Talk:Murder of Vivianne Ruiz/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) 08:02, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Will review this shortly Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:02, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, initial thoughts:

Firstly, there are apparently very important details in the lead that just aren't addressed in the body at all.

"The murder of Vivianne Ruiz is thought to be the first officially recorded 'Jane Doe' in Australia"
"The unique fingerprint evidence that would ultimately convict her killer was also unprecedented"
"Later testing demonstrated that a tonal reverse had occurred"

More generally, the article could really do with a copyedit to improve the prose flow. The GA criteria are pretty forgiving, but I find the prose so choppy and awkward in places as to be actively distracting. I also have concerns about the level of detail – lots of attention is given to apparently irrelevant details which pad out the article but make it hard for the reader to see what actually matters. For instance, take the first paragraph of the section §Post-mortem:

A post death examination, known as a post-mortem or autopsy, was carried out to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death, as is common when the cause of death is suspected to be a criminal matter. Two investigators attended the Glebe Mortuary as witnesses. A third officer with expertise in fingerprints also attended. A government forensic pathologist, Johan Duflou, conducted the post-mortem. Duflou did not undress the victim, as it might have been significant in establishing her identity. As the victim's clothing was removed, sand fell onto the operating table and was collected by an investigator.

There are a lot of facts here, but what are they doing?

A post-mortem was carried out: important to know
A post-mortem is a post-death examination, also called an autopsy, used to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death, and is common in the case of suspected homocides: we can probably assume that most readers know this.
Three police officers witnessed the autopsy, one of whom was an expert in fingerprints: do we care? it's never mentioned again
Duflou did not undress the victim in case it was signficant in establishing her identity. In fact it wasn't, and I'm not convinced we really care about this, but if it is to be included then I will note that I was confused by this the first time I read it: why did the pathologist not do something which might have helped establish the identity? I assume that the missing relevant detail here is that the police investigators did this instead, but given that we've gone into so much detail so far in this paragraph it is weird to omit that.
There was sand on or inside the victim's clothing: again, it's unclear what the actual relevance of this is. It's never mentioned again.

Unless this paragraph is telling us something actually important to know, I would be strongly tempted to cut it entirely and simply begin the next paragraph with "A post-mortem found that..."

The paragraph from the end of the same section illustrates a different problem:

Also found during the post-mortem were a significant number of animal hairs. These were analysed by a forensic biologist who confirmed under a microscope they were not human due to their internal structure. Further testing confirmed they were from a dog. Eventually, tests concluded the hairs were from a domestic dog, possibly a German Shepherd.

We are twice told that these are animal hairs, and then twice that they are dog hairs: surely we can convey this more concisely! For instance: "A significant number of animal hairs were also found during the post-mortem. Tests showed that these were from a domestic dog, possibly a German Shepherd." This communicates essentially the same thing in less than half the number of words.

Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:59, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Caeciliusinhorto-public I will address these concerns within 24 hours and ping you once done. I nominated two GA's and an FA all at once thinking it would (like my first GA), take some months before a reviewer came along. I have been fortunate to have them all reviewed very quickly, but unexpectedly so all at once. Will be with you shortly. Thanks so much and this is very valuable feedback. MaxnaCarta (talk) 02:02, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Caeciliusinhorto-public I've reviewed your feedback against the article. I think you are quite right. There is an excessive amount of detail. Please give me a day or two and I will come back to you. I'm going to review it from end-to-end. I'll ping you with a diff once done so you can take a look. Cheers MaxnaCarta (talk) 05:59, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay – I will wait for you. One quick note in the meantime, though: the infobox gives Ruiz's date of death as 26-27th December, but Barry puts it most likely on Christmas Eve and McCune says 23-25th December. What is the source of the infobox dates? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:26, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Caeciliusinhorto-public Here is the diff! Each review is a good opportunity for learning something, and I think this review the biggest lesson for me is summary style. This is an encyclopaedia, not a true crime mystery novel requiring every detail. I have made a substantial cut of a lot of fluff. Please feel free to let me know what you think. As for the dates, I will change. We should go with Barry's source above all else given he was the detective who worked on this. The papers sometimes say it was the 26-27th because the body was found on the 28th. There is some debate as to the exact date and time and I know one officer theorised she was stored under White's parents house for a few days. I'll change it to Barry's date. — MaxnaCarta ( 💬 • 📝 ) 12:47, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Caeciliusinhorto-public @Caeciliusinhorto, hello! Hope you are well. Please do let me know if you have anymore feedback. No pressure. Thank you. — MaxnaCarta ( 💬 • 📝 ) 09:16, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, having read through the article again this is much clearer! It will still need a lot of work if you want the prose to reach FA level, where they require it to be engaging and of a professional standard, but for GA's clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct you are pretty much there. A couple of further quibbles with the prose:

After two trials were aborted due to bizarre conduct is "bizarre" the most appropriate adjective here? threatening to kill the judge strikes me as more than merely bizarre!
Hidden J found White had killed Ruiz in a fit of passion: strange to name the judge in his final mention, and strange to name him this way. I would say "the judge, Peter Hidden" on first mention and simply "the judge" thereafter.

