Talk:Stephen Reid (writer)

Page move

The recent move of this page from Stephen Reid (writer) (its longstanding title of 13 years) to Stephen Reid (bank robber) was undiscussed and unexplained — and when you get right down to it, he's fundamentally more notable as a writer than as a bank robber, because Jackrabbit Parole is infinitely more central to getting him over our notability standards than any of the events that got him sent to prison in the first place are: without the book, he would have been a forgotten footnote to history, and the book is what made him famous enough that anybody would expect an article about him to exist at all. So I'm not going to revert the move arbitrarily without discussion, but the move also never should have happened in the first place without discussion. Bearcat (talk) 17:59, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Not sure if a forgotten footnote would be accurate to describe him - he was a member of a notable bank robbery gang that stretch Canada and the United States taking part in over 100 robberies, some the biggest at the time including the gold heist in Ottawa and the robbery in San Diego - also him being the one who gave the name its namesake, The Stopwatch Gang from him always wearing the stopwatch. If it weren't for his past, the book wouldn't have been made. He was a convicted felon, twice, in and out of jail several times, and even after writing the book, he went to jail. I would say he is more notable for being a bank robber as several criminals take to writing while in prison. Calling him a writer seems like we are trying to hide his past - he was a bank robber for much longer than a writer and that's how he got his notoriety. We're not going to call a mobster a business man are we? I admit his presence as a writer probably increased when he married Musgrave and won a writing award, but to say he is a writer foremost does not seem fitting in the scope of his life. Vaselineeeeeeee^★★★ 18:22, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

We don't choose disambiguators on the basis of "the scope of the subject's entire life", we choose disambiguators on the basis of "what's the primary notability claim that's getting this person an article in the first place?". Most members of organized crime rings are relatively anonymous to the public, and would not qualify for standalone biographical articles just because they were members of organized crime rings — there's a reason two of the four members of the Stopwatch Gang don't have articles at all, and there's a reason that the only ones who do have articles are the leader and the one who became a notable writer. The one and only reason anybody outside the organized crime division of the RCMP would ever remember Stephen Reid's name in the first place is because he wrote a book, and even the sources in the article testify to that — other than the one source that's about the whole gang, every source that's specifically about Reid himself postdates the publication of Jackrabbit Parole and discusses him in the context of Jackrabbit Parole. If he hadn't written books, he would just be a redirect to the article on the gang rather than having his own biographical article — the books are what actually lifts him over the bar required to qualify for his own separate article instead of just redirecting to the group he was part of, which means the books are his primary notability claim. It's the same as the reason why Michael Bryant is still disambiguated as "politician" even though he's not in politics anymore and has gone back into law-related advocacy work: because his time in politics is the reason why he qualified to have an article in the first place. Bearcat (talk) 20:28, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Reluctantly, I moved it back. For the record, there has been no record of a fourth gang member "Grant Bethel" - removed from main page. Vaselineeeeeeee^★★★ 03:15, 8 September 2019 (UTC)