How to make Ripperology better?

[Damaso Marte]

On the contrary, a social scientist or a criminologist may have useful insights, but it IS in the archive and by using the established historical methods that any proposed solutions will be shown to be accurate.
Phil

My view is that insights are the best we can hope for. I don't think we can hope to solve the case anymore: the evidence is all gone or never collected in the first place.

Ripperology is never going to advance beyond making up stories and debating their coherence plausibility. What social science can do is give us insights into what is plausible and what isn't, moving us beyond anecdote and intuition, which is currently how we operate.

Historians can help here too. It seems the current trend is to research the background of witnesses to determine their credibility...a few have been shown to have major skeletons in the closet.

[martin wilson]

I like the interactive Dealey Plaza map on the Mary Ferrell JFK website, as you bring up each witnesses name a white dot shows you where they were on the day, and you can also see a copy of the DPD or FBI original witness statement.
My preference is for that type of visual aid, others may prefer reading text.

[Phil H]

My view is that insights are the best we can hope for. I don't think we can hope to solve the case anymore: the evidence is all gone or never collected in the first place.

Each to his own - compared to many historical issues and period we have a plethora of evidence. Some has gone but I'll come back to that.

Ripperology is never going to advance beyond making up stories and debating their coherence plausibility.

Sorry I cannot share your hopeless (i.e.e without hope) pessimism.

What social science can do is give us insights into what is plausible and what isn't, moving us beyond anecdote and intuition, which is currently how we operate.

Privided it is a "science" and not a fad like the victorian fascination with phrenology. Historians, about whom you seem to know little, rarely deal in anecdote or intuition.

Historians can help here too. It seems the current trend is to research the background of witnesses to determine their credibility...a few have been shown to have major skeletons in the closet.

Thank you for your patronising condecension. You appear not to keep up with developments in the firld.

What about the marginalia, the documents returned in the late 80s? What about the discovery, through research of the possible link between Kosminski and the Berner St area? Or Scott Nelson's discovery of a potential link between 254 Whitechapel Road and the Mitre Square witness Joseph Hyam Levy? All these a new and exciting and would have been unthought of before HISTORIANS (call them researchers if you will) realised what the importance of these additional pieces of information might be.

Historians are trained to interrogate these documents, to search out and retrieve information from archives, to carry out textual criticism.

I could add Martin Fido's work on the mental institution inmates which led to much of the more recent Kosminski work. Stewart Evans and Don Rumbelow's work on (in particular the police) but in Stewart's case also on Tumblety (unknown to most, at least in the JtR context, before his book). Paul Begg in getting at the facts as against the myth.

Sorry to disagree so strongly and absolutely.

Phil

[Jonathan H]

To Damaso Marte

You make some very pertinent and relevant observations.

In my opinion previously undiscovered and/or neglected primary sources -- as opposed to legal or forensic evidence -- has been found and interpreted in the last few years which arguably solved the case to some people at the time, at least to their satisfaction, and this solution was shared -- in discreetly veiled form -- with the Late Victorian/Edwardian public.

The most important new sources?

Fashionable as he remains for many of the cognoscenti, Aaron Kosminski is arguably a weak and over-rated 'suspect', for he was denounced and debunked as a likely Jack in the 1900's.

Arguably much more important are:

-- an 1889 interview in a US newspaper with the prime police suspect of 1888, Dr Frances Tumblety.

There are two vital essays here on this breakthrough:

'Tumblety Talks' by R. J, Palmer

and , 'A Slouch-Hatted Yank' by Stewart P. Evans.

- the identification of the 'West of England' MP, a probable link between the Ripper's family and a Chief Constable, which proved that belief in this deceased man's culpability emerged from 'his own people' -- and not a mistake/mix-up of the same police figure.

You can check out the essay about this by Andrew Spallek on this site too:

'The West of England MP--Identified' (all these essays appeared in issues of 'Ripperologist').

- the 1889 North Country Vicar source which established why the murderer was believed his nearest and dearest to be the killer, and why said killer was veiled in fiction (to protect the family).

- that the police chief, via a proxy source can, be shown to have known that the murderer's brother was desperately trying to find his maniacal sibling eviscerated the theory -- treated here as fact -- that the police chief knew nothing accurate and basic about his strong choice for Jack.

On this site check out 'Dagonet and Jack the Ripper' (George Sims) specifically 1902, 1903 and 1907.


The problem with the Ripper non-mystery is that, arguably, the solution was forgotten by 1923.

