Talk:Operation Midland

"Darren"

There was a third accuser, "Darren", whose claims were found to be unsubstantiated in September 2015.

 JezGrove (talk) 00:07, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

/* Biography */

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/20/vip-paedophile-accuser-nick-appears-court-claims-lied-police/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.129.77.213 (talk) 18:18, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Carl Beech (paedophile) listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Carl Beech (paedophile). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. MelanieN (talk) 04:30, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Vishal Mehrotra and Martin Allen

Great work on the recent expansion of this article. Should Death of Vishal Mehrotra and Disappearance of Martin Allen be mentioned in this article? Midland brought renewed interest in these cases, we probably wouldn't even have articles on them if it weren't for this case. Beech had researched them before making allegations and sources at the time said their deaths were being investigated as part of Operation Midland. Police even told Martin Allen's family that his death was relevant to the investigation.LM2000 (talk) 23:44, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Categories

For "Crimes in the United Kingdom" by year, is it the year of the crime or the year of conviction? We have at present both 2014 and 2019, but cannot see any guidance in WP:BRITCRIME. Davidships (talk) 22:22, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

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

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

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You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:36, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

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:

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BBC News at Operation Midland

Moved from User talk:DeFacto

BBC News is treated as a publisher across WP—see innumerable FAs and GAs, e.g. 2016 Sleaford and North Hykeham by-election, Winston Churchill. Please don't revert again. Spicemix (talk) 17:16, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

@Spicemix, BBC News is the news work published by the BBC. See how Template:Cite news documents its parameters. It describes 'work' as for the "Name of the work containing the source" and 'publisher' as "the company, organization or other legal entity that publishes the work being cited", adding "Do not use the publisher parameter for the name of a work (e.g. a website, book, encyclopedia, newspaper, magazine, journal, etc.)". It also says of 'publisher', "Omit where the publisher's name is substantially the same as the name of the work". Hence for a cite of a BBC News article we use 'work=BBC News' and do not bother with publisher as 'publisher=BBC' adds nothing. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:43, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

"BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world." That is the consensus. "Do not use the publisher parameter for the name of a work" is of course completely correct—but BBC News is not a work, which is why that article title is not italic. Your post here is your opinion, but your opinion has no relevance—the only thing that matters is established policy. Featured Articles and Good Articles are not to be ignored, though you are ignoring them here. If you wish to change established WP policy then you must go to a higher forum: this page is not the place to do it. Spicemix (talk) 22:20, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

@Spicemix, yes, as I said, BBC News (the web work we often cite) is the news work published by the BBC. Similarly, Independent (aka The Independent) is the web work of Independent Digital News and Media Ltd. Why would we use 'work=The Independent' for the latter but 'publisher=BBC News' for the former (especially as the publisher is actually its parent, which is called just "BBC")?

Have you read Template:Cite news? You could argue that we should use both 'work=BBC News' and 'publisher=BBC', but I see no way that 'publisher=BBC News' can be used, not least because it is untrue, BBC News is not the publisher, it is the name the BBC use for its web-based news work. Read the foot of any BBC News article and you will see loud and clear "Copyright © [year] BBC".

As for your comments about featured and good articles, the evidence shows the contrary. There are currently 602 'featured articles' and 2444 'good articles' using 'work=BBC News' against 276 'featured' and 1061 'good' using "publisher=BBC News'.

Other commonly cited news web works where the 'work' names are commonly used, but not the 'publisher' names include: "work=The Guardian" ("publisher=Guardian News & Media Limited"), "work=The Telegraph" ("publisher=Telegraph Media Group Holdings Limited"), "work=The Times" ("publisher=Times Media Limited"), "work=Sky News" ("publisher=Sky UK"). -- DeFacto (talk). 09:37, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Comments: I've just taken a fairly quick look at three random 'featured articles': Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Mick Jagger. BBC News references for those three prominent musicians all seem to use the work parameter, not publisher. My understanding is that DeFacto is correct on this issue and that BBC News is the web-based news work and not the publisher.

My understanding of this is shared by another experienced editor Alarics, who has made thousands of edits to improve the formatting of references since 2009, but sadly mentioned in the edit here that he may not be able to edit for very much longer. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Alarics for all his work to improve references and wish him well. Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 15:57, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! -- Alarics (talk) 16:31, 12 April 2026 (UTC)