Talk:The Whitechapel Murders (1888-91)

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the The Whitechapel Murders (1888-91) article.
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This article uses British English dialect and spelling.
According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
Note: The official spelling of the formal name is correct with the -ize ending, which had been discussed in the past.

Contents

[edit] consistent time format

I noticed that the timeline used "am" "a.m." and "in the morning" willy-nilly. I changed all to "a.m." to reflect a more consistent format throughout. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Revmagpie (talk • contribs) 04:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Mr Magpie, just so you know, it is standard wikipedia practice to add new sections and comments to the bottom of this page rather than the top. Colin4C (talk) 10:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Colin! I will do that in future.Revmagpie (talk) 02:19, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] possible improvements

The article's sources need to be expanded and diversified a bit more.

The timeline is repetitive and the reader becomes bored because they read it all before in the sections on the murders..the verbage is much the same. Consider reducing this to something more concise. Lots of tangential facts could be omitted.

Berean Hunter (talk) 02:49, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Walter Dew

What is it with the Walter Dew fetish?

Dew believed that Smith was attacked by Jack the Ripper, and Jack the Ripper alone. He believed this for no other reason than he couldn't conceive that there was more than one person in London capable of the brutality of both Smith's murder and the later Ripper crimes. There has been no evidence then or since that supports his contention, and not a single police official or researcher agrees with Dew. Smith herself claimed to have been attacked by a group of three men, and Dew's memoirs make it clear that he was not aware of Smith's testimony.

So why is this article being constistently and repeatedly edited to make it appear as if Dew is the sole, unimpeachable authority on the Smith murder? Revmagpie (talk) 16:10, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I am reporting what Dew thought, not justifying him. He was the guy who caught Crippen and acclaimed throughout the world as a master detective. He was not an imbecile. Colin4C (talk) 18:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but you aren't just reporting what Dew thought--you are systematically deleting anything that suggests that: a)Dew could have been mistaken, including the official inquest record of what the victim herself said about her attack, or b) that his view is not widely shared (something that Dew himself acknowledged in his memoirs). This is hardly a neutral point of view. No-one's claiming that Dew was an imbecile--the fact that you interpret as such anything that shows him as a less than authoratative source shows a very clear bias.Revmagpie (talk) 18:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Where is your source that says that Dew thought that there was only one attacker? If you give me a reference I can check it. I also mention that his view was not widely shared, viz: "Walter Dew thought that Smith was the first victim of Jack the Ripper though most of his colleagues disagreed" Colin4C (talk) 18:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Walter Dew's memoirs describe Smith's attack solely in terms of a single attacker. He not only doesn't describe a group of attackers, but dismisses his colleagues' belief that this was the case ("It is true that the first assumption of the police was that the woman had been attacked by one of the Whitechapel blackmailing gangs, and there was some support for this theory in the fact that no money was found in the victim s purse. But it is more than likely that Emma Smith was as penniless when she left her lodgings that night as when her body was found. An empty purse was far from being a novel experience to women of her type"). Quotes such as "The silence, the suddenness, the complete elimination of clues, the baffling disappearance all go to support the view which I have always held that Emma Smith was the first to meet her death at the hands of Jack the Ripper." and "I have another theory. It is that the Ripper having, like a tiger, tasted blood, remained unsatisfied until his dread knife had cut short the lives of one after another of his victims." do not describe multiple attackers.Revmagpie (talk) 19:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to read that for myself. Are you quoting the memoirs from Connell's recent book on Dew or the actual memoirs themselves? (These are quite expensive I hear...). Just to add that we only have Smith's testimony to the gang attack so strictly speaking that is not proof positive. I still find it hard to imagine that Dew, the foremost detective of his day, could make such an elementary error. Colin4C (talk) 19:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm quoting from Dew's memoirs. I haven't read Connell's book (yet) though I've heard good things about it. Actually Dew makes several errors of fact in the Smith case, including:
  • That Smith did not return to her lodging house the night she was murdered.
  • That Smith was found unconsciousness at the spot where she was attacked.
  • That Smith never regained consciousness.
  • That "no one seemed able to give a description of any man with whom the victim might have been seen."
None of which should be taken as a reflection of his abilities as a detective (which are justifiably respected) but more as a reflection of his abilities as a writer (and the standards of biographical writing of the time).
Smith told both the deputy of her lodging house and the doctor who treated her that she had been attacked by three men who had beaten her and stolen her money before committed the outrage that caused her death. Since she is the only known eye-witness to the attack, her testimony must count for something--indeed it would be admissable in a court of law. Revmagpie (talk) 20:01, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Forgive my cruddy formatting--I'm still relatively new at this.Revmagpie (talk) 20:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
After giving this a lot of thought I now think it is probably not necessary to the theme of this article and the particular format of the Investigation section to mention Dew's later theory that Smith might be a Ripper victim. That info would more properly go into the Jack the Ripper article. So we might as well delete it methinks... Colin4C (talk) 18:48, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding the claim that this is a content fork

