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Murder of Amanda Dowler

[edit]
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found
Result: delisted Some improvements made but no clear support for keeping. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:26, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maintenance tags.
  • Dead links.
  • Issue over whether we should include "Milly" in the lead (per her common name).
  • Appalling prose in later sections which effectively are just a bullet point list.
  • Instability due to current affairs.
  • Incompleteness.

The Rambling Man (talk) 21:06, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dead links fixed. Please also note the one maintenance tag was added to the article by the assessment nominator shortly before listing for reassessment.--Lucy-marie (talk) 22:58, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please see here for the diff passing the article as a Good Article.--Lucy-marie (talk) 23:11, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please see here for the diff retaining the article as a Good Article after review. --Lucy-marie (talk) 23:21, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, not particularly useful as it was 3.5 years ago. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:24, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Still relevant here as this are reassessment and the original passig and original reasssessment are relevant.--Lucy-marie (talk) 08:34, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. Times have changed - assessment criteria have changed, quality expectations are higher, things in the case have moved on. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:25, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More things

  • Please also note the lead does not adequately summarise the article, for instance the mention of Operation Ruby exists in the lead but nowhere else in the article. Plenty of mention of Bellfield in the article but nothing in the lead.
  • Ref 2 is a 404 link, it needs fixing.
  • Ref 7 is dead.
    • Ref 7 is no longer a useful ref.
  • Ref 6 says she went to Will Young concert on Tuesday and disappeared Thursday, two days later. The article says she went to the concert "the day before". Needs resolving.
  • Ref 11, ref 21 are from The Sun, a tabloid newspaper. This is not a reliable source. Please find alternative sources for this.
  • Ref 33 links to a plant sales homepage, in no way related to this article.
  • Please use consistent formatting in the references, i.e. BBC News should be linked once, always or never, it should be BBC News, not BBC news or BBC etc etc. I've fixed a number of these, there may be others.
  • Things like "Daily Telegraph" aren't publishers, they're works. I've fixed a number of these, there may be others. Please use the cite templates correctly.

The Rambling Man (talk) 08:24, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The sun is a wholly relaible source if the article is actually read, just beacuse it is the gutter press doesnot make it an unusable source. The Sun is reliable when the facts of their story are stripped away from thier POV. Also the plant sales homepage is relevant as it directly refers to the sale of a Plant named after her. I think TRM needs to read the article and sources to gether and not the sources in isolation.--Lucy-marie (talk) 08:34, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also as you keep finding errors rather than shouting "these are eroors" why not try and fix them all.--Lucy-marie (talk) 08:37, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Check the edit history. I've fixed plenty of problems. And I don't think just removing the link from ref 7 is a fix. It's no longer something we can refer to. And yes, The Sun is unreliable. If the facts are notable, they should be sourced by a reliable source. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:28, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And perhaps you're missing the point of inline citations. They are supposed to be accessible to the reader to back up the info in the article. The police one no longer does and the plant one just links to a shop homepage, not related in any way to this article. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:36, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question a number of the sources say her remains were found in Yateley Heath Woods, this article says Minley Woods (and is unreferenced). What's the correct location? The Rambling Man (talk) 11:35, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This disinterestd sources gives the excat address of where the body was found [4] The Road is Minley Road and the Woods are Yateley Heath. I think this is where the mix up may have occured.--Lucy-marie (talk) 12:16, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so we can fix that up. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:21, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Have done. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:09, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Questions:

