 2025

William Dwane Bell → 2001 Panmure RSA killings – Pursuant to discussion above, the event is the parent topic here and per WP:CRIMINAL. Will need to be rescoped after a move, but I will do it. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:22, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:William_Dwane_Bell