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Contents 1 General 1.1 Clarification of what 1RR means to us 1.2 Learning from Palestine-Israel ArbCom case 1.3 Something like this for non-SL articles? 1.4 Discussions should be held on talk page of affected article 1.5 Glossary or other guide? 1.5.1 An essay on terms 1.6 Creating a list of Reliable Sources 1.7 Thanks! 2 Issues 2.1 Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka 2.1.1 Text which was moved from Talk:Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka 2.1.2 Rename to Terrorism in Sri Lanka 2.1.3 Rename to Sri Lankan State Terrorism 2.1.4 Rename to List of allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka 2.1.5 Rename to State terrorism in Sri Lanka 2.1.6 Merge to Human rights in Sri Lanka#Abuses by the government 2.1.7 General discussion of neutrality related issues 2.1.8 Overview table 2.1.9 Moving to a conclusion... 2.2 Place names in North and East of Sri Lanka 2.2.1 Reliability question about a Geocite website 2.2.2 comment by Bodhi_dhana 2.2.3 Rewrote the article from a neutral point of view 2.2.4 Reply from Professor Micheal Roberts 2.3 Lakshman Algama 2.4 Sri Lankan Civil War 3 Incidents 4 New sections 4.1 Why we can do without trickery 4.2 Editors in other projects trying to learn from your example 4.3 An idea worth trying? 4.4 How to solve fundamental diagreements 4.5 About archiving 4.6 Anton Balasingham article 4.6.1 Removed poster 4.7 Classification as "QS" 4.8 Sri Lanka Hope Award for Snowolfd4 4.9 Accusations of sock puppetry 4.10 SLR Project page Edit protection requested 4.11 Rights and obligations 4.11.1 The SLR way to resolve problems 4.12 Peer review request 4.13 Two articles with exact same information

This is the talk page of WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation, a bipartisan effort to improve collaboration on and coverage of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Everybody is invited to participate in discussions here or to add a new topic. Members can moderate the discussion and delete any off-topic conversation; in particular personal attacks will be deleted. If you have a complaint about a user, please try to resolve it on their talk page first. For any complaints, please always be specific and provide links. To become a member, please apply in the Members and applications section. List of Archived Pages 2007: /archive - /archive 2 - /archive 3 - /archive 4 2008: /general 1 - /issues 1 - /incidents 1

[edit] General

[edit] Clarification of what 1RR means to us

The 1RR stipulation of the SLDR agreeement caused some confusion, because the guideline WP:1RR is not consistent and seems to be changing. Therefore, Black Falcon proposed the following definition:

BF	Disputed text should generally not be restored or removed more than once in a 24-hour period if an editor wishes to avoid violating 1RR. If necessary, the portion of text which an edit affects should be deliberately limited.

I think that's generally the right approach. I find it can be worded a bit better by avoiding weasel words such as "should". How about the following:

S1	We will count it as a violation of 1RR, if more than half of a disputed text is restored or removed more than once in a 24-hour period.

I hope that the “more than half” clause expresses, in a measurable way, what BF meant by “If necessary, the portion of text which an edit affects should be deliberately limited.”. Please let me know if I misunderstood that. — Sebastian 07:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I just found a more solid criterion than the 50% rule. For this, I need to introduce three terms:

Old unreferenced text

Any text that has been tagged with a {{fact}} tag or related tag at least 24 hours earlier.

Partial reinsertion

The insertion of part of a text that has been removed by the other party. For example, if user:Deletionist removed the text “A did X and Y.”, then user:Inclusionist’s insertion of “A did X.” would be a partial reinsertion.

Consensus version

A version that corresponds to a consensus reached on this page or on the talk page of the edit in question. For binary decisions,(cases that have only two options, such as the question if articles should be merged), consensus is achieved when each of the arguments for one option have been refuted without counterargument.

With this, we can write the rule as follows:

S2

Editors can be warned or blocked for the following: Repeat a revert after less than 24 hours (except for #1 below) - Note: This is not a free-for-all. We will look at reverts, not at who did them, so check what others did before you! Reinsert old unreferenced text revert consensus version to non-consensus version It is OK to: revert to consensus version Remove old unreferenced text partially reinsert referenced text

This is longer, but I think it is clearer now. What do others think? — Sebastian 21:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Since I wrote that, I thought some more in that direction: It doesn't actually matter what and when the previous edit was. What matters, is if the edit itself improves Wikipedia. We have standards for that, so let's start with those! This also means we need to focus on consensus. That gives us the following:

S3

Editors who remove good texts or add bad texts against consensus can be warned or blocked. "Good" texts need to fulfill all of the following: be reliably referenced (See WP:SLR#QS for specifics) contribute to WP:NPOV of the article not be defamatory be on WP:TOPIC "Against consensus" means: There are unrefuted reasons against the edit (unless consensus has been established by a dedicated process, such as mediation). "Reason" means: an argument that is based on logic and consensus, not on personal preference. A reason is "refuted" if there is a countering reason that has not been refuted.

Notes:

• Edits do not need to "be" NPOV by themselves. WP:NPOV is achieved when several points of view are fairly combined, which can take several edits by different people. The important thing is the spirit of cooperation.
• Reasons can be posted either on the article talk page, on WT:SLR or, in simple cases, in an edit summary. Example: "Source X is a reliable source according to WP:SLR#QS". Counterexample: "The article should be renamed" (... because I say so??) "rv POV" (everybody has a POV. Instead, you need to explain on the talk page why you believe the edit does not contribute to the WP:NPOV of the article, and allow time for discussion.

Please let me know what you think of this proposal. — Sebastian 06:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Learning from Palestine-Israel ArbCom case

I am an arbcom clerk now. I am the clerk on this case: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles. The similarities in this dispute are strikingly similar to the Sri Lanka dispute (as well as East Europe, Azerbaijan-Azeris, etc). Some of you may want to see how this case goes in order to aid your own efforts and avoid going to arbcom. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for stopping by, and for the heads-up! And congratulations to your new role! I am sure we can learn from other ethnic conflicts, but I also hope that they can learn from us, too. WP:SLR has been pretty effective last year, especially since the Dispute Resolution Agreement was in place, which you selflessly helped to maintain. In 2 months, we resolved 19 content issues, many of which as hard as ArbCom cases - not bad for a group that's much smaller than ArbCom, I must say! — Sebastian 17:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, learning could go both ways here. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Check this out: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles/Workshop#Proposals_by_User:Sumoeagle179. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Inspired by Sumo's recommendation, I went along and created Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration‎. Of course, I've no idea if this will catch on. Your input at the ArbCom case, or the WikiProject if it comes to life, would be most welcome. Peace, HG | Talk 13:53, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

This is wonderful! I'm so happy that this idea is spreading, and in particular to the Israel Palestine conflict, which is for me a particularly open wound, since I'm German: I think the actions of my grandparents’ generation fueled a vicious circle that is still spinning there.

I think there's already the first thing we can learn from them: They cut the sentence "This excludes members who have recently engaged in edit wars or sockpuppeteering." I don't remember why this was added in our project, but I propose we cut it. Every member has a right to deny a new membership anyway, and we encourage members to write their criteria on WT:SLR/H#What are we looking for in new members?, so there is no need for that sentence anymore. Any objections? — Sebastian 16:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Something like this for non-SL articles?

Wiki Raja's idea of doing something similar for other articles (above, 21:39) deserves a section on its own. I support the idea, but there are some hurdles: It probably couldn't be the same template because that one is specific to Sri Lanka. So we would either need a specif one for the area Wiki Raja proposed, or a generic one. A more fundamental problem is that the agreement is only a tool - it takes people to use it. In our case, we are fortunate to have people from both sides, as well as administrators who are willing to delve into the discussion and understand the issues well enough to be reasonably fair, when it comes to warning and blocking disruptive editors. A good way to provide a home for such diverse people is a WikiProject. Is there a WikiProject already, or would you propose to create one? If there is a project, does it have the right mix of people already? — Sebastian 04:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Well you need to have a precedent. We have established that and now another attempt is on in Palestine-Israeli issues. We should suggest it in Village forum, so we can come up with guidelines as to how to create such projects Taprobanus (talk) 19:03, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The Palestine-Israeli conflict is handled differently. First, it's ArbCom that imposes the restrictions, and not the collaboration project. They put their box on the talk page.[1], which means that many editors will not see it. They have more 1RR rules for editors than for articles, and the article restrictions are lifted much faster.[2] I have not seen a discussion or any reasons why they prefer that approach. I am not sure if it is possible to enforce restrictions on editors can work without being backed up by an ArbCom ruling. To be honest, when I see how our highest dispute resolution committe is going back and forward on individual article restrictions, it feels like micromanagement to me. In conclusion, I feel that their approach involves more bureaucracy, and it's not a model for all conflicts since they couldn't keep this level of detailled involvement if they wanted to expand the method to all conflicts. I think that our model could provide a good precedent, but I would prefer to wait a bit till WP:IPCOLL has settled on a modus operandi and we can really make useful comparisons. — Sebastian 06:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Discussions should be held on talk page of affected article

I believe holding the discussion on SLR talk page about many Sri Lanka articles results in long, convoluted , messy discussions with no clarity on whcih article is being discussed.

furthermore when you raise different issues on the same article but hold the discussion on SLR talk page, it is hard to locate all the discussions for one article. This is because they located in different sections of the SLR page. if I want to find discussions for one article, I have to go through 4 archivesDutugemunu (talk) 00:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

therefore we should follow the example of other Wiki projects like the Buddhism project and conduct the actual discussion on the talk page of the relevant article. We should first raise the issue on the SLR talk page (with a link to the affected article). This ensures all relevant discussions to an article can be easily located on the articles talk pageDutugemunu (talk) 23:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see Sebastians excellent example on the buddhism project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Buddhism#Please_vote_on_how_to_name_the_Buddha_.28general.29_article

Thank you for the compliment. We already discussed this here. I agree with Dutugemunu that it was a mistake not to post a note on the affected talk page, linking to the discussion here. I promised that we will do so in the future. That will avert the possibility for someone to overlook such a discussion from now on, which solves the problem.

Now, it's a different question where the best place for a discussion is. I even agree with Dutugemunu that there are good reasons to keep a conversation where it started, but I know that some of our members feel differently about that, and I don't see a reason to change this per request from a non-member. I encouraged Dutugemunu to join this project and I would welcome his membership. — Sebastian 02:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

One thing I would like to ask is a general question. What article are we talking about ? This may help other understand what is going on. One one hand, it is plausible to agree to Detugemunu. However, on the other hand, completely agreeing with Detugemunu might take away from the advantages of talking on this page. For example, I agree that it is good idea to hold discussions on the relevant talk pages of each article (relating it to topic). However, this page is seen as a primary place for concerned parties to take up and comment on concerns. It is highly probable that some admins who have watched this SLC related issues have this page on their watch list but it is a stretch to assume that they would watch every single SLC related article on their watchlist. Having this project is like a place to meet for people who have concerns about the SLC articles. It makes things more organized and less time consuming which is, of course , desirable. Furthermore, the agreement was that this is the best place for admins and users "to coordinate efforts for a better collaboration". Last, it should not matter if discussion is held on the talk page of an article or on this page as long as there is some sort of message saying that there is an important discussion talking place in place X rather than place Y. So , for the reasons outlined above, I think it is best to discuss things here rather than on the talk pages of each article. Watchdogb (talk) 05:14, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Watchdogb, I am not specifying one article but suggesting a standard that we should follow for all articles. The thing is there is a long list of issues usually connected with any article. it is too much painful to trawl through the the archives of this Wiki project to find all the discussions linked to a particular page. Its much better to have all discussions related to a particular article on the talk page of that article or we end up discussing the same topics again and again. But of course its good to raise the issue on this page and provide a link to the talk page of the article under discussion. I believe this is the general approach followed by most wiki projectsDutugemunu (talk) 12:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussions may be held at the talk pages of the affected articles but if there is a violation of WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:SOAP,etc then it should be brought to SLR and the binding finding takes place at SLR. Also we should preserve the option to continue the discussion in SLR too. Taprobanus (talk) 13:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Glossary or other guide?

