Template talk:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography

Template:WP Criminal and Template:WP Crime
I am copying some discussion from User talk:Wildhartlivie and User talk:Msgj. Regarding your revert on Template:WP Criminal, I'm wondering whether there is a better way to organise these banners. Can you link me to the discussion about the separate banners because I couldn't find it. If it is just a different wording that is required, then we could probably adapt the crime banner using a parameter. This would help to keep the banners in your project more consistent. Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks, Martin 12:29, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It took me a while to figure out what you were asking me, this issue came up some time ago. I think that what you took as a reference to a discussion was from the edit summary I left which said "note on project page the inclusion of separate criminal template for biographies:, an alternate project banner specifically for criminal biographies." I meant to please note this was stated on the project page, not referring to a discussion. The point about a separate banner for WP Crime articles vs. WP Criminal Biographies is an important one. Something has come up in the last few days that clarifies it. The discussion noted here is a question that has come up before. While a defendant in a case is on trial, he or she has not yet been convicted, so it does raise certain WP:BLP issues for living people, and simply questions of validity for those who are not, but who were suspected or assumed to be involved. In the case of Bernard Madoff, the article is certainly of interest to WP Crime, and if he is convicted, the template WP Criminal will become valid. If not, it would remain of interest to WP Crime. If there is a way to incorporate all of the parameters in to one banner, then fine, but it does leave the door open for mis-application. One issue I have with the present WP Criminal banner is that the listas function still doesn't work and I have no clue how to fix this. The project doesn't have a lot of active members so lately I've tried to pick up things pertinent to the project which gets no response. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:28, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Now, of course I understand the libel concerns about not labelling someone a criminal until they have been convicted. But I am still unsure about what is the specific reason that there are two separate banners. Is it the fact that one is called "criminal"? Or is it something in the wording of the banner? For comparison, WP Criminal says this:

and WP Crime says:

I think it would be better to consolidate to one banner if possible, to keep the appearance and categorisation of them consistent. Martin 13:18, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know what the rationale was when the project was created, and it doesn't seem as if most people who were active then are so now. I think the fundamental reason remains the libel issue and criminal vs. crime. Using the Madoff example, if "criminal" appears in the template, it is a problem. I know nothing about developing and application of templates. I'm still trying to find someone who can fix them so that they properly display from "listas", which neither of them do right now. Is it possible to have one template that, depending on the parameters chosen, would distinguish between a general crime article and a specific criminal biography, so that the word "criminal" doesn't appear? How would that ensure the parameter is chose correctly so that liability isn't an issue? Perhaps this should be also broached or noted at the project talk page and the creators could address this. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:14, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * At the moment "criminal" appears in both of them! So I am still a little confused. Yes, the listas will be fixed soon. We can certainly sort out the parameters when I've worked out what the difference in wording should be. Martin 23:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the distinction was that it implies it is covered by the entire project and not just that of criminal biographies. The WP Crime could be revised to remove the mention of criminal biographies, but I'm not sure I understand why it would be required that the project, which covers wider aspects of crime to include biographies, not be allowed to use the two banners. The distinction between a broad topic and a biography is fairly obvious. Some projects, such as film, spun off biography projects. This project isn't big enough to do that, but each part of the topics is fairly specialized.
 * Still, I want to emphasize, this should be brought up for the entire project to discuss and comment on, and decide what wording should be or if the banners be combined. Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I can see the reasoning for keeping the two distinct templates, but I don't understand why both of them use the word "biography" when the crime article is often about the case rather than the individual who committed the crime.   The WP:BLP concerns are very important and if we don't apply them as stringently here as we do in other areas, the overall purpose of the policy is diminished.   As a casual and occasional visitor to crime related articles, I must admit that I find the templates a little confusing.  Perhaps we should identify what type of article is likely to be categorized as a crime/criminal type article, and then ensure that the templates are worded in such a way that articles can be easily placed into one or the other of the categories.  This may help with the BLP issue but may also help with some of the biographical articles are not categorized consistently with the majority of criminal biographical articles. Rossrs (talk) 06:51, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Rossrs. That said, I think this topic needs to be brought up at the Wikiproject's talk page so more members of the community and the project in question can weigh in.  Pinkadelica Say it...  07:10, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I am copying the explanation I left for Pinkadelica that maybe states my point more clearly: It's like I said, the project has two things it focuses on. One is the broader subject of crime and the others are criminals. I think the two banners are useful, the only part of the project I ever work on are the biographies. If WP Criminal was a sub-project like serial killers, it wouldn't be an issue, but the projects aren't that big and wouldn't be worthwhile in separating. Not like WPFilm and WP Actors was. When you look at the template code that gets pasted in, it either says WP Crime or WP Criminal. While it is true that almost all biographies are about someone who is a criminal, there are a few whom you can't call that, either yet or ever. Think OJ before the kidnapping and robbery conviction, Lillo Brancato before he was convicted or Bernard Madoff, who has been charged but not convicted. These people are of interest to the crime project but it would be a probable WP:BLP violation to slap criminal in the banner. I'd like to see the words "criminal biography" removed from the WP Crime banner altogether and keep both. There are some biographies of dead persons, like some of the old west outlaws that weren't convicted either, or now that I think about it Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wilkes Booth who committed high profile crimes but were never tried, but would have been if they hadn't been gunned down. I'd probably not look at this quite as critically if I hadn't just dealt with the crime/criminal issue with Madoff. I don't believe that a single banner can be created that would toggle between general crime and criminal biography that wouldn't be far more difficult to maintain and still adhere to WP:BLP. What would it be, ensuring that the biography=yes gets used?
 * This is the comment posted by another user on WP:CRIME talk:

