Talk:Hyde railway disaster

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Mitigation of driver's culpability

Attempts are being made by @Owen Slatraigh: to add an Otago Daily Times news item about an author who has cast doubt on whether the driver was intoxicated and whether the train was speeding. The edits cast doubt on the official inquiry findings. OK, so there may have been a deferment of maintenance due to wartime shortages, but so what? Track maintenance was not shown to be a contributing cause. The outcome of the official inquiry was that the driver was speeding due to intoxication, and he served a jail term as a result. I have no objection to the book being listed in the Bibliography section with a brief note that the author casts doubt on the official version of events; what I do object to is the presentation of opinions to that effect in the main body of the text. I have no known connection with the tragedy, its victims, their relatives, any member of the train crew, or the members of the board of inquiry. Akld guy (talk) 22:18, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I have no connection either with any of this, however I visited the site recently. The Otago Daily Times is a highly reputable newspaper. I felt that its reportage deserved to be included. Please note that I did not personally endorse either the view that the driver was criminally responsible or that he was innocent. The driver himself never touched alcohol for the rest of his life, which does indicate that he himself considered alcohol played a part in impairing his judgement. You seem to be suggesting by "attempts are being made" that I agree with one side of this dispute. I have no interest in anything other than objective presentation of research into the matter. Please be sure of that. Perhaps this might open a new subject regarding the value of research many many years after such a tragedy. Please come back to me with a preferred editing of the presentation of this research. I also heard from a local that the train was delayed and there may have been some pressure on the driver to get passengers to a race meeting, but I did not include that as it was not published in any reputable newspaper and may have been seen to be trying to persuade readers one way or another. In good faith. (Owen Slatraigh (talk) 23:26, 10 December 2018 (UTC))[reply]

@Owen Slatraigh: Maybe you missed it, but I added a link to the ODT article in the External links section with a comment that the book casts doubt on the original finding. I do not think that the author's insinuations are fit for the main body of the article. The official finding was authoritative at the time. No mitigating circumstances were apparently found. Akld guy (talk) 01:09, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I did miss that. Thank you for letting me know. However, I am surprised that you are rejecting the contribution of a fellow Wiki user, who was adding recent research. Your behaviour seems to me rude and judgemental of recent research. You say "author's insinuations are [not] fit for the main body of the article". But what exactly are the insinuations? That a person deemed solely responsible for the deaths of passengers is not as fully culpable as previously thought. That seems humane enough to me. May I ask who you are to decide what is fit or not fit for the main body of the article? What qualifies you to reject this contribution? Why not let people make up their own minds if presented with research reported in a reputable daily newspaper published in the same region as the accident? We both know that there have many famous investigations which have done their best, but have not fully considered all issues in the history of mankind. This article, taken simply as an example of new evidence, deserves to at least be cited in the main body of the article. I invited you to reword my contribution and you have refused. Let's seek arbitration on this from the Wikipedia panel of adjudicators, as such behaviour must have occurred before and they should have a precedent. You are arguing that the article on this train disaster should be an article presenting the judgement only. I am arguing that the article about the train disaster should include a quote or summary of a recent newspaper review reporting recent research carried out since the judgement. Correct? (Owen Slatraigh (talk) 23:14, 12 December 2018 (UTC))[reply]