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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ealdgyth via FACBot (talk) 28 January 2020 [1].

James Humphreys (pornographer)

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Nominator(s): SchroCat (talk) 09:17, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

An insalubrious character, James Humphreys was a peddler of mucky mags, a strip club owner and a pimp. In order to carry on his business in the 60s and 70s he spent thousands on bribing the Dirty Squad, as the Obscene Publications Branch of the Met were called. Cars, cash, jewellery and holidays ensured the money kept rolling in from his Soho porn empire. Then it all went wrong and Humphreys used his records of bribes to get a shorter jail sentence after beating up his wife's lover. Thirteen bent coppers were banged up because of his evidence. This is a new article that's recently gone through GA. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 09:17, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Source review—pass

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Per previous review. buidhe 13:55, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Buidhe, I'm much obliged to you. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 16:42, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tentative Oppose by Fowler&fowler; looking to support, given progress

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Extended content
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The first FAC was archived on 2 January 2020, and a discussion was continued on the Talk page. This article has seen just one edit since. The GAC was conducted long before the first FAC was archived. I have not had time to even get much beyond the lead. The nominator made no effort to ping me. Surely that is not in consonance with WP:FAC rules. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:51, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please point out exactly where any action here "is not in consonance with WP:FAC rules". I am sure that the @FAC coordinators: will explain the basics to you, and that your oppose is unactionable, given there is no "specific rationale that can be addressed". And in future, please WP:AGF. - SchroCat (talk) 16:09, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This article has a major blind spot, a major gap: that of sexual exploitation and abuse of young women. He did that his entire life. There is no mention anywhere in the article. The article deadpans its way through. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:11, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We are clear as to exactly what he did. If you wish to provide reliable sources that directly link Humphreys to any additional exploitation or abuse (above the 'normal' levels of the sex industry), please provide them. - SchroCat (talk) 16:14, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

— Fowler&fowler 's reply at 16:29, 12 January 2020‎ — continues after insertion below

(edit conflict) The point is is that for that information to be included, we would need a specific source that directly and explicitly links Humphrey's to the exploitation of, etc. No-one (I'm sure) disagrees with your point in principle, but Wikipedia cannot be seen to make the link independently to the sources. That would be both original research and synthetic. The most that we could have without such a source is a (probably single sentence) piece of context in which it is noted that the 60s was a decade in which female rights came to the for, but so did pornography (or something). But it would be part of the general background rather than accusing Humphrey's personally. ——SN54129 16:37, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Where is that background? There are books written on sexual exploitation in Soho in the 1960s and 70s, often not just of underage women, but foreign women, who were more vulnerable. Where is there any mention of that? There are apparently "normal levels" of sex abuse in the porn industry (according to the nominator); there are also "normal levels" of corruption in the police. The article is entirely about the breaches of the latter. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:42, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
DO YOU HAVE ANY SOURCES THAT STATE HUMPHREYS WAS DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY EXPLOITATION OR ABUSE? - SchroCat (talk) 16:46, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Who is "We?" And "additional?" Where is there any mention of sexual exploitation or abuse? Are you saying your article is comprehensive about sexual exploitation and abuse of young, and even underage, women for which James Humpherys was directly or indirectly responsible? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:29, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"We" is Wikipedia, (i.e.: the article is clear). Do you have any sources that state Humphreys was directly responsible for any exploitation or abuse (above the 'normal' levels of the sex industry)? If so, please could you provide them. - SchroCat (talk) 16:33, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What are the "normal" levels in the sex industry? I have no idea. Your article makes no explication of these standards. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:36, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If you have no idea, how are you basing an oppose on it? The article links to various other articles which deal with the wider social impacts of the sex industry. I think we'd be going well outside the limits of a biography if we start looking at the social impact of pornography in this article.
So we're back to the question again: do you have any sources that state Humphreys was directly responsible for any exploitation or abuse (i.e. those that fall outside any general coverage that appears in the articles linked from this one)? - SchroCat (talk) 16:41, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was alluding to the use of "normal" without telling us what constitutes that notion of normal under which James Humpherys was engaging in sexual exploitation. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:46, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any sources that state Humphreys was directly responsible for any exploitation or abuse? - SchroCat (talk) 16:49, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
F&F, you should also oppose because the article makes no mention of the Sociology of punishment or imprisonment either. ——SN54129 16:52, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If a man was a warden at Auschwitz and there is no source for his directly killing the inmates. Can we nominate a biography of his to FAC that does not tell us about the context, about what went on in Auschwitz? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:22, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Wut. ——SN54129 17:32, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Take the suprious and straw men discussions elsewhere. Do you have any sources that state Humphreys was directly responsible for any exploitation or abuse? I am going to disengage from this line you are pushing now. I consider it increasingly disruptive as it is outside the scope of this biography. The socio-economic impact of pornography and the sex industry is dealt with in article linked directly from this one. Should you have any constructive comments to make about the article, I will deal with them, otherwise I have better things to do. - SchroCat (talk) 17:33, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
How is the latter half of the second paragraph in the Later life section a comprehensive summary of this report in The Independent? The Independent article says, "His wife, June, 59, who often acted as a maid to the prostitutes, forced the women to pay such high rents that they frequently had to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week to meet her demands, Southwark Crown Court in south London was told. ... The judge said he accepted they did not coerce or corrupt the women they used, but 'on any view the financial arrangements for them were extortionate'. Humphreys, of West Hampstead, north-west London, admitted living on immoral earnings; his wife, charged under her maiden name of Packard, admitted aiding and abetting him."? I have many more sources ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:11, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is actually a good point to make, and I've added something about the amount of time the women worked. - SchroCat (talk) 22:20, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As long as those sources aren't memoires of retired peelers, that's fine  :) ——SN54129 18:14, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, Serial Number, that's what comes of writing articles on what some people describe as "hobby topics". If you choose to do that, you'll end up being crucified here because you haven't written an article on a "vital" topic. It's that sort of mindset that makes for a less than smooth review process. - SchroCat (talk) 18:17, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It has nothing to do with either hobby or vital, and everything to do with a slanted, sanitized, and incomplete account. Have you, for example, used the sources I pointed out to you on the article's talk page:
  • Tyler, Melissa (19 December 2019), Soho at Work, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-107-18273-8 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |laydate=, |authormask=, and |laysummary= (help)
  • Mort, Frank (2010), Capital Affairs: London and the Making of the Permissive Society, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-11879-7 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |laydate=, |laysummary=, and |authormask= (help) to give the reader a background or context to Humphreys's career? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:30, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Please do not lie: tThis article is not slanted, sanitised or incomplete. No, I have not used those sources. They are not about Humphreys, and the information they contain is too far away from this biography. We have articles about pornography and the sex industry that readers are able to read. They do not need to be given a lecture on the socio-economic impact of prostitution in this article: that is what other articles are for. If you wish to improve the other articles, or, indeed, create a new article the sex industry in 1970s London, please feel free, but it would fall outside the remit of this article, except for a link. - SchroCat (talk) 18:49, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The description of the sting in Cyprus in your summary begins with, "In January 1972 Drury, Humphreys and their wives travelled to Cyprus and Beirut for a fortnight's holiday." and continues with "A journalist flew to Cyprus and was given a copy of the hotel register; the newspaper hired a private investigator who visited the branch of Thomas Cook on Regent Street, where he obtained a duplicate of the receipt, which showed Humphreys had paid for Drury's ticket." But that is not how the narrative unfolded. There was no public awareness of that trip. It was uncovered in an investigation directed by Laurie Manifold, the head of the investigative team at The Sunday People. The description in Roy Greenslade (27 May 2008), "Subterfuge, set-ups, stings and stunts: how red-tops go about their investigations", in Hugu de Burgh (ed.), Investigative Journalism, Routledge, pp. 329–330, ISBN 978-1-134-06871-5 is fuller (I have italicized some important elements.)
Roy Greenslade's description

The starting point was a passing mention to Manifold by a freelance reporter with good underworld contacts ... That information was nowhere near sound enough to publish. Even though Humphreys confirmed it to Manifold, documentary proof was required. ... Manifold sent a reporter, Sid Foxcroft, to Cyprus to see if he could check the register, and he immediately had an amazing stroke of luck. On arrival at Nicosia airport, the Greek Cypriot taxi driver recognised Foxcroft as a former comrade in the 8th Army and offered him help. Within minutes of getting to the hotel the driver persuaded the manager to show his old friend the register, which recorded the fact that Drury and Humphreys, and their wives, had stayed at the hotel at the same time. But it did not show who paid the bill because it was a package tour pre-paid in Britain. Manifold guessed that the package tour operators were unlikely to provide a copy of a receipt if approached straightforwardly. He told me: ‘I thought there’s only way to get this, and we've got to break the law. You’ve got to take a chance sometimes’. So he hired a man he had used before, an ex-army officer with a shady past he knew as ‘Matt’, to bluff the clerk at Cook’s in Regent Street by pretending he was Drury’s accountant and that he’d lost his receipt. The clerk accepted the story and supplied him with a duplicate, which confirmed that Humphreys had paid for Mr and Mrs Drury’s holiday. The result was a sensational front page: ‘POLICE CHIEF AND THE PORN KING: Was it wise of Commander Drury of Scotland Yard to go on holiday with this old lag? ’ (The People, 6 February 1972).

