Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Abbeville Horror

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep and rename. A Train ^{take the} 20:44, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Abbeville Horror

The Abbeville Horror (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Lot of problems here. The name itself is POV. The article is almost completely unsourced, making it almost all OR, and since Steven Bixby and his father are still alive, it's a raging BLP vio. We've got a solid accusation of POV made by an anon user on the article's talk page. The individuals involved may merit articles (Steven Bixby in particular, see [1]), but I think this page should probably go. | Mr. Darcy talk 04:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• This page needs immediate, massive NPOV editing to survive deletion. Alba 05:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
• Provisional delete. 'Twas ever my understanding that crime and criminals form a partial exception to notability guidelines, one that is moreover hard to capture in a formula. Though local crimes are often subject to non-trivial coverage by independent, citable sources, reliable in the context of daily journalism, most of them are of purely local interest and fade quickly when the next one occurs. In order to merit encyclopedia coverage, there needs to be some measure of long-lasting or national interest. I am not sure that this incident qualifies. If kept, it certainly wants a more descriptive and neutral title and heavy editing to remove journalese and editorializing. Not sure that this should be broken up or moved into articles about the alleged perpetrators if this is a single incident. - Smerdis of Tlön 15:20, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
• Not willing to make a judgment call on the notability of crimes but the POV and BLP issues are incredibly serious. I would almost recommending stubbing until this AfD is decided. And, of course, if it is kept it needs to be retitled. Natalie 21:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection to this, but thought that there might be an objection to me stubbing an article and THEN nominating it for deletion. If someone else wants to pare it down, please be my guest. | Mr. Darcy talk 21:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I feel like there is precedent for stubbing an article for BLP problems even if it's in the middle of an AfD. I remember this happening, but can't remember the names of the articles themselves, so I couldn't point to specific discussions. Natalie 05:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep but needs to be renamed Bixby standoff or Abbeville standoff for POV and neologism reasons. Obviously, needs major copyedit and cleanup, but there are quite a few very notable sources and refs. - WeniWidiWiki 23:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep since it clearly has multiple coverage in reliable sources independent of the subjects. For a group of U.S. citizens to gun down multiple law enforcement personnel in defense of their libertarian beliefs is highly unusual and seems encyclopedic as well as newsworthy. This is no common crime of passion or in the course of a robbery. Renaming the article seems appropriate because it sounds like a Steven King novel. The article is too "chatty" in tone. Statements should be sourced to solid sources per WP:BLP. Edison 06:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I should probably clarify my position a bit. I'm not arguing that this incident shouldn't be covered in Wikipedia. I'm arguing that this article has so many problems (BLP foremost among them) that it should be deleted, with a new article or articles created to cover the subject under more appropriate article titles. | Mr. Darcy talk 15:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep but Rename - Abbeville Horror - where does this name come from? Abbeville Standoff is a more NPOV name. The incident is arguably notable enough for inclusion. If there are POV and BLP problems, then fix them. --Richard 16:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Don't know if it is appropriate, but I vote keep, subject to some work, hopefully by myself and others. There has been much more information come to light in the media regarding the entire Bixby family, and their side of the story, and basic facts of the case are now readily available from neutral sites around the Web (not just SPLC or Patriot sites). This should help clear up the NPOV problems. 95% of the BLP issues seem to be gone as of Sunday evening, when Steven Bixby was found guilty on all 17 counts (murder, kidnapping, conspiracy, &c.) I believe that verdict actually qualifies him as a murderer (&c). As I write this, the jury is hearing testimony in Abbeville in the penalty phase of the trial: the only two options under SC law are life without parole or death - judging from the pace of the whole trial thus far, we might know the penalty by this evening. Rita and Arthur, the parents, have yet to be tried (and there is no trial date for either of them, as far as I know). Arthur is reported to have increasingly severe Alzheimer's, and many believe he will die in jail without a trial. If we can gather enough info on Steven's life, it alone probably merits an article (especially considering the length of, say, the John Mark Karr article!)

• I suggest that we work on fixing up the article (maybe this indeed will involve dumping this one and starting anew) and moving it to something like "2003 Bixby standoff" or "2003 Abbeville standoff", &c. (This appears to be in line with Wikipedia naming conventions for similar events, cf. 2007 Boston Mooninite Scare for a recent example.) WYFF, the local NBC affiliate, has been referring to the event as the "Abbeville standoff". I agree "Abbeville Horror" sounds a little edgy and needlessly dramatic, but at the time I first wrote the article, I was just learning about the event myself and found that most places around the Web had given it the "Horror" nickname.

So, let's rename the article to Abbeville standoff and then have Abbeville Horror redirect to it. --Richard 00:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• At the very least, even if we kill this article completely, I would say that a mention of this event in the Abbeville article seems appropriate.

• Everyone chime in, and let me know your ideas/suggestions. BobbyLee 18:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• keep because of the political dimensions. This was not a routine crime story. Someone will have to rewrite it & rename it. What do the news stories call it? DGG 01:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • FWIW, Steven Bixby was sentenced to death this afternoon. It only took the jury an hour to decide on the penalty. In the next few days, I will work on the article, now that (one of) the Bixby trials are over. BobbyLee 02:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• This article needs to be completely reworked. The main title and huge chunks of the text were stolen verbatim from an article about the "Abbeville Standoff" in one of the sources. It qualifies as plaigarism. I authored the neutrality dispute on the talk page. There are major, major problems with this article. Someone needs to rewrite it. 70.157.144.186 01:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

• Which source? If it's a copyvio, then that's a whole different procedure, and the offending text will be removed or the article will be deleted. | Mr. Darcy talk 02:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

• New name for this article: How about 2003 Abbeville Right-of-Way Standoff? Or perhaps 2003 Abbeville (S.C.) Right-of-Way Standoff, as there are many Abbevilles in the South, and one in France. What do you think? 128.192.134.161 17:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.