Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/August 6

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[edit] Atomic bombing of Hiroshima

Whilst I think it is a good thing to rewrite anniversary entries to keep things fresh. However the rewrite on the bombing of Hiroshima, is inappropriate in my opinion. It previously read

along with an image that was previously an historical view of the destruction of Hiroshima, that I had recently changed to a Wikipedian's photo of the Genbaku Dome which is now a peace memorial marking the event.

Now User:PFHLai has twice rewritten it as

whilst replacing the image with one of little boy.

The problem is that this wording shifts the focus from 'thousands of people were killed in the first use of an nuclear bomb' to 'a technological bomb was dropped on a city'. Whilst many people might be interested in the plane and the bomb and the nuclear physics, on the 60th anniversary of the first use of nuclear weapons it is rather more appropriate to remember the human effects and the resulting peace memorial. -- Solipsist 06:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

That's too POV, I think. Explicitly redirecting the reader's attention to the number of civilians killed would be an attempt use their emotional reactions to suggest a particular view, that is, that the dropping of the bomb was bad. Wikipedia should not only report facts, but it should stick to the relevant facts. --malathion talk 06:39, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
We'd best call for comment, there only a day or so to get this decided. -- Solipsist 07:45, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm surprised I didn't get an edit conflict when I rewrote the item about the end of the Holy Roman Empire. I pressed the "Go Back" button to add a link to 'abdication', and I didn't even know I would revert Solipsist's edit. Hmmm... Anyway, good that I looked at my watchlist ..... good that Wikipedia keeps an edit history ....
I wasn't thinking about POV or anything when I made my edits. I like Image:Little boy.jpg because it's in English Wikipedia and easier to Mprotect. I took out the picture of the Genbaku Dome because the text may get too wordy in order to relate to the picture. I've have just restored Image:A-bomb dome closeup.jpg, with a slightly shortened ALT blurb. (Please Mprotected it at the Commons.) I took out the fatality count because I couldn't get the figure straight. The articles says "at least 120,000 people outright", not 80,000. I dunno which is right. I don't want to put questionable facts on the MainPage. And Enola Gay is a much better link to put on the MainPage than United States for this anniversary.
Is this good enough an explanation ? I may or may not be able to sign in tomorrow. Please go ahead and make changes the way you think is best. Cheers. -- PFHLai 07:50, 2005 August 4 (UTC)
Yes, I would agree the 80,000 figure is not ideal - in part because the actual number of people involved is more complicated - but it is also POV to ignore the human angle completely. (thanks for the explanation on the revert) -- Solipsist 07:56, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Ooops... This is a little embarrassing: I misread the article ! The 120k number in the first sentence of Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki refers to both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 80k for Hiroshima alone is actually correct. I'll put the number back onto the Sel.Anniv. template. -- PFHLai 19:57, 2005 August 4 (UTC)

I'd say that the second version is definitely worse than the first -- the Enola Gay is, of course, not sentient, and I think it looks odd to ascribe the dropping of the bomb to the plane. It's a U.S. government decision and should be noted as such. I would lean towards a mention of the casualties. The reason this is a selected anniversary is not that it is the first A-Bomb drop ever (the Manhattan Project had tests prior to this) or the biggest bomb ever --it's that it was the first atomic bomb dropped as an act of war intending to cause casualties. As such, explicit mention of a casualty figure is relevant to the reason it's an anniversary (just ask yourself...had Little Boy been test-dropped on an atoll on the 6th of August and killed no one, would it qualify as a selected anniversary?). Any writeup that doesn't mention casulaties is unnecessarily revisionist. No need to over-emotionalize the topic (I think the word "outright" in the first version tinges the sentence a bit, but maybe I'm over-reacting), but definitely a need to mention a casualty figure. Jwrosenzweig 07:52, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

To me, it make good sense to ascribe the dropping of the bomb to the plane, as the bomb was indeed released from the plane and then it went downwards where it was detonated. Of course, it was the US government who controlled things from afar, and I ain't saying 'the US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima' is inaccurate or wrong, but I suppose 'deploy' might be a better verb than 'drop' in this case ....
I don't like the word 'outright' either. I am more familiar with its use to mean 'openly and without reservation' or 'with no outstanding conditions', rather than to mean 'at once'. I may change it. -- PFHLai 19:57, 2005 August 4 (UTC)
PFHLai's point about the Enola Gay link is a reasonable one...but as the highlighted article is the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I don't see it as a major reason to remove the U.S. from being mentioned altogether. A writeup that included both links would be fine by me, but possibly too long. Jwrosenzweig 07:53, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Maybe I should clarify what I meant: For this blurb on the Sel.Anniv.section on the MainPage, a link to the wikipage Enola Gay is much better than a link to the wikipage United States. The former is obviously relevant, but the latter has hardly any info relevant to this anniversary. Perhaps we can mention that Enola Gay is a B-29 Superfortress of the U.S. Army Air Force, eh ? -- PFHLai 19:57, 2005 August 4 (UTC)

How's about;

-- Solipsist 17:19, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Not bad....to take in PFH's idea, though, I counter with

--Jwrosenzweig 22:11, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

How about this ?

Is shorter better ? I don't mind having the death toll back in there, but I really don't like brackets. BTW, it's about time to protect things coming onto the MainPage. -- PFHLai 22:51, 2005 August 5 (UTC)

[edit] Is a presidential breifing really that important?

Is a breifing of the US president really more important than, say, the independance of Bolivia? Gentgeen 20:41, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I realize now that Bolivia's independance is in the holiday section, didn't see that before. However, a daily breifing (which August 6 notes contained no actionable inteligence) isn't really one of the five most important things to happen August 6. Besides, three (or four if you count Tim Berners-Lee, who later moved to the US) of the five items are US related. Gentgeen 20:53, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I've displaced the item about the daily briefing with one about Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan becoming emir and ruler of Abu Dhabi in 1966. Better now ? :-) -- PFHLai 23:16, 2005 August 6 (UTC)
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