Two separate banners are needed for the reasons outlined by Wildhartlivie at Template talk:WP Criminal and User_talk:Pinkadelica. I am in favor of removing "and Criminal Biography" from the WP Crime template.  momoricks   (make my day)  01:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

BLP=yes parameter?
How does this template distinguish between living and dead criminals? I know there's always the obligatory blp tag but shouldn't there also be a  or   parameter for categorization purposes within the wikiproject? -- &oelig; &trade; 17:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure there is a requirement that banners have a code for living vs. dead. The template doesn't and at present, I'm the only WP:CRIME person of whom I'm aware that is active and around. I don't know how to make such a change. All criminals would fall under the WPBiography template and it does make that distinction. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * True, WPBIO serves this purpose. Duplication of this function seems unnecessary. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Remove "To do" section
The "To do" section does not appear appropriate for a talk page banner. It should only refer to the subject upon which it is placed.-- ☾Loriendrew☽  ☏(ring-ring)  23:43, 9 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I've removed it because it was basically empty &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:18, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 21 May 2019
The portal has been moved to Portal:Crime; please change the value of the PORTAL parameter from Criminal justice to Crime. Thanks! UnitedStatesian (talk) 00:20, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 01:45, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 30 September 2023
The to-do list should be removed from the template, it's years out of date at this point, and since it can't be edited except by admins it's useless. Most of the tasks on there were done years ago. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:26, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I have blanked the list. Anyone can submit an edit request for the to-do list. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:18, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 21 October 2023
This template was requested to be merged with Template:WikiProject Serial Killer task force (and Template:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, but I think my edit fulfills that merge too, so). I made edits to the sandbox showing what the merged template should look like, adding the task force parameter and changing the icon to the one for Crimebio (an additional reason for changing the image is that the current one is the same as WP:LAW's which is very confusing).

I also did the same for the task force's template, converting it to a wrapper of this template with the task force template (as I saw with other wikiproject subprojects), but I'm much less sure that I did that correctly. I read about how template wrappers work but I'm not sure if that applies if it's already in an article and not a new wrapper. I don't think it would be ideal to have to retag every article with the parameter, as I think would have to be done if it was simply made a redirect.

