Talk:List of wars and disasters by death toll

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Please put new comments at the end (not here). Thank you. --JohnFlaherty 17:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Archives 2 Order of list 3 Revert 4 Stalin 5 Page Title 6 Factual accuracy and neutrality regarding genocide and democide 7 Concession on "wars of aggression" 8 Latest Iraq figures 9 F, not PH 10 Confused 11 Grand project 12 Unprotect please 13 Unverified material 13.1 Citations 14 Unprotected 15 Revisions 15.1 Sporting events 16 Siege of Tenochtitlan 17 Victims of the Soviet Penal System under Stalin 18 Spain 19 Battle of Tinian 20 Merge? 21 USER 146.145.227.194, how can you be so biased? 22 Discredited Lacet Reports 23 Abortion? 24 How are abortion statistics a POV? 25 1,634,000[9] - Democides by the United States (1900-1987) 26 High Tolls of Ancient Wars and Battles 27 User 139.168.7.30 28 Sortable table 29 References 30 Deaths or Casualties 31 busted dam and huge flood in china in the 70s

[edit] Archives

• Talk:List of wars and disasters by death toll/Archive 1

[edit] Order of list

The intro says "The incidents are ranked by the highest estimate given." However, this is not the case. Should the order be changed, or should the intro be changed? BD2412 T 02:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I vote for changing the intro. Not only is that easier, but I find the list more comfortable to skim when ranges are sorted by their lower value. When sorted by the high value it appears unsorted if skimming. Sethery 02:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Change the intro. I spent considerable time ordering most of the original page, and would hate to see it being for nought. Also, it is obviously easier to change a single word (in the intro) rather than re-arrange the entire page again. ComaDivine 11:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• Change the intro it is!!! BD2412 T 15:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revert

I reverted the additions and changes by User:144.137.157.234. I discovered him through some vanity entries, and the numbers he posted here are way off. Populations weren't that high back then. Please double check and source them. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Exactly what aztec conquests are you talking about? Surely not the New America Conquests. Because if so you have the wrong years, the wrong title, and the wrong death count. But I cant find any other aztec conquests during those years.

^To the above, how is it possible that the Aztecs lost 60,000,000, when at the HEIGHT of Aztec power, Montezuma only had power over around 10-20 million? Even if the denizens of the central Mexican Valley had a death rate of 100%, it wouldn't be anywhere near 60 mil, ESPECIALLY considering the THREE year time span given, and even MORE considering the conquests lead only by Cortes? If anything, the 60,000,000 "Aztec" conquests should go under "the destruction of the Native American population." I'm going to delete that line entirely, and replace it with "Siege of Tenochtitlan", under the appropriate area.

[edit] Stalin

Not going to revert here, but come on Gato... How can you justify moving Stalin so low. Estimated 3 million killed? That is barely more than Pol Pot. You know that is wrong.--JohnFlaherty 09:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Did I say 3 million? I thought I posted 4. Oh well, I think 4 is probably the more reasonable figure for the low.

Haven't got the refs right in front of me, but Wheatcroft maintains that Stalin is responsible for no more than about 1 million purposive killings, and another 3 million or so by deliberate neglect in the Gulags and labour camps, etc.

Wheatcroft maintains however that the victims of the famine were not purposive at all, but due to ineptitude. While the regime is obviously culpable for these deaths, ineptitude is not the same as deliberate murder. Therefore those deaths do not fit the definition of either genocide or democide.

So the low for Stalin must be 4 million, as per Wheatcroft's conclusions.

On the other hand, it occurs to me that perhaps there should be some sort of category on this page for human-made disasters of this kind, which may not fit the definition of genocide or democide but are human-made disasters on a massive scale deserving of inclusion regardless.

As for the Nazi aggression in WWII, it was declared illegal by the Nuremberg tribunal in 1946, whose conclusions have the status of international law. As such it is virtually the only war in history that has been declared illegal, and its victims therefore by extension victims of democide - that is, murder by government, according to Rummel's definition. Gatoclass 10:37, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is Stalin even on this page? Are we accepting Nazi and American propaganda into Wikipedia stats now? Idiotic. -G

It is not propaganda. Stalin has been responsible for millions, if not tens of millions, deaths. Maybe you should stop believing the communist party's "historians".

To quote a sourced section on Stalin - "Regardless, it appears that a minimum of around 10 million surplus deaths (4 million by repression and 6 million from famine) are attributable to the regime, with a number of recent books suggesting a probable figure of somewhere between 15 to 20 million." - This is nothing other than mass murder J.StuartClarke

[edit] Page Title

And just while I'm passing by, I couldn't help but notice that the title of this page does not appear to be a very accurate description of the contents - since the page contains a large number of listings not only of "wars and disasters", but also of genocides, democides and massacres.

While I haven't come up with an alternative yet, I would certainly support a change of some sort. Gatoclass 10:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Factual accuracy and neutrality regarding genocide and democide

This section (and the rest of the article) does not cite its sources. Some of the figures are obviously false. For example, the number of American Indians killed include those that died from new diseases from the old world. That was not intentional and thus not genocide or democide.Ultramarine 16:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I think maybe this whole page should be deleted. It certainly needs major reworking. I do not want Gatoglass making wholesales changes by fiat that reflect his biases. That also goes for me and other as well however. This could be a huge task.--JohnFlaherty 17:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I quite agree U/M. I am working on some tables right now - I think tables are probably the best way to present this sort of data. I intend to include notes where appropriate - disease obviously needs to be mentioned in relation to the Americas, for example. I also agree that the section needs more refs, although I did include a few more last night. Gatoclass 17:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Now that I've got started on it, I'm not sure I agree John. After all, this page I'm sure has its regulars and I doubt they'll be too happy with your proposal.

As I said, I'm working on a table to present this information a bit more tidily ATM. This is how far I've got so far - obviously there's a great deal more to do though:

Table 1: GENOCIDES AND DEMOCIDES, sorted by lowest estimate

Description	Location	Date	Leader / Regime	Type	Low	High	Further links	Notes
European slave trade	Africa	1600's - 1900's	Various European	D	30	200	-	-
Purges, famine	Communist China	1949-75	Mao Zedong	D	27	72	-	-
Muslim slave trade	Africa	700's - 1900's	Various	D	11	19	-	-
Nazi democides/genocides	Europe	1939-45	Adolf Hitler	G,D	20	26	-	See Table 2
Japanese democides/genocides	Asia/Pacific	1930's - 1945	Hideki Tojo, others	D	5	30	Japanese war crimes	Mostly in China
Native exploitation	Congo Free State	1877 - 1908	King Leopold II of Belgium	D	5	30	-	-
Political purges	Soviet Union	1924-53	Joseph Stalin	D	4	50	-	-
Conquest of the Americas	The Americas	1492 - ~1900	European, USA various	D, ID	2	200	-	Mostly by disease
Khmer Rouge Genocide	Cambodia	1975-79	Pol Pot	D,G	2	3	-	-
Armenian Genocide	Turkey	1895 - 1923	Various	G	1	3	-	-
Rwandan Genocide	Rwanda	1994	Unknown	G	0.937	-	-	-
Croatian war crimes	Croatia	1941-45	Ustasha Movement	G	0.4	-	-	mainly of Serbs, Jews and Roma
Ethnic/Political purges	Uganda	1971-79	Idi Amin	D	0.3	-	-	-
Anticommunist purge	Indonesia	1965-66	President Suharto	D	0.25	1	-	-
Invasion/occupation	East Timor	1970-99	President Suharto	D	0.15	0.3	-	mostly during 1970's
Anti-indigenous terror	Guatemala	1962-96	Rios Montt	D,G	0.2	-	-	-
Religious warfare	India	?-1840	Thuggee	N/A	0.1	-	-	-
Repression of Catholics	England	1509-47	King Henry VIII	D	0.075	-	-	-
N/A	Namibia	1904-08	Unknown	N/A	0.04	.1	Herero Massacre	-
Political repression	France	1793-94	Jacobins	D	0.018	0.06	Reign of Terror	-
Repression	Haiti	1964-71	"Papa Doc" Duvalier	D	0.03	-	-	-
Repression	Argentina	1976-83	Galtieri	D	0.01	0.3	-	-
Ethnic cleansing	Spanish Netherlands	1567-73	Duke of Alba	G	0.018	-	-	-
Repression	Chile	1973-90	Augusto Pinochet	D	0.003	-	-	-

"ID" under "conquest of the americas" stands for "introduced disease, BTW. Gatoclass 17:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay. At least we are talking again.

I have requested that the page be "Protected" until we can work this out. It is massive and the revert wars could get ugly (especially if others get involved. You and I are on speaking terms with a history and cannot seem to avoid it).

I propose reverting back to the original content before we got involved. It is the only fair thing to do until we can hash this out.--JohnFlaherty 17:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC) Heck, John, I see no reason to revert all the changes I made. I went to a lot of trouble to add a lot of links to that page already. It's much better than it was before, even though it still needs a lot of work. Didn't Ultra slap a disputed tag on it? I think that should more than suffice for now. Gatoclass 17:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that is enough. Maybe I should not have reverted all the changes. What changes do you think are reasonable? I am willing to go with the low of 4 million for now (as insulting as it is) but the changes on Nazi Germany/WWII are unacceptable to me. That needs to be discussed more.--JohnFlaherty 17:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I changed the Stalin reference back to what you had posted. That was tough for me for the record.--JohnFlaherty 17:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, look, I'll agree to leave out the reference to Nazi Germany for now - though for the life of me I cannot understand why you would want to. Are you so fixated on your loathing of Stalin and Mao that you cannot acknowledge the terrible carnage Hitler unleashed upon the world? But for the sake of peace, and since you've agreed to leave the Stalin ref, as it is, I'll put that aside for now. As long as the disputed sticker is up, I'm cool.

However, what I will try to do is present some refs to demonstrate my case that the Nazis need to be included. It might take me a day or two to dig them up tho.

Meanwhile, I might revert the page back to my last edit, except that I will edit out the reference to Nazi Germany. Then everything else will be essentially the same as before except for the additional formatting and links I previously added. Gatoclass 17:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Gato...SO MANY of these numbers can be disputed and the ranges are ridiculous. We have the same problem here with Stalin as we did on the Stalin page. $ and 50 million are both ridiculous.

Secondly, that number on the Nazi's in unacceptable. It belong under wars and the Holocaust and other Nazi attorcities under Hitler belong in the Genocide category. Those numbers include millions who are NOT genocide victims. The whole point of the section is to lay out criminal deaths by mosters and criminal regimes. For crying out loud, Stalin was IN on Poland with Hitler! That started the war!--JohnFlaherty 17:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I am going to turn that ridiculous insult right back at you - are you so fixated on loathing Hitler and defending Stalin that you cannot acknowledge the terrible carnage Stalin and Communism unleashed upon the world? How dare you! I never said Hitler was not a monster! You are the king of straw man arguments sir.

That is one of the things that seperate you and I. I am WILLING to deal in truth and reality with actual WORDS that have MEANING. Of course I loath Stalin. Of course I loathe Hitler. What sane human being would not? I am willing to call Hitler an evil moster. You think it's POV (at least if I say it about Stalin). What kind of Communist apologist are you that you want to whitwash the reality of it's evil so?

I want the truth. You want to whitewash it and dilute it.

How did that feel?--JohnFlaherty 17:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

How did that feel? It didn't bother me at all, because it isn't true.

As for your other comments, you're willing to call Hitler an evil monster. Fine, I never intended to imply that you didn't. The point I am making, however, is that you seem intent on discounting the crimes he committed, for the apparent reason that you want communist crimes to be front and centre on every page you take an interest in - at least, on the ones I've seen. That's why I say I think you are trying to push a POV - whether you are aware of it or not.

Contrary to what you might think, I'm NOT trying to push a POV here because I have no axe to grind, I'm quite prepared to agree that Hitler and Stalin were both guilty of crimes against humanity, but what I'm not prepared to see is people using Wiki to push an anti-communist agenda.

But, let's get back to the point. The point is whether or not the deaths brought about by Hitler's war should be included in the definition "democides".

Here are the indictments from the Nuremberg trials. There were four of them. Take careful note of the first two.

