Talk:Bonnie and Clyde/Archive 7

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Alleged controversies

The Controversies section claims that there were several controversies surrounding the execution of the criminals—then presents no examples.

• It states that the posse's accounts of the shooting "vary so widely" that they cannot be resolved; but the only variation among the testimonies concerns who called "Halt" to the murderers.
• The article claims that there is doubt whether the posse called "halt", but it presents absolutely no evidence for entertaining such a doubt in the first place. The men who were present all agreed that someone called "halt", so the burden of proof lies on those who claim they didn't—and no such proof is cited in this article.
• The article states that there is doubt on whether Parker should have been shot on sight, then proceeds into a lengthy explication on the various warrants that were issued against her—all of which classified her alongside Barrow, who was to be shot on sight. There is nothing whatsoever to support the article's questioning it.
• The article claims that Hinton's accusations in the 70s cast grave doubt on the accounts of the posse members—and that is simply absurd. His accusations amounted to whether or not Ivy Methvin was tied to a tree the night before, and whether or not Parker's cigar was actually an airbrushed rose!

This section needs to undergo a very heavy rewrite, because there are no controversies surrounding the execution whatsoever as it presently stands. —Dilidor (talk) 16:39, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

@Dilidor: You say "there are no controversies surrounding the execution whatsoever" which seems to be a bold statement to make. Did you read through all of the article and the sources? It seems that this article will never be able to "give the one and true story", but it has to remain a balance of different claims against each other. This is a historical event and the article should not take the view of today's sentiment only, but also reflect how it was seen at the time and since then. Most of all, it needs to stay true to the source material, even if you disagree with it. You have done the rewrite you asked for above, in the end mainly shortening and leaving the controversies still mentioned as "differing accounts". That seems ok, but I'd like to further the discussion.

I haven't read much of the sources, but as far as I understand, the analysis of Guinn was the main source of the article. In particular, Guinn seems to be the source and the one identifying the controversies:

Such widely varied accounts can't be dismissed as different people honestly recalling the same events different ways. Motive becomes an issue, and they all had reason to lie.

I think it is problematic if there is only one main source in an article, but I would not discard this one effort to put perspective onto the story. I would certainly think that what you call factoids have a place in the article, especially in a section that disputes them.

I'm no lawyer (and even so, Wikipedia refer to published sources rather than rely on editorial opinion or research) but I think "the burden of proof" should be to clarify why Parker was shot without any trial. Even if you personally have no doubt, the "lengthy explication" certainly had merit. As a side note, you've changed usage of "outlaw" to "murderer", which may make the text more readable today, but murderers are given trials whereas outlaws per definition were given no such chance. I'm not sure if they were formally declared outlaws, but if they were it is a very good word to use.

In law, there is the benefit of doubt. You reduce the question of "halt" to who called it, but the fact that each had a different initial account would in my book certainly raise the "doubt": maybe nobody did? The article also says "Prentiss Oakley admitted to friends that he had fired prematurely", which makes the question of "who" less relevant than "when" anyway. For outlaws it may not have been terribly relevant if warning and a chance to lay down weapons were given or not, but the actual uncertainty of what happened creates a controversy in itself. Same goes for Hinton statements, true or not, saying that Ivy Methvin didn't collaborate (as was thought) but were forced to comply through force and promises.

Given my lack of expertise, I won't edit any of this back into the article, but I have now stated some arguments that may have been missed in the discussion before.

As for the other editorial changes you've made Dilidor, I think you have done a great job mostly. In some cases the grammar were not perfect and it was sometimes confused when referring persons, I've tried to fix the things I found. I hope my changes are not re-introducing something bad or is seen as edit war.

More of a problem seems to be that you may have been failing WP:NPOV. Several edit summaries says things like "neutralizing an outrageous bias and attempt to gloss over the immensity of the crimes committed by these terrorists". I fail to see that you are neutral in that phrase. Especially, I wonder what ground you have when naming them "terrorists", a word never mentioned in the article itself? Continuing "when terrorists and drug dealers are taken down, all their possessions are forfeit by law" is another statement that I would ask you to verify with sources of that time. It is not clear how this view of yours did affect your edit, but I seem to see traces of it around the distribution of the bounty. The "despite the complete absence of any evidence to the existence of such a suitcase" seems to be your addition and such a statement needs a good source reference. Changing "substance-abuse problems" to "drug addict" is not necessarily an accurate edit if you haven't verified that with sources, and even so the former wording is definitely more neutral. (In this case, it was not even about Bonnie or Clyde, so I decided to remove it as irrelevant to the article.)

Speaking of removing: Why did you find the books less worthy a listing than the movies and music? Why did you not at least move them to "see also"? Please advice.

