Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reginald Wilson (murderer)


 * 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   delete. — Jake   Wartenberg  02:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Reginald Wilson (murderer)

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See WP:BLP1E. This person has no historical significance warranting an article, nor are there any truly biographical sources (where he, rather than the one event he gained notoriety for, is the subject of the source). Wikipedia shouldn't be a publisher of true crime accounts. He committed a murder that was briefly the subject of news reports, and that is all. However, Wikipedia is not a newspaper. Delete. Dominic·t 02:05, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep This actually doesn't seem to be a WP:BLP1E case. A Google search for "Reginald Wilson" + "David Birkett" comes up with this article  in the Independent from 1999, when Wilson was said to be one of the three most dangerous prisoners in the UK so that special arrangements were being made for him and the other two. That's connected with the original crime but it also relies on an evaluation of him that doesn't just stem from the original murder (because it also takes into account his subsequent actions and how his keepers evaluate his then-present danger). So we have someone notable for more than one thing: murdering and then being more dangerous than your usual murder convict. As a source in the article shows, in 2008 it was reported that government officials disagreed over his ability to ever be parolled. Given all this, it shouldn't surprise anyone if he's in the news again sometime in the next five or 10 years (or 20 or 30). As BLP1E states: The significance of an event or individual should be indicated by how persistent the coverage is in reliable secondary sources. JohnWBarber (talk) 03:42, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * DeletePer WP:BLP1E not an indiscriminate collection of information, and not a directory of prison inmates. Killed a man by knocking him in the head and got convicted and sentenced. Hyperbole where someone calls him "one of the three most dangerous prisoners" is not that impressive. (Maybe it says something about the mildness of the average prisoner in the jurisdiction). Lots of murders worldwide get life sentences, or even death sentences. Crystal ball gazing about what he might do in future years really doesn't enter into the deletion debate. Edison (talk) 17:30, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You say lots of murderers worldwide get life sentences, but only three in all of the UK were judged worth putting in a more secure confinement than the UK's most secure prison. Here are the key parts of the 1999 article I linked to. This can't be crammed into WP:BLP1E or "Crystal ball gazing": Brodie Clark, the new director of high security prisons at the Prison Service, has decided the three continue to pose an extreme risk and must be moved for the sake of staff and other inmates. [...] Wilson, 34, has been a disruptive inmate, trying to escape from Frankland prison, Co Durham, after cutting through the bars of his cell. He gave himself up after realising a ladder made from old furniture was too heavy. The 1999 article appeared about 9 years after the murder. One event? JohnWBarber (talk) 19:01, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Lots of prisoners with life sentences escape or attempt to escape. Nothing novel in this. And in the US, there are thousands of life sentence prisoners and over 100 who were juvenile offenders, with no parole eligibility. Another run of the mill killer. Edison (talk) 19:52, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete: Per WP:BLP1E. Joe Chill (talk) 18:53, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:10, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep and move. Normally I'd make this a WP:NOTNEWS. However, I remember this was, at the time, a major news story in the area, and became the subject of a whole Crimewatch Review programme. Since then, the story has resurfaced in 1999 (as mentioned above) and again in 2008 on BBC News and two national papers, which I'd say scrapes it. Bear in mind, however, then even the most notorious murderers tend to appear in an article about their crime rather than an article about themselves (for instance, Ian Huntley). As such, I'd recommend renaming this to something like Hammer murder or Murder of David Birkett. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 08:57, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep WP:BLP1E is not a reason for deletion. The policy only concerns the name of an article. As pointed out above, this individual is still getting coverage 18 years after his conviction due his rare whole life tariff. Keep and expand. Nolamgm (talk) 19:33, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete While I beleive Wikipedia should definately have articles on crimes/criminals that recieve signficant news coverage over an extended period, this one does not seem to qualify. The only source listed by the article is a newspaper article that isn't even primarily about this crime, but rather a list of criminals who had recieved "whole life tarrifs" with a brief blurb on each. A Google search for '"Reginald Wilson" murder' only turned up a couple of brief news articles. It is possible that some serious effort might turn up some sources that would establish notability but right now I know of none, so delete it is. Rusty Cashman (talk) 03:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Try Googling murder + "david birkett" (the victim) and you get 1,000+ entries with articles from 2008 from what looks like every major news outlet in Britain. News accounts from 1990 are going to be scarce on the web, no matter what the subject, but it's likely that the original murder was covered nationwide as well. This is significant coverage over an extended period on different topics for the same subject. JohnWBarber (talk) 04:55, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, after looking again maybe there are some good sources like:, but if you want to cut this debate off (and avoid ending right back at another AfD debate) you need to expand the article and cite some of these sources. Rusty Cashman (talk) 06:30, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I don't have time to spend on it. I've made the case, properly, that the subject meets our WP:BLP1E criteria. In fact, the idea of deleting on WP:BLP1E grounds simply goes against the facts that he's noted for multiple events. A closing admin adhering to policy would opt to keep, one adhering to consensus will delete, which I expect. Frankly, I also don't have enough interest in the subject to spend more time on it. When someone does, they'll recreate it. Wikipedia's loss, but life is short. JohnWBarber (talk) 02:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - per nom, not notorious enough, the only reference is a short article with another murderer followed by a long list of other murderers, and the subject is a part of it. New seeker (talk) 09:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom - fails WP:ONEEVENT for his original murder conviction. His recent media resurrection (for want of a better word) is nothing but a passing mention about him and 50 other criminals, not significant enough to warrant his own article. GiantSnowman 14:56, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Not for encyclopedia, but maybe for special interest sites. Tfz     15:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete unless there's a lot more to be said than is present in the article; I agree with Rusty Cashman in their analysis.    DGG ( talk ) 23:49, 28 September 2009 (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.