Indictments

Count One: Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War

This count helped address the crimes committed before the war began, showing a plan to commit crimes during the war.

Count Two: Waging Aggressive War, or "Crimes Against Peace"

Including “the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, and assurances.”

Count Three: War Crimes

These were the more “traditional” violations of the law of war including treatment of prisoners of war, slave labor, and use of outlaws weapons.

Count Four: Crimes Against Humanity

This count involved the actions in concentration camps and other death rampages.

Now if you go to the the following link you will find that a number of the top Nazis were convicted of the second count, that is, of "Waging Aggressive War, or Crimes Against Peace".[1] And they hung for it.

In other words, the war the Nazis waged was a criminal war, waged against international law, and that therefore, the deaths caused by that war amount to democide, ie, murder by government. And those convicted of the crime were sentenced to death by hanging.

BTW, I'm going to bed now, so any response you have I will probably not read until tomorrow. Regards, Gatoclass 18:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it is true. I am not pushing an Anti-Communist POV. I want the record on Communism straight. I am not prepared to allow Communist apologists to use Wikipedia to whitewash history. You are pushing a Communism Apologist POV and an Anti-Nazi POV on every article I have been involved with you on. Why?

As to Nazi war crimes vs war of aggression, as usual, you misrepresent reality and what I want. I am perfectly happy including the numbers in the WAR section. The Genocide/Democide section is for crimes like the Holocaust, Gulag, etc. Your inclusion of "War of aggression" is wealesy. If that is the case we should include all the non-German vitims of the Red army from Poland, and Eastern Europe as all of these countries were conquered. Stalin NEVER had any intention of letting them go. It was the whole point of the pact with Hitler and after. Also the revolution--JohnFlaherty 18:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not a communism apologist, and I think my edits prove it. Go back to the Stalin page and have a look at the edits of Nixer's I removed because I thought he was an apologist for Stalin. Go to Ultramarine's talk page and have a look at the message I left for him there, when I complained about commie apologists screwing up the Stalin page.

Or have a look through the Stalin page archive, before you arrived on the scene, and I think you'll find I was always arguing for a moderate position between the two schools of thought. I simply don't have an agenda here John, except to see that apologists of either stripe don't start screwing up Wiki pages.

And for your comments about the Red Army, I'm afraid it's irrelevant because the Soviets weren't on trial after the war. Perhaps they should have been, but that's victor's justice for you. The end result, however, is that the Nazis were convicted of waging a war of aggression but the Soviets weren't. And that therefore the Nazis' war fully fits the definition of democide and should be listed in the democide section, as well as the war section. Gatoclass 18:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I think my compromises also prove I have no agenda.

I don't care about who was charged with what. What a ridiculous argument! 90% the people/nations/regimes on the list were never charged with anything! What a bogus argument. If you are going to insist that German WWII deaths are part of the Genocide section (a ridiculous POV - The U.S. Normandy dead were genocide???) than including Red army deaths qualify as Stalin pushed the kind of military brutality that ended in millions more deaths than were necessary. Heck, he killed his own people by the bushel DURING the fighting. Read Stalingrad and Berlin both by Beevor.--JohnFlaherty 18:58, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

If you are going to bed, I won't do anything til you return. I really would not anyway as I think the only way this will work is if we find agreement.--JohnFlaherty 19:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that definition of democide explicitly exclude battle deaths between armed combatants. This follows the pattern that soldiers fighting other soldiers are not accused of murder. If we is going to include battle deaths, then there are many problems? Should the millions of Soviet solider who died due Stalin's executions of almost all senior officers and his denial of the massive information warning of the German attack be counted as due to Stalin? Should all the battlefield deaths during WWI be counted as due to the German Emperor? Should Napoleon be counted as one of the greatest mass murderers in history? Ultramarine 19:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

THANK YOU for some reason injected into this discussion.

You keep claiming you have no POV in this Gato and yet, as Utlramarine points out, Democide specifically excludes battle deaths between armed combatents. Why are you are trying to massage the categories to get a higher count for Nazi Germany? If you have no agenda then why not split the deaths properly? Why you would do that and muddle things rather than deal in the clear cut accounting and categorizing of the numbers?--JohnFlaherty 19:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that definition of democide explicitly exclude battle deaths between armed combatants. This follows the pattern that soldiers fighting other soldiers are not accused of murder.

Ah, I see Mr Rummel has very carefully engineered his definition so that it includes practically anything questionable a communist has done, while excluding virtually everything else. No wonder his numbers of "democide" for communist states are so huge. And no wonder the term "democide" has virtually zero currency in academia.

In any case, it doesn't matter. I believe Hitler's onslaught on Russia also fits the definition of genocide. I quote:

any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Read the Nazis' plans for Russia and it's quite clear their intent was genocidal. Gatoclass 20:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Hitler did not intend to kill them all, he needed slaves. Not genocide. On the other hand, Rummel includes deaths of civilians and POWs. But not the battle deaths. Democide is used in over 300 academic articles.[2]Ultramarine 20:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, and probably 299 of them were written by Rummel!

Seriously though, it matters not that "Hitler did not intend to kill them all". I just posted the definition of genocide above, and it's quite clear you don't have to intend to kill all the members of a racial group. Have you ever actually read what the Nazis' plans for Eastern Europe were? I don't have a link handy, but if you do a search I'm sure you'll turn up the appropriate pages quickly enough. And I think you'll realize that it would be extremely difficult to construe those plans as anything but a very serious attempt to completely destroy the identity of a national/ethnic group - several of them, actually. Gatoclass 20:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect regarding the 300 articles. Please, no original research. Which studies or academic books have stated that Hitler's committed genocide of Russians? Ultramarine 20:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

BTW, how did the page get protected? Did you ask for it? Gatoclass 20:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I told you I requested it to be protected. And you cannot have it both ways. If "democide" includes Nazi war dead then it must include Soviet war dead as Stalin's plans included the conquest and occupation of Eastern Europe. This is fact.--JohnFlaherty 20:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

And no wonder the term "democide" has virtually zero currency in academia.

Can you cite a source or two for that claim?

Rummel COINED the phrase “democide” Gato, so if you have issues with him or how he defined the word you have no leg to stand on even using it – in which case we are left with Genocide which does not apply to armed uniformed combatants. Or, if you insist to use it it applies to the Red Army as well. I realy think your position is untennable.

Also, those criteria you listed for “genocide” work for the Soviets as well. Both the avg soldier and the government view of German citizens (never mind Poles, Jews, and others) fit them exactly.

a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The Red Army did ALL of those to Germans and Poles and others. Particularly, the mass rapes (b) had a DESIGNED secondary purpose of inflicting (d)! Read Beevor (Berlin).--JohnFlaherty 23:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Well if Hitler's going to get off because not all the folks his armies killed in its war of aggression quite fit the technical definition of victims or either "genocide" or "democide", then I think the section title isn't broad enough. I think it should be "Genocides, democides and wars of aggression". Because I really don't think der Fuhrer ought to be getting off on a technicality. Gatoclass 02:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

You often accuse others of POV and it is all you seem to be about when it comes right down to it.

And, of course, we have yet ANOTHER straw man argument as well.

Der Fuhrer is not getting off in any way shape or form. To even suggest that this is the case is to deliberatly misrepresnt the situation. In FACT, he gets hit TWICE. Once indirectly under Wars and once under genocide. Stalin does not have that dubious honor. There is a whole section on "War" but that is not good enough for you. You are obsessed with making sure that he comes in on top of Stalin. Who has the agenda here?

Adolph Hitler was a monster and the Holocaust represents a very unique and repulsive manifestation of evil. Stalin's was just as unique and no less repulsive, his victim toll's low end estimates just happens to be at Hitler's high end estimates. Including the war dead in Hitler's number is not only disengenuous but it is a diservice to his victims. it lumps in civilian victim's of Nazi genocide, including women and children, with uniformed soldiers from Oklahoma, Stirling, Paris and Moscow.--JohnFlaherty 02:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow, this is insulting and appalling to the millions of people who suffered under Mao, Stalin, and Tojo. How can you trivialize tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of deaths by overrating the Holocaust? Please. The title "Genocide and Democide" alone IMPLY that it was deliberate attempts to destroy CIVILIANS. OUTSIDE of war. Most of the figures do NOT include soldiers. Attempting to put wars of aggression into genocide and democide will completely misconstrue the truth at best. While we're at it, why not include the millions who died in Stalin's wars, or Mao's wars, OR, even MORE, include in Tojo's already high pile of 30,000,000 (which is CITED, unlike this 5,000,000 number I've never seen), the millions of civilians caught in the crossfire, or even more, the millions who died as soldiers defending their homeland. After all, Japan's imperialism in the first half of the twentiest century could undeniably be defined as a war of aggression. How Gatoclass can try to trivialize these atrocities is beyond any sort of mortal comprehension. The only thing I'm surprised about is how you can logically reason out in your brain a motive to defend three of the worst mass murderers in history, but to antagonize one of the (relatively) minor dictators. You're as bad (or, I assume good from your perspective) as those revisionist historians that try to deny that any sort of genocide ever happened.--69.117.38.223 02:44, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

As much as I disagree with some of Gato's commenst and positions, I do not for a second agree that we are overrating the Holocaust OR that Hitler was a "(relatively) minor dictator". THAT is ridiculous and insulting and beyond any rendering of reality. Hitler was just as evil and destructive as Stalin & Mao. The Holocaust is the worst single attemp at systematic genocide ever attempted. I also know that he is not defending Stalin. Mao has never even come up yet. I do not doubt his beliefs or motives on these points.--JohnFlaherty 02:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh please, are you kidding me? If you raise Hitler beyond what he truly was, you're in effect making the other relatively trivial by reducing the gap. In reality, Hitler is overemphasized in the West enough already, but simple popular belief does not make truth. If you look at the facts and the actual numbers, Mao, Tojo, and Stalin were worse, and to even try to make Hitler match up or even go beyond is just ludicrous. It trivializes the other three.

--69.117.38.223 02:58, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

You really should read Beevor's "Stalingrad" and "Berlin". The one thing that will become clear to you is that the best thing that could have happened for the world is if the Soviets and the Reich had anihilated each other. There is no one which is "more evil" than the other. Naziism and Communism are the two most misanthropic, destructive, oppressive ideologies in human history. Maybe we should just combine their deaths - Communist and Nazi - under Socialist Oligarchies. Course that does not solve the "death toll" issue.

Oh well.--JohnFlaherty 02:48, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

What's with the total brushing off of Asia to the side? I just noticed another MAJOR error in the treatment of Tojo by placing the years at 1930s-1945. Please, the Japanese were beginning a systematic policy of ethnocentrism beginning at the dawn of the 20th century, notably marked by the takeover of Korea. I cannot find why it isn't absolutely mindboggling to everyone that we are basically defecating over the graves of tens of millions of Asians. If we're going to even CONSIDER Nazi "wars of aggression," we should increase the upper cap for Japanese War Crimes severalfold. Oh, and I'm still wondering why 5,000,000 was even considered as a viable number?--69.117.38.223 02:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

We are not brushing off Asia. We will get to that. We are stuck on Stalin/Hitler first is all.--JohnFlaherty 02:58, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It's insulting that you're even debating an obvious argument while not even considering one of the worst atrocities the world has ever seen! This is the same type of ethnocentrism that led to these war crimes in the first place!

--69.117.38.223 03:03, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Sir or Madam,

May I suggest two things?

First, if you want to participate in these debates, I recommend registering a Wikipedia name first and signing in.

Second, I recommend listening for a while. A few of us have been working on this and related issues for a while. Your input will carry more weight if you can lay back a bit at first.

Just suggestions.--JohnFlaherty 03:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Sir or Madam, why not stop patronizing me? Just cause I'm NOT someone who's registered, thus NOT someone whose agenda is to proliferate my own inner bias? And whatever the "few of [you]" have been doing, it obviously hasn't been accomplished anything except a bunch of people arguing over their inner biases at the expense of the truth.

--69.117.38.223 03:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I was not patronizing you and if you cannot tell that "JohnFlaherty" is not a madam than I am certain your editing skills are not required here.--JohnFlaherty 03:19, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Clever joke. Of course, my comment wasn't deliberate at all.

