Talk:Dyatlov Pass Accident

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	On 2008-02-27, Dyatlov Pass Accident was linked from Reddit, a high-traffic website. All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

This article was nominated for deletion on 1 March 2008. The result of the discussion was Keep.

Contents 1 Cyrillic name of the Dyatlov Pass 2 Comment 3 Disasters category 4 Minor Edit - Change in section "Facts ignored by official inquest" 5 Solar Radiation?? 6 The lack of citations is disturbing. 7 Circular references :) 8 Facts ignored by Official Inquest 9 Explanations 10 Deletion 11 "Facts"? 12 Foreign language references 13 Sources verification 14 Cyrillic 15 radioactivity testing

[edit] Cyrillic name of the Dyatlov Pass

If Wikimapia is to be believed, the russian cyrillic name is "Дятлова перевал", in this article the names are in the opposite order. [1] //// 213.89.222.42 (talk) 00:32, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The difference between "Дятлова, перевал" (comma is required!) and "перевал Дятлова" is akin to difference between "Shekespeare, William" and "William Shakespeare".Geekzoo (talk) 08:00, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

"It was the reason for the radiological expertise of the bodies." Expertise? Is there a technical sense, or is this just the wrong word? Slowclap (talk) 17:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

  I suspect "expertise" here is directly taken from russian, it really means forensics. 80.233.159.254 (talk) 12:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The article needs a lot of work. It appears to have been translated, presumably from Russian, but there are many grammatical and idiomatic errors. Valkyryn (talk) 13:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disasters category

Can that please be removed. Thank you, --70.109.223.188 (talk) 20:02, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, it is not clear what happened, so we cannot say it was a disaster. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 20:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. --70.109.223.188 (talk) 21:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Edit - Change in section "Facts ignored by official inquest"

I made a minor edit to the third bullet point on the list. I changed "...adjacent areas continually in the period February to March 1959..." to "...adjacent areas continually during the period of February to March 1959..." I changed it because the previous method of stating the sentence was grammatically incorrect. Trevbork (talk) 20:28, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Solar Radiation??

Has anyone ever suspected a brief surge of solar activity as the cause of the hikers' panic? Sunspots were very prominent in 1959 (probably the period of the most frequent sunspot activity in recent history) and a freak flux of high intensity radiation could cause temporary blindness and might make the hikers very uncomfortable. Of course, this is all supposition on my part and I have no sourcing whatsoever... really just wondering if this theory has ever been discussed among others. 192.249.47.8 (talk) 22:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC) Ben

If anyone has, it would be documented elsewhere, not necessarily on the net, but perhaps in a book. We cannot, of course, allow unsourced supposition into an article. Have you tried Googling/libraries? --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 22:05, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

All books referenced here are in Russian, and googling doesn't really turn up a whole lot. Sourcing here, in general, looks to be pretty tough considering the amount of translation needed. Someone needs to poke at Hollywood so they'll make a really bad movie about it (while mixing up all the facts), which will, in turn compel someone to do their own research and publish a book! Here's to hoping! 192.249.47.8 (talk) 14:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC) Ben

I wonder if there really was anything that was considered unusual about that radiation at the time, it was 2 years after the major nuclear accident in Kyshtym, which as far as I could see, actually is very close to Yekaterinburg, the city which they started out in. While the nuclear accident certainly was something covered up by the soviet government at the time, I guess the military and possibly the police knew about it. 213.89.222.42 (talk) 12:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The lack of citations is disturbing.

Tons of claims, nothin backin' it up. I'd put a [citation needed] after every other sentence if it weren't locked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.227.205.42 (talk) 02:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't do that, it just makes the article look sloppy. If there is a widespread need for references, just use {{references}} once at the top. —dgies^t_c 02:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, due to the large number of maintenance templates, I combined them into a "multiple problems" heading: notice it says "It needs additional references or sources for verification. Tagged since April 2007." <eleland/talkedits> 03:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Main sources publicly available on this theme are Matveyeva and Guschin. The book of Matveyeva is considered the best due to the plenty of documentary quotations (actually, about 70% of the book are the quotations) and neutral POV. Her quotations has been verified comparing to original documentaries. The book of Gushchin is also good as a source of facts, but not neutral. Geekzoo (talk) 08:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Circular references :)

References to Svetlana Osadchuk's article look funny, as it obviously has been written on basis of this Wikipedia one :-)

Yes, it seems there are no sources in English on that subject. I have no idea what to do with this problem.

Geekzoo (talk) 17:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Facts ignored by Official Inquest

I vote that this be put back into the article.

