Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography

Serious BLP vios in Gambino crime family

This article is riddled with serious BLP vios. I tried tagging them, but there are so many I would have to carpet bomb the page with CN tags. This article needs urgent attention. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:17, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho

Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 16:32, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Are crime novels/fiction in scope (generally)?

WP:NOVELS has a crime fiction task force. I would think that books/fiction directly based upon real cases would be in scope, as would non fiction. But I am unsure about purely original crime fiction, due to how common it is. I think at least for novels, it would make sense to be exclusionary and tag them with the novels crime task force, since I think that makes the scope clearer. Thoughts? PARAKANYAA (talk) 14:39, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

James McLain

Unsourced for 15 years. For all I know, it's a hoax. Please either find and add reliable sources, or send it to WP:AfD. 2025 is the year of clean up. Bearian (talk) 04:39, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

@Bearian I'll see what I can find. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:14, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

@Bearian Probably a hoax! AfDed. Kind of a funny one. Always the mobster articles... PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:45, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Tel al-Sultan attack#Requested move 1 January 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Tel al-Sultan attack#Requested move 1 January 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Abo Yemen✉ 17:56, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Houthi movement#Requested move 12 January 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Houthi movement#Requested move 12 January 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Abo Yemen✉ 18:56, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Ed Jew

Ed Jew has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 19:11, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Category:Mass murderers

The Category:Mass murderers doesn't seem to have a clear inclusion criteria. Is it all individuals who have killed 3 or more people without a cooling off period? Do they need to have been convicted in court for murder? Is it mainly for mass shooting/mass stabbing, or do bombings count? Do they need to have committed the act themselves, or can they be included if they ordered or masterminded the killings? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 13:55, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

@Vice regent To my understanding it is the typical definition which is a person who kills several people at once (usually 3 or 4), regardless of method. If they are a BLP they have to be convicted to be in the category because BLPCRIME but many mass murderers die in the attempt so if they die in the attempt that can be included. I would not say that someone who orchestrated it is a mass murderer as they are not usually discussed in that type of context. But people put the orchestrators of genocides and such in there which has always bothered me since that seems to be a very different thing from say, amok killers or terrorists, and they aren't discussed as the same in secondary sources. So clearly people think otherwise on that count (despite the category description... saying not to add them) - but otherwise there is general agreement.

So basically, people who murder a bunch of people at once. PARAKANYAA (talk) 14:00, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

US law defines it as the "the killing of three or more people (that is not legally justified or excusable) in a single incident at a single location"; most criminology sources don't really bother with the "single location" bit anymore which is allegedly the distinction with "spree killer" but that term never had a clear distinction and was mostly used as a synonym for mass or serial killer. Crime categories are always going to be weird because everything is different by jurisdiction but the most commonly accepted definition for our purposes would be close to that. PARAKANYAA (talk) 14:09, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I personally think we should get rid of the category as it is prone to problems. But if we keep it then having a criminal conviction is important and I don't think we should make an exception for if a subject is dead. For example, should Paul Tibbets be considered a mass murderer for being the pilot that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 17:44, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

@Vice regent No because the definition excludes incidents that are "legally justifiable". Would you delete the serial killer category because you consider a soldier who kills other soldiers a serial killer? Obviously not. I would strongly oppose any attempt to get rid of it, unless we want to get rid of every category about crime, as they are all equally problematic, which I don't think would see broad support. There is no policy based reason that we cannot describe a dead person considered to be a mass murderer as a mass murderer, as BLPCRIME is not an issue and all reliable sources describe them as such - we describe Marc Lépine and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as mass murderers, since they died in the act. They are widely described in all RS as such terms. What else would you call them? This is the case for a sizable portion, perhaps even a majority, of the individuals who are discussed as mass murderers, since many are murder-suicide. Yes, definitions are finnicky, that's the problem with crime, because we have different jurisdictions. But I reject the idea that this is any more of a problem than the rest, the term has a commonly accepted definition with some variance, like murder or serial killer. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:16, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA "legally justifiable" is very dubious. Are you proposing a criteria that this category only apply to persons, living or dead, who are described as "murderer" (or accused of either first degree or second degree murder) by all or almost all RS? Of course, we'd have to distinguish between "killer" and "murderer" in that case, because the don't mean the same.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 21:30, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

@Vice regent I don’t understand what you’re not getting. No it’s not dubious, it’s quite clear - or would you call soldiers serial killers? If it is performed in a context for a state or during a war that is typically legal killing with the exception of some war crimes, it is not considered the same. And I wouldn’t put the bar that high. Generally with dead people if most of the sources call it murder then yes it is appropriate. The degrees are useless here because they vary so much by jurisdiction. “Mass killer” is a sometimes used synonym which dodges the murder problem, but is complicated by the fact that a mass killing is also a different kind of act and the COMMONNAME for this crime is mass murder. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA sometimes an action is legal within one jurisdiction but not under another. Examples include Halabja massacre, Assassination of Qasem Soleimani, Lockerbie bombing etc. "with the exception of some war crimes" is also dubious as what is considered a war crime by one country is not regarded so by another.

Anyway, can we agree that this category should only be applied on people who called "murderer"* by an overwhelming majority of sources, and there are few/no sources that would dispute this characterization in anyway?

*At least in English, we should only consider the word "murderer" and not "killer", as not all killings imply murder.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 21:45, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

@Vice regent The inconsistency of legal terms is a problem that all crime categories have, which I am unsure of how to fix. Legal aspects do not mix well with our categorization system.

I would largely agree with you but I don’t think I would go with “overwhelming majority” due to the variance of terminology used, especially since it has evolved over time, at least for dead people. Simply most. If the person dies in the act then go with that, and if they survive then go by conviction. Is what I would say. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:55, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2009 Malmö anti-Israel riots#Requested move 5 January 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2009 Malmö anti-Israel riots#Requested move 5 January 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. CNC (talk) 21:00, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2023 Brazilian Congress attack#Requested move 24 January 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2023 Brazilian Congress attack#Requested move 24 January 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 01:51, 26 January 2025 (UTC)