Talk:Leo Frank

I'm surprised it is not, for example, Lynching of Leo Frank, as that is what he is notable for. The vast vast majority of the contents here are event-based, not biographical, so the title seems rather misleading. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:20, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

This has been discussed in the past; the nutshell is that it's not just the lynching that's notable; the trial is notable as well, and so "Leo Frank" is the simplest title to encompass all notable aspects of the subject. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 21:09, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

That goes for most notorious crimes. We still cover them based around the event. The legal processes are still all part of the same event; if an alleged murderer receives coverage for allegedly murdering someone, the resulting legal proceedings, and then being convicted or found innocent, or executed, that is all still one event and its consequences, and we wouldn't therefore cover it as a biography article. This article is not structured like a biography despite being titled one. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:17, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

The legal processes are still all part of the same event; if an alleged murderer receives coverage for allegedly murdering someone, the resulting legal proceedings, and then being convicted or found innocent, or executed, that is all still one event and its consequences, and we wouldn't therefore cover it as a biography article. The problem with that logic is that extrajudicial killings fall outside such legal processes and are generally treated as distinct events from the victim's alleged crimes. Category:Extrajudicial killings and its subcategories (one of which contains this article) demonstrate this quite well. - ZLEA ^TǀC 22:18, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Wouldn't that mean that all lynching articles should be written as biography articles? The crime and trial are notable in most lynching cases as well. The category you link shows people who are notable outside of the killing and the crime. Category:Lynching deaths in the United States by state or territory shows the majority of such extrajudicial killing cases are written as event articles. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:22, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

When both the alleged crime (and associated trial) and lynching are significant events, then yes. I suppose there may be cases where the lynching is the only noteworthy event in an individuals life (for example, cases where there was no trial), but this certainly isn't one of them. - ZLEA ^TǀC 01:56, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

In general, simplicity should rule. There is the murder of Mary Phagan (let's not forget about her), the lynching of Frank, and the cause celebre that has ensued. I think Leo Frank is the simplest distillation. Adding more words doesn't help the reader. Acroterion (talk) 02:23, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

IMO it doesn't really matter whether this article is titled directly for the person or directly for the event, and indeed the question strikes me as incredibly uninteresting. Again IMO there are considerations that might make the distinction important for some contemporary people/events but they don't apply to historical figures. Feel free to start an RM about it if for some reason this kind of P&G-themed pedantry is important to you, but since now three other people have weighed in and none of them has said "yes I agree with you" it seems like a waste of time. --JBL (talk) 23:41, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Are talk page discussions supposed to be "interesting"?

I dislike inconsistency and this page is inconsistent with guidelines and other pages like it. I am trying to figure out why it is this way and the answer seems to primarily be inertia. But not much I can realistically do about that, so oh well. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:45, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

That's a matter of interpretation. "Lynching of Leo Frank." But the lynching of Leo Frank was actually not the only event. That was the awful culmination of the first act. The first event, as Acroterion says, was that Mary Phagan was killed at Frank's factory and he was arrested and put on trial, which became a notable cause on its own before the taking up of the crusade by the Knights of Mary Phagan and the spurring on in the antisemitic press. Then the conviction and the attempts at appeal and the imprisonment followed by the lynching, then followed by the pardon, the campaign for a fuller pardon, and the impact of the event to the field of antisemitism studies. That kind of makes Leo Frank a topic, an entire industry really. "Trial and lynching of Leo Frank" is better. But I think it's more important for the topic to be succinct and it could really be "Trial, lynching, and symbolism of Frank." Then isn't it just a Frank article? Biography-wise, it could stand to have more information about the actual guy and his personal and private life. Andre🚐 03:48, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, but what I am saying is that if you interpret it this way then effectively every criminal or alleged criminal who doesn't die by suicide after committing or not committing the crime they are accused of is notable; this is not how BIO1E is considered, with the singular event (the criminal case) broken up into a bunch of pieces, and BIO1E ceases to have a point. After all, there is a crime, a trial, often an execution, they are just as much "separate" as the ones here are.

If it read like a biography article I'd have less of an objection but it is structured like an event article. There are no normal biographical sections here; before early life we have the event-style background focusing on social conditions rather than his family, then we have an entire section on the background of a girl of comparable length to the one on the nominal subject, rather than career we have an WP:EVENT style murder-trial-death, with huge sections that barely mention Frank at all and go in depth to topics of tangential relevance to a biography on the man, then the consequences of an event. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:10, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

We have a page for Horst Wessel, Anne Frank and also Otto Frank her father, Saint Valentine, Polycarp, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Crispus Attucks, Emmett Till, Michael Schwerner, Mary Dyer, Ernst vom Rath. Incessant attempts to use this page to spread antisemitism have left lots of scar tissue in the article over the years; if that died down or the community discouraged the antisemites, we could write a better biography. MarkBernstein (talk) 04:48, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

The examples you mention either 1. share the problem 2. have other sources of notability, in which case BIO1E does not apply 3. are examples of BIO1E's allowance of having articles of people notable for one event as subtopics of sufficiently notable event articles (WP:BIO1E: "if media coverage of both the event and the individual's role grow larger, separate articles may become justified", keyword separate), e.g. Crispus Attucks.

I don't see much scar tissue, really, the article seems fine. It just doesn't seem like a biography. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:56, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

That's because it's not a biography. The title "Leo Frank" is the simplest title that covers all the bases of what the article is about; all the alternatives presented thus far have failed to capture the scope of the article. The only alternative I could see is something like "the Leo Frank case", but the word "case" doesn't really mean anything, so it can be elided. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 05:09, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

It's categorized as a biography, and the first sentence of the lead is written as a biography, its infobox is that of a biography, and several commentators in this discussion have said it is a biography, so I don't think that is the intention most of its editors have had. PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:21, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

This article covers two events: Frank's arrest, trial, conviction and commutation of sentence; and his lynching. Daveosaurus (talk) 07:21, 30 July 2026 (UTC)