User talk:Mafia Expert

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Welcome!

Hello, Mafia Expert, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  - CrazyRussian talk/email 15:08, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi there;

Thanks for your message about pentitos and pentitis.

I think the various articles on the Sicilian Mafia have been coming along nicely in the last few months. When I turned up at Wikipedia over two-years ago I think the only Sicilian Mafia article was on Salvatore Riina and it involved two sentences. It can be difficult to get info on the Sicilian Mafia though, most true crime books and websites concentrate on the USA Mafia, and there's a lot of conflicting accounts of various things. Still, there's quite a good amount of stuff here. Robert Mercer 19:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Lo Piccolo article 2 One Time 3 Trial of the 114 4 Semiprotection 5 Bonanno crime family 6 Category:Mafiosi 7 Article in need of cleanup - please assist if you can

[edit] Lo Piccolo article

Hi. I am interested in the Sicilian Mafia and was reading the Lo Piccolo article. (I did some minor style edits but nothing substantive since I am not an expert.) The last paragraph explaining why Lo Piccolo's stature in the Palermo region is disputed. It is very confusing--at least to me--and the references do not make it any clearer. Would you be able to clarify what the issues are? Thank you for a great article!

--Fortheloveofhampsters 02:00, 12 August 2006 (UTC

Hi, thanks for the editing, it improved the article. I am not a native English speaker, so any improvements in style and grammar are very wellcome. However, you need to be careful with editing. The part on Cinà being the personal physician was altered in such a way that it changed the content. I will have a look at the paragraph on Lo Piccolo’s stature. I see what you mean and will try to fix it. Mafia Expert 12:16, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I understand the last paragraph better now. I still don't understand how the authorities avoided a war. Was it because Rotolo was jailed? --Fortheloveofhampsters 01:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One Time

That was only one time. :-P And yeah, I'm really sorry about that, it was sort of an impulse thing that I knew I probably shouldn't have done.

[edit] Trial of the 114

Hi there,

Me again. Good work on the Di Cristina article.

I think - mostly thanks to us two - we have a pretty thorough collection of articles on the Sicilian Mafia here at Wikipedia. Probably the most thorough resource about Sicilian Mafiosi on the 'net in fact; putting Pino Greco or Luciano Leggio into Google brings up the respective Wikipedia articles as the first hit. I'm planning on doing an article for the Trial of the 114, although I may just do one for Sicilian Mafia Trials of the 1960s, which is a bit of a mouthful, but might be more appropriate; the Trial of the 114 was sandwiched between the earlier trial concerning the meeting between the American and Sicilian Mafiosi about the heroin trade, and the 1969 trial concerning the Leggio and Navarra war.

I think it would be best if I took the latter option and lumped all three trials together into one article, Sicilian Mafia Trials of the 1960s, as they were all linked together in that they resulted from the same crackdown. Let me know if you have any ideas or advice. Anyway, I intend on getting round to it this weekend.

Hopefully I'll also find time to expand the Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino articles too.

All the best;

Robert Mercer 22:56, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi again;

Thanks for your comments regarding 1960s Sicilian Mafia trials, I didn't realise that the Trial of the 114 was so complicated. I wasn't aware there was one in the 1970s too.

I think it would be best if we had an article titled Sicilian Mafia Trials that can briefly summarize all the main trials throughout the history of the Sicilian Mafia. It could start with the 1900 Emanuele Notarbartolo trial. Then perhaps Cesare Mori's crackdown in the 1920s (although I believe he did not try the Mafiosi, merely threw them in prison.) The first trial of the 1960s, regarding the Grand Hotel Des Palmes meeting will obviously be mentioned, as will both Trials of the 114 and the Corleonisi one (or Leggio + 63) and finally the Maxi Trial. Each trial can have a brief summary, one or two paragraphs, with a link to the main article (like For full article, see Leggio + 63 Trial.) Obviously we can turn off the redirect for the Trial of the 114 so it can have a seperate article. I will need your help for the Trial of the 114, especially the 1970s one; as don't speak Italian I only have the limited English-language sources like Excellent Cadavers and these are fairly brief about the Trial of the 114. I don't know whether it would be best to have both Trials of the 114 in the same article of for each to have a seperate article. It depends on how much information we can have for them.

I think we should have a seperate article titled Second Mafia War. A lot of information about this war is under Salvatore Riina, but I think it deserves a seperate article. I can just cut and paste a lot of information from Riina's article. Most recent Mafiosi, like Michele Greco and Stefano Bontade, had key roles in the Second Mafia War so it would be good if it could have its own article for these individual's articles to link to. As for a page about the Leggio/Riina/Provenzano faction titled Corleonesi, I think a lot of information regarding them would be included in the Second Mafia War article, perhaps in a section regarding the lead up to the war.

