Template talk:Virginia Tech massacre

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Templates for deletion This template was considered for deletion on 2007 April 19. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents

[edit] Why?

If you are here then you noticed the template. This is based off of the template {{Sep11}} and is intended to group articles related to this topic. --StuffOfInterest 14:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC) I was ;pplong at this page to look for the names of the Va. tech victims. I am so sorry that every website I have seen has the shooters name listed as a victim. I also note that there is MORE information oon "the shooter" than any victim. I am doing research on the media's acknow;edhement of chool shooters as the highlited person of any incident. They even portray them as "heroes." But yje victims are only mentioned after, the killers life history is featured. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.28.58.253 (talk) 03:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 'Notable' victims?

Why do some victims get more attention than the others? I see the three notable victims are professors, but what about the students? The fair thing would be either to list all of the victims or none. That's just my two cents of course.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 189.148.24.123 (talk • contribs).

If you look at the AfD entries for the student articles, they will likely all be deleted very soon. It is only the notable entries, such as those who meet WP:PROF, which are likely to last. --StuffOfInterest 14:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I like the box and think it is fine as is, but could somebody link to similar tragedy boxes to better illustrate that this a more standard sort of thing? MCalamari 14:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't think this box will be ultimately be necessary, once the main page matures and gets better laid out, but we'll see Epson291 15:09, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Though I support retaining the template itself, I question the inclusion of this section of the template no matter what you call it, or the template's inclusion in this or any of the other bio articles of otherwise notable people who died in the shootings. Within the bio articles, it is unbalancing, placing far too much emphasis on the manner of their deaths, as if the rest of their lives was a mere footnote to their deaths -- very tasteless, too. The fact that they died in the shootings is already included in those articles, & Wikipedia users interested in the bios of otherwise notable victims can find these articles by way of the List of victims article, where they are all wikilinked. --Yksin 18:06, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

The victims part needs to go. There were 32 victims. Listing only those deemed notable by Wikipedia is inherently POV and misleading. --Elliskev 12:54, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map image

I'd like to propose dropping the map image out of this template. It just takes up more space than justified. --StuffOfInterest 16:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Il' support that, if more articles are added. For now, removing it will make the temp rather tiny --TheFEARgod (Ч) 16:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
see also: Template:Katrina, Template:2004 tsunami--TheFEARgod (Ч) 16:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC), so the size doesn't matter --TheFEARgod (Ч) 16:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I can see it either way. My concern right now is that the image takes up almost as much vertical space as all the text content. Also, that particular graphic was one of the complaint items at TfD. Guess we'll see what develops. --StuffOfInterest 16:41, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jocelyne

I will try not to turn this into a revert war, but i don't think her link she but kept. Given that the template itself is already under question... adding links to articles who are probable for deletion seems foolish. -- Jimmi Hugh 19:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

That was my reasoning for not putting her in in the first place, but someone else chose to. When the link goes red, it will only take a second to drop back out so I'm not concerned either way. --StuffOfInterest 19:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
But the link won't go red. It will be redirected and stay blue... The correct action, which has already been done, is to take out the victim names altogether. With redirects, you could have them all there, but that would be misleading as some would redirect to anchors back in the parent article, rather than separate articles. Just the main articles should appear on the template, as in this version. Carcharoth 16:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Media Inaccuracy"

In my opinion, that link should be changed from "Media Inaccuracy" to "Inaccurate Reports". At first glance, the term "Media Inaccuracy" suggests that the media as a whole has been inaccurate, whereas the article itself is more of a review of inaccurate reports. --Bletch 12:26, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Slight tweak should have dealt with that - it now reads "Media inacuracies". Carcharoth 14:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redesign

I'm not sure why this irks so many people, but I do think that it needs to be reformatted.