It's a shocker I know, especially on a site dedicated to it being an ongoing puzzle, but it likely wasn't a mystery after 1891. The public knew this between 1898 and 1917.

It was rebooted as a mystery in the mid-20's when there was nobody around to refute it or nobody inclined to thoroughly research it and refute it.

[Ally]

Perhaps, one of the ways we can all agree to improve things is we can all agree to stop inserting our own theory bias into other people's threads at every opportunity.

[Cogidubnus]

love it!

[Jenni Shelden]

Ripperologists..agree, ha ha good one.

I agree we shouldnt insert our own bias into everyhting

Jenni

ps the Ripper was Maybrick

[Colin Roberts]

Three words: Statistical Social Science

We need a quant-focused criminologist who actually understands the case to use big data to shed light on major questions relevant to the case. We could, for example, calculate the chance that a killer would change MO the way the killings changed from Chapman to Stride to Eddowes to Kelly, test whether the old assertion of "facial multilations = the killer knew the victim" actually holds up over a large data set, etc.

Ripperologists today seem like mostly historians by methodology, and while I respect this, the answers aren't out there in some archive. Every once in a while a passing social scientist takes a Tabram-like stab at the question, but always on the basis of a simplified understanding of the case.

My view is that insights are the best we can hope for. I don't think we can hope to solve the case anymore: the evidence is all gone or never collected in the first place.

Ripperology is never going to advance beyond making up stories and debating their coherence plausibility. What social science can do is give us insights into what is plausible and what isn't, moving us beyond anecdote and intuition, which is currently how we operate.

Historians can help here too. It seems the current trend is to research the background of witnesses to determine their credibility...a few have been shown to have major skeletons in the closet.

So we might, for example, use certain demographics to assess the plausibility of a multi-perpetrator 'Double Event', rather than staring ENDLESSLY at the same press reports and witness statements, whilst blindly assuming that little Jacky would never have ventured south of Whitechapel High Street without mummy and daddy to hold his hand and make sure that he looked both ways before crossing the thoroughfare?

Interesting!

[Colin Roberts]

How to make Ripperology better?

By requiring all members of Casebook and JTR Forums to write the following …

... insights are the best we can hope for. I don't think we can hope to solve the case anymore: the evidence is all gone or [was] never collected in the first place.

… 100 times.

[Fisherman]

Colin Roberts:

"How to make Ripperology better?

By requiring all members of Casebook and JTR Forums to write the following …

Quote:
Originally Posted by Damaso Marte
... insights are the best we can hope for. I don't think we can hope to solve the case anymore: the evidence is all gone or [was] never collected in the first place.

… 100 times."

Many of the most seasoned Ripperologists voice this exact opinion, and so one can easily conclude that combining great case knowledge with an insightful approach to the material results in this stance. You yourself, Colin, is a good example of such a man.

And still, I´d say that if all Ripperologists ascribed to this stance, it would not be a good thing.

What is needed to solve a difficult case is not a universal agreement that it can´t be done - it is instead a multitude of different views and a wish to approach the case from new angles at all times. In a sense, I therefore think that the best thing that can happen to Ripperology is disagreement on this point.

Prater´s window was always the one over Kellys room, overlooking the court - up til the point that it was shown that this could very well be questioned. It would seem that Prater may well have looked out over Dorset Street instead. Up til the point that this was found out, everybody was in agreement - and everybody may therefore have been wrong!

We know more today than we did yesterday, but it still cannot compete with tomorrow´s knowledge. Let´s turn the stones our predecessors left unturned and look under them, and let´s be naïve enough never to accept that the case cannot be solved - and even if that approach also fails to deliver the Ripper, I feel certain that it will bring even more insights than any acceptance that we will never be able to name our man!

All the best,
Fisherman

[Monty]

And maybe using internet etiquette would improve things.

Monty

[Ally]

And maybe using internet etiquette would improve things.

Monty

There's internet etiquette?

[Monty]

Yes Ally,

If I recall, guidelines use to be on this site many moons ago.

Monty

[Phil H]

What is "internet ettiquette"?

Colin wrote:

whilst blindly assuming that little Jacky would never have ventured south of Whitechapel High Street without mummy and daddy to hold his hand and make sure that he looked both ways before crossing the thoroughfare?

Do you know I have never seen that "asserted"?

I have seen a question asked, well supported within a context, and not unreasonably expressed. But then perhaps debate and discussion ISN'T what you are looking for.

