Wikipedia:Peer review/Ted Bundy/archive2

Ted Bundy

Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… It's a pending good article with 270+ references and a notable (albeit dark) subject. Most reviewers won't touch it. Be brave and look at it: there's a cohesive group of editors working on it who are open to suggestions. Cheers :> Doc talk 04:35, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: Thansk to everyone who has worked on this article. It looks much better than when I last looked at it (though I made the mistake of reading it all before going to bed - ugh). Here are some suggestions for improvement with an eye to FAC.

• The lead seems less well written than the rest of the article. I would cut "in many North-Western states" from the first sentence. It is not really accurate (Colorado and Florida are not in the northwest US) and "North-Western states" is an odd construction and too much detail. -  Done
• Also in the lead, I am not sure what a rigourous denial - perhaps vigorous denial? I think I would rewrite After more than a decade of rigorous denials he confessed to 30 homicides, but the true total remains unknown.[3] to include his pending execution, something like Although Bundy denied involvement for more than a decade, before his execution he confessed to 30 homicides; the true total remains unknown.[3] -  Done
• My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way, but the states mentioned in section headers and his escapes are not mentioned in the lead. For the length of the article, I think the lead could be four paragraphs per WP:LEAD -  Done
• In Early life I would note that his mother is known as Louise - I was not sure who Louise was at first. -  Done
• I would briefly identify Ann Rule in first mention (coworker and later biographer Ann Rule?) - Already  Done. Mentioned as "biographer" wiki-linked in intro, and second mention also describes her personal knowledge of Bundy.
• Make sure that quotations follow WP:LQ, basically punctuation goes outside the quotes unless a full sentence is being quoted. So one example is ... Louise would later claim she was seduced by "a sailor" whose name may have been "Jack Worthington."[15]
• Make sure to give abbreviations after first full use - so "University of Puget Sound (UPS)" -  Done
• Some general observations about his attacks and victims. First off, there are some many victims that it is difficult for the average reader to keep track of them all by name. So I would make sure that the victim's ultimate fate is made clear on first mention - so for example A month later, again late at night, Bundy broke into the room of UW coed Lynda Ann Healy, who broadcast Seattle's weather reports for skiers on the radio each morning. He beat her unconscious, dressed her in bluejeans, a white blouse, and boots, and carried her away.[66] does not make clear what happened to Healy and the fact that her skull is found is not revealed until 5 paragraphs later. I would add something like "Bundy murdered her, though her remains were not found until the next year." This could also be just "Her remains were found the next year." In this case, she also seems to be his first murder victim whose name is known, so the added sentence could be something along those lines. Anything to make it clear that she did not survive. See WP:PCR
• Second, in some cases Bundy's role is explicitly stated (in the above quote, where he beats, dresses, and carries away Healy). The fates of other victims are described in passive voice - Melissa Smith and Laura Aime are described this way. Would it make sense to add some statement of Bundy's guilt? Perhaps at the end of the paragraph say something like "Bundy confessed to their murders years later."  Done
• Third, since some of the people who survived their associations with Bundy are known by pseudonyms, would it make sense to have some sort of statement to that effect at the start of the first section where pseudonyms are used?
• WP:HEAD says to avoid definite articles in headers, so "The escapes" could just be "Escapes" -  Done
• Link Green River Killer? Y Fixed. --Diannaa (talk) 20:45, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• The list of victims has several sentences that do not end with a period. -  Done Actually, they are not sentences, but sentence fragments. So the MoS calls for an introductory fragment and a semi-colon and then the final fragment. I will fix this. --Diannaa (talk) 20:56, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• I was surprised that there was no legacy section or even a paragraph. There is no mention of the film in the article itself, and also none of the books written about him later - I think that to meet the comprehensive criterion for FAC there has to be some mention of these.
• The article may run into trouble at FAC for WP:NFCC issues. Since there is already a free mug shot of Bundy, I am not sure the 1975 Utah mug shot (which is Fair Use) adds anything to the reader's comprehension. We already know what he looked like.
• Similarly since there are free images of two of his Florida victims, the fair use image of Caryn Campbell may be questioned. Here it might help to expand the caption ( Done) and note the features she had in common with other victims of the era.
• I also have concerns about File:Ted Bundy 3.jpg too. The caption seems pretty POV without some source - if the article can quote or at least be attributed a book or tv show or some reliable source saying the same thing, that would help. Done Since the article has many images of Bundy, this is not needed to illustrate what he looked like in general, so discussing his fit of rage in the courtroom within the article would also help, preferably in the same section where the image is used.
• Language is quite good with a few exceptions noted above.
• Toolbox on this page shows one dead EL.Y Fixed --Diannaa (talk) 20:45, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• External links section has several items which seem like they should be references - TIME magazine article for one. See WP:EL -  Done for the Time Magazine and local newspaper links. Which others are problematic?
• Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:47, 22 June 2011 (UTC)