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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. - Mailer Diablo 13:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rachel Hudson

[edit]
Rachel Hudson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Neither Rachel Hudson, nor her murderers' trial, has encyclopedic importance. Yes, the trial is the subject of multiple news articles. But, while media coverage is necessary for inclusion at Wikipedia, it's not sufficient. One of the rationales for the primary notability criterion is that we rely on the editorial judgment of reputable publishers as to a topic's importance: if they think it's important, we consider it worthy of inclusion here. But importance is not the only reason things get published. In general, when sources exist on a certain topic, we have to look at the reason the publisher decided to publish on that topic before we conclude that it's appropriate to have a Wikipedia article on the topic. We should ask, did the publisher consider the topic important or consequential in any way? In this case it should be clear that the BBC and other news organizations decided to publish articles about this trial only due to its sensational aspects: Rachel Hudson's brutal treatment and death at the hands of her own family was truly horrific and attention-grabbing. The trial had no importance, or consequences; as far as I can tell, it engendered no widespread discussion on crime and punishment or on the human capacity for cruelty (that's been around for a while now), and had no impact on the legal system or on society at large. In 100 years (even 10 years? even now?) this case will (has been?) surely and rightfully be forgotten, and almost surely not included in any history books. Rachel Hudson herself should, of course, not be forgotten, but that's no reason to keep the article here, because Wikipedia is not a memorial. (Note: De-prodded with comment "seems like there are reliable sources... perhaps it should be renamed, since it was the trial rather than the victim who was notable, but not deleted" -- as I have explained, I don't think either the victim or the trial has encyclopedic notability.) Pan Dan 15:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete per nom. I hadn't even herd of this case, granted I do live in the US, before today. While the story is sad, heart-wrenching, and sick it still has not notability as the nominator points out. This is the kind of thing that, sadly, happens often enough that a brutal, cruel, terrible murder such as this doesn't raise an eyebrow once the commercial break starts. wtfunkymonkey 15:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Weak Delete It is always amazing how people writing in deletion debates can read the minds of publishers and decide what they were thinking when they published a story. To become encyclopedic, such a case would need to have a longer shelf life than "crime-arrest-trial-imprisonment." This might include a prolonged debate about the actual guilt, a retrial, and books and movies about the crime, such as In Cold Blood (book), In Cold Blood (film), Sam Sheppard, Charles Starkweather, Leopold and Loeb or Hawley Harvey Crippen, which focussed mostly on the thrill killers, or spree killers, not the victims, and some of which have passed the 50 year test if not yet the 100 year test. This is a horrible murder, following torment. Sadly, it is far from unique. If it becomes the subject of books, movies, scholarly analysis, etc. as did the other cases cited, then recreate the article. Edison 16:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete. It has ever been my understanding that crimes, criminals, and their victims form a partially unwritten exception to WP:BIO. Though many times they can easily be verified, and are the subjects of non-trivial news coverage, they nevertheless are routine and unremarkable. Only a few causes célèbres jump the hurdle of being things that people next year or a hundred years from now will be interested in. This case may be one of them, but the article does not make that case yet. Cheerfully open to revising my opinion if further evidence is mustered; from reading one of the BBC reports, this may go beyond a situation involving a violent family of degenerates and raise issues of bureaucratic incompetence as well. - Smerdis of Tlön 16:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Notability is not a proper criterion, verifiability is. Wikipedia is not paper (and lots of paper was spent on this case). dml 20:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, —Doug Bell talk 00:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete unless this is turned into a biography. WP:BIO can't hold unless the sources actually provide biogrpahical information. ~ trialsanderrors 00:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, to be fair, the argument on the other side would be that the article (if expanded) would be about the trial not the woman, and that therefore, what you say about WP:BIO is a reason to rename not delete the article. (Of course I disagree with that: as I said, neither the victim nor the trial is encyclopedically notable.) Pan Dan 00:58, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Abstain. Both sides raise valid points. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hotentot (talk • contribs)
  • Strong Delete. Non-notable bio, this is not of encyclopedic importance. --Sable232 01:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, not everything verifiable is notable. This article certainly doesn't in present form make any assertion of real notability. --Dhartung | Talk 02:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep - I can see both sides of the issue. Perhaps more discussion is needed. (Liveforever22 02:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC))[reply]
