Talk:FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Would it not be better to make a link to the current Most Wanted list, rather then keep having to update it in Wikipedia? DJ Clayworth 14:11, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I agree. There's no point in redesigning the wheel, especially since only one of the people on the list has an article on Wikipedia. I also deleted the America's Most Wanted comment, because that isn't really what the show is about. RickK 04:24, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Actually, I think it's useful having the current top ten here because it's a good jumping off point to creating articles about them. What would be nice is to also have a list page with all five hundred or so previous members of the most-wanted list on it, since they'd all be notable criminals probably worth having articles about. Bryan 07:32, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Usama Bin Laden is not wanted in connection for the terrorist attacks in 9-11. check the page again.

Take down the wanted posters. This isn't a post office, or a newspaper. The page should deal with the history of the list, its reason for creation, famous (or infamous) fugitives, where it's appeared (in Dick Tracy, for instance), how long the average time on the list is (316 days), that like. Trekphiler 04:00, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

"in no particular order"

The FBI doesn't number them and neither should Wikipedia. Perhaps the page should explain why they're not ranked -- I always heard it was to keep the baddies from vying for the top slot. I still think it's funny that the nation's chief law enforcement officer would say "I don't know where he is...I just don't spend that much time on him"[1] about anyone on this list. Ewlyahoocom 08:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I added the FBI sequence numbers, and dates of entry, with explanation. This is different from 1-10 ranking earlier discussed and removed on February 7, 2006. I think the sequence numbers are important, and interesting, because lots of information can be reasoned from them - how long on the list, how many gaps, how many entries per year, etc. Also, the sequence numbers were all formally published at one time in a pdf file which has since been removed by the FBI - http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/topten/topten.pdf, but may exist elswhere.Steven Russell 05:36, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Per discussion above, I built and linked the historical top 10 lists of suspects, sorted by decade, in the FBI sequence of appearance order. This should help people to keep this page as it has been, to current match the FBI list of suspects, and to also allow more information to be presented about the list itself, rather than about each individual. The new lists I created will now allow people to create archive articles of individual profiles of suspects, while having a permanent home page for those articles to link up to. As mentioned above, there are quite a few of the fugitives who should have articles written about them. For my format on the new pages, I matched the format of this page as close as possible, for consistency. One additional change that might help this page is to also re-sort the current suspects by date - that is, if the preference here is not to simply match the order displayed by the FBISteven Russell 16:44, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I have sorted the list and ordered by when added to the FBI list. Also, I now understand why you formatted the new pages in the particular way. I'm not entirely sure I like the format of this page, and think some of the details can be moved into articles about the fugitives themselves. And the FBI links can go into the fugitive articles, and/or referenced properly at the end of the page. And, more discussion on the history of the list is appropriate here. -Aude (talk | contribs) 18:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Can you explain why you prefer the table format over this simple paragraph list format here? This current format is attractive, and simple and easy on the eye. Tables on the other hand tend to look overly academic, and hence may lose interest. Also, tables require too much winnowing down of full statmements into mere bullet points, which turns each mini-summary (interesting to read) into a bullet point list of short phrases (boring to read and monotonous). I understand that Wikipedia has a format standard, but is it really necessary to put the format in line with that, at the sacrifice of readability? Maybe the table looks better on your screen, but I have an older pc system, and it tends to display very columnar in the table format, with lots of dead white space on my view of the table. But it seems the format could go either way, so I am working on other pages right now, so I don't conflict with your work. I have lots more data to add. I agree with you that "hundreds" of entries is too much on a page. Not a problem, except for the 1950's and 1960's, when the first several hundred fugitives were named. So I plan to further parse those decades down into a fugitives by year page, for the 20 years, and keep those decade pages to just a summary and jumping off point for each of the years. That would make each 1950's - 1960's page contain about 15 fugitives, which is very much in line with this home page. Each group of fugitives taken as a group (by decade or by year) is of interest in itself, because it reflects the changing times, and how the FBI deals with fugitives (2000's is very sparse, because of re-focus of FBI on terrorism, software upgrades, etc., 1990's is largely terrorists because of lack of Most Wanted Terrrorists list back then, 1980's is a bit sparse, maybe because of better law enforcement techniques resulting in quick captures, 1970's list is large, lots of suspects added each year, and 1960's and 1950's lists are huge with lots and lots of suspects, back in the pre-computer days when it was all tracked on paper. On this home page, there is a lot of parsable summary data of interest that is available to be added, for interesting reading as well.Steven Russell 20:30, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone not think the whole "Ten most wanted" concept is ridiculous to the point of it almost being a parody? Is the list tongue in cheek or what? The stuff on Osama Bin Laden is laughably absurd.

Perhaps, but it's a result of actions by the decision makers at the FBI. The purpose here (mine at least) is to record history, and the FBI Ten list is an historical (and ongoing) fact of public interest. The bin Laden page is of course in an ongoing battle, but his FBI listing as a Top Ten member is objectively historical, and can be simply featured here with that intent. The Top Ten list is really a legacy of the post World War II pre-1950's crime wave (perhaps a legacy of Prohibition, immigration, post-war sentiments, rise of crime families, etc.) Maybe the 1950's page can deal with more of that context of the origins of the list.-Steven Russell 20:58, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


Not correct

  • Warren Steed Jeffs is not #481 but #482.
  • 481 is Michael Paul Astorga.
  • 464 is Francis William Murphy
  • 465 is Dwight Bowen, captured in Richmond, Virginia

82.157.241.241 19:23, 12 May 2006 (UTC)