Talk:Billy Fox (politician)

message: The article states that "On 12 March 1974, while visiting the home of his fiancé in rural county Monaghan, he accidently stumbled across an IRA arms dump and was shot dead."  I recall reading in an article in Magill that the IRA raided his fiancé's home because they suspected that her family were storing weapons for the UDA or the UVF.  They didn't find any weapons stored there, but shot Billy Fox as he approached the house. I don't have that article handy (or access to back issues of Magill or newspapers from this period) so I won't make any edits in case my memory is faulty.  Can somebody who has access to reliable sources of information check this?  Additionally, after this is checked, this part of the article should be reworded to make it clear that he was killed by the IRA.(posted by M.Lane 30 March 2006)
::You are correct.  There was no IRA arms dump.  13 IRA men lay in wait for him to visit his girlfriend.  The IRA falsly claimed that George Coulson (his girlfriend's father) was a quartermaster for the UVF.  The IRA burned the house and the mobile home.  ClemMcGann 09:52, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Circumstances surrounding murder 

message: This article fails WP:NPOV by a mile. A reliable source (Tim Pat Coogan) states that he was killed by the Official IRA.
From WP:NPOV
The policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being judged as "the truth", in order that the various significant published viewpoints are made accessible to the reader, not just the most popular one. It should also not be asserted that the most popular view, or some sort of intermediate view among the different views, is the correct one to the extent that other views are mentioned only pejoratively. Readers should be allowed to form their own opinions.
Specific issues with the article:
*"until he was killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in March 1974" in the lead - gives undue weight to the sources that say he was killed by the Provos.
*"though some dissenting analysts" - I refer you to "pejoratively". Who has claimed TPC is a "dissenting analyst"? That sounds awfully like someone putting their own opinion into the article.
*"widely considered to be the authoritative source" - more opinion. Combined with describing TPC as a "dissenting analyst" is a serious breach of NPOV.
*Republican News link - proves nothing. What was to stop him swapping his allegiance to the Provos after he escaped in 1974? It's a tenuous link at best, but worth a mention in some form.
My proposed solution is to say which sources say what in non-perjorative language, and let the reader draw their own conclusion. Anything else is POV. One Night In Hackney303 21:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Another aspect of this is the fact that Fox knew several leading members of the provisional IRA leadership with whom he had met on several occassions, and he was very vocal about cross border intrusions by British Army patrols and undercover British units. So he hardly fitted the bill as a target for the IRA.--padraig 22:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Most sources just state he was killed by the IRA they don't specifiy either the provisionals or the officials.  The provisionals also made statements saying that they had no involvement, in fact it was one of the local leaders of the provos that reported the shooting to the Gardai believing in was a cross border intrusion by either Loyalists or uncover British security forces.--Padraig (talk) 13:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality

message: According to Domer48, this appears to be the conclusion from this:
*For clarity (1) we use legal precedence as the defining policy (2) Until a person is convicted of a murder, the article on the killing is referred to in it's intro section as a killing or unlawful killing, depending on present legal status (3) in the sub sections (which normally firstly give background on the victim, and then a portrait of the incident of killing), we use the term killing or unlawful killing UNLESS there is an ongoing and referenced police investigation under the heading Murder Hunt OR there are three journalistic references which comply with WP:RS (4) we expand the article Unlawful Killing (5) we create two new categories called Unlawful Killing and Open Murder cases, and (6) the opening para uses precedence murder once someone is convicted of the crime of murder. That's the present proposal. We could go a little further and add a category Appealed Murder Cases for those which are being disputed. Hope that clarifies the proposal. Rgds, Trident13 
So, Fox's murder should be stated as such in the intro.
Why have Domer48 and O Fenian reverted? Mooretwin (talk) 22:14, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Where does Domer state that is the conclusion? That appears to be in the middle of the discussion, it is not a conclusion. The more relevant question is why are you reverting under the claim that you are describing a conviction, when you are describing the circumstances of someone's death? O Fenian (talk) 00:20, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added Patrick Cooney's view; he had just been appointed Irish Justice Minister. He recalled that Marjorie's family home was being raided (and burnt) when Fox arrived. Fox ran away, was shot in the back and died while crawling away. He described the gang as "neighbours", that it was "sectarian" and that the gang would have known of Fox's regular visits to see her. As several men were subsequently convicted it can be described as murder.86.42.213.48 (talk) 12:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Murder

