Talk:William MacDonald (serial killer)

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Untitled[edit]

This article is so incredibly not credible it's ridiculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.179.79.218 (talk) 01:25, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copyvio?[edit]

This seems to have far too much in common with http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/weird/macdonald/index_1.html. -- Mark Chovain 01:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The information wasn't gathered from this link. I got the information from a book that is referenced in the article. I have reworded the text so that it would not be a direct copy from the book. What ever was in this article before I started to edit might be a different case. Now that you have provided this link I may use this later on to expand the article. CheersAdam (talk)

After making considerable cuts to what seemed overblown narrative, I discovered a site "Murderpedia", from which much of the narrative appeared to have been pasted. Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 05:46, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Edit war[edit]

I have noticed the recent edit war over the birth name. I have check the reference by P Kidd and it does back up the claims made by Lionet. Some of the information in the link can also be used to expand this article slightly. Cheers ***Adam*** 08:11, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Mutilator[edit]

As a Sydney resident at the time, I can confirm that the killer was indeed locally known to media and citizens as "the Mutilator". However, it would only be reasonable to accept that in Brisbane, Melbourne and other Australian cities, he had to be called "the Sydney Mutilator" (and even more so for international Wikipedia purposes). I'm suggesting we adopt a compromise which suits all points of view, viz., "the (Sydney) Mutilator" --as has already been accepted in the lede. Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 03:34, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Real name is Allan Ginsburg[edit]

William MacDonald's real name was Allan Ginsburg. This should be mentioned in the article. http://murderpedia.org/male.M/m/macdonald-william.htm 100.14.44.99 (talk) 08:45, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I've added MacDonald's birth name and a citation for it. Matuko (talk) 13:44, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Years and dates[edit]

Was the span 1960-1962 not 1961-62 as Victim 1 (Hurst) said to be in 1960? But the Murderpedia article reference says Hurst was murdered in 1961 not 1960. And was Hurst first regarded as an accidental death - seems unlikely (though I suppose Hurst's newspaper obituary notice would not say he had been murdered!). And no date or year (1961 or 1962?) for Victim 3 (Cobbin). Hugo999 (talk) 23:27, 12 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Australia's First True Serial Killer"[edit]

If MacDonald "was classed as Australia's first try serial killer" we need to know who classed him as such. Once a reference is found, thehe sentence should be rewritten in the active voice, as per WP:MOS. Matuko (talk) 13:03, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Oppression by 'mainstream' society"[edit]

I replaced the description of surreptitious meeting places for homosexual men as being due to "oppression by mainstream society" because a) homosexuality is "mainstream" and b) the criminalisation of homosexual activity is more quantifiable and objective than "oppression". Matuko (talk) 13:39, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]