  • Strong Delete Verifiability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for article inclusion. Wikipedia is not a news report archive. Media coverage does not automatically translate to encyclopedic notability. This case doesn't seem to have generated exceptional levels of media coverage anyway. Bwithh 03:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • As an aside, Here's the apt essay from Orwell in response to Edison and Smerdis' comments... Bwithh 03:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, notable case. frummer 03:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy keep and expand The story here, of course, isn't so much the the murder victim herself, but the bizzare circumstances of her death, the fact that her abuse apparently continued with no intervention from neighbors or authorities, and the British public's reaction (or lack thereof) to this incident.. WP:BIO is pretty specific, Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events, such as by being assassinated , qualify. Whether that is due to sensational aspects or not is not part of the criteria, neither is anyone's opinion on the notability of the person in question, or the case they were involved in. The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person There's 4 separate BBC national news reports referenced, and there are certainly plenty of print reports... this is a pretty open and shut speedy keep case. Also, the perps have actually taken the distinction from the Sheriff as the most cruel person(s) ever from Nottingham. (Football fans excluded) That in itself has to have some notability. Tubezone 04:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Media coverage does not automatically translate to encyclopedic notability - the BBC, the New York Times, The London Times, CNN whatever... these are mainstream news channels which cover much non-encyclopedic material, including serious matters, on a daily basis. WP:BIO is a guideline. The primary purpose of Wikipedia is to be an encyclopedia, and not to be a news report archive. And there's no evidence that the murderers have displaced the Sheriff of Nottingham as a local icon except short-lived tabloid headlines. To be encyclopedic, there needs to be substantive evidence that this case has lasting social/political/cultural impact beyond personal tragedy/police log/media sensationalism e.g. if this case brings about a new law; if it inspires a movie; if it leads to creation of a significant charitable foundation etc. Bwithh 04:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I want to assume good faith here, but it seems like you and some other British folk are engaging in some vanity denial, same way Richard J. Daley had the garage that the St. Valentine's Day Massacre took place in plowed under (there's no historical marker for that or the spot in Chicago where John Dillinger was gunned down, either, but if you ever visit, I'll point the spots out to you). WP:BIO states Subjective evaluations are irrelevant to determining the notability of a topic for inclusion in Wikipedia. Same criteria is why Elvira Arellano has an article... yes, I know about WP:INN, but her article survived an AfD based on the that criteria. The fact that it's embarassing to some folks or others would like to subjectively minimize the newsworthiness of the subject by declaring the news coverage to be sensationalistic is not part of the criteria. Fact is, much material in WP is decided to be encyclopedic by WP standards based on mentions in the same mainstream media, and plenty gets deleted due to lack of mentions in the same media.. because that's the standard set by WP:BIO. And, honestly, I think one could safely assume that books and other media on this weird crime will appear in the future, probably because it's embarrassing and sensational... and it's a fairly good wager some law might turn up to prevent a similar incident in the future. Now... how'd I get involved in two British related AfD's in one day? Oh, yeah, the other one was in the hoax-article category... Tubezone 05:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding your points about sensationalism, notability, and "subjective evaluations" -- I explicitly acknowledge in my nom that this story passes the primary notability criterion. You, on the other hand, fail to address the main concern of the delete voters here, which is that this story is not encyclopedically notable, due, in the opinion of most of the delete voters, to lack of any indication of legal or long-term significance. Whatever you think of these arguments, none of us is making "subjective evaluations" as you claim. We're making an objective and reasoned judgment that this story doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Pan Dan 16:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment such as by being assassinated, not specifically being assassinated. Actually, WP:NOT doesn't say "WP is not tabloid journalism", either, that's not to say it is, but there's no rule that tabloid journalism can't make an event or person notable enough for a WP article, eg: Paris Hilton. Tubezone 16:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep if the article is expanded. Right now there is no useful information on the page to read, its just a bunch of links and a dictionary sized entry. There is no context and details. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and Expand. --SECurtisTX 19:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep at least for now. Meets basic notability criteria. Let's watch this one improve and we can reconsider in the future. I will help fix. i expect same frm all keep voters :) Obina 20:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and Expand. This event is bizarre, out of the ordinary, and has received moderate media attention due to its nature. Things like this don't happen often, much like assassinations, and because such receive notoriety. --NinjaJew 20:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and Expand per dml- wiki's not paper, Tubezone, and Jayron's reasons.