Talk:Lucy Letby/Archive 8

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Why add the tags?

Most of the information is cited and multiple times. This is a huge news story in the UK. It's not undue. Nor are any of the sources primary. Phil of rel (talk) 19:58, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Have a read of WP:PRIMARYNEWS. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:55, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@Sirfurboy The problem with that is that the tag is unresolvable as it stands, since all of the sources in existence are primary news. We tag pages so we can fix problems - but when no secondary sources exist, are we just going to keep it tagged forever? What is gained from tagging it for maintenance to be resolved when it cannot be resolved? PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:49, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Secondary sources exist. Documentaries are secondary sources, and a book is coming out in 22 days. And on a BLP there is an excellent question as to whether we should have an encyclopaedic article as extensive as this if there are not secondary sources. It may suggest a synthesis by article writers. We are writing the tertiary source. Is it WP:TOOSOON to do so if no one has yet written the history? An interesting but moot question as we have documentaries and very soon will have published books. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:58, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

@Sirfurboy If we were being consistent policy wise vis a vis primary/secondary/tertiary we would ban writing articles on anything that happened less than 20 years ago. This article shouldn't even exist given that. The documentaries are poor sources for other reasons, and the book does not yet exist for our purposes. It's just stupid tagging something we cannot fix! PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:04, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

We can fix it. It is just that, despite the convention for calling us editors here on Wikipedia, we are loathe to do what is necessary to actually be editors. There are approaching 8,000 words in this article. It is huge, and over detailed. We already have sufficient secondary sources for a tertiary article. The Lucia de Berk article is about 2,000 words (with an advantage of multiple secondary sources). This one is 4 times the length because we have blow by blow newspaper sourced trial reporting and now blow by blow doubts too. We could get rid of all the X questioned Y's evidence and all the Z spoke about being harassed after the trial and so much more. We don't need all this detail, all sourced to newspapers. It can go. Editing in the real world involves lots and lots of cutting, but on Wikipedia if you cut then someone just puts it back. But if we did cut out all the torturous detail, the article would be a readable length, more salient and we could reduce nearly all the primary sources, because we could use existing secondary sources (or secondary information in primary sources, of which we have some) to support an encyclopaedic summary style article of the subject. And then, yes, the tag would be resolved. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:41, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

@Sirfurboy The Lucia de Berk case is merely a start class article, and is neither comprehensive nor broad, if anything much worse than this one.

I actually do agree with you on the over detailed bit, but your proposed solution is "we nuke half the article" which I think will never find consensus and I think that's more a symptom than the cause. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:54, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

It’s doesn’t seem obvious that the articles used in the doubts section actually are primary. This interpretation seems to depend on whether the event is the trial or the expression of opinion itself. If the trial is the event, the articles clearly fit this definition: A secondary source provides thought and reflection based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event

But even if they are primary, policy states:

Deciding whether primary, secondary, or tertiary sources are appropriate in any given instance is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense and a primary source is generally the best source for its own contents, even over a summary of the primary source elsewhere. And quite explicitly, "Primary" is not another way to spell "bad". Just because most newspaper articles are primary sources does not mean that these articles are not reliable and often highly desirable independent sources.

And please don’t imply a SYNTH accusation without backing it up:

If someone doesn't like what was said, and they therefore cry SYNTH, others almost certainly will be right to cry foul. Virtually anything can be shoehorned into a broad reading of SYNTH, but the vast majority of it shouldn't be.

