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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/John Christie (murderer)/archive2

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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 not promoted by SandyGeorgia 19:46, 2 January 2010 [1].

John Christie (murderer)

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Nominator(s): Wcp07 (talk) 02:53, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I nominated this article back in October and addressed most of the issues then. There was one outstanding issue of image use which I was not able to resolve; I believe I have resolved it now. I have linked the previous featured article candidate discussion here. Back then, the main issues were inline citations and copyediting, which I was able to address. Wcp07 (talk) 02:53, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Wcp07 (talk) 22:24, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Mm40 (talk · contribs)

  • "hanged in 1953 for his wife's murder, after his" you can remove the comma
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Christie had served in World War I" remove the redundant "had"
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the lead, why is rape linked but not "theft" and assault"?
Links included for theft and assault. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Because the second note cautions against the use of necrophiliac, its inclusion is somewhat POV. Moreover, it's not discussed anywhere in the article, so it shouldn't be in the lead.
I've taken out the reference to necrophilia in the lead but I've still included it in the body (under "Later murders"). I think it's important to mention as Christie is commonly held to be a necrophiliac, even if that description might not be particularly accurate. I've pointed out that there is a dispute over whether he is one or isn't, so hopefully that will satisfy POV concerns. Wcp07 (talk) 04:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Timothy Evans was charged with both murders, was found guilty of the murder of his daughter and was hanged in 1950" repeats the word "was" three times
Redundant "had's" removed. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "When Christie's own crimes were uncovered three years" two things: I think "own" is redundant, and "uncovered" isn't the most encyclopedic.
Done; uncovered replaced with discovered. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Mr Justice Brabin stated" should lose the "Mr" and have a full name
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove "nevertheless"
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "enabled the then Home Secretary to" either should give a name or remove "then"; it's obvious that the then Secretary did it
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the age of eight" can be simply "age eight"
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is all of the first paragraph of Early life covered by the given reference, or just the sentence about his grandfather?
The reference in the first paragraph is only citing the sentence about Christie grandfather. The rest of the paragraph I felt didn't require citations; I can add some though if they're needed. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "was a Boy Scout; upon leaving school" should have a period instead of a semicolon.
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "to talk much louder than a whisper, Kennedy argues" can just be "to talk loudly, Kennedy argues" because the detail is previously given.
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Ethel Simpson Waddington from Sheffield, on 10 May 1920" the comma is splicing
Done; comma removed. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "end his cycle of petty crime" isn't really a cycle, because one crme doesn't lead to another
Done; "cycle" replaced with "course". Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "to Harrow Road police station" seems to need "the"
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "she was on the beat or in a" I think "on the beat" is a bit jargonish
Done, reworded. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Christie impulsively strangled her during" why "impulsively"?
I used "impulsively" to convey the sense that it occurred without warning. I've replaced it with "without warning" to be clearer. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the husband of the woman with whom he had been having the affair" is a bit wordy. How about "the woman's husband"?
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last sentence of the first paragraph of First murders needs clarification: which building is being referred to?
Done; specified the building is Christie's residence. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reference 4 has a period at the end while the others don't (pedantic, I know).
It's put in automatically by the cite:book template I used for the reference. That probably means I'm going to have to add a period to all the manual references for consistency. How annoying. Wcp07 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully more comments coming; I'm going to wait a while as I think this needs some more copy-editing, but I'm gonna wait for some other opinions. Cheers, Mm40 (talk) 00:36, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to put the article through further copyediting. But as you suggest, I'll wait for further comments. Wcp07 (talk) 07:04, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, my lack of comments isn't a wait for more comments as much as lack of available time. Mm40 (talk) 12:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mild oppose. I'm not any too happy about the prose, which doesn't flow very well. Getting some fresh eyes in there would probably help. When you've read a text over and over, and tried to please everybody, your feeling for more intangible things in it, like "flow", may end up a little overtaxed. (A phenomenon known as "flow fatigue".) I've done a bit of copyediting (just now), but there remain some sentences in there that sound almost a note of unintentional comedy. At a minimum, please rephrase "Christie resigned as a Special Constable, likely due to emotional conflicts between being a murderer and a member of the police force", and "The tenants were black immigrants from the West Indies with whom the Christies despised living because of racial prejudices". This one, "He also admitted to killing Beryl Evans, with whom Timothy Evans had originally been charged", while it's by no means comical, is an illustration of the kind of syntax difficulties you're likely to find yourself in if you insist, as this text appears to do, on the nonsense "rule" that a sentence mustn't end with a preposition. (See Preposition stranding for the "overzealous avoidance" of prepositions at the end.) Bishonen | talk 20:28, 29 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]
I've rephrased some of the awkward passages in the text, but it's difficult to spot them when you've read the text over about a hundred times or so. I see what you mean about "overzealous avoidance" of having prepositions at the end, so I've rephrased the glaring ones to make the prose flow better. I'm not sure that it needs more copyediting, though - I actually had the article copyedited by User:Shirik last night before you made your comments, so I can't see what further copyediting it needs. Wcp07 (talk) 04:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Spaced en dash required in a full date range, since there's at least one space within the elements.
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 04:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link for "pardon"? Rather common word. Same for "conviction", "probation", "petty crime"
I've delinked many of the common words, most of which were successively linked by anonymous IP users. I'm happy to also delink "pardon" but I've kept it linked so that those not familiar with UK law can find out why the Home Secretary doesn't issue pardons but must recommend them (to the monarch) instead. Wcp07 (talk) 04:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lots of clean-ups required, such as "in spite of having an extensive criminal record" --> "in spite of his extensive criminal record".
Done. Wcp07 (talk) 04:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The relationship between clauses is a real problem.
Not too sure what that means. Are there some specific examples you have in mind? Wcp07 (talk) 04:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Needs an independent copy-edit throughout. Tony (talk) 22:56, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I've mentioned above, I'm not sure that it needs further copyediting as it's now been copyedited twice since its peer review prior to the last nomination.Wcp07 (talk) 04:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - for now. The main problem is that the prose does not flow well; the sentences are often too detached from each other in style and content. This is often easier to spot than fix, but I have made some suggestions [2], but other problems remain.

  • Here for example, there are two adjoining sentences both beginning with "after": After initially alleging that Christie had killed his wife in a botched abortion operation, Evans then confessed to murdering his wife and daughter. After he was charged with their deaths, Evans recanted his confession and again accused Christie of being the murderer, this time of both his wife and daughter. and there is "Evans...Evans.
  • This sentence is trying to say too much and has to be read twice, This reaction, together with Christie's exaggeration of the effects of the attack, stemmed from underlying hysteria in Christie; such a condition encouraged him to exaggerate or feign illness as a ploy to get attention and sympathy.
  • This sentence does not make sense, Christie, without warning, strangled her during sex at Rillington Place in August 1943, not long after his assault.
  • Here, both of whom were found in an outside wash-house with Beryl's body additionally parcelled up the "additionally parcelled up" sounds very odd.

The Ladbroke Grove image adds nothing to the article, but the legend does. I suggest deleting the image and incorporating the legend into the body of the article. The plan of Pentonville in Victorian times added nothing at all and I have taken the liberty of deleting it. On reading this, I could not help compare it with Moors murders, an engaging FA that flows beautifully despite the evil it describes.

Lastly, the reader needs to be told that at the time of the murders, homes in the UK were supplied with town gas, which was mostly carbon monoxide, which is poisonous, and not the much less harmfulnatural gas (methane), which we burn now. Graham Colm Talk 17:50, 1 January 2010 (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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