Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres

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See also a further discussion in February 2008 at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres (2nd nomination). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:11, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. There are far too many issues here to be decided in the AFD format and timeframe. I understand that no decision has been reached in literally years of discussion, but except in rare cases, lack of consensus is not a reason to delete. Mr.Z-man 07:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of massacres

List of massacres (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

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

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

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

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

  • Weak delete: the page as it is now tries to include ever large scale killing and this will make the article unusable and unmaintainable, just because of the number of such events. The current structuring uses recent media jargon with the "state sponsored massacre". Most of the {{fact}} requests were applied mechanically - where the relevant article exists the references and details should not get duplicated over several places. Whole wars (e.g. Spanish Civil War) were inserted into the list.
If the contents is kept it should be broken into parts: first geographically by continent or subcontinent, then by date, without attaching further labels as war, state or religion. School shooting, workplace violence and gang wars should be separated into standalone lists. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 21:07, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Why by continent? You say without attaching further labels to war, state or religion, but then immediately suggest that schools, workplace and gang wars should be labelled. Why those three and not others? Have you read the talk page? Because it is suggested that the current introduction should be replaced with a new one, and only massacres described as such will be included in the list in future if it survives this AFD --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:28, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
By continent or by some well defined and established historical region - the smaller chance for potential disputes the better.
The reason why I think school shooting should not be included here - disregarding inflation of the term by current media, these are plain murders on somewhat larger scale. Remove the shooter and nothing will happen. A "proper massacre", IMHO, has some context and does not depend only on the behaviour of single individual. Get the crazed Olga Hepnarová better psychiatric treatment (or better parents) and eight people will live, switch the soldiers or organizers at Lidice and maybe some other village will be destroyed. My opinion. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 20:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
I have tried in vain to find reliable, academic or otherwise non-casual use of the term massacre. What constitutes a "proper massacre" versus something that is simply labeled one? Is Columbine Massacre a real massacre or just a proper one? It may be obvious to you but that is merely your own original research.--Mmx1 (talk) 20:28, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete for the reasons stated by the proposer who provides a good summary of the problems with the article. I also think that "non-political" massacres such as the recent school shootings in Finland and Westroads Mall massacre can be compiled with a wide consensus. (Sarah777 (talk) 21:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC))
  • Keep: there are no rules against incomplete lists. This one is also useful. --Quoth nevermore (talk) 00:17, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
    "Quoth nevermore" what is a massacre? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
    mas·sa·cre /ˈmæsəkər/ noun, verb, -cred, -cring. –noun
    1. the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.
    2. a general slaughter, as of persons or animals: the massacre of millions during the war.
    3. Informal. a crushing defeat, esp. in sports.
    –verb (used with object)
    4. to kill unnecessarily and indiscriminately, esp. a large number of persons.
    5. Informal. to defeat decisively, esp. in sports.--Quoth nevermore (talk) 18:35, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Some people say that the word is "POV charged", in this case we cannot imply that a fact is a massacre without assuming a POV, and a "list of massacres" cannot exist in wikipedia.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 21:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
    Now define a "large number". Is 10 a massacre, or would you reserve such a term for anything over 500? It's an extremely subjective and ill-defined term. --Czj (talk) 23:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
    So "Quoth nevermore" which dictionary did you use? How does one judge if the killings were unnecessary or necessary? Does this mean that mass discriminate killings are never a massacre? What happens if a reliable source calls an event a massacre, but the killings were not indiscriminate but targeted killings, such as the killing at the end of the siege of Drogheda or the Massacre of Lvov professors or the Banka Island massacre, do they get into the list or not? If the do then what is the definition we are using and if they do not then it is not a list of massacres as defined by reliable 3rd party sources. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. First define Massacre (WP:OR). Second, how long into history will we go back. Third, even if we go back in history only 300 years, there are so many massacres that this list will never be completed, and won't be helpful. Malinaccier (talk • contribs) 00:52, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete, as much as I hate to say it. This is an indiscriminate and unmanageable list. The information on its own is helpful, but not in a format like this. Splitting into smaller, much more focused and well-sourced articles (a lot of which already exist) is much more meaningful and less arbitrary. --Czj (talk) 01:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep The word indiscriminate does not apply here, as any review of WP:LIST will show. A list of blue-links is "indiscriminate" because there is no information provided that shows a distinction between the items on the list. This one, on the other hand, provides information about time and place, a summary, and the source of the information, and here at Wikipedia, we tend to like sourcing. Nor is it unmanageable, unless you're worried about new massacres being added every day. The only valid complaint I see here is that there's no clear definition of what's a massacre. Good well-sourced material that could stand better organization. Mandsford (talk) 01:15, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Comment: There are literally thousands of mass killings that would qualify as "massacres"; this list will expand exponentially. As someone said, every bomb dropped in the past 90 years is potentially a massacre. (Sarah777 (talk) 02:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC))