Do you think your summary will be helped by accommodating the italicized sentences in Greenslade's account in some fashion? You may not have seen this source, but our imperative is to be comprehensive. Note: I will make my more detailed comments on the Talk page of the article and link them here, as this review might become too long. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:27, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) x 2 I am well aware of the Greenslade source (and, indeed, we use it in that section). The additional information is not core to Humphreys's biography and we cannot bloat this article out with extraneous detail of what the journalists did. What we have in the article is entirely correct. Where there is a question over how the information was passed to The People, we provide both alternatives. How they got confirmation from the London end, we clarify this. I don't see anything else useful for this article in what Greenslade has written. If you disagree, please bullet point exactly what facts you think are missing and why/how they are crucial to Humphreys's biography.
Please do NOT paste information both on the talk page and here: that way confusion lies. I am concerned that you think you will be making this article too long, but if we are going to discuss blocks of text that are extraneous to this article I can see how that would happen. - SchroCat (talk) 21:40, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Greenslade's account says nothing about being given a copy of the hotel register—the register, in any case, is a bulky thing—only that he was shown the register. It says nothing about a private investigator (not even an undercover investigator, only man with a shady past, who broke the law ...). It says nothing about paying for Drury's "ticket." A ticket is ambiguous because you make no mention of a package tour. And, it wasn't just Drury's ticket. Greenslade says, "Humphreys had paid for Mr and Mrs Drury’s holiday." I asked because I'm perplexed at the paraphrasing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:39, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Greenslade's isn't the only account, and the weight of all the other sources differ at a few points to his. The other sources include input from people involved, investigative journalists, and people who have looked into this matter in depth, not in the limited way that Greenslade does. - SchroCat (talk) 22:44, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Greenslade is the only one who has been cited. Where are those other sources? Why have they not been cited? The ones that say, "He was given a copy of the hotel register," for example. You don't have to give me quotes, only the names of the references; I'll look them up to see if the description can be improved. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:27, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There are a series of sources used in the text when discussing the holiday. Start there. - SchroCat (talk) 05:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've changed 'ticket' to 'holiday' and added a second source. Neither change is really needed, but given the needless pressure being applied when it doesn't need to be... - SchroCat (talk) 06:13, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am going to bed now. In the last FAC, I had barely covered the first paragraph of the lead and one paragraph of another section when the nominator withdrew his nomination. Because of my comments and queries, those paragraphs stand changed. I will be looking at the article more closely this coming week. My main concerns, which are the same as my concerns in the previous FAC, are:
    • (1) Vague and inaccurate summarizing of the source material. This is my major concern, not the prose. This was my major concern in the previous FAC as well.
    • (2) Inadequate background material on the sex industry in SOHO, London, in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and especially of exploitation of women, including sexual abuse of them, in the industry. I am not convinced that the absence of source material (if that turns out to be the case) for James Humphreys's direct complicity in sexual crimes against women is an excuse to not discuss the indirect complicity of belonging to a milieu for which such crimes are documented.
    • (3) Besides, I am not convinced that there is no source material for his direct complicity. I will be examining all these issues more closely this coming week. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:30, 13 January 2020 (UTC) Updated with numbers for the issues listed. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:16, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, the paragraphs were changed, but for no reason other than me trying to get over an impasse. The article was not improved by the changes (and the clue was all the other reviewers who disagreed with you).
      • This article is NOT the venue for an examination of the abuse of women in the sex industry, unless you can find information that directly links Humphreys to specific acts.
      • "I am not convinced that there is no source material for his direct complicity". So you are speaking from a position of ignorance in your Oppose? (and I sincerely hope the FAC co-ords take note of that). I don't mind people opposing when they know what they are on about, but when they don't know the subject and haven't read the sources, but make up spurious claims that you think there is untapped source material, then it makes a review process something of a rather unfunny joke. I do hope this isn't going to be as disruptive a process as the last review, which I regret having withdrawn. - SchroCat (talk) 04:57, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry that was a note to the coordinators about the issues that have caused me to oppose this submission, the issues that I will be looking at more closely this week. I'm a little stapped for time now, but, in addition, I will also be looking at:
  • (4) The absence of Legacy. Most FA biographies have a paragraph or two about legacy; most have sections. There is nothing in the article about how history, his friends, his loved ones, and indeed he himself has judged James Humphreys. There is certainly no absence of data there. There is nothing about his character. There is again no absence of data there.
  • I have now numbered my FAC issues. As I go through them in more detail, I will be presenting my actionable suggestions here, Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:16, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is little actionable in anything you have said do far (aside from one or two minor points, and certainly very, very little given in good faith) that needs to be actioned SchroCat (talk) 21:23, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • A legacy section? I’m afraid this shows complete ignorance of the subject matter. If you can get to grips with the subject matter before making any more similar comments, it would be best for all. - SchroCat (talk) 15:42, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Continued note to the coordinators about (4)) By "legacy," I mean the extended usage, "a long-lasting effect of an event or process (OED)," the "lasting influence of a person or thing." I mean the summing up of a life or career. I mean the contemplation or retrospection of the lived life, the tributes, the criticisms, the aftermath. There is no shortage of those in the sources for James Humphreys. I will be making a list of those as well. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:19, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I look forward to seeing what unencyclopaedic dross you come up with in an attempt to justify this unjustifiable, oppose made in complete bad faith. This clutching at straws is all very second rate and disruptive.
And rather than sending notes to co-ordinators, perhaps you can drop the obstructive manner and address comments about the article to the nominator. Grandstanding has no place in any review. - SchroCat (talk) 03:19, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Ealdgyth, Laser brain, I wanted to let you know that my detailed review has not begun yet. I will start it once I have the literature I have requested from Inter-Library loan. I will respond to the relevant critiques some time thereafter, and in this section. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:29, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Review of Fowler&fowler:

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Note1: I have possession of a couple of sources. While I wait for the rest to arrive through the inter-library loan, I thought it might be a good idea to begin the review. Could only the nominator reply here? All other editors, excepting the coordinators, please reply if you must, in your own subsections and either ping me or mention me in your edit summary. I will reply to you here. Note2: Can we collapse the discussion above? It is less relevant to my review which properly begins below. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:47, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Issue 1 Summarizing the cited source material.
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Section 1.1 Early life; beginnings of criminal career
  • Sentence1: James William Humphreys was born in Bermondsey, South London, on 7 January 1930.{{sfn|Cox|Shirley|Short|1977|p=145}}
    • Root, {{sfn|Root|2019}} which you are using significantly, says, "Born in Bermondsey in South London on 5 January 1930,
    • I can see that the date of birth of a James Humphreys (from his death record in the England and Wales data) was 7 January 1930, but why have you preferred Cox, Shirley and Short (1977) to Root (2019) absent the use of primary source data? If you are using the latter, then why has it not been cited?
      • Because we know the 7th is correct, so we're ignoring the incorrect. I could add another footnote to say that one source has the 5th, but as we know it's wrong, there seems little point in adding confusion to the matter. - SchroCat (talk) 08:31, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • Sorry, my error. I meant if you are using the primary source data to make the determination of accuracy, then it should be cited. (No footnote is needed, nor should Root be cited; but the birth or baptismal record you are using should be cited along with Cox et al) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:12, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • There's no need for that. We have a solid source that gives the date. Extra sources are not needed. - SchroCat (talk) 23:17, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
            • You have two solid sources. One, Root, which you have cited 15 times in the article; the other, Cox et al, which you have cited 13 times in the article. They have conflicting dates of birth for Humphreys. I asked why you have preferred Cox et al in this instance. If it is because of some knowledge from primary source data, then that data needs to be cited. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:04, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Sentence 2) He left school at age 14 and began a career of petty criminality;
    • Root says, "Humphreys’ rap sheet in the Metropolitan Police files is interesting reading and shows how he developed from petty crime as a youngster, before graduating to more serious crime."
      • One could, for instance, say, "X passed his law school exams in 1945 and began a career in law." Or you could say, "Y joined the Syndicate at age 15 and began a career in crime." Or one can develop, in Root's words, and the evidence of the development can be seen in retrospect in a rap sheet, but how does one begin a career, i.e. take the first steps of a course of continued progress in a domain whose organization is not described? (Note this is not a stylistic issue) In the end, as you well know, from November 1945 to October 1962, which constituted some 17 years, he spent more than 11 years in various prisons or reform schools. What was the career then that he had begun in November 1945, that of a petty criminal or a long-serving convict?
        • One could not say that. There is nothing about a "syndicate", or anything close to that in the sources. - SchroCat (talk) 08:31, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • The sentences beginning with X and Y are examples of correct usage for "career," implying that "career" cannot be applied to what Humphreys. Again, how can someone who between November 1945 and October 1962, i.e. 17 years, spent 11 years in correctional institutions, be said to have embarked in 1945 on a career of petty criminality? Do you mean, "he fell to petty crime?" Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:20, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
            • I'm afraid you are again selecting a very narrow definition of a word that has much wider use. I suggest you check the OED, which supports the use of the term we have here. I am afraid that if I came across the phrase "he fell to petty crime" I'd be both confused by what it meant, and think that the writer is trying way to hard to write purple prose. - SchroCat (talk) 23:23, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
              • OK, if you don't like that. How about, "He began to get involved in petty crime?" Or, if you like "criminality," "He began to engage in acts of petty criminality." There was no prognostication of a career in 1945. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:04, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
                • The wording is absolutely fine as it is. You may have done it differently, but there are several different ways it could have been done. This is a non-discussion point. Move on. - SchroCat (talk) 00:23, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
                  • This is not a question of prose style, but of accurately reflecting the sources. He spent two-thirds of the time between the ages of 15 and 32 in different forms and sites of incarceration. When he stepped out of Dartmoor in 1962, he had spent three-quarters of his adult years in incarceration. A "career" is determined by the record, not by intentions. In no meaning of the word "career" did he begin a career in petty criminality. Serving time in jail is neither a career nor a profession. I request sincerely that you change the sentence to, "He began to engage in acts of petty criminality." If you want "career," you will need to situate it in some form of referring back. You could say, "He began what was to become a youthful career in crime most of which was spent in incarceration." The crime was not all petty either. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:55, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
                    • The sources are adequately reflected. You may have done it differently, but there are several different ways it could have been done. This is a non-discussion point. Move on. - SchroCat (talk) 23:05, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
                      • I have just received Cox, Shirley, and Short, your second-most-used source. They say on page 145, "James William Humphreys had spent most of his life in the criminal world, though to judge from his record, he was not one of nature's successful villains. He was what the newspapers, rather unkindly, referred to as "an old lag." (OED: "Lag (n): A convict who has been transported or sentenced to penal servitude;" Webster's Unabridged: "lag (n): slang, chiefly British: a person transported for crime or sent to penal servitude: one who is serving or has served a term in prison: convict, jailbird.") You can use "career" when referring back to the record. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:12, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
                        • This section is closed, and you are tilting at windmills. Please spend your time coming up with some new (and CONSTRUCTIVE points), not rehashing things that don't need to be rehashed. Respect the hatting of the section, move on and do the rest of the review: the co-ords will decide if this is actionable or not. - SchroCat (talk) 23:21, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Sentence 1, cont): while still a teenager he became friends with Frankie Fraser, the London gangland enforcer.
    • Root says, "Humphreys left school at the age of fourteen, and while still in his teens became friendly with the notorious gangland figure ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser." For Root, this is a literary device to weave in a theme that he thinks is important--that Humphreys was a snitch, a cop informer, in the opinion of some, including Root himself. Root continues after that sentence,

      "But later events would change this feeling of friendship. ... (In 2012, Frankie's son) David Fraser said that Humphreys, who died in 2003, had been no friend of Frankie’s for many years, and that James Humphreys was ‘a grass’. As this book will prove, Humphreys was, with no doubt, a police informer, and in some high-profile cases too."

