Talk:Complaints to the International Criminal Court
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[edit] Which complaints to include
Which complaints, if any, should we discuss in this article? Do we cover every single complaint that's ever been discussed in the media, or just the serious ones?
The problem with the first option is that the ICC has received thousands of complaints to date, most of which are incredibly stupid and have no hope of ever being investigated. It's pretty clear that most of the complainants haven't even bothered to read the Rome Statute. A lot of the complaints discussed in the article at the moment are downright silly, like the one about Italy.
At the same time, it's obviously not appropriate for Wikipedia editors to be deciding which complaints are spurious and which ones are worth discussing.
Do people think we should be as inclusive as possible and strive to cover every single complaint, or can anyone suggest a simple rule we can apply to weed out the nonsense without violating WP:NOR? Sideshow Bob Roberts (talk) 04:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
- First off, excellent article by the way, particularly the introduction which sets the scene excellently. To answer your question, I think the three policies that are most relevant are Wikipedia:Undue Weight, Wikipedia:Reliable Sources and Wikipedia:Notability. My bias tends towards the inclusivist approach, but I recognise that other editors have a different approach. These are my thoughts: Any case/complaint which has "significant coverage in multiple reliable sources" would qualify for an article by itself under WP:N so should certainly be included here (I would include Zimbabwe and Kenya in this category) However, this article should observe WP:UW by putting more emphasis on those complaints that are more likely to result in ultimate prosecutions. Rather than doing this alphabetically, it could be done by the different levels of likelihood. Inevitably this would need some kind of editor judgement applied, but I think that would result in the best article.
I suggest complaints are categorised into:
- (a) Ones that have led to cases being opened (e.g. Ituri)
- (b) Ones that have led to "intensive analysis" (e.g. Afganistan)
- (c) Ones that have been subject to "basic reporting" (e.g. Burundi)
- (d) Ones that would only lead to a case if a UNSC referral took place and there has been discussion of such a referral (e.g. Zimbabwe)
- (e) Others
- The first category - (a) - belongs in the Cases article and I think should just be briefly cross-referred to in the introduction to this article. Complaints falling into (b) could have a section and a few paragraphs for each potential case. There could be a single section on (c)&(d) with perhaps a paragraph per cases and a single paragraph at the end summarising all of (e). Any case/complaint which had a single "reliable source" would qualify for inclusion in this article, but that could even be a single word and a cross reference if the likelihood of prosecution is so remote.
