Please group cases by location, not case status

[sl77]

Dear Mods,

The Clydach murders is one of the most intriguing in the UK. Sky produced a 4 hour documentary a couple of years ago and it was widely watched. However, nobody participates in the Clydach thread on Websleuths, because it's in "Recently sentenced and beyond".

Claudia Lawrence is a very famous UK case, but it's filed under "Missing", it's not even in the "Crime" section.... even though 99.99% it was a crime.

Grouping cases by their status is weird. Someone goes missing..... their topic is in the "missing" category. Eventually their killer is convicted. So either you leave the thread in the Missing group, or you move the thread to "Recently sentenced and beyond"? Either way it's not ideal.

People are primarily interested in cases from their country/state. It would be better to group by location. Have a group for each US state and then one for Canada, UK etc.

Clydach Murders, Claudia Lawrence, Suzy Lamplugh, they should all be in the same sub-forum (UK).

100% you will get more user interaction from this.

 

[Sillybilly]

To find the Clydach murders for example, a member can utilize the search feature at the top right of any page and enter "Clydach" and click on the box to search titles. It remains in "Recently Sentenced & Beyond" because there was a trial and ultimate conviction.

There is a natural and logical organizational sequencing to where threads are located. Regardless of what country, after a Missing Person is located it gets moved into Located Persons Discussion. Then if/when an arrest is made, the title is edited to reflect *Arrest* and when charges are actually laid, it gets moved to the "Awaiting Trial" sub forum. When a trial starts, it then gets moved into the "Ongoing Trial" sub forum, and when trial is over, into "Sentencing & Beyond".

A body has never been found in Claudia's case and no person has ever been arrested. If/when that happens the title would be edited to "Found ..." and moved into the sub forum "Located Persons Discussion". If/when a perpetrator is arrested, it would follow the sequence set out in the above paragraph.

 

[Sillybilly]

Here is a sample page from the Missing Persons Discussion. To the left of each thread title is a prefix showing a country of state abbreviation, i.e. UK, AZ. VA., etc. If a member wishes to see all posts from a specific country of state, they just have to click on that prefix tag and it will bring up all missing persons cases from that country or state.

So clicking on the UK prefix to the left of Serren Bennett's name, it will bring up all missing persons cases with the prefix UK and this is what you will see: