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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by BoldGnome (talk | contribs) at 03:59, 19 June 2024 (→Why BoldGnome's version of the intro is poorly written and how its prose can and should be improved: Reply). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Merging Gypsy-Rose Blanchard back into this article

Per the outcome of the AfD, closed as no consensus since it seemed like a merger was preferred (I had nominated it for deletion primarily because there was so little content to merge back into this article that wasn't already here). So I have appropriately tagged both articles. Daniel Case (talk) 23:09, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • I will Oppose this. Gypsy is notable enough to have a bio-article. BabbaQ (talk) 08:29, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, but what is there to say about her that does not duplicate content from this article? Sure, she's notable, but her notability is entirely overlapping with the event notoriety. There isn't much outside of that, and it isn't long enough to warrant a size/content split. Should not have her own page, IMO PARAKANYAA (talk) 11:42, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not generally opposed to perpetrators of high profile crimes having individual articles, but what aggravates me is that 99% of the time when people do it they basically write it backwards which makes both pages worse: the best way to write these kinds of articles is to get the main page as well-developed and comprehensive as possible (at least GA, IMO, or as close to FA as these kinds of articles can get) and at that stage open a discussion as to whether a split would benefit both articles, rather than creating an article that substantially duplicates an existing one. They want a separate article because they feel like it should, not because it adds anything. Another plus is it's less likely to get dramatically AfD'd. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:02, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    +1 I still do not see why we need a separate Trayvon Martin article even though it has survived two AfDs (in fairness, neither one was a keep). Daniel Case (talk) 02:25, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    At least that one's a size split. The main article is massive. There's not really a similar justification here: this article is only C class, is confusingly written in many places, and has a lot of improvements to be made to it. I will never understand why people want to make separate articles for the perpetrator without first making the main one good. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:40, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If the main article was massive, that to me suggested that maybe there was too much in it. Daniel Case (talk) 02:45, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair point, but trying to trim an article of a topic as politically contentious as that is often like pulling teeth, I'm afraid. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:46, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a possible compromise: Merge this article into Gypsy-Rose Blanchard. I understand that such a merge might not exactly fit standard practice, but given that that there is a single killing, killer and killed, this might be more likely to gain consensus. ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~ 12:19, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Usually we don't name an article about a single crime after the perpetrator (when known) ... i.e. Murder of Sherri Rasmussen, not Stephanie Lazarus. I think, in addition to the event being what's notable, it also has to do with not wanting to reward real-life misconduct. Serial killers, and killers already notable for something independent of the crime, are different. Daniel Case (talk) 02:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    But why? What benefit does that have to the presentation of the information here? PARAKANYAA (talk) 13:30, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I dont know how to do merging or how that works but I also do not see the point in there being 2 pages as it is just duplicate information. Hayleywatson971 (talk) 17:54, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, having read through both articles it is pretty obvious there is a distinction between the two articles. One focusing on Gypsy and the other solely on the crime and more on the mother and her life.BabbaQ (talk) 11:43, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which part of the Gypsy page is not covered here already? Hayleywatson971 (talk) 12:39, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, of course the content will be arranged differently, but there's nothing that would be undue to say on the crime page. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:25, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:SIZESPLIT. It would better to improve and crossreference the two articles rather than merge these. Abcmaxx (talk) 17:37, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Per the article statistics page, it's currently at 6,600 words, just only slightly above the size at which SIZESPLIT says length alone is not a justification for splitting. I don't find the article's size a valid reason to split it up. Daniel Case (talk) 19:36, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, but I'm taking into account that given the person in question is alive and active in the public sphere, it is likely to be expanded, especially given that the depth and quality of the article can be vastly improved as well. Abcmaxx (talk) 10:30, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    "Likely to be expanded" is another way of saying WP:CRYSTAL. If and when it's expanded, then we can consider that argument more seriously. Right now it doesn't hold water. Daniel Case (talk) 20:10, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I would rather the effort be put into expanding and improving articles rather than merging only to unmerge them again. The article is already split, this is a proposed merger rather than proposed split, therefore I see no good reason for an overhaul. And my argument is nothing like WP:CRYSTAL; the person is verifiably alive and active in the public sphere. Abcmaxx (talk) 15:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Merges are cheap. It's not like it would impose such a huge burden on us. And this argument doesn't engage the key question: is Gypsy-Rose notable yet for anything outside the context of killing her mother? I notice she's sort of faded from media view over the past couple of months since someone decided they just had to create a separate article. Daniel Case (talk) 17:30, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, a lot of sources are very focused on Gypsy's experience as a victim of Munchausen by proxy and not just on the murder. She has also become an activist of sorts for the disorder. 2804:D59:878F:900:950A:194A:3E9B:F021 (talk) 22:37, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    what sources and I respectfully disagree with you she has not become and activist of any sort as of yet. Hayleywatson971 (talk) 22:57, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Has become independently notable in the aftermath. DrewieStewie (talk) 19:00, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - while originally she definitely was only notable for the event of the murder, there is now new content beyond the original event that appears to raise her into some celebrity status, such as the new documentary that just released earlier this year that goes more into depth about her herself or this people magazine article from just today that seem to indicate that the public is going to continue discussing her life in the future, beyond the original event and Lifetime announcing another series that will discuss her continued life beyond the original event just last week. Basically her status is moving from the notability criteria of WP:CRIME into that of WP:ENT as she is starring in the TV shows and would satisfy the entertainer criteria for notability. Raladic (talk) 23:09, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Some interesting thing I just found - since the split, the pageviews for Gypsy-Rose Blanchard have been high, whereas the pageviews for this Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard article have gone down and is about 2-3x less of the other. There still seems to be a correlation between the two articles, but relatively speaking it does appear more people read the article about Gypsy rose in isolation and only a portion follow through to the Murder of her mother article. Raladic (talk) 03:53, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Probably because the article about Gypsy was created at the time she was released. Nevertheless, we don't make decisions about whether we split or merge articles based on pageviews. Daniel Case (talk) 05:06, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes that’s probably right. But also my original point I made a month ago appears to stand. Just typing Gypsy Rose Blanchard into search engine right now yields a fair amount of almost daily news stories (a fair amount of which is celebrity gossip magazines) of her now life, so it appears she has risen into notability just on the basis of WP:ENT now. Raladic (talk) 05:19, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Really bad article - any ways of fixing?

