Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Texarkana Moonlight Murders/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by User:GrahamColm 10:01, 29 January 2014 (UTC).

Texarkana Moonlight Murders

 * Nominator(s): JeremeK (talk) 03:20, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

This article is about a famous unsolved crime spree in Texarkana in 1946. It was the inspiration to the movie The Town That Dreaded Sundown, which a new meta-remake will be out soon. I believe the article should be featured because the story will be interesting to those who will try looking into it because of the new movie and because I've worked very hard on this article for more than 3 years. I've done extensive research and contributed one of the most complete writings of the subject to Wikipedia. The article is very thorough and the references are well cited by extremely reliable sources (the original 1946 newspaper articles). I am an expert on this subject, having done some extensive research and investigation on this topic and have spoken with many family and relatives of the victims and investigators from that time. JeremeK (talk) 03:20, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Note - The prospects for promotion of this article are poor. Of immediate concern are the lack of citations for many sections and statements. What cannot be verified by reliable sources will be considered original research. For an article this size, between 200 and 300 citations are not unusual. Graham Colm (talk) 07:43, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. Thanks for calling my article poor without giving any constructive criticism, and because you didn't give any, it was just criticism. I have cited every quotation. I have sourced and cited almost all newspapers found on this subject. I can't produce any more newspaper accounts. What's there is there. All sources are reliable. If you can find more reliable sources, you'd be the expert on this topic; but there are none. Most "sources" are not reliable; but what does this expert know? I guess this will never reach FA; oh well. JeremeK (talk) 06:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I did not call the article poor. Graham Colm (talk) 06:54, 28 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose and suggest withdrawal:
 * Whole sections (not just the odd sentence, but entire paragraphs) have no references. That's an obvious one.
 * Bullet-points used rather than proper prose.
 * Inappropriate in-line external links to Google Maps.
 * Virtually the entire article is sourced to contemporaneous newspaper reports - what about using books on the subject?
 * Excessive use of quotations, which makes this read more like a long newspaper article than an encyclopedia.
 * Excessive details (do we really need to know the date, time, venue and clergy involved in the funeral service for Richard L. Griffin? Etc).
 * Poor prose. From the lead: "The Moonlight Murders, a term dubbed by the news media, refer to the true unsolved violent crimes committed in and around Texarkana in the spring of 1946 by an unidentified serial killer known as the Phantom Killer or Phantom Slayer. The unknown killer is credited with attacking eight people, five of whom were killed within ten weeks, usually three weeks apart." "A term dubbed by the news media"? "true unsolved violent crimes" - as opposed to untrue crimes? "In and around Texarkana" - where is that? "Unidentified serial killer... unknown killer" redundancy. "Five of whom were killed within ten weeks, usually three weeks apart" - how does that maths work?
 * I could go on but I won't. This needs a lot of work before it could be considered one of the finest articles on Wikipedia, and FAC isn't the venue for this. BencherliteTalk 19:33, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Response...
 * There aren't very many books out on the topic. All books before the newest one which came out in early 2013 only had one chapter on the topic and had a lot of wrong information. The newest book is entirely about the topic and I have referenced and cited from it. Yes, the news media dubbed "The Moonlight Murders". This was not a term used by police nor newspapers. The news media called it the Moonlight Murders several years after the crimes were committed. Untrue crimes are called fiction. These are not fictional crimes. Yes, these are TRUE crimes. Texarkana... there's a reason why it's linked to the Texarkana article...click it and find out where it is. The "math" is not hard to figure out. Five people were killed within 10 weeks, usually three weeks apart (this would mean about 2 kills per 3 weeks; since it was "usually" three weeks, one was four weeks apart; really it's not that hard). I honestly don't care about the FA anymore. Just remove it from the candidacy, please. JeremeK (talk) 02:38, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Graham Colm (talk) 06:41, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.