--69.117.38.223 03:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you need to include some qualitative data on how people died and some extra comments to add dimension to the death figures. I have been thinking about how to vizualize them. Certainly it would be cool to have it in 3D too, and superimposed over googleearth, but i don't have that much free time on my hands. A timeline control interface would be cool too as there are quite a lot of wars and deaths.

[edit] Concession on "wars of aggression"

Okay, look, in order to get this page unprotected I am going to concede for the time being on the "wars of aggression" argument. There are a lot of other things that need to be fixed on this page and it's unfair to other users not engaged in this particular debate to lock them out. And I recognize that until I have a reputable secondary source or two to back up my claims, my argument from the judgement at Nuremberg could arguably be dismissed as "original research", and probably will be by Ultramarine.

I reserve the right, however, to reinsert a figure for wars of aggression into the list should I find an appropriate source. But until then, I think it's best that I drop it.

However, there are still many things wrong with the current list, not least of which are the many unsourced refs and the discrepancies between various figures within the list. And I will certainly be re-editing the Hitler figure. The figure of 5 million as the low for Nazi democide is unsourced and in my opinion unsustainable, since that would be the low for the Jews alone. The Nazis committed a great many more democides that that. In fact, my current sourced range for Nazi democide is 20-26 million. There may well be a smaller figure for the low somewhere, but if so I haven't found it yet.

In the meantime, I'm going to request that this page be unprotected. In my opinion there was no reason to protect it in the first place, since our disagreement had already devolved to the talk page. Gatoclass 13:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I requested it stay protected. Anyone can see we have no consensus yet. You're practically telling us your gonna do what you want later anyway. There is no way you are going to include War Dead under Hitler/genocide. You do that and I will revert back or insist that Red Army war dead and atrocities go under Stalin's total.

Ya know, I agree with you that Hitler's total is more than 5 million but I marvel at your continued ability to default to pushing the highest numbers for Hitler and the Lowest for Stalin since the whole Stalin edit started.--JohnFlaherty 15:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

What is really sad is I had a good bit of euphoria after we reached an agreement in the Stalin article. I guess I thought we would be able to work togther better.--JohnFlaherty 16:13, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no way you are going to include War Dead under Hitler/genocide.

Is there something wrong with your comprehension? I just said I was dropping the idea of including the combatant dead. I do however have a couple of sources that put the democide toll for the Nazi regime at at least 20 million - and one of them is your buddy Rummel. I am perfectly entitled to make an entry if I have sources to back it up, whether you like it or not.

You're practically telling us your gonna do what you want later anyway.

I am under no obligation to canvas every word I want to add to Wiki with you or anyone else. If you don't like something I add, you can change it, IF you have reputable sources to back your argument.

I have no intention of engaging in endless sterile debates with you on talk pages about the exact wording of my every entry - or yours for that matter. That's not what Wiki is about. The Wiki be bold guideline is not there for no reason. It's there to ensure that things actually get done on Wiki, instead of just being haggled over on the talk pages endlessly. The process of edit/revise/re-edit is a much more constructive one than anything we do on this page. We should only devolve to this page when we have to, when there is an issue we cannot resolve by other means. All your page protection here has done is bring the improvement of this page to a crashing halt.

What is really sad is I had a good bit of euphoria after we reached an agreement in the Stalin article.

Yes, and after agreeing that the section was "a heck of a lot better" than what was there before, and that we should all "step away from it for a few days", you then went back and disingenuously linked to a page that had blatantly incorrect estimates for the Stalin death toll that were unsourced and completely incompatible with the agreed numbers we had all worked so hard to hammer out on the Stalin page itself - but which happened to conform with your desire to see a higher number next to Stalin's name. Not to mention the fact that it was an attempt by you to get by stealth what you couldn't get by argument at the Stalin page - a mention of the Mao death toll, which was the very issue that brought us into conflict in the first place.

I regard that particular edit of yours on the Stalin page as completely underhanded and a total breach of faith with me and the others who worked so hard on the entry. So please spare me the homily about unco-operative behaviour. The fact is, you are the ONLY person who has continually criticized my edits and persistently sought to have them changed. Gatoclass 17:33, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The only person who attempted to get what he wanted after lossing the argument was you. You lost time, and time again and simply plowed onward.

Your partisan obsession with denying the realities of his murderoeus record is pathetic. I did nothing underhanded. YOU continuously betrayed the good faith efforts of the group to sneak in your views. When we said to wait on consensus, you changed the article so it offered your propaganda under the cover of Wikipedia's "be bold!" tenant, so spare us the NPOV, hero bull.

You straw man, you mislead, and you outright lie. Case in point. I was NOT the ONLY person who critized your edits. The were critized continuosly. I even defended you from such criticism so don't try and pass that lie off on me.

I linked to this page because of your complete inability to recognize reality and list this man where he belongs among the great criminals of humanity.

NOTHING I claimed was unsourced. You simply disregarded source, after source, after source because they did not comply with your views.

You will not rest until unjustice is done to the victims of Stalin.

Your entire effort has been one continuous "breach of faith".--JohnFlaherty 21:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

You yourself described my edit on the Stalin page as "excellent". Woogie, who you yourself described as an expert on the numbers with a barnstar award for his contributions, thanked me for "a job well done". NOBODY else has challenged my edit as unbalanced, except for TJive who made a momentary attack largely in relation to the positioning of a particular reference which he felt was misleading. After which he graciously excused himself on the grounds of his high emotional involvement in the issue.

MOST of my edits on Wiki are still extant after several months of editing (how are yours doing?). Apparently, nobody in all that time has found them to be unbalanced, or unbiased. Except you. You have to be dragged kicking and screaming to every change, and are only reconciled to it after you have gotten no support from others for your position - but in fact you never really accept the edits I make, as evidenced by your method of sneaking back to try and alter things to suit your POV even after we have supposedly reached consensus.

I said right at the OUTSET of the debate on this page that I was dropping my proposed entry on Nazi Germany. Why don't you try re-reading through this page and you'll see that is the case. But that wasn't enough for you - you still had to go and gratuitously have the page protected. You can't get your way in honest debate, so instead you try to muzzle me by resorting to an underhanded tactic like that.

I'm not sure what it is that motivates you, but I'm growing rather tired of your serial obstructionism and intransigence. I think I am for the most part a reasonable human being, but I am running out of patience in your case. Quite frankly, I can't think of anyone in Wiki at the moment I would prefer to work on a page with less.

Now - please give me one good reason why you have insisted on having this page protected. It's certainly not because I haven't been willing to debate my edits here, as testified by the discussion above. So what exactly is your problem? I'd really like to know. Gatoclass 22:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

MOST of my edits on Wiki are still extant after several months of editing (how are yours doing?).

Diong very, very well. Thanks for asking. I have some that are months old. I'd ask you to look for yourself but your pathological dishonesty would make any assement worthless. Then again, go ahead. I have reality onmy side. Check them out. I've dealt with partisan bullies like yourself for a while now.

You have to be dragged kicking and screaming to every change, and are only reconciled to it after you have gotten no support from others for your position

OMG! Talk about projection! That is you you’re talking about pal!

- but in fact you never really accept the edits I make, as evidenced by your method of sneaking back to try and alter things to suit your POV even after we have supposedly reached consensus.

Again, projection. You're speaking about yourself. We had to drag YOU kicking an whining towards every edit.

You can't get your way in honest debate, so instead you try to muzzle me by resorting to an underhanded tactic like that.

The only one failing to make their point debate wise is you. You have been beaten back time and again because of your bias and the reason the page was protected was because you are unable to restrain yourself from making edits without consensus when you are beaten in discussion.

I'm not sure what it is that motivates you, but I'm growing rather tired of your serial obstructionism and intransigence.

Funny, that is precisely how I feel about you. I think I am for the most part a reasonable human being, but I am running out of patience in your case.

Again, ditto. I lost patience with your sneaky methods and agenda and outright lies a long time ago.

Quite frankly, I can't think of anyone in Wiki at the moment I would prefer to wor on a page with less.

Amen brother. I have been thinking those thouights for days but restrained myself from voicing them.

Now - please give me one good reason why you have insisted on having this page protected. It's certainly not because I haven't been willing to debate my edits here, as testified by the discussion above.

Because you are a partisan hack. Because you cannot be trusted to abide by consensus. Because you make biased edits by fiat and then react as the NPOV victim when the reality is you are the one pushing it. You're a frustrated child lashing out in a tantrum because you cannot get your way. Your edits, when they are not hedged in by more reasonable individuals, are pure propaganda and you have been called on them numerous times. Your lashing out because someone is standing up to your attempts at revisonist history. --JohnFlaherty 23:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Because you are a partisan hack. Because you cannot be trusted to abide by consensus. Because you make biased edits by fiat and then react as the NPOV victim when the reality is you are the one pushing it...Your edits...are pure propaganda

Yes, that's right, you said to my face when Woogie was there that my edit was "excellent" and that the section was "a heck of a lot better than it was" after I made it, but now the truth comes out. And it's just as I said - you only feign acceptance of my edits because you have no support for your views from others, when all the time you are inwardly fuming that you didn't get your way. Thankyou for proving my point.

And I hope you enjoyed your little tirade. I am not going to respond in kind because I'm sure it would only be counterproductive.

At this stage, I am loosely considering some kind of mediation, because I see little hope of talking sense to you. But before I do that, and for the sake of avoiding more pointless acrimony, let me ask you again - what exactly do you want from me in regards to this page? Perhaps we can still come to some sort of agreement here. If not, I think I might refer this dispute, such as it is, to a mediator. Gatoclass 00:03, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's right, you said to my face when Woogie was there that my edit was "excellent" and that the section was "a heck of a lot better than it was" after I made it, but now the truth comes out.

It was a heck of a lot better because we heald your feet to the fire every inch of the way or it would have been another fantasy story.

And it's just as I said - you only feign acceptance of my edits because you have no support for your views from others, when all the time you are inwardly fuming that you didn't get your way.

Lying and projecting once more. I did accept (and DO accept) the entry WE made together. To claim that entry is all you is fantasy. You crafted the words that we all agreed on.

And it was you who was constantly beaten back in discussion because your numbers were wrong.

And I hope you enjoyed your little tirade. I am not going to respond in kind because I'm sure it would only be counterproductive.

Sure. Since you started the tirades in the first place. The noble Gato strikes again.

At this stage, I am loosely considering some kind of mediation, because I see little hope of talking sense to you.

Buddy, trying to talk to you and expect honest exchange is the definition of futility. Your mendacity is continuous and in so many varied forms I am shocked by it.

But before I do that, and for the sake of avoiding more pointless acrimony, let me ask you again - what exactly do you want from me in regards to this page? Perhaps we can still come to some sort of agreement here.

Gosh, how reasonable of you. I want you to not make edits until we have at least a minimum agreement. I will, as I have from the beginning, do the same. I will make no changes that we have not reached some agreement on. In fact, I will let YOU propose the changes. How's that for reaching out? Also, your promise to leave Hitler’s war dead from his ranking is, like much you offer, worthless because you said “for now”. I want you to agree that war dead are not genocide and not crimes against humanity as a Gulag or the Holocaust were. You do that and we can request the page be unlocked. --JohnFlaherty 11:15, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, good, perhaps we can make some progress here after all.

I'm not sure what your specific objections have been to my edits but I assume they deal with Stalin and Hitler at present. The 4 million bottom for Stalin is not negotiable in my view, because Wheatcroft says the figure is 4 (actually, he says 3 in his article, but for the sake of consensus I'm prepared to go with 4).

As for der Fuhrer, I've already indicated that I was not going to pursue the "wars of aggression" angle and try and fit the combatant dead into his total.

What I did say earlier was that I reserve the right to alter that position if I come up with a reputable secondary source which supports my view about combatant dead being directly attributable to the Nazi regime.But if this is really going to be an issue for you, then if you like I'll make a commitment to contact your talk page and not edit for at least 24 hours afterward in order to discuss the hypothetical source with you first. But let's face it, I think I'm very unlikely to come up with such a source anyhow.

Meanwhile, my current (sourced) low-high for Nazi democide is 20-26 million. If I can find sources either lower or higher I will include them, but honestly I don't think I am likely to find too many because democide is not a term that has especially wide currency in academia. So Rummel's estimate will probably end up being the low in this case.

