Talk:Rockin' Rebel

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Semi-protected edit request on 1 June 2018[edit]

Died: 6/1/2018 - West Chester, Pa.

Source: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2018/06/01/police-husband-wife-found-dead-in-apparent-murder-suicide-in-chester-county/ JMClarkent (talk) 20:45, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not done for now Does not verify the identities. JTP (talk • contribs) 21:43, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Gamermadness:, I removed the death information you added because all reports (including the one you cited to add a date and cause of death) are based on the CBS Philadelphia report which does not confirm identity. Some of the secondary sources have already been removed from web access, suggesting that the identification is problematic. Per WP:BLP we need a reliable secondary source for this, which is not yet present. Thank you. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:37, 1 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I think he's dead. Meltzer confirmed this (https://www.f4wonline.com/other-wrestling/rockin-rebel-and-wife-found-dead-apparent-murder-suicide-258876 ).Sismarinho (talk) 16:26, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PWInsider confirms it as well. They are usually reliable. https://www.pwinsider.com/article.php?id=117852&p=1 Walloper1980 (talk) 16:37, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Walloper1980:, having read the story, it's less "PWInsider confirms it" and more "PWInsider reports the same rumors everyone else is reporting but actually disclaims the identification as premature multiple times and states outright that the identification of the bodies has not been officially released." In other words, it is not confirmation that the victim and perpetrator of the deaths in Pennsylvania (an event which is confirmed) are the subject of this article and his spouse. It's that latter point that is the issue and also the problem from a WP:BLP perspective. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:57, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of people are never announced dead by police or other officials. Especially marginally famous people. The Deaths in 2018 list is mostly full of people who are dead here because a reporter heard it from a friend/relative/business partner/whatever and believed them enough to publish it. It's not like Rebel doesn't use the Internet, either. Two days is a pretty long time to not debunk fake news on Twitter or Facebook, especially when it's this heinous a story. Maybe he's just coincidentally taking a long nap, and not picking up his phone when people try calling him? InedibleHulk (talk) 22:10, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Corporal Kirchner had an entire article out in two days, for comparison. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:20, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@InedibleHulk:, this should go without saying but speculation about William's silence is not a reliable source and contrasting to unrelated stories has no impact on this one. You don't seem to be familiar with the WP:BLP policy: Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page...We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. It goes on to say: ...any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. Just to forestall any confusion: the policy also applies to the recently-deceased. The material here has been challenged and furthermore alleges a crime by at least one of the decedents. Any attempt to insert this information without the best-quality sources must be removed in order to comply with this policy. We are not a newspaper and we don't need to attempt to make the articles up-to-the-last-second current. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:33, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If he was simply silent, I wouldn't wonder. It's the part about him being confirmed dead by people who knew him to people who report the news that makes me think he's not napping. I know we're supposed to be careful, which is why I used Oliver, and not some semi-anonymous contributor at Buzzfeed or Bleacher Report. I relayed exactly what he said is known, and what isn't, with a clear inline citation. There is no higher-quality wrestling source than Meltzer, so we can't possibly be more careful without outright obfuscating a man's death despite nothing suggesting he's still alive. WP:V is a policy, too, you know? We're meant to trust reliable sources (even wrestling journalists) over our own gut feelings of "maybe not, though". InedibleHulk (talk) 22:50, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@InedibleHulk:, yes, WP:V is policy and it is one of the foundations of the BLP policy. It is also why we don't have sources worthy of supporting any death information, in fact. I read your source and thoroughly explained why it does not actually verify what you claim it verifies. It mentions several times in Oliver's article that Williams's death is not confirmed. To claim that an article which explicitly says "this is not confirmed" confirms something is torturing the WP:RS policy waaaaay past it's breaking point. "We all know he's dead," is no more verifiable than, "I am the Count of Waldeck." We need published, secondary, reliable sources that meet all the criteria. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 00:01, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You must be reading another article, because this one doesn't say anything about "confirmed" or "unconfirmed". Closest matches are "confused" and "Confederacy". InedibleHulk (talk) 00:08, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@InedibleHulk: it looks to me that the article mentions nothing more than "word began circulating" about the identity of the deceased before going on to list Williams' accomplishments, which I read as "this is what the current rumour is" rather than "this is what happened and we know it". The link in that article is at best tenuous. [stwalkerster|talk] 00:12, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
<ec>I do apologize, your'e correct that I got two of these poor sources mixed up. That said, the closest this article comes to making a identification is "Word began circulating early in the day throughout the wrestling community..." which is still garbage. We don't care who wrote that or what their reputation may be, the writer is clearly not standing behind their words. It is still not a confirmation and still violates WP:V. It's still "we all know he's dead". Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 00:15, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
How is that garbage? Don't let "word spread" equate with "gossip and lies" in your head; many things that people come to learn are true, in any community. "'Rockin' Rebel' Chuck Williams involved in apparent murder-suicide" sure sounds to me like he's behind them. "Apparently involved" would imply sufficient doubt, but "involved in apparent" is clear. Even if those are just a headline writer's words, Oliver still refers to Rebel in the past tense. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:18, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The Meltzer story opens with "Chuck Williams, better known as the Rockin' Rebel, and his wife were both found dead by a family member earlier today at their home in West Chester, PA, in an apparent murder/suicide." Not a bit of that sounds like he's unsure. It says "confirmed" twice, both in the positive sense. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:27, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Police seem to have now confirmed that Williams and his wife were indeed the deceased in this case. Per PWInsider.LM2000 (talk) 11:50, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Primary source if anyone cares. JTP (talk • contribs) 14:36, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Given that there seems to be official confirmation, I have removed the article's full protection, though it remains semiprotected. Per the discussion above I have not updated the article, I'll leave it to you folks to determine how best to proceed.
Just to reiterate, our policy on the matter is clear that we do not report that a person has died until official confirmation is published in a reliable source. There are no exceptions: these things are misreported inadvertently and deliberately all the time. For people who may have died or for whom speculation and rumours are circulating, there are a series of templates (such as {{current person}} or {{recent death presumed}}) that you may place on the article pending an official confirmation. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:45, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As a long-time regular at Wikipedia's necrology page, I can assure you there are near-daily exceptions. Presuming "official" means police, coroners or elected representatives, anyway. It's a good policy, don't get me wrong, but it's far from universally applied. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:40, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it's not consistently applied, this is Wikipedia :) But at least in cases where there is a dispute, at least for my own part I try to be consistent with what the policy says. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:22, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And I commend you for that general approach. I hope you keep it up, but also hope you've learned something about Meltzer, Oliver and Johnson's reliability. At least how they're much better than the crap in your Snopes link. I'd also like Eggishorn to remember the difference between "the wrestling community" (made of wrestlers, promoters and mobsters) and the "Internet wrestling community" (made of fans, trolls and mods). Both lie, but for different reasons, and only the latter would agree to peddle something like this. As for me, I leave this mess eternally grateful for a clearer understanding of the Count of Waldeck's dual role as both Henry VIII and as not. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:32, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Given the source from NotTheFakeJTP, I've taken {{|Ivanvector}}'s suggestion and added the latter template. Per WP:BLPPRIMARY, I haven't added the information therein to the article yet. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:28, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed it. It was weird enough to be skeptical after multiple reliable non-cops confirmed it, but now that police have, where do we possibly set the bar? The case is literally closed. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:40, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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