      • Why are you mentioning the friendship with Fraser here, and doing so in fragmentary form, when you don't mention it again anywhere in the article? What information is the mention of friendship meant to convey to the reader? Why the "still?" What meaning does that impart? They grew up in the same neighborhood after all. (See sentence 8 below.)
        • We're mentioning it because it shows the milieu in which he was brought up without thrashing the point beyond any relevent meaning. We say they were friends when they were young: we put no spin onto the point, and your interpretation of Root is into OR territory or reading behind the author's intent. - SchroCat (talk) 08:31, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sentence 3: When he was 15 Humphreys was arrested for housebreaking, and was fined £5.
  • Sentence 4: Seven months later he was sent to an approved school—a reformatory school in which children who had committed crimes were one of the classes of inmates[1]—for stealing a car.
    • (I can give you the grammatical reasons if you'd like, but) you can't put a long appositive, "a reformatory school ...classes of inmates," between two prepositional phrases without creating ambiguity and diminishing comprehension.
  • Sentence 5: He was released the following year, but was sent back in October 1947 for a series of offences.
    • Root has: "Humphreys was returned there in October 1947 for receiving a stolen motorcar, clothing, tools, housebreaking and stealing a sewing machine."
      • Your phrasing is too general. In other words, why is there reason to mention the offense(s) at all if the description is to be so general? He would not have been returned there without some good cause in the realm of offenses. Besides from Root, it is not clear if it was a series of offenses or just one offense involving disparate aspects.
        • I think we're OK with the general term, without the shopping list. - SchroCat (talk) 08:31, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • Again, how does what Root describes constitute a series of offenses? (Note: (OED) Series (n): A number of discrete things of one kind (esp. events or actions) following one another in succession over time, or in order of appearance or presentation. OED attested examples: 1958 W. S. Churchill Hist. Eng.-speaking Peoples IV. v A more immediate cause of the rising was a series of defeats and reverses suffered by the British. 1987 M. Das Cyclones i. 2 They held another series of meetings. 2011 New Yorker 14 Feb. 95/3 He had a series of liaisons, each of which he confessed.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:04, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sentence 6: In 1948 Humphreys was sentenced to three years in Rochester Borstal for theft; he was released in February 1950.
    • Root has, "In June 1948 he was given three years in Borstal for stealing a roll of cloth, and again for taking a motorcar without consent, being released early in February 1950."
      • The starting month presumably fell through the cracks of a previous revision.
      • From a novice reader's perspective, such as mine, "theft" is too general when following specific mention of a wiki-linked-prison. There is nothing wrong with adding the roll of cloth, etc.. If anything, from a modern perspective, when the offenses are detailed, the sentence seems too harsh. It gives the reader a window into the making of a criminal in the 1950s' Britain.
  • Sentence 7: Nine months later he was sent to prison for a year for aiding and abetting other criminals, and released in June 1951.[2][3]
    • Root has, "In November 1950, he was sentenced to his first adult prison term of twelve months, now aged 20, for ‘assisting and comforting’ two others who had stolen goods worth £22 4s 6d."
      • "Adult prison term" is an important detail.
        • That's lazy writing. Prison is an adult punishment. For minors it is/was approved school, Secure Children's Home, borstal or (for slightly older prisoners) Young Offenders Institute. - SchroCat (talk) 08:31, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • The Government of the UK uses the term "adult prison," here, "Young people aged 18 are treated as an adult by the law. If they’re sent to prison, they’ll be sent to a place that holds 18 to 25-year-olds, not a full adult prison." Root says this was his first "adult prison term." He was 20. The Wikipedia pages Young Offenders Institute and Her Majesty's Young Offender Institution describe themselves as prisons for those who have not attained the age of majority. If a "prison" unambiguously meant a place for incarceration of adults, those descriptions would be self-contradictory. Neither the OED nor Britannica makes such a delimitation in their definitions of the term "prison." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:04, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
            • We do not need to go into this in minute detail (aside from pointing out that 18 is an adult in UK law). We do not need to be so lazy or stupid as to use the awful phrase "adult prison". This is a non-discussion point. Move on. - SchroCat (talk) 00:23, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sentence 8: In July 1951 Humphreys married June Driscoll, but the couple soon divorced.[4][5]
    • Root has an offhanded later mention ca 1962: "When Jimmy Humphreys was released on 26 October 1962, he was 32 years old. Handsome and desperate to ‘make it’, he had already been married once, to a woman called June Driscoll."
    • I can see the marriage record in the England and Wales data.
      • Where are you getting the divorce information? Why "soon," and not a firm date, if you actually have the information?
        • I can't find the record for the moment, so I've removed this temporarily. It will raise questions from readers asking why we don't mention the divorce before he remarries, but hopefully I can dig out the source before then. - SchroCat (talk) 08:51, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • Why is there even a need to mention June Driscoll so perfunctorily, i.e. by name and by month of her marriage (rummaged from primary sources)? It is beginning to border on original research. Why not simply say when mentioning his second marriage that he had been married once before and citing Root in a correct paraphrasing? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:04, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
            • Her marriage is in the chronologically correct position. It's perfunctory because the sources have no further information. Just because Root puts it in a different place, there is no need for us to follow suit. - SchroCat (talk) 00:23, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
              • You mentioned the bit about milieu, which your sentence does not have anything about. Besides Root has much more, about how the relationship did not last. Fraser below has more: that Jimmy and June had a baby. Why the selective ambiguous mention? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:55, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • (An aside, whose theme I will pick up in a different section: Mad Frankie Fraser has a much more evocative description in his diary co-authored with James Morton, Random House, 2001, 2019):

        "Jimmy Humphreys, Eva’s husband Jimmy and me had nicked a lorry load of tea from outside what was the Ministry of Health building by the Elephant. I knew Jimmy Humphreys because he was a local boy; came from Southwark and he’s a few years younger than me. He’ll be about 70 now; very presentable, smart dresser, a very good appearance. Did all the usual things, a bit of approved school, a bit of burglary. ... When my sister Eva got married and was living in Great Dover Street, Jimmy Humphreys and his first wife June were down on their luck and Eva, through the kindness of her heart, had them and the baby to stay for about four months until they got on their feet. He wasn't a bad fellow then. A good thief until he broke up with June and after that, he went bad."

        More later, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:47, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Fowler, there is little point in going round in circles with you demanding changes are made your way when there is no benefit to the article. If you have new points to raise, please do so below, but there is no merit in relitigating the same points over and over. I have given my reasons why things have not been changed, and I see no reason to alter that position solely to satisfy your whim. - SchroCat (talk) 00:26, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It has nothing to do with my whim. You are violating WP guidelines. It is my duty to point them out. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:55, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What sanctimonious rubbish. You've been pushing your preference (your whim) since day 1, and been aggressively playing "GOTCHA!" with your battlefield approach since I turned down your early suggestions. You have no duty to act like a disruptive troll, but that is exactly how you are coming across with this nonsense. - SchroCat (talk) 16:35, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • (sentence) His crimes became more serious and the sentences increased as he got older.
    • Root has, "Then in October 1952, it got more serious, and Humphreys got twenty-one months at the Central Criminal Court for receiving a quantity of stolen goods and assault with intent to resist arrest."
      • That his crimes (i.e. in the plural) became more serious is your interpretation. Root is talking only about the instance of October 1952. Had there been a period (full stop) after "more serious" in Root, your interpretation might have been valid, but not in this instance.
      • That his "sentences increased as he got older" is again your interpretation. The sentences were: 21 months, conditional discharge of 1 year (which is also a sentence), two years and three months, and six years. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:55, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • (sentence) After being arrested for loitering with intent to steal cars in November 1954, he was given a conditional discharge of a year.
    • Root has, "Coming out in December 1953, he was given a conditional discharge of twelve months in November 1954 for ‘loitering with intent to steal from unattended motorcars’.
      • The discharge was given in November 1953. We don't know when the arrest for loitering took place. Please correct. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:55, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • I have moved a comma. - SchroCat (talk) 16:43, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • You now have: "... he was released in December 1953. After being arrested for loitering with intent to steal cars, in November 1954 he was given a conditional discharge of a year." Typically, the most natural position for an adjunct (in this case a prepositional phrase of time) is the end position, i.e., after the verb. But it doesn't have to be as long it doesn't wedge itself between the subordinate clause and the main. You want: "After being arrested for loitering with intent to steal cars, he was given a conditional discharge of a year in November 1954," "In November 1954, after being arrested for loitering with intent to steal cars, he was given a conditional discharge of a year," "He was arrested again, and in November 1954 was given a conditional discharge of a year," or "He was arrested again, and given a conditional discharge of a year in November 1954." The choice may depend on what has gone before. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:12, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Section 1.2 Strip club and sex shop owner
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  • (sentence 1) On his release from Dartmoor Humphreys changed the direction of his profession and opened a strip club in Old Compton Street, Soho, which was frequented by fellow criminals.{{sfn|Morton|2008|p=212}}
    • The cited source says, "By the 1960s Humphreys had nine convictions, including house and office breaking in 1958, when he received six years. Released in the Autumn of 1962, he took the least of a property." The second-most cited source in the article, Cox, Shirley and Short, say, "He was not one of nature's successful villains. He was rather what the newspapers, rather unkindly, referred to as 'an old lag.'" (OED lag (n): A convict who has been transported or sentenced to penal servitude.") and later, "Now 32, with some of his best years wasted in prison, he turned his attention to building a career in the seedy, though legal, business of striptease." Of such an individual, we cannot claim that he was changing "the direction of his profession" at age 32. What profession is it whose directions include both penal servitude and striptease club ownership? This is not an issue of prose. It is one of accurately summarizing the sources. Please remove "profession." Please add some paraphrase of "he turned his attention to building a career in the business of striptease." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:13, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • "which was frequented by fellow criminals" is an incorrect paraphrase of a source, which in any case is not the most reliable (see below). A home (away) from home is a hangout, a place of comfort, a haunt. "Frequented" is a poor substitute. They weren't fellow criminals. He was not much of a criminal in the first place. I can suggest a more accurate paraphrase, e.g. "which became a gathering place for his criminal friends," but see below first for a much better source:
      • Cox, Shirley and Short (with Google scholar citation index 124 is far more authoritative than Morton (with Google scholar index 7. It says, "He formed a private company, Humphreys Entertainments Ltd, and took a lease on a crumbling property in Old Compton Street. The club was no more successful than Humphreys's thieving had been. It was quie simply a disastrous site. Humphreys' friends rallied round him, however, and for a time the club at least stayed on its feet." This is a much fuller account. It also partially answers a question I had asked in the first FAC about how a man freshly out of a long prison sentence manages to open a club. (See here).
        • Please write: "He formed a private company and was able to lease a run-down property on Old Compton Street in Soho. The club was in a poor location, but his friends turned out to make it their gathering place, enabling it to survive for a while." (cited to Cox, Shirley and Short) (There is no reason to add the "criminal and quasi criminal," as in Morton or "faces" in Root). It is evident that a man who has had nine convictions and spent most of his adult years in prison will have some criminals among his friends. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:37, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Sentence 2:) Soho was the area of London that, with a proliferation of sex shops and sex workers, was the centre of the city's sexual economy.{{sfn|Carter|2018|p=6}}
    • It is not at all obvious what "sexual economy" means. It has an old 19th-century meaning related to abstinence. It has a modern meaning related to reproductive practices especially when applied to racially selective ones. It has another meaning related to the economics of sex work. The last is an expression of Frank Mort author of Capital Affairs: London and the making of the permissive society, Yale, 2010, (Google scholar citation index 167) The sentence has been cited to a recent paper of Oliver Carter, Google scholar index 0, which says, "According to Mort (2010) Soho was the central location for London’s sexual economy, with pornography and sex work being its defining feature." I will suggest a rephrase when Mort's book arrives, hopefully, tomorrow. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:20, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Sentences 3, 4, and 5): "Humphreys rekindled a relationship with a former girlfriend, June Packard, who had renamed herself Rusty Gaynor: Rusty after the colour of her hair, Gaynor after the actress Mitzi Gaynor. She had previously worked as a barmaid and model, but was employed as a stripper by the time she and Humphreys resumed their relationship. The couple married in May 1963.{{sfn|Root|2019|loc=419}}{{sfn|Campbell|2019|p=237}}
    • Here too the account of Cox, Shirley and Short is much fuller: "... the best thing that the Old Compton Street venture did, however, was to re-acquaint him with June 'Rusty' Gaynor, an old girl friend from his criminal days. Rusty had first met Humphreys at the end of 1951, after one of his many releases from prison. She was seventeen, and serving at the snacks counter of the Black Prince public house , on the Rochester Way, Sidcup, near her home. Now in November 1962, the couple were re-united. Rusty had developed a successful career as a stripper, and, hearing on the grape vine that a new club was opening, she went to audition for work. In the intervening years they had both been married, had children and separated. Rusty had begun an affair with a man called Peter Garfath, ... but the old affection was still strong, and soon she and Humphreys were living together. In May 1963 they were married in Caxton Hall. Humphreys continued to manage the Old Compton Street Club; Rusty danced for him." (p 146)
      • As Cox, Shirley, and Short are one of three highly cited sources for Humphreys's biography, I will hereafter not quote from it, but simply paraphrase my suggestion and cite the page number. I will also mention the three highly cited sources in the Sources Section below.
      • Please add some version of: One of the dancers who successfully auditioned at the Old Compton Street Club, which Humphreys was managing, was an old girl-friend June Packard. Humphreys had first met her in 1951 when he was between prison terms and she was 17 and serving snacks at a pub. They had both been married to different spouses, had children, and separated. She had refashioned herself into a stripper, "Rusty" Gaynor—the name "Gaynor" chosen after the popular 1950s Hollywood actress, singer, and dancer Mitzi Gaynor. They began to live together, and were married in May 1953 in Caxton Hall." (I don't know that we need to explain "Rusty;" most people know it's a redhead. Caxton Hall implies that they had a civil marriage.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:50, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Issue 2 Preponderance of Primary Sources (FA Criteria: 1 c and d)
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  • 82 of the 162 citations in the article are to contemporaneous primary sources, dating to between 1972 and 1994, most of which are topical newspaper stories, but one is a video of a Channel 4 "documentary" which has been cited half a dozen times with timestamp data. In the video, the various leading actors of the James Humphreys saga, he himself, his wife Rusty, another strip/sex club owner, a freelance investigator, the journalist Laurie Manifold, are all reminiscing. In particular, in the Attack on Peter Garfath section, more than half a dozen paragraphs are reliant on them. My hypothesis, which will require to be negated, is that such preponderance has slanted the article into overly focusing on police corruption, which was the particular preoccupation of the topical popular press during that time, rather than James Humphreys other biographical assets and liabilities, which as a consequence have not been given due weight Let me start with a general question and a more focused one:
  • Sentence: (Attack on Peter Garfath): "The relationship between Humphreys and his wife, Rusty, was sometimes turbulent.{{sfn|Campbell|1994b|p=T2}}
    • is based on a sentence, "Then in the 70s, there was an interlude caused by the sometimes stormy relationship between Rusty and Jimmy," in an interview with Rusty Humpherys by Duncan Cambpell in the Guardian (6 July 1994), conducted two days after her conviction, and whose main picture, that of Rusty Humpherys lounging on a couch has the caption: "Fallen empress of sleaze ... Rusty Humpherys, once free to do as she liked in Soho, savours her last moments before being jailed last week."
  • Since, per WP:STICKTOSOURCE, mainstream newspapers are (with some exceptions, of course) reliable sources, this section can be hatted with no response required from the nom. Cheers, ——SN54129 15:52, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Serial Number 54129: Please move your comment to your section per my request above. I will reply here if I think it requires a response. Thank you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:10, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
SN (or anyone else) is allowed to post where he wants on the page. Please don't try to tell people where to post things. Not everything on WP has to be done exactly to your demands. The rest of us work to normal accepted practice. - SchroCat (talk) 16:32, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Put it another way, this isn't Arbcom. ——SN54129 16:45, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Sentence) Often Humphreys would entertain and bribe different policemen three times a day: lunch, dinner and nightclubs, and often the bribes were not money, but cars or jewellery for police officers' wives." cited to Rusty Humphreys's reminiscence in the video {{sfn|''Secret History'', 18 May 1998|loc=Event occurs at 31:50–32:10}}
    • This is rendered in reported speech, not a direct quote. Do we have any secondary source that supports this, especially the bit about buying "cars" (in the plural)? If so, why has it not been added? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:08, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's a documentary, so it is a secondary source, not a primary one.
Do you have anything that casts doubt on the claim about bribing policemen with either a singular car or no cars at all? If not, this is a moot point. And why are you pushing the Fraser primary source so hard in other parts of the review, but you're dead set against this secondary one? - SchroCat (talk) 09:53, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Inadequate and selective presentation of context (FA Criteria: 1 b and c)
[edit]