Keep up the good works, JAGulin (talk) 13:03, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@Jagulin: I know this is almost a year after your remarks, but there is no formal notion of outlawry in American law. The closest thing, I suppose, would be unlawful combatant status, but that's only in a military context and doesn't apply here. The term outlaw was used in a broader sense for desperate criminals trying to avoid apprehension by law enforcement, but it didn't mean it was legal to just kill them without trial, except when they were actively engaged in the commission of a serious crime. --Trovatore (talk) 22:29, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@Jagulin: No, I said "there are no controversies surrounding the execution whatsoever as [the article] presently stands." I'm confident that there are some contradictory details and disputed claims—but they are not spelled out in the article. I'm asking anyone who knows those details to explain them in the article; otherwise, that section is of no value.

That quotation is from Guinn, so let Guinn defend himself. In other words, go to the Guinn book and see if he spells out what the controversies are, and if he does then include that info in this section. But as I already stated, the only details given concern who cried "halt", not whether someone cried "halt". And the guy tied to the tree is just silly and utterly unrelated to the debate.

There's no question that I have an opinion on these people, and yes that opinion is strongly signaled in my edit summaries. But my edits still maintain NPOV; in fact, many of them were made to remove a subtle bias. The fact that they were treated as folk heroes in their time is brought out in the article, but to treat them as such now would be to violate NPOV.

Finally, those books are listed in the bibliography—which is where they belong. —Dilidor (talk) 14:59, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@Dilidor: The edit summaries are an integrated part of the article history, please keep them civil and fact based. The difficulty with NPOV is that once you get "an agenda" it is easy to loose the overview, without yourself understanding it. You now made it clear that you did not consult sources before your extensive edits. This helps to put the edits into context.

When you say "unrelated to the debate" - what would you then say the debate is?

You disputed the section and later removed several paragraphs. Call it "differing accounts" if "controversy" is a too strong word, but I suggest you reinstate what was removed. I found the quote and sources in it enough to disagree with your claim of "no value".

Again: "despite the complete absence of any evidence to the existence of such a suitcase" seems to be your addition. Did you move the statement within the article or can you provide a good source reference? "he later donated it to the Barrow family" was a change by your edit from "return" into "donate". Do you really feel that those words are synonyms and do you think the cited source agrees with your change? Can you also clarify better what you found unclear in "W. D. Jones had been a friend of the Barrow family since childhood."?

I added back the book section and the one lost book, since you didn't argue for its removal. JAGulin (talk) 05:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

References

Apparent self-contradiction

I added the {{self-contradictory}} template because the same paragraph says that there's a picture of Parker smoking a cigar, and also that she never smoked cigars. Needs explanation at least. Maybe she was only pretending to smoke in the picture, or maybe she just very rarely smoked cigars? --Trovatore (talk) 21:48, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Several portions of the page discuss that Bonnie was apparently pretending to, as they told it to Percy Boyd, who they had previously kidnapped after they set him free in Kansas. Further, beyond the photo itself, no evidence points to her having smoked cigars. --H. Roosevelt (talk) 01:04, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

That may well be, but you didn't fix the apparent contradiction in the text. --Trovatore (talk) 01:13, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

The sentence that begins [t]he picture of Parker smoking a cigar came from an undeveloped roll ... is a little awkward as it stands; no "picture" has previously been mentioned, so the reader may struggle to figure out what "the" picture means. Maybe the solution is to rework that into a couple of sentences, explaining that such a picture exists, that its provenance is disputed, and that at least one source claims that Parker "never smoked cigars". --Trovatore (talk) 01:23, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

So not a contradiction per se but rather vague mention. Perhaps a rewording accompanied with referencing the photo in question already featured on the page would be better or referring to as "a" photo could suffice. --H. Roosevelt (talk) 03:41, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, no, as the text stands, it really is a contradiction. If there's a genuine photo of Parker smoking a cigar, then it's not true that she never smoked cigars, and vice versa. --Trovatore (talk) 03:48, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

As previously stated, members of the gang later refuted this and so while the photo does depict her gripping a cigar in her mouth, it's likely it was intended to look tough, much like how some of the other pictures recovered from the hideout had them aiming guns at each other. So, "smoking" might be the wrong term to use in describing it. --H. Roosevelt (talk) 08:00, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

The question is what sourceable, verifiable, non-contradictory text we can put in place of the existing contradictory text. --Trovatore (talk) 19:07, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

"While a picture exists of Parker posing with a cigar, members of her gang state that this was only done as a joke and that she never actually smoked cigars." --Khajidha (talk) 15:27, 9 June 2020 (UTC)