So the (sourced) figures I propose are:

Stalin 4-50 million;

Hitler 20-26 million.

Mao will of course still top the list of genocidal dictators because of the 27 million low.

The only other thing I need to know is, are these the only figures that are a source of dispute? If so, and assuming you agree to thea above, then I guess there are no longer any outstanding issues requiring further discussion, and the page can be unlocked. On the other hand, if you have further concerns, please let me know and we'll see if we can hammer them out now. Gatoclass 12:57, 17 June 2006 (UTC)::

That is moving in the right direction but I still have issues with the numbers. Both the low and the high for Stalin are ridiculous (I propose we go with 15-25 million if we have to have a range) and I would like to see a break down of your 20-25 million for Hitler. That will be a start.

I think we both agree on Mao (wow...go fiqure) so he should not be hard to work out. After that, we should discuss Tojo & Pol Pot. That should not be too difficult.

So yeah, basically the issue is Hitler vs Stalin.--JohnFlaherty 13:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and one other thing. Please stop accusing me of "lying" and "mendacity". I take offence to these charges. In several weeks of exhaustive negotiation with you and others, I may have made one or two mistakes and/or errors of judgement, but I haven't told any lies. But let's face it, we're all prone to twisting things to suit ourselves a little sometimes, and usually without realizing it. I recognize that I am not immune from that temptation. I'm quite sure you're not either. So please, stop making these charges, because I find them rather offensive.

I find your constant misrepresentation of issues offensive. You have mounted numerous straw man arguments aimed at me and have made false claims about everything from the number of editors involved to my lack of sources. Stop that and I'll stop.--JohnFlaherty 13:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

As for me "starting the tirades in the first place", yes, I got pretty angry on this page earlier on. I got angry because you went and sabotaged my attempt to get this page re-opened AFTER I'd already agreed to drop the thing about combatant deaths. So in my view you were just being bloodyminded.

There was no way we could unprotect the artcle before this discussion.--JohnFlaherty 13:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

But, no use dwelling on that now. Gatoclass 13:30, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Both the low and the high for Stalin are ridiculous (I propose we go with 15-25 million if we have to have a range) and I would like to see a break down of your 20-25 million for Hitler.

John, it's not my fault that the estimate for Stalin is "ridiculously low". It's "ridiculously low" because there are at least two reputable sources who say it's that low. I am simply arguing for the facts, as they are proposed by reputable sources. This isn't about the figure that you or I prefer, it's about the figures that the available reputable sources state. And don't forget that you still have the high of fifty million. If you like though, we can include a link back to the Number of Victims section on the Stalin page so that readers can make themselves fully cognizant of the scale of Stalin's culpability.

And don't forget, that right at the beginning of this discussion, I proposed a separate section where man-made disasters that don't fit the description of genocide/democide, like the famines, could be listed. So you will still be getting the inclusion of the famine figures, albeit under a separate heading.

As for a breakdown of the Nazi figure, I don't have the link handy but if you do a search under "democide" you will quickly find Rummel's website, where you should easily be able to access his figures for Nazi Germany with a full breakdown. The bulk of the additional (non-genocidal) victims are, of course, Slavs. Gatoclass 14:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

You best stop inferring that I do not want the truth. You're one to talk about "prefered numbers" so look in the mirror before you accuse me again.

Then ranking is impossible, unless we rank Hitler and Stalin on the same level. If The upper range of Stalin's death toll is 50 million (DOUBLE Hitler's highest estimate) it is wrong to list him after Hitler. I agree that we should list them by the low estimate generally but in this case we might better serve people coming to the page by listing them on one line. Either that or we could have two columns ranking by low estim,ate and high, but placing Stalin after Hitler when it is possible he murdered double the souls is a diservice to his victims. I will concede that since the low number is 4 million (insulting BS) we should not list him before Hitler either.--JohnFlaherty 15:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with you that 4 million democides is too low for Stalin. Personally, I would think the low would have to be at least 5, and probably more - perhaps considerably more, but then my access to sources is limited. But this isn't about my or your personal estimates, it's about the range of estimates that are extant in academia.

But while the number of victims is not negotiable in my view, given that they are based on reliable, verifiable sources, what might be negotiable, as I've already suggested, is the method of presentation. For example, if the heading was "Genocides, democides and man made famines", one could bump Stalin's minimum figure up to 10 million. But I'm still inclined to think that man made famines might be better put into a separate list.

And then I'm still thinking that since we are basically trying to list acts of mass lethality by government that were essentially criminal in nature, then it seems to me that the victims of the wars of aggression waged by Japan and Germany and declared illegal at the end of WWII should also be included. (And I'm obviously not the only one who feels this way. The anonymous poster who railed about Japanese crimes in Asia to you above is a case in point). But I'm not sure exactly how one might go about this. Basically, finding a descriptor that encompasses all these crimes is proving to be a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. So I'm undecided on how to proceed ATM. Gatoclass 04:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

In any case, let me re-state my position. The low for Stalin has to be 4 million. The current figure for Nazi Germany will be 20-26 million, in line with the available sources. (Even though I personally think the high should be around 40 million, for all the victims of Hitler's war of aggression). In addition to which, we will have a separate listing for man made famines, in which Mao and Stalin will obviously be making a reappearance at or near the top of the list. What do you say? Gatoclass 06:46, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not quite following your idea. Probably my fault. Can you show me an example? I still like my idea of listing them both on the same line, or else two seperate cloumns (high vs low) but I'd be interested in seeing an example of your idea.--JohnFlaherty 13:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

When I said a second listing, I meant, a separate section with a list dedicated to manmade famines (or famines which had a manmade component). Perhaps in that list we could also include other manmade disasters which weren't necessarily deliberate but which through criminal negligence cost many lives. Bhopal comes to mind, for example.

I think in regards to the "Genocides and Democides" heading though, I could probably accept your idea of having two separate columns in the listing, one for the low figure and one for the high. I think it would be neater, and add some extra emphasis to the high figure which I'm sure you would find agreeable, and which I probably wouldn't be averse to myself. Gatoclass 19:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I just had another idea. In addition to the "Genocides and democides" listing, I'd like to see an additional listing entitled "Regimes by lethality" which would simply list regimes which have caused the deaths of large numbers of people through any cause whatever. Stalin's low could then be bumped up to 10 million. However, it would also mean that Hitler would come in at around 40 million for his war of aggression, and Imperial Japan would also get a high listing (how high, I really don't know, since I'm not too familiar with this area).

In such a listing we could also include such historical figures as Timur Lenk (Timurlane) and the Mongol Khanates of the middle ages. When I think about it, this would probably be a very useful list, enabling people to see quickly which regimes in history have been responsible for most deaths.

I still think there should be a separate listing for the genocides and democides though, since they are particularly heinous crimes which I think fully deserve separate treatment. Gatoclass 19:34, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I am oppossed to none of that in theory. I would like to see your version of a practical entry on those propositions however.

The issue here is Stalin's culpability as a mass murderer. Hitler's position in this dark category is well established. If we can come up with a compromise that places Stalin AT LEAST on the same level as Hitler, who is among the top two or three most evil human beings ever to have drawn breath, all issues considered, I will be satisfied.--JohnFlaherty 00:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, look, after giving it some thought, I think I've come up with a proposition that should satisfy your concerns.

I think all we need to do is have an alternate list which lists the various regimes by highest death toll estimate instead of lowest. It can't really be done on this page because there is already a wealth of other information here. However, it easily could be done on a new page.

So basically what I'm proposing (as an example) is to have the "Genocides and democides, ordered by lowest estimate" on this page, with a heading and a link which simply says "For an alternative list ordered by highest estimate, go here with "here" being a link to a page with the alternative list.

The way I see it is that this here page is a sort of generic one listing a whole bunch of different excess mortalities, but there is certainly plenty of scope for alternative pages listing some of these large scale mortalities in greater detail and by different criteria. And if you like, you can link from the Stalin page directly to one of these alternative pages, for example directly to the page which lists victims of genocide and democide by highest estimate.

If that doesn't satisfy your concerns, I don't think anything will! Gatoclass 01:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latest Iraq figures

I don't know that this really relates to the purpose of the page protection, but MSNBC and Newsweek have mapped a new death toll in Iraq which reports 2,726 coalition casulties and 40,706 Iraqi civilian casualties, for a new total of 43,432.

There have been at least 49-51 additional deaths since (June 18-19 = 10 in a Mosque bombing, 2 by mortar, 1 U.S. soldier, 3 insurgents; June 20 = 2 more U.S. soldiers, 2 in suicide bombing of a nursing home, 7 in a car bombing, U.S. reports 15 suspects killed in a raid, 3 killed while firing at a downed U.S. aircraft; June 21 = 1 Saddam lawyer; 4 U.S. Marines in Anbar province, 1 U.S. soldier; 2 Shiite hostages reported killed by purported escapees), so the new total should reflect a minimum of 43,457, and pushes the top of the range up to about 167,180. BD2412 T 15:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] F, not PH

Since this page is protected, can an administrator please spell Hitler's name right? It's ADOLF, not ADOLPH. Thanks. Kelisi 03:57, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• Done. BD2412 T 04:09, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confused

Erm... I'm completely new to this conversation and am finding it difficult to get up to speed. Can I request an update on "where you're up to"? Thanks. --Dweller 09:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what you're referring to Dweller. If you're referring to the debate between JohnFlaherty and I, basically we are waiting for John to confirm that his concerns have been met and that therefore he is willing to allow the page to be unprotected again.

I left him a message with a new proposition this morning, but he hasn't responded so far. Gatoclass 11:36, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems that all the debate is over Hitler and Stalin, which occupy just a few lines of what is an article in desperate need of verification work. I was assuming I've missed the broader picture conversation and wondered where it's up to? --Dweller 11:38, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you're quite correct, John is concerned that Stalin isn't going to come in high enough in the listing, and that's why he had the page protected.

I too expressed my opinion that this wasn't a disagreement worthy of locking up the entire page. I thought a "disputed" notice would have been more than enough for what I regard as a relatively minor and everyday dispute such as this, but John begs to differ. At least up to now. I'm hoping though that he has a positive response to my last proposition, but no word from him yet. Gatoclass 12:08, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Does that mean that no progress has been made with anything else? --Dweller 12:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean, anything else? Do you mean, are there any other outstanding issues between me and John? Not that I know of, and certainly not from my side of the fence. But really, you'd need to refer a question like that to John rather than to me.

However, I'm under the impression that John's basically agreed that the page can be unlocked once we resolve the Hitler/Stalin issue. Gatoclass 12:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I meant sorting out the remaining 99% of this rather poorly sourced page. --Dweller 12:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes it needs a lot of work, and possibly splitting into several articles. A lot of the stuff on this page constitutes neithr war or disaster. Alun 12:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I said earlier the page probably needs to be renamed. "List of wars and disasters" doesn't really cut it.

I don't think it necessarily needs splitting into several pages though. It just needs to be renamed to better reflect its overall content. However, I certainly think some of the sections that appear in this article could have spin-off pages dealing in more detail with the material that appears in them. Gatoclass 13:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Gato, every timne I try and reach out you paint me in a negative light.

I protected the page for a number of reasons. Unprotect it! I thought we were making serious progress.

This whole page is a disaster and I thought we would clear up Stalin/Hitler and move on but if I am in the minority for protecting the page than go ahead and petition to have it unprotected.

I have been busy at work and not able to participate like I wish but others seem to have taken an interest finally so I am certainly NOT the only interested party and others views should be heard. I just feel that without some consensus the article will become a mess of revisons all at once.--JohnFlaherty 23:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grand project

I'm being rather arrogant here, (esp. for a newbie) but I think this is one of the most heavily POV pages I've seen in Wikipedia. There are literally dozens of "facts" presented here without sourcing, when many Wikipedians get excited about an occasional unsourced comment in a regular (say) biog.

It also seems nuts for the whole page to be held in stasis while an argument rages about a couple of lines. They may be important, but they constitute just a couple of lines.

Is there consensus for a major reworking of this page? --Dweller 12:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I meant sorting out the remaining 99% of this rather poorly sourced page.