I now have some more sources from inter-library loan: These are: 1) Paul Bleakley, "Cleaning up the Dirty Squad: Using the Obscene Publications Act as a Weapon of Social Control, State Crime Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2019), pp. 19-38 2) Melissa Tyler, Soho at Work, Cambridge, 2020; 3) Colin Manchester, Sex shops and the law, Gower, 1986; 4) Nigel Yates, Love Now, Pay Later?: Sex And Religion In The Fifties And Sixties, SPCN, 2011; and Judith Walkowitz, Nights Out: Life in Cosmopolitan London, Yale, 2012. I have a number of queries, but let me start with a general question, and I will follow up with more focused ones later:

    • Why is there so little by way of context (a requirement in FA criteria 1 b) in the article; in particular, why is there very little in the article about James Humpherys being considered a police informer, not only by the underworld and the police, but by the very authors which are being used substantially in the article? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:39, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) @FAC coordinators: I'm sorry, but I don't know what to do with crap like this (particularly the previous two new sub-sections). There is too much bad faith in this review for me to go through every point in detail. The best sources are available and they deal with the subject within the bounds exected both on WP generally and FAC in particular. This particular reviewer has not shown any evidence that they can act in a positive manner towards this article. It may be a "hobby topic" (as they have dismissed many articles that don't fall under the extremely dubious "vital" citeria on WP), but that does not mean that any editor should start making up standards and criteria. I refute most of what this editor has posted on this page and the previous review, and I am still waiting for anything resembling an honest basis for an oppose. So far it's all second rate rubbish with absolutely no benefit at all. We're deep in grounds of disruptive behaviour now. – SchroCat (talk) 16:13, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    • The source Root, Neil (2019), Crossing the Line of Duty: How Corruption, Greed and Sleaze Brought Down the Flying Squad, History Press, ISBN 978-0-7509-9098-1, which you have cited 15 times in this article, more than any other source, says at 8 locations (using your ebook locations), not counting 6 more which involve Drury's allegations, and which can be discounted:
      • "Most interestingly, the Metropolitan Police files show that while DC Drury was based at ‘L’ Division in south London, on 19 September 1951, he pulled Humphreys’ criminal record file out of the Met’s file system, ‘to assist him in a case of robbery’. The robbery had taken place in Clapham on 6 September that year, and Humphreys was not arrested after Drury read his file. Twenty years later, Drury and Humphreys would enjoy a lucrative and mutually corrupt friendship, before it turned sour" (location 287)
      • "As this book will prove, Humphreys was, with no doubt, a police informer, and in some high-profile cases too." (location 398)
      • "As well as developing corrupt ties with powerful police officers, it can be said with certainty that Humphreys was a police informer, as has been the underworld view since the 1970s." (location 1316)
      • "Humphreys was also acting as a police informer for Drury specifically on occasion." (location 1407)
      • "But most interesting were Manifold’s comments about Humphreys admitting to him that he had been a police informant. Humphreys had told him that he ‘had given considerable help to the police" (location 1500)
      • "This reference to a murder in Reading, Berkshire, and Humphreys acting as a police informant in relation to it was also mentioned by both Humphreys and Drury in their police statements." (location 1510)
      • "So, as has long been thought in the underworld, the criminally very well-connected Humphreys acted as a serial police informant. This was something which Humphreys would of course have wanted to keep very quiet. Therefore, not only was Humphreys paying enormous sums to police officers, he was aiding the apprehension of fellow criminals to lubricate the free running of his own vice activities." (location 1766)
      • "Humphreys had been in solitary confinement towards the end of his sentence, after being attacked by a fellow prisoner who accused him of being a ‘grass’. So whilst Drury had gone to prison largely through Humphreys’ allegations, Drury’s 21 May 1972 Sunday People insinuations that Humphreys was a police informer had severely compromised Jimmy's status in the underworld." (location 2852)

