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My arguments and new information which resolves the issue altogether: (This was originally posted
here)
1. Stated motive =\= Actual motive
2. "Dislike for Mondays" is not a possible motive for a shooting, that simply makes no sense. Arguably "To liven up the day" could be a motive but that's still a stretch
3. She only stated that as her motive in one single instance immediately after the shooting—what was revealed or discussed about her motive since then? Has nobody asked what the courts or legal system have had to say about her motive?
Unfortunately nobody here has done even a single Google search worth of research before commenting
In a 1993 televised interview, when asked about her infamous statement about Mondays, she said "I don't remember saying that. Right now we're trying to find evidence that I did say that. I'd like to hear the tape. It really influenced how people saw me and thought about the whole case." and "On PCP you're liable to say anything." Source:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-lMzatv6Weg Timestamp ~2:40
Yes. She was asked why she committed the shooting, and she said it was because she didn't like Mondays. We shouldn't be in the business of deciding which motives for mass shooting are "valid" (I don't think any of them are). What makes sense to us can be very different from what makes sense to the shooter. Also, "mental illness" isn't a motive: It's a condition you're in that can influence your motive, but many mentally ill people do not commit violent crime. It's like if we added "being white" as a motive to every white nationalist mass shooting.
Koopinator (
talk)
13:11, 20 October 2023 (UTC)reply
Is it really reasonable to trust a criminal's stated motive without any corroborating evidence? Especially where mental disturbance is suspected?
Considering there's no motive for the shooting, the usage of "dislike for Mondays" is a sound fit. This is a Wikipedia article, not a court document. The media has portrayed this shooting in the same manner because of the lack of motive. –
The Grid (
talk)
15:48, 20 October 2023 (UTC)reply
So you're saying that since there is no motive for the shooting, the motive should be declared "dislike for Mondays". I don't see how this is a rational argument.
IOHANNVSVERVS (
talk)
16:30, 20 October 2023 (UTC)reply
No with a strong dose of WTF?. An off-the-cuff comment by a psychotic perpetrator is not the literal motive for a murder, any more than the
Son of Sam's motive was "a dog told me to."
Zaathras (
talk)
02:08, 21 October 2023 (UTC)reply
And could I ask for your opinion on a solution? To remove the Motive section from the infobox or to have something like "Undetermined" as the motive?
IOHANNVSVERVS (
talk)
15:09, 21 October 2023 (UTC)reply
A consensus has not been reached because people are not engaging in discussion. Especially yourself @
NJZombie. You've never explained why you think "dislike for Mondays" should be the official motive, and you've repeatedly reverted its removal even after it has been proven with sources that it was not the actual motive. I'm not an experienced editor and so I'm not sure how to proceed here. Any advice @
Zaathras? Also, it's ridiculous this edit is even controversial in the first place.
IOHANNVSVERVS (
talk)
00:03, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
My participation is not required to reach consensus. My initial revert of your removal of the item was due to your reasoning that her motif was mental illness or misogyny which may be underlying causes and not motives. As an admittedly inexperienced editor, you should be reading up on the policy and procedural pages suggested before continuously assuming as you did when you reverted simply because you mentioned it on the talk page and again when the RfC wasn’t closed.
NJZombie (
talk)
00:11, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
Don't you think it's wrong to add/restore content which has been proven false? And you really can't give any guidance on how to proceed eh? Your contributions here have been the opposite of productive.
IOHANNVSVERVS (
talk)
00:18, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
What I think is wrong is your inability or refusal to learn and follow the procedures that productive Wikipedia users learn and follow.
NJZombie (
talk)
01:30, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
Nobody bit anybody and nobody said anything about not being allowed to contribute to the discussion. They made a change that was questioned and were directed to post an RfC. They posted a comment instead and when nobody responded in several hours to that, they just made the change again, citing a discussion that didn’t happen. When they finally did post the RfC, they changed it again as soon as the discussion swayed in their direction. They were simply asked to not make the change until the discussion is closed. Which you could have even done without reading “thousands of words” at
WP:RFCEND.
NJZombie (
talk)
12:28, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
You absolutely were directed toward how to gain consensus as seen
here. RfC is part of that page you were directed to. Also, you deciding that you’ve provided proof and changing it is not how the process ends. It doesn’t just change because you’ve added what you’ve decided is undisputed proof. All this time you’re spending arguing with me, by the way, could be spent closing the request or finding someone who can.
NJZombie (
talk)
16:15, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
How can I close the request if consensus hasn't been reached? I've been trying to achieve a consensus but it's hard when people are not engaging in discussion.
IOHANNVSVERVS (
talk)
16:40, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
So you're implying that you think consensus has been reached? Why would you continue to revert the edit then? "Consensus is typically reached as a natural and inherent product of the wiki-editing process; generally someone makes a change to a page content, and then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to either leave the page as it is or change it."