This article may be on the same topic as Jack the Ripper, but it is a different take. Saying it violates WP:CFORK without explaining how isn't enough. And besides, the content fork policy even says that articles on "distinct but related" topics are not forks. This is distinct enough to remain its own article. --clpo13(talk) 21:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the Whitechapel Murders were a clearly documented series of eleven killings in the same area of London (Whitechapel) between 1888-91. They have their own importance in history of East End and London crime and society distinct from febrile and fantastic speculation concerning the identity of the somewhat mythical Jack the Ripper. The identity and kill score of the latter is a somewhat specialist interest. The social history of the East End, prostitution and the police are more worthwhile topics. Historians of London like Jerry White in his 'London in the 19th Century' treat all these killings as a part of London social history without going down the usual Ripperological sidetrack with its usual futile speculations about who is or is not a 'canonical' victim of JTR - as though that was some great privilege for the poor victims (hence the usual heartless Ripperological dismissal of the victim Smith). There are many articles connected in some way or another to JTR on the wikipedia: not every topic which intersects with him has to be in the same article. And if there is a dominant article, this one here should be it - as the JTR killings are a probable subset of the whole Whitechapel murders. IMHO this is the main article - not the JTR one. Colin4C (talk) 12:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
While this article is related to the JtR murders, and a good JtR article should mention that those murders took place within the context of a longer probably unrelated series. I do think that the murders that took place between 1888 and 1891 in Whitechapel are a different subject from the five murders that took place during 1888. They are best dealt with separately here and linked to the JtR article - rather than restructuring that article to deal with JtR within the series. The title of that article indicates it is more about the murderer, than the murders - and it is probably best not to inflate that article with murders that everyone appears to agree are not a part of the JtR series. The idea is to produce coherent and structured articles that cover the topics. So, yes expand this article, but keep the specific examination of JtR in that article. Kbthompson (talk) 15:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with the points made above - the murders of 1888 to 1891 include the Ripper killings (the 'canonical five'), but is also separate as it covers the other six murders not generally accepted as 'Ripper' murders. If you took out the canonical five you'd still have an article here. Jack1956 (talk) 22:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
The Jack the Ripper article should, ideally, be about the murderer and the suspects, not the murders/victims. --clpo13(talk) 22:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Or at least, the JTR article should cover the murders definitively attributed to the person known as Jack the Ripper. --clpo13(talk) 06:31, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
With regard to Jack's point the whole investigation 1888-91 was a unity from the police perspective - which is what this article focuses on. Indeed the last murder (of Coles) caused a veritable frenzy amongst the police who had been investigating the previous murders, with all the heavy guns of the Met instantly leaping into action and assuming (probably wrongly) that the suspect Sadler was JTR himself. Also this article looks at the whole series of murders in a neutral fashion without getting tied up in Ripperlogical conundrums about which murders are 'canonical' or not. Hopefuly readers of this article will have enough evidence to make their own minds up about which murders they would attribute to JTR and which to other murderers. Maybe there were two serial killers on the rampage in Whitechapel at the time? Or maybe we have a copycat murderer, inspired by JTR? Listing all the murders together will help us make sense of all this. And just to add that there is a minority opinion that one of the prime 'canonicals' Mary Kelly was not a Ripper killing. We should keep our options open. As for Jack (the Ripper) I have given him a nice shiny hyper-link in the intro. Anybody who wants to know more about him (or her) has only to click it...Colin4C (talk) 07:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Can I just note that the general consensus established here was that this article was not a content fork, and that there is material that should be here that is not in, nor appropriate for the JtR article. There is a clear need to discuss any redirection of the content of this page to JtR, and it should not be done without that discussion taking place. Can I also emphasise that any discussion, edit summaries, etc. must be focused on content and not on other editors behaviour - although a nice cup of tea would do everybody the world of good. Thank you. Kbthompson (talk) 11:46, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

"This article may be on the same topic as Jack the Ripper, but it is a different take." Different take on the same topic is the DEFINITION of a content fork. I shouldn't have to explain something that even the supporters admits fit the description of a content fork. People can just claim consensus that black is white, but that simply doesn't make it so. Wikipedia does not have articles with different takes on the same topic. The Whitechapel murders are already covered (and quite extensively) on the Jack the Ripper article. I don't know if it's just that people don't bother to go find out what a fork means that makes them think this isn't one, or if this is just groupthink naysaying, but this is extremely clear cut issue. DreamGuy (talk) 19:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not clear cut. WP:CFORK says that "distinct but related" topics are not content forks. I think this fits that definition. If you disagree, that's fine, but illustrate how before unilaterally imposing your opinion on the page itself. --clpo13(talk) 19:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Jack the Ripper and The Whitechapel Murders are distinct. The eleven Whitechapel Murders are a matter of true crime public record whereas 'Jack the Ripper' is a semi-mythical individual whose chief claim to fame is that his name on a book cover increases sales of said book. Colin4C (talk) 20:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Victims and Murders