Forgive me if this is present and I missed it, but, as someone who is not a Project member but encountered a problem, resolved amicably with everyone involved learning things, that was caused by a combination of different usages of "general" phrases, as well as being aware of the SRL project's usage. I'm not trying to criticize anyone, but simply note the "Lessons Learned". The Military History Project is creating an assortment of essays to record lessons learned (a common military term of art), and give guidance to editors in finding certain materials. Perhaps there can be some equivalent "lesson learned" here, although I don't know how to solve the problem when an editor does good faith edits that do not reflect what the SRL project considers neutral language; the best I can suggest is not immediately to revert or edit, but to bring up the concern on the article's talk page, and initially to assume good faith if the editor does not seem familiar with the details of Sri Lankan matters.

In the specific, everyone agreed, I think, that "war on terror" and "global war on terror" are essentially meaningless terms used by politicians and lazy journalists. Even "terrorist group" is marginal, and, at least to military specialists, says nothing about ideology, who is right, etc. Perhaps an analogy would help: it is fair to call the US and Russia "nuclear powers". That could probably be rephrased to "nuclear weapons groups" without any real loss of meaning. One could call the UK and France and Japan and Argentina "naval powers", without judging who was right or wrong in the Falklands/Malvinas conflict.

There was a sensitivity about my referring to antiterror and counterterror, apparently because it implied, to some, that using these terms somehow made one side a "bad guy" in the "global war on terror". That was not the intention; it was first to establish that one side used terror tactics/weapons just as the above used ships or nuclear weapons. Antiterror and counterterror are specific sets of measures used to reduce the danger of terrorist attacks.

Please correct me if I misunderstand, but, on scanning through the project pages, it seems as if the terms "government" and "rebel" are considered descriptive and neutral. It might be very helpful if there were a section on "neutral terminology" that editors, not intimately familiar with the Sri Lanka situation, could use without setting off protests, reverts, etc. In the particular case, there was a lack of knowledge on both sides; I was using counterterror and antiterror (in the Counter-terror article) as specific terms of military art, while an editor, expert in Sri Lanka, interpreted this as both labeling a side as using counterterror or terror makes it "bad", and also that using the terms made the issue part of the "Global War on Terror". We were talking past one another, although after several exchanges of moderately heated reverts and talk comments, we began to see one anothers' positions, and User:Black Falcon was extremely helpful in mediating.

There are other terms that might be even more difficult to define, but will come up. Some, at least when used in a military context, carry no implicit condemnation. For example, "assassination", especially of a military or political leader, has "mainstream media" negative qualities, but sometimes is a perfectly legal act in a war -- consider the WWII interception and shootdown of the commander of the Japanese Mobile Fleet, Admiral Yamamoto. While killing him was the goal -- a sad one in a way, because, in hindsight, many on both sides regard him as an honorable man -- he was in uniform, in a military aircraft, and attacked by US military aircraft over the ocean, where there were no civilians at risk. I don't think there's a serious military historian that would call this terrorism. Again with WWII examples, I haven't seen the Japanese kamikaze attacks called terror, because they were exclusively directed at military targets at sea, away from civilians. "Suicide attack", then, does not imply "terrorist". A rebel boat ramming a government boat is not a terrorist attack.

Not to limit the examples to Sri Lanka, while LCDR Gerard Roope, RN, may not have intended to die when he rammed the German cruiser Admiral Hipper with his badly damaged destroyer, HMS Glowworm. Showing honor among deadly enemies, Roope received a posthumous Victoria Cross based on a letter, sent through the International Red Cross to the British, He received this honour in part due to the recommendation of his opponent, Captain Hellmuth Heye describing the courage shown by his opponent. Perhaps we will again see such chivalry in war.

Does the SRL project have an accepted term for assassinations or other targeted attacks that appear to use methods that would be likely to injure or kill civilians as well as the target? In military writing, a distinction gets drawn between the situation where civilians are not targets, but the nature of the weapon used, perhaps the only possible weapon, causes "collateral damage" among innocents. When the weapon is chosen to maximize civilian casualties, that may be called a terror attack, but that does not mean the entire group are terrorists. One sad example from WWII was requested by the Danish underground: bombing the Gestapo headquarters in urban Copenhagen, in order to destroy records, kill secret police, and possibly free prisoners. The Danes understood that with the weapons of the time, there would be civilian casualties; one especially bitter incident was when one of the bombers was shot down and crashed into an orphanage. The Nazis might have called this "terrorism" in their propaganda (although the word was not yet in common use), but neither the UK or the Danese regarded it as such. See Aquinas' Principle of Double Effect for an ethical guideline.Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It is a great suggestion that will resolve a lot of un warranted discussions. ThanksTaprobanus (talk)

I'm working on an "essay" for the Military History Project, which has some "unencyclopedic" project pages intended to give informal guidance to editors. Perhaps that draft can be reviewed by people from this project, at least with respect to things such as "terror", "counterterror", "antiterror", and how little any of those terms of military art have to do with the "Global War on Terror".

Your project, however, could have its own reference that would have helped me -- apparently, "government" and "rebels" are considered fairly neutral? I don't know if there are any particular meanings you assign to "assassination" or "suicide attack". As I mentioned above, there are examples of both from conventional warfare between nation-states, which no one seriously called terror. That is not to say there were no state-sponsored acts of terror in World War Two, ranging from the "dehousing strategy" of deliberate population bombing by British Marshal of the Royal Air Force Arthur Tedder, to Japanese reprisals against China after the Doolittle Raid.

In general, it starts with the premise that military methods are separable from ideology and perhaps culturally dependent views of good and evil. Just to avoid falling immediately into the emotionally laden issue of terrorism, I plan to start with air warfare, and then explain how there are defensive methods that either disable the enemy air force at its bases ("Offensive counter-air") or protect targets from air attack ("Defensive counter-air"). You may observe that "anti-" and "counter-" are not universal terms.

Following this example, I am going to give a rough definition of terrorism, not to be exhaustive but as a working reference. Counterterror is the "far" defense and antiterror is the "near" defense, or, if you will, counterterror is "offensive" and "preemptive" while antiterror is "defensive".

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 23:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] An essay on terms

See User:Hcberkowitz/Sandbox-TerrEssay as a starting point for disambiguating terms relating to terror. Perhaps it might help be a template for other sensitive terminology. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 21:49, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Creating a list of Reliable Sources

I believe that a list of RSs must be made. Since some users tend to remove statements on articles with refs saying that the it is not RS.Nitraven (talk) 04:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a particular source in mind? If so, we could discuss adding it to our list of sources... Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:40, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

Just stopped by to see how you're doing, and I'm happy to see that this project seems to be going strong. Thanks everybody for the collaboration! --Sebastian (talk) 20:42, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah! me too. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie | tool box} 15:19, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Issues

[edit] Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka

I have initiated a discussion at Talk:Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka#Synthesis? to discuss what to do with the article. I'm posting here so that all editors involved in the SLR effort are aware of it. Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 21:58, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I am currently a little too busy for wikipedia. However, I will reply to this in a 8-10 days if that is at all acceptable. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 04:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

How about another option, Terrorism in Sri Lanka in the likes of Terrorism in India it can be a neutral article Taprobanus (talk) 15:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Good idea! I'll mention it on Talk:Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka#Rename to "Terrorism in Sri Lanka". I think it makes more sense to keep the discussion there. — Sebastian 05:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Why not rename to "Sri Lankan state terrorism". As for the so called Terrorism in India it only talks about non-state actors. Wiki Raja (talk) 06:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it makes more sense to keep that discussion in one place. — Sebastian 17:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Text which was moved from Talk:Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka

We have to discuss all options as listed here not just one. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 21:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed! Thanks for pointing that out! I had read Black Falcon's great list of proposals before, but had forgotten about it when the discussion moved here. I wonder if people are just more willing to discuss this in a traditional section like this because they don't want to interfere with what he wrote. Maybe we could add {{partofcomment}} to each of his subsections so it will be more inviting for people to respond in place? — Sebastian 21:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rename to Terrorism in Sri Lanka

It has been proposed (on WT:SLR) to rename the article to "Terrorism in Sri Lanka" to match such articles as Terrorism in India and to make it easier to write it as a neutral article. This seems very reasonable to me. — Sebastian 05:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

support this renaming as "Terrorism in Sri Lanka". It would make a neutral article.We can have a sub-heading there as a "list of allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka" or some thing.--Navod Ediriweera (talk) 06:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Question: wil this article have two sections then ? one for terrorism by the LTTE and the other by the government ? will it then mirror the Human Rights in Sri Lanka article ? Taprobanus (talk) 23:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

That would be one option. Another would be the example of Notable assassinations of the Sri Lankan Civil War‎. — Sebastian 00:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

yes that would be one option. but the problem would be the topic "terrorism by Sri Lankan govt" is a POV. another option is to name as like "allegations of State terrorism". --Navod Ediriweera (talk) 08:55, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Nothing prevents us from starting and developing this article right now. Those who have the time and and motivations can begin the article and eventually when the article is of a considerable maturity, we can add the state terrorims article into it or make it a main article of the section about state terrorism. I think most of us waste a lot of time discussing about it rather than to create it. Why not not just do it Taprobanus (talk) 17:30, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rename to Sri Lankan State Terrorism

How about rename to "Sri Lankan State Terrorism". As for the Terrorism in India it only talks about non-state actors. Wiki Raja (talk) 06:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about India, but maybe there aren't any noteworthy allegations of state terrorism there? But back to the topic, you're not giving any reason why you think your name is better. — Sebastian 17:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

oppose to name it as "Sri Lankan State Terrorism". there's no concrete evidence or independent investigations on that matter it would violate NPOV.--Navod Ediriweera (talk) 06:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

(General discussion of NPOV, RS, NOTABLE, "academic circles" and secondary sources moved to #General discussion of neutrality related issues. — Sebastian 18:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Rename to List of allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka

[edit] Rename to State terrorism in Sri Lanka

and repurpose into an article that gives an overview of the subject

State Terrorism like Genocide, Terrorism, Mass graves and Pogrom is a neutral English word clearly describes an action. It means we can write a neutral encyclopedic article on the subject. Just like we have to obey WP:NPOV, we also have to obey WP:RS and WP:NOTABLE and using these rules we can create a neutral article on State terrorism in Sri LankaTaprobanus (talk) 23:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly correct. Wikipedia does not depend on truth but on Realiable published citations. We have enough of that in the Article. The article itself is about the State terrorism in Sri Lanka. This is the best title. Watchdogb (talk) 00:15, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

(General discussion of neutral article names and neutral words moved to #General discussion of neutrality related issues. — Sebastian 18:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC))