I've just come across this article now. For such a high-profile case and for such a long article, this is embarrassingly poor. Is there any way of gathering more people to work on this? I'm shocked that a page for a reasonably well-known murder could be of such low quality. Feels like it's off a WordPress crime blog. Toffeenix (talk) 08:44, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, as the editor who started it and did all the work on it for years, it was in pretty good shape until Gypsy was released a couple of months ago, attracting a whole bunch of newer editors to the article, quite a few of whom were determined that things like the explicit account of what Godejohn and Gypsy did the night of the murder belonged in the article. And I really didn't have the time to clear things up and argue with people here on the talk page anymore than I already have. It's one of those things where you tell yourself that at some point in the future when it's not really a thing anymore you'll clean it up. Daniel Case (talk) 18:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss how to change it

I agree with Daniel Case that this is supposed to be an article about the "Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard", and not about her daughter, whose notoriety was gained, after all, by being convicted of a role in her death, and who is now paroled. At this point, for instance, the Lede has gory details about the murder scene, but hardly covers when and where Godejoy and Gypsy were arrested, whether there was a trial, and what the disposition of their cases were. It was my understanding that in the case of murders, editors are encouraged to focus on the victim not the perpetrator. We should at least establish how the mother and daughter got to Missouri, how long they were there before the murder, and what was going on in relation to that event. I think the background on the pair is too long. Maybe we should deal with what was first known about their circumstances, and later introduce the material about the fabricated childhood.

Given Gypsy's difficult childhood, this is a highly unusual case, and she was also a victim. But that does not mean we have to provide endless details from all the material that has been published; it could be summarized. This is supposed to be encyclopedic and based on fact. I'm still reading the article, but it appears that no medical/psychiatric doctor ever diagnosed Gypsy as having suffered Munchausen by proxy (or its new name). It certainly sounds as if that was what her mother was doing, but editors should be more clear about what was established, versus what has been discussed and speculated.

Maybe another early step is to try to focus on content from Reliable Sources, per Wiki MOS, rather than entertainment and fashion magazines and sites: Bustle.com, Cosmopolitan, Variety, Elle, Marie Claire, E!online, and other sources that especially appear in relation to the many documentaries and TV shows produced are not generally sources for legal and medical information. See <<Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources>> for a thorough listing so that editors can check their sources, and weigh them against the content under question.

Maybe if we sort out the basics about the murder/trial/pleas, some background (limited), and incarceration, we could try to deal with the phenomenon of Gypsy's notorious profile and media frenzy about her since her release. I've started editing the article - may copy it to Sandbox to work on it.