Hold the phone! Hurrah and huzzah with dig shiny brass knobs on! Ten thousand words of nonsense and finally, finally we get round to a proper point that needs to be addressed properly! It's a shame we had to go through all the rest of the nonsense to get here, particularly as you've had Root for so long. I'll add a line about this in the morning. - SchroCat (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit conflict) Fowler this ego trip is tedious and disruptive. You have pasted around 400 words just to make the simple point that you think a sentence or two is needed to say that Humphreys was a police informant. I have a long memory and I have not forgotten your similar disruptive comments here [2]. Graham Beards (talk) 21:36, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SchroCat: That Humphreys was a police informant is not a matter of just one line, two or three. It the major argument of the major secondary source employed in an article that otherwise relies very largely on primary sources whose improper use I will be detailing in the section above. Its author Neil Root is quoted by name in the article. It calls into question the reliability of a large part of the article. The fact has gone selectively unmentioned in sections which have otherwise been paraphrased from Root so faithfully, sentence for sentence, as to border on close paraphrasing:
      • "In November 1950, he was sentenced to his first adult prison term of twelve months, now aged 20, for ‘assisting and comforting’ two others who had stolen goods worth £22 4s 6d. He was released in June 1951. This is the period in which then DC Kenneth Drury of ‘L’ Division pulled out his file." (location 405)
      • "... and while still in his teens became friendly with the notorious gangland figure ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser. But later events would change this feeling of friendship. In a telephone conversation with David Fraser, Frankie’s son, in late 2012, this author asked to interview Frankie about his old friend Jimmy Humphreys. David Fraser said that Humphreys, who died in 2003, had been no friend of Frankie’s for many years, and that James Humphreys was ‘a grass’." (location 398) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:38, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • (edit conflict) No, it's a matter of a sentence or so, nothing more. I'm bored of your silly games, so unless you have something positive or constructive to say, just pipe down - or at least wait until I've added something before you criticise (again, it's indicative that you're in attack mode, rather than any constructive approach to article development). "It calls into question the reliability of a large part of the article"? Only from the mindset of a disruptive troll who is determined to sink a review at any cost. The two excepts quoted directly above: the first says Drury "pulled out his file": that's it. There is no reference to Humphreys being a grass, or even that there was any contact between the two, just that Drury "pulled out his file". The second is a 'well, duh' comment. It says Fraser's son called Humphreys a grass. Apart from the third hand nature of the information, of course Humphreys was a grass: he gave his fucking diaries to the police and appeared against them in court. With no dates as to when Fraser's son was referring to, it's a useless piece of nonsense, much like most of this review. A line or two is all that is needed, and I will add this in the morning, as I have already said. - SchroCat (talk) 23:28, 26 January 2020 (UTC) (edited to correct auto-correct) - SchroCat (talk) 07:18, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • It is a reference to the previous mention, ""Most interestingly, the Metropolitan Police files show that while DC Drury was based at ‘L’ Division in south London, on 19 September 1951, he pulled Humphreys’ criminal record file out of the Met’s file system, ‘to assist him in a case of robbery’. The robbery had taken place in Clapham on 6 September that year, and Humphreys was not arrested after Drury read his file. Twenty years later, Drury and Humphreys would enjoy a lucrative and mutually corrupt friendship, before it turned sour" (location 287)" May I request also that you not use intemperate language, and not attribute motives to my undertaking this review. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:11, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
            • FFS... I said I would deal with it in the morning, and you've still kept banging on about it (and missing the point yet again). Yet again it makes no reference to Humphreys being a grass or even any suggestion that the two even spoke. It still just refers to Drury pulling the file.
            • Everyone else was patient enough to wait for you to start your proper review (after 12 days of barking up the wrong tree and walls of text complaining about the exploitation of women), so don't expect me to go without sleep to start editing at the drop of a hat just because you want something adding; you can show just a fraction of the patience that everone else has done. And you may request as much as you like about my language, I really don't fucking care enough about your wishes to comply: you've been too disruptive in this process for me to give you any leeway. - SchroCat (talk) 06:37, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
            • Now, we already mention the fact that Humphreys was accused of being a paid informer, but as it's lost where it is (and it could be read as being an accusation made in sour grapes), I'll add a couple of sentences further up the page. The point about him being an informant is a good one, but it is a shame you have had to drive people to such a point of frustration and anger with your approach and behaviour. You may not mean it to, but it comes across in a sub-standard way (battlefield, "GOTCHA!" and the arrogance that it has to be your way or no other – and you'll throw in a spiteful Oppose on the basis that two points you raised weren't adopted). If you could be a less confrontational in your approach (and take on board that you don't necessarily know best) you will find that people respond to you in kind. – SchroCat (talk) 08:31, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Graham Beards: You requested me to not post in your section. I have respected that request. Please show the same courtesy to my several requests asking the same above. Please post in your section. If I feel your post warrants a reply, I will post here, as I have already explained in my post above to two of the FAC coordinators. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:40, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No. I said "please do not ping me, or attempt to lobby me when I have already declared my support. Address your comments to the nominator." I'll post where I see fit. As for your comment "If I feel your post warrants a reply", this speaks volumes regarding your arrogant and disruptive behaviour. Graham Beards (talk) 23:09, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is Francis Fraser's Diary (Fraser, Frankie; Morton, James (2019), Mad Frank's Diary: The Confessions of Britain’s Most Notorious Villain, Random House, ISBN 978-0-7535-5404-3) not mentioned at all, when Rusty Humphreys's reminiscences on video are summarized at extraordinary length on six occasions? (See section above) Fraser says, "Humphreys wasn’t only paying money to Challenor he was also his grass. Humphreys had been paying protection money to Challenor as well as providing him with tidbits of information on Soho life. Humphreys was a double dealer as well, because once he was in Macclesfield Street and Challenor asked for more money Humphreys paid him over two lots of £25 – and then made a complaint to the Commissioner." The book is published by Penguin and Random House and its co-author James Morton, Guardian journalist and author of many books is cited quite a few times in this article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:34, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Question for Fowler&fowler:
[edit]
Just for information's sake (and this is honestly with no pressure to speed you up), how long do you thing you will take to finish your review? - SchroCat (talk) 23:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Dear SchroCat I have nothing against you or the topic of this article. I might not be excessively collegial or mentoring in my style, but I am genuinely trying to improve the article. You have done splendid work in collecting the disparate sources. The newspaper stories alone number in the dozens and I can only imagine the hard work you would have done in ferreting them out. For many are no longer available even in digital archives. I know because I tried, and it took a lot more effort than I had anticipated. However, your very success in finding those sources has created an issue of undue weight. Wikipedia articles are ultimately beholden to the reporting and interpretation of events and ideas in secondary sources, supplemented with some primary sources here and there in matters of straightforward reporting of fact or of direct quotations. I have most of the sources now, at least all the secondary sources being employed in this article, a few that are not. (i) the article does not accurately summarize the secondary sources (it is moreover not an issue of prose style; I don't have any issues with your prose style, by the way.) (ii) it relies too much on primary sources, (more than half the citations are to them) and (iii) it does not adequately cover the context. Maybe, we somehow got off the wrong foot, but I'm sure both you and I can see that this back and forth is not improving the article. I have a proposal. I have stayed away from editing the article myself in part because I do not like edit wars. Why don't you let me edit the article for two weeks, and give me feedback but not edit war with me? I'm not looking to claim any credit for myself. I'm not looking to mangle the article. I don't have a lot of time, but howsoever far I get at the end of the two weeks, incorporating your feedback, I will be delighted to support the article. Pinging @Ealdgyth, Laser brain, and Ian Rose: Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:32, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
PS I would have said a week, but I have to travel during this time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:40, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
While I cannot stop anyone editing any article, I would prefer it ifyou did not. Your comments in this and the previous FAC have not given me any confidence that you have the necessary skill, neutrality, knowledge or ability to approach this in the right way. Most of your suggestions so far would not have improved the article – indeed they would have worsened both prose and misrepresented the source material, let alone gone into who knows what areas of tangential information on, for example, the fact that 'pornography is a bad thing' or that 'women in the sex industry are exploited'. I am afraid that your approach has destroyed any basis or good faith or trust. I'll give you two small examples: above, you spent 400 words playing a "Gotcha!" game about Humphreys being a paid source, but it was something already covered in the article, so a smimple request to make it more prominent would have sufficed. You've played silly games over the (primary) Fraser source - while also bemoaning the use of primary sources elsewhere. If you want to know how to treat people properly, have a look at the PR on Randall Davidson. You took part in that review, and three people suggested new sources to Tim riley. Not in the aggressive way you did to try and force a point, but in a collegiate way to help develop the article. You trumpeted your primary source to claim the article was incomplete and should therefore fail. You can claim you're trying to help this article, but I see no real evidence of this from your behaviour, which has been deplorable from the first FAC onwards.
Carry on with your review here. To let you get through the material in a timely fashion, I will hold off any further comments until the weekend, unless I see anything particularly ridiculous or false that needs dealing with straightaway. - SchroCat (talk) 01:03, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and by the way, the newspaper articles are all in digital archives. I know, because I found them all. - SchroCat (talk) 01:07, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As this review is supposed to be about this article, I will refrain from responding to your off-topic comments. OK, I will continue my review here. I can't put a time limit on it though. There is none in FAC reviews. Please do not hat off or collapse my comments. I am not done with them. Your saying, "This is a non-discussion point. Move on." is not a resolution. I request also that you not engage in ascribing motives to me, nor breaking out into intemperate language. Whatever you need to say, please say it politely. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:32, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't want to learn the difference between positive collegiate reviewing and being a tendentious and disruptive pain in the arse, then fine, don't look at the other review, but it'll just mean we carry on with your stupid games and me reacting to them. Me saying to move on is a resolution: I will not deal with those points because they are either ridiculous, pointless, not an improvement or outside the scope of an FAC – about which you seem to be making up your own rules. You can request all you like, but as I've said above I really don't fucking care enough about your wishes to comply: you've been too disruptive in this process for me to give you any leeway. I'll be back at the weekend to deal with anything useful you've put down (unless I see anything particularly stupid I have to deal with). - SchroCat (talk) 07:24, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sources

  1. ^ Cox 2016, pp. 80–81.
  2. ^ Root 2019, 398.
  3. ^ Weir 1994, p. 2.
  4. ^ Root 2019, 420.
  5. ^ "James W Humphreys". Ancestry.

Graham Beards

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Support unreservedly. This article was ready for promotion at the last FAC nomination, which was withdrawn because of a confrontational review based on the usage of a couple of adverbs.Graham Beards (talk) 17:07, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Graham, your kind words during the last review, and subsequently, have been very much appreciated. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 17:09, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Graham Beards: Are you suggesting that the article is comprehensive with respect to the topic of sexual exploitation of young and underage women? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:15, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The topic is not "The sexual exploitation of young and underage women", the topic is James Humphreys (pornographer). Also, please do not ping me, or attempt to lobby me when I have already declared my support. Address your comments to the nominator.Graham Beards (talk) 17:34, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Cassianto

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Without a doubt, as per Graham. This article meets all the criteria. It's a pity to see Fowler&fowler, engaging in this rather immature and stupid line of rhetoric. I would encourage the coords to examine this oppose against the FA criteria and subsequently kick it into a ditch where it belongs. CassiantoTalk 18:01, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cass, thanks very much for your second review on this article. It is much appreciated. - SchroCat (talk) 18:49, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I note Fowler&fowler's 8,511 bytes of utter feet stomping that the article has not gone their way, above. I maintain my support, unreservedly. CassiantoTalk 08:04, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

coord note

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Did I miss the request to run this early? The previous candidate received was archived on 2 January, and its only 12 January. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:51, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ealdgyth, the bot was late to run. Ian closed the last FAC on the 30th. So it is a little early, but only a few hours. Graham Beards (talk) 17:55, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ealdgyth, In addition to the slow bot, I emailed Ian, who gave me the green light. Thanks. - SchroCat (talk) 17:56, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is my fault. A markup error on the nomination page meant that the Bot could not see Ian's close. Because of the time of year, I did not correct the problem until 2 January. My apologies. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:33, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a problem Hawkeye, (and thanks for the explanation). It would explain why edits made 'post close' have largely been ignored by the sole opposer to this article, with the unfortunate and entirely erroneous claim of "only one" edit having been made. - SchroCat (talk) 21:29, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed all that in the articlehistory. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:50, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

′’’Everyone’’’ if you don’t want me refactoring your comments, please do so by striking thru all commentary on other editors. There is no need for editors to discuss other editors motives. If it doesn’t stop, it’s going to require outside intervention. And Mama Ealdgyth really does mean everybody here. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:08, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, Moder Ealdgyth...unless you're feeling particularly God-like (quite apt, I think this FAC might need some divine intervention), in which case ALL HAIL Modoreynd Ealdgyth to whom we lowly FACers are mere Módoru... :) ——SN54129 19:38, 12 January 2020 (UTC) [reply]
Ealdgyth is out on the road with hubby in semi truck. First day, hasn’t even had a chance to find the laptop in the pile of stuff on the bunk...so yes, Ealdgyth is CRANKY. Let’s not make her have to dig for the laptop while barreling down the highway at 63 miles per hour (101 km/h). She should have the truck cleaned and arranged by tomorrow and won’t have to edit from the iPad then...and if you think hubby invites Ealdgyth along just to organize the truck, you may be on to something....Ealdgyth - Talk 20:04, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Cass, it isn’t necessary to comment on other editors. This comment here isn’t helpful. Or do you think the FAC coords are incapable of actually reading the nomination and seeing which reviews are based on the criteria? That is, after all, our job. We don’t need nominators and reviewers muddying up the nomination commenting on other editors. If other editors are not engaging with the criteria, we’ll know and judge accordingly. So please strike any comments on other editors. Thank you. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:22, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And it's unnecessary to oppose an article that does not fail the FACR. The oppose here isn't helpful, either. Of course I think the coords are capable of reading a nomination and judging it against the criteria, which is why I find it puzzling that there has been a tumbleweed moment with regards to Fowler&fowler's oppose, and a very vocal challenge over people daring to talk about it in this candidacy. CassiantoTalk 22:06, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
at this point, an oppose isn’t a nomination closer, so for now, let’s let the discussion develop, without unnecessary commentary on other editors. If folks don’t refactor their comments by mid a day tomorrow, I’ll take my red pen to anything that isn’t helpful. I’d prefer that folks do it themselves, and I’m trusting that we all are adults and can discuss content without attacking or feeling attacked, as long as the comments stay on the content. It is possible to disagree with other editors without it being a battleground. Prose is the most subjective of the criteria and as a coord, I’m much less worried about differences over prose than I am about the other aspects of the criteria, especially when other reviewers do not agree on the nature of prose concerns...I.e, if a reviewer opposes on prose and word choices but many other reviewers do not agree that the prose concerns are a concern, it not something that should hold up a nom. Note, that is all hypothetical..and I have no idea if that situation applies here or not. The nom is only 12 hours or so old. At this point, my main concern is productive discussion that doesn’t focus on editors. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:20, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just backing up a point that Ealdgyth has made here... folks can and do disagree on subjective prose matters all the time. As a coord, I'm going to consider opposition over subjective prose matters to be a matter of consensus. I'm hoping the discourse can stay civil and comments can remain about the subject and not about other editors. A nomination that turns into a bloodbath is more likely to be archived than one where there is civil disagreement over the prose. --Laser brain (talk) 12:44, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Off-topic commentary
It would have been a lot better if the first comment in this review was not a spurious oppose made - and I am sorry to say it - in bad faith. No good reasons have been given for the oppose and there has been such an unconstructive attitude from the very start that it is unsurprising that some heat has been generated by it. You'll note, I hope, that every single other reviewer in both this FAC and the previous one has approached the review in a constructive and collegiate manner, making suggestions and comments, all of which have had the best intentions of the article in mind. Those comments have been dealt with in the manner in which they were made. There is only one area which has not been a smooth ride, and it is when a reviewer has started with bad faith, a BATTLEFIELD approach and playing "Gotcha!". To oppose because we haven't added a lecture on 'pornography is bad' and then to say there must be sources to say Humphreys was an abuser - when there is complete ignorance on the subject - makes it extremely difficult to any normal, rational editor to deal with it in any other way than to consider that part of the review as something of a farce. While reviewers need to be protected in order to undertake a thorough review, there needs to be protection for nominators from spurious reviews in which a reviewer is more keen on grandstanding to the co-ords, rather than providing a good faith review. LB, Ealdgyth, Sorry for the rant, and feel free to collapse it or delete it in toto, but there are times when dealing with such bollocks just isn't worth it. I'm sure the reviewer would be delighted if this review is archived for any excuse - it would stop them having to admit there are, for example, no sources that say Humphreys was an abuser. - SchroCat (talk) 13:15, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with SC here. I struck my comments not because I was ordered to do so, but because I want this article to pass, relatively drama free, and in the hope that (the person who shall not be named) would have their oppose omitted from the final tally based on it not falling within the scope of the criteria. CassiantoTalk 16:38, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Coordinators: My oppose has little to do with the prose, although there are issues with the prose which I have not addressed. My oppose, as I've indicated above, has to do with (i) vague and inaccurate paraphrasing, (ii) inadequate background to the strip club business in SOHO in the 1960s and 70s, porn-shops, and prostitution. That business was specific enough to 1960s SOHO, that it is not explained away by making a reader click out to a generic striptease or other link. My contention, moreover, is that the nominator by so doing in several sections has inadvertently sanitized instances of Humphreys's corruptness or venality, which is the counterpose to police corruption, (iii), etc. ... there are other issues, which the coordinators will be able to read about in my oppose section. The nominator cannot first withdraw his nomination on a whim in the middle of my last review, then abruptly renominate again 10 days later with one change, and expect me to be responsive in real-time. It is only today that the nominator in a series of edits has implemented my critique in the days following his withdrawal. He has, moreover, made no acknowledgment of it on this page for a coordinator to read, or for that matter anywhere else. So, as I've said above, this is a busy time for me. I will round up the sources, not all of which are easy to find, a large number of which are primary sources—including videos of the pornographer, his wife, his cohorts, and journalists, reminiscing—and in the next week or ten days complete my review. Given the circumstances, my request if very fair. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:22, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Can you stop being so rude and ignoring me, the nominator, simply to grandstand to the co-ords? You have shown an extremely poor attitude in both FACs and have not approached either of them in any form of good attitude. Instead you have been intransigent, obstructive and shown a BATTLEFIELD approach that does absolutely no-one any favours. Your post above contains so many inaccuracies that my AGF is stretched too far to think that they are not deliberate mischaracterisations of the situation. I have not, for example, in any way or in any location said, hinted or given any indication that you need to be "responsive in real time". It is a falsehood to claim that I have done so. I have not added the information you have requested at all: you have asked for entirely different information to be added - things way outside what anyone would expect in a standard biography. Now drop the obnoxious attitude, try not to continue playing "Gotcha!", learn that the name is Soho, not SOHO, and spend less time writing 'notes' to the co-ords and more time treating other editors like they are not something you have had to scrape off your shoe. - SchroCat (talk) 20:51, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
:) Believe it or not, I am trying to help you. Or rather your article. As long as you understand that my review won't be done in a day or two, I will be happy. In fact, my review may not even begin for a day or two, until some books I have requested from Inter-Library loan arrive. But my sole goal remains making the article for which you have done much work even better. I apologize for capitalizing Soho, but I have been reading Melissa Tyler's new book, SOHO at WORK, Cambridge, 2020. It is the content that is important. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:22, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Given your attitude and approach so far, I struggle to believe that you are trying to help in any way. (As an aside, that is not the first time you have called this "your article". As I had to point out last time, this is not my article. It is an article on which I have worked. Nothing more. To keep calling it "your article" does suggest a degree of ownership that does not exist.)
There is no rush on any review (and I have not given any indication at any point that there is), as articles are not promoted until a very minimum of two weeks have passed, and normally much longer. If your obstructive approach and inflexibility is lessened then this will become much less of a trial for all concerned. - SchroCat (talk) 08:30, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Tim riley

