Talk:Tesco bomb campaign

Tesco bomb campaign has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 2, 2011	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on April 23, 2011.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that police used cryptic messages placed in a newspaper and disguised as Mensa puzzles to communicate with the perpetrator of a letter bomb campaign?

Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on June 16, 2011, June 12, 2012, June 12, 2015, and June 12, 2018.

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Tesco bomb campaign/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Der yck C. 23:10, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the title on WP:GAN and thought, hmmm, interesting article. I ended up reading all of it, and so I might as well review it.

Not found in cited source, please provide additional citation (or prove me wrong)

Operation Hornbill, was one of the most secretive ever undertaken by Dorset Police
- Added separate inline footnote number to this one. --Der yck C. 21:47, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
a bomb disposal team from the British Army was despatched to the scene
the Army's bomb disposal team was stationed in Bournemouth—something that only usually happens when political party conferences are held in the town—and placed on stand-by
- These three are all in the first source—the ITV documetary transcript
was a 51-year-old widower
- Age is in the BBC article "Tesco blackmail 'bomber' jailed"; widower cited (the source doesn't use the word, but says His wife Erika died at the family home in November 1992...

A few more citations and we are there!

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
(I don't think it's really possible for any original research to exist on this kind of articles.)
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
Having finished reading the story on this article doesn't leave me wanting, so that's a pass.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
I can believe that there are no free images relevant to this article, so (6) is irrelevant.
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Possible future improvements beyond GA

This article currently relies heavily on 3 web sources. This reliance may hinder further progress and promotion of this article.
Indeed, but the sources cited are about the only decent ones on the subject, though I will dig to see if I can find more. Offline sources are alongshot, though.
To meet further standards, inline citations for the lead section may be necessary.
I always write my lead after I write the body so that it's a summary of the body. Since all the information is in the body, it shouldn't require citations.
If available, more details about the cryptic Mensa-style messages may be useful. --Der yck C. 23:10, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That would be interesting to know now you mention it, I'll see if I can find anything. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:01, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't mind seeing an image or two in the article as well, even if it's only of a Tesco store, or a locality in which police made a search. It's not a must but images do tend to make articles more attractive. Gatoclass (talk) 15:51, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I'll see what I can find. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:01, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to both of you for your comments. The title and the layout caused me a few headaches—any comments on those? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:01, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what headaches the title and layout have caused you. What's the problem? --Der yck C. 21:47, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't sure what to call it, and I'm more used to writing biogrpahies, so I struggled a little with what to call the section headers. It all seems to have worked out, but I was just wondering if you would do things any differently. Other than that, I think I've got all your concerns and even managed to find a couple of images. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:41, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article name is fine as there isn't another article about a different Tesco bomb scare on Wikipedia. I've done a bit of spellcheck on the non-free image. The article is now promoted to GA status. --Der yck C. 16:14, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Motivation

Forgive me for what might be an obvious thing to some, but I'm not seeing what it is this bomber wanted out of this. It seems like a pointless thing to demand. Like saying, 'I demand you carry yellow napkins or else'. Can anyone shed light on why whatever it is they were demanding makes sense? To me its not clear at all what they were demanding or why they were bombing, and what they expected to get out of it. -- Avanu (talk) 15:28, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

He wanted them to produce clubcards that could be used in cash machines, which would be distributed in the local rag, so he could buy lots of copies of the paper and withdraw the cash using the clubcards. Perhaps the article's not clear enough? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:46, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How do you get cash from a grocery store discount card? And wouldn't it be simpler to just get actual cash? -- Avanu (talk) 15:57, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The cards were supposed to be modified to act like debit cards. It probably would be simpler just to make them put cash in the paper, but I guess he didn't think of that! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:06, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, ok. To me the article right now seems to say that he initially wanted 50,000 pounds but then decided that he wanted a bunch of discount cards instead. Like walking into Arby's to rob the place and seeing a stack of 2-for-1 roast beef sandwich coupons and demanding those instead. -- Avanu (talk) 16:10, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for raising this, I hadn't seen it that way. Does this make it any clearer? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:18, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think it does. -- Avanu (talk) 13:36, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

no controversy over the light sentence?

Attempted murder, assault via a deadly weapon, blackmail, TERROR - and he gets 12 years? I would think the public would be outraged that he didn't get life imprisonment. Did no gov't official take a stand, and should this be mentioned in the article? HammerFilmFan (talk) 09:48, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]