Any thoughts? Parkwells (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well ... my argument is that Gypsy-Rose doesn't yet deserve a separate article as her crime is the sole source for the time being of her notability. So, some editors have sort of been trying to coatrack everything they think is notable about Gypsy-Rose into this article.
As for those sources you list, Variety is actually green at RS/PS, although you're right, I'd look for sources more known for medical and legal coverage first. But, yes, Bustle and Cosmo are case-by-case, and the other ones we don't have a consensus strong enough to put on that page yet.
You are also correct that Dee Dee was never diagnosed with factitious disorder imposed on another (what we should be calling it, the name you're trying to remember). I believe we even quote Dr. Fliederman saying that such a diagnosis is possible only on a living patient, although Dee Dee certainly showed a lot of the signs of it. Daniel Case (talk) 03:46, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. Since she is only known because of the murder, I agree that she doesn't deserve a separate article. I think it is wrong to have even a proposed article about her start like this: "[she is ] is an American author and TV personality, who was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, and sentenced to ten years in prison.[1] Following her mother's death, Blanchard gained international notoriety, and her story was eventually adapted into a Hulu limited series, The Act (2019)." She is a convicted murderer first. Don't some states have laws against convicted criminals being allowed to profit from their crimes? Parkwells (talk) 19:09, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, to be fair, she pled guilty to the crime, rather than being convicted, even if that makes no legal difference (although as a practical matter sparing the state the expense of a trial does pay off with consideration in sentencing, as Gypsy's lawyers doubtless knew).
As for the Son of Sam law you mention, some states have them but not all; you are correct. And in Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Crime Victims Board the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional as then applied (it has been amended so it applies to all economic activity derived from the crimes, not just publishing, but then what other legal activities derived from the crime could there possibly be?) Daniel Case (talk) 22:12, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, in this case there have been at least two TV series, two or more documentary films, the book that Gypsy Blanchard published, interviews and personal appearances she may have been paid for. It would seem she was selling some part of her story.Parkwells (talk) 01:14, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As she appears to be making money off her crime and story, it would appear that Habitat for Humanity and other charities that assisted her and her mother may have claims to some part of that profit.Parkwells (talk) 01:22, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Intro/Lede

I think this should be written from the point of view of a relatively straight summary of facts, what is known.

So, we could say Dee Dee Blanchard was murdered on June 10, in an event jointly planned by her daughter and her boyfriend, and committed by him. They also took money from her safe. Since they left town, Blanchard was not immediately noticed to be missing, and her body was not found until June 15. Details about what the neighbors noticed or thought (and their contacting police) could be in body of article.

The couple were traced to WI, arraigned and extradited to MO. The investigation and trial revealed the complicated story of the abuse suffered by Gypsy-Rose and her participation in the frauds carried out by her mother. Short overview.

Initial charges were first-degree murder, which had potential for capital sentence. Before trial she pleaded guilty to lesser charges and received a 10-year sentence. Godejohn was convicted and sentenced to LWOP.