Instead of the extant design, I think it needs to be a non-intrustive navbox at the bottom, such as:

v • d • e
Ludwig van Beethoven
Life and work · Musical style and innovations · Beethoven and his contemporaries · List of works

The sidebar style is usually reserved for huge topics, like Quantum mechanics or Esperanto. I think a navbox that lies low, like the Beethoven one above, would attract fewer deletionist agendas. ALTON .ıl 03:06, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I tend to like this design. I've never been overly sure the template needs a map included. Something like this would take up about the least amount of vertical scroll space. --StuffOfInterest 11:17, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why I dislike the navbox - a parable

As one with both a deletionist agenda and a horrifying, secret love for crufty navboxes, I can tell you exactly why the Virginia Tech massacre navbox irks people. There is a feeling that, once the excitement of the chase wears thin and Wikipedians start treating this subject like encyclopediasts rather than scoop-hungry journalists, the "story" will collapse into two articles: one on the perpetrator, one on the act perpetrated (see Marc Lépine and the École Polytechnique massacre for a foreshadowing of the eventual intellectual fate of Seung-Hui Cho and the last, desperate act of his terminal frustration with his fellow human beings).
Two articles, plus a link to the institution where the dastardly act occurred (Lépine merits one whole sentence at the end of the article for the École Polytechnique de Montréal) would hardly justify a navigational template. It would simply be seen as a self-indulgent and unjustifiable waste of space whose function could have been easily handled by in-article links, and that assessment would probably be right.
The present form of the navbox is not really the problem. A map plus categories of links is not necessarily inappropriate in all contexts if it's done right. Here is a navbox I put together for University of California-related articles a week or two ago:
W. M. Keck Observatory ·James Lick Observatory
v • d • e
The University of California
Regents of the University of California
Campuses
Hospitals
Research
Note the use of a map and several categories of links. However, all of the links have some sort of permanence as to their Wikipedian notability that one honestly can't say is possessed by a lot of the satellite articles that spin wildly about the Virginia Tech massacre. Also, the map in the UC navbox is actually useful in figuring out where a lot of the links' widely-distributed subjects are physically located. The VT-massacre template's map, on the other hand, points out one precise location (if you can really call a big, red dot covering 150 square miles or so of Virginian countryside "precise") that most news junkies already know by heart and which, if a reader is unfamiliar with Virginian geography, is just one click away in the Blacksburg, Virginia, article.
If you truly want to put together a navbox with lasting significance and which won't be continually rubbished by self-righteous deletionists, I would not bother with one specifically dedicated to the VT massacre. Instead, I would put together a box on school shootings, shooting sprees, or some other categorized topic that really does have enough stable articles to justify creating a navbox and can sustain demand for one. My 2¢, plus a quarter or two. --Dynaflow 04:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I hope none of those comments were made with any cutting sarcasm. I certainly meant no offense on your behalf, and I apologize if you received my comment in that manner. Furthermore, I am neither endorsing nor expunging this template (see struck comment). But as it were, there is no consensus either way, and it will most likely stay. If it survives, I think it would serve a great function for this event only because it is a hot event that many readers looking for centralized content would want to know about. I, personally, don't consider this a critical issue, but you definitely should reiterate that argument on a more visible page.

On a brief digression, I solicit your excellent template skills for determining whether {{UCLA}} should be redone. It seems to me slightly larger and less picturesque than the others, which are solely your creations. ALTON .ıl 04:44, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

No sarcasm was meant; I am entirely serious on why I dislike the very idea of a VT-massacre template. See my comment towards the bottom of UCLA's Talk page for why I haven't redone that one yet. --Dynaflow 04:50, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Victim article redux

Now that the TfD has ended, how about readressing the inclusion of victim articles? It seems pretty much a conclusion that any student articles will go, but several of the professor articles have already survived AfD. The biggeset debate ongoing right now seems to be over non-professor teachers. If we can find an appropriate title to use, such as "Victims (with articles)", should these article links be included in the template? --StuffOfInterest 11:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nikki Giovanni and Lucinda Roy

I'm very confused as to the implication of these individuals' involvement in the massacre. Both Giovanni and Roy taught Cho, the perpetrator, and Giovanni spoke at the ceremony. Both are highly regarded English faculty members at VT. However, they are neither victims nor perpetrators. Categorizing them under "people" amongst victims and the individual who committed the crime seems highly out of place; it implies that they had a larger part to play other than doing their jobs, speaking to the media after the incident, and giving a speech. I suggest they be removed from the template, or be classified under a different section. "People" is far too broad. María (habla conmigo) 01:29, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi, your comment was left in the wrong place. The template you are commenting on is actually Template talk:Virginia Tech massacre 1. Unfortunately, that template was pointing to this talk page for a while. --StuffOfInterest 12:29, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I see. Thanks for informing me. :) María (habla conmigo) 13:55, 29 April 2007 (UTC)