  • Delete Could never be inclusive enough JPotter (talk) 05:09, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong keep I think the article is way too long for an article, so splitting it up sounds like a very good idea. Each section should be a page of its own, but the main page should remain, with links to each of the subpages. All of the concerns voiced by editors who voted to delete are well-founded, but deletion isn't the right way to deal with this. There is a lot of hard work behind each one of those tables. It should not be thrown away because of what amounts to no more than formatting errors. Cbdorsett (talk) 05:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
    The edit history, and the talk archives, shows that I spent a lot of effort on this list over the years -- including the proposing and implementing the splits into separate tables from one long one -- but I don't consider that a justification for keeping the article. If we do not use the suggested definition of a massacre is a massacre when a reliable third party source calls it a massacre, (with all the arbitrary inclusions and exclusions that entails), then AFAICT any other definition is either original research and/or a non neutral point of view. So what you think is a massacre? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:40, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Are you aware of any other Wikipedia pages that have been deleted because a group of editors could not reach consensus on a definition? All the pages I see that have controversies make some effort at defining, with mention of alternative points of view. I can't claim to have read all 1-million-plus articles, but I have worked on pages that generate a lot of controversy, such as Arabic language. This list is useful because it provides links to further information. Surely someone can craft a disclaimer that will head off edit wars. (Maybe you? Maybe me?) What I see in the proposals to split the page is an attempt to bring structure and order to the topic. Flat-out deletion is counterproductive, sort of an "I'm taking my ball and going home" solution. Cbdorsett (talk) 14:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete With a definition that makes everyone happy, you will include every killing of two or more for the entire history of the human race. Any definition that limits the list to a manageable size will be challenged by someone w POV for eliminating their favorite act of cruelty. If you post by continent, it will be painfully obvious the list is POV biased. If you post by year, the concealment of the bias will be only partial and give legitemate cause for complaint.67.161.166.20 (talk) 07:48, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong keep Will you delete every article that is "controversial"? Or are some killings less important/tragic than others? Or does it not conform to the widely accepted list victims or perpetrators? This is a place where (somewhat) accurate history of human suffering is documented without the usual bias that accompanies this subject. Some events listed here document the killings which, in numbers at least, rival the holocaust, but they are not as widely mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.205.248.117 (talk) 10:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep No list can ever be completely exhaustive and this is a useful resource. --djkinsella —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.186.75.73 (talk) 15:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
    Many lists on Wikipedia have fixed upper limit. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 20:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep This list deserves to be on Wikipedia. It directs you to the articles making it alot easier. This was the main source in my politics essay in college and this is how i go my sources. Chandlerjoeyross (talk) 17:45, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
    Would a collection of smaller separated lists be still useful for your work? Some pragmatic solution is needed, the page cannot grow w/o limits. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 20:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Unmanageably indistinct criteria of "massacre"--Mmx1 (talk) 20:28, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment/Keep & Split Article Well nobody can agree upon a massacre I would have to say that what ever has been labeled a Mass Killing/Spree/Murder be put in its own category and those we know to be called a Massacre be left. Example something like the Tulle Murders doesn't really count as a massacre as it was never really called a Massacre like the Malmedy Massacre. I would also like to suggest that all red links be removed if you are so concerned about controlling the article.
  • Delete - Absolutely unmanageable. There's no absolute authority on what the inclusion criteria for "massacre" is and the lines blur between mass killings, massacres and other terms which makes it totally unpractical. Each individual editor may have a different idea of what massacre means to them and in the end we'll have a gigantic list full of every killing involving more than 3 people. Delete. Spawn Man Review Me! 11:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete - The term massacre is too subjective to keep this list manageable. Split material into smaller lists with more defined criteria for inclusion. AlphaEta 16:43, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Split - Split into lists with tight crieria for inclusion. Looks and feels v.POV as it stands Kernel Saunters (talk) 16:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Comment For those of us who haven't been reading all of the original arguments going back to 2002, I repeat the following observation to expand on "Kenel Saunters" comment on POV:
Using ONLY post WWII data FROM THIS PAGE (selected because no one can claim writing hadn't been invented yet), we have raw data as follows: "the west" (Wikipedia definition - Europe, Russia, and US), with 15% of the world's population, 109 massacres w 20,000 victims. "the rest of the world", with 85% of the world's population, 123 massacres 15,000,000 victims. This works out to about 200 victims for each western massacre, and 120,000 for each "rest of the world" massacre.67.161.166.20 (talk) 17:52, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Split Ignoring the POV questions, this list is too large to use. Split it into centuries, with decades for the 20th and 21st centuries being a possibility. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 05:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