Media response to the crime and related story gave Gypsy-Rose notoriety, with documentaries and limited TV series completed while she was still in prison, and high-profile interviews, appearances, etc soon after she was released on parole. Parkwells (talk) 01:41, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MI is Michigan. Missouri is MO. Daniel Case (talk) 04:32, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Typo, thanks for correction. Parkwells (talk) 20:04, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Very much agree and have said similar many months ago. I'm currently drafting a new lede along the same lines as what you've written. Thanks. BoldGnome (talk) 08:28, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Parkwells, I've implemented the new lede as discussed. I'm sure it can be improved, but I hope it's an improvement in itself! I found the Dee Dee/Gypsy-Rose issue to be a bit tricky in drafting the lede, but landed on referring to Gypsy-Rose as "Blanchard" and the one reference to Dee Dee as "Dee Dee", given that the context makes it clear which Blanchard is being referred to after Dee Dee's murder. BoldGnome (talk) 09:07, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I made some amendments to what you wrote:
  • I put the date first, both because it was buried too far down otherwise (I mean, I think readers would want to know when this happened first and foremost along with who it happened to and where it happened ... several years working in journalism will teach anyone the importance of answering those five WH-questions in your lede) and because this article is about an event, not a person.
  • The name issue is governed by MOS:SAMESURNAME. Two people sharing the same last name discussed at the same point in an article are referred to by their first names always where the possibility of such confusion exists.
  • We really needed to make the point before the arrests that everyone in the Springfield area feared for Gypsy at first because they believed she was severely disabled and ill. The discovery that she was perfectly healthy, that Dee Dee had been fooling everyone all those years, actually seems from the media coverage to have come as more of a shock locally than that Dee Dee had been killed. The discovery that Gypsy was the victim of unimaginable abuse by a woman who had gained such widespread public sympathy has a lot to do with Gypsy being America's most sympathetic convicted murderer (or at least seen that way), and the case getting the coverage it did.
  • We really needed to link factitious disorder imposed on another from the intro, given how central it is to this event.
  • It also needed to be stated clearly that Gypsy pleaded guilty while Godejohn did not, the main reason for the disparity in their sentences.
  • Per MOS:PARA's reminder that "[t]he number of single-sentence paragraphs should be minimized", I appended the last sentence to the graf before it. Also, I tightened up the last sentence ... while it stands to reason that the case would be the subject of significant news coverage (we wouldn't have an article on it otherwise), it is noteworthy enough to mention in the intro that the case has been the subject of multiple fictional dramatizations, not all of them in the US either.
  • Lastly, I cleaned up some of the awkward and wordier aspects, and some errors that seem to have come from AutoComplete trying to make sense of names typed into it ("Goodjones")
I'm actually happy with how this has turned out. It's the kind of intro that works now, almost a decade after the subject event happened. We just always need to remember when writing intros, though, how much for so many readers it's going to be all they bother to read, whether we like that. Daniel Case (talk) 20:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have rejected your edit as it re-introduces many of the long-standing problems that have been criticised on this Talk Page since 2019. Please do not edit war and gain consensus for your edits. You are an administrator. BoldGnome (talk) 02:17, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neither of us has consensus for our edits; most of mine were simply improvements to the prose. Obviously, Cjhard, we shouldn't edit war. Your edits, while certainly well-intended, introduced as I noted above some MOS violations and spelling errors (as well as minor punctuation errors like "June 10 2015").
Usually this kind of edit does not result in a wholesale revert. When editors understand what AGF means, they have the sort of productive back and forth that has occurred on many talk pages, and is a big part of what makes Wikipedia great. Usually in this situation there is no need to talk about consensus; that is behind whether certain facts are in the article or not, whether certain sources are used or not, but not over phrasing differences with no real factual import.
A Wikipedia editor who understood what good faith means would be responding at length, point by point, explaining why they disagreed with my editorial choices. Not reverting and saying I needed consensus. At the very least in your response here you could be going into more specifics.
Two editors in a discussion, both taking different sides, is not and cannot be consensus. Would you like to involve others? We can request a third opinion; we can ask on noticeboards. Whatever you'd like.
(Readers happening across this discussion may be interested in looking at how this discussion between myself and BoldGnome under their previous username ended a few months ago. I am still owed an apology and, I believe, a retraction of that last remark (after which the user skedaddled away from this page, not to return until now). Daniel Case (talk) 02:45, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please comment on content, not contributors, on article talk pages. BoldGnome (talk) 05:34, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And your accusation of bad-faith behavior on my part that you didn't bother to stick around and substantiate was somehow a comment on content?
Disingenuously mouthing platitudes is not doing my estimate of your reputation (and ability to assume good faith on your part) any favors. Daniel Case (talk) 06:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a reader "happening across this discussion", I would like to add that I don't think it's appropriate or relevant to bring up old arguments that happened months ago, or accusations of "skedaddling", especially just for the admitted purpose of displaying this to bypassers to disparage another editor.
Getting back onto the topic though, if I'm following this correctly I think this edit / revert is the one being discussed (please correct me if I'm wrong). Seeing as it looks like this talk page needs more people to form a consensus I'll weigh in and say I agree that Gnome's revert is warranted, as the proposed change has multiple problems, including a non-encyclopedic tone that feels like its from a children's murder mystery story ("At first investigators and neighbors feared for", "Police soon learned", "it was revealed that", etc). The changes have an emotive inflection and focus on the participants feelings and sounds like it's trying to entertain rather than inform, even though this is an encyclopedia.
For instance a reader wanted to quickly get the gist of the article, if they read only the first paragraph (not the whole lede) of Daniel's proposed version, they would only learn that 1. Dee Dee was murdered and 2. Investigators and neighbours feared for her daughter, because they "knew" she had chronic illnesses. This doesn't inform concisely or accurately enough. It doesn't convey important info quickly, and the choice of word "knew" implies what they "knew" was true - despite the next paragraph dramatically revealing her medical claims were false. Its unnecessary flourish and doesn't fit the expected tone or purpose of the website.
With Gnome's version, after reading the first paragraph, the user would know 1. Dee Dee was murdered and 2. Who the murderers were, and their relation to Dee Dee. This is far more useful to the reader and conveys the gist of the article quickly. The second paragraph then explains the secondary information (fake medical claims) plainly and directly.
With that being said, Gnome I think you could have stated your reasoning for revert a bit more precisely, which would have made this talk page section easier to wade through as Daniel would have been given the chance to discuss any concerns more directly. BugGhost🎤 16:43, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for your rationally and civilly stated comments. It's important to convey somehow before we get to the arrests that everyone believed Gypsy was what Dee Dee represented her as being—that shocking reveal spurred a lot of the interest in the case when the story broke. I can see your issues with the tone and when I have time later I will post some proposed changes to that. Daniel Case (talk) 18:29, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No worries - glad I could help. I would argue however that conveying the public's timeline of knowledge shouldn't be a big priority of the lede, as the topic is the murder itself, rather than public response. How details of the event were revealed to the public is a secondary detail, so shouldn't obscure the articles documentation of the actual murder. BugGhost🎤 18:55, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK, here's an attempt at the first graf (or rather, a combination of the first two:
On June 14, 2015, Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard (née Pitre; born May 3, 1967, in Chackbay, Louisiana) was found stabbed to death at her home in Springfield, Missouri, United States. She had been murdered four days earlier by her daughter, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, and her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn. After fleeing to his native Wisconsin, they were arrested and returned to Missouri. Police there disclosed that Gypsy had none of the serious medical conditions Dee Dee had long represented her as having, and was instead a victim of factitious disorder imposed on another. Daniel Case (talk) 02:56, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This has the same problems described above and is still worse than the current version. In addition, this proposes to introduce 2 factual errors into first paragraph of the lead: First, that Dee Dee was "found stabbed to death" on June 10. She was murdered on June 10. She was found on June 14. Second, that the police disclosed "that Gypsy had none of the serious medical conditions...". This contradicts the article itself which says that the "media in Springfield soon reported the truth of the Blanchards' lives: that she had never been sick and had always been able to walk, but her mother had made her pretend otherwise". BoldGnome (talk) 05:47, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Amended the date information appropriately. But "Gyspy had none of the serious medical conditions" cannot be read as contradicting the quoted passage, that "she had never been sick and always been able to walk". It is an improvement since per summary style, and the exhortation at MOS:LEAD to avoid " overly specific descriptions", (i.e., the reader can and should be persuaded to read the body of the article and find out exactly what those conditions were) and fits Gnome's apparent general preference for as minimal an intro as possible (notwithstanding that, per MOS:LEADLENGTH, there is room for a longer intro, and one of our other pages on writing intros warns against giving information short shrift as much as getting into too much detail).

