User:Cameron Dewe/sandbox

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This is a user draft for an essay to be titled:

Wikipedia:Writing about crime-related topics

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When writing about crime-related topics, editors may find that some core Wikipedia guidelines provide insufficient guidance. This essay aims to provide some further interpretation or clarification for editors when writing crime-related articles.

Biographies of people who commit crime

There are several things that need to be considered when writing a biography of a person who is notable in relation to a crime that they have committed. There are several guidelines that already exist, such as WP:BLPCRIME and WP:CRIMINAL.

Avoid labelling a person

It can be tempting to apply a label such as "criminal" or "felon" to a person who has been convicted of a crime. While this might be accurate, an article's sources rarely make this sort of broad judgement. Often the available source material will not even provide a label. A Wikipedia essay about crime labels observes that an accurate label is not the crucial issue but Wikipedia policies concerning no original research, (and synthesis of published material), a neutral point of view, (and giving undue weight to a particular viewpoint) as well as verifiability of articles, and these policies interactions with Wikipedia's policies about biographies, particularly when writing about living people. These policies apply to both perpetrators of crime and their victims.

Any label that is used therefore needs to have a reliable source to support its use.

Type of article

The WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography is named that way for good reasons. The project's scope includes article about Crime, as well as the biographies of Criminals. There is a significant overlap between the two types of articles, and deciding which way to go can be a difficult choice to make. The type of article chosen will depend on what is being written about. Articles can be about a person, i.e. a biography, a specific crime, or an event or incident, as well as about a concept, object or other topic related to crime. Be aware that sometimes an article can change type along with a change of name. This typically happens if a biography is changed to an event because a person is only notable for a single event and so the article should be written about the crime rather than the person.

Choosing between writing a biography or event type article

Here are some things to think about when choosing the type of article to write. Wikipedia has various guidelines about writing biographies, particularly biographies of living people. The impact of these guidelines should be carefully considered before deciding what type of article to write. In particular, there is a general presumption in favour of privacy contained in these guidelines, which ask that editors:

• Avoid further victimization of living people who are the victims of another's actions.
• Respect the privacy of individuals who are not well known and that they need to consider if mentioning a person's name is necessary for understanding the article.
• Serious consider NOT even writing about people suspected of committing a crime, before they have been convicted, whether the details are included in a biography or any other type of article.
• Where a person is notable in connection with one event, it is preferable to cover the event, not the person. This guideline often applies to victims, and can also apply to perpetrators in some cases.
• Biographies should also follow the Manual of Style for biographies, which asks that the crimes a person has been convicted of be described, rather than labelling people. Terms like "criminal", "convicted felon", "fraudster", and "convicted sex offender" should be avoided.
• When writing a biography, editors should also avoid harm by writing a full and balanced biography using the publicly available information, where possible. However, when writing about people who are only known in connection with a criminal act, very limited biographical information may be available. The result may be an unsatisfactory pseudo-biography that gives undue weight to non-biographical details or includes the biographical details of other people connected with the crimes committed.

Additionally, where a person is known in connection with a criminal event or trial they should not normally have a separate article as a common article can include the information about all those involved.

When starting a new crime-related article, editors also need to consider who or what is notable. It can be tempting to write a biography about a criminal because of the amount of coverage such people often receive in connection with the crime(s) they have committed, especially in high-profile cases. However, this same coverage may also makes those crime(s) notable as well. Since the crime and the criminal are inextricably linked in such cases, one cannot write about the criminal without also discussing their crimes. In such circumstances, the criminal can only be considered notable, if the crime is first considered notable. This may mean an event based article about the criminal events may offer more scope than a criminal biography and overcome some of the restrictions imposed by the guidelines about biographies. This also allows information about other aspects of the criminal events concerned, including those involved, to be covered in a single article.

Article title

There are several guidelines that explain article naming conventions. Article titles have several criteria and there are differing conventions for [crimes of] violence and death compared to events. Which convention is used will depend on what happened and what the article is about.

Mentioning the name of a person in the title of an article

Be considerate and cautious about mentioning the name of a person who is associated with a crime in the title of an article. There are several reasons for this, including that it may be a criminal offence to reveal the name of a person in such situations.

Article content

An article should answer the 5 "W" questions

An article should answer the 5 "W" questions that readers might have about a topic.

• "Who?"
• "What?"
• "When?"
• "Where?"
• "Why?'"
• and also "How?", if it is relevant.

Exactly what words go after these questions will often depend on the reader and what aspect of the topic is about is being questioned. For events, some questions that comes to mind include: "What happened?", "Who is/was involved?", When and Where did it happen?", "How and Why did it happen?". If one is writig about a particular concept or object then questions might be "What is the purpose of the topic?", "Why does the topics exist?", "How does the the topic work?", "Where is the topic found?", etc. These questions are potentially numerous, but some will usually be obvious. Write the article to answer a reasonable number of these questions.

Generally, write a crime-related article in the past tense

Contrary to the default guidance given in Manual of Style § Verb tense, a crime-related article should generally be written in the past tense, not the present tense. This is because crime-related articles are generally written about events that have happened in the past and often are about people who are now deceased. The present tense should be reserved for ongoing situations, including biographies of living people.

The future tense should be reserved for things that will, or are expected to, happen in the future.

The word "would"

Editors sometimes use the word "would" in articles, perhaps in the mistaken belief they are writing in the present tense. An example is this article.

"Would" is the past tense of the verb "will". While the word "will" is often used to talk about a belief about what will happen in the future, if the word "would" is used then one is either talking about the past, or talking about a hypothesis and imagining what might have happened, or else being polite. If one is writing about a past event, usually, the word "would" can be omitted and the following verb can be changed to the past tense to make for more concise English. Since Wikipedia does not speculate on the future, so it should not be necessary to hypothesise about the future, so using the word "would" is only needed on rare occasions. Similarly, the word "will" is only necessary in situations where a future event is scheduled to occur. In crime-related articles this is likely for future judicial proceedings or prisoner releases and the like.

(See: WP:INTOTHEWOULDS for more on the use of "would".)

Concepts and jargon

• Criminal incident - Used to count the occurrence of crime. (UN-ODC, ABS).

Understanding the judicial process and procedures

When writing articles about crime an understanding of the judicial process and judicial procedures is important when interpreting sources. Certain words are key markers for different parts of the judicial process. When rewording articles, certain words need to remain because they cannot be substituted with anything else.

• An Arrest usually happens at the start of the judicial process before a trial starts.
• A Conviction happens after a trial is over and a person has been found guilty.

See also

• Wikipedia:Crime labels: an essay about labelling people.
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch - § Contentious labels such as MOS:TERRORIST.