Talk:The Blekinge Street Gang

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[edit] Anybody with any knowledge of contemporary Danish history would never delete this article

The gang was the most important (and pretty much only) professional criminal political organization in Denmark during the second half of the 20th century.

To suggest a deletion of this article explains why I wonder about some editors on Wikipedia. --Law Lord (talk) 18:31, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

None of those sources appear in the article. The obligation is on the article's creator to make some effort to explain why they were notable, or even to document that they existed. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. --Law Lord (talk) 18:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Now that sources have been added to the article, I have removed my db tag. But I agree with Orange Mike - I don't see why a contributor should expect others to do his research or to share his knowledge of (e.g.) contemporary Danish history. JohnCD (talk) 18:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, Wikipedia would be a lot more successful, if people looked for sources and put them in an article instead of deleting it. --Law Lord (talk) 19:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming the article

I discovered that if you translated the title into English, as Blekinge Street Gang or Blekinge Gang, you got a lot more hits in English-language sources. I've left the old title as a redirect, and created another redir page for simple "Blekinge Gang." --Orange Mike | Talk 15:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The name of the street was "Blekingegade". Just like the name of the city of Helsingør is just that. Could you provide the policy that supports your name change please? --Law Lord (talk) 15:10, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Use_English_words and Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Use_common_names_of_persons_and_things. I repeat, I got more hits in English-language searches when using Blekinge Street Gang or Blekinge Gang than when using the Dansk version; just as you'll get more hits in English-language searches if you search for Copenhagen than if you use "København"! That's why the article in the English Wikipedia is under Copenhagen. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry Orangemike, but I couldn't quite replicate this result. A Google search "-wikipedia" got me 23 hits for "Blekingegade gang", 18 for "Blekinge Street gang" and 3 for "Blekinge gang". Fortunately the last name seems to have extremely few hits as it conveys the incorrect impression that these people came from the Swedish province of Blekinge rather than from a Danish street named after this region. All gang members except one were Danish citizens. The google search suggests to me that no commonly accepted name exists but that "Blekingegade gang" is a slightly more common variant. Anyway, the gang is quite notable, their notability in Denmark is probably a little lower than the level that Bonnie and Clyde have in the U.S. The gang was quite active in conducting armed robberies during the 1970s and 1980s, most notably robbing a major department store (Daells Varehus) and one of Denmark's largest post offices (Købmagergades Postkontor) in Copenhagen. In the latter case, the gang killed a policeman during his line of duty and this was Denmark's first such incident since World War II. Peter Øvig Knudsen's recently published book on the gang currently tops is very high on the Danish bestseller list[1][2] and the book recently won him Cavlingprisen, Denmark's most prestigious award for journalism. Former foreign minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen has demand a formal inquiry to determine why the police investigation failed to crack the case back then and to determine who knew what and when regarding the gang's shipments of money to Middle East terrorists and whether the intelligence agency deliberately failed to help the police in its investigation case.[3] All in all, I wouldn't worry about the notability of this gang :) Best. Valentinian T / C 13:04, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sources and notes

Please explain why you think 3 clear sources are not enough to support the information in the article. --Law Lord (talk) 15:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The name of the gang is a proper nouns

Please note that "The Blekinge Street Gang" is a proper noun. Therefore "The" must not be removed. --Law Lord (talk) 19:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure I agree. This is a proper noun that is correctly referred to with the definite article because there was only one such gang, but the definite article is used adjectively so the name of the gang should be capitalized as "the Blekinge Street Gang". This is similar to "the Netherlands", but unlike "The Who" and "The Crown" where excluding the article would change the meaning. As I read Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name), "the" should not be included in the article name in cases like this. Hemmingsen 21:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
"Blekinge Street Gang" is not a proper noun. Rather a term describing any gang from that street. I disagree with your reading of the conventions. --Law Lord (talk) 21:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Wouldn't "Blekinge Street gang" be the term that describes any gang from that street? Hemmingsen 22:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, I am just trying to make sure that the English translation actually complies with the gang's name in Denmark. Since the name is "Blekingegadebanden" not "Blekingegadebande", then The is an important part of the proper noun. --Law Lord (talk) 22:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
In Danish, the correct form clearly is the one ending in "-en", but if the common name in English differs from a direct translation, we should use the common English name. These English language pages: [4], [5], [6] all use "the Blekinge…" as opposed to "The Blekinge…", so "Blekinge Street Gang" still seems the best title to me. I do realise that I may need a lot of examples to properly document what is commonly used and what isn't, though. Do you consider "The Blekinge…" to be the most common variant, in addition to being the correct direct translation? Hemmingsen 07:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. I do consider "The Blekinge ..." to be at least as common as the other one. [7] [8] [9] Since in my view it is difficult to establish one being more common than the other, I think we should stick with the one, which is the correct translation, which I think we agree on is "The Blekinge ...". --Law Lord (talk) 16:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
And thanks for your reply :) Looking through your links, the first of your three links does use "The Blekinge…" but only about the book title, and book titles follow a different set of rules. The second has both forms, and the third has "the Blekinge…" for the gang and "The Blekinge…" for a book title, so they don't convince me. But you're right of course that a handful of links doesn't prove anything, and I am not sure I feel strongly enough about this to research it in depth, but I might want to give it a try at some point. We do agree on what the direct translation is. Hemmingsen 20:59, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Short note to explain that I did not violate copyright in my contribution

Because this article, as I wrote it, has many of the signs that editors typically look for when trying to spot copyright violations, let me just emphasize the origin of the bulk of this article (as of now): I wrote this text myself based on information in 3 published Danish language books (all properly cited). Writing up the text was a 20 hour marathon on my part, combining partial (not complete) extracts from the time line in the back of the second book with facts and details extracted from elsewhere in the 3 books and in other cited sources. Thus creating a brand new text for Wikipedia use. The one fact not found in the cited sources is the real name of "Anna", this was in the article before my first edit.

Bbfrombooks (talk) 20:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Your additions look great to me. Since you asked for a reassessment, I've got a couple of comments on the text.
  • The article is rather list heavy. While lists are probably the best way to present the timelines, the section on the principles they followed would probably read better if rewritten in prose.
  • There is very little information on their legacy, the debate on the investigation and why they weren't arrested earlier. And as I recall the "which gang member shot the policeman?"-thing did get a lot of media attention but isn't even mentioned here. An extra section on this type of material wouldn't hurt.
  • The lead section is rather short and doesn't really summarize the article.
  • I would recommend a higher density of inline citations to the references. Especially the statements that are somehow speculating (stuff like "this may be a cover story") and the mentions of crime for which they weren't convicted probably ought to have a citation each to the appropriate book and page numbers.
But once again, your additions look great.
I've removed the real name of "Anna". If neither Peter Øvig Knudsen nor Jørgen Moos publishes her real name I think it follows from Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Privacy of Names that neither should we. Hemmingsen 09:44, 25 May 2008 (UTC)