Wiki: Jack the Ripper

[John Bennett]

I think you are decreasing your chances of ever being able to buy a new A-Z, though ...

I think a visit to Laybooks is in order.

[Monty]

Please be standing...

....and let us all have a quite moment for John Bennetts Jack the Ripper A-Z.

Unfortunately I never met John Bennetts Jack the Ripper A-Z but I have heard many stories, from John himself, on all the wonderful times they had together.

Like the times they shared on cold winters nights, trawling around Whitechapel and beyond, with their trusty camera, taking photos of back street alleys, drunks and ladies of nighht.

Or the moments spent in summer days where John would bunk off work and spend his day lazily leafing through the pages of John Bennetts Jack the Ripper A-Z, can of Super Tennants on the table, Trisha on the TV in the background, John in his string vest and Y-fronts.

Happy times.

And now, as we commit our beloved John Bennetts Jack the Ripper A-Z to the good lord, we ask our Father to look after our friend. To envelope him with our love and deepest thoughts and to cherish him, as we all did, until we meet again.

Amen

John Bennetts Jack the Ripper A-Z.
3rd March 1991 - 8th December 2008

[John Bennett]

Thanks, Monty.

At least it will not be alone.

My 'Autumn of Terror' (my first tome) fell apart around 1981.

May they find peace together (and probably have the odd argument, no doubt).

[Monty]

John,

My Sugden is on its last legs as is Evans and Skinners Casebook (Hint-Hint Mr Evans if you're reading this -ahem ).

Underwood is looking decidely tatty but for the love of God I cant think why. Its not as if I refer to it !

This coupled with the demise of my modem, Im restricted to using the work PC or my mobile, hence my lack of Wiki activity (sorry bout that), has left me in a state of woe.

Least its given me a chance to work on that bloody article thats been started but never finished !

Monty

[John Bennett]

Me happy.

A signed 1996 edition of the A-Z (mine was 1991) is now winging its way to my door as we speak, courtesy of Loretta Lay.

And a good price it was too.

[caz]

I am toying with the idea of adding a Maybrick section (just kidding).

Hi Chris,

Don't you dare!

Hi John,

By strange coincidence my A-Z finally fell apart this week (could even have been the same day yours did). But mine was only a baby of 12.

Congrats and thanks to you, Monty, Chris and everyone else who is taking on this mammoth exercise.

Love,

Caz
X

[John Bennett]

My 1996 version of the A-Z turned up today. It's quite worn, but obviously isn't in 3 pieces like my old one. Signed by Begg, Rumbelow and Skinner though, which is nice. Better look after it.

Back to work, then!

[caz]

Rumbelow? Who he?

Love,

Caz
X

[eclectic browser]

Hallo to all forum users. Today I have visited this forum again after a long time, and have been glad to see that the wiki idea is being implemented. Shortly after the crash of the previous forum, I retrieved from the google cache the thread where the wiki project was first discussed on a Casebook message board (unfortunately, few posts among the last were missing from the cache). I hope that posting it here will be of interest, otherwise please feel free to move or delete it.

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Yesterday, 05:16 PM

eclectic browser



Proposal for a Casebook Ripper wiki
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Greetings to all the forum users, and congratulations for the learned and lively debate (and of course for the site to its staff).

I am just a beginner in Ripper lore, and have only given a cursory glance at these site and forums, but I will venture to outline a proposal that, in my opinion, might benefit researchers and casual users.

I thought that this site could feature a wiki about all the aspects of the Ripper case, open to all users (even anonymous ones), but under the oversight of the Casebook staff (maybe with some editors appointed by them), staff who would have the faculty to reject low-quality contributions and settle content disputes or edit wars. Besides, the Casebook staff would have the power to grant the "approved" status to particularly good article versions (somewhat like in www.citizendium.org ).
Such a wiki might feature original arguments and observations from the users (unlike wikipedia), even taken from the discussions in the forums, at the discretion of the Casebook staff, and always neutrally presented and not endorsed.
This last feature of the wiki, the quality oversight by the staff, and its projected very detailed character, would justify its creation as a project separate from wikipedia.