message: This article looks like it was written by some bigoted member of the Orange order who's using this as some sort of grudge against republicans. I've tidied it up and removed some of the more offending bits.
Exiledone (talk) 12:49, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do not use sectarian slurs. Please assume good faith and do not remove referenced material without discussion. Kernel Saunters (talk) 13:04, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Still biased

message: The Bruton link refers to PIRA explicitly e.g. "These attacks on Catholics led to the formation of the Provisional IRA, initially as a defensive organization.".  The words of the TD are a significant reference. The RTE link has long been in the article and is valid. To remove them is vandalism, especially if attribution really is 'contentious'.
The only link here which is bogus is the Wilmington link. If you follow the link and look at p5 it still has nothing about Fox, but it does have something about Selaisse.--Flexdream (talk) 16:32, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: If you look, you will see that p. 5 of the Wilmington Morning Star of March 13, 1974 (available at the link in the article) quite clearly references the text in the article. ---RepublicanJacobiteTheFortyFive 16:46, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Click on the http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=rQKKVauEoioC&dat=19740312&printsec=frontpage I see p5 is headed 'Selassie say's he stay on throne'. What do you see?--Flexdream (talk) 17:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see that headline on page 5 of the Wilmington Morning Star of March 13, 1974, which is the reference in the article and the one RJ refers to above. 2 lines of K303 13:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: But it's not what the link points to is it? The Wilmington link is wrong. You removed the RTE link because it was wrong. I'm putting this to the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard for advice and have informed you both. --Flexdream (talk) 22:23, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I will give you one last chance to redeem yourself before you have to be spoonfed. The content in the article is sourced by page 5 of the Wilmington Morning Star of March 13, 1974, which is available at the link provided. 2 lines of K303 12:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the link from the article http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=rQKKVauEoioC&dat=19740312&printsec=frontpage. You tell me what that links to? --Flexdream (talk) 11:48, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

text: The link is to the March 12 front page. March 13 follows it. Where in the article does it mention the UDA? Back to you. --Flexdream (talk) 15:22, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You're editing Troubles articles yet don't know the Ulster Freedom Fighters are the Ulster Defence Association? Give me strength! As for the rest, if you think CAIN is the least reliable of the three links then you have no place editing Troubles articles. The content is sourced by the most reliable source of the three (especially as one link doesn't say what you think it does), there's no need for multiple links when one does the job just fine, so stop wasting your time, my time and the time of other editors. In addition, don't post on my talk page ever again unless specifically required to do so by policy. 2 lines of K303 11:16, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You say the UFF is the UDA. What's unreliable about RTE or the TD?--Flexdream (talk) 11:26, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: "You say the UFF is the UDA" - I, the British government, and every single source going. You still haven't explained this bizarre need of yours to add more references to a sentence that already has adequate references? 2 lines of K303 13:17, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Please try to keep a civil tone and assume good faith. May I suggest that this would be a better link to the Wilmington Morning Star article? Also, I see no reason why additional references would not be helpful; however, I think it is not a good idea to have more than one in the introductory paragraph of the article. Could these additional references be moved into the article body? -- Scjessey (talk) 13:22, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Scjessey - yes I agree that's a better link and is the proper way to do it. I'd put the multiple references in under one link using  tags -  I'd be happy if instead they were put in the article body. The RTE link in particular was previously in the article since 2007 and I think it's a loss to lose it. --Flexdream (talk) 20:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Many of Wikipedia's best articles have no references in the lede at all, since the lede is supposed to summarize the body of the article and so everything in it should be sourced. I see no harm in having these additional sources (including the RTE source). -- Scjessey (talk) 02:33, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  References