Likewise, there could be a seperate article for the First Mafia War using a lot of information already on the page for Michele Cavataio. The First Mafia War and Second Mafia War will obviously mention that they lead to the Trial of the 114 and Maxi Trial respectively.

So to summarize, there can be a seperate article for the main trials, with all of them listed and summarized under Sicilian Mafia Trials (1960s Sicilian Mafia trials can be simply redirected to this new page) and a seperate article for The First Mafia War and The Second Mafia War using (and expanding on) information from Salvatore Riina and Michele Cavataio respectively.

Let me know what you think. Robert Mercer 10:25, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I will try and get to work on some of these changes, and I certainly agree that the Sicilian Mafia Trials should include ones up to the present, certainly including Andreotti's. Perhaps the Pizza Connection case should be mentioned; it took place in the US but involved Sicilians. I was considering using the titles First Sicilian Mafia War and Second Sicilian Mafia War; I do not believe there have been any conflicts within the US Mafia that could be referred to "Mafia Wars", which would indicate the whole orgnization being involved, but I believe adding "Sicilian" into the titles would avoid any potential conflicts in the future. Plus it would clarify things from the outset; many people, in my experience, think of the Americans rather than Sicilians when they hear the term "Mafia".

Finally, good work on expanding the Cesare Terranova article; I think its right that the anti-Mafia prosecutors have as much information as the Mafiosi themselves. I'm still planning on expanding the Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino articles. It shouldn't be too hard as there is a lot of biographical information about both in Alexander Stille's Excellent Cadavers.

Lots of work to do, but it'll be worth it! Robert Mercer 11:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Semiprotection

Please understand that semiprotection is to be used very sparingly and as a last resort. You wanted the article to be permanently semiprotected; with very rare exceptions this is never done. Wikipedia is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Restricting anon edits goes against what wikipedia is about- many new users first encounter wikipedia as anonymous Ips, and eventually become valued contributors. These new users are the lifeblood of the project.

As is, the Mafia article receives very low intensity vandalism, and can be handled easily by our Vandalism Patrollers as well as regular contributors to the article. We consider it important that everyone who wants to contribute to Wikipedia can do so- and if it means that some vandalism pops up once a day for a few minutes, so be it. And remember that Anon Ips can make constructive edits too. [1]Borisblue 04:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

The question is very simple: whose side are you on, the people who want to make serious contributions or the ones who are there to mess up? - No, it's not that simple. There are anon users who have been here longer, and have contributed more to Wikipedia than you or I have. Take User:69.145.123.171 for example. And like I said, a lot of anons will potentially be established editors and dedicated contributors- one anon I know whom I warned for vandalism eventually became an administrator five months later. Those anons who have clearly malicious intentions are blocked- this is a far more effective measure of dealing with malicious vandalism than semiprotection. If one case of vandalism a day was enough to semiprotect an article, we would have to s-protect 25%-50% of our articles, which would fundamentally alter what wikipedia is about.

I understand your frustration- and a lot of other editors feel the same frustration. Don't feel compelled to correct vandalism if you feel that this is not what you want to do- Wikipedia is a volunteer project after all. You are clearly a very dedicated content contributor, and people like you are the lifeblood of wikipedia. But a lot of anons are, and will be dedicated contributors too, and we want them to have the freedom to contribute as well even if they don't feel like registering at first. Borisblue 03:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bonanno crime family

Hi - the Bonanno crime family article is in the process of being trashed by somebody. As the expert on the subject, is there any chance you could take a look at it to see if it is worth keeping the recent edits made (most of which are dubious in my opinion) or reverting to a previous version? Let me know what you think if you could, thanks. C i d | talk 27 October 2006, 16:17 (UTC)

Little Joe Shots, that's the fellow. I've left a couple of messages for him but no reply so far, so as you've done the same, I suggest we give him another few days to respond, then revert the edits. I did start trying to edit his latest version of the Bonanno piece myself but it's a complete mess, and as you say full of uncorroborated nonsense. I'll get back to you after the weekend if he's not responded. Thanks. C i d | talk 27 October 2006, 16:42 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Mafiosi

Mafia Expert,

I've brought up the issue of reorganizing organized crime related articles at WikiProject Organized crime if you'd care to comment on the subject. MadMax 08:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article in need of cleanup - please assist if you can