My strong objection. Above mentioned article is a collection of allegations. For example have a look on the TOC. Renaming as this makes nothing but poisoning the whole situation. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie | tool box} 09:20, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

It is only where it is because no one has taken the time to develop it. May be one day :))Taprobanus (talk) 17:31, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

In wikipedia we say what others say. We strongly do not try to "prove" or find the "truth" of something. So in essence all articles in wikipedia are indeed collections of allegations or claims. In accordance with the rule of wikipedia, the current name of the article is "Allegation of State terrorism in Sri Lanka" which would mean that all the citations would only focus on the "Allegation" part of State terrorism in Srilanka. However, in this article the citations are the focus of "State terrorism" in Sri Lanka and because of this we should rename the article to "State terrorism in Sri Lanka". Watchdogb (talk) 14:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

This is a good reason, and it is stronger than my general reason against the term "state terrorism"! I will enter both of them in the table below. — Sebastian 18:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge to Human rights in Sri Lanka#Abuses by the government

What ever is considered to be Human rights violations as opposed State terrorim should be in Human rights in Sri Lanka article Taprobanus (talk) 23:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree for merging the whole subjected article. If it's happen so, I would like to expand the Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka#State terrorism during the Second JVP insurrection by 10 times from the current size. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie | tool box} 09:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Totally disagree to merging the whole thing into Human Rights in Sri Lanka. Though I will change my mind of "Attacks attributed to LTTE" gets merged into this along with a bit more constraints. Watchdogb (talk) 14:23, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

As I said above, this is not a vote. Therefore, it is pointless to just heap up personal preferences without providing reasons. And it's totally pointless to add the word "totally" - that wouldn't even make a difference if this were a vote. Can anyone among the three of you please provide a reason for your preference? — Sebastian 04:18, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the comment I made earlier, that was later removed, provides a perfect reason to my preference. Watchdogb (talk) 18:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

If you have something to say, please say it clearly, and don't make everyone search the page history for what you might mean. — Sebastian

Human Rights violationsnad State terrorism are two different subjects. One is a violation of Human rights, happen all over the world but the other is terrorism practiced by a state as part of a Dirty warTaprobanus (talk) 17:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for moving the discussion to a discussion of reasons. Of course these can be treated as different subjects - we have two different articles for these topics already. But they are very strongly related: Any terrorism is a violation of human rights. Moreover, state terrorism (just as dirty war) constitutes HR abuses by the government. So I don't see a reason why we shouldn't be able to cover the former topic under the latter section. — Sebastian 19:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

The difference is the difference between HIV and AIDS, not everyone who has HIV come down with AIDs but when you get it then you have an acute case of HIV infection. Human Rights violations are in general involves your street level cop in Seattle beating up a protester where as State terrorism is a state at the highest level decides not just to allow the policeman to beat up the protester but instructs the police department to ignore not only any beatings but spay the protesters with live bullets with the intention of killing as many protesters as possible to use it as a message (that is to terrorize the opponents by attacking civilians) , go to their homes and pull their family out and kill them and when ever the case comes up in the court system suppress the evidence or cook the evidence. Disappear anyone suspected of remotely connected to the protesters without a judicial review. It is that simple, the difference between Human Rights violations and State Terrorism. One is an acute format of the other but with it sown separate definition. Taprobanus (talk) 17:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a well presented reason! — Sebastian 08:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] General discussion of neutrality related issues

(Moved from #Rename to Sri Lankan State Terrorism. — Sebastian 18:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC))

NPOV is not the only rule we use in Wikipedia. We also use WP:RS and WP:NOTABLE, NPOV cannot be used as excuse even to AFD an article, it just mean we need to find information that balances given one. State terrorim by Sri Lanka is widely dicussed in academic circles and is in published secondary sources that are acceptable in Wikipedia. We can write an article using those sources. We dont have to prove or disprove anything in Wikipedia. We simply repewat after repuitable sources without own own commentary which is called WP:ORTaprobanus (talk) 23:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

What are these "academic circles"? where are they? are they truly independent? what are the secondary sources they use? And most importantly what happens when their secondary sources are disputed? --Navod Ediriweera (talk) 09:06, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

(Moved from #Rename to Sri Lankan State Terrorism. — Sebastian 18:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC))

What are neutral words? All words are neutral when they are used individually. But give different meaning and conveys a different message when used with other words.To create a article named "State terrorism in SL there needs to be proved "state terror" from a NPOV. It's a violation of WP:V and WP:NPOV to go for your POV which is not verifiable by independent sources. --Navod Ediriweera (talk) 08:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

To reply to (some of) both of NavodEranda's messages: The article currently contains many links that look reliable and neutral at first glance; at least to me. So it seems that there is a neutral reason for naming it something along the lines of state terrorism. You did a good job at refuting references in Talk:Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka‎#SL Army in Tamil homeland; if you can do the same for the refernces that back up the name of the article, then it would indeed have to be renamed.

If I may add a general remark: I'm not too happy about the term "state terrorism" to begin with, because it is a controversial term anywhere - independent of the situation in SL. I am also not clear where the distinction to Human rights in Sri Lanka#Abuses by the government is. But Taprobanus seems to see a clear distinction there. He has in the past often convinced me by just writing or improving articles. Taprobanus, would it be possible for you to make that distinction clear by improving that section? — Sebastian 18:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I also agree that the citations look reliable. However, some might be biased, in which case, it will be explicitly attributed. Still the article can be written much better than now. Watchdogb (talk) 02:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Overview table

Now that a few reasons for and against some of the options have been presented, let's start summarizing them in a table like this. I will start with what I see; please feel free to add short keywords to this table after full text explanations in the sections above. Please also correct me if I misrepresented your reasons. — Sebastian 18:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Option	Advantages	Disadvantages
Keep
#Rename to Terrorism in Sri Lanka
#Rename to Sri Lankan State Terrorism	Topic is ST and not allegations	ST is disputed term
#Rename to List of allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka
#Rename to State terrorism in Sri Lanka		ST is disputed term
Merge to HR in SL#Abuses by the government		different levels

Legend

ST = state terrorism

[edit] Moving to a conclusion...

I would like to offer that we try to move toward a resolution of this issue, based on the discussion above and comments on the talk page. This particular thread has been open for two months, and the issue itself has been debated for much longer. (By the way, I apologise for starting a thread on the issue and then disappearing -- initially I was forced to take a month-long extended break due to various personal circumstances, which then continued for a further 3 weeks as part of recovery from wikistress.) Black Falcon ^(Talk) 15:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Black Falcon on this. Let's try to get this resolved. Watchdogb (talk) 13:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe that we should move the article to State Terrorist rather than Allegation. I agree that state terrorism is a controversial and disputed word but all the citation we have on the article use this exact word. All of the citations accuse that there is State terrorism in Sri Lanka. So the Topic of the article is State terrorism in Sri Lanka and in accord with the many given citation of the article it should be renamed to State Terrorism in Sri Lanka. Watchdogb (talk) 20:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

A general comment - On March 9, the article was moved to State terrorism and Sri Lanka by an uninvolved editor. Though I do not endorse this pagemove (in fact, I think it should be reversed as a poorly-worded title that does not clearly delineate the scope of the article), perhaps it should be added to the list of options under consideration. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 21:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Place names in North and East of Sri Lanka

Revert war going on based on an unreliable website as a source that was deemed as non reliable in WP:SLR see this. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 14:46, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reliability question about a Geocite website

The following website Sinhala place names of tamilized names of cities in Sri Lanka has been used as a WP:RS source in the following articles.

• Place names in North and East of Sri Lanka see here
• Mylanthanai see here

amongst many others ( I have not looked completely)

The stated purpose of the website which is collection is information allegedly from academic sources that are unverifiable by WP:CITE standards is to introduce Sinhala language place names for places in Sri Lanka for names that they claim originally had Sinhala names but are now minority Tamil language dominated places. This aim has to be seen through the prism of the current Sri Lankan civil war which has pitted the majority Sinhalese against the minority Sri Lankan Tamils. It qualifies not only as a self published but also as an extremist source because,

Self published

Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable.[5] self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.

Extreamist organization

Organizations and individuals that are widely acknowledged as extremist, whether of a political, religious or anti-religious, racist, or other nature, should be used only as sources about themselves and their activities in articles about themselves, and even then with caution

Based on my reading on WP:RS as above, I consider it a source not fit for an encylopedic effort because it is a collection of self published information claiming to be from academic sources that are unverifiable and from a biased point of view. The website itself indicates that its aims are racialist that is to regain the lost heritage by renaming place names that are currentkly ouccupied by ethnic minorities. Such efforts were seen in Bulgaria where ethnic minority Turks were asked to Bulgarize their names, in Rumania where ethnic minority Hungarian villages were given Rumanian names. Should Wikipedia be such a WP:BATTLE ground ? We alreday had a go at it here and came up with the solution that it is a non reliable source Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 16:12, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I would not consider it reliable unless the original sources are confirmed. --neonwhite user page talk 16:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Borderline... a first glance the site seems reliable. The website lists who its editors and project coordinators are (near the bottom of the page)... however, I looked up the main coordinator (Dr. Chandre Dharmawardana) and it seems that his noted field of expertese is chemistry not liguistics. On the other hand, the site does list advisors who do seem to be linguistics experts... so, while it is likely to be politically motivated, the information may be reliable, never the less. Over all, I have to agree with Neon white... some corroboration is needed.

On the other issue... the contributers and collaborators to this site seem to all be accademics and scholars. I don't think they are "widely acknowledged as extremist". Sure, they have a definite bias, but that is not the same thing. Blueboar (talk) 17:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

#1 not consider it reliable unless the original sources are confirmed Just to clarify, this source cannot be used alone unless the original verifiable source from which the information was gathered from is used to cite the information. Am I a correct ?

No... if the underlying citations can be confirmed, we can treat the the site under discussion as reliable (on this score) and should cite where we found the information (see WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT). Blueboar (talk) 19:46, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

#2 The website claims the follwing as contributers. Profs. Gerald Pieries, J. B. Dissanayake, Michael Roberts as well as one Proff Iyakutti as a Tamil contributer from India. The primary concern is, what assurance do we have that it is true? This is not a peer reviewed journal, conference or even an acadenmic source where we have confidence as to what they say is true. Knowing what we know of the ground situation in Sri Lanka how do we take it for its face value while creating an encylopedia.

Just because someone is Tamil, does not mean they are unreliable. Biased perhaps. Not the same thing. Blueboar (talk) 19:46, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

You misunderstood my question. My question is how can we take for face value what the website is claiming as the truth ? Because after all it is not a peer reviewed journal so we cannot WP:VERIFY what they say. Taprobanus (talk) 21:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

#3 Prof Micheal Roberts is an athropologists not a linguist. He expertsie is Sinhala nationalism. It is difficult to imgaine that he would contribute to a nationalistic project such as this.

So that is one of the things that need confirming. Blueboar (talk) 19:46, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I will e-mail him to verify.Taprobanus (talk) 21:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

#4 Professor Gerald Peiris is also not a linguist but a Geography professor who is fond of contributing to nationalistic causes.

