Talk:Kate Dover

Process issues

It sounds like Storye book is actively working on expanding/improving/adding citations to the article, and trying to do that and also respond to queries about various details is stressful. I'm wondering if it might be helpful to let Sb get this article to a point they're ready to say "I've done all I can" and then revisit the remaining concerns? There's no deadline, and the concerns have been exhaustively covered here. Sb could work on those at their own pace while working on the rest. I know that's not the usual way we work, but I hate to see anyone feeling stressed about something that should really be an enjoyable hobby. --valereee (talk) 21:23, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that everyone who has been working on this should take the weekend off, relax, and do something totally different. Several weeks ago, at the time of the DYK, this article was looking reasonably solid. It's now showing the results of stress and strain, and so are its editors. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 22:10, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Mary Mark Ockerbloom, I agree. The article is fuzzier than it was when it went through DYK. The process is not working as intended here. MarkH21 and Pincrete, would you consider letting Sb work on this on their own for a few weeks? As I said above, I know that's not how we usually work, but I think this is becoming really counterproductive to improving the article. --valereee (talk) 11:12, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't have access to most of these sources (£££), and only came here as a result of a bot summons - so, the only editing I could do on the article would be tagging. Despite questioning whether the main problem is lack of sources (rather than how they are being used at present) - my involvement is minimal and my 'blessing' not needed for whatever process seems constructive, ie go ahead with anything you think will work!Pincrete (talk) 12:12, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I have finally had a bit of time to come back to this, and have so far reworked the lead paragraphs to address concerns raised. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 01:45, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Moving forward

• Hi @Storye book:, I have finally come back around to working on the main part of this article. I think the best way to approach the question of Kate Dover's personality is to restructure this. We don't really know her actual personality. Most of what we have is based on the trial and newspaper reports, and my impression is that a lot of that is contradictory.

• The place where I think the discussion of her personality is most relevant is in talking about what was said about her at the trial, and how this may have affected the outcome of the trial. Whether her personality was "complex" or not is, in my opinion, somewhat of a red herring, unless that point was made explicitly by those writing about her and used in an attempt to influence her sentencing. I've done a rough restructuring, and hopefully set up a framework for discussing this: You are far more familiar with the sources at this point so I hope you will jump in. The question I'd like to move towards answering in the middle of the trial section is less "Who was Kate Dover?" (which I don't think we can fairly answer) and more "How was Kate Dover's personality presented, and why was this important to her sentencing?"

• That said, my goal is not to repeat all of the evidence mentioned in the trial article, far from it. Someone should be able to read the Kate Dover article and get an impression of her without having to go through the complexities of the trial and the trial article. I know that may sound challenging, but I think it gives us a way to move forward productively. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 16:10, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

• Frankly, the trial gives well-supported facts and raises a number of questions about Dover's personality (not just unsupported individual opinions), and it also gives a rare and valuable insight into the situation of a working class young woman in that place at that time. However we are limited in the communication of this on WP since we can only use citations which contain direct facts, or quotations of contemporary opinions. Anything else would count as SYNTH. I think you have handled it correctly so far, although much is missing. In some respects, Dover was more than just "intelligent". The sources do contain quotations from her letters, which give an extraordinary insight into the level of her education. Bearing in mind that the school leaving age in that period was 12 years for girls, it is astonishing that she could produce such a high level of literacy, unless her home environment encouraged wide reading of fairly sophisticated literature - which was available in libraries and in mechanics' institutes. We can't say any of that in the article, of course, but we can quote the letters. For the above reason, some Sheffield museum staff have been asking me to quote those letters in the article, but I have held back due to having been put off by previous bullying here. Your editing intervention today has given me confidence to add the quotations, so thank you for that. I shall do that soon.

• Can they write something, a finding aid or a blog post that can appear on their website, or even better an article in a newsletter or magazine? Once it is published, you can cite it. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 22:04, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

• Another point is the use and interpretation of the word "sweetheart." That quotation comes from a rather loaded remark from the pub landlady, about lovers regularly meeting in her pub. Now, respectable women didn't enter pubs in those days. It is possible to interpret that landlady's remark as an implication that the old man thought he was Dover's sweetheart, and behaved as if he were, but that Dover's intentions were possibly questionable. Again we can't interpret quotations, but at the same time, we should not use them in a way which would mislead. To our modern understanding, "sweetheart" implies innocent love and innocent intentions. The context of the Victorian landlady's quotation strongly suggests that although the old man may be innocent in that respect, Dover was not (in the cultural terms of those days). So I think that perhaps we should say that the old man considered himself her fiance (citations bear that out), and only use the word "sweetheart" in the landlady's quotation, giving cited context where possible.