This wiki outline might have the following advantages: the articles created with the collaboration of many researchers and users might cover more aspects of their subject and be more up-to-date than any essay written by a single author.
Besides, like in some good wikipedia articles, the information might be organized in a very convenient fashion; for example, in a "Francis Tumblety" article, each particular fact, claim, hypothesis might have its footnote which refers to its source, be it a press report, book page, online dissertation or even a forum thread. There might be a pro and con section, with references to the source of each point, so that a student might have an outline of the status of the research and debate on the suspect, which allows him quickly to delve into some chosen aspect.
And the articles might be "expandable" ad libitum: the title of an article section might be linked to a more detailed article with the same title, and this might apply to the latter's sections as well.

I apologize in case a similar proposal has already been discussed, and thank you for your attention.

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Yesterday, 05:46 PM

spryder
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Hello -

Thank you for the suggestion!

I would have no problems trying this out on a provisional basis, though to be absolutely honest I've not got the time currently to monitor/edit it appropriately. If there's enough interest here and we can get together a team of folks who would like to act as moderators/editors of a Casebook wiki project, I'd be happy to set up the software and let you have at it, and see where it goes.

If anyone's interested in pursuing this, please post here or email me, and we'll see if we can get something like this going.

Cheers -

Stephen

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Yesterday, 06:47 PM

aspallek
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In spirit this is a good idea but I'm not sure how practical it would be. I have been a voluminous contributor to the "Bullpen Wiki," that is, the Wiki on baseball history. When we are dealing with facts and statistics everything is generally fine. But as soon as we enter the realm of opinion chaos results with people changing the articles and editing the information back and forth. Look at the conversations we have been having about Druitt, for example. Can you imagine the back and forth changes that would take place in his article. Very strong administration of the Wiki would be required and Spryder indicates he cannot provide that administration.

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Yesterday, 07:44 PM

mcebe
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Whilst I think it is a worthy idea, it would require a lot of man power.
Then there is of course the fact that posters may disagree to what is written about their own pet ripper suspects.

I like the board as it is, and prefer to search for my topic, doing this helps me find other useful tidbits that helps add to the greater picture.

We already have the different sections for letters, suspects, witnesses, victims etc on the main site.

Then the same for discussion on the threads.

Its kinda like wiki but open to all for discussion.

Cracking idea though eclectic browser

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Yesterday, 08:03 PM

supe
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Eclectic Browser,

This last feature of the wiki, the quality oversight by the staff, and its projected very detailed character, would justify its creation as a project separate from wikipedia.

This month's Ripperologist (No. 87, January 2008) has an interesting irem about the Wikipedia section on Jack the Ripper. The so-called editorial board had been fighting among themselves and the entire section was just recently "unlocked." Why would things be any different here? Indeed, it would only set up another level of bureaucratic squabbles without resolution.

As it, the Wikipedia concept has not worked in practice and more and more universities are refusing to accept Wikipedia citations as footnotes.

Casebook works quite well as it is in my opinion.

Don.

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Yesterday, 08:49 PM

Pinkerton
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Eclectic Browser,
As it, the Wikipedia concept has not worked in practice and more and more universities are refusing to accept Wikipedia citations as footnotes.

Casebook works quite well as it is in my opinion.

Don.

On the contrary, Wikipedia has exceeded the expectations of it's creators.

Unfortunately too many people have bought the sensationalistic "hype" of media stories. A study a couple of years ago found that Wikipedia is just as accurate as the Encyclopedia Brittanicca (which is to say there were SOME errors, but on balance extremely few).

They have also stepped up enforcement of entries that make unsupported claims (such as that "Kennedy" nonsense that someone put into an article). Statements that don't quote they're source are marked as such.

Personally I think a wiki would be useful ONLY IF it states facts, or at the very least makes statements that are clearly supported by the majority of researchers (though they should be labeled as such). Personal opinions and theories should not be permitted. This is the only way to prevent the kind of hostility that occurs behind the scenes of the regular Wikipedia articles.