Oh, okay, yes I am working on putting some of this stuff into tables in order to increase the attractiveness and readability of the page. When I've done that I'll start looking around for some reputable sources to confirm the figures that are on this page, and to fix them if necessary. In fact, I've already done some of that too, mostly in regards to the genocide/democide section.

But naturally if you or anyone else can help provide some sources for any of the figures on this page, or find new sources which support different figures, that would be helpful. I fancy there are quite a few figures here that may not be that easy to verify.

Is there consensus for a major reworking of this page?

That depends. I already have a number of ideas for taking this page forward so it depends whether your idea of a "major reworking" corresponds with mine I guess :-)

I'm also working on a number of spin-off pages because what I want to do won't all fit into one page. Firstly though, I'd like to get some of the existing material into tables where it can be more easily read and accessed. Gatoclass 12:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Seems sensible. And given that this page is locked, perhaps it would be worth creating the spin-off pages. We could start with the less contentious and easier to source elements, such as List of sporting disasters by death toll? --Dweller 12:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I didn't even notice that section Dweller (in fact I never realized there would be enough of those sort of events to justify such a section), but if you want to start on a spinoff page on that subject, by all means go for it! I would certainly have no objection to that.

Later on we can work on how to integrate your new material into this page (if that's what your intention is). Gatoclass 12:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

How would you tabulate? Might as well have some consistency --Dweller

I'm undecided on that issue. What are your Wiki table markup skills like? Mine are rather primitive at this stage. Still, I've got a table I'm gradually improving ATM. Do you have some sort of alternative template of your own in mind? Have you worked on tables before? Got any you could show me as examples? Gatoclass 13:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

<heh heh> you must be joking. I was hoping you'd be some genius who could do it for me! I'll see if I can nick a table template from somewhere and try adapting it. But this'll probably have to wait a while. --Dweller 13:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been nicking other people's templates to make mine already :-)

But to tell the truth, I think once the decision has been made to put the info into tables, then it really doesn't matter a whole lot, because once the basic table has been created it doesn't take that much work to turn it into another type of table.

So if you want to use mine as a template, or look around for something else, maybe something a bit better, I don't think it matters, we can standardize on the format later I think. Also, I think we can always tart the tables up to look a bit nicer over time. Gatoclass 13:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotect please

This is a large article that is suffering badly from POV and unsourced material. It's also stretched to the limit by its badly thought-through title. I propose to work with others to pull out material and post to new, tighter-defined pages. It would be helpful to be able to do this with edited text, rather than screen text. It would also be helpful to delete the material from here once reposted, leaving only an internal link. This article has been locked because of a dispute over a very small section of a very large article that, on the whole, represents Wikipedia very badly.

I'm happy to discuss this further... I'm wise enough to know I'm a noob and I don't know everything. Or very much, for that matter. --Dweller 13:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the idea of "pulling out" material and taking it to other pages. The whole idea of this page is to give a thumbnail picture of large death tolls of any type caused in part or whole by human agency, and I think that's a legitimate and indeed engaging subject for a Wiki page. IMO it's really just the title of the page that needs to be better thought out.

What I mentioned before, and what I would be in favour of, is having a number of other pages linked to this page which deal with specific categories of these man made disasters in greater detail. But that this would remain as the linking "master page" to them all.

That's my concept of how to move forward with the page. Gatoclass 13:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyone else? --Dweller 13:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I certainly think the "Animal attacks" section should go though. It would be better suited under "natural disasters" or somesuch, doesn't really fit in here. Gatoclass 14:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

to give a thumbnail picture of large death tolls of any type caused in part or whole by human agency I agree this is a good starting point, but does murder by individuals constitue human agency? I don't think so, and we can't include all murders, the lowest body count in this section is the murder of two people, I don't think we can add all of the recorded murders of two or more people here, we need a minumum requirement for inclusion, say 100 or more deaths caused by a single event, serial killers would be excluded in that case. I also think that events causing the deaths of less than ten people do not constitute a large death toll, so the whole Space travel section needs removing. I also agree that the title of the page needs to be changed to better reflect the article content. Something like List of events resulting in large loss of life, this is just a title off the top of my head, I'm sure someone can come up with something better. I also think we need some sort of consensus about what needs to be done before we all start to make changes willy nilly. Alun 14:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Meh, you'd probably want a different cutoff per section. When doing wars and battles, for example, I would suggest not listing anything with less than 10,000 casualties; otherwise, you'll get a list with thousands of entries. Kirill Lokshin 14:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it makes sense to have sections. If the purpose of the article is to list events by loss of life, with the largest first, so the reader can see at a glance which events have caused the greatest loss of life, then it might make more sense to have just a list, without sectioning off the seperate causes of loss of life. Currently the title implies that is simply a list by death toll, whereas in actual fact it is no such thing, it is a list of various different types of event that caused a loss of life, each type of event is by death toll. I thin the article needs to be defined better. By the way, what is Meh? Alun 15:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

See wikt:Meh ;-)

As far as combining it into a true single list, that would be possible. The obvious consequence, though, is that it would be dominated by military events. Kirill Lokshin 16:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the {{Editprotected}}, that template is actually to edit a protected page, whereas you wish to unprotect the page. The way to get the page unprotected is to contact the protecting admin (User:Voice of All). Or visit Current requests for unprotection.--Commander Keane 15:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --Dweller 15:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, perhaps some of the other sections need cutting or refining. I'm not suggesting that everything stay in. I'm just saying that, in principle, the idea of putting together a bunch of different manmade events which have contributed to a notable loss of life is not a bad idea. And when I say "notable loss of life", that could possibly include relatively notable losses, such as serial killers and so on.

But really, I'm not greatly concerned about the bulk of the article, what I personally am interested in doing is creating some new and hopefully interesting pages about war and other mass lethalities, with this page, or some other page, presenting a small subset of said page/s and otherwise acting as a masterlist.

Because quite frankly, I've been armwrestling John Flaherty for weeks over what I regard as fairly trivial matters and I'm sick and tired of negotiating ad nauseam over every little thing I want to do. I want to actually go and DO something for a change. John's already held me up for several days on this page when I could have got quite a bit done. And I'm anything but keen to start the whole process over with a new bunch of guys. I'm sick of bloody committee meetings, I've been doing nothing else on Wiki for weeks.

So I intend to continue with my little pet project on my own behalf. And naturally, therefore, I'd prefer you guys worked on some other parts of the article, but if you want to cover the same ground then my suggestion is you do your thing and I'll do mine and we'll decide at some stage which was the better approach, and then either merge the pages or eliminate the ones that didn't work out so well. Gatoclass 16:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest something like this. Have an article listing, say the 50 top events that caused mass loss of human life by death toll. Then have a series of related articles that each list loss of life by death toll, each article being defined by the cause of loss of life. So an article for largest death tolls by wars, another for Battles, another for sports etc. Then a category could be created, like Events causing large loss of human life or something, and all the articles could be included in that category. That way the biggest events, regardless of cause would be listed in one article, with several other related articles by cause would be included in the same category. Personally I think this would compartmentalise things is a more systematic way. It would also mean that events with a relatively small loss of life, like the Space travel section need not be lost. It's just a suggestion, any takers? Alun 16:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment: From my perspective, I don't really care too much what format is agreed. What irks me most about this page is the masses of stats that are unverified. I'm unwilling to state which at this point, but some of them seem like fiction to me. --Dweller 17:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. This article is in severe need of some properly verified info. Alun 17:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

There's also a ridiculous degree of precision at some points. Consider, for example, "398,218,714, perhaps as high as 640,951,868" for the total number of casualties (presumably obtained by adding up all the numbers, which ignores that some of them are rounded to the nearest million). Kirill Lokshin 17:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest something like this. Have an article listing, say the 50 top events that caused mass loss of human life by death toll. Then have a series of related articles that each list loss of life by death toll, each article being defined by the cause of loss of life. So an article for largest death tolls by wars, another for Battles, another for sports etc...

In principle this idea doesn't sound too bad. I'm not sure how it will fit into my own plans however - it may be there will end up only a peripheral crossover between the pages I'm thinking about creating and this page. I don't suppose that's necessarily a bad thing in itself though.

What could also be done with this list, as well as it being a list of "top 50" death tolls from any cause, is to have, say, the top 10 or top 20 or something from each subcategory listed here. But I'm not sure if that's the best way to go. Maybe it would make more sense just to have the top 50 or whatever, and then a list of links to the other pages.

I think my main concern would probably be though, how exactly are we going to organize the listing of this top 50 (or top 100, or whatever it is that seems most appropriate). I ask this question because there is clearly always scope for considerable politicization of such figures, as evidenced by the fracas between John and me.

I would propose that there are two top 50's, one listing the events by their lowest sourced estimate and one listing them by their highest. That would seem to me to be the best way of avoiding squabbles about who or what should go into the list where. Either that, or have the figures expressed as a range (where available), and sorted by the most conservative (ie lowest) estimate.

Apart from that, your proposal seems like a reasonable enough way to proceed ATM. If it turns out there's a better way to approach this subject, we can always make some changes later.

Meanwhile, I agree with Dweller that there's a lot that needs verification on this page, some of the info here is blatantly wrong. I just discovered that John left a message to me earlier agreeing to have the page unprotected, so I'm going to put in a request for unprotection now. Gatoclass 01:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking that the best way to list the events would be by most conservative estimate. I have also been thinking that this is just recorded and estimated events, it can never be deffinitive because there must be events that lead to large loss of life that simply haven't been recorded. The estimates of loss of life from events from long ago are the most problematic, like the Mongol Conquests or the French Wars of Religion, though all we need is a published source for inclusion, remember verifiability is not truth, so published estimates from reliable sources are OK, but they must be published, original research is not acceptable. There are also some glaring ommisions, like the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War, to be accurate we need to try to avoid systemic bias, something wikipedi suffers from quite badly on occasion. As for politicisation, what you should be doing is getting proper verifiability, if there are sources that contradict each other, then both should be included in order to achieve neutrality, if an assertion is not supported by a published source, then it cannot be included. It is good to remember What wikipedia is not, it is Not a soapbox or a vehicle for propaganda and it is not an indiscriminate collection of information. I think unverified information should usually be tagged like this {{fact}} and after a week or so it should be removed, possibly to the talk page. I don't think it is acceptable to include information for verification later, editors have a responsibility to verify their own edits as they make them. It is perfectly acceptable for any editor to remove unverified assertions at any time, there is nothing personal about this and it is not in breach of wikiquette. Alun 05:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

In general I agree with your comments, except perhaps the one about removing unverified stuff "after a week or so". It may take a lot longer than a week to get verifiability for a lot of this stuff, depending on how much time people can find to spend on it (and believe me, having just spent several weeks trying to get verification for a couple of numbers on the Stalin page, I know how problematic these issues can become). Personally, I think either a warning template of some sort on the page, or simply a comment at the top that a lot of the numbers are still unverified and should not be relied upon, would be sufficient, at least at this stage. The page as it is has some utility I think, even if most of it is still as yet unverified. Gatoclass 06:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and here's another idea - I think it would probably not be too hard to find some sort of verification for many of these figures outside of what are normally considered "reliable sources". So I think that in the absence of reliable sources it would be acceptable to use less reliable sources until something more definitive comes along. But in order to do that we would need to have some means of distinguishing which numbers are properly sourced and which are only tentatively sourced. So I think some sort of note next to each such reference saying something like "- more reliable source needed" would be a way of quickly distinguishing in the footnotes which numbers still haven't been adequately verified. Gatoclass 07:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It's all very well to leave unverified information on a page for a limited time, but without some sort of limit, then some of the info might remain unverified on the page add infinitum. I do think it is the responsibility of editors to verify their own edits (though I'm happy to engage in some fact checking myself), and some of the info might just be the opinion of an editor, rather than a published estimate. Information that is unverifiable does need to be removed at some point, the not verified and fact tags are not meant to be permanent fixtures. An alternative is to go through the history pages of the article and find out which editors made which contributions, and then request that they verify their own edit, if they fail to do so in a reasonable time then the edit can be removed. I'm open to suggestions about how long an unverified assertion should remain. Be that as it may, the info doesn't need to be lost completely, it can be moved to the discussion page untill such time as it is properly verified or not as the case may be. I tend to the opinion that an assertion is either verified or not, less contentious figures do not necessarily require solid accademic source IMHO, but remember Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence, from the reliable sources guideline. Alun 07:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've started doing a little preliminary research myself. I've got a range of (believe it or not) between 3 and 30 million for democides committed by Imperial Japan, from what appears to be reputable sources quoted at the Japanese war crimes page, so I guess that's one potentially controversial entry out of the way for now.