Again... biased perhaps, but not necessarily unreliable. Blueboar (talk) 19:46, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

But he is not a linguist but a Geography professor just like the cite organizer is a Chemical professor. How do non experts get together and create a website that becomes reliable for an encylopedia ? Taprobanus (talk) 21:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

#5 I did a google search on te so called Proff Iyakutti , no luck Is he real or imagined ? Taprobanus (talk)

What about this guy who seem not be traceable at all Taprobanus (talk) 21:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Totally not RS. How can a website from geocities be reliable source ? How do we know that the authors mentioned actually do contribute. There are hundreds of thousands of professors. Their work cannot be used as RS unless they are writing about their specific filed of study. If a professor from Canadian history says something about African history, we will not use it as RS. Especially if such claim is controversial - as is the matter here. There is no know "expert" about Northe/Eastern Sri Lanka who is WP:Notable in this website. Just because someone is a "linguist" it does not mean they can write, reliably, about Northe/Eastern Sri Lanka. It's as improper as claiming a Canadian historian's word can used as reliably on matter of African history. Specially if such claim is controversial. What's next ? A mathematic professor talk about Tensor calculus ? After all from the arguments given here, it seems they can. They both learn numbers !!! This website is non RS unless there is proof, I mean from RS, that can claim that the same people who run this website are experts on the Northern and Eastern part of Sri Lanka. I am only harping on the fact they need to be experts on Northern and Eastern part of Sri Lanka is because those parts of the Country is really like a separate country called Tamil Eelam. Watchdogb (talk) 00:11, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Break down

Here is a clear break down of people who "contribute" to the website. link

Ananda Wijesinghe - a non notable person and is not even an expert as required by wikipedia.

Bodhi Dhanapala - User who adds this stuff to wikipedia. Not notable, in fact this goes directly against wikipedia rules. You cannot quote from a website you run/ edit.

Jinawara - Non notable. Cannot be reliable

Thuradeva - Non notable. Cannot be reliable

Prof. Iyakkutti - As pointed out by Taprobanus, not notable. Even if he is he cannot comment on Sri Lankan. Let alone talk about Tamil Eelam.

Gerald Pieries, J. B. Dissanayake, Michael Roberts - Website claims "have provided us with advise and suggestions". Advise and suggestions can be on anything including the font size. Nothing says these people's field of study is North/Eastern Sri Lanka.

Late Prof. J. K. P. Ariyaratne - Again same problem as above.

Prof. Chandre_Dharma-wardana - link. He is currently working in Institute for Microstructural Sciences . If he is the person, then he can comment on Quantum theory and not about North and Eastern Sri Lanka. On the wikipedia article it claims that he "various aspects of Sri Lanka's antiquarian, historical, toponymic, and development studies" but without specific claim on his expertise on this matter his word cannot be taken.

Channa Lokulianage, Asiri Bandarage , and Dukhinda Jayawardena - Setting up Google Earth in Sinhala. Ok ? So what ? What gives them notability to comment on Tamil Eelam.

This website is not notable. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 00:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:VERIFY

We are creating an encyclopedia here and our standards for sources has been set in WP:VERIFY and WP:RS. In all respects WP:VERIFY takes precedence. It says

• In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers.

What it means that to be used as a reliable source we have to have reasonable assurance that some non involved third party has looked over the contents.

• As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is.

It means more assurance we have of that third party review of contents the more reliable the facts that come out of the process.

• Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science.

This explains what such most reliable sources are

• Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications. The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context. Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text.

This explains why non academic but mainstream publication sources also respected and acceptable because they still have third party scrutiny. This applies to news papers, news websites magazines such as monthlies and quarterlies. Respected can be demonstrated by other publications which says so about such sources in question.

The classic question will but why did WP:SLR agree that Tamilnet is a qualified source. But Tamilnet which is a news website has at least four academic research papers written by researchers in journalism that say it is a respected source for information. Still because of its alleged bias we use it as an attributed source in Wikipedia.

If we analyze the random website in question

• Academic source
• Third party scrutiny
• Respected mainstream publication

On top of it is a Wiki,

• Can we quote from a wiki in Wikipedia such as Wikipedia itself

I’ve tried to verify the veracity of the alleged collaborators. Of all the alleged collaborators Professor Michael Roberts is the only one who is an internationally respected professor with publications in peer reviewed journals and academic books. I’ve e-mailed him 2 days ago and I have not received any reply back.

• Can we verify that the most important and internationally well known contributor really did contribute

Then what it is this source. It is a

Questionable source

• Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking. Such sources include websites and publications that express views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, are promotional in nature, or rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions. Questionable sources should only be used in articles about themselves. (See below.) Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources.

Aiyamperumal, Sinna Aiyamperumal (Giranikke [Killinochchi]) AADIYAMPEERUMA Hist.: One may ask if this was named after the Chola Perumal from Chitambaram. He had a tiger inscribed on the flag which is called Puliyan; his place in Tamil Nadu was called Pulyannur Read also, the write up on "Aiyakerni" It could also mean the the "bog (vala) filled in olden times". Map

Here some one related to the website has come up with a completely made up Sinhalese name for a clear cut Tamil name. It is clearly a personal opinion with rumors with non existent reliable references. Here if we go with User:Neon white who said that he would not consider it reliable unless the original sources are confirmed, well in this example there no original source except the opinion of webmaster to confirm.

WP:SPS

Self-published sources (online and paper)

• Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable.[5]

The random website is a self published personal website and claims to be an open wiki.Taprobanus (talk) 19:04, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... the discussion of the very first name on that website is riddled with factual errors. The word "accan" is listed in most Tamil dictionaries, contrary to the site's assertion. Here's the entry in the Madras Tamil Lexicon. And, for the record, the word means "father" in Malayalam too, not "brother" as the site asserts. So it clearly doesn't seem to be checking its facts. -- Arvind (talk) 03:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Heh. The website has since been updated to attempt to adddress some of the comments I made above, as one can see by comparing the present version of the discussion of "achchankulam" with this archived version, though it doesn't quite pull if off. I didn't realise this page was quite that influential. -- Arvind (talk) 10:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

This website is a pet project of Chandre Dharma-wardana a chemistry professor from Sri Lanka. There are wikipedia user(s) User:Bodhi dhana, User:Michel char, User:Sebastian rajalingam (some are SPA) which are interested in this pet project’s inclusion as a RS source is various Wiki pages as well as the bio about Chandre Dharma-wardana and equating Sri Lankan Tamils with Malabar immigrants from the 15 th century. The dream of this professor is to rename all Sri Lankan place names into Sinhalese^{[citation needed]}. So it is a political research project not an academic research project. I really don’t care about peoples personal beliefs but when they try to impose it on others it creates problems. The website is primarily run by him and all the work is his^{[citation needed]} which is not his expertise to begin with. Professor Michael Roberts very nicely put it in his reply, that he was asked and he does not remember whether he contributed or not and even if he did it is not his are of expertise (that is to say in a nice way he cant be bothered by such silly projects). Given the above User accounts wiki contributions, I am not surprised the corrections have been made based on your observations here. Taprobanus (talk) 13:26, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] comment by Bodhi_dhana

I have sent these claims by Taprobanus to Prof. Dharma-wardana, Profs. Roberts, Dr. Gerald Peires and others, Professor Dharma-wardana has expressed his surprise, and points out that no where in the website does it say that its objective is to "rename all Sri Lankan place names into Sinhalese", as claimed by taprobanus. In fact, the website says: " The existence of multiple place-names for a given location testifies to the rich culural tapestry of the nation. This centralized list and maps would make it convenient for Sinhala writers, artists, scientists, engineers, politicians - anyone- to use the Sinhala names when ever this is appropriate, in an entirely voluntary manner, thus helping to maintain and revive the cultural heritage of the country". Dr. Roberts clearly refused to be draged into a discussion (a minefield) where what he says may be misconstruded, as we can already see from the twist given to it by Taprobanus.Bodhi dhana (talk) 02:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrote the article from a neutral point of view

I rewrote the article from a neutral point of viw with WP:RS sources. See Sri Lankan place name etymology. Any copy editing will be appreciated. Also I would want it to be covered by the SLR agreement. The blue box protection. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 15:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reply from Professor Micheal Roberts

He wrote back saying that he was asked to contribute but has no recollection as to whether he contributed or not and says that he is not an expert in the subject matter as well as it is a minefield. Taprobanus (talk) 18:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Related to this issue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Etymologocial_sources

[..]Online Etymology Dictionary is questionable... it is a personal web-project run by an accademic. The reliability would thus depend on the reputation of the author. I would say that to use it, you would have to establish that the site has been reviewed or cited by reliable third parties, and that they found it to be accurate and reliable. Blueboar (talk) 13:56, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lakshman Algama

I wish to bring to the attention of an admin edits made by the user Watchdogb on the article Lakshman Algama and in the same respects the Ranjan Wijeratne. This user has removed them from cretin categories;

• Category:Terrorist attacks attributed to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (both)
• Category:Terrorism victims (both)
• Category:Terrorist incidents in 1999 (Lakshman Algama)
• Category:Terrorist incidents in 1991 (Ranjan Wijeratne)

As for reasons he state in the case of Ranjan Wijeratne "fact tag added. Reworded and added citation. Removed all "terrorist" cats. This person was a minister of Defence. Thus attack on him are legitimate military attacks" and in the case of Lakshman Algama "rm pov cats. Attacks on a Military figure is not a Terrorist attack". It should be noted that these persons here were retired or resigned Military Officers, hence they both where civilians & also politicians at the time of death.

I also wish to bring to the attention of an admin the removal of given references by Watchdogb on the basis that they are not Reliable sources. Pls tell me why Full military honours for Lucky Algama is not a Reliable source. Thank youNitraven (talk) 05:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that I made a mistake. I initially thought that they were military figures later realized that they were retired military figure. However, Ranjan Wijeratne is the minister of defense when he was killed and his campaign was to finish the LTTE. So I am not even sure that we can call any attacks against him a "Terrorist" attacks. Anyways, getting to the point my stand still remains the same. Please go ahead and read how to categorize an article. You need WP:RS claiming that these were terrorist attacks. Furthermore, a website of the Government of Sri Lanka is reliable only to add their POV. Thus it must be explicitly attributed to the Sri Lankan Government. If not, then it is not a reliable source. Last, you cannot add category using the Government of Sri Lanka's word. This is because this source is POV and it can even be seen as an attack site. Watchdogb (talk) 13:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

From the perspective of categorisation guidelines, I think that the Terrorist attacks and Terrorist incidents categories should not appear on these two biographical articles. Note #9 of Wikipedia:Categorization#Guidelines:

Generally, the relationship between an article and its categories should be definable as "(Article) is (category)".

So, while Algama may be a terrorism victim, he can't really be classified as a terrorist incident or attack.

