Talk:Westroads Mall shooting/Archive 2

How to cite from live news feed

I'm watching a live news feed from KETV. Any guidelines on how to cite this?Tonytnnt (talk) 23:59, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Edit request

{{editprotected}} Please change "ranch-styled house" to "ranch-style house", since it has little to do with ranches. (Although I don't understand why the architectural style of his house is relevant to the article.)

 Done

please change "pinky-finger" to "little finger" or plainly "finger" otherwise, it sounds rather elementary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.206.102.83 (talk) 01:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

A 4chan poster... But we're not allowed to post it right as it's not confirmed

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/6795/1196909942417nt8.jpg

A post on 4chan with that same "Going out in Style". Thanks to beloved time differences I don't know if that's before or after the shooting but to me that says he posted a suicide note on /b/.

We're not allowed to post it though, right? Nic the Man (talk) 07:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Until that image is sourced from a published source, and considering the timeframe that would mean news media, then it would be considered Original Research and not acceptable on Wikipedia. Parsival74 (talk) 07:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• There is no way to verify that Hawkins submitted that, there is no way to prove it was done within the time frame and there is no way to prove that that image isn't photoshopped. Continuing to reinsert this image constitutes vandalism and will be reported. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 07:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Of note, I've yet to see a link to the original 4chan source and I don't see any discussion of it on 4chan. Even more significant, when I visited 4chan, the thread style seemed somewhat different then what's shown above. Perhaps there is so way to make it look like above (it appears the image thread style is the same not the text board thread) but given all these facts especially the lack of a reliable source, it should definitely stay off the article Nil Einne (talk) 08:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Until it can be verified via an independent source it should remain off the article. Not that it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility. The "NFL Bombing Hoax" of 2006 originated on 4Chan, and was confirmed as such by media outlets and law enforcement. 4Chan isn't always wrong, it's just that they are extremely unreliable. --Kensuke Aida (talk) 08:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Although as I mentioned above, there's no real evidence this came from 4chan Nil Einne (talk) 09:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Correct, the NFL hoax did not originate on 4chan (despite what was implied in that news report from a local Fox affiliate). If I remember correctly Anonymous found it and later reposted it on 4chan when the original host went down or some such. tildetildetildetilde

According to the FBI deposition, Jake Brham admitted to posting it on 4Chan, so its a fairly remarkable case where the shield of anonymity was broken. Yes, it's true it was posted on the "Friend Soceity" by the same person, but its still a case where the originator of the threat and instigator on 4Chan were one and the same. Agreed that in this case it's probably 100% bullshit, but I'm just saying I wouldn't get in the habit of dismissing 4Chan just for the sake of it being 4Chan. --Kensuke Aida (talk) 12:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

This is most likely another faked screenshot, along the lines of the phony "hey /b/ I‘m going to kill people at vtech today in the name of anonymous" that was doctored up after Cho went on his rampage (and actually fooled at least one newspaper). It's not remotely difficult, even if all you've got is MSPaint rather than a proper editor like Photoshop, to alter the text in a screenshot of a messageboard or imageboard. 71.203.209.0 (talk) 02:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a hoax. The timestamp on that image reads 15:38, which is after the fact. All 4chan timestamps are based on the US/Canadian Eastern Time Zone. There's a "new" version going around showing 12:38 now. You can access that one on the Encyclopedia Dramatica article on this event. Obviously, fake. And can we remove this section from the talk page? Nothing really more to discuss. AWaywardChild (talk) 02:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

If you to the 4chan article talk page, you'll see they had a similar discussion about the Jokela School Shooting in Finland. There was a photoshopped thread during that event too. AWaywardChild (talk) 02:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

As they say in fourchanese, someone probably did this hoax "for the lulz". Wow. What disrespect. — Rickyrab | Talk 06:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I am a regular user of 4chan, and I distinctly remember seeing that a user did post a suicide letter/warning about this exact event hours before it happened. However, the thread was NOT archived and it CANNOT be proven, so it should stay off the main page. Even if you hate 4chan, the fact that many people claim to have seen the thread and it's popularity before it disappeared, and anecdotally, my witnessing of the thread means that this discussion is very relevant to this event, and should not be deleted because you "have your panties in a bunch" about 4chan. Beigerabbit (talk) 01:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

"Massacre"?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Isn't the word "massacre" a bit too... emotive perhaps? I doesn't seem particularly neutral. "Massacre" is a word that can be defined quite differently by different people (as an example, I personally wouldn't call eight deaths a massacre, but others might) whereas "shooting" is factually accurate and is less ambiguous. As for "massacre" being the more widely used term, a quick Google search returns 791 hits for "Westroads Mall massacre", but 36,100 hits for "Westroads Mall shooting". Hammer Raccoon (talk) 14:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• This was already discussed, concluded and archived.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Westroads_Mall_massacre#Rename_Article - NGC6254 (talk) 14:53, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but I already read that, and it doesn't address the points I raised. Most the people in that discussion thought that this should be titled "Westroads Mall massacre" because that is the standard media term. However, my Google search shows far more hits for the term "shooting". Secondly, media outlets use "massacre" because it is more emotive and is a good attention-grabbing headline. More neutral organisations like the BBC are still describing this as shootings (do a page search for shootings). My point about headlines is shown when you look at this Guardian article, which uses "massacre" in the headline but refers to "the shooting" further on. Lets use the more neutral and common term here. Hammer Raccoon (talk) 17:53, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to the rationale for either form of title at the moment, but I'd rather not see the article bounce back and forwards every day between the two. Lets settle on the current title for now and revisit this in a few days? Parsival74 (talk) 18:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but I'm not looking for an edit war here, just a discussion. Hammer Raccoon (talk) 19:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't trying to stifle discussion. It is a point deserving consideration. Parsival74 (talk) 19:23, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking shootings would be better until I read Wikipedia's entries...

