Talk:Murder of Laci Peterson

Multiple-issues tag

Just wanted to explain the tags within the multiple-issues template. For now, I figure a single example will do, but I'm happy to elaborate:

• As to the WP:NPOV tag:
  • I'm concerned with how the article treats Scott Peterson's statements relative to others. To take just one example: After Scott was arrested on a golf course, the article says, "He claimed to be meeting his father and brother for a game of golf." Why is "claimed" used there? Is it even disputed? It'd be one thing if every quotation was given similar treatment, but it's not. For example, "Sharon Rocha went to the park to search for her daughter."—that sentence is supported by Rocha's testimony during the trial, yet we don't say "Sharon Rocha claimed she went to the park to search for her daughter."
  • The article occasionally takes testimony from the trial and treats it as fact in the pre-trial sections. That's not always a problem, but sometimes it is. For example, we mention the testimony of a prosecution witness, Robert O'Neill, as to the concrete in the driveway, but we don't mention the conflicting view of Steven Gabler, the defense's witness. That's a pretty clear NPOV issue. (In that case, I'd say we should move O'Neill's testimony to the "Trial/Evidence" section and then add Gabler's.) (Update: I fixed this issue, but there are still concerns)
• There seems to be well-covered info missing from the Evidence section.
• There are a few overly detailed issues I noticed. Take a look at the "Laci's disappearance" section: Does it matter that Laci drove a "1996 Land Rover Discovery SE"? Or that Scott ate, specifically, "pizza and milk"? If so, why?

Separately, I'm concerned the article is missing some notable information, but we can address that later. Still actively working on this article, but I just figured those things should be flagged in the interim.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 18:42, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I usually remove words like "claim" per WP:CLAIM, but it's possible that I missed that one.

I guess the car can simply be changed to "car", and the food to "food", since the detail doesn't really figure into any particular point of contention raised in the case (unlike the Martha Stewart mergenuge dish), and isn't required for a reader's understanding of it.

Thanks for all your (legit) edits. :-) Nightscream (talk) 20:30, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah of course! By the way—I figure this is worth flagging. I just massively rearranged the appeal section. I'll be honest, I'm somewhat familiar with how habeas relief works at the federal level, but I do not understand California's system ... where you can apparently file a habeas petition at the same time that you can have a direct appeal going?? I'm sure it makes sense, but wow does it make following the filings hard.

Given the difficulty I was having in keeping everything straight—and, while certainly not on par with someone who followed this case closely or a criminal lawyer, I'd like to think I'd do better than average at keeping up—I thought it would be best to split up the direct appeal and the habeas petition into different sections. There's, of course, a downside: it means that the sections aren't consecutive. And I'm happy to reconsider if you think that's too unpalatable, but I think splitting them up makes things much, much, much easier to follow. --Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 00:42, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Is every citation for each portion of it placed at the end of those passages? Nightscream (talk) 00:52, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Great question! I didn't actually mess with the citations too much—I added a few to support some new information in the habeas section, but I didn't check the existing cites. I can do that!--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 12:02, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Reported missing

I'm not sure what to do about the fact that a few sources say Scott reported Laci missing. My guess is that they mean he reported her missing to others, while the stepfather reported her missing to police. But that guess gets too far into WP:OR, and since we didn't have a line that said "Scott Peterson reported Laci missing", which two of the sources already cited in the article used, I added it.--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 15:33, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

@Nightscream: Hi! I think you might've misunderstood what I was doing with this sentence. [1] The reason that we have mid-sentence citations there is because some sources support one part of the sentence, and some support another. You're also not correct about the Intro to DNA book.

• The Intro to DNA book says, on linked page/the page cited (page 122):

Scott Peterson was convicted in 2004 of murdering his wife (Laci) who was eight months pregnant with their child. The fetus was found washed up in San Francisco Bay in April 2003 and Laci's torso was located the next day. The exact date and cause of death were unknown. Peterson reported his wife missing on Christmas Eve 2002.

