Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Murder of Rachel Moran

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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 delete. This is a standard murder, we have a lot of them. Nothing special about this one, even if it occurred in England, where crimes like this are lower in numbers. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 20:55, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Murder of Rachel Moran

Murder of Rachel Moran (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

A murder case. Sad. The murderer is one of four hundred untariffed prisoners, so even that is nothing unusual. Guy (Help!) 20:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Delete - nothing in article suggests particular notability of individual or crime. Barnabypage 20:55, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Very sad, but it is a news story. There was nothing notable about the victim, except that she was murdered. And the case itself was not a particularly notable one. ElinorD (talk) 22:18, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak delete Per WP:NOT"Memorials. Wikipedia is not the place to honor departed friends and relatives. Subjects of encyclopedia articles must be notable besides being fondly remembered." Also, there is a new provision there that says "News reports. Wikipedia properly considers the long-term historical notability of persons and events, keeping in mind the harm our work might cause. The fact that someone or something has been in the news for a brief period of time does not automatically justify an encyclopedia article. While Wikipedia strives to be comprehensive, the policies on biographies of living persons and neutral point of view should lead us to appropriately contextualize events. The briefer the appearance of a subject in the news the less likely it is to create an acceptably comprehensive encyclopedic biography. Even when news events themselves merit an encyclopedia article of their own, additional biographies of person(s) involved may not be necessary as they could largely duplicate relevant information. Timely news articles, however, are welcome on our sister project Wikinews." This should apply as well to nonliving crime victims, as expressed in the essay WP:NOTNEWS. Arguing for "keep" is the fact that a book about the murder (written by her mother) has achieved sales since its publication this past March to gain a rank of about 200,000th in sales (out of 4,000,000 books for sale) on Amazon, and the fact that it was written up in sufficient reliable and independent sources to satisfy WP:N. I think the balance is in favor of deletion. Edison 22:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep If it appeared in two major news sources over a period of time--and it did -- one dates from the arrest, one the conviction--there is no possible basis for removing it. This is not a BLP with respect to her. It is with respect to he murderer, but he was convicted, which settles the issue. As long as we have the rule that 2RS=N, then that's the rule. Frankly, I don't personally like the rule--it seems to ignore common sense altogether in both directions. But I'm getting to see that simply following it would solve a lot of problems. The outcome would not always make sense, but outcomes based upon feelings of those at AfD on a particular day don't necessarily make much sense either. Either there is consensus on the rule or there is not. I think, all in all, there is still consensus--there certainly hasn't been consensus about any of the attempts to change it. I'm not saying there should be, but there is. There were some questions on my afd whether I would decide against consensus, and I said I would not. DGG 00:40, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete - most murders will have some press coverage; that does not mean they are in any way automatically notable. Coverage in reliable sources is a necessary, but not sufficient, for notability. This murder seems entirely mundane. --01:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment most murders only get coverage in local papers. This one attracted national attention. That seems enough for me. JulesH 12:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. newsworthy, but not notable. To answer DGG, 2RS=N is a threshhold, not a rule. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete against the guideline because the guideline is unworkable as currently formulated; she meets the threshold, but so does nearly every other ordinary murder victim and murderer (if caught); you'll likely heavy coverage of the crime when it happens (more sensational in England with fewer murders than in LA, but you'll get it here too) and again when the culprit is caught (or a year on when the police do a "help us" segment in the papers/tv, etc.). WP doesn't = WikiPoliceblotter. Carlossuarez46 05:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


Keep The article desereves to bekept as It made national news and not all murders make thae national news so it was a notable event. The nature of the murder make the event notabele and the article is in the process of being expanded. I say allow the article to be expanded and the re-evalutate at a later date after expansion and the clouser of the AfD to allow for the expansion to take place.

  • Comment I have undone the strike through, and changed the second "keep" to "comment", which seems a more appropriate change. There is no evidence that this user has changed their mind about the content of their first post. JulesH 08:16, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I've reverted you, you should not change other people's posts other than to strike them through. Should the editor in question wish her first comments to stand rather than her second, she is welcome to strike through the other instead. One Night In Hackney303 09:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I don't feel striking through another user's original commentary when they clearly meant to merely add additional comments is at all appropriate. AFD is not a vote, so I don't see what difference it makes that this user apparently didn't vote twice. JulesH 17:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment AfD is not a vote, but !voting twice is not acceptable behaviour and neither is repeatedly removing valid strikethroughs. Kindly stop. One Night In Hackney303 08:43, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I have undone the strike through, and instead added a note to the second comment, similarly to how one might tag a single-purpose account. Hopefully this will satisfy both our concerns. JulesH 17:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment No, it is not. I have already stated above, it is up to the other editor to clarify their comments, not for you to do so on their behalf. One Night In Hackney303 08:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I've yet to find anything on Wiki that states that it's acceptable to strikethrough another editor's comments. As this is not a vote but rather an effort to build consensus the "keep" should be immaterial; the reasoning behind the "keep" is what is relevant, right? I've removed the strikethrough based on my understanding of the AfD process. If you can point me in the right direction to better understand your perspective that would be appreciated. Drew30319 20:46, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I suggest you raise any such issues on an editor's talk page in future, before unilaterally undoing their actions. One Night In Hackney303 20:51, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Meets WP:N. Isn't a memorial. Isn't a biography, so the content quoted above from WP:NOT doesn't apply. I see no reason not to keep this article about a verifiable event. JulesH 12:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Keep Does meet noptability, this is not a biography it is a murder article and there is no memorialising in the article. The article should also stay as wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia and the is no limit to the number of articles so this article should stay as there are no real grounds for deletion.--Lucy-marie 18:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC) Note that this user has already contributed to this debate above.

  • Delete No assertion of anything that makes this murder notable. One Night In Hackney303 19:23, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Sufficiently notable per WP:N. Drew30319 19:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Virtually all murders, victims, and murderers are notable per WP:N and therefore the guideline is incomplete and shouldn't be followed blindly. Carlossuarez46 04:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment Then suggest another criterion to follow. I propose that a murder that receives coverage in national news sources is notable, whereas one that receives coverage only in local sources (which is true for the vast majority) is not. JulesH 11:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
        • Comment How about "The fact that someone or something has been in the news for a brief period of time does not automatically justify an encyclopedia article" as stated above.. Edison 13:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
          • Then what does? What objective standard should we be using, rather than coverage by reliable sources? JulesH 17:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment As stated by others we don't have other objective standards. The one objective standard that I'm aware of is the coverage of the subject of the article. Based on that alone I feel that this is a Keep. I've read other's question "will they care in 100 years?" That's a slippery slope and my guess is that most pop culture could fall into that category. Drew30319 01:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Murder of a pretty young student? Of course it is in the newspapers. Not encyclopedic. We need to use judgement and stop counting sources - letting routers do out thinking for us is harmful.-Docg 08:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep even at the risk that the kilobytes consumed by a neutral, verifiable article here will bankrupt the foundation with the few fractions of a penny it costs to retain this article. Meets inclusion standards and we can generate an acceptable article here. It's not our job to inject our own biases and try to correct supposed biases in the press. At least they have journalism degrees. --W.marsh 19:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


*Closer - please not socks and duplicate !votes.--Docg 08:43, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment It is my understanding that suspected "sock puppets" are to be entered here: [Suspected sock puppets]. This discussion does not appear to be the appropriate venue. Drew30319 20:43, 8 June 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.