Why would it be useful? Though I absolutely love the Casebook, there have been many times when I wish I could just see a handy list of the "facts" of the case. The breadth of the Casebook can be especially overwhelming, especially to newer people. Typing in a search for "Tumblety" would bring up hundreds of pages for example. And the FAQ section is much too brief to serve this purpose. It also would be a quick way to update information. Recent findings such as acknowledging the recent discovery of a picture of Lawende, Rumbelow's discovery of Timothy Donovan's death before MJK, and the discovery that Michael Ostrog was in a French prison during most of the Ripper murders are examples.

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Yesterday, 09:08 PM

dannorder
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Hi e.b.,

John Hacker proposed something like this at the 2004 conference, and he was very skeptical about actually getting it off the ground when I asked him about what we could try to get it going. And of course the Wikipedia articles on Ripper-related topics are already active and demonstrate the inherent difficulties of the concept.

Total openness ultimately leads to the people with the least knowledge having the most say. Being closed to some greater or larger extent means there has to be something in it for the editors to want to take the time to do it, because anyone with the kind of knowledge that would be required to tackle such a project is probably better off writing a book that they could sell (and not have to worry about arguing with everyone off the street about what deserves to go into it).

That's not to say it's impossible. I think if anyone could pull it off it'd be Stephen, as he already has some experience with juggling the goals of getting information out to people while bringing in the money to keep the site running. But it's a lot, lot more complicated than it might look at first glance.

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Yesterday, 09:58 PM

Pinkerton
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dannorder

Hi e.b.,

Total openness ultimately leads to the people with the least knowledge having the most say. Being closed to some greater or larger extent means there has to be something in it for the editors to want to take the time to do it, because anyone with the kind of knowledge that would be required to tackle such a project is probably better off writing a book that they could sell (and not have to worry about arguing with everyone off the street about what deserves to go into it).

That's not to say it's impossible. I think if anyone could pull it off it'd be Stephen, as he already has some experience with juggling the goals of getting information out to people while bringing in the money to keep the site running. But it's a lot, lot more complicated than it might look at first glance.

Dan, though I'm not necessarily for or against this idea I don't think it is the case that one has to be an absolute "expert" to be an editor. The editor simply must DEMAND a source for a given claim, and then look up the source to confirm the information. This would keep out the hair-brain theories and unsubstantiated claims.

This WILL take a lot of time. However these isn't any rush for something like this (this is one of the advantages). If several editors simply worked 15 to 30 minutes a day, after a couple of months the thing should be start to become larger and larger.

Having said all of this I don't claim to be any kind of expert of wikis. I do know they will notify the editors if there is an edit. I believe you can also set them up so edits aren't posted for a set time period (which would give the editor time to check out the edit's validity).

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Yesterday, 10:05 PM

apwolf
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We already have it.
It's called Chris, Robert and Sam.

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Yesterday, 10:07 PM

eclectic browser
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Thank you all for the feedback.
The dangers of endless conflict inherent in any wiki are not to be underestimated, and this is why I think that all the contributors to a Casebook wiki should give their consent to the condition that "the last word" is a prerogative of the Casebook staff (and/or of the editors appointed by them). This would be different from wikipedia, where in theory the administrators don't have any power over content disputes, and it is hoped for that a (often unreachable) "consensus" is achieved.

Anyway, many edit wars stem from misunderstandings of the neutrality policy (NPOV in wikipedia). To give an example, a Casebook wiki in my view should never contain the following sentence: "Dunham's testimony about Tumblety's uteri collection is unreliable", but one such as "According to X, for the reasons y, Dunham's testimony about Tumblety's uteri collection is unreliable, while Z maintains that it deserves further investigation".

Personally I think a wiki would be useful ONLY IF it states facts, or at the very least makes statements that are clearly supported by the majority of researchers (though they should be labeled as such). Personal opinions and theories should not be permitted. This is the only way to prevent the kind of hostility that occurs behind the scenes of the regular Wikipedia articles.