Onto the other GA criteria:

I will spotcheck sources for criterion 2 this week. I will note up front that it would be useful (though not required by a strict reading of the GA criteria) to have timestamps or something for the McCune source rather than just pointing to an entire 45-minute documentary 15 times. I'm also a bit wary of the fact that the main sources seem to be 1: an article by someone involved with the investigation, 2: a documentary largely made up of interview clips from people involved with the investigation, and 3: contemporary news reports. Some searching on my end doesn't suggest an obvious better source out there, but I'm still not super comfortable...
Following your rewrite, I'm much happier about criterion 3. One detail that I would expect to be discussed but wasn't: do we know whether White was in fact paroled after 9 years or anything about what happened to him after he was sentenced?
No obvious neutrality problems, but again police investigators appear to be very major sources so expect me to be picky about this.
No stability issues.
Image of Ruiz has an appropriate fair use rationale; the others all seem to be appropriately licensed. I don't know how useful the image of King's Cross is, but I see the connection and there's not an obviously better image in the Commons category – an image which illustrated the nightlife or nightclubs might be a better bet if there is one that I've missed.

Will make further comments when I have spotchecked sources. I'm away this weekend and won't be able to do any editing Friday-Sunday; if possible I will try to get any comments to you before that. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:17, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Caeciliusinhorto appreciate all the feedback. Fixed the prose points. I don't find them quibble at all, I am happy to work on this as much as is required. Also, you don't need to go any faster than you need to. I know we are beyond the seven days, but provided you're okay, I am too. There's always something for me to do here and in life, so happy to work steadily at this, there is no deadline or rush as far as I am concerned.

To the others:

I agree that timestamps would be useful. I tried to do this, but could not make the SFNP referencing work with them. I'll give it another go. I agree some other sources would be great for verifiability, but there aren't any. Aren't interviews considered reliable when published by a reliable source though? The two documentaries especially. Plus if not contemporary news, then what? I feel like the news, journal, and documentary combined paint a reliable, consistent picture. I certainly wish that I could find this significantly covered in a book, but even at the State Library of Victoria I only found newspaper articles similar to those used already.
As far as my search shows, White is never mentioned in media again after the trial. Could not find anything.
Regarding neutrality, I agree entirely. That is why I omitted their opinion and commentary. ie, I would not have quoted their comments about him being a "vile mean character". Not neutral considering the source. Rather than any analysis, this is just meant to be an end-to-end coverage of the sequence of events.
I'll hunt on flickr for a nightclub photo. The night time photo of King's Cross is all we have on commons at present.

Thank you! Enjoy your time off. Chat soon. — MaxnaCarta ( 💬 • 📝 ) 00:57, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, source spotchecking (thank you for your patience!):

The body of a female was located on the side of a suburban street in Sydney, Australia on 28 December 1991 None of this seems to appear in the cited source?

Fixed. Changed to Fay page 62 which does not state the exact date the body found but rather "early saturday morning between Christmas and New Year". The saturday between Christmas and NY is the 28th. Other newspapers mention the date but don't support the sentence as written. Nothing actually states the date and location together. Hopefully this is fine.

Blood staining was present on her head and clothing. Not at the page cited. The previous page supports that there was dried blood (not a stain) on Ruiz's head. The cited page describes the clothing, but says nothing about bloodstains, and searching for "stain" the only discussion of bloodstains I can find is related to possible bloodstains on White's clothing.

I actually removed this sentence. The dried blood is not relevant to anything else in the article.

Three distinct fingerprint patterns were identified Supported by the Fay source. Timestamp for the McCune source seems to be completely wrong – it seems to be about the six-minute mark?

Fixed, I had just been playing around with how to incorporate timestamps. You will find that most if not all McCune references are now timestamped. I am going through the entire video and timestamping (rounded down to nearest five seconds and allowing a slight buffer beforehand) these references for accuracy.

The fingerprints were photographed in situ and then enhanced with ninhydrin, an organic compound that can detect fingerprints. The practice is commonly used by forensic investigators in the analysis of latent fingerprints on porous surfaces such as paper, as the amino acids in sweat secretions that gather on a finger's unique ridges transfer to surfaces when touched. Exposure of the surface to ninhydrin converts the amino acids into visibly coloured products and thus reveals the print. Source doesn't seem to support the crucial first claim that the fingerprints in the Ruiz case were enhanced with ninhydrin; it's fine to support the broader claims about its use in forensics. The Fay source can support the first clause.

