Talk:Mugging

Mugging has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: October 9, 2025. (Reviewed version).

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A fact from Mugging appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 March 2025 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that when the crime of mugging gained attention in the UK, one book argued that there was no crime as such?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2025/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Mugging.

Wikipedia

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by LunaEclipse talk 19:43, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(

Comment or view
Article history

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... that when the crime of mugging gained attention in the UK, one book argued that there was no such crime?

Source: [1] They argue: 1. There is no legal category of 'mugging' as such: 'muggings' actually span a number of legal categories ...

ALT1: ... that mugging has been blamed on fans of funk music? Source: [2] The newspapers blamed gangs of funkeiros, or fans of Brazilian funk music, which came to the beaches on buses from neighbourhoods in the poorer areas of the city.
Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Durrr Burger

Moved to mainspace by Vigilantcosmicpenguin (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 34 past nominations.

— Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 04:53, 14 March 2025 (UTC).[reply]

Article is in great shape, all things seems to be in line with DYK criteria, both hooks look nice to be featured! Arconning (talk) 16:41, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Order of "Works cited"?

@Vigilantcosmicpenguin, TechnoSquirrel69, Robertsky, Rodw, ThaesOfereode, and Jlwoodwa: Greetings and felicitations. Currently the "Works cited" subsection is (per the comment) "ordered by frequency of citation". Is that sustainable? Also, IMHO it makes it difficult to find a particular cited reference, and it definitely is not intuitive. Might we change it to the standard alphabetical order? —DocWatson42 (talk) 01:00, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I think it should be changed. Is "by frequency" used by any major citation style at all? ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:03, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

MLA and APA uses by alphabetical last name of first author. If same last name, then by year of publication. – robertsky (talk) 01:20, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Offhand, Chicago adds that if there is no credited author, the publisher is used. At least that's what I use. —DocWatson42 (talk) 01:25, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly can't remember why I chose this ordering. You're right that it's unintuitive; I agree that a more standard order would make more sense. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 01:18, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any objection to my changing it (it will likely be a few days until I have the time)? —DocWatson42 (talk) 17:25, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps next week? —DocWatson42 (talk) 05:12, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Fixed some harv errors while I was at it. ThaesOfereode (talk) 11:48, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

'Mugging originated in 1940s United States'

The text says 'Mugging originated in 1940s United States, when blackouts of World War II enabled committing crimes in the dark.' And to the right of this claim, there is a picture of a '1904 newspaper illustration of a mugging, described as a "hold-up"'. This is an obvious contradiction. Even without the picture, I find it obviously untrue that there were no cases of 'robbery and street crime ... in public places' anywhere in the world (or even just in the US) before the 1940s. 62.73.72.3 (talk) 05:56, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, now I see that the text later says that the concept of mugging originated in 1940s United States. That's a very different claim. I've corrected the sentence in the lede accordingly. I still don't know that this says much more besides the fact that there arose a separate English-language word for mugging distinct from the word for robbery in general.--62.73.72.3 (talk) 06:08, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Mugging/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Vigilantcosmicpenguin (talk · contribs) 20:44, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Fwedthebwead (talk · contribs) 18:23, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll review this! Fwedthebwead (talk)

Sorry the review took a little while (please keep in mind I'm a beginner reviewer so I'm sorry if there are any mistakes).

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it well written?
A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:
This is just a suggestion that isn't needed for the criteria, but in Origins, I would change describing Benjamin J. Davis Jr. from "a Communist politician" to "an African-American politician" so it makes more sense as to how he pertains to the point being discussed.

B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:
Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?
A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

C. It contains no original research:

D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
Is it neutral?
It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
Is it stable?
It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:
Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
Overall:
Pass or Fail:
Congrats on getting GA for this article!

Fwedthebwead (talk)

@Fwedthebwead: Hi, thanks for taking this review! Did you complete a source spotcheck to ensure the article contains no original research or copyright violations? If you have not done this step, the review is considered incomplete, so it's best to state which sources you have checked. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 17:07, 9 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Vigilantcosmicpenguin Ah sorry I didn't realize I had to list them. I did spot checks for "Motives for mugging include need for money, desire to increase social status, and the thrill of the act." (14th citation), "It is often associated with night," (21st citation), the statistic on "London's mugging rate increased 129% between 1968 and 1972." (43rd citation), and the thesis "A liberal is someone who has not been mugged" (71st citation). I'll make sure I remember to include what I spot checked in future reviews, thank you for telling me! Fwedthebwead (talk) 20:28, 9 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]