Talk:Murder of Asher and Yonatan Palmer/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Title

Probably this should be moved to Death of ... without the definite article, since that seems to be standard for articles which are about the deaths of actual people. Thoughts?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:29, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Bad introduction

The following material was written by me and added to the discussion page for DYK nomination. Since no-one has acted on these suggestions, I am going to presume that no-one has checked the nomination page.

Here are my Comments made on Sept 6. Please don't ignore them

I am more concerned with the structure of the introduction than the hook. If the intro isn't good, then the article should not be a DYK.

• The first problem is the name of the article. It should be "Deaths of......", not "Death of......".
• The first sentence is very badly written. It does not state accurately what took place, as reported later within the text of the article.

"The Death of Asher and Yonatan Palmer was a stoning attack by two Palestinians that killed Asher, aged 25, and his one-year-old son, Yonatan after their car overturned on the highway near the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank on 23 September 2011."

1. This says that it was an attack that killed two people AFTER their car overturned. What this means is that the car overturned, and then they were stoned to death.

When I read the article, I discovered that a stone was hurled threw the windscreen of a moving vehicle from a vehicle travelling the opposite direct, causing injury to the driver, resulting in the car leaving the road.

There is no indication in the article that the "stoning attack" occurred after the car left the road.

2. The third problem is that the deaths that the title of the article refers to the death/s. You cannot write that the deaths were the attack. The deaths were caused by the attack, but they were not the "attack". It is simply an inaccurate way of stating the facts.

The problem here is the structure of a successful definition. Try:

"The deaths of Asher and Yonatan Palmer were events which took place in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2011, in which a man and his infant son died as the result of a stoning attack. In the attack, a stone was hurled through the window of the car that Asher Palmer was driving, causing him to lose control of the vehicle, which overturned. The attack was perpetrated by two Palestinian men etc etc etc.

• The notion that a hook can be irrelevant to the main subject of the article e.g. Yonatan Palmer was born 4 months early and in perfectly good health, is nonsense. It is particularly important in the case of a sensitive, recent matter that it is stated right, and relevantly.

Amandajm (talk) 03:19, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I didn't use your exact wording, but I fixed all the problems that you mentioned. --Activism1234 03:27, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

The introductory sentence still doesn't work:

The Deaths of Asher and Yonatan Palmer resulted from a stoning attack by two Palestinians that killed Asher, aged 25, and his one-year-old son, Yonatan, on 23 September 2011, near the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank.

If you remove the words "by two Palestinians" what you have left is this:

The Deaths of Asher and Yonatan Palmer resulted from a stoning attack.... that killed Asher, aged 25, and his one-year-old son, Yonatan, on 23 September 2011, near the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank.

Remove all the other superfluous words:

The Deaths ... resulted from an... attack ... that killed Asher...and ... Yonatan.

No. It's fine to say that the deaths resulted from an attack. But you can't say that the deaths resulted from an attack that killed the same people that you have just named.

OK sentences are:

The deaths resulted from an attack that overturned their car

The deaths resulted from an attack that blocked the highway.

The deaths resulted from an attack that also killed a lorry driver.

But you can't say: the deaths of Asher and Yonatan resulted from an attack that killed Asher and Yonatan.

That's nonsense! It's nonsense even if you have inserted two Palestinians, the dates, the ages and the place. It makes no difference. The actual structure of the sentence is faulty.

I know that you really want to keep the two Palestinians in the first sentence, but basically, you are letting the thought of those two chaps stuff up your thinking. Write the sentence without them. Then see if they fit. If they don't, them leave them to the next sentence.

Decide who the article is about. Is it about the two people who died, or is it about the two rock-hurlers who caused their deaths?

Amandajm (talk) 12:25, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Amandajm (talk) 12:16, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I honestly don't see how it makes a difference... I'm being serious, not because I want to keep any specific wording (I didn't even submit the DYK, I'm just helping out here)... But I'll try some alternate wording anyway. --Activism1234 15:25, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I tried some alternate wording. Also be aware that British English grammar may differ from American English (I assume you're British, as you said "chaps"). --Activism1234 15:29, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Basic sentence structure in British and American English is the same. The use of particular words, particularly colloquialisms (like chaps) differs. The spelling differs here and there. And there are one or two US rules of punctuation that defy logic. Other than that:

In neither British or American English can you word a meaningful sentence that states: the deaths of Asher and Yonatan resulted from an attack that killed Asher and Yonatan. THIS is what the sentence says, when you take out the Palestinians, the time, the place and the ages.

The current sentence is better because you have introduce the word "when". But you have still tagged "resulting in the deaths of Asher and Yonatan" on the end.

*Your first words tell us they are dead. Don't repeat that information.

Don't say The deaths occurred when the deaths occurred.

Don't say The deaths were caused by an attack that caused the deaths."

Don't say The deaths were caused by an attack and the deaths occurred.

This is nonsense in anybody's language!

Amandajm (talk) 01:18, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I removed it. --Activism1234 01:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

To be added

Bereaved, and working for peace Ankh.Morpork 15:41, 11 January 2013 (UTC)