I wish they'd hurry up and unlock the page though so I could start adjusting some of these figures and adding the verifications. Gatoclass 07:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm impressed by your dedication. Alun 08:27, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unverified material

My thinking was to include all the unverified material, but not rank it.

So the table pops up on your screen with the top 20 or whatever in order. Then below it as an Appendix, follows a wodge of unverified stuff. Anyone wanting to get "facts" into the table needs to demonstrate verification. --Dweller 09:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think unverified material should be included at all. Editors should be able to source material properly, to show where they got the material from in the first place, if they cannot do this then it just becomes their personal opinion, and wikipedia is not the place to express personal opinion, at least not on article pages anyway. Alun 10:07, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with that Alan but not so much in relation to the current entries. If we eliminate everything that is not currently verified the page will be practically empty!

And in any case, who is going to be able to police future entries? Users ought to know that they have to verify entries, but as this list demonstrates a lot of them just don't bother. So in the end the job devolves on whomever has the interest to do it. Gatoclass 18:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think we should look up everything, and whoever finds a legitimate source first will be able to legitimately edit the page once he/she puts up a citation. That will be the ONLY number UNTIL someone finds a source just as legitimate. For example, one would be able to put up the 30,000,000 figure, as the source is up there, but until the 5,000,000 figure is directly cited (not original research), it won't be put up. Sure, it seems logical, right? So why isn't it happening?

[note by me: It might seem a little impractical, but if we all just hold hands and get along, we can live with having multiple citations for various numbers, so long as they're all legitimate sources. Just an example here. If we have a range of 6 million to 20 million for Hitler, but that includes five different sources, which go from 6, 12, 15, 18, and 20, we put ALL five sources up, and let the reader decide. Of course, if there's ever an obviously unqualified source, anyone can revert so long as they leave a note on the talk page. BUT, obviously if we try to cite every single ridiculous number here, it'll get out of hand. So I say we leave a message on the top which clearly indicates that most of these numbers (without citations) may or may not be accurate (at least until we manage the arduous task of finding a citation for all of the numbers).]

Oh, and this may have been a while ago, but who even considered putting up 42,000,000 for Hitler? I mean, is that including war-dead? By genocide and democide, we're implying that it's civilians only, right? I mean, if we're going to do wars of aggression, and include POWs and/or soldiers KIA, all of these figures would skyrocket. In the end, it would basically be the same list based on order, but we can't just have military AND civilian dead for one dictator and have only civilian dead for all the rest =/ We should make certain that whichever way it is, it's standardized. (small note here: by railing on Japanese war crimes, I don't consider that to be a war of aggression. If we were to include those who died because of Japanese wars of aggression, we could easily stack up the tens of millions of Chinese/Vietnamese/Filipino/Malay/Korean/etc. soldiers who died from wars of aggression. If we do create another section, whether it be wars of aggression or most deadly regimes, and we choose to incorporate military deaths, we should be very careful with our numbers.

Oh, and I personally think Rummel is a qualified source, but his figure for Imperial Japan is inherently inaccurate because of the date. I think that if us editors judge as a whole that there should be a larger time frame (which I think is acceptable after anybody looks for a second at the atrocities committed PRIOR to 1936), that the larger one should be used. OR, do one large figure (for example, 1910-1945), and under that, do (1910-1936): # here, and (1936-1945): Rummel's #. It just doesn't make sense to do a figure for Japan with a low point that covers nine years but then to have the "high" point cover the entirety of Japanese Imperialism (generally accepted to be three-four decades). Oh, and while without a doubt Japan's crimes were absolutely horrendous in China, I don't think we should do anything like "Japan's War Crimes in China" or "Japan's War crimes (especially in China)," because that's just ignoring the imperialism in Korea, and even worse, the millions who died in all of Southeast Asia.

--69.117.38.223 21:57, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, multiple citations, I don't know about that, it might be impractical, the page is only so wide after all.

As for who proposed the 42 million figure for Hitler, that was me, on the grounds that Nazi Germany was found guilty of waging multiple illegal wars of aggression at Nuremberg (meaning they were ultimately culpable for all the deaths which those wars incurred, including combatant deaths). But we eventually agreed this figure would not strictly fit the definition of "genocide and democide".

I might add however that if this figure had been included, the total for Japan would also include combatant deaths since Japan too was found guilty after the war of waging wars of aggression.

As for how exactly to list crimes committed by Imperial Japan, I agree that's a bit of a thorny one, but I'm undecided on how best to resolve it. And our access to resources is limited after all. But I think it might be best to just leave it at a 3 - 30 million range, with a footnote to explain some of the reasons for the widely varying figure. Otherwise, one is opening a large can of worms about how to organize the listings. The place for the more detailed discussion is really the Japanese war crimes page itself IMO. Gatoclass 22:22, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it's daft to try to include stats like deaths caused by a single despot or state due to multiple events. I mean it seems to be contrary to the stated purpose of the article, if one wants to create an article listing the greatest tyrants the world has known, by number of deaths caused by their actions, then that is a different deffinition altogether. The article should concentrate on the individual events that have caused mass loss of life. For example an estimate of the total loss of life due to the Second World War (irrespective of whether the dead were legitimat military targets or due to war crimes like the Bombing of Dresden in World War II ), estimates for the total loss of life caused by the Final Solution or estimates of the loss of life caused by Stalin's Great Purge. Total deaths caused by the multiple actions of a single tyrant do not constitute individual events. Trying to include deaths caused by the multiple actions of a tyrant would also lead to paradox, does one attribute the mass murder of the German Sixth Army after the Battle of Stalingrad to Stalin or Hitler, different sources may include these deaths in both totals. I also think that it is clear that the Nuremberg Trials were little more than politically motivated show trials, not that the people on trial were anything but guilty as hell, but there were no trials for the crimes commited by any Allied states, and they all commited crimes, like the one mentioned above. User 69.117.38.223 still does not address the issue I raised earlier about unverifiable sources, the user seems to think that all of the data presented here must be verifiable and should therefore remain eternally untill such time as verification is provided, but I take the position that much of the data may be merely the whims or opinion of certain editors. I am not advocating the immediate removal of all unverified sources, but i am saying that unverified data cannot remain untill references are found for them, as these references may not exist at all. The lack of verification is the biggest problem in this article, but the second problem is that this article is poorly defined, with differing editors with different agendas using it in various different ways. i suggest that the purpose of the article be more clearly defined, are we dealing with deaths caused by individual events or individual people? These are very different things and seem to have caused a lot of argument on the page. Alun 05:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

i suggest that the purpose of the article be more clearly defined, are we dealing with deaths caused by individual events or individual people? These are very different things and seem to have caused a lot of argument on the page.

Yes, this is exactly where things can get tricky, but in my opinion, in the genocides and democides section, the events should be listed, basically by regime responsible (with the leader of that regime, or the leader most responsible, also cited where appropriate). This seems to be the most appropriate way to list this particular kind of event.

In fact I already create a table listing the genocides and democides in this way, and I think it works well as a methodology. It also has the added advantage of naming those most responsible, which is not only appropriate in my opinion but also lessens the temptation for POV warriors to meddle with the entries.

In the case of regimes like Imperial Japan though, where some democides may be separated by significant degrees of time and space, my argument would be, to list a total figure in the main list and then to have a sublist giving a breakdown of the larger figure (assuming we have the necessary information). If you look at the existing list, this has already been done to a certain extent for Nazi Germany and the Armenian genocides. My only change to this method would be to break out such instances of multiple genocide by a single regime into their own separate lists, rather than have them cluttering up the main list. And if we do it that way, we can also add more entries to the sublists as more information becomes available. Gatoclass 05:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

But this brings me back to my point about not having sections at all. I don't see the point of having sections, it should be a list of events causing large loss of life, sectioning it off seems to defeat this purpose does it not? The sectioning off of the article means that the events are not listed by loss of life at all, they are listed by different causes of loss of life, with each cause listed by event causing loss of life. I am especially concerned with events like murders by individuals, killing two people (serial killers for example are cases of multiple events), or the Space travel section, these are really in the wrong place, how can the murder of two people by an individual, or the death of two-seven people by space rocket malfunction be comprable to the millions of people killed by events like the Second World War? I really do think that the individual sections really need to be seperate articles. This article should be a list of the top 50 or 100 events that caused the largest loss of life. There should be related articles with lists of loss of life by type of event, and one of these could include a list for individuals/regimes listed by the numbers of deaths/murders perpetrated. These could all be included in a single category for easy reference. Alun 06:15, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand if there is a consensus for keeping the different sections then I will accept it. Alun 06:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, are you suggesting that we separate this into various articles? Sure, this one article is cluttered, and I wouldn't mind having different articles. Perhaps we should create several articles, each with the headings already on here, but to prevent cluttering, just link to those articles from this page? I mean, the individual areas seem alright (if/when we find citations). But, I don't think we should take the "only individual events" thing too far, because what exactly is a single "event." Do we define the Holocaust as one event, or a series of events? And if I recall correctly, this is supposed to be a list of events, and simply out of common sense, the party(ies) most responsible are listed.

And, I do NOT think that there are references for everything. The thing is, there are two choices:

A) Lower the quality of this article by leaving in unverifiable sources

B) Lower the quality of this article by barely having any information at all, when without a doubt there were certain facts that were true, which we were simply too lazy to dig up the citations for.

So how about we just add one of those "citation needed" signs to all of the uncited figures? I mean, that tag alone is enough to lower the credibility of that one fact (at least to me. I always highly doubt something if I see that tag), but it should also encourage those with "agendas" to find facts. If they find the right ones, well, that's good for everyone. If they just push a ridiculous source, obviously, revert it. If they push a source that's credible, but which you disagree with, just find another source just as credible and create a range for the figure. I don't understand why this has to be so hard, and why we're letting our e-paranoia take control of us. --69.117.38.223 16:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

EDIT: Well, actually, it seems the majority of citations are on the links to the related pages, and all we (theoretically) should have to do is attach a link from that page to the specific number, and everyone will be happy. But without a doubt, in its current state, this article is unacceptable (because if we only leave citations in the linked articles, this kind of issue will always turn up again). The clearest example of this is that in this entire article, there are eight direct citations. EIGHT. In this enormous list, there are eight. No, worse yet, as one person, I am responsible for 25% of them. Does anyone see the problem here? Does that mean that all the other numbers are wrong, and that Hitler didn't slaughter anyone at all? Or does that mean we just have to do the mundane job of transferring citations from Hitler's article to this one.

Oh, and this is obviously minor, but as an example of removing an unverified source, I think we should take out the "slave trade in the islamic world" item? It doesn't link to another wikipedia article, it doesn't link to an external page, and the "citation" attached to it is completely irrelevant to the islamic slave trade. Just an example of the kind of thing I'm suggesting. --69.117.38.223 16:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what we should do about links to pages that are not verified, but where there is verification on the linked page. I would suggest that we simply include the same reference on this page. Wars and disasters are individual events, and the page claims to be a list of deaths caused by these sorts of events. This is why I don't think the unrelated murders purpotrated on the orders of despots over a period of time should all be grouped together. Stalin's Great Purge is clearly a different event to his regimes deliberate starvation of the 6th Army after the battle of Stalingrad, or the internal deportation of the Chechen people. The Holocaust is a single event to my way of thinking, as it was a part of Nazi ideology, though it could be debated as to whether the Final Solution was a single event, and the murders that occured before that were just seperate individual events. Certain sections of the article are clearly not related in any way to disasters or wars and really don't belong here. I really don't see how removing unverifiable material decreases the quality of the article, I think that most people would argue that removing unverified information increases the quality, though may decrease the size and scope. Quality is surely measured by reliability, and unverified edits are clearly unreliable. I would imagine that most of the information in this article can be sourced, though this may not be possible for some of it, and residual unverifiable information should be removed. I suppose what is required is a few weeks or months of work by those of us who are concerned with increasing the reliability of the content, to try to get verification for as many events as possible, those events for which we can find no verification after trying can then be removed. I don't think the citation needed tag can remain eternally, because if we are dealing with OR or just plain POV peddling then some information may just simply be unverifiable. As for the individual sections, as I have said before I would simply list the wars and disasters all together by number of dead, then create seperate articles for the different categories of event, I would create a category for these and put all the articles into the same category, though your suggestion of linking the articles together is also a good option, maybe with an info box running down the right hand side of the article? Alun 17:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

But this brings me back to my point about not having sections at all. I don't see the point of having sections, it should be a list of events causing large loss of life, sectioning it off seems to defeat this purpose does it not?