• The Fox source says, Dec. 24, 2002: Laci Peterson, while 8-months pregnant, is reported missing from her home in Modesto, Calif., by husband Scott Peterson.

As to WP:PAIC—I see why the sentence concerning ref placement might be confusing, but I'm really confident you're misreading it. Yes, it says "All ref tags should immediately follow the text to which the footnote applies, with no intervening space. Refs are placed after adjacent punctuation, not before ...." But that doesn't meant that refs always go at the end of a sentence (hence why, as the exceptions make clear, refs go before dashes)! What that sentence is referring to is truly adjacent punctuation—i.e. it's prohibiting "This is a sentence^[1]." The rule that ref tags should follow the text to which the footnote applies governs whether the ref should be placed mid-sentence or at the end, and, if at the end, the rule on adjacent punctuation dictates it should be placed after the period.

--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 16:37, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

First, thanks for adding the Fox News cite.

Second, the fact that one cite supports Scott reporting her missing and the other source(s) indicate that Ron Granski doesn't mean that you leave the portion "reported" her missing without a cite at all, which makes it seem that you're indicating that those source establish that the two men did "something", but not what, which was obviously not your intent. WP:PAIC calls for cites to be at the end of cited material. Since both sets of sources support each of the men doing so, just place at the end before the final set of citations. Placing it after makes no sense, and violates that guideline.

Lastly, as for the book, I don't know how the hell I missed that. Must be long COVID, or something. Thanks again. Nightscream (talk) 01:40, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough! I like your solution of having the two cites supporting Scott after Scott's name and the cites supporting Granski at the end of the sentence. My concern was putting all the citations at the end, which might've implied that the citations support all of the sentence, when they don't. Also I hope you feel better soon!--Jerome Frank Disciple (talk) 12:44, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Recent edits: Signifcance of media list, GA nomination

User:Nightscream—be careful about unilaterally removing templates without discussion, particularly when we've discussed it. If you disagree, you can go to WP:3O, and perhaps it's time we go there. Frankly, you're just not correct about this. "The significance is self evident" is not enough. You've said it multiple times now, and I've explained that it's not enough for you to just say "SELF EVIDENT", as if it's a trump card. If you don't believe me, I'm happy to get a third opinion.

Separately, I think this article might be getting close to being worthy of a good-article nomination? I was a little concerned about the factual errors I found in my last bunch of edits, and obviously I haven't gone over the whole piece, but I don't think there's anything big left?--Jerome Frank Disciple 14:08, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Also, I just want to flag this edit—I know you said "this wording is not an improvement"—I just want to be clear I didn't add that wording. I haven't touched that paragraph or the section it was in.--Jerome Frank Disciple 14:26, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't recall that we had discussed that. (Where was this?)

I'll leave the issue of GA nomination to you.

I did not specify in my edit summary who had changed that wording, so I wasn't singling you or anyone else out. :-) Nightscream (talk) 16:44, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Talk:Murder_of_Laci_Peterson/Archive_1#Refexample

Sounds good!--Jerome Frank Disciple 16:46, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Accidental revert

@Nightscream we've talked about this before. If you come across an edit conflict, you can't just insert your proposed text and erase any edits that were done causing the conflict. (Or, if you intentionally intended to revert quite a few of my edits, you have to provide a reason why—"ce" isn't enough.) If you keep performing reverts, a GA review will determine that this page isn't stable and fail the page on that ground.

If we luck out and get a good GA reviewer, then we'll probably be making a lot of edits to this article. I would suggest proposing changes during that discussion, at which point we can effectively ask the reviewer to be a third opinion.--Jerome Frank Disciple 13:55, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

What edits did I erase? Nightscream (talk) 13:57, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Also, please do not add uncited passages to the article. If you feel the passage on prosecutor claims about the anchor bear repeating in another part of the article, please include a citation for it.