Interestingly statistics are not the answer to everything - otherwise elections in democracies would be carried out with around 1,000 individuals being polled, and we'd be told that the result was staistically significant and reliable. B*****ks.

Phil

[lynn cates]

etiquette

Hello Neil, Ally, Phil. For what little it is worth, I paste below the instrument I was given to supply guidelines for class room posting.

Cheers.
LC

Netiquette--Or How to Play Nice!

One of the most common concerns people voice about this medium is the challenge of being limited to the written word. However, there are limitations in all mediums. I'm sure we have all said something we wished we could take back? In this medium, we have the benefit of thinking before we "speak" (post) and committing ourselves to a statement that is incorrect - or insensitive.

Just as our society has rules of conduct which govern our interactions with one another in the face-to-face (f2f) environment, so, too, does the virtual community have rules of conduct for our electronic interactions. You are, no doubt, familiar with the word etiquette - in the online environment, we use the term netiquette.

There are a number of things each of us can do to enhance and improve our communications, whether they are f2f or virtual. In addition to the content of the message itself, effective communicators are attentive to tone of voice and body language (visual cues) in f2f interactions. We need to also be attentive to those areas in our virtual interactions. The fact that we are not in a f2f environment does not eliminate the need for us to be mindful of the tone of our messages ("Respond to me as soon as possible" sets a different tone than does "Please respond to me as soon as possible.") as well as their visual appearance ("PLEASE CALL ME" is viewed differently than "Please call me.")

Other recommendations include
• Stay on topic. While discussion is encouraged in our classrooms, rambling and off-topic conversations are not conducive to a quality learning experience.
• Use appropriate subject lines. As a conversation evolves, the subject may change and it is helpful if the subject line is changed to reflect the topic addressed in the message.
• Be attentive to editing your replies. If you're responding to a message, quote the relevant and specific passage or summarize it for those who may have missed it. Do not make people guess what you are talking about, especially if you are responding to a particular message.
• Maintain professional and respectful dialogue at all times. Just as you shouldn't drive when you are angry, you should not send e-mail responses when you are mad at someone. Go ahead and type a response, but do not mail it until the next day. Chances are that when you come back later to read your response, you'll be glad that you did not send it.
• Uphold the standards of Academic Honesty set forth by the University. Never copy someone else's writing without permission or citation; always acknowledge your sources and remember the emphasis is on your learning: What do you think? What is your analysis? What examples can you offer from your own experiences?
• Avoid ''I agree'' and ''Me too!'' messages. It is very frustrating to find lots of messages with very little substance. Remember that e-mail communication can be "labor-intensive" and that it takes time to read numerous messages.
• Avoid the use of all caps. (IT'S LIKE SHOUTING!) You can do it occasionally for strong emphasis, but only for individual words.
• Recognize that we are "talking" with one another, not "writing to" one another. Despite the fact all of our communications are in writing, it doesn't mean all of our writings are "formal" writing assignments and are, therefore, subject to the rules of written communication. Messages in the main classroom are conversation and are quite often informal (and prone to occasional grammatical, spelling and typographical errors). However, despite that informality, we should still make the effort to transmit messages that are readable and understandable.
• Contribute your efforts to building a collaborative learning environment. Be positive in your approach to others and careful about your words. Since we cannot see each other, it is hard to tell if you are bashful, bored, sarcastic, or just kidding. I expect you to be kind to one another and excel. You are not in competition for grades. Do not confuse winning a competition with meeting a standard of excellence. They definitely are not the same things here. Use discussions to develop your skills in collaboration and teamwork.

Becoming an effective communicator in the Online environment is important to your success in the classroom. Unlike many of our other email and/or newsgroup experiences (messages to/from personal friends and family, electronic communication in the workplace, participation in Internet chat rooms), the Online classroom is a collaborative learning environment - and that is best accomplished in an atmosphere in which each participant feels respected and valued. Our ongoing efforts to improve our communication skills in this environment are an important part of ensuring that atmosphere for everyone.

Netiquette Links:

University of California, Berkeley (Good Comprehensive Netiquette Guide):

http://itpolicy.berkeley.edu:7015/policy/netiq.html

The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette By Arlene H. Rinaldi (The standard):

http://www.fau.edu/netiquette/net/index.html

University of Minnesota (Brief but to the point):

http://webct.umn.edu/students/tips/tips_5.shtml

Further Netiquette Links :

http://www.sd104.s-cook.k12.il.us/netiquette.htm