Talk:Ronald Whyte

BLP POV check
I have removed unsourced information from this page, and have also removed what seems to be a fairly random selection of reports of sentences handed out by the judge, as these do not seem particularly significant in light of the judge's overall role. bd2412 T 22:21, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Date of death
As I write this, we do not know the date of Whyte's death. The date was reported today, April 12; but the date of the event being reported may have been yesterday or even earlier. Although I'm paywalled from the full story by The Recorder on law.com (which so far is the only WP:RS reporting I have seen), I obtained a copy from WP:RX, and the only information it provides is "A representative from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California confirmed Tuesday that Whyte, who sat on the federal bench for 24 years, had died."

I have checked the web site for the Northern District of California, and although the Recorder article sources to NDCA, the web site does not yet have any mention of the death.

Please do not add a specific date of death to the article unless/until it is reported by a reliable source. TJRC (talk) 18:54, 12 April 2023 (UTC)


 * His Federal Judicial Center listing has been updated after his death, but quite strangely, there's also no date there, either. I actually wonder if many of these otherwise official databases sometimes just use Wikipedia to update their listings after deaths. I've noticed that the Congressional Biographical Guide is rarely updated with any information not in the Wikipedia article after a politician dies (i.e. if a place of death is not on the article, it's also omitted from that line of the BioGuide). --Sunshineisles2 (talk) 18:52, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The FJC page has now been updated with the date, and Nohomersryan added the reference; so we're all good now.
 * I think particularly in the immediate days after a death is reported, it's important to hold the line on unsourced claims; as you note, sometimes sloppy writers rely too heavily on Wikipedia and then a dubious claim gets enshrined as truth. (See also .) TJRC (talk) 23:33, 14 April 2023 (UTC)