  • A number of the sources say her remains were found in Yateley Heath Woods, this article says Minley Woods (and is unreferenced). What's the correct location?
  • Ref 22 is incorrectly used to reference something that happened two weeks after it was published.
  • If you include the Sun offering 100k, it's probably worth including the fact Crimestoppers/Surrey Police offered 50k ([5]) don't you think?
  • I really don't think we should use a Seven O'Clock News programme (ref 23) as a reference, there must be better than this available as virtually no-one outside Channel 4 will ever have access to this, making it a useless source. What particularly was it referencing? Is this better?
  • Ought we not add information relating to the fact that Bellfield has pleaded not guilty in the interest of balance?
  • Where is the info in the infobox referenced, e.g. birth date, height, monument etc?
  • Is there nothing more to add to the legacy section since 2005?
  • Is this of any use with regard to legacy/memorials, doesn't seem to have been covered here at all.
  • This source says the CCTV footage was "enhanced by the FBI", worth including, especially back in 2002 and showing good collaboration across international borders?
  • This link indicates that three different men were arrested, questioned and released by September 2002. This isn't mentioned in the article at all, nor is the cost (at that time) of the investigation which topped £1m... Some other interesting stats in that article like number of sites searched, km of waterways searched, number of enquiries made...

Image problem - there is no valid fair use rationale for this image to be used in this specific article. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:30, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please read the rationale provided thoroughly and the fair use exemption. No more images can be created and the image is for illustrative purposes only. --Lucy-marie (talk) 13:14, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Don't patronise me. I told you no valid fair use rationale was in place for use in this article, as you very well know having changed it just now. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:17, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wow two words which you could have changed yourself stop being a mischief maker, over minor perniciousness . Now you know how it feels to be patronised yourself, maybe you will stop patronising me.--Lucy-marie (talk) 14:06, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm? Sorry? "two words"? "a mischief maker"? "perniciousness"? I don't follow you at all, but I'm not at all surprised by that. I'm sure you are aware of the importance of correct fair use descriptions, aren't you? In any case, perhaps now you can get on with fixing the issues I've raised in this sub-standard GA. If not, stop bothering me. There's a lot to do, as you can see above. And once again, comment on the content, not the contributor. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:08, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A few comments

Sorry if I'm repeating anything from above, I'll try not to, but it is getting a bit congested with different comments and replies.

  • I think "Milly" should definitely be mentioned in the lead, but I guess that is the consensus emerging on the talkpage.
  • The "Investigation" section is a bit "listy", and doesn't flow very well. I'm thinking that in particular, the three paragraphs about people contacting the family could be consolidated into one, rather than just being a list of "This person did this. That person did that."
  • "Farr was sectioned indefinitely..." - sectioned is colloquial/informal and should be reworded ("detained under the mental health act" or something similar")
  • I'm not really happy with The Sun as it is used here, and sincerely doubt that article is "wholly relaible". "Twisted Milly Hoaxer Caged" says quite a lot. Furthermore, they describe the individual as "said to have a history of paranoid schizophrenia". This is not the same as "sectioned ... for being a serious psychological danger to the public due to his history of paranoid schizophrenia". Who "said" it? The judge? The defendant? Witnesses? An unnamed source? Some bloke hanging around outside the court? As The Rambling Man has said, if this is a notable fact, it will appear in media other than The Sun. Bear in mind that WP:BLP applies here.
  • I find the "disposal of the car" bit slightly vague. What car were they looking for? Had a car been seen where she disappeared? This isn't really explained.
  • "Surrey Police confirmed that Levi Bellfield was their prime suspect " - it would be helpful to have a bit of information about who Bellfield to give us some context without having to click through to that article immediately on reading the name. The fact that he had just been convicted of other murder charges is kind of relevant.
  • Just wondering if Crimewatch was still known as Crimewatch UK in 2002, can't seem to find it in our article
  • Is there a particular reason for the image that we're currently using? It seems that there are several better ones being used by news sources. For a start, it's hard to really tell what she looks like in this one. And, this might just be me, and this might sound silly, but I can't help wondering if it's really appropriate to have a photo of the victim of a child predator that unnecessarily shows quite so much of her legs. If it was the only available picture that might be different, but given that there are other images that could be used, why not go for a closer-up head & shoulders one? (eg. [6]) --BelovedFreak 15:24, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find the paragraph about the DNA found on her clothing vague & confusing. "suggesting that her killer may have met her before" doesn't seem to be backed up by either of the two sources cited. In fact the Independent article suggests that the police thought the DNA came from someone who bought the clothing and returned it to a different shop, prior to Milly buying it, therefore not suggesting that she had met her killer although that was presumably a possibility. (To be fair, I don't really understand the point of the Independent article in that it seems to be claiming a possible "breakthrough", but then saying that the police believe the DNA to be unrelated). Our article goes on to say "This link was ruled out within three months", but this fact isn't really supported. The Daily Mail article says that the DNA was not found to be that of any of the 46 men tested, not that the link was absolutely ruled out. "Detectives ... will be travelling to Sunderland in the near future to liaise with local police ... around this line of inquiry" doesn't suggest that the link was "ruled out". I'm not sure how notable this paragraph really is, it seems to be a line of enquiry that fizzled out. If it's kept though, it needs to be explained better, and to reflect the sources better.--BelovedFreak 16:17, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is a bit of a passing comment, but relevant: WP:DEADREF was significantly changed back in March, and most GA reviewers don't seem to be up on the changes (because, honestly, nobody can keep up with every change to our ~500 guidelines). Under the new rules, most non-working URLs should not be removed from citations in articles.