I wasn't referring to the issue about sections. I was simply replying to your question about how the events pertaining to genocide and democide should be listed. My response was that they should be listed by regime, with additional tables or lists giving a breakdown of the various events within that regime that go to make up the total.

How exactly to organize the various sections in this article - whether on this page or on dedicated pages of their own - is another issue and not one that requires instant resolution IMO. Gatoclass 19:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and this is obviously minor, but as an example of removing an unverified source, I think we should take out the "slave trade in the islamic world" item?

I think I have to agree that that one should go for the time being, because there is no support I can find on other Wiki pages for the claim that 11 -16 million died due to the Islamic slave trade, and I think getting a number for this might turn out to be pretty difficult. So I think just an entry under "slave trade" will do for now. Gatoclass 19:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

This is why I don't think the unrelated murders purpotrated on the orders of despots over a period of time should all be grouped together. Stalin's Great Purge is clearly a different event to his regimes deliberate starvation of the 6th Army after the battle of Stalingrad, or the internal deportation of the Chechen people. The Holocaust is a single event to my way of thinking, as it was a part of Nazi ideology, though it could be debated as to whether the Final Solution was a single event, and the murders that occured before that were just seperate individual events.

I don't think I would be in favour of this approach. After all, where do you draw the line? There are dozens of different horrors committed by the Soviet regime under Stalin. Are they all going to be listed separately?

I think it's just more practical for the main list to have a single entry entitled "Stalin's regime" or whatever which gives a total for all democides committed by that regime, expressed as a range. A full breakdown of that total can be provided in a separate list, which could probably put into a separate page, say, one entitled "Democides and Genocides" or something similar. Gatoclass 19:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I would list them seperatly on this page, but draw up a page called something like List of Dictators/Regimes by number of victims or something like that, and list all the victims of a despot or regime in their totality on that page. It really depends what we want this page to reflect, I still think that deaths caused by events are different to deaths caused by people or regimes over a number of years, in which case there may have been several seperate events. I think it is better to compare like with like, individual events on one page, whole regimes and dictators on another. Alun 20:19, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I've been thinking along much the same lines. Genocides and democides and nasty regimes in general probably deserve their own page, just as battles, sporting events and so on. This page is probably more suited to recording events of any type that have resulted in large loss of life, with a bunch of links to other pages dealing with separate categories such as those mentioned above. I think we're pretty much in agreement here.

I wish they'd hurry up and unprotect the page though. We've been waiting days now, I can't understand why it's taking them so long. It sure as heck didn't take them this long to protect the page in the first place! Gatoclass 21:04, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I suppose what is required is a few weeks or months of work by those of us who are concerned with increasing the reliability of the content, to try to get verification for as many events as possible, those events for which we can find no verification after trying can then be removed.

That's exactly what I'm proposing. But I don't think it will take weeks or months, seeing as how as you and I both said, most of the references (that actually exist) are on the linked articles, and all we have to do is transfer them. But until we have a chance to actually look for such references (seeing as how, they probably DO exist), we shouldn't just immediately remove a figure. Unless of course, we've determined that there really are no references, and there is no article, and Google yields nothing (like in the Islamic Slave Trade figure).

And considering the sectioning... How about we turn this one into just CLEARLY individual events. As in, single battles, single murders, single sporting events, single disasters, and then at the bottom, where most articles link "see also:" we link to a slew of new pages such as "Wars by death toll," "genocides and democides by death toll (this would obviously include death counts that covered the entirety of such regimes as those of Mao, Stalin, Tojo or Hitler)," "serial murderers," etc. etc.

Just as an example, I'll take WWII. A lot of things happened in WWII, right? But they all go in different places. The number of soldiers who died in WWII would go in the war list (most likely with a "see also" link to the genocides and democides page for obvious reasons). However, those civilians who died due to Japanese imperialism, Hitler's regime, or Stalin's regime would go under Genocide & Democide. But something like the Rape of Nanking would go under individual events (which I assume will also be subdivided by what type of event it is: natural disaster, battle, siege, massacre, etc.). Siege of Leningrad would also go under individual events. If we're going to include concentration camps and the like, places like Auschwitz-Birkenau and Unit 731's headquarters in Harbin would be on the list. --69.117.38.223 23:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

We seem to be developing a nice consensus here. I am still of the opinion that individual events should be listed by death toll, irrespective of the type of event, but it's not something I am not prepared to compromise on if there is a majority opinion against it. It seems reasonable to have Battles as individual events on that page, and have a seperate page for Wars by death toll. I agree with your assessment concerning verifiability, we'll see how much info can be actually verified, and remove only those figures for which we absolutely cannot find verifiability, they can be removed to the talk page and put back in by any user at a later date if they can find a source that we couldn't. Alun 05:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

Looking throught the sporting disasters, I can find no verification of numbers in the Wiki articles for any of them. --Dweller 12:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotected

Article unprotected as per request at WP:RFPP -- Samir धर्म 05:46, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revisions

In this section, can I suggest editors outline which sections of the article they plan to rework. If possible, "how" would also be useful. --Dweller 10:45, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sporting events

I'm taking this on. I'm going to:

1. ask for sources for all
2. remove request for those not needing
3. use the table format that can be seen higher up this page - initially in my sandbox
4. delete entries that are not disasters

My work in progress can be seen at the article and in user:Dweller/sandbox

Helpful suggestions on my personal talk page please to keep this section easy to read. Thanks. --Dweller 10:45, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

My work in progress can be seen at the article and in user:Dweller/sandbox

Actually Dweller, I wouldn't go to the trouble. I've had second thoughts about that particular form of presentation, it's messy and complicated, hard to get right and rather restrictive, and the end result neither looks very good nor is that easy to read in my opinion.

I'm working on a simpler, more elegant and more functional solution for the presentation of data on this page. So if I were you I wouldn't waste too much time on the formatting ATM, unless it's just for your personal edification.

Actually, I might as well show you a quick example of what I'm working towards. This one uses a fixed width text that is normally used for computer code and so on, I don't intend to use such text in the final version, but the layout is pretty much how I want it to be. Just to give you an idea of what lines I'm thinking along. I find this solution to be basically simpler, easier to read and more flexible, in that you can discuss each event at greater length instead of being confined to a wee little box in which you try to fit in one little piece of info or another. I think it looks a lot better too, quite frankly, even in the temporary fixed width text format.

BTW, note that the code to this little table is not really suitable for using as a basis for table code, because the format for fixed width tables is quite different than for normal tables. I'm just giving you this as an example of the type of layout I'm trying to work towards.

30,000,000 - 200,000,000 - African/Atlantic slave trade (16th - 19th C)

27,000,000 -  72,000,000 - Communist China (1949-1975) under 
                           Mao Zedong[3]

20,000,000 -  26,000,000 - Democides and genocides (1933 -1945) of 
                           Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler

 3,000,000 -  30,000,000 - War crimes of Imperial Japan, especially in 
                           China, 1930's-1945, under Hideki Tojo and 
                           others. See also Japanese war crimes.[4]

Gatoclass 22:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Siege of Tenochtitlan

Why does the Siege of Tenochtitlan appear twice? - Eric 07:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The duplication occurred due to user 69.117.38.223 (talk • contribs) neglecting to remove the old entry (however the user did remove a separate overlapping entry) after adding a new one. [5] I have now performed this task. [6] —Viriditas | Talk 08:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Victims of the Soviet Penal System under Stalin

I've thought that the Soviet archives were long declassified, so the documentation on Stalinist repressions has been analyzed, and "estimates" are no longer viable in the light of archival evidence. The information on the repressions has been declassified and analyzed by both Russian and Western professional historians, which eventually was published in the American Historical Review. The relevant information can be found online.

Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years:A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence: http://www.etext.org/Politics/Staljin/Staljin/articles/AHR/AHR.html

This declassified documentation has been acknowledged by the scientific community (ex. Hoover Institution, Europe-Asia Studies, etc), and used as an educational basis in Universities (for ex. http://www.uwm.edu/Course/448-343/index4.html)

Shortly, depending on whether you include the 1931 famine or not, Stalinist repressions could account for either 2,5 or 10 million, with approximately 1 million toll of the GULAG camps mortality and a million and a half toll for direct executions in the penal system.

[edit] Spain

Is there a reason someone took out everything Spain did? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_wars_and_disasters_by_death_toll&diff=64106007&oldid=63942888

[edit] Battle of Tinian

The death toll should be at least 8,010 instead of 6,500

Changed. ComaDivine 08:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge?

These articles have overlapping content and should be merged. Or at least, List of disasters should be repurposed as a simple list, leaving this one to count death tolls. Rmhermen 14:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose The other list is chronological, with a death toll cutoff. Obviously, the best would be a spreadsheet-like page that one could flip, at the click of a button, between sort-by-death-toll and sort-by-date, but until the Wiki can do that... Urhixidur 23:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose per Urhixidur.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 07:46, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] USER 146.145.227.194, how can you be so biased?

The "democides of the united states" under "genocide and democide" is one of the FEW cited pieces of information on the list! Yet, you remove the cited portion, and NOT the dozens of UNCITED links! Do you see the basic lack of logic in this?

[edit] Discredited Lacet Reports

I won't change it yet, as I want some input, but hasn't the Lancet report been very thouroughly debunked? It used inferior methods of information gathering claiming that 1 in 40 Iraqis died as a result of invaion. I think we should revert from the Lancet report's claim of 655,000 dead (an absurd number), to the probably still high IraqiBodyCount.org number of about 50,000 (max).

Says UITF: "the "report" randomly surveyed Iraqis and asked about deaths to extrapolated a death rate in the country. They included "thousands of people [who] died from worsening health and environmental conditions directly related to the conflict that began in 2003," and compared it with their post invasion death rate of 5.5."

Hot Air says: "According to the CIA Factbook by way of the Mudville Gazette, the average world death rate per 1,000 people is 8.67. The pre-invasion figure for Iraq used by Lancet was 5.5. Is that plausible? Does it count officially reported deaths or do Saddam-era "disappearances" count too? There are countries with lower death rates than 5.5 so it's not absurd on its face."

Says the liberal IraqBodyCount.org: "We would hope that, before accepting such extreme notions, serious consideration is given to the possibility that the population estimates derived from the Lancet study are flawed. The most likely source of such a flaw is some bias in the sampling methodology such that violent deaths were vastly over-represented in the sample. The precise potential nature of such bias is not clear at this point..." They have an [extensive study] destroying the Lancet report.

Says Texas Rainmaker: "The lead “researcher” then was also a Democrat candidate for Congress this year, before dropping out of the race. The current lead “researcher” was a financial supporter of his campaign. There’s some whopping credibility for their “research”."

Not to mention that this report includes people killed by terrorists - terrorists who would be killing people (probably Americans) in other parts of the world were they not in Iraq. President Bush denied the report (which, granted, is not solid evidence as he'd want to deny it anyway), but unlike one former President, most avoid flat-out lieing to the American people on national television.

I plan to change it, but just wanted to hear some input first. In other words; can one person tell me that this report is not discredited crap? Post on my talk page.

[edit] Abortion?

I noticed the edits by Jackist were reverted.

To be honest, when I saw the initial edits, I was shocked, repulsed, and then finally intrigued. I'm wondering, while it does seem to be indirectly (but deliberately) propagating an anti-abortion stance, should we include it nonetheless? Or does another page on wikipedia have abortion statistics?

If the statistics are reliable, then abortion is presumably the correct page. Certainly not here. -- Necrothesp 00:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How are abortion statistics a POV?