I would be happy to offer a perspective on the issue of reliability of sourcing, or to help to try to find such sources, but must ask for some more clarification, as I'm not entirely sure which of the eight sources in the article is at issue. Also, if you do not object, I would like to suggest that the two articles be discussed separately (though not necessarily in separate sections), so that the individual circumstances of each case can be taken into account. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Speaking purely as one who does some analysis of terrorism, emphatically saying that is a term of art regarding tactics rather than a value judgment, I can't see how one could logically be a victim of terrorism if there was no terrorist incident or attack. In general, assassinations of government or military officials, when care is taken to avoid hard to innocent bystanders, may be within the range of guerilla activities that are not terrorism. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 18:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I have no problems with the sourcing used in the Lakshman Algama article. Some are directly from the Sri Lankan Government and I am fine with that as long as there is explicit attribution. Moreover I currently have no problem with the article except it's Terrorist Categories. Watchdogb (talk) 14:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I can not agree to remove this article from the Terrorist Categories. This is due to the fact that this was a suicide attack in a crowded political rally (gathering) in which many (12) civilians were killed. Hence it can be categorized as a Terrorist attack.Nitraven (talk) 06:51, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Bring WP:RS for this claim and then add it. Watchdogb (talk) 20:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Nitravan, it is not about you agree of disagree. Adding a category such terrorist categories violates Wikipedia:Categorization#Guidelines #8. So unless you can provide RS for this claim you cannot add these cats back regardless of your personal feeling. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 21:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Watchdogb, it is matter of agreement and disagreement and personal feelings. Your definition of RSs provided is a fine example of agreement and disagreement and personal feelings.Nitraven (talk) 04:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

No, it is not. You have not even provided a single citation, RS or non RS, justifying the categories. The definition of a reliable source is clearly defined at WP:RS. Further definition that is related to Sri Lankan Conflict is given here. As long as these rules are followed I have no problem with any categorizations. Watchdogb (talk) 13:07, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Ranjan Wijeratne

There are some problems with sources in this article. The article uses janes as a source. The problem here is that I cannot find anything relating to this article on the citation. Furthermore, I have a problem with this article's "Terrorist" categorization. There is no mention that this is a terrorist attack in any of the sources used in this article. Watchdogb (talk) 14:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

How come [3] is not RS?

From janes " There are two types of suicide operations: battlefield and off the battlefield. In battlefield operations, suicide bombers are integrated into the attacking groups. Most off-the-battlefield operations have involved single suicide bombers. In the case of the LTTE and Hamas, there have been multiple suicide bombers. The targets have been static and mobile, against infrastructure and humans. Suicide bombers have destroyed military, political, economic and cultural infrastructure. They have committed terrorist attacks by killing civilians in buses, crowded places and in buildings. Suicide bombers have also assassinated political and military VIPs. "

From janes "The list of Sri Lankan VIPs killed in suicide attacks includes one president, one presidential candidate, the State Minister of Defence, the Navy Chief and various area commanders. No country has lost so many leaders in such a short period of time as Sri Lanka has to the LTTE suicide bombers." Since only one State Minister of Defence has been killed (Notable assassinations of the Sri Lankan Civil War) in Sri Lankan history, this refers to Ranjan Wijeratne who was minister of foreign affairs & minister of state for defense at the time of his death. Nitraven (talk) 03:21, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The citation from jane is just a general comment. However, there is no direct claim that says something along the lines of "Terrorist attack also targeted Ranjan Wijeratne". The claim that you have They have committed terrorist attacks by killing civilians in buses, crowded places and in buildings only covers terrorist attacks on civilian buses and crowded places and in buildings. The next sentence says that they have attacked political and military VIP but does not say that these are terrorist attacks. Likewise BBC does not mention any terrorist attack. Watchdogb (talk) 14:55, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

"The citation from jane is just a general comment" No I dont see how that could be. The article clearly says one of the VIPs killed by the LTTE include a State Minister of Defence, Ranjan Wijeratne was the ONLY State Minister of Defence killed while in Office. They have committed terrorist attacks by killing civilians in buses, crowded places and in buildings goes to show that the LTTE carries out terrorist attacks. Besides this was a attack carried out on one Colombo's main roads during rush hour and it not only killed the minister and 4 of his body guards but civilians too. Nitraven (talk) 06:51, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not here to give you English lesson so if you do not understand what a period means and what a sentence structure looks like, then too bad. No one is denying They have committed terrorist attacks by killing civilians in buses, crowded places and in buildings. However, that does not say that LTTE killing of any such State Minister of Defence is a terrorist attack. You need to read the sentence clearly.

There are two types of suicide operations: battlefield and off the battlefield. In battlefield operations, suicide bombers are integrated into the attacking groups. Most off-the-battlefield operations have involved single suicide bombers. In the case of the LTTE and Hamas, there have been multiple suicide bombers. The targets have been static and mobile, against infrastructure and humans. Suicide bombers have destroyed military, political, economic and cultural infrastructure. They have committed terrorist attacks by killing civilians in buses, crowded places and in buildings. Suicide bombers have also assassinated political and military VIPs.

Please read it CAREFULLY. The last sentence, which is followed by a full stop (period) says only Suicide bombers have also assassinated political and military VIPs. The reason there is a full stop and the word Suicide bombers that begins the last sentence is so that people can clearly distinguish that these two sentence are independent of each other and thus each sentence can be read without the the other. See also the word also in the last sentence which clearly and deliberately cuts off the continuation of the terrorist attack and presents new subject- suicide attack that is not Terrorist attack. Watchdogb (talk) 20:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I can not agree. What I see as the meaning of these too lines are that; The LTTE has carried out terrorist attack on civilians and the writer reiterates that they have carried out terrorist attacks on both political and military personal. It would have been a repetition if the writer were to have said "They have committed terrorist attacks by killing civilians in buses, crowded places and in buildings.They have committed terrorist Suicide bombers have also assassinated political and military VIPs." Therefor the anther used also mean that Suicide bombers have been used to kill both civilians and political and military VIPs. Then comes another point does political VIPs fall under the category civilians. I believe they do simply due to the fact that they are not military.

The arguments remain here about if the killings of Lakshman Algama and Ranjan Wijeratne should be defined as acts of terror or not. It should be noted that on both occasions that these to persons where killed, they where not the only persons killed. Civilians where killed as the bombings occurred in crowded places with civilians thus killed civilians. In the case of Lakshman Algama it was a political meeting and

Ranjan Wijeratne it was on a main road during rush hour both crowded places, therefore I believe the two bombings comes under the "They have committed terrorist attacks by killing civilians in buses, crowded places and in buildings.". Hence both these can be considered terrorist attacks and victims of terrorists. Since there are no individual articles on each attack they can be added to the Category:Terrorist attacks attributed to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam until such time these are created once it is done it can be removed.Nitraven (talk) 04:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

In the same respects I think the article C.V. Gunaratne falls under this reasoning too.Nitraven (talk) 04:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. You are now violating WP:SYNTH by synthesizing the two sentences. You are also doing WP:OR by claiming this. Watchdogb (talk) 19:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

We are in the buisness of writing what others said. We simply can not put words into their mouth.Taprobanus (talk) 20:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

True, but fact remains,

1. [4] States that "In March 1991, the LTTE returned to urban terrorism with the car-bomb assassination of Deputy Defense Minister Ranjan Wijeratne in Colombo. Scores of innocent bystanders were killed or injured. "

Therefore the article Ranjan Wijeratne can be categorized as Category:Terrorism victims, Category:Terrorist incidents in 1991 and Category:Terrorist attacks attributed to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

2. The suicide bombings of Lakshman Algama and C.V. Gunaratne can be considered as terrorist acts since, [5] " In the case of the LTTE and Hamas, there have been multiple suicide bombers. The targets have been static and mobile, against infrastructure and humans. Suicide bombers have destroyed military, political, economic and cultural infrastructure. They have committed terrorist attacks by killing civilians in buses, crowded places and in buildings. Suicide bombers have also assassinated political and military VIPs. "

Therefore both articles can be categorized as Category:Terrorism victims and Category:Terrorist incidents in 1991 since the bombings occurred in crowded places with civilians being killed.

This is not "putting words into their mouth" but simply implying what they said.Nitraven (talk) 04:39, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not "putting words into their mouth" but simply implying what they said. Case closed! You yourself agreed that you are making WP:OR and WP:SYNTH by claiming the above implying what they said. As for Rajan Wijeratne you can add the categories but only if you provided WP:RS for the claim. Now if you can do the same for the other articles and not imply what the article says, therefore violating WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, you can add the categories back. Watchdogb (talk) 22:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Slow revert-wars seem to be taking place on both of the articles ([6][7]), with numerous edits in the past two weeks being reverts only. Although it does not seem that 1RR has been passed on either article, I would like to ask you both (Nitraven and Watchdogb) whether you would voluntarily agree to temporarily not edit either article to add or remove the categories in question until the issue can be resolved here. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 23:39, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

For both articles, the inclusion of Category:Terrorism victims is contingent on the designation of the incidents in which Algama and Wijeratne were killed as terrorist attacks. With that in mind:

• Algama was killed in a suicide bombing that targeted a UNP election rally. At the time, Algama was a retired military officer. The attack also killed 11 others.
• Wijeratne was killed by a car bomb in a targeted assassination. At the time, Wijeratne was the Deputy Defence Minister of Sri lanka. The attack also killed 18 others, including several of Wijeratne's bodyguards.

Is this an accurate summary of the circumstances? Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

It will be accurate if it is mentioned that number of those killed were civilians.Nitraven (talk) 03:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. In fact, in both attacks, most of the victims seem to have been civilians. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 07:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll kindly request some one to please tell me why http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/terror_91/asia.html is called not a RS by some one. Thank you Nitraven (talk) 03:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I think Patterns of Global Terrorism can, in general, be considered a reliable source, though in some contexts it may also be partly biased (it is, after all, a publication of a government). Would I be correct to assume that you are referring to the source in context of the following excerpt:

In March 1991, the LTTE returned to urban terrorism with the car-bomb assassination of Deputy Defense Minister Ranjan Wijeratne in Colombo. (emphasis added)

Black Falcon ^(Talk) 07:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Patterns of Global Terrorism is a report that is made by the US state dept. I encourage the use of state dept in articles however to use it to categorize an article is a different case. The state dept, at least to my understanding, terms terrorist attacks or acts of terrorism only because they are reported so by the country they happen in. Specially since Patterns of Global Terrorism is a collection of attacks and such that are termed terrorist attack. These collection directly come from claims from foreign countries. As Sri Lanka is a sovergn state and had always been with good ties with the State dept any attack termed "Terrorist attack" by the Governemnt of Sri Lanka would be categorized by the states as a terrorist attack. Facts are usually checked by state dept so that is why I agree it to be used as WP:RS. However, they do not do any fact checks before calling any attack a terror attack - it's enough if the particular counties government calls an attack a terrorist attack. Watchdogb (talk) 21:26, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes this right.124.43.212.158 (talk) 18:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, that is what I meant. It clearly indicates that the act was a terrorist act and therefor the categories Category:Terrorism victims, Category:Terrorist attacks attributed to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam must be added to this article and since there is no article at present about the incident it self the *Category:Terrorist incidents in 1991 can be added to this article.Nitraven (talk) 04:47, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think "Category:Terrorist attacks attributed to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam" or "Category:Terrorist incidents in 1991" are suitable for the article, since it is (supposed to be) primarily about a person rather than an incident. If the incident itself is notable, then perhaps an article could be created about it and placed into the "terrorist attacks" and "terrorist incidents" categories. However, the case for adding Category:Terrorism victims seems much stronger with that reference... I've asked Watchdogb to comment here. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 06:09, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Black Falcon, I agree not to edit that article until this issue is resolved. I did have that as my intention until this entry here was ignored by other users. Anyways, since you are here now I'll not edit that article until this issue is resolved.Watchdogb (talk) 13:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that those two are an accurate summary of the two articles. Watchdogb (talk) 13:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you both for your agreement. :) Black Falcon ^(Talk) 07:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Given the complexities of the situation, I have asked User:Hcberkowitz to share his thoughts regarding this case; the full content of my request is here. If I've omitted any significant information, please indicate this. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 06:26, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sri Lankan Civil War

Removed the images - no need personalities of one side on an article which speaks of ethnic conflict of two communities / Lakshman Kadirgamar is not the only victim in the ethnic conflict.Teasereds (talk) 18:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Incidents

This chapter contains temporary issues as opposed to long term issues such as content disputes, which are in the previous chapter. In this chapter, the "resolved" tag means that an incident has been taken care of, not necessarily that we reached unanimous agreement. — Sebastian 02:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New sections

Since most people (including myself, ahem) simply add new sections at the bottom of this page, regardless of which chapter they fit in, I'm adding this new chapter so it doesn't look like they are all content issues. Of course this raises the question if the distinction is really so helpful, but I think it is because it helps us focus on content. — Sebastian 17:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why we can do without trickery

Since I dropped by, I received mails from several people who seem to agree that there is some trickery and framing the enemy going on. Yes, it's well known that this problem exists in the Sri Lanka conflict. I can imagine that for some there may be no refuge against trickery but to resort to the same tactics. This is sad.

But WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation has been created as a place for those who want to try a better way. Let me remind you that WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation has some built-in mechanisms that make trickery a less successful strategy here:

• We don't count votes, but opinions. This makes it irrelevant if someone uses a sockpuppet for voting.
• We don't count number of reverts per account, but per "reason". This makes sock- and meatpuppets useless for revert warring.
• We have clear standards for how to bring up complaints. This means, hints and allegations are not needed, and they often backfire.
• We have a house rule that allows any project member to remove any off topic talk. This makes our talk page a good place for people who want to focus on good, constructive work.
• We are very transparent in our processes. All decisions and admin actions are open to scrutiny. For instance, by keeping a well sourced list about warnings, we ensure that nobody gets blocked without being properly warned in advance.
• There are always some people here who honestly try to work towards reconciliation. This means, there's always a voice of humanity, and we're not turning into a paper tiger who only pays lipservice to well sounding ideals.

I want to remind all our members to adhere to these ideals, and to make good use of the mechanisms we have in place to uphold them. If you see any behavior that does not fit to our ideal, remind the person politely that this is not the way things are getting done here, and help the person by pointing out how to do it better. (I recommend doing that by e-mail because nobody likes being criticized in public.)

I know that this project is not perfect, but we're all able to learn. If you feel we're missing out on a good chance to improve ourselves, please bring it up here. If you're unhappy about anything related to this project, or about any one of our members, and you don't bring it up in a fair way, you have no one but yourself to blame. --Sebastian (talk) 05:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Sebastian, Good comment.Teasereds (talk) 02:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editors in other projects trying to learn from your example

• • please feel free to move this to a more appropriate spot; I know there is structure to the talk page here that I don't fully understand.

As some of you know, there has been an ongoing discussion of managing political/national/ethnic POV at User:Folantin/Userspace Folantin5. It started with some issues surrounding Iran-Iraq War, in which it proved useful to analyze the foreign support to both countries -- and learning quite a bit in the process. Other disputes involve the Balkans and Poland-Lithuania. Several of us have cited SLR as the most successful such dispute resolution that we've found in Wikipedia.

Some may remember that I first learned of your work when there was some confusion about the general use of the term counter-terrorism, and there was an initially strained, but eventually productive exchange.

There's an essay in my userspace,User:Hcberkowitz/Sandbox-FactsFromPOV that both takes some of my observations on what you are doing, as well as an assortment of other techniques, such as methodologies that intelligence analysts use to glean information from highly POV sources.

If anyone has ideas about how the essay could be more useful, or if there's a place where some of these metadiscussions should go in mainspace, I'd certainly appreciate it. Again, your efforts have my immense respect.

Sincerely, Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 11:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your nice and interesting message! I will look at your essay over the weekend. Cheers, — Sebastian 07:19, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] An idea worth trying?

(Crossposting)

Hi, here's a thought that might do some good with the Israeli-Palesinian dispute on AE. Today I was chatting with an editor from Serbia. Mentioned the Serbian-Croatian ethnic disputes on en:Wiki and he surprised me by telling me the Serbian and Croatian Wikipedias actually get along pretty well. Basically what happened was some guys packed into a car, drove to Zagreb, and shook some hands. Then some other guys packed into another car, drove to Belgrade, and shook some hands. Once they saw that they were all pretty normal people, things calmed down a lot.

Maybe there's a way we can replicate that. Would you be willing to try a voice chat on Skype? I've noticed that when Wikipedia editors get into a conference call, with voices instead of just text, it's easier to find common ground. Wishing you well, Durova^Charge! 06:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I am very open to the idea and find it very interesting. I congratulate the Serbian and Croatian Wikipedians for such a big step - though it took only a few steps. I am thinking of proposing it at Wikipedia:IPCOLL and Wikipedia:SLR as well. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 06:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Nicely put - I agree with Fayssal's congratulation. I haven't used Skype yet, but that would be worth a try. Currently, my best time is during the weekend, between 1800 and 0600 UTC. One problem some people may have is privacy - it's probably not safer than standard phone, is it? ---— Sebastian 07:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How to solve fundamental diagreements

I really hope that agreement can be reached about the fundamental questions at Talk:Sri Lankan place name etymology, such as what the article should contain and how it should be structured. But if that doesn't happen, I would like to be prepared. This is a concept that might work in all cases where there are two fundamentally different and incompatible versions of an article, as is often the outcome of fundamental edit wars.

I see the following objectives for a good solution to such fundamental disputes:

1. Get agreement on the most fundamental issues first.
2. Be fair.
3. Allow reasonable editors to do good work on articles without hostile interruptions.
4. It should not depend on me. (For one, I believe in community efforts, but I also don't have much time.)

Did I forget any?

So far, I've come up with the following solution. It's quite unconventional, so let me know what you think about it:

If it turns out that there is no compromise possible, and both sides seem to have similar merits, then I will offer the following package deal:

Division of roles period: If side A (the "agreer") agrees with the basic demand of side D (the "demander", or the "doer"), then I will first change the article to A's last version (if it isn't already in this version) and D will be allowed to change it piece by piece to D's preferred structure. Each change needs to conform to 1RR_S3, and needs to be explained on talk page (or in edit summary, if it's a simple change). Only changes that serve the purpose of the basic demand, or changes that are uncontentious are allowed during that period. If there is any disagreement on an individual change, the change will be temporarily reverted to A's version, and decision will be deferred to WP:3O. (This will be announced both on WP:3O and on WT:SLR. I offer to spend three hours a week on this, so I can serve as a backup if no one else comments, or if comments are unreasonable.) If three changes are pending WP:3O, D can not make any new changes. This division of roles period ends when D says so; WP:3O decides when in doubt.

I think this achieves achieves the above objectives because:

• The side that feels more strongly about the basic demands needs to invest more time. That seems inherently fair to me.
• Each side can work at their own pace. Because an article will initially be in A's (the "agreer's") version, D has an incentive to move ahead quickly.
• There is an incentive for D to keep changes agreeable, because disagreement hinders the progress.
• Because it builds on WP:3O, I can be less involved than in a mediation case.

What do you think? Is it too complicated? Let's brain storm; please don't hold back if you have any other helpful idea! It would be great if we could discuss this leisurely before we actually need to resolve such a situation. --Sebastian (talk) 04:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About archiving

This page hasn't been archived in a long time, and I just received an e-mail from someone asking me if I could do that. The person who asked me didn't feel so comfortable about it because ey was involved in some of the discussions. However, any project member can archive discussions here, as long as the discussion seems resolved. That is clearly the case for the sections which have a "resolved" tag for a week or longer. While I have probably done most of the archiving, I feel this is a community task that shouldn't rest on one person's shoulders. For some time, Lahiru was so kind to follow my request to do it, but he isn't very active now on this project. In addition, I will not be on wiki from Friday to Wednesday. Please, therefore, can some other kind project member archive the old discussions here?

For this year, I had started by separating the archives into General, Issues and Incidents. You don't have to follow that. You could just create give it an unspecific name, such as "archive 5" and put all together. But in case you want to follow my distinction, here's how I would classify the new sections of chapter 4. A project member could also move the unresolved sections in the appropriate chapter.

1. #LTTE article: Issue
2. #Militia: Issue
3. #Lakshman Algama: Issue?
4. #Glossary or other guide?: General (Please leave this one open - I'd like to get back to it later.)
5. #1RR violation: Incident
6. #Sri Lankan Civil War: Issue?
7. #Row erupts over Tamil rebel film: Incident
8. #Heavy edit warring and sock puppetry: Incident
9. #Creating a list of Reliable Sources: General
10. #Category using citations: Issue?
11. #Thanks!: General
12. #Why we can do without trickery: General
13. #Semi protection needed: Incident
14. #Content dispute over Sri Lankan conflict articles: Incident?
15. #Disruptive edits by user Bermudatriangle: Incident
16. #Editors in other projects trying to learn from your example: General (Please leave this one open)
17. #An idea worth trying?: General
18. #SLDR extended to Sri Lankan place name etymology: Incident
19. #Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism: Incident
20. #How to solve fundamental diagreements: General
21. #Templating a regular based on supposed BLP violations: Incident
22. #About archiving: General

This classification is only a suggestion, based on a very cursory glance over the sections. Please don't hesitate to classify otherwise, if you see fit. Sebastian (talk) 16:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anton Balasingham article

A user has been removing the Anti-rebel subscript from Asian Tribune. After being pointed to the Classifications of sources at WP:SLR#list_of_sources the user has reverted again. This user is well aware of classification of sources. Watchdogb (talk) 00:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, we had similar discussions before. See #Classification as "QS" below. Sebastian (talk) 02:03, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed poster

Removed the poster, no encyclopedia importance, the poster is cited on Anti-Rebel website, the poster with no background that it has taken in London.Teasereds (talk) 00:41, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Classification as "QS"

This is in response to the fact tag added to the qualification "anti-rebel", as discussed at #Anton Balasingham article above, but it applies to all qualified sources.

Let's not forget that the the qualification "anti-rebel" was reached in an agreement among involved editors from both sides, rather than based on references. This is only a compromise. If we want to move away from this compromise, we need a thorough discussion that ends with a conclusive decision between one of the following two:

• AT is reliable => reclassify it and remove the qualification whereever disputed.
• AT is not reliable => reclassify it and remove all disputed quotes.

If no such discussion happens then it would be desirable if someone could find a reference saying that Asian Tribune is "anti-rebel" to better comply with our general policy of citing all claims, and to avoid such discussions in the future. Sebastian (talk) 02:03, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. There is one small problem - Asian Tribune has not been cited by any major sources like BBC. For a source like Tamilnet it would be easy to find that it is a pro rebel source because it gets used in other sources and they have to mention that it is pro-rebel source. On the other hand, it would be hard to find such claims from WP:RS about a website like Asian Tribune because it does not get used by reliable source to cite claims. Watchdogb (talk) 12:41, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Asian Tribune is not a RS or even QS source by WP:VERIFY, the fact that we allwed it to be used in Wikipedia was a compromise. Maybe we should revist that too? Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 12:30, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sri Lanka Hope Award for Snowolfd4

I am happy to award the Sri Lanka Hope Award to user:Snowolfd4 with the following words:

• I herewith present you this Sri Lanka specific award as a sign of hope, in order to honor your effort to keep a neutral point of view when you created the article Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan.