• That sounds like a good revision to make. I had thought of using "old sweetheart", but wasn't sure if it was misleading. Please follow your judgement on that. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 21:20, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

• I have more to say, but maybe that's enough for now. Thank you very much for your recent edits. Storye book (talk) 18:24, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

• After writing the above, I saw your latest edits. Have you read the sources? I am surprised that you have removed some citations? The witness statements (not opinions as such) gave facts which showed that aspects of Dover's behaviour were contradictory. The witnesses didn't disagree with each other as far as I can see - unless you count Dover's mother Catharine, who was clearly not telling the truth and her evidence was not taken into consideration, and there's a quote from the trial which confirms this. Forgive me, but I think you may have reached the point of over-editing without having read all the citations (some of which are now apparently missing). I think you may be coming to unwarranted conclusions in some places. If you can, please replace the missing citations. This will help me put things right. I know you have meant well, and I thank you for it, but the article is starting to part company with the evidence. I am also concerned about the rather strongly-worded interpretation of the Judge's sentencing/closing speech. Your wording gives the impression that he wanted to hang, had to abide by the jury's decision not to hang and that affected him emotionally, and then gave her the worst sentence that he possibly could, for that reason. I believe that it's also possible to interpret the speech as a clear, concise and to-the-point summing up, on the grounds that it was genuinely not possible to determine criminal intention to kill, but that Dover should be fully dealt with in the context of her irresponsible behaviour. In this particular case, according to the news reporters, it was the women among the general public who wanted her to hang. There is no evidence that that judge would be influenced by mob pressure. So I think that the safest thing would be to simply quote the judge's speech, and let the readers read the citations and interpret it themselves. Storye book (talk) 18:56, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

• I added five new sources to the article. I did remove some of the repetition of material when reorganizing, but not the sources themselves. They are still cited. I have a couple more sources to cite that I think support my description of the judge's statement, but I may not have time to address that immediately. You do have better access to some of the sources at this point, and my hope is that you will work to expand the suggested structure. I am happy to provide feedback. I do think that you bring up a very important point -- are the witnesses contradictory or is Kate Dover's behavior contradictory -- and that making that clear to the reader is needed. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 21:16, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

• Maybe we should define contradictory. In the sense of contradictory statements (where at least one witness has to be lying because they cannot both be true) from the sources it is clear that the witnesses do not disagree and do not appear to lie (if we forget Catharine's testament, which is not used in the article). In the sense of two things being true but not fitting together comfortably (as in the behaviour of a hypocrite) then Dover's behaviour appears contradictory. It is physically possible for her to do all the things listed in the article. If we were allowed to interpret the strange mix of actions committed by Dover, then we might guess that she was crazy, eccentric, hypocritical, a liar and cheat - or any other interpretation which might explain why she acts at different times as if she is two different people, or maybe one crazy unpredictable person. That's why I put the word contradictory in the article. Originally I used the word complex. Both ot those words were intended to show her oddly different behaviours without implying anything about her sanity, morality etc. Deep down, I do suspect that she may have had some kind of mental condition, compounded by the controlling presence of her mother. We can't use that suspicion, but we can give enough cited facts for the reader to see that her personality and behaviour were not nice and tidy and easy to understand. Forgive me - I've written too much - long day and very tired. Because of the large amount of changes which have taken place since the article was deemed acceptable at DYK, and because of the departures from citation content - I am going to userfy a copy of the DYK-accepted article, and then add into that every single thing which has been added to the article since then - excluding anything which clearly contradicts or is clearly not supported by, the citations. I have no intention of adding my own opinions. I have only written them here to show that we do have to be careful to check source content. Please give me a while to complete this - I would like to do it properly. Storye book (talk) 22:59, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

• I have now had a chance to check out the citation (citation 3, Dundee Advertiser) that has been appended to statements saying that the judge disagreed with the jury's decision, and that his decision was contentious. The citation does not say that at all, and I have seen nothing in other court reports which say that the judge disagreed with the jury, or anything to imply that the judge was affected by his emotions in the summing up/sentencing. There is something minor in a news report made at the time of the street sale of Skinner's property. It was noted that when the crowd of local women at the sale, who didn't like Dover, heard that she would not hang, they were displeased. However the implication of that report is that the women were what we might today call a Skinner fan club - crying over him and purchasing his possessions when a lot of them didn't even know him when alive. I'll have a read later through all the sources, to see whether the people in the public gallery at the trial shouted out anything after the sentence, but at the moment I don't remember seeing that. I have found no evidence of formal complaints or arguments following the trial. So I do think that the article is now running away with itself because new edits are being made on the basis of existing inaccurate edits by people who have not seen the sources. Re your note above about Sheffield Museum staff needing to publish material so that I can cite it - we don't need that. Citations are available for substantial quotations from Dover's letters. Those quotations speak for themselves. Storye book (talk) 11:34, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

• NB I have just looked through your new citations - at least at the ones that I could access. The History of the Year citation used the word "contention" in the sense of a lawyer's argument, but it doesn't say "contentious" and it doesn't refer to public resentment at the verdict. Public reaction is described in that source as surprise at the verdict but satisfaction at the severity of the actual sentence. So I think that the word "contentious" must come from a misunderstanding of the word, "contention." I have seen no evidence of witnesses disagreeing with each other in any of the sources contributed to the article this year. Storye book (talk) 12:10, 26 March 2020 (UTC)