Lastly, Wikipedia does not use concescutive citations of the same source in the same paragraph, per WP:REPCITE. The only exception to this are science articles. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 14:02, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

1. Quite a few! It almost seems like you started editing an old version? Or that you maybe had an edit screen open from a day before.
2. So, first, know that WP:REPCITE is an essay—not a policy or guideline.
3. As to "uncited passages" ... do you meant this edit? I'm baffled, because all you did in that edit was add a "consecutive citation[] of the same source".--Jerome Frank Disciple 14:03, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Also, why are you changing all the ref names to not have spaces (or quotation marks), citing WP:REPCITE? REPCITE doesn't say that.--Jerome Frank Disciple 14:30, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

1. "Quite a few" I apologize. If you point these out to me, I'll fix them/or we can discuss them.
2. WP:REPCITE It may be an essay, but it's one that reflects the practices of the editing community here (with the exception of that which oversees science articles). It's the practice I've employed for a decade or two here, and which I've observed among most oft the community here in most articles I come across, and which I've adhered to on this article in particular. There is no reason for consecutive cites of the same source in consecutive sentences in the same paragraph, since citations are not sentence-specific. Their information-specific. If a given source supports info in two back-to-back sentences in the same paragraph, just place the at the end of the second one.
3. "...all you did in that edit...." I do not see that in the diff you offered. Can you point it out? I'll fix it.
4. Ref names I did not cite REPCITE in regard to ref names. I removed refnames from citations of sources that were only cited once in the article, and formatted them to follow the same format as the rest of the cites in the article that I've been using for years. Quotes are not needed for ref names. They serve no function and are just clutter. Nightscream (talk) 16:46, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Already fixed, no worries.--Jerome Frank Disciple 16:51, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

By the way, I'm starting to get a little fascinated by this case—this talk page isn't the forum, but man it's hard not to develop some opinions while working on an article like this :) --Jerome Frank Disciple 16:56, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Well, obviously. We're human. It's hard (if not impossible) to not be influenced in some way by the information to which we're exposed. That's why we have to always be vigilant about sticking to sources. :-) Nightscream (talk) 17:45, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Yup! Of course part of the problem is how many unreliable sources there are out there—but as long as we cover everything mainstream institutions say is important (in relative proportion to the coverage they received), we should be find :)--Jerome Frank Disciple 17:46, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

@Nightscream I'm really not sure how this keeps happening again. Maybe make sure you're editing the newest version of an article before you edit? Your most recent edit once again unintentionally reverted quite a few changes [2] (I know it was unintentional because one of the edits you made reinserted a bad ref name). I went through and re-added the changes that it was clear you did intend to make (thanks for addressing that issue, btw!)--Jerome Frank Disciple 15:05, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

@Jerome Frank Disciple: Sorry. Thanks for fixing that. Nightscream (talk) 15:08, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

np! I wish we could figure out the cause ... is it possible that you're looking at diffs and then clicking "edit" from the diff? Because that'll lead you to edit an old version of the page.--Jerome Frank Disciple 15:09, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Note of IAR application

Hello! This is really more of a note to bring attention to an issue rather than an explanation of an edit.

Per MOS:SURNAME, we should generally refer to persons on first reference by their full name and by their surname only on subsequent references. Per MOS:SAMESURNAME, when multiple persons have the same surname, the subject of the article should be referred to by their surname on subsequent references, while other persons should be referred to by their given name.

Here, we refer to both Laci Peterson and Scott Peterson by their first name. I think the choice as to Laci predated my time on this article, but I also think it's justifiable. There isn't really a single person who is the "subject" of this article; rather, the subject of the article is an act against one person for which another person has been convicted. As such, to the extent that MOS:SAMESURNAME applies, I think it's a reasonable application of WP:IAR to disregard it, but I wanted to flag the issue just in case anyone disagrees.--Jerome Frank Disciple 13:31, 3 June 2023 (UTC)