Talk:UK newspapers face libel, privacy action over murder coverage

Related news
Only the more recent of the two related articles has been used to source any information - namely, the recent success against the Sun and Daily Mail in a contempt of court action. Only that little bit of the article was taken from there. Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 12:12, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Headline
To me "UK murder suspect" implies that he is a current suspect. But I can't think of a safer headline that isn't clumsy and doesn't rely on prior knowledge. Anyone? Or am I just being too cautious? the wub "?!"  15:45, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd say it's over-cautious if your concern is us (WMF) or me getting a libel writ ourselves/myself. However, from a simple quality perspective, I can see why we'd wanna change it. How about UK newspapers face libel, privacy action over murder coverage? It loses the active voice, but it's my best idea. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 15:52, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, "cautious" probably wasn't the right word to pick - I'm certainly not suggesting we'd get sued! The hot weather is making my brain word dumb... things.
 * Your suggestion sounds good and I've done the rename. I've never understood some people's fetishisation of active voice to be honest, passive works fine if it's well chosen. the wub "?!"  16:02, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm jealous. I'm two days back from warmer climes, and already my weather is replaced with grey grot.
 * I think I'd agree, although choosing it well is more difficult. My favoured change is immediacy - e.g. using says instead of said for very recent quotations. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 16:07, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Quoting from here:
 * 1) "Expressing the same idea in passive voice frequently takes 30% to 40% more words"
 * 2) "Passive voice requires more "weak" words. It uses abstract words like is /am /are /was /were /being /been, the demonstrative pronoun (the), and prepositions like by and of."
 * 3) "The passive voice clause can be confusing or unclear, especially in long sentences."
 * 4) "Passive voice often leads to awkward or stilted writing"
 * 5) "Linguistic studies show that native English speakers are better able to remember material they read in active voice than the same material in passive voice."
 * I practically needed passive voice beaten out of me when I started writing on Wikinews. It is ideal for writing software specifications or proposals because you don't always want the precision at a higher level and the actual detail spec is going to be near-pseudocode. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:01, 22 April 2011 (UTC)