Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres

List of massacres

Currently the page list of massacres is protected due to protracted edit wars. There have been meaningful discussions about how the introduction to the page could be altered so that only entries supported by reliable third party sources were used. But the problem is that the word massacre has no agreed definition that can be attached to a category of offences and it is used in a by third party sources in an arbitrary way. One incident may be described as a massacre in a third party source, while another very similar incident is not.

A requested move to "List of mass killings" failed less than a month ago because, AFAICT, the list would be very large and most thought it even more of a vague title and open to more WP:POV interpretations than the current name. This is also considered to be a problem with all the other names to date that have been suggested.

There are some sections of the article that can be salvaged and placed into new articles which are not contentious, two such articles already exist List of school-related attacks and Going postal, and the two sub-lists from this article that could be salvaged are "massacres during labour conflicts", and "Criminal and non-political massacres". Much of the rest of the article are either covered in other articles eg "State-sponsored genocides" are covered much better in the Genocide article, or are just an arbitrary collection of events which editors with various POVs have added to the article. For example the air forces of the belligerents in World War II launched scores and scores of strategic and tactical bomber raids every week of the war many of which which killed scores of people, yet the list of raids classified as massacres runs to four with no reason given as to why those four are selected as the only four raids that were massacres.

This leads to one final point. The list is as it is currently structured is far from complete, for example if all aerial bombardments from all wars that result deaths are included then it will many times larger and it is already has an edit size of 196K . Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletions. —FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:16, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weak delete: the page as it is now tries to include ever large scale killing and this will make the article unusable and unmaintainable, just because of the number of such events. The current structuring uses recent media jargon with the "state sponsored massacre". Most of the {{fact}} requests were applied mechanically - where the relevant article exists the references and details should not get duplicated over several places. Whole wars (e.g. Spanish Civil War) were inserted into the list.

If the contents is kept it should be broken into parts: first geographically by continent or subcontinent, then by date, without attaching further labels as war, state or religion. School shooting, workplace violence and gang wars should be separated into standalone lists. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 21:07, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why by continent? You say without attaching further labels to war, state or religion, but then immediately suggest that schools, workplace and gang wars should be labelled. Why those three and not others? Have you read the talk page? Because it is suggested that the current introduction should be replaced with a new one, and only massacres described as such will be included in the list in future if it survives this AFD --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:28, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By continent or by some well defined and established historical region - the smaller chance for potential disputes the better.

The reason why I think school shooting should not be included here - disregarding inflation of the term by current media, these are plain murders on somewhat larger scale. Remove the shooter and nothing will happen. A "proper massacre", IMHO, has some context and does not depend only on the behaviour of single individual. Get the crazed Olga Hepnarová better psychiatric treatment (or better parents) and eight people will live, switch the soldiers or organizers at Lidice and maybe some other village will be destroyed. My opinion. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 20:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have tried in vain to find reliable, academic or otherwise non-casual use of the term massacre. What constitutes a "proper massacre" versus something that is simply labeled one? Is Columbine Massacre a real massacre or just a proper one? It may be obvious to you but that is merely your own original research.--Mmx1 (talk) 20:28, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete for the reasons stated by the proposer who provides a good summary of the problems with the article. I also think that "non-political" massacres such as the recent school shootings in Finland and Westroads Mall massacre can be compiled with a wide consensus. (Sarah777 (talk) 21:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Keep: there are no rules against incomplete lists. This one is also useful. --Quoth nevermore (talk) 00:17, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Quoth nevermore" what is a massacre? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
mas·sa·cre /ˈmæsəkər/ noun, verb, -cred, -cring. –noun

1. the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.

2. a general slaughter, as of persons or animals: the massacre of millions during the war.

3. Informal. a crushing defeat, esp. in sports.

–verb (used with object)

4. to kill unnecessarily and indiscriminately, esp. a large number of persons.