"The truth of the Blanchards' lives" also sounds rather melodramatic, like something you'd find in the log line for a soap opera, the sort of thing Gnome was complaining about in my text (I think) when they said it sounded like "a murder mystery written for children". Surely we can go with something drier? Daniel Case (talk) 02:24, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Gnome again on this one - not sure if this is an improvement over the existing paragraph. To be honest I don't think the lede as it currently stands has any real issues - it might be better to keep what is in the current article and focus efforts on other areas. BugGhost🎤 07:40, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Leaving aside your edits of your own comment after two other editors have responded to it for a moment: Yes, "The truth of the Blanchards' lives" bit that you contributed to the article will be amended once this page is not protected. I have never said this article is written like a "murder mystery written for children". That was BugGhost. Ashmoo said something similar in 2019. I agree with BugGhost that the lede as it currently stands doesn't have any real issues, especially compared to the rest of this article. BoldGnome (talk) 03:14, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As noted by Acroterion at my talk page, my edit was "perfectly legitimate". It was your non-consensual removal of my comment that has become highly problematic since you defend it as perfectly acceptable. I am still considering whether to take Ed's suggestion to take my ANEW report to AN/I and see what the community thinks of you, BoldGnome, and your regular pattern of reverting far more than necessary in an edit you disagree with, then acting like the other editor is the one who has the problem, so spectacularly evinced here but also found in multiple instances on your talk pages.
So I had added that language? OK, unlike you, I can admit a mistake—in fact I think I did with my suggestion above.
I apologize for misattributing that language to you, but the consistently sneering and dismissive tone you have taken toward every edit I have made on this article (which, as you said several months ago, you think I have no business editing, a "comment on the contributor" you have shown no interest in reconsidering, much less retracting) suggests an inherent acceptance of that belittling usage. Would you not agree? Daniel Case (talk) 04:24, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Daniel Case I won't comment on the other issues but I will say that I apologise for the phrase "childrens' murder mystery" in my comment further above, because I think it was a bit harsh and belabouring my other points on encyclopedic tone. I do think there were tone issues with the proposed edit, but I wasn't intending to belittle - apologies for that. BugGhost🎤 07:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I accept your apology. Daniel Case (talk) 18:48, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why BoldGnome's version of the intro is poorly written and how its prose can and should be improved