Thinking I might convert the 'Murders' section title to 'Victims' - retaining biographical details and putting the rest of the info about the murders into the Investigation section, where a lot of it is already duplicated. Good idea? Colin4C (talk) 21:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rose Mylett

Anybody know where she lived? Colin4C (talk) 13:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing you've already seen this ?[1] Jack1956 (talk) 20:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

According to that, she lived near 'drink' - propensity, yes, fondness, yes, propinquity, no! Kbthompson (talk) 20:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that Jack. Still a bit mysterious though. Seems that she lived in the most sleazy area of Spitalfields but had a secret (equally sleazy) life under a different name in Poplar. Very strange... Colin4C (talk) 10:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Be Bold?

I'm tempted to put the victims names in bold, in their first occurence in the Investigation Timeline, to highlight each murder for the benefit of the idle reader of the wikipedia. Good idea? Colin4C (talk) 11:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pretty straight forward

Claiming that you want discussion before the article is redirected is all fine and good, except the policy is clear that we don't allow content forks. I would suggest that anyone who wants a separate article about the Whitechapel Murders different from Jack the Ripper needs to go discuss the content fork rules and get them changed before they try to have an article here.

If the idea is that the Whitechapel murders are a completely separate topic from the Ripper murders instead of just repeating what's all over there already, please provide support from sources written by actual experts on the topic. Declaring them separate is basically a very radical POV being pushed onto Wikipedia that flies in the face of every source on the topic. Just look at the main Ripper page and it's all covered there already. There is simply no justification whatsoever for a separate article. It was created by someone who was willfully ignoring consensus on the main article and made his own article to say what he wanted to say. The fact that now we have a couple of people who have decided to team up to gang revert to keep this article here to obstinately "win" some conflict is a false consensus based upon mob rule and a total ignoring of several policies. If you want the policies changed, go try to get them changed before simply use gang tactics to keep someone's vanity article alive. DreamGuy (talk) 19:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The only person ignoring concensus is you. Colin4C (talk) 20:24, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
So "nana nana booboo" is essentially your only response? Come on, at least make an attempt to go see what the policy says. An uninformed mob action by people with a clear history of making edits solely to obstruct another editor is just meat puppetry and not actual consensus. If you justify undoing my edits with "discuss first" and refuse to discuss anything then there's no justification at all. DreamGuy (talk) 16:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Page protection

The page has been protected for one day in order to stimulate the discussion that should take place about this matter. Please take advantage of this 'time-out' to achieve a consensus for the future of this page. Thank you. Kbthompson (talk) 22:49, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Unprotected, please discuss any major changes, keep posts civil and on the topic. Thank you. Kbthompson (talk) 10:51, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge or completely rework

There just is no saving this article as it stands from being nothing but a duplicate of great big sections of the Jack the Ripper article. Sections here needing sources already have sources on the main article, we already have a section there detailing victims, and so forth. Again, this article was specifically created by a person who was upset that the way he wanted to the handle the topic did not gain consensus on the main Ripper article, and he even said that if he didn't get his way he'd make a competing article, which he did. There's simply no getting around the fact that this was created completely to circumvent normal Wikipedia policy.

I've been trying to think of a any possible way this article could remain in some fashion without being a major and obvious violation of WP:CFORK and other Wikipedia policies, and the only way I see it happening is if it ends up fulfilling an entirely different purpose other than just being a duplicate topic. Here's how I see it:

!) The Whitechapel murder file is already covered elsewhere and in context.

2) The victim section is just a complete echoing of all the same thing. That is simply unsalvageable except for any specific bits that might be incorporated into Jack the Ripper or any of the articles about specific victims.

3) The timeline section, however, does serve a different purpose. The main Ripper article has no timeline and goes from subject to subject. With the background info and the victim section removed (and clear links to Jack the Ripper as the main article at the top) the timeline could provide information with a detail and format that the main article does not have.

So, as a compromise solution (though just redirecting this to the main article is I think the preferred option, considering what a blatant abuse of policy this article is), we could remove the top sections and move the page to Timeline of the Jack the Ripper murders (or if there's some standard naming convention for timeline articles go with that).

