This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Burke and Hare murders article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
![]() | Burke and Hare murders is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | ||||||||||||
![]() | This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 11, 2018. | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Current status: Featured article |
![]() | This article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
"Burke had met Margaret on previous trips to Edinburgh, but it is not known whether he was previously acquainted with Hare. Once Burke arrived in the close, they became good friends."? It was kinda stuck out there all on its own and looks like it was moved during a copy edit (possibly mine) and not put back. Cassianto Talk 22:34, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
"could not sleep at night without a bottle of whisky by his bedside, and a twopenny candle to burn all night beside him; when he awoke he would take a drink from the bottle—sometimes half a bottle at a draught—and that would make him sleep." -- was he talking about Hare then? He talks in the third person all the way through this? Cassianto Talk 20:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
To whomever wants to update the page,
A recently published book by a University of Edinburgh researcher sheds some light on the life of Burke.
Here is the amazon link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Burke-Now-Then-Janet-Philp/dp/0995510105
The book sources lots of historic documents archived at the university and other sources. Some tidbits:
1) Burke (most definitely) did not have testicular cancer.
2) Burke and Hare did not rob graves. They were accused of grave robbing by the court. They never confessed to it, nor was any evidence supplied that they did. The reason it was established in the court case was that Burke's common law wife was also on trial, and her defence rested on the claim that dead bodies were not uncommonly found on their property.
Read the book. I believe it will help you guys improve the wikipedia article.
Kind regards,
Anon Student
P.S The cover shows an rendering of Burke's face using his death mask and skeleton. It was generated at the University of Dundee. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.41.130.239 ( talk) 01:28, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
This is a bit of an odd sentence:
When a lodger in Hare's house died, he turned to his friend Burke for advice and they decided to sell the body to Knox.
That a lodger who had died would then seek advice is probably not what was meant. How should this best be rephrased? Michael Hardy ( talk) 01:36, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
This whole Scott quotation in the "In media portrayals and popular culture" section uses older forms of spelling - it seems simpler to remove the current two sics than add an extra three or four. Thoughts? - Snori ( talk) 06:54, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Reference no. 28 is displaying this error: "Cite error: Invalid <nowki><ref></nowiki> tag; name "inflation-UK" defined multiple times with different content". I haven't the time to figure out how to correct it just now—I'm afraid to damage such a well-developed article. Matuko ( talk) 19:11, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
First, let me say that this is one of the best articles I've read on Wikipedia, in every conceivable way.
I accept "as at" as idiomatic in British English, however, I do think the fact of the skeleton's permanent residency should be presented using a more evergreen template, such as the Start date template: "Burke's skeleton was given to the Anatomical Museum of the Edinburgh Medical School where, and has been there since 1829 ."
This will save the editor from updating the page every year, and I think the reader will find seeing number of years in print quite astonishing. There are other methods of accomplishing this, but you get my general point—I'm not married to Start date, but I feel the issue should be addressed, as the MOS is pretty clear on the matter.
At the very least, I think a template like As of should be used, tagging the article as in need of an annual update. Matuko ( talk) 20:56, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
I have read in a book about names that became common words back in the 70s (in relation to the phrase 'to Burke up the evidence'), and heard from a 1980s TV programme presented by Magnus Magnusson about the murders that Hare 'died blind and destitute' [amongst working class people in the 19th century a usually synonymous fate]. (I don't think I was confusing him with Robert Knox because his wiki article makes no reference to Knox losing eyesight and had that been the case the work he was doing in his last years in London would have been impossible.) I am a little surprised that something that was given currency as late as the 1970s-80s appears to have been discredited without it being known. I am open to correction. Cloptonson ( talk) 09:03, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
I have reverted the addition of the wikilink around "series of sixteen killings" per WP:EGG. That wording makes it sound like it would go to an article specifically about the sixteen killings, not a general article about the concept of serial killers. This is a problem because it's misleading, so I have reverted it. It was only recently introduced so per WP:BRD I have reverted it as it goes against the principle of least astonishment. The IP mentioned the FAC, but the wikilink in particular was not present at that time. It's not the wording I have the issue with, it's the misleading wikilink. - Aoidh ( talk) 22:39, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
[[serial killer|series of sixteen killings]]
is specifically what I have an issue with, per
WP:EGG. Not the wording itself. -
Aoidh (
talk) 22:59, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Burke and Hare murders article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
![]() | Burke and Hare murders is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | ||||||||||||
![]() | This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 11, 2018. | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Current status: Featured article |
![]() | This article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
"Burke had met Margaret on previous trips to Edinburgh, but it is not known whether he was previously acquainted with Hare. Once Burke arrived in the close, they became good friends."? It was kinda stuck out there all on its own and looks like it was moved during a copy edit (possibly mine) and not put back. Cassianto Talk 22:34, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
"could not sleep at night without a bottle of whisky by his bedside, and a twopenny candle to burn all night beside him; when he awoke he would take a drink from the bottle—sometimes half a bottle at a draught—and that would make him sleep." -- was he talking about Hare then? He talks in the third person all the way through this? Cassianto Talk 20:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
To whomever wants to update the page,
A recently published book by a University of Edinburgh researcher sheds some light on the life of Burke.