I talked about original contributions because I thought that the wiki could report interesting observations by Casebook users, always attributing them to their authors, without ever endorsing them. So, drawing on the previous example, the wiki would state that "X thinks that Dunham's testimony about Tumblety's uteri collection is unreliable, because he argues that...", where X might be the author of a published magazine article, or even a forum or wiki user, if the staff members (and/or a majority of voting users) think that his argument is a significant contribution to the debate, even if it hasn't been published anywhere; this sentence could be followed by a footnote and/or link about the source where that argument has first appeared.
So I proposed a flexible approach to the "No original research" policy, on condition of the staff or community approval, but this always observing the "NPOV" (neutrality) policy.
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dannorder
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The editor simply must DEMAND a source for a given claim, and then look up the source to confirm the information. This would keep out the hair-brain theories and unsubstantiated claims.

Unfortunately there are plenty of sources with bad information, and probably more so in this field than most. Worse than that, people argue about what a source means and sometimes twist the wording around to mean something completely opposite of what it really says. We also have a large number of cases where things are presented in various sources as if they were facts when they are nothing more than the speculation, often baseless, of the author. It's nowhere near as simple as asking for a source, or even making sure that the source is listed and providing additional opinions from other sources. Some sources are inherently better than other sources, and weighting them all equally distorts views of the case toward the least reliable sources, precisely because those are more numerous than reliable ones.

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5th February 2008, 10:35 PM

Magpie
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We also have a large number of cases where things are presented in various sources as if they were facts when they are nothing more than the speculation, often baseless, of the author.

The ongoing "Walter Dew" battle on Wiki being a prime example.
Magpie

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5th February 2008, 10:48 PM

dannorder
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Is there an ongoing battle there? Looks like the people making baseless claims have already largely won.

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5th February 2008, 11:08 PM

Magpie
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Is there an ongoing battle there? Looks like the people making baseless claims have already largely won.

It's spreading.

Dew is now used as an authoratative source on the Whitechapel Murders page. When I changed the sentence "Walter Dew thought that Smith was the first victim of Jack the Ripper." to "Walter Dew thought that Smith was the first victim of [[Jack the Ripper]], though this claim directly contradicts Smith's account of the attack" my edit was immediately removed with the idiotic comment "it doesn't contradict it - 'Jack the Ripper' could have been one of the attackers - who says he worked alone?".

Luckily I the exactly same edit was permitted to stand on the Emma Smith article.
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Last edited by Magpie : 5th February 2008 at 11:14 PM.
Magpie
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5th February 2008, 11:58 PM

dannorder
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There seems to be a group of aggressively ignorant people there. Just a few years back it was easier to fix things and keep them fixed, now some real boneheads have banded together and automatically undo almost anything anyone else does, even if it's something simple like fixing the spelling on someone's name or a putting a lowercase letter instead of a improper capital letter.
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6th February 2008, 01:49 AM

robhouse
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I think in general, a wiki is a great idea. One of the main reasons I support this is that the forums currently contain a huge amount of information on a variety of topics... but if that information is not organized it is not very useful. And I do not have the patience to go searching though page after page of forum posts to find what I am looking for. The key here is organizing information in a logical way.

Now as to debate and disagreement.

I agree that the constant bickering and argument that happens here will be a problem for the wiki. And I am not sure that the current Wikipedia standards and rules will mitigate the problem enough. As I well know, there will be debate over what is actually factual (ie. neutral) and what is not.

I think what we would need is the ability to mark specific entries (sentences, etc) as "debated", perhaps with some kind of indication as to how hotly debated the particular item is. This is particularly important here, because the casebook community seems to be able to debate anything, regardless of how much it would seem to be undisputed fact.

For example (hate to bring it up)... whether or not Mary Kelly is a victim of JTR... some will argue this is debatable. But the overall level of debate on this is rather small.

In summary, I think there would have to be a ophisticated way of indicating how much an item is factual vs. speculation, and I think this is not a black and white thing, but the level of debatability would be on a gradient.