I recently returned to this, making a series of changes to the intro that were purely technical in nature, explaining them in detailed edit summaries. Again, BoldGnome reverted everything to their preferred version, claiming my version was "unsupported by consensus" and that I needed to get it here (conflating, as far too many problematic editors do, one person's opinion with "consensus" ... if my version doesn't have consensus, neither does theirs, since the two of us have been the only people to discuss it in any detail).

What we seem to be disagreeing about here is not, as BoldGnome would have it based on discussions above, the structure of the intro ... I still disagree with it but I am accepting their structure. It is rather the technical aspects of the language used, things like grammar, style (particularly the MOS), and mechanics. Once again, as they often have here and in other articles, BoldGnome has (as BugGhost complained here earlier), declined to explain their reasons for reverting in detail.

Apparently, Gnome believes their version, as imperfectly written as it is, is absolute perfection and cannot possibly be improved. This is rather against both the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia and the cumulative experience of centuries of writing. I don't believe my own prose is so perfect as to be beyond improvement by others, and indeed I have thanked many other editors, even IPs, who have made improvements to things I've written. I have had the experience of other people improving my prose in other areas as well.

Yet, apparently, BoldGnome thinks that at least I cannot make any improvements to their prose. I can't fathom why. Perhaps they want me to be able to make a stronger case for ownership whenever I feel that the time has come that I have to. Or, per Hanlon's razor, there may just be a competence issue.

Or perhaps they want the reason for the change explicitly spelled out on the talk page. To that end, I offer a bulleted list and breakdown for anyone who finds my edit summaries insufficient:

  • "Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard (née Pitre; born May 3, 1967, in Chackbay, Louisiana) was a 48-year-old woman who was found stabbed to death in her Springfield house."
What country did this occur in? How are we supposed to know? Without "United States" somewhere in the lede, a non-American reader might not have any idea. Not every reader outside the U.S. knows that Louisiana is a U.S. state.

And then "Springfield"? Is this Springfield, Louisiana? Leaving out the state is usually seen as a signal the reader should assume that ... but nooooooo, this actually took place in Springfield, Missouri. I can think of no editorial reason why we would want to omit this crucial information.

I also, as I indicated in my edit summary, can think of no reason why we really need to have Dee Dee's age in the lede ... it's not really relevant to how or why she was killed, and we don't seem to do it for victims mentioned in the lede . Even if it was, simply putting it in commas (as it's an appositive) after her name would suffice rather than this journalistic "48-year-old" ... I'm pretty sure there's something in the MOS to that effect.

On top of all this it's superfluous to have it right after her birth date for people who can't do the math.

And we should remember, this is an article about her murder, not about her. That needs to be made clear from the opening sentence.

  • "She was murdered by her daughter, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard and her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn on June 10 2015"
First off, most any reader who's finished U.S. freshman high school English or its equivalent in other countries will have to look away quickly from this sentence due to its improper punctuation. It should at the very least read:

She was murdered by her daughter, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, and her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, on June 10, 2015.

I have since BoldGnome's last revert restored that last comma as it is in accordance with the MOS. But still ... the sentence easily admits of other improvements. The "her" is ambiguous given that the sentence starts with "she" ... a reader could be forgiven for thinking that Godejohn was Dee Dee's boyfriend. I duly replaced it with "Gypsy's", a change I should not think in any way controversial, but apparently BoldGnome thinks it was better the way it was before because they included it among their reverts. Along with the DATECOMMA.
Also, I changed the verb to "had been", the past perfect tense, as the murder was an event that occurred prior to her body being found. It is correct English grammar to use the past perfect to distinguish the earlier of two events in the past.
  • "Blanchard and Godejohn were arrested in Godejohn's native Big Bend, Wisconsin and both confessed to the murder."
First, we need the GEOCOMMA, after "Wisconsin"; for whatever reason they have not yet deigned to explain BoldGnome seems to feel otherwise. Second, I find the "and" a rather cumbersome way of joining these two clauses, so I changed it to "where they", consistent with the article body, which establishes that they did indeed both confess to the crime shortly after being arrested in Wisconsin. Again, Gnome objects to this but has not explained why.
We've already established that "Blanchard" is Gypsy-Rose's last name. We do not need to repeat it in the rest of the intro. Also, as per the article the police learned the truth about Gypsy's health and then revealed it to the media. The media did not reveal it themselves. It would be better to say "the police revealed to the media that".