This is indeed a great sign of hope, even more so since this has been pointed out to me by a Tamil editor, who agreed with the award. Sebastian (talk) 04:05, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I consider myself a Canadian Wikipedian, the article in question is not entirely neutral. Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan is accused of being a War lord who as the ring leader of Para military group that kidnapped hundreds of Sri Lankans for Ransom and killed many who did not pay up. Canada has recently given refuge to number of Sri lankan civilians who ran away from his groups activities. Please read Dostum, an Afghan war loard cum politician, at least that article get's into both sides of the coin without violating BLP. Personally I dont care about the status of that article because the wider Wikipedia community should care one day and as this is an Encylopedia not a News cite and as such articles with time will reflect what they really should be. So it is not real neutral article but a good start may be. Taprobanus (talk) 12:39, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I do not disagree with Sebastian's hope award. We all need hope Taprobanus (talk) 16:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Accusations of sock puppetry

Please see here and here. This looks to me like a violation of WP:NPA and according to the SLR agreement-section 6 there is Zero Tolerance for such violations and we have already issued a warning to the above user. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 12:18, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should take this to ANI next time?Teasereds (talk) 13:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

No Teasereds, we should wait for the admins here to comment, thanks Taprobanus (talk) 15:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Before I write anything, could someone please clarify what "elalan" means in the context of this diff? (I've notified Iwazaki of this thread.) Thanks, –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:01, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

"elalan" was a user who was active in Sri Lankan related articles before he was blocked for violation WP:SOCK. Watchdogb (talk) 17:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

My thoughts on this are as follows: An accusation of sock puppetry is not a direct personal attack per se. However, any such accusation–whether or not it is warranted–involves a lack of AGF, and should not be made without evidence. In general, accusations of sock puppetry should be accompanied by some formal or informal action (e.g. WP:SSP, WP:AN/I, WP:RFCU) or should not be made at all. Once an accusation is made, as is the case here, it should be substantiated or retracted.

I note that Iwazaki has already been warned for making "direct, unsubstantiated attacks on the integrity of a user in good standing". While I do not consider an accusation of sock puppetry to be a direct personal attack, it is an "attack on the integrity of a user". At the moment, I think we should wait a while for Iwazaki to provide a response, either explaining his comments or retracting them. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

How long do we wait or do we give him another warning and archive it ? Taprobanus (talk) 16:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] SLR Project page Edit protection requested

The project page is undergoing active edit warring. See this. I request edit protection till we resolve all conflicts. Taprobanus (talk) 15:20, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rights and obligations

Everyone has rights and obligations...

a) any editor who did not recognize the ANI ruling has the right to remove h/self from the list. The request or the edit of the removal has to be documented somewhere. The page should be unprotected.

b) every editor has the obligation to respect the smooth running of Wikipedia and work in a collaborative way with others. Details about this are found at this project page and the ANI resolutions of late 2007.

c) administrators are here to help make sure a) and b) are being implemented. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:58, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, what happens when an editor removes himself from a list but is tag-team edit warred back into the list? And admins who're watching over this page continue to watch without so much as attempting to put an end to the nonsense and trolling (yes.. not only reverting to keep my name in that list but also adding me under the "Warned!" list is trolling) And what happens when the tag team includes an editor one month old and from the looks of it being used by someone (any prizes for guessing?) only to tag-team? I do not intend keep removing myself from the list, but it will be in everybody's interest if this can be kept from escalating any further. Sarvagnya 21:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Sarvagnya, please try to remain calm and to not jump to conclusions. I'm not sure what you meant, but the statement that "it will be in everybody's interest if this can be kept from escalating any further" just doesn't read right. As for the "admins who're watching over this page", Sebastian has not been editing for several days and my watchlist contains way too many pages for me to react immediately to all changes. I'm sorry if you felt ignored, and want to assure you that this is not the case.

Let me ask this: why do you so strongly want to be removed from the list? The list is a tool for the WikiProject to identify editors who were involved with editing SL-related articles at the time the Dispute Resolution Agreement was drafted and implemented. Your name is listed in the "no-show or inactive" section, so there is no implication that you either accepted the Agreement or rejected it—merely that you did not respond to it (which is carries no automatic positive or negative implications).

I have removed the warning, since the issue was not raised and discussed here. However, I ask that no further edit-warring be done on the project page. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 22:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The points by FF and BF are all valid. The list merely documents who was around at the time and who agreed or not. Sarvagnya being on the list or not does not free him from the obligations of being a good wiki citizen; standard wiki remedies are always available. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

What is that even supposed to mean? Where did I claim that I am not obliged to be a "good wiki-citizen"? All million or so editors are obliged to be good wiki-citizens. So why dont you put all of them on the list? And that still wouldnt answer my question of why I am on the list. "I was around at the time"... is no reason, my name should be there. I was not "around".. I was only commenting about L and N's blocks on ANI not even on SLR.. I had nothing whatsoever with any 'agreement' or any SLR. Also I was only shown the initial draft of the agreement and I was long gone by the time the initial draft became "final resolution" and got implemented on SLR. And btw... this is User:Gnanapit's contribs from Sep to Nov 07. As you can see, he has next to no contributions on SL-related articles. Can you explain to me why he is also on this list? Sarvagnya 00:30, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

editconflict response(unindent)why do you so strongly want to be removed from the list? -- And can you tell me why I should be on that list in the first place? Why not any of the other million or so editors? To answer your question anyway.. that troll of a warning you removed explains precisely why I want my name removed from the list. So there is no scope for the likes of Watchdogb and teasereds trolling me with nonsense like this.

However, that is not all. I want to be removed from the list simply because I insist that nobody other than me can speak for me. It simply is not upto any editor, admin or crat to sign me on a list or make me a part of any agreement without my consent. It would be a violation of policy to do so. Putting me under "Inactive"/"No show" would seem to imply that I am/was somehow a part of the process. Which of course, is not true at all. For starters, I was not consulted about any SLR and I have had nothing to say about SLR or any of its in-house proposals. I am not obliged to be a part of this effort or to have an opinion about any of its proposals. Even if I had an opinion, it should not be represented under "Signatories" without my consent. It is a gross misrepresentation of my stance (which is that I have no stance on the matter) to put me under "Signatories" of a proposal I havent the slightest clue about.

Like I told Elonka on my talk page, if you were to put me under a list of "Editors interested in SL topics" or "Editors who have edited SL articles" or even perhaps "Editors who'd like to be intimated of important SL-related discussions" etc., it would be a different matter.

Also, you say - The list is a tool for the WikiProject to identify editors who were involved with editing SL-related articles at the time the Dispute Resolution Agreement was drafted and implemented. -- Two problems. First, what you state there is not true (can you prove that it is true in my case.. or in Gnanapiti's case.. Gnanapiti for heavens' sake has perhaps not even edited any SL related article!! definitely not any more than you or fayssal or jayjg et al.) and secondly, that list there proclaims something quite different from your "editors who were involved with editing SL-related articles at the time the Dispute Resolution Agreement was drafted and implemented". Also, what is the point of even having a list of editors who were "editing SL-related articles at the time the Dispute Resolution Agreement was drafted and implemented" if those users had nothing whatsoever to do with the 'agreement 'itself?! Sarvagnya 00:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Sarvagnya, incivility ("troll of a warning", "likes of Watchdogb and teasereds") is not acceptable, regardless of whether one's name is on the list and regardless of which section it appears in ("acceptance", "no-show or inactive", or "rejection"). I will ask you again to please calm down.

Sebastian has already explained why your name appears on the list, and I alluded to the reason in my comment. You were an active participant in the AN/I discussion and you did not respond to FayssalF's comment here. (As for why I'm not on the list ... I think it has to do with the fact that I didn't participate in the AN/I discussion, though I have no objection to being added to the list.) Incidentally, you can't really say that you "haven't the slightest clue" about the Agreement since you were notified on your talk page and you posted a comment in response to the proposal.

You write that "nobody other than [you] can speak for [you]", and that is completely correct. However, having your name listed in the "no show or inactive" section does not in any way speak for you, and it does not make you party to the Agreement. It only notes that you were involved in the discussion which gave rise to the Agreement and did not explicitly accept or reject it. Is your only concern the section title "Signatories"? (After all, would you object to other editors mentioning your username on some talk page without your consent?)

It seems to be that you perceive the appearance of your name in the list to indicate that you have accepted something. It doesn't, since your username is not in the "acceptance" section. The appearance of your username in the "no show or inactive" section of the list does not make you a member of WP:SLR, it does not indicate that you accepted the Dispute Resolution Agreement, it does not indicate or imply anything about your personal views, and it does not place on you any obligations that do not apply to every other Wikipedia editor, regardless of their involvement in SL-related articles, in the AN/I discussion, or in this project.

I hope that clear up any ambiguities or confusion. If you still do not want your username to appear in the list, then please indicate exactly what your concerns are, so that we could do something to specifically address them (per FayssalF's original comment in this section). –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• a) This project should work, be it with usernames or ghosts. If anyone who didn't recognize the resolution doesn't want to be mentioned then fine. I don't think discussing this would benefit Wikipedia project or this project in paricular. The "revert, edit war, 3RR, incivility, block, protest, remain blocked" cycle is a waste of time. The removal will surely benefit the named usernames and that's great. I think my a) point above addresses this point.

• b) Now let's see what would be beneficial to the projects... We first must respect the work of the people who spend much time here trying to coordinate editors' efforts in a calm and professional way. No disruption. Personally I am not mentioned on the list but that doesn't exempt me from my obligations toward the terms of the resolution (point b). -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• First, I was only shown and I commented upon a "draft" (in drafting which I had no hand). And the draft suggested that I be made a party on whom certain sanctions (1RR etc) be imposed. I rejected the "draft" saying that no editor can be put on a list by admin fiat. Admins dont have that authority.
• I was not shown or was not part of any process where the "draft" became "final proposal" and thereafter an "agreement" under the aegis of SLR. In other words, my name here is under the signatories to the "final agreement" which is a misrepresentation of my stand because I have never been invited to comment or commented on the "agreement" at all. If you want to note that I was one of the editors who was invited to comment on the "draft", then so be it. But make that explicit and clear -- just dont claim that I was invited to comment on the final agreement. Right now, the "Signatories" section suggests something quite different. I was nowhere around this place when the "agreement" was "implemented" or even when the "draft"/"Specific propsal" became "Final resolution".
• Fayssal - I think my a) point above addresses this point. - So why dont you simply remove me from that list and put an end to all this? Do you realize that I removed myself from the list, but was tag team revert warred back into the list?
• And given the claims here as to why those who are on the list are on the list, can someone explain to me why Gnanapiti is on the list? Sarvagnya 02:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think anyone thinks you signed anything Sarvagnya. At the opposite, people believe you haven't signed anything. Some others, me included, believe that you refused to sign even as being present. So being on the list or not doesn't matter. What really matters is...

• ...the list of people who signed and accepted the enforced rules. Those editors, admins and the ArbCom refuse to see any disruption to the resolution.

