Talk:Earle Nelson/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Carabinieri (talk · contribs) 16:14, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I've reviewed the article. I think the article pretty much meets the criteria, but there might be a few issues to iron out. I've randomly checked some of the sources and claims in the article didn't always completely line up with what the sources say. I've fixed one instance. Here are three more examples:

"He would often entertain people with his various physical talents, such as walking on his hands or lifting heavy objects with his teeth." Schechter is a little vague, but certainly doesn't say Nelson did this often. Only that he "might" do his to impress his aunt and a friend of hers.
"Both had been strangled – Robert, with a cloth diaper[5] – and Germania had been raped after death" No mention of the diaper being made of cloth.
"Nelson was the first serial murderer in history whose crimes were subject to widespread media attention in newspaper, national magazines, and the then-new medium of the radio." Mayo only says that he was the first in America.

I haven't checked most of the sources, but the fact that I was able to find these inconsistencies by checking just a handful is a little concerning.

There are two more things I wanted to mention. I don't think they're relevant as far as the GA criteria are concerned, but I thought I'd give you this feedback anyway.

Some parts of the article are a little repetitive: "On day XX, person YY was murdered", followed by some detail. I'm not sure how one might fix this, but that made it a little tough to read. You might want to think about condensing the descriptions of the killings somehow.
The sources might be a little questionable. This would probably be relevant if you decided to take this to FA. I've only looked at Schechter and Mayo, but they read a bit like book versions of the tabloids. I don't know whether there are any better sources, though.

Other than that, everything looks good. I look forward to hearing your take on this.--Carabinieri (talk) 02:16, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Carabinieri: Thanks for taking a look at this. I have addressed the source inconsistencies you pointed out and will try to comb through once more (i.e. the cloth diaper mention; I believe I thoughtlessly used that descriptor simply because disposable diapers did not exist in 1926, but it isn't technically supported in the text). I may also mine for some contemporaneous newspaper sources as I recently got a Newspapers.com subscription, which may be a good place for more details.

As far as the redundancy of "on this date, this occurred"—I think I can figure out a way to rephrase some of these moments in the prose to include a bit of variation so it doesn't read quite so systematically. The main problem I had when writing the article in the first place was whether or not to depict Nelson actively (as the active participant), or relay the series of events as they happened/were experienced by the public & investigators. I went with the latter, primarily because Nelson was not technically convicted of the majority of the crimes that have been attributed to him. Because of this, I felt for the sake of neutrality and weight that the series of murders be told in the style of "Victim A was found murdered on this day, and police determined XYZ from the crime scene" as opposed to "On this day, Nelson did this, and police found this at the crime scene." Another reason I chose to format it this way was because in some cases it is vague as to which date the murder actually took place on, and what the circumstances were. In all of Nelson's murders, the only ones who actually know what happened were the victims and Nelson himself. Since Nelson never formally admitted to the crimes or provided any details, what is known had to be pieced together by police; for that reason it seemed more logical to present the date the date the victims were discovered and what was culled from the crime scenes at that time.

In regard to the book sources, I do agree that some elements do seem a bit tabloid-y, but it is worth noting that Harold Schechter's Bestial is based on contemporaneous sources (he points this out in the preface), so he did compile the narrative of events from immediate newspaper sources and official police documents. I presume the details reprinted in The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers in 2006 (which includes contributions from Schechter) come from the same place. I think what makes some of Schechter seem sensationalistic is simply the way the prose are structured, as he very much "tells a story" as much as he presents the facts of the matter, unlike something like Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, which is a bit more clinical in format. For all the tabloid-y moments, I feel Schechter is credible and his credentials as a writer and editor render him a legitimate source as far as I can tell. --Drown Soda (talk) 02:05, 27 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your responses. I've randomly checked a few more of the references and didn't find any issues. I understand your dilemma as to how to present the murders. Like I said, I don't think this is a problem for GA and neither is the quality of the sources (though I suspect they might be at FA, if you decide to go that route). So, I think everything checks out and I'm going to go ahead and pass this. Good job on the article.--Carabinieri (talk) 02:52, 27 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]