I don't use Wikipedia often, but I've seen a link to this particular article numerous in other forums that I use. The citing person always uses the link to support his claim that the US/Europe/White People are responsible for the destruction/genocide/hatred of the Native Americans. Of course, the abortion death toll is many times as staggering and ongoing yet people who sympathize with the Native Americans (who weren't consider human by those killing them) never even pops into their head. Abortion policies and supporters are normally seeking demographic changes. For instance, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, wanted to exterminate blacks and other racial minorities through abortion. The 200 million plus abortions in the Soviet Union were a part of deliberate social and political policy.

I understand that many people don't think abortion is the killing of human life, but many people do. I don't see how including the number is a POV while excluding them isn't. I'll hold off on the whole post/unpost efforts to let discussion proceed on this page. Jackist 00:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The point is that by putting them here you appear to be propagating a POV. Their correct location is on the abortion page. This is a list of wars and disasters. Most would consider genocide to be a human disaster. It may not have been considered so in the time and place in which it happened, but it is now. In addition, the "genocide" of the American Indians was principally carried out through war, which is within the purview of this article. Many, obviously since it's legal in a huge number of countries, do not consider abortion to be a disaster, and it's certainly not a war. It's a question of the appropriate place to put information without inserting your POV, overtly or covertly. Only a very few would consider it POV to count genocide as a human disaster; very many, in the western world at least, would consider it highly POV to count abortion as such. -- Necrothesp 01:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The "genocide" of the American Indians was primarily a result of disease, and I would highly dispute that it was a "human disaster." I guess that makes it a POV that needs to be removed? Or maybe we should follow the neutral point of view policy and include an opposing viewpoint? (And it was legal to shoot Indians from a streetcar in Dallas up until the 1970s. Does that mean that up until the 1970s killing American Indians wasn't a disaster?) Most pro-life people would argue that the fact that abortion is legal is the disaster, and many genocides were carried out by private citizens without legal penalty. And of course, abortion is still illegal in many countries so I don't see why the view of some Europeans and Americans is somehow not a POV. Many people in fact argue that abortion is genocide. See www.blackgenocide.org. This is sort of rambling, but the point that I am trying to make is that many people would see it as correct to include the information here.

Based on my understanding of Wiki policy, we're supposed to present a neutral point of view.

"The neutrality policy is used sometimes as an excuse to delete texts that are perceived as biased. Isn't this a problem?

In many cases, yes. Many of us believe that the fact that some text is biased is not enough, in itself, to delete it outright. If it contains valid information, the text should simply be edited accordingly."

I would like some ideas on how to include the information in a way that presents it in a neutral fashion. I tried that before by saying that not everyone agrees that abortion is a human death and that the reader should make up his own mind. If that's not correct, then what is? Jackist 04:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you're understanding me. This is not the correct place to present this information, however you present it. It is blatantly not the correct article. What's wrong with the article on abortion? -- Necrothesp 13:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I do understand you and your opinion. You're unwilling to accept that the largest intentional termination of genetically human life in history counts as genocide, and that's not an uncommon view. However, abortion has all the characteristics of genocide/abortion. It's justified by denying the humanity of the other, eliminates the "undesirables" (people with Down syndrome and other genetic diseases are being removed from the population), increases lebensraum/decreases "overpopulation," and the ruling class supporters of the program deny that it's genocide and try to hide the information from people who might think otherwise if they saw the numbers. Why not put it in an abortion article? Why did Martin Luther post his 95 Theses on the cathedral door instead of in an theological journal? I want people to actually see the information and make connections on their own. In short, I want the "facts to speak for themselves" as the Wiki policy supposedly allows. I want people to be able to make up their own minds about whether or not abortion is a disaster. I don't want that decision to be made by left-leaning editors who require anti-status quo information to be posted in the ghetto. I still haven't gotten any suggestions on how to better include it. Jackist 15:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You are obviously unclear on the definition of an encyclopaedia. Encyclopaedias present fact not opinion. It is not a fact that abortion is genocide, but an opinion. Therefore it does not belong in this article. And who are you accusing of being left-leaning? Do you really believe that only left-wingers do not consider abortion to be genocide? I suggest you stop trying to pigeonhole people according to your own beliefs. -- Necrothesp 19:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you're getting that encyclopaedias present "fact" and not "opinion." The Wiki entry on ecyclopaedia doesn't even contain the word "fact." It does however mention "the opinions and worldviews of a particular generation can be observed in the encyclopedic writing of the time." I'm accusing mainstream writer and academics of being left-leaning in their presentation of information especially with regards to issues they disagree with. I am not trying to pidgeon hole anyone. I'm not the one who deletes facts they disagree with. It is a fact that abortions involve the killing of genetically human separate organisms by other humans. It is a fact that the implementation and justification of abortion policies is very similiar to the implementation and justification of genocide policies. The numbers of reported abortions that I posted are also facts. I see the concern that just posting the facts without mentioning the opinion that this is not genocide/democide could be misleading. I've asked for advice as to how to present the facts in a way where both sides feel the information is presented fairly. I still have not received any suggestions on how to do so. I may re-engage the posting war soon. Jackist 03:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Simple, create a whole new section for it. Change the title to "List of wars, disasters and abortions by death toll". No matter what, if a cell stops functioning, that means it died, whether or not it was human. Also, simply for clarification, change "Deaths caused by humans" to "Homicide." Last I checked, homicide was simply the act of killing a human being. This includes war, genocide, murder, suicide, infanticide, etc. Seeing as how abortion would be the newest info added to the list, I don't see why it should have priority to be placed first (which is where you placed it before). I think it follows logically that abortion statistics should be in a whole new section at #4: Non-homicidal deaths caused by humans. This would include abortion, killing of animals, ejaculation of sperm (which I mentioned before), etc. References, See Also, and External links would simply be pushed down one.--69.117.38.223 02:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

A slight note on the Native American democide issue. The reason the number is ~13,000,000 and NOT around 200,000,000 is because it DOESN'T include the # that died through disease and through war. Read Rummel's book on democide (also available online, for the most part) for clarification. The 13 million number is more of a figure for direct democides and total who died from deliberate massacres; it is NOT the total number of Native Americans who died merely as a (most likely indirect) result of European invasion.

Either way, however, the DEMOCIDE of the Amer-Indians is indisputably justified in being on this page. Why? It's under democide and genocide. Guess who invented the term democide? Rummel! Guess who thinks the murder of millions of Amer-Indians IS in fact democide? Rummel! In fact, if we're going to eliminate the Native American listing, that means we discredit all of Rummel.

Of course, the only issue I actually have with putting abortion on is that is it the same as killing a human? If I recall correctly, most abortions occur within the first trimester, when the "fetus" is barely distinguishable from a mass of cells. In fact, it can't even survive independently. If any living cell with human DNA in it is a living organism, regardless of its independence, then every time you ejaculate you're committing massive democide. After all, you're killing millions of sperm (genetically human life, no? same applies for skin cells), who had the possibility of becoming a full-grown human. And, you're killing off "undesirables," because the "undesirable" sperm won't survive to meet the egg. And nobody considers that to be democide. -I AM a Citation 22:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Although, to be fair, I wouldn't mind destroying the credibility of this article entirely and including both abortion and murder of sperm cells. It could easily be estimated. In fact, just use extremely conservative figures so nobody can make accusations of POV. Let's say the average male ejaculates once in his lifetime, w/ around 100 million sperm each time, and there were only ever 10 billion men. A "disaster" where a quintillion died... and it goes ignored for so long!--I AM a Citation 22:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

While it would be hilarious (or horrible, depending on your POV) to think that us males are capable of single-handedly topping any historical dictator's genocide count, I'd like to point out that a sperm cell, in addition to not being an independently viable cell, does not even contain the full genome, since both the [sperm cell] and the [ovum] only contain half of the required chromosomes and the complete DNA sequence only appears once the ovum is fertilized. There's really no way, short of thinking that "every sperm is sacred", to consider the sperm cell as anything more than half a blueprint and a machine to deliver it. So we can safely [spank the monkey daily to help prevent prostate cancer]. Muad 14:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1,634,000[9] - Democides by the United States (1900-1987)

For the "1,634,000[9] - Democides by the United States (1900-1987)" entry under "Genocides and Democides" the reference http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB13.1.GIF is a table listing deaths resulting from apparently *all* military activities of the USA from 1900-1987. This wikipedia article has links for both Genocide and Democide and neither definition appears to include any deaths inflicted upon uniformed enemy combatants in War. The vast majority of the deaths listed in the table are such war time related deaths.

This entry needs to be either removed or moved to a different category. I recognize that the USA is an evil diabolical genocidal regime bent on murdering millions of innocent people but any account of its genocidal/democidal atrocities cannot reasonably include the deaths of uniformed military personnel as the majority of it's total.

I'm tempted to simply delete the entry straight away but I think the total from the table may be useful as an entry in some new category if someone can devise one appropriate for such a figure.

Zebulin 17:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

ok I went back to the reference and traced back to the rest of the website. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE5.HTM#FIG has tables supposably broken down by "democide" for a huge number of countries and regimes. It's still not clear where the actual total used in our article came from. The methods don't seem to quite match wikipedia definition of democide but if we decide to keep the democide by united states entry in the list I suppose these others could all be added in as well for comparison by the same method.

Zebulin 17:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

uh.. the "wikipedia definition of democide" is based on R.J. Rummel's definition. Maybe you should check Rummel's website to see if he defines the American democides as democide.

Oh wait, that IS rummel's website... I see no reason to NOT cite the American democides when it is cited by Rummel, who made the term in the first place. (and also... because of the fact we also have other references to Rummel in the article already...) Reverting.--69.117.38.223 21:59, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Reverting what? i didn't edit anything!

Anyway should we add the rest of the democides from that site to the list? it sounds like that would be closest to consensus.

Zebulin 04:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the whole 'Democides' section is very, very hard to quantify. We're double- (and triple-) counting a lot of deaths in this section. For example, the democides of Nazi Germany would include many democides of the United States (in World War II); same with the democides of Imperial Japan and the United States. We need to reform this section, or remove it. Chip Unicorn 04:47, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] High Tolls of Ancient Wars and Battles

Why do the tables uncritically present such high death tolls for things like the Battle of Platea and Gaugamela? Or indeed, the Mongol invasions or ancient Chinese rebellions? It seems to me that such speculative totals of distant events from eras without reliable census information should be taken with a grain of salt. Wilhelm Ritter 22:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User 139.168.7.30

Mao may not have commited genocide, but he did in fact commit democide. What's democide? Well even if you don't know what it is, it should still be listed because the category is "Genocide and Democide." Well I guess we should look for a definition of the term. Who made the term anyway? Oh yeah, political scientist R.J. Rummel. Should we check if he defines the millions of deaths under Mao's regime as democide? Well in fact the inventor of the term defines 73 million of those deaths as democide. It's actually rather generous to Mao to leave the low bound of 27 million there.

Of course, if you actually gave half a damn about citations, you would have already clicked the citation and seen the obvious.

Reverting, for obvious reasons. Personal opinion does not overrule citation (especially such an authoritative one). --I AM a Citation 03:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sortable table

It might be nice to make these tables dynamically sortable, as I've done for List of United States disasters by death toll. See Help:Sorting for documentation. -- Beland 02:01, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

It seems sufficient to me to defer references to the articles on the subject (unless there is no article). There would need to be a systematic attempt to verify that each article actually does contain this information, that it agrees with the list, and that the info is referenced. -- Beland 02:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deaths or Casualties

This list is definitely wrong. In many cases, the number listed is the number of casualties. Death toll is doesn't involve casualties, or it will be called casualty tolls... For example, 2 million deaths for Brusilov Offensive! If you check the attack, the number of casualties is about 1.5 million. This chart does not make much sense. Battle of Chancellorsville had maybe 3000 deaths, not 12,000 and Battle of Gettysburg had 8000 deaths not 15,000... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.109.255.61 (talk) 03:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] busted dam and huge flood in china in the 70s

I heard there was an enormous flood in the 70s, some dam blew, and it cascaded and blew an entire network of dams not sure the name/exact place/exact date but it was on some disaster show on discovery yet I cannot find it in this list ? where is it ?

216.113.96.172 07:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)