I would also have the link to factitious disorder imposed on another cover the text "forced Gypsy-Rose Blanchard to pretend to have" since that's more to the point of the link (And really, maybe since we're going to be discussing FDIA so much in the article anyway, it's probably a better idea to just explicitly mention and link it in the text, along with the acronym, rather than make it sort of an Easter egg.

But other than that, this is at least grammatical and properly punctuated (as if that latter were really a challenge, to be honest!).

  • "Shortly before trial in 2018, Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to ten years.".
Maybe we could say "Gypsy" again here so that no one thinks we're talking about Dee Dee (especially given that we use her name again later in the paragraph and, indeed, MOS:SAMESURNAME prescribes this (as I pointed out above)?
  • "Blanchard was released from prison on parole on December 28, 2023."
I admit this is more of a personal peccadillo, but per WP:SS ... is the exact date here really important? Is there going to be a holiday declared for the next year? If it is important, is it important enough to include in the intro? We can easily put it in the body text, where I think it already is.

Also, she should probably still be referred to as Gypsy.

  • "She became subject to media attention, including several films and television series."
As worded, it implies that the media attention began only after her release. As the article shows, those films and TV series (and began not long after the crime, while Gypsy was still in jail and/or prison. And it's more accurate to describe them as being about the case, not Gypsy.

The "became subject to" phrasing is not the smoothest English, either (it reads sort of non-native speaker, actually). People with a decent command of English prose would see no problem amending it to "became the subject of".

BoldGnome, I have, as you have I think in the past asked me to, laid out a specific, literally point-by-point explanation for why I made the recent edits I made, edits that are purely technical in nature, which you again summarily reverted without any explanation except that I didn't have consensus and that I should get it on the talk page. So ... here's that effort.

I look forward to an involved discussion with you about the issues raised above—there is plenty of space between the bullet points for you . The issues are severable ... I am open to any efforts you might make to convince me as to why your exact wording is, in a particular instance, preferable. Only after that sort of discussion can we truly say that there is consensus between the two of us (at least). If you now or at any time feel that such a discussion would not or is not working, I am amenable to going to WP:3O or even opening an RfC.