Thoughts? DreamGuy (talk) 15:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The Whitechapel Murders and 'Jack the Ripper' are two separate subjects. The eleven Whitechapel Murders are documented true crime fact. 'Jack the Ripper' is a mostly legendary figure who has been held responsible for a small proportion only (5) of the Whitechapel Murders. I see the Whitechapel article as logically primary and Jack the Ripper as secondary. Conflating them both only causes confusion. Colin4C (talk) 16:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Colin. There's intersection between the two subjects but they are not identical. There's material from the Whitechapel murder file that can appear here that would not be appropriate in the JtR article, but there should be an attempt to present the information here only in summary form in the JtR article. Referencing should, of course, be completed here. Kbthompson (talk) 18:16, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I believe the Whitechapel Murder article should stay. If JTR was the first media-made serial killer legend, then the Whitechapel Murders could be considered the first serial copycat murders giving them notability in their own right (unless you believe they were all JTR's handiwork). A second reason would be to establish coverage of the subject. Other contributors coming along later will attempt to insert the other murders innocently into the JTR article because they might think it was an error of omission if you don't cover it somewhere...⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 18:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Observation: we are having this discussion on the article talk page but the merge discussion tag on the article directs to JTR talk page..do we change the tag or carry the discussion there? ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 23:33, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I didn't spot that addition to the article. The full discussion should take place there - and yes, procedurally it is the correct way to undertake the redirect issue - but a bit boring that we again have to make exactly the same points there. Kbthompson (talk) 23:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Except, that page should carry a 'merge from' tag and the reason for the proposed merge should have initiated that discussion there. It should perhaps be noted that it would be equally valid to propose a mergefrom there, to here. I personally would not support such a move, but it is generally acknowledged that the Ripper murders are part of the Whitechapel Murders casefile rather than the other way round. Personally, I think JtR is sufficiently important to have his own article and if the scope of the articles is correctly defined there would be little repetition.
I would suggest that the idea of redirecting this article has already been done to death here, and further examination of the issue is cruelty to morbid equines; but that is a purely personal opinion and should not be accorded the status of deus ex cathedra. Kbthompson (talk) 23:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I changed the mergeto template to reflect the true location of the discussion. As to the article itself, I've already made my views clear on this previously on the talk page, so I won't reiterate them. --clpo13(talk) 01:48, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Please do state your views. Keeping editors active in the changing consensus process will benefit the article and the editing environment. Consider the flow chart on Arcayne's User page. Cheers, ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 02:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
If you insist. :) I actually didn't have the time earlier, hence my lack of explanation. At any rate, I agree with most of the others in that the Whitechapel murders are enough of a distinct topic to warrant a separate article. As Kbthompson said, the Ripper murders are a subset of the Whitechapel murders, but Jack has his own article because the rather mythological figure of Jack the Ripper is notable in its own right.
If I had my way, I would prefer that the Jack the Ripper article be mainly about what little evidence there is of the man with a large focus on the mythos surrounding him. The murders commonly attributed to him could be included as well. The other Whitechapel murders not attributed to Jack should not be there at all. They, along with the murders attributed to Jack, should be on this page, which should be a more general look into the murders themselves. In short, the JtR article should focus on the person, while this article should focus on the murders. As precedent, I cite the Jack the Ripper suspects and the Jack the Ripper royal conspiracy theories articles, both of which have specific focuses.
My suggestion: remove the non-JtR murders from the Jack the Ripper article to avoid duplicate content. It belongs here more than it does there. Of course, there is probably more work to be done than just that, but I think that alone would do a great deal to relieve the alleged content fork problems. --clpo13(talk) 03:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I believe the Whitechapel Murders article is perfectly valid and independent from the JtR article, and therefore should stay. Each murder detailed here is notable in its own right. I think this debate is going around in circles and should be resolved now. This is a perfectly valid and important contribution to the study of crime in 1880s London. Jack1956 (talk) 22:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
What are your thoughts DG? Your input is appreciated. ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 01:10, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wilful

wilful (or US willful) adj 1 deliberate; intentional. 2 headstrong, obstinate or self-willed. wilfully adverb. wilfulness noun.

ETYMOLOGY: Anglo-Saxon. (Source: Chambers Reference Online)

Let's keep the English spelling. Thanks.
Also, let's please, please, not return to edit wars. Kbthompson (talk) 18:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, so we are going to use Brit English spelling for this article? I just want to know, so that way, when I alter the article to reflect that, no one will get all up in arms. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 20:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I apologize, I just found where I'm the one responsible for that. I wasn't aware of the distinction..I've added it to my Britspeak vocabulary now.8^D Shouldn't happen again. I wouldn't think that these related articles would be in anything but British English. Thank you for pointing that out. Cheers, ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 21:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

That'd be 'apologise' then .... 8^) 78.147.101.93 (talk) 21:18, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
That'll teach me, it logged me out ... Kbthompson (talk) 21:19, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I will be wearing my bowler hat whilst drinking tea and editing the article under my bumbershoot. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 21:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)