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I am puzzled and distressed at the clash, above, between two editors I much admire. I have looked closely at all the points made, and I can in conscience only repeat that to my mind, and after a further careful reading, the article meets the FA criteria, and with the exception of Fowler&fowler the other contributions so far (both from editors I respect greatly) express the same opinion – quite emphatically. I didn't think the first nomination should have been withdrawn, and I support this second one. Tim riley talk 18:43, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tim, thanks very much for your second review on this article. It is much appreciated. - SchroCat (talk) 18:49, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Still supporting. The additional load of comments from Fowler&fowler seem to me to amount to "I'd do it this way". As I am entirely happy with the way SchroCat has done it, meeting, imo, all the FA criteria, I continue to support. Tim riley talk 07:33, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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  • Suggest scaling up the map, and an inset might be helpful to give a wider perspective on where in London this neighbourhood is situated
  • Suggest adding alt text
  • File:James_Humphries,_1972.jpg: the source link has some more information on provenance that would be worth copying into the image description
Support per my support of last time. I also think that the first nom should not have been archived.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:52, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks Wehwalt. Yes, in hindsight, I should have let things run, but I was trying to avoid disruption. It seems it has just been delayed, rather than dissipated, unfortunately. - SchroCat (talk) 08:45, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I also supported the last nomination and my opinion has not changed. Moisejp (talk) 06:05, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks, Moisejp, for your comments and tweaks on this article on two occasions. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 10:39, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Sarastro

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Support: I've read over this, and I can find no major issues. There are a few tweaks I would perhaps make, listed below, but none of them affect my support and I think they can all be safely ignored if required. Sarastro (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • ”The severity of his crimes increased”: I wonder would tweaking to “increased over time” or similar be a little better here?
  • ”Humphreys had to bribe the police to ensure they did not close the business down. When he expanded into other areas of the sex industry—sex shops and book shops selling obscene material—he had to pay an increasing number of policemen to be able to operate.” I also wonder, as we are twice talking about the bribery, could this perhaps be combined into one sentence? Something like (but not necessarily exactly) “As Humphreys expanded his business and moved into other areas of the sex industry, he had to bribe an increasing number of policemen to be able to operate.”
  • ”Seven months later he was sent to an approved school “: Perhaps we could add a word or two on what an approved school was for the benefit of the lazy reader like me who doesn’t want to click?
  • ”In July 1951 Humphreys married June Driscoll, but the couple were soon divorced.”: Do we need “were”?
  • ”assaulting the police in the process”: One policeman? Or several, as it looks like here?
  • ”changed the direction of his profession”: Doesn’t sound quite right to me. “Changed direction” by itself, or “changed the focus of his profession” would sound more natural. But perhaps it’s just me.
    • The original version - that "Humphreys changed direction professionally" was probably the best way to phrase it, but someone had conniptions about the use of the word "profesionally" (that's 1,800 words of my life I'll never get back), so we had to take a backward step to the current version. I'll ponder on a more suitable rewording. - SchroCat (talk) 09:08, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Without wishing to reignite any wars or create another 1,800 words, I think the original version was better but understand that compromise is often necessary but rarely satisfactory! Whatever you decide won't affect my support in any way. Sarastro (talk) 09:26, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • ”Rusty performed in three acts a day”: I always think “per day” looks more elegant.
  • ”Within the next three years Humphreys owned between six and ten other sex shops.”: This doesn’t sound quite right to me. It feels like it should be more along the lines of “Over the next three years Humphreys acquired/opened…”
  • ”The head of the Flying Squad, Ken Drury, dined with Humphreys so often, the officers under his command noticed how much weight he was putting on; Humphreys bought him an exercise bicycle and a rowing machine to help him keep the weight down”: No issues, I just feel that I should feel more appalled than I do… this made me laugh out loud.
  • ”the owners would receive a coded telephone message”: Could this not just be “owners received”?
  • ”The squad which gave obsceity a meaning of own”: I’m assuming that’s a typo in the newspaper sources list… although it is the Guardian, so maybe not. Sarastro (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On the issues above: I notice that no-one is really addressing the oppose other than the nominator. As I read it, F&F objects on four areas. This is my take on his objections, in case the coordinators or anyone else is looking for other opinions on the matter.

  • Vague and inaccurate summarizing of the source material: I'm afraid I don't see this. The examples which F&F says are vague and inaccurate do not appear to be either to me. Yes, the source contains more than the article, but this is a summary. We can't have every detail from every source about every person in the story.
  • Inadequate background material on the sex industry in SOHO, London, in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s: As others have said, I don't believe that this or any biography should be giving detailed background on the times/places in which the person operated. We have a summary in this article, which is adequate for the purpose unless/until someone writes something which comments on Humphreys' role in exploiting women or in the sex industry. As far as I can tell, most sources seem to look at him from the viewpoint of police corruption rather than a giant of the sex industry, but I may be wrong as that was from a cursory look. I had a look myself to see if there was anything which linked Humphreys and the sex industry, but nothing jumped out, including a look at JSTOR. The only thing I found was "Cleaning up the Dirty Squad", an article that I can't access without coughing up money, but which is not directly about Humphreys and once again is looking at it from the police corruption POV. And to reiterate, this is not an article about the Soho sex industry. Too much about that, which isn't directly concerned with Humphreys, would be undue in my opinion.
  • Besides, I am not convinced that there is no source material for his direct complicity: Umm... That is an interesting reason to oppose, which I would argue is not related to WP:WIAFA. I am not convinced that Joe Root should be England captain as it is destroying his batting. Unlike this grounds for opposition though, I could immediately find many good sources that expressed that opinion were I ever to take his article to FAC. A gut feeling is not a grounds for oppose, and I see that examples of these sources have not been produced by F&F. Nor could I find any.
  • The absence of Legacy. Most FA biographies have a paragraph or two about legacy: Well, putting aside WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, I would strongly disagree that a biography MUST have a legacy. If the person HAS a legacy, fantastic. But if there is no legacy... you can't have a legacy section. Opposing on these grounds is pure personal preference and I don't think helps to take this forward.

Overall, I do not really see what F&F sees, and would not personally consider them valid grounds for oppose. Fortunately, I'm no longer a coordinator. Sarastro (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sarastro, thank you very much for these comments. I will work through the top layers containing the suggestions, most of which look advantageous. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 08:42, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with all your comments regarding the lone "oppose". As I said above that the topic is not about "the sexual exploitation of young and underage women", the topic is "James Humphreys (pornographer)." But the opposer seems to disagree with me. I have been reluctant to engage with them any further because after the article's first FAC, a singularly nasty personal attack was made against me on their TalkPage [3]. Also note that they describe their review as giving the nominator "a hard time". Graham Beards (talk) 22:20, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree too, although as someone who lives in a city where most forms of pornography and prostitution are legal, I founds some parts of the text puzzling. The article provides an explanation of the situation with reference to pornography; but it is far from clear what the legal status of his brothels was. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:55, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comment Hawkeye. I thought the details of arrest/court case would have given enough detail, but I'll look at a sentence or footnote to clarify. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 08:42, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Now added. - SchroCat (talk) 12:13, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support Article seems fine to me. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:35, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Gog the Mild

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It looked pretty sound to me on a first read through and a bit of background study. A couple of suggestions to book my place are below. None of them are points which I would wish to go to the barricades over.

  • "Humphreys was arrested for assault on his wife's former lover" Reads a little oddly. Maybe 'assaulting'?
  • "but the couple soon divorced" Is any more precision available?
  • "Colin Manchester, the professor of law" It may just be me, but that reads a little oddly. Maybe 'Colin Manchester, a professor of law', or 'the professor of law, Colin Manchester'?
  • "It was suspected that the Richardson Gang—the South London criminal organisation" A picky point, but perhaps 'a South London ... '?

Gog the Mild (talk) 15:58, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for the fragmentary nature of my comments. I keep getting distracted with background reading. Next up:

  • "Between 1969 and 1972 Humphreys made £216,000 profit from his shops" Is that what Humphreys "made" before or after deducting the bribes?
  • "gave him the advice "Get them when they're young", as they would still be amenable to bribes when older" I feel that this needs a little more detail. Perhaps 'as they would then remain amenable ... '?
  • "help him keep the weight down" 'his weight'?

