Talk:Barry Sherman

Who shot J.R.

This is one of those cases where the number of suspects with a possible motive to kill Sherman keeps growing. Just added two more: he owed a billion dollars to someones and was refusing to pay; and, he may have been funding an organization that was engaged in combating Islamic fundamentalists. -- GreenC 07:14, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

There was already a large list of potential suspects ... does the article say that somewhere? Daniel Case (talk) 17:56, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

There's a whole section for it. Maybe it's not complete? GreenC 18:53, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

age entering B.A.Sc. program.

Barry entered in fall 1960 at age 18, not 16 as claimed, and graduated in 1964 as correctly written. Not youngest ever at that time. 2607:FEA8:3A27:5300:29E8:8951:7FDC:F11E (talk) 21:10, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Fixed. No idea how the youngest claim got there as none of the sources support it. -- GreenC 21:23, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Hmm.. Source: "After becoming what was believed to be the youngest person to join the engineering science program at the University of Toronto, at just 16 years old". Also perplexed because our article says he received a PhD 3 years after he graduated with a BA in 1964. Did he skip a Masters? Did he get a PhD in only 3 years but took 4 to get a Bachelors? Lots of uncertainty about his school career. -- GreenC 22:31, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

The University of Toronto says age 16. That's sufficient, unless there is a better source to back up the age 18 claim. -- GreenC 23:24, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Language

Who wrote this article? It does not read like a wikipedia/encyclopedia article at all, more like a buzzfeed article or a podcast or something. It seems like the whole article is written by the same person. I see “U of T” several times. It could really benefit from a total rewrite. 62.192.163.37 (talk) 18:18, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Actually, the problem is (as it often is with many of our articles that have writing problems) that it doesn't read as if it were all written by the same person. I can state as a matter of fact that while I wrote much of the "death" section, I really have had very little to do with the rest of the article.

I'm also not necessarily sure that there's anything wrong with "U of T" on second reference—our article uses it in the lede, it's rather commonly used even on first reference in Toronto-area media, and it distinguishes the institution nicely from the University of Texas, most commonly assumed to be meant by "UT". I'm not in a position to check on any style manuals, online or not, right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't some that said that was OK.

As for fixing it, I'm certainly not averse to a copy edit; every article can use one. I'd print it out and do it myself, as I have done with quite a few other articles, but I'm busy at the moment. Perhaps you could recommend it to the Guild of Copy Editors? I know it takes a little more time than just leaving a comment on a talk page for other people to deal with but in their case that's actually what they do. Daniel Case (talk) 19:06, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Once the killer(s) are found the case concludes it will be easier to remove and re-arrange a lot of stuff. It's surprising it has lasted this long unsolved. It suggests it may never be solved the longer it remains a cold case. Not sure what the OP refers to "a buzzfeed article", other than maybe sometimes real life is actually dramatic, attempts to make it 'encyclopedic' could make it unreadable. -- GreenC 00:08, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

The "Death" section is the one that is the most unencyclopedic. I mean, there are 419 words before their deaths are even mentioned, that's why it seems like it's an article in a magazine or something. How are the city's laws for house depth so relevant to their deaths that it should be in the very first paragraph? And oh my god, the semicolons! 62.192.163.37 (talk) 17:32, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

What's wrong with semicolons when they're used properly and grammatically? Daniel Case (talk) 22:28, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Split

Is there any value in splitting the "Death" section into a separate article on the murder case? -22:10, 1 May 2024 (UTC) LaCyn88 (talk) 22:10, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

We may be getting to that point that Killing of Barry and Honey Sherman might not be a bad idea. Daniel Case (talk) 02:30, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

"Killings", "deaths", or "murders"? --LaCyn88 (talk) 02:36, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Good question. WP:NCDEATHS calls for "killing(s) of ..." in cases where, as here, homicide is the official finding but only once someone has been convicted of murder can we call it "murder(s) of ..." since to do otherwise is considered a breach of WP:BLP, WP:V and WP:OR.

However, that's based on American usage. British editors have been resistant to differentiating in article titles about homicides based on whether there has been a murder conviction since "murder" is used so commonly in UK public discourse, with less respect to its legal meaning of the unlawful killing of another person, and "homicide" (I'm told) is distinctly an American term to British ears. Both the National Statistics Office and the Crown Prosecution Service make the distinction in-house and urge the public to follow suit, but it has not caught on with the British media yet, alas.

I do not know for sure which model Canadian usage has gone with. It seems American usage is OK, but I'd like more insight here. Daniel Case (talk) 02:59, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

IMO clumping is better than splitting because of the section of personality, litigation that feed into murder theories. Splitting inherently removes the context of Sherman's life which is most likely related to his ultimate murder. -- GreenC 03:01, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Clumping? What's that? --LaCyn88 (talk) 03:02, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Well, like the proposal is to "split" or remain as-is which is "clumped". Another term might be "combined" but splitting/clumping is often how it's phrased. -- GreenC 01:10, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh. I never heard the term before. Could a separate article be created that repeated some information from this one? Wikipedia has both O.J. Simpson and Murder trial of O. J. Simpson, for instance. -LaCyn88 (talk) 01:13, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Splitting because one can misses the benefit of keeping it together. Typically we split when space is needed to expand on a topic, or if there was a weight problem in the original article. There isn't much to expand on: court case, arrests, lead suspects, cold case. Nothing is happening. There's no weight problem with this article. If there was an arrest, indictment, and trial, yeah that would be when to split. -- GreenC 05:17, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

And I personally think we could even have a separate Killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman article, as there are notable and relevant aspects of the case that have been reliably reported on outside of the context of the trial. Daniel Case (talk) 17:33, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Films

"Sherman's money financed all eight films D'Angelo had made through 2018"[1]

User:Everyone But You: I can't verify these facts: financed 8 films, D'Angelo made them, through 2018. All it says is Sherman backed "Real Gangsters! and Sicilian Vampire". Doesn't say who made them or when. -- GreenC 18:34, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Actually the entire paragraph about D'Angelo appears to be sourced to McLeans, and nothing in that source supports anything in the paragraph. It's like a BLP problem since it's making some seriously negative accusations against D'Angelo. Whole thing should be removed but I tagged it for now to give a chance to find better sourcing, but due to the BLP it needs to happen soon. -- GreenC 18:43, 29 July 2024 (UTC)