(Optaquon (talk) 04:45, 1 March 2008 (UTC))

+1 The facts are confirmed by documentary citations in Matveyeva and Guschin. Geekzoo (talk)

There are no reliable sources to back this up. Votes cannot overrule policy. Jefffire (talk) 14:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The sources of the facts in this section are the same used for other sections. Why don't you doubt about reliability of e.g. "History" of "Inquest"? Geekzoo (talk) 07:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The more dubious a claim, the better a reference it requires. Mundane claimed can be verified with slightly more low quality references, whilst very dubious claims require extremely good references. Jefffire (talk) 08:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

What is dubious and what is not - it is your POV. Let's be objective - we either entrust certain sources, or not. We cannot split a source and pick the facts that are not "dubious" according to our personal beliefs. Geekzoo (talk) 10:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

We can and do have different standards depending on the claim. You appear to be unaware of a number of Wikipedia policies. It may be useful to read up on them before continuing. Important ones here are WP:Verify,WP:NPoV amd WP:Reliable sources. Jefffire (talk) 10:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I haven't found a justification for selecting the facts we like in a certain source, while omitting those we don't like in the same source. If a reliability of a source is disputed, let's consider the source as a whole.

I ask you to undo your destructions until reliability of the sources is finally defined. How one might verify the parts and add references to them, if they had been removed?

Note also that you have removed the portions which are referenced to the scholarship's sources (I mean toponymics). It's a professor's article published in the university journal and it's on-line version is hosted in an university server. Geekzoo (talk) 13:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

"Deleted" material remains in the Wikipedia servers and can accessed though the history tab of an article page. Article space should by preference be conservative. Jefffire (talk) 18:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I ask you to explain why this toponymical source is unreliable, or restore it. My arguments for its reliability are provided. Geekzoo (talk) 18:27, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not completely unreliable, its just not sufficient to verify claims that "facts" were "ignored", which are very hefty claims, since they are alleging things about an official body. Jefffire (talk) 18:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean that the "ignored facts" section should rely on this source. The source was about the name of "Kholat Syakhl" mountain (explaining why the mountain had been named so). No more, no less. Geekzoo (talk) 19:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a fairly mundane claim, so that source should be reasonable. Jefffire (talk) 20:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Uff. This article mention a mountain. The mountain have a name. The name is explained in a scholarship article of a professor of linguistics. Is it not reasonable to be referenced? Geekzoo (talk) 20:58, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

That's what I said. Jefffire (talk) 23:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Explanations

Explanation theories (together with pros and cons) come from literature - particularly, they were analyzed and tested by Matveyeva. I vote to put the section back. Geekzoo (talk) 07:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

—Preceding comment was added at 07:47, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Again, no reliable sources to back this up. Removal is only option. Jefffire (talk) 14:55, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK, Wikipedia article should give an overview of existing literature on this question. This is what this article exactly does. You personally can doubt in reliability of any book ever published, but it's not a reason to force other people to share your thoughts.Geekzoo (talk) 07:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. All material must be verifiable from a reliable source. Jefffire (talk) 08:25, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. But I did mean - the goal of Wikipedia article is not to find the truth, but to show how the question is reviewed in SOTA works. The more existing POVs are represented, the better. So, I think even "fantastic" POVs are justified, as long as they are represented in the literature. Geekzoo (talk) 10:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:Undue weight. Jefffire (talk) 10:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. But how to estimate this? AFAIK, there is a significant group of people who advocates the "UFO version" for instance. Geekzoo (talk) 11:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

That's always a slightly woolly problem, but the general guidance is-

   * If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
   * If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
   * If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.

Jefffire (talk) 11:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion

I've listed this page for deletion. After reading the article, it's clear that once all of the unverified and highly PoV claims are removed, there will be essentially nothing left. Jefffire (talk) 10:37, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Does it mean that non-English sources cannot be considered as "reliable"? Geekzoo (talk) 07:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Where did I say that? Newspaper article and fringe books are unreliable sources, not all of Russia. Jefffire (talk) 08:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

"Fringe book" - it's your POV again. Geekzoo (talk) 10:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Unless you can demonstrate otherwise, it is not a reliable source. The onus is upon the editor wishing inclusion to demonstrate the reliability of the source. Jefffire (talk) 10:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Might the photos of the fragments of the original inquest case, textually identical to Matveyeva quotes demostrate this? Or then, I would have to prove the photos are not "infringed" also? Geekzoo (talk) 11:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Pictures of the inquest would be good sources. They would make the book entirely redundant. Jefffire (talk) 11:12, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, then I'll take the old typewriter of my dad and type everything I want. It's a joke.

Nevertheless, it demonstrates oddity of the methods to prove the "reliability". There is a great semantic space of ideas, POVs, books, documents etc ever produced by humanity. Wikipedia is a great guide in that space and a hub where they are connected. Attempts to be a "filter" for them is unproductive and vain, in general. If someone wanted to infringe the facts, he could easily do that.

I'll ask a community to get the pictures of the case. But we'll have to ensure there are not legal issues with that before. Geekzoo (talk) 11:47, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

From my perspective, deletion of the entire article seems an extreme and unjustified step as long as the fact that 9 people died in mysterious circumstances, and the basic account of how they were found, are not in dispute. It seems strange that such a famous incident would not be worthy of an article. Speculative explanations and inadequately verified allegations can be deleted or described as such. WolfmanSF (talk) 23:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Facts"?

The available parts of the inquest files include the following facts:

...

*The fatal injuries of the three bodies could not have been caused by another human being.