Gog the Mild (talk) 16:40, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • "The report continued on the inside pages with the statement" Perhaps 'The report continued on the inside pages, including the statement'
  • "Eric Mason–an owner of ten sex shops" Perhaps "an" → 'the'?
  • "In September 1972 she received a three-month gaol sentence for possession of a firearm; there were some reports that she may have been threatening Humphreys with it at the time" In the context of the sentence, could "at the time" be rephrased or recast?
  • "Humphreys said he would drop pornography over central London" Do we know if this was as in dropping from his pocket or as in an air drop?
  • "Frank Mifsud—a Maltese criminal who ran a string of brothels—travelled to Ireland and then Brazil" Is there any point in giving Mifsud this walk-on part?
  • I think so. He is a notable enough individual to have his own article as he appears in several of the sources. I've red linked him and will put something together to cover the basics (as well as those of the red linked policemen too) - SchroCat (talk) 14:59, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Grumble, mutter.
  • "11 people were arrested, one of them Rusty Humphreys, at the couple's Brook Street residence" Were all 11 arrested at Brook Street? If not, perhaps a semi colon. If so, perhaps swap the order of the last two clauses.
  • "When Rusty was arrested, police searched the premises" I assume the premises refers to Brook St, but with Greek St having intervened, 'police searched the Brook Street premises' may help keep things straight for a reader.
  • "All but one were found guilty" Which one, which one - I can't stand the tension. Was it "one other". (Why is he (or she) nameless anyway?)
Fair enough.
  • "the couple were arrested in November 1993.[14] The couple, who were living in West Hampstead" Possibly change one "the couple" to 'both'?
  • Note I: "£216,000 in 1972 equates to approximately £2,799,000 in 2020" If we are being approximate then '£2,800,000' perhaps.

Gog the Mild (talk) 18:10, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Having finished my comments I read through Fowler&fowler's grounds for their object. I struggle a little to relate these clearly to any of the FA criteria, so it is probably best if I leave their consideration to better brains than mine.

Nb: it is my intention to claim points in the WikiCup for this review.

Gog the Mild (talk) 18:40, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your usual tight, well written, informative offering. Captures the spirit of the times well and doesn't contradict any of the sources I have consulted. Nicely balanced in my opinion, although you must have been spoilt for choice for quotes from Mars-Jones's summing up. Happy to support.
Gog the Mild (talk) 15:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Gog; I'm much obliged! Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 16:19, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support from SN54129

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Piling on, I know, but I supported the first time around, and nothing has changed for me to otherwise affirm and attest to that view. I seem to have missed the oppose in the previous FAC, but, reading that then and this now, I see they are effectively the same arguments which have been resoundingly refuted by Sarastro1 above. While I respect the emphasis the opposer paces on social and equality issues—a stance which certainly does them credit—I note my own suggestion, tongue-in-cheek but otherwise deliberate, that the level of extraneous context that the opposer appears to require would be UNDUE at best, and at worse necessitate a completely different article. It would be the equivalent of demanding that a brief history of greengrocery is inserted somewhere into this. ——SN54129 11:43, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks SN - much appreciated for the second time. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 16:19, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Epicgenius

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I don't have any major issues. It looks good from my American standpoint, and reading the above comments, I don't think a Legacy section is needed - it would be tangential to the actual subject. Mostly, I agree with the supporters who have already commented.

I did have a few queries:

  • There are a couple of places where links are right next to each other, e.g. gangland enforcer Frankie Fraser, giving the impression that there might be just one link.
  • Silver, Humphreys and Eric Mason–the owner of ten sex shops— - inconsistent dash usage, the first is an en-dash.
  • I meant to just copy and paste the second dash. Currently, this is the first dash: – and this is the second dash: — It's more pronounced when it's in plain text. Anyway, this is a minor nitpick, not anything to delay a support for.
  • She was released in late October.[72] - if I'm counting correctly, this was two months out of the three-month sentence. Was the sentence shortened?
  • In the 1996 BBC television series Our Friends in the North the character Benny Barrett, played by Malcolm McDowell, was based on Humphreys.[121] In 1999 Humphreys discussed the possibility of their life story being made into a film with Film4 Productions, who gave the film the provisional title Rusty; as at 2019 the film remains unmade - the two sentences have an abrupt transition. I suppose this was intended to be a paragraph for media mentions, but then Humphrey's death is mentioned in the next sentence.

These are all the comments I have for now. epicgenius (talk) 22:08, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support from KJP1

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I've read this through three times, once at its earlier appearance, and have gone through it side-by-side with the FAC criteria. I'm clear it meets these, hence the Support. I don't want to add fuel to the debate above, and fully acknowledge the differing view expressed. If I'm reading it correctly, and my apologies if I'm not, the concerns relate to 1b, Comprehensiveness, and that the article fails to fully represent James Humphrey's villainy. On the first point, I think the article does cover all of the major incidents of Humphreys' life and sets these in the context of the criminal, and certainly exploitative, environment of 60s/70s Soho. More could certainly be written on this point but, in my view, it doesn't need to be, for 1b to be met. On the second point, I do have a concern of my own re. wording. The opening sentence of the lead describes Humphreys as "an English businessman". The opening line of the "Strip club and sex shop owner" section speaks of Humphreys "chang[ing] the direction of his profession". I'm not sure I'd use either term. The article title is "James Humphreys (pornographer)", and I don't think Profession is the right term to describe how Humphreys made his living. Wikipedia, and the dictionaries I've checked, define a profession as "an occupation involving training and a formal qualification". The Cambridge Online dictionary goes as far as to define it as work "that is respected because it involves a high level of education". The article makes clear that Humphreys' formal education ended at age 14, and his subsequent life was certainly not respectable. If I look for a comparison, Paul Raymond, who was never convicted of any criminal offence, is described in the article lead as "an English strip-club owner, publisher of pornography and property developer", and I think he could more fittingly be described as a businessman than Humphreys. All in all, I'd call a spade a spade, Humphreys a pornographer and his business the sex trade; thus "James William Humphreys (7 January 1930 – September 2003) was an English pornographer...On his release from Dartmoor Humphreys changed the focus of his activities and..." My support isn't conditional on these changes being made, but I do think they'd improve the article. KJP1 (talk) 13:42, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As always KJP1, many thanks for your thoughts on this. There was some extensive discussion on the point of "profession", but the OED is quite clear with one of their several definitions: "professional, adj. and n. Of a person or persons: that engages in a specified occupation or activity for money or as a means of earning a living, rather than as a pastime. Contrasted with amateur.", so I am not sure we have a problem with the use of that word.
The opening is something that could be considered a little more. Raymond, as far as I am aware (although I am not an expert on the point!), was only ever a strip-club owner, publisher of pornography and property developer and had no other business interests; Humphreys had a much more diverse career: safebreaker, strip-club owner, publisher of pornography, restaurateur, drug dealer and owner of a number of brothels. It was this diverse range of interests that led me to use "businessman". We could tweak it to say he "was an English businessman and criminal who owned... etc". Would the addition of those two words overcome your concerns? Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 14:00, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
SchroCat - It's your call, as I say we're discussing preferences not deal breakers. But for me, safebreaker + strip-club owner + pornographer + drug dealer + pimp + repeatedly-convicted felon = criminal, not businessman, even allowing for his restaurant. And in normal usage I would describe none of those activities as a profession. KJP1 (talk) 17:12, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Without expressing a preference one way or the other on this - for I have no strong views on the point - I merely observe that prostitution has long been called "the oldest profession". Tim riley talk 17:27, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Quite so, and due to Kipling, according to our article. But surely in a literary/ironical/euphemistic, rather than an encyclopaedic, sense? KJP1 (talk) 18:46, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just a suggestion, how about "...the direction of his nefarious activities" ? Graham Beards (talk) 19:33, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nefarious soundtrack cued... ——SN54129 19:42, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Cwmhiraeth

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I would like to suggest that "James Humphreys (criminal)" would be a better title for this article. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 21:12, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Cwmhiraeth, let me have a think on that and (much more importantly) read the policy on titles. I thought they were supposed to reflect their main reason for being in the encyclopaedia (in which case pornographer just about shades criminal), but I may be completely wrong on that. Much of his activity was legal, although rather seedy (the strip clubs were all legitimate lines of business, as were a few other of his lines of business - the sex shops were a mix of legal (softcore pornography) and illegal (the more explicit work)). I'll look into it and get back.
@FAC coordinators: if we decide a change of title is needed (although that's only at the discussion stage here), is it better done during a review, after it, or does it not matter? I'm not sure it's in the FAC criteria, but I'm thinking more from a technical point of view in having the review and the article under different names.
Cheers to you all. - SchroCat (talk) 10:28, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I was wondering what exactly a pornographer was, and the definition seems to be "a person who makes or sells pornography". Humphreys did that, but did a lot of other seedy / illegal things too. He was certainly a criminal, having served several terms in prison. If you thought there was merit in my suggestion, you could start a move discussion on the talk page, but I would have thought that could wait until after the conclusion of this FAC. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:50, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
OK - we can wait until later, that's absolutely fine with me, and would probably suit the co-ords too. My gut reaction is that "criminal" may not be the best way, but I think I' could be easily swayed on that; it is certainly a good topic for further discussion (I'm not married to the term "pornographer", and if it goes it wouldn't be any great loss to me - we just have to make sure we get the right name to change into). Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 10:54, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, there's certainly precedents for changing an article title after the FAC, and it's a lot easier in terms of closure, FACbot and so on. If it was something people felt strongly enough to oppose over I'd probably say let's bite the bullet now -- or at least let's have it out and get consensus now, even if we change it afterwards -- but I don't think that's the case here... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:18, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Ian - I'll hold off opening the discussion etc until after the FAC. There is enough of a rough consensus to keep it as it is until later, but we can always revisit the point afterwards. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I suggest waiting until the FAC is closed and then having a discussion. For what it is worth, I prefer the current title. Graham Beards (talk) 11:50, 21 January 2020 (UTC)~[reply]
The current title is fine. “Pornographer” is by an overwhelming majority his label in the sources. I am traveling and without my sources, but will elaborate on all this and more in my oppose above when I return on Thursday. The article title, in my view, is not even remotely an issue. It was not for nothing that he was called the Emperor of Porn. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:49, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I too prefer "pornographer". If the sources call him a "pornographer" and we call him a "criminal" that would suggest to those not familiar with his story that pornography was/is illegal in the UK, which of course it wasn't/isn't. CassiantoTalk 18:20, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I concur with Graham Beards, Fowler&fowler and Cassianto. The OED defines "pornographer" as "A person who produces or provides pornography; a pornographic writer, publisher, or artist". This seems to me more precise, and more helpful to the reader, than "criminal", which by comparison is a bit vague. But I also agree that this is perhaps not the forum in which to debate the title. Tim riley talk 18:23, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GB to co-ords

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@FAC coordinators: Having gained 11 supports from respected FAC participants, IMHO this article has gained consensus for promotion. The points repeatedly raised in the single "oppose" are not a barrier to promotion and can be dealt with post-promotion. There are precedents for this. The debate is getting unnecessarily heated and further coordinator input is justified in any case. Graham Beards (talk) 08:22, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My review began on the 24th. I informed the coordinators about it. The eleven supports had appeared a week or more before I began.
The debate is not "getting heated," rather the nominator is becoming increasingly impatient and abusive. On any other page, he would have been blocked for repeatedly using four-letter and other epithets. I'm sure the coordinators can see that and there is no need for me to provide diffs. The points have not been "repeatedly raised." My first review was entirely a review of prose and that only of the lead. I had not had a chance to examine the sources then, as I have now.
Major issues remain. A Wikipedia article cannot have more than half its citations to primary sources. We can't cite videos of "documentaries" with timestamp, not once but six times. Why is it that it took me to point out that the major conclusion in the most cited source in this article is that James Humphreys was a police informer, a serial one? There is inadequate or inaccurate context: of the legal jumble that the pornographers were able to employ to their benefit; of the sudden explosion of pornography in the late 1960s; of the concurrent suppression of the politically radical publications for whose protection the laws had been designed. I have not got to any of that yet. Those are not things that can be covered after promotion. Those are not things that can be accommodated in footnotes. I'm happy to have an independent academic evaluation of my review once it is complete. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:43, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your review began on the 12th. The "supports" were added on the same day or later. Why should you have "an independent academic evaluation" of your review. No one else does. The valid points in your paragraph above have all been dealt with. Your are behaving like a troll (again Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Samuel_Johnson's_early_life). Stop it. Graham Beards (talk) 12:56, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I said I'd stay away until there was something silly for me to reply to; sadly this is it (already!). Again there are too many untruths in what you say. "The eleven supports had appeared a week or more before I began". You were the SECOND person to comment and your second edit was your oppose. That means that every single support came after you begin you "review" That would make most people pause for thought, at least.