I realize that dead URLs aren't immediately useful, but there has never been a Good article criteria that prohibited GAs from including dead links, and any clean up associated with them should be done in compliance with DEADREF. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:53, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment to clarify

WhatamIdoing's comment prompts me to clarify a little, since I've been quite general above about what could be improved. In terms of the GA criteria, in my opinion this article currently fails #1 (I don't find the prose well-written, clear or concise). It fails #2 as some sources are misrepresented and there are problems with #3 as I'm not sure that all points have been covered, and I think it goes off on a tangent with unnecessary focus on people interfering in the investigation rather than the investigation itself. It could have problems with stability or being out of date, (due to the trial) but it doesn't actually seem to have those problems right now. Overall, I don't think that this article is GA standard. BelovedFreak 17:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Aircorn:

  • I have scanned the above, but as it was over a month ago and in many places appears to have degenerated I am going to conduct a review against the criteria from where it stands now. It is also difficult to work out what points have been sufficiently dealt with. This does not mean that all the above points have been addressed, just that it is getting hard to follow where it stands. First off the lead appears a too bit short and fragmented to satisfy WP:LEAD. I realise a recent move has occurred but I think a better way of presenting the image in the infobox would be to have Amanda "Milly" Jane Dowler to match the article title and not have Milly Dowler below. Still some cite needed tags that need addressing, some added by me. An article of this nature has to be well supported by quality references. Further comments below AIRcorn (talk) 09:00, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • She was last seen by a friend waiting at a bus stop, 18 minutes later walking along Station Approach. Was she last seen at the bus stop or walking along Station road
  • It is believed Dowler was killed and buried shortly afterwards. Who beleives this?
  • They reasoned that while Dowler was unlikely to have gone off with someone she did not know of her own free will, no-one had come forward who had witnessed a struggle, despite a number of apparent sightings of Dowler prior to her disappearance. I am not sure how this supports the polices claim that she was not taken by force. Just because no one witnessed a struggle does not mean a struggle could not have occurred. Am I missing something?
  • This link was ruled out within three months, at the same time that a DNA link to a church robbery in Sunderland was also ruled out. Why was it ruled out? How is the church robbery relevant?
  • Paul Hughes was convicted of making threats to kill and was jailed for five years after sending letters to Dowler's mother threatening to kill her and claiming to have killed Dowler. This does not flow very well with the previous sentence better.
  • Same goes with the Lianne Newman and Gary Farr sentences. They need to be re-written possible as a single paragraph as they are all slightly related to flow much better.
  • The car has still yet to be discovered. Maybe "As of ...". Still could mean anytime before today in Wikipedia.
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