• point c) Sebastian and all admins are here to help everyone and their work should be respected. You also should remain calm. Requesting gently a removal of your username using a valid reason is one thing. Doing it unilaterally and go on reverting everyone before accusing the lot of tag teaming is another. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 04:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I understand the historic reasons for Sarvagnya being on the list, but I think it is fine to see them as what they are, i.e. historic. Let's remove Sarvagnya from that list and be done. This will free much needed energy for other tasks. I see appearance on that list analogous to a phone book. You can decide to have your name listed, but other people cannot decide that for you. Period. Jasy jatere (talk) 07:45, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Jasy, while understanding your point of view and I also want to move out of this but still I need to ask a nagging but rhetorical question, can I remove myself from the list too from the future ? can Iwazaki remove himself from the list ? can Snowulfd4 remove himself from the list in the future ? Can Watchdog remove himself from the list ? Where does this end and at the end of that process who is left on the list ? At the end what we are discussing is about our ability to rewrite history ? are we not. Anyway sorry for adding to the problem but not solving it. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 12:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Some of your points are theoretical (I think you do not want to remove your name), but still, here we go:

• I think anybody can change from acceptance to rejections and vice versa. Opinions evolve and people change their minds.
• Anybody can change from no-show to acceptance or rejection (Hey, that's what everybody did in the beginning)
• If you quit wp, or quit editing SL related articles, you should probably remove your name as a matter of book-keeping
• People who have been put into "rejection" by "Higher Powers" (Admin/Mediation/Arbcom) can only change the class by appealing to the powers which put them there in the first place.
• As for the users you name, I am not around long enough to know why Iwa and Snowwolf are in the rejection class, but I think they are against WP:SLR. If some community decision had them end up there, they should stay there until the community decides otherwise, if they added their names themselves, they are free to remove them. Watchdog has accepted the agreement, but if he should come to the conclusion that he has lost faith in it, he could remove his name from the acceptance list (and probably add it at "Rejections").
• It is impossible to claim ignorance of WP:SLR if you have been either in the acceptance or rejection list. Hence it is impossible to move back to no-show.
• For the case of Sanga, he does not want to vote yes, he does not want to vote no, he does not even want to abstain, he simply does not want to go to the ballot. I can't see the problem. Many SL related users are on none of the lists e.g. User:Krankman is not on any of the three lists, but is editing SL related articles on a regular basis (This is NOT a call to add him to the list, nor is it a call to add User:Jsorens or User:Jorge_Stolfi, or any other User).

Jasty, I think you are misunderstanding the problem. Sarvagyna wants to remove his name because he "feels" like it and does not give a valid reason to remove his name. He was a party to many edit wars that took place in Sri Lankan related articles. Thought Sarvagyna might have only done, lets say, one revert in a situation of a revert war, then he is a party of the revert war itself. This is the crux of the matter. If you revert, even once, to a version that was a subject of the revert war, then you have indeed participated in the revert war (tag-team revert war as some imply). Sarvagyna further took part in many content disputes in Sri Lankan articles also. This is the whole reason that his name was initially put in the SLDR discussion on the AN/I - which was aimed to stop these types of edit wars in Sri Lanka related articles. Sarvagyna now comes here and says that he had no idea that there was this resolution. This, however, is not correct. In fact, the Final Resolution was posted by admin (Rlevse) at 21:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC) while Sarvagyna's last comment on the issue came at 23:01, 25 October 2007 (UTC). This clearly means that the user posted after nearly 2 hours from the time Final Resolution was posted. So assuming that the user never looked at the page after his last visit, it still means that he was aware of the final resolution. He decided not to comment and this is why, the user as a involved party, is listed under the Signatory list (but as no-show /inactive section). Watchdogb (talk) 14:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Here is the version of the ANI page when I last edited it. Clearly, it reads "Specific Proposal".. not "Final resolution". And if you can read my comment, I clearly take exception to having my name mentioned under "Users to be covered in this agreement". And that was the last I ever commented on the matter. I was not invited to comment and did not comment on any "Final resolution" or "Agreement", least of all an agreement of the SLR with which I have no truck.
• Neither the proposal nor the agreement says anything about including in its purview everybody who had commited a revert on a SL related article. In fact, no "agreement" can pass any such commandments. I am a member of WP:KAR and that doesnt mean I get together with a few other members of WP:KAR and lay down our own rules for WP:KAR articles. I cannot further pretend that I will include in the purview of my ad-hoc rules everybody who has ever edited a WP:KAR article. In other words, if you want to police yourself, nobody is going to stop you. But you dont have the right to police others. We already have wikipedia policies and guidelines laid down for that. If you folks want to get together and collaborate, collaborate.. just dont assume that you can lay down seperate rules for articles you work on. You simply dont have the authority to do that. If I am edit warring, feel free to report me on the 3rr board.. afa I can remember, except for the 3 reverts on this page yesterday, I've stuck to 2rr on every article I've worked on for as long as I can remember.
• And talking of edit warring, content warring etc., my question as to why Gnanapiti is on the list still remains unanswered.
• And if everybody who has a revert on a SL-related article is to be on the list, why arent Jayjg or Blnguyen or many others on the list?
• And to answer Taprobanus' "rhetorical" question, if any of you want to remove yourself from the list, just go ahead and do it. But what in heaven's name does it have to do with my name being on the list? And, then the minor matter that you put yourself on the list while I was put there by godknowswho. Sarvagnya 18:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• I did not volunteer my name to the list. I was identified by a group of admins along with the rest of the names which included you and User:Gnanapiti (I think because of his/her edit warring in Sarathambal, State terrorism in Sri Lanka to name a few) and did not include User:Blnguyen (I dont know why and did not care at that time neither do I now) and was point blankedly asked to sign or reject. I happen to sign it and you at that time involved yourself in discussions but did not reject or accept the agreement. Currently the document reflects that reality and in my opinion we should leave it at that rather than to rehash the same old issues. WP:SLR has become a wiki model where such experiments have been tried in Israeli-Palestinian conflict related articles today. It is a working model and has contributed to peace and quiet for a long time and has resulted in the creation of high quality articles related to Sri Lanka for Wikipedia. The document you want to amend is a past tense, history, the way it was. In the present tense and in foreseeable future all editors who edit, SLR edit protected articles will have to abide by that agreement whether they were initial signatories or not. What you are trying to amend is like amending the original US constitutions signatories. You can amend the constitution in content but not who signed it (in this case those who refused to sign it) . Again it is history, in my opinion you should move on because you are not going to convince anyone to tamper with that original agreement we had or we open the flood gates and believe me the wider Wikipedia community is not going to open itself for bunch people to give a black eye to Wikipedia again. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 18:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) You clearly dont seem to understand the situation and I must ask you to stop taking this discussion backwards. Your analogy ('US constitution') is flawed and your assumptions factually incorrect. I can be put under "no show" if and only if I had been invited in the first place to comment upon the "agreement" on this page. Fact of the matter is, I was not. I was only invited to comment upon a "specific proposal" and that too on ANI where it is open for comment by anybody and an invitation is actually superflu Nobody has to be even invited to comment there. Also, can you point out precisely where I am asking you to change "history" or your "original document"? I am not asking you to do any of that, so stop your straw-man arguments which only serve to obfuscate the issue. I am only asking that I not be misrepresented. As it stands now, the list suggests that I was somehow a part of or atleast an invitee to the "final agreement", which I decidedly was not. If you think otherwise, show me a diff, where I've been invited to comment upon the agreement. As for your agreement, keep it.. who is to prevent you? Just be aware that you choosing to honour a proposal of the SLR does not mean that everyone else on wikipedia has to. As for Gnanapiti, so he's on the list because he has a grand total of 10 edits or so(the last of which was 2-3 months before Oct 2007) on SL related articles? Great! That explains it so very beautifully. I'm sure he'll be thrilled when he hears it. Sarvagnya 21:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• You asked for the diff. See here. Where you have been claerly invited and politely asked to accept the agreement and this where the history lives anyway. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 22:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• That diff (like I imagine, I've already pointed out more than once) does not point to any invitation to the "agreement". It was an invitation to a "specific proposal". Also.. it only stated that my input would be "appreciated".. not that it would be binding on me or that I was absolutely required to sign up for it or that I'd already been signed up for it. Sarvagnya 00:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

One comment: Sarvagyna, no one from WP:SLR layed the rules of SLDR. Your argument of WP:KAR makes no sense as this does not relate to anything that is being discussed. It's funny that you claim that WP:SLR members decided to lay a rule down and police everyone because the SLDR was not proposed nor edited by a WP:SLR member. Watchdogb (talk) 21:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Sarvagyna, stop playing blind. You need to stick to the topic at hand an not bring in the terms of the SLDR into this argument. Anyways, your claim that Just be aware that you choosing to honour a proposal of the SLR does not mean that everyone else on wikipedia has to shows that you are not reading the comment made by admins above. It was a resolution passed (via consensus). As such, as explained by FayssaIF, everyone who was originally a part of the edit war cycle and others have to honour the rules of SLDR. Go back and see the An/I discussion again where a couple of admins repeated it more than once. Watchdogb (talk) 21:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec)So Sarvagnya's only problem is that Jayjg and Blnguyen is not on the list. - Neat!. I ask you why I am on the list and you tell me its because I have reverted on SL-related articles in the past. Then I ask you why then are many others who also have reverts on such articles missing from the list and you retort with ".. only problem is that jayjg and blnguyen are not on the list"!! And then you wonder if it has anything to do with them not being invited. So, would you mind answering these - was Gnanapiti invited? Was I invited?

I think I've explained enough. Fayssal has said more than once that anybody can choose to remove themselves from the list and Jasy also sees my point. I dont intend to keep running around in circles here and I will be removing myself from the list. The list as it is worded now only has to do with the "Agreement". If you want to mention my name, you may have to come up with a list which reads - "List of users who were invited to comment on an initial draft of the above agreement". Until such a time, my name should not be on this page. Sarvagnya 21:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The SLR way to resolve problems

FayssalF called this section “Rights and obligations”, and wrote “any editor who did not recognize the ANI ruling has the right to remove h/self from the list.” While I respect his opinion, I am not aware of any Wikipedia policy or general ethic principle that would back up such a right. I presume he extrapolated WP:OWN, but that policy only applies to articles, not to Wikiprojects.

To the contrary, such a right conflicts with my understanding of the purpose of this project. This project is not just a hobby project. It has been created, guided by dreams, hopes, and visions, to empower those who want reconciliation and collaboration across ethnic boundaries. The basis of empowerment is ownership. Therefore this project needs to be owned by its members.

It is therefore clear that it has to be up to the project’s members to decide such questions as:

• Do we want to maintain the SLRDA list?
• Do we want to allow non-members to edit the project page?
• Do warnings need to be accompanied by discussion on WT:SLR?

I am certain we can go about these question as we always do regarding project internal issues: Discuss it among ourselves, after one of our members brings it up. Then we decide in consensus, as we always do. I propose we do that on WT:SLR/H, the page we reserved for our internal discussions. — Sebastian 06:09, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• • Do we want to maintain the SLRDA list?
  • Yes
  • Do we want to allow non-members to edit the project page?
  • No
  • Do warnings need to be accompanied by discussion on WT:SLR?
  • Yes Taprobanus (talk) 16:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review request

I have listed Sri Lankan Tamil people article for peer review, hence I have removed the Blue box from the article page but left the SLR agreement in the talk page less people are intimidated by the blue box restriction. It is not meant to remove SLR agreement from the article. Just informing the project members. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 20:37, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Two articles with exact same information

A user has created an article called List of attacks attributed to the LTTE (since 2005) with the exact same information (copy paste) from an article that already exist called List of attacks attributed to the LTTE. No new information was presented and serves no purpose to have it as a different article. Can an admin please merge these two articles or delete the List of attacks attributed to the LTTE (since 2005) since it is just a copy paste from other article. Watchdogb (talk) 13:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Since it was a bad copy paste move, and wasn't linked anywhere else, I've deleted it as requested. MBisanz ^talk 16:18, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 19:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Good call. — Rlevse • Talk • 09:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)