Agreed. However the sentence is better supposed by Fay's monologue in the McClune reference, so used that mid-sentence. Fixed now.

The victim's clothing led investigators to believe she had been local to the area Supported, no issues.
similar clothing was placed on a mannequin and displayed at locations near where the body was found I'm sure I've seen this in some source or other, but it doesn't currently have a citation and could really do with one.

Agreed, and done. Fay at page 76.

Investigators fielded a significant number of calls each day from people offering information. no issues
White did not resist the arrest, and his relatives were unaware of the police investigation no issues
The judge found that White depositing money into his account shortly after Ruiz's death was weak evidence of his guilt This is not exactly what the source says; the judge said that the evidence that the money White deposited was Ruiz's was weak. That this was therefore considered weak evidence for his involvement in the murder is a reasonable inference but not I think one which is supported by the source.

Agreed. Thanks for this. My writing has evolved significantly from when I first started, but this is an issue that I am gradually addressing yet remains stubbornly persistent, sometimes unconsciously. In my daily writing, it is my job to be interpretative and infer from statements. Not so when writing articles.

I'm not seeing any copyvio issues, and nor is earwig (though I doubt it has access to any of the sources you used, so I wouldn't expect it to!), but there are several places where the sources cited don't seem to match up with the text. Generally I think the text correct, but the references need to check out!

Noted. I am careful with copyright issues. I try to read, then put the text down and write my article without looking at the text. This is perhaps why sometimes I have those source-to-text issues. I intend on being more thorough with my spot checks before submitting for review from now on. Thank you.

I'm going to be abroad from Thursday until 1st June; I will put the review on hold until then. I suggest you use the time to fix these referencing queries and do your own spotchecks, and I will do another round of spotchecking on my return, hoping to find everything okay to pass the article! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:41, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No worries @Caeciliusinhorto. Thanks for the feedback. Happy to address! Have a safe and enjoyable trip. Speak upon your return. — MaxnaCarta ( 💬 • 📝 ) 00:12, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Caeciliusinhorto all done. Thank you so much for being lenient and allowing me such an atypically long amount of time to get the work done. I've had so much work on lately that getting to editing has been impossible. Just finished this afternoon. Looking forward to future feedback. Thank you! — MaxnaCarta ( 💬 • 📝 ) 09:01, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks MaxnaCarta – will hopefully find time to check this over and ideally finish up the review on Sunday! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:26, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No worries at all @Caeciliusinhorto. No pressure. — MaxnaCarta ( 💬 • 📝 ) 12:19, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@MaxnaCarta: sorry, slightly later to respond to this than planned. Thanks for adding all the timestamps - that must have taken a bit of work! I've spotchecked a couple of these and they seem fine, so that's good. I think there are two remaining issues unresolved:

The judge found that White depositing money into his account shortly after Ruiz's death was weak evidence of his guilt – you said you agreed with my comment on this above, but I think you forgot to make whatever edit you were planning? That text remains in the article
similar clothing was placed on a mannequin and displayed at locations near where the body was found: source cited supports the mannequin dressed in similar clothing, but says it was at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, not "locations near where the body was found".

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:18, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Caeciliusinhorto - both sentences removed. — MaxnaCarta ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:42, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All looking good now – I'm going to pass the article now. Congratulations! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:50, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Caeciliusinhorto & MaxnaCarta: I don't think this article meets criterion 6 quite yet. In addition to copyright checks, the images also have to be relevant and not decorative per MOS:PERTINENCE and they should have succinct captions that indicate this relevance per WP:CAPTION. Normally I wouldn't make an issue out of this, but the fingerprint image in particular stands out as a decorative image that doesn't add anything to the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:52, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the fingerprint image is necessary, but I would say it's relevant enough to meet MOS:PERTINENCE. Maybe the caption could explicitly say something about the fingerprints found on the newspaper being crucial to conviction or something, but frankly this seems like a pretty minor quibble. MaxnaCarta: thoughts? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:03, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the fingerprint, I pretty much agree with both of you. I can’t argue with either perspective.

Copyright eh. The reason we don’t have the actual photograph of the fingerprint from the crime scene is because of copyright. Despite being all over the internet and almost certainly able to be legally used without risk to Wikipedia, inclusion wouldn’t comply with our policies and so I have omitted it from the article.

I used a generic one instead.

I personally think this image looks good in the article and provides some context. However it does not technically and to the strictest interpretation of the criteria, meet it. Happy to remove if needed — MaxnaCarta ( 💬 • 📝 ) 21:06, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]