Er, how is that a fact? Just because they could not imagine a way a human could accomplish this doesn't mean a human couldn't do it. Given the mind-boggling number of ways humans have devised of harming each other, the stuff in this article doesn't seem out of the question.

I'd also like to second the dubiousness of any 'fact' presented in this whole mess. - LafinJack (talk) 07:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

This phrase is an exact quotation from the official caseGeekzoo (talk) 07:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand that the most "reliable source" would be an official case of 1959 inquest. It is not accessible publicly, thus cannot be referenced. But, thanks to Matveyeva and Guschin, we have a large parts of this case as quotations in their books (verified by other researchers who compared the books with their photocopies of the case). I have no idea why they are not "facts". Geekzoo (talk) 07:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Please see the article on facts. These are direct quotes, we cannot verify if they are factually accurate. As a result, it is improper to describe them as "facts". Jefffire (talk) 08:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Foreign language references

There seems to be a misconception that the use of foreign language references is the reason that deletion was propose. While this is not true, there is a general guideline for foreign references which need to be followed. For your attendace, here is the relevant section, direct link is WP:RSUE

Non-English sources Because this is the English Wikipedia, for the convenience of our readers, editors should use English-language sources in preference to sources in other languages, assuming the availability of an English-language source of sufficient quality, so that readers can easily verify that the source material has been used correctly. Where editors use non-English sources, they should ensure that readers can verify for themselves the content of the original material and the reliability of its author/publisher.

Where editors use a non-English source to support material that others might challenge, or translate any direct quote, they need to quote the relevant portion of the original text in a footnote or in the article, so readers can check that it agrees with the article content. Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations made by Wikipedia editors.

Jefffire (talk) 08:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sources verification

From Wikipedia policy:

Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press...

The Guschin's book, before being published as a separate work, has been published by portions in "Uralskii Rabochii" ("Уральский Рабочий"), in 1990 - the official newspaper of Sverdlovsk regional authorities (regional commitee of CPSU). Guschin was an employee of that newspaper. The book itself has been printed by the publishing house of that newspaper. Geekzoo (talk) 14:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

None of that makes it high-quality. Call me snobby, but the official newspaper of Severdlovsk regional authorities doesn't sound quite the same level as The Times. Jefffire (talk) 17:58, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I expected this :-) So, what do you say about, e.g. "LA Times" or "Chicago Tribune"? In Russia, Sverdlovsk/Ekaterinburg is a city of the same level as those cities in USA. Geekzoo (talk) 18:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but I doubt their journalistic standards are the same. I'm prepared to be corrected though, do they have a good list of international awards and such like? Jefffire (talk) 18:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You should be an old-school soviet jounalist to guess about the standards in communistic newspapers. Be sure, they were much less liberal than ones in US. International awards? No. But it still is a largest regional newspaper (now it is a holding that includes a number of other newspapers also). This is their web-site: http://ur-ra.ru/sc/about.php (er, in russian again).Geekzoo (talk) 19:04, 2 2008 (UTC)

By the sounds of that, it should be regarded as a medium quality source. Perfectly suitable for sourcing uncontroversial material. Jefffire (talk) 23:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Sigh.. I'm surprised "The Times" is still cited as being in the same league as something like the Washington Post... It's not the same Times of London that everyone thinks it was.. read the wiki article on the Times! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.232.212.79 (talk) 23:32, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cyrillic

Just out of curiosity, is it really necessary to have the Cyrillic translation of every Russian name in the article? Shostie (talk) 22:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.122.127.162 (talk) 00:57, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] radioactivity testing

The fact that the clothing of the victims was even tested for radioactivity strikes me as bizarre. In most parts of the world, it would never occur to anyone to conduct radioactivity testing on the remains or possessions of people who had died in the wilderness of hypothermia or an accident. Is there any surviving documentation on why the testing was done, who performed the tests, the instrumentation used, and the actual results obtained? WolfmanSF (talk) 20:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The answer was in deleted "Facts, ignored by official inquest" section: "A former investigating officer said, in a private interview, that his dosimeter had shown a high radiation level on Kholat Syakhl". The officer (Ivanov) wrote in his article ([5]) that he got worried of radiation level after the reports of observed "flying spheres" and ordered to test the clothes and body parts of the last 4 victims (found in May). The documentation on testing is in the official case and cited in [2] and [3]. The tests were performed by the radiologic lab of the Sverdlovsk sanitary and epidemiologic monitoring service and signed by the chief radiologist of the city. The results was that the body parts had normal radioactivity level, but the parts of the clothes showed radioactive contamination from an unknown source of beta-particles (? - sorry I don't know English terminology) - supposedly, with a radioactive dust. Geekzoo (talk) 17:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

That seems like a pretty important piece of information, important enough at least for someone to have asked the question to begin with. Why was that section deleted if it can be cited? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.232.212.79 (talk) 23:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting and rather strange. Does the testing documentation record the levels of radioactivity measured, i.e. the ratio of the readings to the background level? WolfmanSF (talk) 09:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)