Talk:Stanley Williams

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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Stanley Williams was a good article, but it was removed from the list as it no longer met the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.
Review: December 20, 2005.

While the biographies of living persons policy does not apply directly to the subject of this article, it may contain material that relates to living persons, such as friends and family of persons no longer living, or living persons involved in the subject matter. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons must be removed immediately. If such material is re-inserted repeatedly, or if there are other concerns related to this policy, please see this noticeboard.

Biography

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California Mid‑importance

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Crime and Criminal Biography: Organized crime Top‑importance

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	This article is supported by the Organized crime task force (assessed as Top-importance).

Death Mid‑importance

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Filthy criminal?

See under "occupation." That isn't very neutral or professional. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.45.179.215 (talk) 23:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(The original commenter will never see this BUT) For the record, this was likely vandalism. All readers are encouraged to correct/remove vandalism as it is discovered. Caitlin.swartz (talk) 08:12, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Trial

Fourth paragraph under the section labeled "Trial"... Can someone clarify what is meant by "They maintain that the trial record indicates that none of the lawyers, and particularly the prosecutor, additional evidence in a November 2005 petition for clemency"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gillian.wold (talk • contribs) 17:17, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a fragment to me. Someone who is knowledgeable about the trial needs to edit that sentence - it needs additional wording. 47.137.182.8 (talk) 21:33, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If he had died on the street like other Crips, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Would have saved the California taxpayers money. I paid to have Williams executed. 47.137.182.8 (talk) 21:35, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Middle name quotation marks

My understanding is that "Tookie" was Stanley's legitimate middle name and I believe it should not be placed in quotation marks as if it were not a legitimate name.

Below, an excerpt from A Conversation with Death Row Prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams from his San Quentin Cell, November 30th, 2005:

AMY GOODMAN: Where did you get the nickname Tookie? STANLEY TOOKIE WILLIAMS: That is not a nickname. That is my middle name. My mother gave me that. In fact, that was my father’s middle name, as well. And I believe it’s my grandfather’s middle name. But I know it’s my father’s, for a fact. Stanley Tookie Williams III.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hunan201p (talk • contribs) 15:25, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And people have been putting quotation marks back and removing them again for 15 years now. I vote for no quotes. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 06:11, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

SanQuentinSP.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:24, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Top importance for California?

Hello fellow Wikipedans. I'm not looking to stir up trouble, but I have some reservations on why the Stanley Williams article is rated Top importance for California. Here are all of the Project California articles of individuals that are currently rated as Top importance, in no particular order:

Ronald Reagan
John Steinbeck
John Muir
Junipero Serra
Stanley Williams
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo
Nicole Brown Simpson ← I question Top importance for this too, but that's not for this talk page.

Source: https://wp1.openzim.org/#/project/California/articles?quality=&importance=Top-Class

That's quite a select group, but even that small list could benefit from a little pruning, in my opinion. I'm not proposing the other importance levels for Stanley Williams listed at the top of this page be revisited. I just feel that for California as a whole, Top importance seems high to me for the article. California-native Richard Nixon didn't make the list, even with the Watergate scandal causing him to resign his presidency, two hugely important events that certainly impacted American politics for years afterward. In fact 99% (an eyeball estimate) of the List of people from California don't get the Top rating.

Let me make this perfectly clear, I'm NOT an expert by any means in ranking articles by importance. If there's a formalized procedure for assigning importance levels, I'm completely unfamiliar with it. I only did my first changes to article importance today, but those were obviously inflated ones. For example, a commercial art gallery in San Francisco was given Top importance for the San Francisco Bay Area, making it more important than the Golden Gate Bridge, as far as California is concerned. That one was a no-brainer to remove from the Top level. This article, however, has me genuinely curious about how/why it has a Top importance level. Any reasoned and civil arguments against decreasing it to High importance are welcome. Thanks for reading through all this. Itsfullofstars (talk) 07:33, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that the 'top importance' category is strictly a 'maintenance' category - it's not conferring importance upon the subject per se, but on the need for article improvement, for whatever reasons. That said, the rationale for that categorization escapes me in poking around to understand this, and it seems arbitrary - but perhaps a more expert editor can explain in better detail than I can. Anastrophe (talk) 23:49, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It could very well be that I've totally misunderstood what "Importance" means, then. Just to be safe, I think I'll put a hold on making changes to importance on any articles until I find out more about it. I have a tendency to make too many assumptions, and just jump right in. In any case, now that I think about it, there are far more important things to work on here besides Importance. ;-) Thanks for your input. Itsfullofstars (talk) 01:10, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what I could find about Importance (it's not about maintenance or quality)...

– Itsfullofstars (talk) 02:29, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, that would seem to argue against my interpretation. It strikes me though that perhaps this is less a (mis)representation of the importance of the subject matter, and more simply that the tags/categories aren't utilized much or at the very least, inconsistently. Nevertheless, it would seem to argue that this article is hardly crucial to the subject matter or field. Anastrophe (talk) 02:40, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it appears that Importance (ironically) may not be very important in the grand scheme of things. I think the inconsistency of rankings reflects confusion on the part of editors like me, and it's a very subjective thing to rank articles. My take, after reading the two links above, is that the whole concept arose from a plan called "Wikipedia 1.0" that started many years ago that would have made Wikipedia available on CD-ROM(s), and that it wouldn't be practical to put all articles on a reasonable number of discs. A priority ranking system was devised so that only must-have articles would be included. Of course, the storage available on today's thumb drives is orders of magnitude greater than when CD-ROMs were state of the art, but I still get the impression that Wikipedia 1.0 is a moribund project. Working on that assumption, my short-lived 'career' moonlighting as a member of the Importance Police has come to an end. Thanks again for your comments! - Itsfullofstars (talk) 05:28, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

At the very least, we've both learned something new, about something old, that seems to be largely forgotten. An interesting bit of arcana about this amazing asset. Perhaps the 'top importance' should be scrubbed from this and the other articles. At minimum, doing so might bring forth some other editors with a different take on it. Anastrophe (talk) 17:33, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]