Here is the amazon link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Burke-Now-Then-Janet-Philp/dp/0995510105
The book sources lots of historic documents archived at the university and other sources. Some tidbits:
1) Burke (most definitely) did not have testicular cancer.
2) Burke and Hare did not rob graves. They were accused of grave robbing by the court. They never confessed to it, nor was any evidence supplied that they did. The reason it was established in the court case was that Burke's common law wife was also on trial, and her defence rested on the claim that dead bodies were not uncommonly found on their property.
Read the book. I believe it will help you guys improve the wikipedia article.
Kind regards,
Anon Student
P.S The cover shows an rendering of Burke's face using his death mask and skeleton. It was generated at the University of Dundee. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.41.130.239 ( talk) 01:28, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
This is a bit of an odd sentence:
When a lodger in Hare's house died, he turned to his friend Burke for advice and they decided to sell the body to Knox.
That a lodger who had died would then seek advice is probably not what was meant. How should this best be rephrased? Michael Hardy ( talk) 01:36, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
This whole Scott quotation in the "In media portrayals and popular culture" section uses older forms of spelling - it seems simpler to remove the current two sics than add an extra three or four. Thoughts? - Snori ( talk) 06:54, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Reference no. 28 is displaying this error: "Cite error: Invalid <nowki><ref></nowiki> tag; name "inflation-UK" defined multiple times with different content". I haven't the time to figure out how to correct it just now—I'm afraid to damage such a well-developed article. Matuko ( talk) 19:11, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
First, let me say that this is one of the best articles I've read on Wikipedia, in every conceivable way.
I accept "as at" as idiomatic in British English, however, I do think the fact of the skeleton's permanent residency should be presented using a more evergreen template, such as the Start date template: "Burke's skeleton was given to the Anatomical Museum of the Edinburgh Medical School where, and has been there since 1829 ."
This will save the editor from updating the page every year, and I think the reader will find seeing number of years in print quite astonishing. There are other methods of accomplishing this, but you get my general point—I'm not married to Start date, but I feel the issue should be addressed, as the MOS is pretty clear on the matter.
At the very least, I think a template like As of should be used, tagging the article as in need of an annual update. Matuko ( talk) 20:56, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
I have read in a book about names that became common words back in the 70s (in relation to the phrase 'to Burke up the evidence'), and heard from a 1980s TV programme presented by Magnus Magnusson about the murders that Hare 'died blind and destitute' [amongst working class people in the 19th century a usually synonymous fate]. (I don't think I was confusing him with Robert Knox because his wiki article makes no reference to Knox losing eyesight and had that been the case the work he was doing in his last years in London would have been impossible.) I am a little surprised that something that was given currency as late as the 1970s-80s appears to have been discredited without it being known. I am open to correction. Cloptonson ( talk) 09:03, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
I have reverted the addition of the wikilink around "series of sixteen killings" per WP:EGG. That wording makes it sound like it would go to an article specifically about the sixteen killings, not a general article about the concept of serial killers. This is a problem because it's misleading, so I have reverted it. It was only recently introduced so per WP:BRD I have reverted it as it goes against the principle of least astonishment. The IP mentioned the FAC, but the wikilink in particular was not present at that time. It's not the wording I have the issue with, it's the misleading wikilink. - Aoidh ( talk) 22:39, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
[[serial killer|series of sixteen killings]]
is specifically what I have an issue with, per
WP:EGG. Not the wording itself. -
Aoidh (
talk) 22:59, 9 July 2022 (UTC)