Talk:Trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson

Trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson was one of the Social sciences and society good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
October 6, 2008	Good article nominee	Listed
August 9, 2013	Good article reassessment	Delisted

Current status: Delisted good article

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Demon Murder Trial/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

This article is in decent shape, but it needs more work before it becomes a Good Article.

Is it well written?
A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:
The lead seems very short and it would be best to summarize the entire article, per here.
Check. -- ThinkBlue (Hit BLUE) 22:57, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:
In the lead, "November 24th 1981" needs to be fixed to "November 24, 1981" and any other dates that are formatted with "th" need to be fixed, per here. Also, this article is not International, so fix "24 November 1981" ---> "November 24, 1981". Also, dates are not supposed to be linked, per here. In the Events preceding the attack section, italicize "Paradise Lost", per here. The article has a red link, if it doesn't link to anything, unlink it, per here.
Check. -- ThinkBlue (Hit BLUE) 22:57, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?
A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

C. It contains no original research:

D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
Is it neutral?
It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
Is it stable?
It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:
Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
Are there any free-use images available?
No worries, I was just wondering if there were any available. -- ThinkBlue (Hit BLUE) 22:57, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overall:
Pass or Fail:
If the statements above can be answered, I will pass the article. Good luck with improving this article!

-- ThinkBlue (Hit BLUE) 21:19, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you to Judgesurreal777 for getting the stuff I left at the talk page, because I have gone off and placed the article as GA. Congrats. ;) -- ThinkBlue (Hit BLUE) 22:57, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Grammar and Style

This article needs some work to address grammatical and stylistic issues. The 'Events preceding the attack' section in particular reads like a story rather than an article in an encyclopaedia, and delivers statements such as 'It was then they decided not to take the rental property because it was evil.' Helenabella (talk) 12:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More than that; it is extremely confusing, vague, all-but unintelligible in several places, and is written as if the presence of a "demon" were an established fact. The description of the fight that resulted in the killing is especially egregious, and is practically indecipherable. For example, this segment:

"Wanda Johnson, who recounted her story to the police, stated that "it just broke". Mary ran for the car, as Debbie stood between the two men. Wanda, who was holding on to Johnson, remembers he was "like stone", and couldn't be moved. Wanda heard Johnson growling like an animal, saw a flash through the air, and stated that "it just stopped". Johnson walked towards the woods, staring straight ahead, and Bono continued to punch his fist into his palm, before falling on his face."

"It just broke" and "it just stopped." What broke, and what stopped? I can make neither heads nor tails of this entire section. After this quoted text, it goes on to describe knife wounds on Bono, which apparently just spontaneously appeared, since there is no mention of a knife fight or any other kind of physical altercation at all. What "flash[ed] through the air"? Lightning? A knife? A demon? A UFO?! Did the "demon" supposedly cause the knife wounds? It doesn't say, the quotes are presented without any kind of context, and the entire sequence is inexcusably vague.

Further, the presence of the alleged "demon" is repeatedly presented as a fact rather than a claim. The article is also riddled with statements such as "("charred" and "hooves" being common signs for a demon)" which cause it to read like an apologia for the demonologists' claims rather than an impartial scientific encyclopedia entry.

I seriously can't understand half of what the article is trying to say; it is extremely poorly written, vague, and, as pointed out, mostly written as if it were a story rather than an encyclopedic article. The entire page should be rewritten; I would do it myself, but I honestly can neither parse the choppy prose nor follow the mangled narrative well enough to even understand what supposedly happened. Someone who knows more about this seriously needs to go trough it with a chainsaw and completely rebuild the article from the ground up.

RyokoMocha (talk) 08:54, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote it, but it has been added to over time, not always with references. I agree though, chainsaw is needed, so I'll start drafting a page one rewrite. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 12:06, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed much of the article that reads as a story and presented the demonic possession claim uncritically. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 02:52, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Harizotoh9, I appreicate you are trying to fix the articles problems, but eliminating all the content.that comes from reliable sources is not a good option. The article is about this trial, and it was called the "Demon Murder Trial". That isn't something any wikipedian made up, it's what the media called it. The article is about the incident and everything that was claimed to have happened, and when I originally wrote it it did a decent job of explaining all the events in an unbiased way. Since then, others have marred it significantly, but changing the title without discussion and deleting everything is a bad option. Let me have a crack at it first, ok? Judgesurreal777 (talk) 16:19, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like this article was in better shape when I arrived today than it was when it was criticized by the editors above. I removed the most over-the-top dramatic story-telling aspects of the prose, changed the remaining portions that treated the demonic possession as factual instead of a claim, and provided a few more copy edits. I also corrected the name of the convicted person based on sources (including the New York Times) and moved the article to match the corrected name. Happy editing! – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:23, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]