"We can't cite videos of "documentaries" with timestamp": yes we can. "A Wikipedia article cannot have more than half its citations to primary sources": yes it can (and this article doesn't: it depends which sources you are classing as primary; funnily enough the other reviewers, which include two former FA co-ords and several holders of multiple FAs have not said there is a problem with the quantity or quality of the sources, which should tell you something). "Why is it that it took me to point out that the major conclusion in the most cited source in this article is that James Humphreys was a police informer": it didn't. The information was already in the article. "inadequate or inaccurate context": Bullshit. This is a biography of an individual, not a history of pornography or the law in 1960s/70 Britain. Everyone else has managed to grasp that simple point except you.

Now pipe down with complaining about what other people are doing and get on with the bloody review. I will wait until the weekend before I address any comments you care to make about the article by that time. - SchroCat (talk) 13:09, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I can't reply to the off-topic comments above, to the abusive comments above, especially not to diffs of 11 years ago, which I have not examined. Anyone who doubts my motives can examine my recent FAC reviews in Cactus Wren, Horologium (constellation), Randall Davidson (you may examine my detailed PR there), or Coropuna? The first comments were place holders, as the FAC had been withdrawn and then ten days later resubmitted without any change. I posted a note to the coordinators on the 16th. My review began on the 24th. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:50, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There was nothing off topic there, (except your list of reviews where you weren't disruptive). But to pick up on yet another untruth that I've had to correct before: "the FAC had been withdrawn and then ten days later resubmitted without any change."
The first FAC was closed at 13:10, 30 December 2019; this one was opened at 09:17, 12 January 2020. In that two week period the edit history shows the following:
  • 09:16, 12 January 2020‎ SchroCat talk contribs‎ 50,142 bytes +71‎ →‎Strip club and sex shop owner undo
  • 15:33, 1 January 2020‎ SchroCat talk contribs‎ 50,071 bytes +10‎ →‎Strip club and sex shop owner undo
  • 14:11, 1 January 2020‎ SchroCat talk contribs‎ 50,061 bytes +7‎ →‎Strip club and sex shop owner: Ditto. Enough twatting about with minutae that 99.9999% of the world will understand as being entirely good use of language. Only one foul reader will ever have problems with this phrasing, so hopefully they will be less obnoxious about how they deal with people from now on (fat chance) undo
  • 14:09, 1 January 2020‎ SchroCat talk contribs‎ 50,054 bytes -64‎ →‎Strip club and sex shop owner: Trying to stop the BATTLEFIELD troll with the inflexible approach who NEEDS to win everything undo
  • 19:46, 30 December 2019‎ SchroCat talk contribs‎ 50,118 bytes -3‎ →‎Strip club and sex shop owner: may as well put this in line with the lead undo
  • 19:38, 30 December 2019‎ 7&6=thirteen talk contribs‎ 50,121 bytes -6‎ →‎Strip club and sex shop owner: copy edit undothank
  • 19:35, 30 December 2019‎ 7&6=thirteen talk contribs‎ 50,127 bytes -5‎ copy edit for readability undothank
That all adds up to these changes. "resubmitted without any change" contains as much veracity as claiming you didn't begin reviewing until two weeks after you actually did. Your second edit was to oppose: if putting in an oppose isn't classed as part of review, was it just being disruptive, or is there another reason? But, I tell you what: don't bother answering or wasting your time in reworking reality to fix what you think you wnat to say: get on with the bloody review so we can bring this to a close before next Christmas or I entirely lose the will to live, whichever comes first. - SchroCat (talk) 14:05, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, that's enough. This entire thread and the topic needs to STOP BEING DISCUSSED. I just got up ... i'm trying to work from the cab of a semi truck traveling in winter through the midwest. I.e. my ability to type is compromised and its going to be a bit before I get to settling this whole cluster-fuck. But its on my plate so the pings can STOP, as can the emails. So can everyone just shut up so I can actually try to figure out what is worth looking at and what's just plain noise and what should really not be happening at all (hint for those dense - there should be no discussion of other editors taking place.) Ealdgyth - Talk 14:13, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note from coord

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Okay, I'm promoting this, but before I do so, I want to put on my lecture cap and try to salvage something from this train wreck. Hopefully everyone involved can read this and take the issues on board so that in the future we can avoid situations like this.

One: There should never be any need for anyone involved with an FAC to discuss what they consider to be the motivations of other editors. Or to discuss other editors past actions. Or, frankly, to discuss other editors period. If you have a problem with something another editor does at an FAC, the important thing to remember is that FAC is not a battleground. The goal is to improve articles. It isn't a right that an article gets a shiny star. It is almost always best to remember that this is a text medium, not face to face. Try to assume that the other editor is also here to improve articles.

Two: People are different. Not everyone is going to approach things the way you do. It is important to allow for the fact that other editors are going to phrase things in ways that you may consider insulting - but they may very well not have intended an insult at all. The "tone" of conversations in a text medium makes this more difficult - we miss important context by communicating only through text. Rather than immediately assuming the worst - take a step back and ask for clarification. Also, if people are continually pointing out that they don't quite understand your points - perhaps it might be a sign that perhaps your text communication style needs some adjustment.

Three: The FAC criteria are purposefully a bit "loose" to allow for some judgement. That means that sometimes reviewers and nominators will disagree with whether something brought up by a reviewer is actionable by the criteria or not. When this happens, the best thing to do is ... agree to disagree and see if other reviewers take up the issue. The worst thing to do is to dig in and start a long back and forth over the issue, because invariably that leads to things becoming heated and the discussion becomes centered on editors rather than edits.

Four: The FAC coords are not your parents. We don't really have a remit to come swooping in to a FAC and declare for one side of a dispute. We judge consensus to promote.

Five: Prose issues. English writing does not have hard and fast rules for prose style. There is room for different stylistic takes. Just because you think something should be written one way does not make that the only correct way to phrase it. Yes, there are hard and fast grammar rules, but usually those aren't at issue.

Six: Content: Because the criteria are vague, it means that what is required to meet the comprehensiveness requirement is also a bit loose. Some reviewers will expect a LOT of background material - basing this on the criteria requirement for comprehensiveness. Some will expect little background - basing this on the criteria requirement for using summary style. Obviously, this can lead to conflict. This can best be resolved by NOT getting into long back and forths between the reviewer and nominator, but rather by agreeing that it is a point that needs to be considered and dealt with by other reviewers and taking that consensus of other reviewers as what should happen.

Seven: Consensus: Consensus works best when it's arrived at by a dispassionate discussion of the merits of the things under discussion. Its very hard to arrive at consensus when folks come in to "help" one side or another in an editing dispute. This just fuels the battleground mentality and gets everyone's backs up. And it can then lead to further disputes in future discussions. It may help in the short run if people "take sides" but in the end all it does is make the environment more toxic. It's a short term fix that leads to much bigger long term problems. The classic example on wikipedia is of course, our friend the "infobox dispute" ... where the vast majority of wikipedians would actually like to chuck the various disputants into the nearest freezing cold lake because its just dragged on so long and is so entrenched that it turns the entire subject toxic.

Okay, so that's some impersonal points I'm bringing up to whack the whole lot of you over the head with. I'm going to assume that most of you can at least pay lip service to those ideals, right?

Well, obviously they've been thrown out the window here. There's been entirely too much discussion of other editors and what their motivations are. Too much assuming that "it's correct because I said so and I'm not going to listen at all to what you're saying because it's wrong". Too much insisting that there is one "correct" way to phrase things and that the "other" is wrong.

I'll be frank - much of F&F's prose issues are stylistic points on which editors can differ. There probably are some good points within all of the points that were raised, but.. F&F - you write way too much and you come across as a dogmatic preservationist. Your writing and communicating style reminds me of the worst professors I ever had, who seemed to think that if they just expended enough words they could overwhelm the opposition by sheer number of words. Your reviews would be received much better if you didn't come across this way and if you cut down the verbiage by about two-thirds.

But, F&F has a good point about the reliance on newspaper and interviews. We are an encyclopedia which means we summarize SECONDARY sources. We too often loose track of this, because we do allow for the use of newspapers and interviews. But, strictly speaking, we should be using them sparingly. It is a historian's job to read and digest the primary sources and it is an encyclopedia's job to read and digest and summarize the products of the historian. In this FAC, because of all the other issues that have lead to a battleground mentality, F&F's point was dismissed as wrong, when quite honestly ... if I was going to review the article for sources, I'd be concerned about it. I have no idea if I'd oppose or not based on it, but it IS a valid concern that should be addressed properly, not swept under the rug by the nominator and other reviewers because of issues with who brought it up.

Too many on the "nominators" side have approached this FAC as a battleground. I'm not going to dig to find out why this is so - it appears that some of it is from the previous FAC for this article, but at least some of it is coming from previous interactions with F&F that really should have nothing to do with THIS FAC. In an ideal world, these sorts of things would have no impact, but we're not in Candide's world, we're in ours, and the best we can do as editors is try to NOT bring those issues into other discussions. While as an FAC coord, I expect a bit of leakage of personality disputes to leak into FAC, this FAC went way beyond what I consider to be acceptable. It frankly was excessive and attempts to stop it seem to have been ignored. Folks, the personalizing of disputes is just not helpful at all. It's how you burn out FAC coords... having to read vitriol is one of the surest ways to drive volunteers away. The classic example is right here - us three FAC coords have tried to gently steer the discussion away from unproductive avenues but its never lasted long. I'm sure it must be stressful for all involved - and there's no good reason for it. It certainly doesn't help make the FAC coords job any easier.

One further point - I was not impressed that F&F's attempts to discuss issues on the talk page between FAC1 and FAC2 went no where. Yes, he brought up a lot of stuff that was insanely nit picky and often not "wrong" but ... the solution is to go "I do not agree, we can see what other reviewers think when it comes back to FAC. However, your input is helpful, can you continue?" and for F&F to go "okay, you don't agree, lets go on to the next point " and lay out the next point rather than expending vast quantities of verbiage on a extremely minor point of style.

FAC is not "let me go through this article word by word and make the nominator revise it to be phrased exactly as I would". The prose criteria is not supposed to deal with that sort of minutiae. The prose should convey the meaning clearly, but HOW it does that is often a matter of personal style choices and reviewers need to understand that not everything they bring up is going to be actionable or even supported by other reviewers. When disagreement arises between a nominator and reviewer over a style issue, step back and let others weigh in. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:28, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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