Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eyewitness identification


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   SNOW close. (non-admin closure)  D u s t i *poke* 20:07, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Eyewitness identification

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I've nominated the article for deletion. The page is a serious breech of NPOV policies and is simply an anti-eyewitness rant. I would like to improve it but I believe the article is too biased to salvage. We would be better off rewriting it from scratch. --Armanalp (talk) 17:47, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep The question here is whether the topic is notable. Hundreds of scholarly books and thousands of scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals about eyewitness testimony amply demonstrate that the subject has received "significant coverage in multiple reliable and independent sources." Rather than "delete and restart from scratch," try editing out anything which violates WP:NPOV or which has undue weight. This does not mean that the position that "eyewitness testimony is nearly always right" should receive equal space. The information in the article is generally in accord with a vast number of published academic studies of the past 30 years or longer, showing that eyewitness testimony is often wrong, and that witnesses can be adamant in their incorrect identification of an accused person. Edison (talk) 21:06, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * (ec) Keep an article on an important, albeit broad, topic. The current article isn't much good but it does provide valuable, well sourced information about eyewitnesses providing incorrect evidence. This is a very well documented field that would be easy to source, and so are the other areas that hsould be covered by this article but aren't.--Patton123 (talk) 21:08, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment It's hard to disagree with the nominator, when the leadoff sentence of this article is (and has been for years) "Eyewitness identification evidence is the leading cause of wrongful conviction in the United States. Of the more than 200 people exonerated by way of DNA evidence in the US, over 75% were wrongfully convicted on the basis of erroneous eyewitness identification evidence."  Concluding the former from the latter is ridiculous.  I imagine that people will try to make this a better article, but it's essentially a matter of rewriting it beyond recognition.  I think that the author's soapbox was really about mistaken eyewitness identification, which redirects to mistaken identity.  As Edison and Patton point out, there is some good objective information in here that could be incorporated into an article about the use of eyewitness testimony in criminal and civil trials.  Mandsford 22:00, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Snow Keep I can't understand why this was nominated in the first place. The article is extremely well referenced, and the consensus of research is that eyewitness identification evidence is a leading cause of wrongful conviction (whether is it the number one cause I don't know). It therefore does not violate WP:NPOV, and as it is clearly notable there are no grounds for deletion.  May I suggest you withdraw the nomination so as not to waste people's time? Francis Bond (talk) 01:09, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Anyone may make a friendly or unfriendly suggestion, but if I were Armanalp, I would ignore that particular comment.   Mandsford 03:24, 9 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment If this were indeed and article about mistaken eyewitness identification or something, some major NPOV editing could bring it in line. The problem is that the article doesn't even give a definition for eyewitness identification, immediately labeling it as a horrible thing. Some of the information here, particularly on lineup methods, could indeed be incorporated in an existing (mistaken identity) or new article. Problem is, as it stands, it is simply an attack page. We should delete it and merge the relevant information elsewhere. --Armanalp (talk) 10:41, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:30, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:30, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep is this a serious nomination?.--BabbaQ (talk) 20:33, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Snow keep. The solution to the problems the nominator identified is tagging and balancing and cleanup. THF (talk) 20:59, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep I've rewritten the first paragraph of the article to start removing the POV problems. There's a long way to go. The author provided some decent links, and it is difficult to write about studies showing unreliability of this type of evidence without appearing to push an agenda.  For those who have urged that the article can be improved, this is an important topic and this can be a top rate article.  Some will look at the first couple of paragraphs and think that I've not done much better.  Criminal law is not my specialty.  I think there's enough actual interest in improvement, as opposed to the "keep-and-let-someone-else-fix-it" approach.  To User:Armanalp, who has taken some criticism for nominating this in the first place, I say thank you for bringing this to our attention, and I hope you'll help by taking out some of the worst of the POV statements. Mandsford 14:51, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.