Rob H
robhouse
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6th February 2008, 03:45 AM

supe
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Rob,

I know that Dan has been involved with Wikipedia and perhaps Magpie as wel;l and I would think the the example they have cited is reason enough to let Wikipedia be Wikipedia and Casebook continue to be Casebook.

It has certainly been my experience that for all the problems at Casebook and the occasional flame-wars, it functions quite well, indeed, just as it is. Was it Churchill who opined that Democracy is the worst form of government imaginable--except for all the other forms? Whoever said it, I think it applies to Casebook as well.

Don.
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[John Bennett]

Hi Electric Browser.

Thanks for putting up that lost thread - I wasn't aware it had been debated before, but the discussion you posted appears to go into the idea in more depth than the one that started after the wiki was set up.

I would agree that it should stick to facts as much as possible, but the good thing about this idea is that debate and theories can be linked to.

For instance, on the Michael Kidney entry, the fact that he has been mooted as Stride's killer is briefly mentioned at the bottom, but is then followed by two references. One is for AP Wolf's 'Jack the Myth' and the other is to a casebook dissertation on the subject by Christopher Morley. If there are other sources (and I've no doubt there are), they could be added and that could go for forum discussions too.

Basically, the debates and theories can be catered for without altering the known facts in the main entry.

Well that's the theory, anyways!

[John Bennett]

If there are other sources (and I've no doubt there are), they could be added and that could go for forum discussions too.

Which I've just done. A link to the Kidney: for and against thread.

[John Bennett]

Hi John,

By strange coincidence my A-Z finally fell apart this week (could even have been the same day yours did). But mine was only a baby of 12.

Caz,

my 'new' one is also 12 years old (second hand). After 2 days, the pages started to fall out!!

Oh well, nil desperandum! I still love it. And what a different animal the 1996 version is to the 1991.

JBx

[Stephen Thomas]

John

Someone's got to say it. You're doing a well wikid job on this

Stephen

[John Bennett]

Hi all,
Just an update on the progress of the Ripper:wiki.

Due to personal circumstances, I’ve had a bit too much time on my hands and as a result it now contains 164 entries. I have been plodding away through Stephen Ryder’s initial victims pages and highlighting places, witnesses, police etc and then working my way through them, starting with Tabram related stuff.

I’ve just reached Mary Kelly which could be a bit of a minefield, but as I’m trying to steer clear of theories/debate in favour of primary/contemporary secondary sources it may not be that tough.

I’ve not tackled Doctors and Senior Police Officers, as quite frankly, they are a bit outside my sphere and I was kinda hoping that there may be some better informed volunteers out there who would fancy having a go (some already have). I’ve also left alone entries where folk have said ‘I’ll do that one’ or have already started. With that in mind, thanks to Chris, Simon Wood, Magpie, Monty, Rob House, Jon Guy and Rob Clack who’ve all contributed directly or indirectly, one way or another.

With the people, I’m always trying to flesh out the entries with personal info, usually derived from census returns, giving a little more information about the characters in the case. Recent snippets include stuff about PC James Harvey and Winthrop Street nightwatchman Patrick Mulshaw who appears to have never left home! I’ve only done this where a positive identification can be made. Neal Shelden and Chris Scott’s work has also been invaluable here.

Anyway, there are 29 users signed up altogether, so there’s plenty of potential contributors, which is what this project is about, after all!

Cheers
John

(Bloodshot-eyed, RSI, backache - enjoying it though)

[spryder]

I just wanted to reiterate how much I appreciate the hard word John's put into the Wiki project - and the same goes for all our other volunteers and editors as well. But as those of you who have been following the "wiki updates" in the left-hand column of every page will already know, John's really gone above and beyond to get the Wiki off to an awesome start.

If you're interested in joining the wiki project, please feel free to create an account on the software. BUT ALSO please remember to email me immediately after so I can go in and approve your account - until that happens, you won't be able to edit anything.

Cheers, and thanks again John!