Sorry if I did this incorrectly or this isn't how you're supposed to complete a template merge, I have little experience in editing templates, but I thought I should try. If I did it correctly, can the edit be done, and if I didn't can someone point out what I did wrong? Thanks! PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:14, 21 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your efforts and initiative. Just for some background, I believe the reason there were separate templates WikiProject Crime and WikiProject Criminal Biography is because we cannot infer that a person is a criminal until they have been convicted of some crime, and WP:BLP is very relevant here. So please bear this in mind! I would be wary about changing ACR_SUBPAGE_LINK and ACR_REVIEW_LINK unless you are planning to move all these subpages to the new location. I might suggest serialkiller is a clearer name than serialk &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:37, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * The problem with that is that Crime and Criminal Biography are the same project and have been since 2007. I believe they were two separated projects (or an idea for a separate project?) that were merged. There was an idea in the template merge discussion that there would be a parameter to distinguish Criminal Biography from Crime, but as far as I can tell from looking at other WikiProjects, that only applies when there is a task force, and it's all just one project (which is confusing but I think it would be more confusing to separate the Criminal Biography bit into its own task force again... this is not an ideal situation...) is there a way to have a parameter to change the template from displaying "WikiProject Crime" to "WikiProject Criminal Biography" (perhaps with a different image) without using a task force parameter?
 * If I had my way I'd just change the whole WikiProject back to "WikiProject Crime" but the consensus in the project seems to be the merge was already very confusing and most people don't get it. I don't think it's that big of a deal BLP wise - or I mean, it's not like tagging someone with WP:Crime is any more of a BLP violation than WP:Crime and Criminal Biography. Both should only be done (for BLPs) if the person was convicted of a crime.
 * The reason that review and subpage changed is because the title of the project itself was changed to "Crime and Criminal Biography" after the merge (over a decade ago) but only some of the subpages were moved as well until I changed every sub page to the same title a week ago for consistency.
 * Also the project, despite having an A-Class review, has never actually done one. So it isn't like there are any more subpages to deal with.
 * I agree with serialkiller being a better parameter. I guess I had it in mind that it should be short for some reason... I don't know why I thought that haha, you're right. I changed it to that. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:34, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Please note that the merge target should be Template:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography as that is the name of the project and the banner should always follow that so any code updates should be directed there. Gonnym (talk) 21:51, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Well whoever closed the merge discussion made the target this template... but sure, whatever is ideal PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:25, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * criminal bio sandbox + fixed the task force one PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:32, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * This will just make this more complicated but might as well get it done now, as part of this whole merge. I converted WikiProject organized crime to another task force per consensus and so that should be merged as well (sandbox here) From reading the task force guidelines I don't think there has to be a whole merge discussion about this (though I might be wrong). It just says:
 * "Modify the parent project's banner to include task force parameters to match project being converted. Template:WPBannerMeta has examples on how to specify this for projects which use the meta banner. If your project doesn't use WPBannerMeta, it may help to review Advanced project banners; this doesn't cover that topic, but does cover a number of others.
 * Redirect the moved project's banner to the parent project's banner or make it a wrapper template for the parent project's banner with appropriate pre-filled parameters
 * Replace usage of the moved project's banner with the parent/task force banner. The moved project's previous banner template should not be used on any article talk pages once the banners have been swapped out.
 * Talk pages with both the converted project's banner and parent project's banner need to have the moved project's banner removed, and the task force's parameters added to the parent project's banner.
 * Talk pages with only the converted project's banner need to have it replaced by parent project's banner with the task force parameters.
 * These steps can be performed manually, or for larger projects, with the help of a bot. A bot request can be placed (existing bots include User:AnomieBOT and User:PrimeBOT)." PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:54, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I've updated the templates and the /doc of the main template. Let me know if there are any issues. Gonnym (talk) 08:31, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Only issue I can see is that shouldn't the crime template become a redirect to the crime and criminal biography one? PARAKANYAA (talk) 08:36, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * All looks good to me. The crime template is now a redirect. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:19, 23 October 2023 (UTC)