--Xiahou 23:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. Nominator's argument is a prime example of the No true Scotsman fallacy. Yes, says the nominator, it may at first seem as if the BBC considered the story important, publishing 4 stories on it, but they didn't really consider it important. I am impressed by nominator's abilities to look deep into the hearts and minds of BBC writers. Our Wikipedia: Notability criterion, however, lacks such abilities (thank God) so until it does, keep. And, of course, expand - devoting more space to the references than to the story is a prime sign on a stub ready for expansion. AnonEMouse (squeak) 17:29, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please read my nom again, because you misunderstand it. I explicitly acknowledge in my nom that this story passes the primary notability criterion. You mischaracterize the basis of my argument as "What the BBC publishes is notable, except when it's not." On the contrary, the basis of my argument is a distinction between notability and encyclopedic notability, i.e. "Some of what the BBC publishes is encyclopedically notable, and some of it's not." Finally, you completely ignore the delete arguments of Edison and others. Note that Edison, like you, challenges my remarkable ability to see into the hearts and minds of BBC writers, but nevertheless comes to a conclusion that this article should be deleted because there is no indication of wider significance. Pan Dan 18:07, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Read again. Still stand by every word. You are waving your hands at the well defined criterion of notability, which you concede this meets, and replacing it with "encyclopedic notability", a tautology that apparently means whatever you want it to mean at any give moment. "Some of what the BBC publishes is encyclopedically notable, and some of it's not." That's No true Scotsman all over. Just replace it with "Some Scotsmen are true Scotsmen and some are not." The cure is the same - define what you mean by "encyclopedically notable", and we can argue about that. We may even get that accepted as the defining criterion in place of Wikipedia: Notability. But meanwhile, we haven't. I happen to disagree with Edison's criteria, "wait for the book or the movie", because I see Wikipedia's ability to react quicker and cover more than a publishing house or movie studio as an important strength, but his, at least, is well defined. Yours isn't. AnonEMouse (squeak) 02:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The BBC is not an encyclopedia. There is clearly much published or broadcast by mainstream media which is not encyclopedically notable (which is not a tautology by the way - see WP:NOT which clearly excludes a variety of notable forms of knowledge, information and discourse from Wikipedia as it detracts from Wikipedia's primary purpose to be an encyclopedia). Bwithh 03:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oh, "... we have look at the reason the publisher decided to publish" is even worse, since you are requiring psychic powers. If the articles says somewhere "this is not an important case", yes, I'll listen to that. Some do, saying: "this is just one of five hundred similar cases, we're detailing this one as an illustration of the trend." Do these? Others say "this case has not drawn any attention outside of Nottinghamshire." Do these? If not, then, unfortunately, lacking psychic powers, I have to assume that it is being covered as something the BBC did, in fact, consider important enough to be covered by multiple articles. As did the Telegraph. [1] As did the Mirror. [2]. As did the Scotsman (ironically enough). [3]. As did Clarin (in Argentina). [4]
  • You've got the wrong end of the stick with those sources. These articles do not support the idea that there is a wider social impact of this case - they merely place the case within a broader social context. It's like any drunken spree by teenagers can be said to raise the question of the wayward behaviour of kids today. Or any time there's a major traffic accident, it can be said that this shows that we should all be more careful drivers. Bwithh 03:26, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Rachel Hudson is not current news. The trial ended a year ago. Also WP:BIO does endorse a little crystal balling, see "Alternative Tests". Also, your or anyone else's judgement of the overall social impact is not part of the notability ciriteria, besides WP:BIO, you might want to read User:Uncle G/On notability, which is not policy, but part of what WP:BIO is based on. As to encylopedic notability, where in WP is that defined? If there's no WP definition, it's subjective for the purposes of this discussion, right? Tubezone 04:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Rachel Hudson is not current news." Well, of course. Nothing stays current news forever. The point of Bwithh's citation and comment (I think) is a distinction between news that has fleeting interest, and news that has lasting significance. If we apply WP:BIO's crystal ball test, which you seem to favor in your comment, it is clear that the article should be deleted, because there is no sign of lasting significance. Pan Dan 13:10, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We're still here discussing here a year later, aren't we? But that and Alternative Tests don't apply in this case as the subject already passes other WP:BIO criteria. If you want to discuss notability criteria, there's a place to do that, discussions on notability, which are ongoing. The guidelines have been explained, even an admin explained them. JMHO, you're beating a dead parrot here. This AfD is 10 days old and should already be closed. Tubezone 13:24, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Re: "guidelines have been explained" -- Guidelines are not policy. I, for one (can't speak for other delete voters), acknowledge that this story passes the guideline WP:N. You continue to ignore our arguments that there is good reason to be stricter than the guideline WP:N in this case. Note that the guideline template says "it is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." (2) Re: "even an admin" -- There's at least one admin who has opined to delete above. (3) Re: "a year later" -- The only reason we're still discussing this a year later, is that I came across this article in an alt-x search. A Lexis-Nexis search shows that the last mention of Rachel Hudson (in Headline, Lead Paragraphs, or Key Terms) in European papers was in March, in two local papers; there has apparently been no mention of Rachel Hudson in the BBC since the last family member was sentenced. That's a very good indication of fleeting interest, not lasting significance. Pan Dan 13:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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