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Revision as of 19:27, 1 December 2008

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Content temporarily deleted; DO NOT DISCUSS CASES OR HISTORY OF THIS PERSON HERE. Content is sub judice.

Why two different pages?

http://en.wikipedia.org/Dinah_McNicol and http://en.wikipedia.org/Peter_Tobin

Both have different articles up about Peter Tobin, should these be combined?

News results for another possible murder he committed

--h i s _{r e s e a r c h} 14:38, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair trial

Have removed stuff that will prejudice a fair trial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.250.228 (talk) 10:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

MSM and court orders

The mainstream media are obviously being very cautious about mentioning that the same Peter Tobin is in custody for the Hamilton murder is serving life for the Kluk one, even though they did a lot to speculate about it when he was sentenced. Does anyone know a)what exactly is ordered and by whom - some papers are saying "a 61-year old man who cannot be named", others are just avoiding mentioning the other cases and b)what the Misplaced Pages rules say about cases like this?Billwilson5060 (talk) 09:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

edit request

{{editprotected}}

Please add {{subst:longcomment}} to this page. Thanks. --Closedmouth (talk) 07:35, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

 Done --Elonka 20:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of full article?

Deleting the full page seems to be a little too much - more than is needed - I came here to read based on a news story (not linked in order to comply with the request above). It seems that even if the matter is sub judice, information unrelated to the current event would be relevant and I don't see how they would violate the order.

Furthermore - a comment that information about the current case is not being added as sub judice seems appropriate, and a link to current policy on why this article is protected would prevent questions like mine :)

Finally, can someone help me understand the issues with fully deleting it - if the above can not be done, given that a British court has no jurisdiction over me and any text I may post here - personally, I can see doing it just as a prudent way of dealing with the issue, and taking an m:Eventualist attitude, but a better solution would be to limit the article, to explain why no current information and be eventualist about that later info - Thanks --Trödel 18:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I accept that there are complications and options in such a matter, over what and whether to accede to requests from a court. In this case, I was approached by an Police Officer, acting on behalf of the court, that there were very strong reasons why this article (and its caches, which were being dealt with separately) should not be available for the duration of the case. After making confirmatory checks that the officer was 'real' and acting correctly (both true) I considered his request and, specifically, that it was strongly felt that should this article remain in place then the court action could be thrown out. Now, as other media coverage has noted, there is a very serious charge against this individual and given that there is a lot of history about him in this article I concurred that in the best interests of justice it would be very much preferable if the content was removed temporarily.

I did consider solely removing some content but it was quickly obvious that that was not possible, there being no unrelated information: the presence or absence of past events regarding a person before a court are not admissible in evidence and disclosure is not permitted in any manner, which was the prime issue here.

As such I deleted the article and created the temporary holding page. Please note that *none* of the previous content is permanently deleted and it will all be recovered - with history and no doubt updated - once the case is concluded. In terms of jurisdiction, this is a matter before the Scottish court (so a different legal system to the rest of Great Britain) and, whilst I accept fully that many WP users are not within the remit of that court I am certain that no WP user would like a court case to collapse and the party charged with a serious crime to not to have to answer for the charge because we had an article which contained information that could be held to be prejudicial to the Crown's case (or, indeed, the defendant's). My view was that WP should not block such legal action by the presence of an article where it could be safely and securely deleted for the term of the case. --AlisonW (talk) 22:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable - maybe we should have a better explanation though, something like, "Peter Tobin is currently on trial in Scotland for xxx. As a result of the court's request further information about Tobin is not currently available but will be restored once the current allegation is resolved." I don't see how the court can object to listing the current crime since that is being widely reported (by BBC news at least) and would explain things a little better --Trödel 22:34, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, a very restricted statement like that could be made, however (a) I was very concerned about what might and might not be considered 'safe', and (b) to have any article, even a bare-bones one, would implicitly invite other editors to expand the content (possible daily following news reports) and lead to the exact issues I was trying to safeguard against. As such I felt that my approach was safest for the time being. --AlisonW (talk) 09:02, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

While this probably sets a precedent Alison has made an excellent call. Thanks, SqueakBox 14:28, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

This is an absolute farce which shows Misplaced Pages has institutionalised delusions of grandeur. A website outwith the court's jurisdiction cannot prejudice the case. All manner of information about this man is easily available online, why is Misplaced Pages more relevant than any other offshore resource? While no crossreferences are currently being made between the current case and past events, even British news sites haven't removed their archives. 92.10.77.93 (talk) 02:34, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

AN thread for feedback on this

This needs wider review, so I've asked here. rootology (C)(T) 16:30, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Note; in case there is any doubt I support this call for a wider review. From the POV of normal practice on WP I wasn't entirely happy with the temporary deletion, however I very much feel it was the right decision to take *in this instance*. A review and consideration of possible new policy is, therefore, a sensible thing to consider as we are now some four weeks after the initial event. --AlisonW (talk) 18:06, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks... you did the best you could at the time given the bizarre circumstances. rootology (C)(T) 18:09, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Legal threat removed

I removed the legal injunction from the top of the page - it has no force, acts as a brake on discussion and the matter has already considered by the WMF and kicked back to the community because it is not a matter for them. The matter is only SJ in the UK and a general disclaimer to all editors cannot be made on that basis. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:23, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not a legal threat. In addition, WMF has had to pay attention to the laws in other countries before, despite not being hosted there. I doubt you would know this, being a relatively new editor, so it's understandable that you might be misunderstanding. Please do not tamper with the notice, though. --Deskana (talk) 19:24, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

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