Considering just how poorly written the rest of the article is, it’s quite annoying that the doubts section receives all the flak. Realistically I think the reason for this is that many people just unreasonably believe it’s tasteless to acknowledge controversy about such an emotionally charged set of convictions. DominicRA (talk) 12:23, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

The doubts section is over 2200 words in length, and contains 47 in text citations, of which 45 are to newspapers or TV news. Now you can probably make a case that some of the cited information in the newspaper articles is secondary - particularly where there is some analysis concerned - but as a broad rule of thumb, these are reporting news, which is a primary source. I have already mentioned WP:PRIMARYNEWS above. An example:

Letby hadn’t been on shift since the birth of child C when an X-ray of the infant that was heavily discussed by the prosecution was taken. Shortly after the broadcast of a File on 4 programme that discussed this case, Dewi Evans, who served as the prosecution's lead expert witness, said that he no longer agrees with the prosecution’s account of how the infant died, but instead claimed that Letby had killed him via another method.

This is sourced to a BBC news article (first sentence) and a Telegraph article (second). Is this due in an encyclopaedic article? Guilt or innocence is determined by a court of law, not by journalists nor public opinion. It is for the courts to make a determination on the relevance of the changed opinion. But it is, in fact, something that newspapers should be reporting. They are reporting questions, and there is a role for that. I suppose that a secondary source could forensically gather the strands of evidence and analyse the case, but such analysis involves synthesis. This is exactly what someone doing original research should be doing. But not us. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia: a tertiary source. We don't do original research. So what we have here is not encyclopaedic. These two sentences, taken together, cast doubt on Evans' testimony, by inviting the reader to recognise that - having had his original theory disproven - he changed his opinion. Does it go beyond the sources? Well no, perhaps not. The Telegraph article, in particular, focuses on Evans' changed opinion, explaining that he changed tack after it became clear Letby was not there. So we are not going beyond the source, but we are using a discursive primary source, and we have a duty to analyse it critically, or else to use the analysis of someone who has analysed it critically. Are they trying to sell a narrative here? Are we? To what extent have we changed the narrative of the primary source, and why?

If we just follow the reporting cycle we end up with a hotchpotch of facts, some for, some against. Which facts are in the public eye are the responsibility of the news editors, and we are just following them and placing everything in our article. We are not shaping the article we want to write - it is reactive to what primary sources are saying. We are not just presenting what is known - we are raising a series of questions as to what is unknown and inviting the reader to fill in the gaps. There are places for this, but those places are not in an encyclopaedia. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 13:53, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Is this due in an encyclopaedic article? Yes. There are widespread doubts about the convictions coming from reputatable sources and the lead prosecution expert disavowing the prosecution's narrative about a charge at the trial is patently relevant, of interest and worthy of inclusion.

Guilt or innocence is determined by a court of law, not by journalists nor public opinion. Guilt or innocence is a matter of fact; legal findings are not synonymous with facts and clearly sometimes differ sharply from them. Anyway, this article makes no claim either way.

a secondary source could forensically gather the strands of evidence and analyse the case ... But not us. This article doesn't analyse. It reports the clearly relevant facts and the views of those with expertise or who have otherwise done investigations in reputable publications.

I am perfectly aware that sources can have their biases. The section includes the plain facts of what happened re Evans' changed view because it is obviously relevant and of interest to the ongoing controversy, not simply because it was reported.

If we just follow the reporting cycle... That's not what the article does. Some of the discussion in the media merits inclusion, some doesn't. The views of some relevant experts are included because we should include non-fringe expert views. Points coming from analyses in journalistic investigations in reputable sources seem to also be worthy of inclusion, particularly when those investigations have had clear impact (i.e. New Yorker piece). And points of fact with blindingly obvious relevance (CPS confirming false data was used at 1st trial, expert witness changing his mind) also deserve inclusion. On the other hand, opinion pieces from non-experts do not. Nor does unfounded speculation (from anyone). Nor do countless facts with less obvious or uncertain relevance. It's just not true that the article is simply reactive.

We are not just presenting what is known - we are raising a series of questions as to what is unknown We are actually just presenting facts. Of course the facts might lead readers to ask questions, but that's the nature of a controversial topic. It makes no sense to exclude some facts just to avoid the audience being left with questions. DominicRA (talk) 18:36, 3 October 2024 (UTC)