That said, I would remind you that my detailed critique here means, per WEAKSILENCE, that you can no longer claim consensus for your exact wording of the text. Failure to respond in any meaningful way to this critique (i.e., by simply pithily dismissing it as what I've already said) on your part will be taken as a sign of bad faith; not responding at all will be taken as assenting to it. Daniel Case (talk) 03:37, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Not every reader outside the U.S. knows that Louisiana is a U.S. state" Then they will clink on the link to that article. I find the constant mentions of the United States on articles about local events to be rather annoying. We do not need to mention the country after the name of every location. Dimadick (talk) 04:02, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's sort of Easter egg thinking IMO ... Daniel Case (talk) 05:05, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Daniel, you can't shout everyone off this article and then claim their silence is consent. I give up. You win. The article is yours and will be yours for as long as you monitor it and have the energy and time to engage in the above behaviour. Just note that your style of editing is so antithetical to Wikipedia's encyclopaedic style that when you are unable to exert this level of control over an article, other people will change it from this idiosyncratic style you've spent so much time and energy defending. BoldGnome (talk) 23:28, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Daniel Case in my previous comment that you quoted, you're correct that I did suggest to @BoldGnome that they should have given you more precise feedback. I also included feedback for you suggesting you were being unnecessarily disparaging towards them - something I think has significantly worsened in this topic by implying WP:CIR and Hanlon's razor are relevant. While I understand you are frustrated with the reverts, please don't say things like that to other editors, it's not helpful, especially in article talk pages as it makes for an unhealthy editing environment. The heading for this talk page section has also broken three out of four of the WP:TALKHEADPOV guidelines. WP:CIV is a policy, and a good one.
@BoldGnome - I don't think Daniel's changes warranted a revert, the changes in question are pretty minor compared to the version you reverted to. Whether it says "She had been murdered by her daughter" or "She was murdered by her daughter" is not something worth doing reverts over. Don't let previous disagreements cloud your judgement - I'm not sure what in DC's changes you saw as particularly incorrect.
Please can you both give each other more breathing room, you are fighting over anthills, still. Neither of you have to reply to this message, because I don't want to reignite this argument seeing as its a few days old, but please read it and internalise it. BugGhost🪲👻 17:44, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to respond to BG's PRAM moment above anyway; your response does have a slight impact on mine hence the delay.
I consider it unfortunate that BG believes I have "won". I don't see things that way; none of us should. But some editors still do, alas and perhaps comments like that, projecting that desire on others, tell us that. I would have been delighted, and indeed pleasantly surprised, if they'd responded to my post as I would have expected a Wikipedian to: with equally informed, collegial discussion, perhaps accepting something here, rejecting something else there ... working toward a consensus version of the intro.
I salute you for imploring us to step up and work together, Bug; it speaks very well of you. But I am not sure you know the history here which led me to frame this post the way I did.
For one thing, I have not been able to completely assume good faith in BG since this comment of theirs, to me, a few months ago. That came from, as I have noted in the past, completely out of the blue. They have not taken the time to apologize for it despite repeated suggestions from me that they do. There is just no justification for any editor saying something like that, especially in response to what I had just said.
This ultimately led me to look into their history, seeing as they had changed their name in the interim. I found, unfortunately, that what I had experienced in my dealings with them—a tendency to make hasty, overbroad reverts to address one small issue that often reintroduced earlier defects to the prose in question—had occurred on several other occasions since they began editing in earnest over the last few years. When called on it, sometimes by more than one editor, they did the same thing they have done here: sidestep the issue, put up a friendly, polite facade while not really discussing the issues raised much, and position themselves, often misleadingly, as either the aggrieved party or the one upholding policy.
Sometimes, of course, they were partially right, and other times the other party didn't have clean hands either. Except for one occasion when they did get blocked, the disputes petered away before anything came of them. But nevertheless this kind of long-term behavior, less than it in fact, has gotten people taken to AN/I and, sometimes, sanctioned in some way.
So, after the incident last month above, where they reverted my amendments to their proposed text along with my explanations for it below, which he considered impermissible refactoring (I still believe that was an attempt to provoke me into some sort of ignominious action they could use against me) but, as has been pointed out on my talk page, is entirely permissible) when I reported them to ANEW (where I am often a reviewer of reports, and BG's behavior ranks with what is often reported there), I included, both in my original post and my response, a narrative with links to the previous occasions where BG/Cj had engaged in exactly the same behavior largely without consequence.
That was (probably appropriately) pointed out by the closing admin as being more suited for AN/I. I didn't feel like going there at the time as I rarely feel the need to initiate a report there and I've never enjoyed the experience too much. Instead, I decided to wait and see, out of what good faith I had left, how BG would proceed.
When they again insisted I "get consensus on the talk page", I decided it was time to see if they were bluffing just to try to make me go somewhere else and forget about this, so I created this section, going into detail about what grammatical and stylistic mistakes BG was insisting on keeping in the article, for no other apparent reason than that they wrote them, and giving them a chance to either defend their choices or accede, on just about every single one. If they truly meant what they said about getting consensus on the talk page, they would have approached it that way.
Instead they reacted in this "Screw you guys; I'm going home!!" way. I admit I was not entirely surprised by that as I had expected it as a possibility. For I have increasingly come to see BG as explained by either of two possibilities: 1) they're on spectrum, in which case BG would do well to disclose that fact and avail themselves of the support we have for those many members of the community or 2) they are by nature as duplicitous and disingenuous as I have come to believe, essentially gaming our policies and procedures to get their way, and counting on the other people involved to just give up rather than deal with them.
And people of that latter category, as we have seen more publicly over the past few months in the examples of Donald Trump and George Santos, get exposed as what they are, get backed into a corner from which they cannot be rescued or save themselves, they without fail lash out at whoever's seeing right through them and calling them out. BG's last post above is, of course, yet another example.
I am actually sort of bemused by this: "when you are unable to exert this level of control over an article, other people will change it from this idiosyncratic style you've spent so much time and energy defending." Um, eventually this will happen to all of us. We either give up editing for good for whatever reason at some point, or we die. And I think Wikipedia or some successor/descendant of it will be around for quite some time after we're all feeding worms, or whatever they will do with our bodies then. And I accept it as inevitable (as we all should) that when we are no longer around to edit, prose we have poured a great deal of time and energy into writing and editing will be rewritten by whoever or whatever is doing the editing at the time to suit the dictates of its/their age, quite possibly to the point that little or no trace of our hand will be discernible. I have no problem with that. None of us should.
Sorry for the wall o' text but that's my response to all this. Daniel Case (talk) 02:35, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is genuinely disgusting. @Acroterion, would you find reason to take umbrage if this was said about you on an article's talk page? BoldGnome (talk) 03:59, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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