5. Informal. to defeat decisively, esp. in sports.--Quoth nevermore (talk) 18:35, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Now define a "large number". Is 10 a massacre, or would you reserve such a term for anything over 500? It's an extremely subjective and ill-defined term. --Czj (talk) 23:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So "Quoth nevermore" which dictionary did you use? How does one judge if the killings were unnecessary or necessary? Does this mean that mass discriminate killings are never a massacre? What happens if a reliable source calls an event a massacre, but the killings were not indiscriminate but targeted killings, such as the killing at the end of the siege of Drogheda or the Massacre of Lvov professors or the Banka Island massacre, do they get into the list or not? If the do then what is the definition we are using and if they do not then it is not a list of massacres as defined by reliable 3rd party sources. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some people say that the word is "POV charged", in this case we cannot imply that a fact is a massacre without assuming a POV, and a "list of massacres" cannot exist in wikipedia.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 21:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. First define Massacre (WP:OR). Second, how long into history will we go back. Third, even if we go back in history only 300 years, there are so many massacres that this list will never be completed, and won't be helpful. Malinaccier (talk • contribs) 00:52, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, as much as I hate to say it. This is an indiscriminate and unmanageable list. The information on its own is helpful, but not in a format like this. Splitting into smaller, much more focused and well-sourced articles (a lot of which already exist) is much more meaningful and less arbitrary. --Czj (talk) 01:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The word indiscriminate does not apply here, as any review of WP:LIST will show. A list of blue-links is "indiscriminate" because there is no information provided that shows a distinction between the items on the list. This one, on the other hand, provides information about time and place, a summary, and the source of the information, and here at Wikipedia, we tend to like sourcing. Nor is it unmanageable, unless you're worried about new massacres being added every day. The only valid complaint I see here is that there's no clear definition of what's a massacre. Good well-sourced material that could stand better organization. Mandsford (talk) 01:15, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: There are literally thousands of mass killings that would qualify as "massacres"; this list will expand exponentially. As someone said, every bomb dropped in the past 90 years is potentially a massacre. (Sarah777 (talk) 02:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Delete. Perhaps this article may be recreated as sub articles (like "massacres of the Holocaust") etc. Please also note the following precedent:List of massacres committed during the al-Aqsa Intifada was split into smaller and more specific List of Israeli civilian casualties in the Second Intifada and List of Palestinian civilian casualties in the Second Intifada.Bless sins (talk) 01:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Could never be inclusive enough JPotter (talk) 05:09, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep I think the article is way too long for an article, so splitting it up sounds like a very good idea. Each section should be a page of its own, but the main page should remain, with links to each of the subpages. All of the concerns voiced by editors who voted to delete are well-founded, but deletion isn't the right way to deal with this. There is a lot of hard work behind each one of those tables. It should not be thrown away because of what amounts to no more than formatting errors. Cbdorsett (talk) 05:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The edit history, and the talk archives, shows that I spent a lot of effort on this list over the years -- including the proposing and implementing the splits into separate tables from one long one -- but I don't consider that a justification for keeping the article. If we do not use the suggested definition of a massacre is a massacre when a reliable third party source calls it a massacre, (with all the arbitrary inclusions and exclusions that entails), then AFAICT any other definition is either original research and/or a non neutral point of view. So what you think is a massacre? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:40, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete With a definition that makes everyone happy, you will include every killing of two or more for the entire history of the human race. Any definition that limits the list to a manageable size will be challenged by someone w POV for eliminating their favorite act of cruelty. If you post by continent, it will be painfully obvious the list is POV biased. If you post by year, the concealment of the bias will be only partial and give legitemate cause for complaint.67.161.166.20 (talk) 07:48, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep Will you delete every article that is "controversial"? Or are some killings less important/tragic than others? Or does it not conform to the widely accepted list victims or perpetrators? This is a place where (somewhat) accurate history of human suffering is documented without the usual bias that accompanies this subject. Some events listed here document the killings which, in numbers at least, rival the holocaust, but they are not as widely mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.205.248.117 (talk) 10:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep No list can ever be completely exhaustive and this is a useful resource. --djkinsella —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.186.75.73 (talk) 15:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Many lists on Wikipedia have fixed upper limit. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 20:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep This list deserves to be on Wikipedia. It directs you to the articles making it alot easier. This was the main source in my politics essay in college and this is how i go my sources. Chandlerjoeyross (talk) 17:45, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Would a collection of smaller separated lists be still useful for your work? Some pragmatic solution is needed, the page cannot grow w/o limits. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 20:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Unmanageably indistinct criteria of "massacre"--Mmx1 (talk) 20:28, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment/Keep & Split Article Well nobody can agree upon a massacre I would have to say that what ever has been labeled a Mass Killing/Spree/Murder be put in its own category and those we know to be called a Massacre be left. Example something like the Tulle Murders doesn't really count as a massacre as it was never really called a Massacre like the Malmedy Massacre. I would also like to suggest that all red links be removed if you are so concerned about controlling the article.
Delete - Absolutely unmanageable. There's no absolute authority on what the inclusion criteria for "massacre" is and the lines blur between mass killings, massacres and other terms which makes it totally unpractical. Each individual editor may have a different idea of what massacre means to them and in the end we'll have a gigantic list full of every killing involving more than 3 people. Delete. Spawn Man ^{Review Me!} 11:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - The term massacre is too subjective to keep this list manageable. Split material into smaller lists with more defined criteria for inclusion. AlphaEta 16:43, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Split - Split into lists with tight crieria for inclusion. Looks and feels v.POV as it stands Kernel Saunters (talk) 16:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment For those of us who haven't been reading all of the original arguments going back to 2002, I repeat the following observation to expand on "Kenel Saunters" comment on POV:

Using ONLY post WWII data FROM THIS PAGE (selected because no one can claim writing hadn't been invented yet), we have raw data as follows: "the west" (Wikipedia definition - Europe, Russia, and US), with 15% of the world's population, 109 massacres w 20,000 victims. "the rest of the world", with 85% of the world's population, 123 massacres 15,000,000 victims. This works out to about 200 victims for each western massacre, and 120,000 for each "rest of the world" massacre.