Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license.
Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat.
We can research this topic together.
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Arcayne (talk | contribs) at 05:30, 27 July 2008 (start a new section, DreamGuy, if you are burning to argue something. Undo the archive again, and there will be consequences.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
This article uses British English dialect and spelling.
According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. Note: The official spelling of the formal name is correct with the -ize ending, which had been discussed in the past.
Jack the Ripper was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Misplaced Pages's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
Thge wiki article is missing important discussion on whether the Ripper was left or right handed. This needs an expert to properly
add a section on this with appropriate references. I am no expert so will not attempt it myself, but I have heard that the the angle
of the knife wounds suggested a left handed person. If this is true then I want to see discussion on which suspects were left or righthanded in the article too. Also I want to see expert opinion on which Ripper letters appear to have left or righthanded script. Can some suitably knowledgeable people, who have the appropriate references, rectify these omissions in the wiki article?Bletchley (talk) 03:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
They are not omissions. They are subjective theory which have never had any pertinent conclusions drawn apart from individual theorists. There is much written on the subject but all of it is speculative and doesn't necessarily add anything to the article. Philip Sugden's book covers the subject well if you are interested. As for the handwriting, first you would have to prove one of the letters can actually be ascribed to the real Ripper...until then, exercise in handwriting analysis is also subjective & quite possibly futile as the majority (if not all) of the letters were hoaxes. ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 11:06, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
A question I would pose would be whether books had been devoted to this particular question, or whether it is a constant topic of discussion in JTR books. If it were, it might bear mentioning. If not, then it might be less notable, and not needing inclusion here. - Arcayne()03:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I thought this had been dealt with previously. Some early theories were based on a sparsely supported conclusion that the Ripper was left-handed (one of the doctors testified at inquest that the killer was likely left-handed. His view was in the minority). As part of the folklore of the case it might have some interest, but absent concrete evidence one way or the other, claims of the Ripper's left-handedness are just speculation. Revmagpie (talk) 23:47, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
It should be noted that not only was it just one doctor who said Jack was probably left-handed (on the Nichols' murder, before there were many corpses to tell by), he later reversed that conclusion and said he couldn't be sure. So there's not much to it, other than the newspapers never let go of the idea. DreamGuy (talk) 23:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Okay, note it as a mostly discounted (with citations to that effect) theory, so that people don't keep adding it in article space, right? - Arcayne()19:01, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Possibly. We can't bother to document every wild claim that has been discounted, however, and just because newbies wander through and add something in itself is no reason to have it in the article. Whether this point is worth raising on its own merits is worth considering, but we need to make sure we do it for encyclopedic reasons, not just for convenience. DreamGuy (talk) 21:06, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Clues found on Goulston street
It seems that every few months, we have to address the concerns of one particular editor. Sigh. Okay. We cannot call it by the substituted title, as we are not sure that they are "clues" or coincidence. We don't call it graffito just because some hack called it that in his profiteering venture (read: JTR whodunit book). We also don't call it such because its the wrong word - it applies to archeological scribbles and whatnot. Most people know it as writing ont he wall. It's makes no evaluations as to the weight of the writing, it doesn't unduly favor a conspiracy theorist misusing the term, and more importantly, it addresses then connection that most casual readers make when ticking the things they know about JTR off, one by one.
Of course, this was stuff already iterated a few mon ths ago, And a few months before that. Sorry - maybe I am mistaken, but it was my understanding that if you wish to change consensus, you do it here and not by edit-warring a pet version through. WP:BRD is clear; bold edits, when reverted, require discussion. Failing to do so leads to headaches, blocks and the such. Build a consensus. Don't attempt to force one. I can pretty much guarantee that it won't end happily for anyone trying to do that. - Arcayne()05:28, 27 July 2008 (UTC)