"Massacre" and then "List of massacres" Sub-section "Criminal and non-political massacres"

The "shootings" entry and definition is too general for mass random shootings. Hum? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.163.161 (talk • contribs) 00:35, 9 December 2007

24.13.163.161 I don't think that is not a good indication of what this article should be called. Currently the article List of massacres is protected because the term massacre does not have a precise meaning that can be applied to a category of events. It has been suggested in discussions on the talk page of the list of massacres that the introduction be changed see Talk:List of massacres#Introduction to define a massacre as those events where reliable sources call it a massacre without undue weight, to which no participant in that discussion has raised any serious objections. The name of this article should be guided by WP:NPOV and WP:OR, taking into consideration Naming conventions which state "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." if most reliable media outlets use shooting this article should also use shooting, if they use massacre then providing that is not just for salacious headline reasons (the term is only used in the headline of an article but not the body of the article) then massacre should be used. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

One other point the main list for these types of incidents is the "List of school-related attacks" not the more general list of massacres --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:15, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Seriosuly, can we change this now? I can find absolutely no evidence that "massacre" is the more common term here. These CNN ([1], [2]) and Fox ([3], [4]) articles do not use the word "massacre" once. And the Google hits for "Westroads Mall Shooting" still outnumber those for "Westroads Mall Massacre" by more than 80 to 1. Hammer Raccoon (talk) 15:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I know people have expressed concerns regarding the Omaha World Herald, but their coverage seems the most comprehensive I can find to date and here it shows they seem to be settling on the term shooting. Parsival74 (talk) 22:13, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I've no problem with "shooting", since after four days that seems to be the term that is being settled on. Another thing is that we need to have Omaha mall shooting in bold in the first sentence, since that's the term CNN has been using to refer to this event. Tuxide (talk) 22:36, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Moved to shooting by me per consensus here and news media coverage. RyanGerbil10(Говорить!) 16:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Good work Ryan, seemed appropriate to me, too SQL^{Query me!} 05:17, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Archiving since this has reached a conclusion (again), if there's anything more to discuss about the name of the article, start a new topic. Tuxide (talk) 09:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Dead/injured tally

I corrected the tally indicated in the infobox and the text to reflect new information found here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/08/national/main3594414.shtml Apparently, there were 5 injured, but only three of those were actually shot by Hawkins. The other two were "side" injuries. Unless anyone objects, I believe those two should not be included in the injured tally, and have updated the page accordingly - NGC6254 (talk) 05:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by side injuries? Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 23:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Their hospitalizations did not result from injury inflicted by the gunman - NGC6254 (talk) 04:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Wording

Distraught

was a distraught 19-year-old

I removed the above text and replaced it with was a 19-year-old male. My reasoning is that the adjective is unnecessary; one who shoots up a commercial center generally isn't the happiest person in the bunch. For example, if we started off the Kurt Cobain article saying "Kurt Cobain was a depressed rock musician", that would sound ridiculous. Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 06:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree. Thanks for your input. Wikipedia is quite the "learn-as-you-go" experience. - NGC6254 (talk) 07:58, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Shooter -> perpetrator

Columbine High School massacre lists the two perpetrators as shooters, and as that's a featured article I think that it is acceptable to name Hawkins a shooter, too. Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 07:44, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

which is regrettable, yes, but i guess so. personally i'd prefer "the sick fuck", but that's just me. 'perpetrator' covers any scenario however, which seems more encyclopedic. Anastrophe (talk) 08:13, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

How about we just call it Robert A. Hawkins? Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 20:26, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

that works, for sure. Anastrophe (talk) 20:36, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Columbine was an FA, but was delisted about six months ago. When I saw your comment I was all, "Huh? I thought it was delisted" and it was true, the FARC led to a delist. hbdragon88 (talk) 02:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah... well, I'm not sure. Anyone else willing to develop consensus on this? Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 00:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Coincidences

• Wasn't George W. Bush in Omaha the day of the shooting? I heard that on the news and I believe it was earlier mentioned in the article. Why was it not moved into the "Dismissed Coincidences" section? will381796 (talk) 00:57, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

It was removed, as the gunman mentioned nothing about killing Bush in his suicide note, and it is highly unlikely that Bush's visit had anything to do with the shooting. Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 01:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

 Done I agree, and have already added it. - NGC6254 (talk) 02:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• I have removed it because, like I said earlier, it is completely irrelevant in the context of this article and lacks a proper source. The "dismissed coincidences" section, aside from being plain stupid, is synthesis and fails WP:TRIVIA. This is also wholly irrelevant to anything mentioned in this article and I have removed it. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 02:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough (I'm a novice at this Wiki stuff). - NGC6254 (talk) 02:28, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah...I thought that section was a little silly, borderline Trivia, but thought I'd go ahead and suggest the GWB fact since the section was present. I don't mind that it was removed. will381796 (talk) 01:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Current Event

Would this still be considered as a current event as the events have settled down and facts are not coming out as fast as they were in the past? Shawn W (talk) 03:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, technically its still current since the Von Maur store has not decided about its future and the injured are still injured. Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 03:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Time of the shooting

The surveillance camera footage shows Hawkins' ultimate entry into the Von Maur at 1:42:33 pm CST. I believe that it's safe to conclude from this that he stepped out of the elevator closer to 1:43:00 pm. I am, therefore, changing the time accordingly. I know it's only one minute, but facts are facts. - NGC6254 (talk) 22:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Hm... sounds good for now, though we should change it when the definite time is determined through the mall tapes the police still have. Master of Puppets ^{Care to share?} 00:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)