IOHANNVSVERVS (
talk)
16:57, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
I’m not implying anything. I first reverted your edit because your reasoning want valid to me. It wasn’t because I’m devoted to keeping the information itself. This is far from the first time someone has tried to make the same edit, although typically with no reasoning whatsoever. As it’s been an issue before, you were steered toward discussing it on the talk page. The person opposing the change is not required to participate. So stop worrying about my participation in the actual discussion. If a fellow editor, typically an uninvolved one, feels that the matter has reached a consensus, it gets closed and the edit is made. The participants can all agree that the discussion is over and agree to consensus that the matter is resolved. If no consensus is made at all, it typically stays as it was.
NJZombie (
talk)
17:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
1. "The person opposing the change is not required to participate. So stop worrying about my participation in the actual discussion." Is there anything in the guidelines that says this? Everything I've been reading seems to suggest the opposite. 2. You continue to not address my claim (backed up by reliable sources) that the information you keep restoring has been proven wrong. If you don't agree that it has been proven wrong then you should explain why. If you do agree that it has been proven wrong then you should not be restoring it. From
Wikipedia:Editing policy#Try to fix problems: "As long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the "finished" article, they should be retained." As far as I'm aware, "procedure" is not a valid reason to revert a constructive edit.
Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary,
Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy.
IOHANNVSVERVS (
talk)
20:17, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
It doesn't look like there is much to resolve here. A non-admin close to any discussion is someone who does not participate with the discussion which a summary can be seen at
WP:NACINV. –
The Grid (
talk)
12:39, 24 October 2023 (UTC)reply
No I agree with the no votes and what was said by
IOHANNVSVERVS and don’t have much to add. The parameter in the infobox should either be “Unknown”, “Disputed” or omitted. I’m leaning towards something like “Unknown; Spencer attributed it to a dislike of Mondays in a phone call to a reporter” like Jochem says but that may be too wordy.
Justanotherguy54 (
talk)
01:38, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
But Spencer had multiple conflicting statements of motive. Why should one be given more prominence than any other? She also recanted the "dislike for Mondays" motive, and it was likely never a serious statement of motive in the first place.
IOHANNVSVERVS (
talk)
02:53, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
Comment. (
Summoned by bot) I don't think the motive in the infobox should be based on such a comment that was made (unless there are sources that describe this as the motive for the attack) so it would be better to just omit or mention this as disputed in that case.
Mellk (
talk)
05:11, 22 October 2023 (UTC)reply
No - that passage "I don't like Mondays" was cherry-picked from what she actually said to the reporter, which was: "I just wanted to. I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day. I shot a pig, I think, and I want to shoot some more." So according to that quote, her motive could have been because she "wanted to" or to "liven up the day" or she wanted to "shoot some pigs", which apparently she fantasized about per this article from
February 9, 1979 and
she talked again about killing police. And then there is the matter of her constantly changing her story at parole hearings. Since we have no real evidence of her motive, it should state unknown in the infobox.
Comment: When we say this is a stupid reason, what are we comparing it to? It seems to me like any time somebody does something like this, the reason is necessarily stupid,
res ipsa loquitur. There is no such thing as a really smart, intelligent reason for murdering random people. If they were intelligent they wouldn't do that, so I think we have to take their word for it. jp×
g🗯️05:59, 5 November 2023 (UTC)reply
The article confusingly briefly references a "girlfriend" as a cause for self-harm/suicide attempt; this is ambiguous because while it would usually imply she is lesbian, it is also sometimes used for other relationships. Some googling suggests that she has publicly stated that she is lesbian, but nothing in the article covers this. If this is the case and it's been relevant to her prison life, then it should be appropriately referenced and the usual metadata added like . --
Gwern (contribs) 16:53 20 December 2023 (GMT)
I made the original motive edit, sorry for wreaking havoc guys I just came back to this article
My original thought process is just that a motive is your reason for doing a crime and her reason was clearly not a dislike for Mondays so I removed it to minimize confusion
Not experienced with Wikipedia edits :(
Blinkygoober (
talk)
07:19, 14 January 2024 (UTC)reply
The following is a closed discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a
move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: moved. Moved per nom. Two editors favored the nominated title, with two others favoring
1979 Cleveland Elementary School shooting, although not a hard "support", a third the nom, derp20:14, 16 February 2024 (UTC) noted that the year is atypical, so per
WP:NOTCURRENTTITLE, I am choosing the nom for now, and another discussion can optionally be opened later to settle on whether the second option was a better choice. (
closed by non-admin page mover)
ASUKITE17:09, 16 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Comment: This page was only recently renamed (Nov 6, 2023) from Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego) to 1979 Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego), with edit summary "Per
WP:NCE: when, where, and what happened. Also, per many other article titles for many other school shootings across decades."
IOHANNVSVERVS (
talk)
00:08, 11 February 2024 (UTC)reply
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.