    One can not ignore the POV questions that is the fundamental problem! What do you think a massacre is? ie how would you describe it in the introduction so that the lists are not a random collection of events? -- What about the point I made in the introduction to this AFD about air raids? Did you know that in Northern Ireland between 1970 and 1992 there were about 10,000 "terrorist" incidents. Now not all those involved multiple loss of life, but that was a very small conflict in a very small place so can you imagen how many mass killings occur in a typical year? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
    Good point - and it wasn't just "terrorists" did a bit of massacring - so not only a very very long list for tiny NI alone; but endless triggers for massive edit wars. (Sarah777 (talk) 01:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC))
    I didn't mean ignoring the POV questions as to discard them- only that I was not going to address them. If this article is kept, it needs to be split into managable sections. There also needs to be an objective standard for inclusion, maybe by number of deaths. Something that can be divorced from politics or nationalism. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 03:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    Bradjamesbrown the advice to split a large list into smaller sections is quite reasonable, but that is not really the issue under discussion, because I would not not put a list up for deletion if size was the only problem (I would simply agree on the talk page to split it). I put the list up for deletion because of the inherent POV problems with the word massacre. This is well documented in the edit history of the article and on the talk page and archives. If after you have considered the POV problem, then please either consider changing your opinion from splitting the article to deleting it, or tell us how to solve the POV problem, or explain that you do not consider POV to be a problem, because at the moment it seems to me that you recognise the POV problem but have not suggested a way we can solve it.--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:02, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep the term is widely used and does have criteria. If we remove articles because of POV problems, we will have no articles on any controversial subject. DGG (talk) 01:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    • No - massacre isn't just controversial; it is controversial because it is so poorly defined - and we can't just invent a definition for the purpose of this article; WP:OR, synthesis etc. Any definition of "massacre" which will acheive consensus here will lead to a list of near infinite length. To illustrate this - you state what you believe are the "criteria" - and I'll show you what fits your criteria! (Sarah777 (talk) 03:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC))
  • Keep moving this list to other articles like going postal and stuff is going to make it more POV and harder to navigate. I think a split into multiple articles would be acceptable by all means, and I think the best approach would be to section off 19th century and later. I find the more historical entries to be quite education and well in line with the purpose of Wikipedia and qualms about the inclusion of certain events shouldn't have any bearing on a delete/keep decision. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 08:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    Theanphibian please read Sara's point to DGG and then explain what you think a massacre is and what the criteria should be used for including an incident in the list. If you can not do this do you think keeping this list is a workable solution? As to your point about 18th century and earlier, the intention if this fails to only to include in the list those events which are called a massacre by a reliable third party source, so this list that exists will be a list of events that third party sources have called massacres. This will mean that many of the current entries will be deleted because they are only in there through editorial original research and WP:SYN and not through verifiable third party sources. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:02, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    If you're saying that we're going to delete all the old entries in the list because they don't have references, that's just BS. Most of them have links to a main article, you can't possibly argue that the Battle of Changping is controversial in terms of being defined as a massacre or not, or that we don't have a death count reported in good faith. Or would you be claiming that the [[ Virginia Tech massacre]] wasn't a massacre because we don't have a cite? I mean come on. Clean up is one thing, AfD is another. Obvious criteria for inclusion is that some other source called it a massacre, or that just a large number of people were killed not fighting back. So yes, I do think keeping the list is a workable solution and splitting into multiple articles could help. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 18:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    The reason for the AfD is because no one has come up with a viable third party definition for massacre that can be used to create a list. Further those events that have reliable third party sources claiming that an individual event is a massacre, seem to be arbitrary and often politically/religiously/culturally biased. If the Battle of Chanping has no reliable third party source that states it was a massacre it should not be in the list of massacres, this is within Wikipedia policies of WP:PROVEIT and no original research. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    How about the savage and excessive killing of many people[1]. It may not be clear what fits into this definition sometimes, but no matter how you look at it, Battle of Chanping, for instance, falls into this definition. If you are uncomfortable with the fact that it doesn't have sources in its article, that discussion should go in the article - we should be deleting that article, not this list. Furthermore, for the stuff that happened hundreds of years ago they're not contested events. This junk is in the history books, it should be trivial to verify or deny it. Like I was saying, modern events are more difficult to handle. Still not impossible. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 19:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    What does savage mean and who judges if it is excessive? The use of links to Wikipedia articles is not acceptable for any information that is challenged or likely to be challenged WP:PROVEIT says "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation". --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 20:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    I'm still confused by what is accomplished by refuting the definition of massacre. There's not much in dispute about any entry, and that's the only thing that matters for PROVEIT. What the article is saying is "x number where killed in this event, y were killed in this event..." That's verifiable and within Wikipedia policy. Under what policy are you suggesting the article be deleted under? -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 20:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    The Loughgall Ambush is not normally seen as a massacre, but the Saint Valentine's Day massacre is. Should incidents that have no third party source claiming an event like the Loughgall Ambush be included? "Under what polic...'" Take you pick WP:NOR#Sources "nor use them in ways inconsistent with the intent of the source, such as using the information out of context." WP:NOR#Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, WP:V#Burden of evidence "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." and WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
    For example there were disputes about the suggested addition of Hiroshima bombing and people unhappy about labelling the event as "massacre" said that the term was "POV charged".--Pokipsy76 (talk) 21:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    Well, you can look at the history for those bombings articles, people called it terrorism as well. I don't see what the big deal is, they'll call it whatever they can. Just say we're not including bombings in the article and leave it at that. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 04:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
    We have been that way of excluding events within the laws of war at the time, but some editors argue that this is a biased POV (because no source that specifies this), and if an event is called a massacre in a reliable source, then whether it is within the laws of war or not it should be included. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
    We cannot resolve POV issues about possible entries just by deciding each time to remove the category of event from the list.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 13:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
    Still, the argument for inclusion of the atomic bomb here seems only slightly stronger than Talk:Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki/Archive 13#Usage of the word terrorism to describe these attacks, which I thought was very weak, and I think consensus was built on it. It might sound silly, but can't we just ask for a vote/consensus for every disputed one? -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 14:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. There's a strong enough interest in the article (as an example, this reference desk question), so for educational purposes it should be kept. If people want to know about it it should be dealt with. If the definition is problematic then that is no reason to not deal with the subject. For comparison, terrorism is even harder to define, yet we have the artcles List of terrorist incidents and List of terrorist organisations. If this article goes, then those should too. A solution might be to order the list not chronologically, but by the number of casualties. Then there might be one main article with the biggest massacres (which people will be most interested in) and then maybe even several more aricles for the different 'size' massacres. 84.41.231.64 (talk) 08:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    Btw, the number of people responding here is an indication of how popular the page is. 84.41.231.64 (talk) 08:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    84.41.231.64 justifying the keeping of a list because there are others that you consider "even harder to define" is not in my opinion a very useful argument. If this list is to be kept then a definition is needed. So 84.41.231.64 if we are to keep this list please provide a definition that we can use for defining the word massacre and what do you think should the criteria be for including an incident in the list? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:02, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    A single, continuous event in which large numbers of people were deliberately killed. Note that this includes sieges and battles, but not wars. Of course, that's just my definition and another might just as well be chosen (preferably with as little as possible OR). Admittedly, there are difficulties with any definition, but that goes for any definiton of any word (outside mathematics). If problems are a reason not to do something, then you end up never doing anything at all. 84.41.231.64 (talk) 14:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    What is a large number of people? Is not such a definition OR or do you have a source for it? Such a definition would create a list of many hundreds of thousands of entries. What happens if a reliable third party source claims that an event is a massacre, do you keep it out of the list because it does not fit the definition? There are not the same problems with definitions for things like "war crimes" and "genocide" as these are legally defined terms as are many other terms used to create lists. But the meaning of a word like massacre is so loose as to be almost meaningless and is used in an arbitrary way in third party sources. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    I don't think there would be a problem with renaming it, making a list of serial massacres as per the Ireland example above, or imposing criteria for inclusion. But as far as I can see, Wikipedia has no other equivalent list. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 20:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  1. ^ WordNet Search - 3.0
COMMENT With all due respect, we seem to have a lot of people making arguments who were NOT part of the years long arguments on the original page. I am sorry, but I do not believe one single suggestion or argument has been made by any of these "non involved" persons that has not already been made and discussed repeatedly in the previous years.
FWIW Please do not be offended if your "perfectly reasonable solutions anyone can see" are not too well received by the "regulars". The matter is not nearly as simple as it appears.67.161.166.20 (talk) 20:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I think comments from non-involved editors are vital for these discussions. Various policies strongly caution editors to read and understand the history of an article before changing a great deal of things, but there are also policies that discourage "ownership" of articles. Proposing solutions may be going to far in this discussion, but adding an opinion is still welcome. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 20:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.