Talk:List of anthropogenic disasters by death toll/Archive 4

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Grand project

I'm being rather arrogant here, (esp. for a newbie) but I think this is one of the most heavily POV pages I've seen in Wikipedia. There are literally dozens of "facts" presented here without sourcing, when many Wikipedians get excited about an occasional unsourced comment in a regular (say) biog.

It also seems nuts for the whole page to be held in stasis while an argument rages about a couple of lines. They may be important, but they constitute just a couple of lines.

Is there consensus for a major reworking of this page? --Dweller 12:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I meant sorting out the remaining 99% of this rather poorly sourced page.

Oh, okay, yes I am working on putting some of this stuff into tables in order to increase the attractiveness and readability of the page. When I've done that I'll start looking around for some reputable sources to confirm the figures that are on this page, and to fix them if necessary. In fact, I've already done some of that too, mostly in regards to the genocide/democide section.

But naturally if you or anyone else can help provide some sources for any of the figures on this page, or find new sources which support different figures, that would be helpful. I fancy there are quite a few figures here that may not be that easy to verify.

Is there consensus for a major reworking of this page?

That depends. I already have a number of ideas for taking this page forward so it depends whether your idea of a "major reworking" corresponds with mine I guess :-)

I'm also working on a number of spin-off pages because what I want to do won't all fit into one page. Firstly though, I'd like to get some of the existing material into tables where it can be more easily read and accessed. Gatoclass 12:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Seems sensible. And given that this page is locked, perhaps it would be worth creating the spin-off pages. We could start with the less contentious and easier to source elements, such as List of sporting disasters by death toll? --Dweller 12:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I didn't even notice that section Dweller (in fact I never realized there would be enough of those sort of events to justify such a section), but if you want to start on a spinoff page on that subject, by all means go for it! I would certainly have no objection to that.

Later on we can work on how to integrate your new material into this page (if that's what your intention is). Gatoclass 12:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

How would you tabulate? Might as well have some consistency --Dweller

I'm undecided on that issue. What are your Wiki table markup skills like? Mine are rather primitive at this stage. Still, I've got a table I'm gradually improving ATM. Do you have some sort of alternative template of your own in mind? Have you worked on tables before? Got any you could show me as examples? Gatoclass 13:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

<heh heh> you must be joking. I was hoping you'd be some genius who could do it for me! I'll see if I can nick a table template from somewhere and try adapting it. But this'll probably have to wait a while. --Dweller 13:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been nicking other people's templates to make mine already :-)

But to tell the truth, I think once the decision has been made to put the info into tables, then it really doesn't matter a whole lot, because once the basic table has been created it doesn't take that much work to turn it into another type of table.

So if you want to use mine as a template, or look around for something else, maybe something a bit better, I don't think it matters, we can standardize on the format later I think. Also, I think we can always tart the tables up to look a bit nicer over time. Gatoclass 13:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Unprotect please

This is a large article that is suffering badly from POV and unsourced material. It's also stretched to the limit by its badly thought-through title. I propose to work with others to pull out material and post to new, tighter-defined pages. It would be helpful to be able to do this with edited text, rather than screen text. It would also be helpful to delete the material from here once reposted, leaving only an internal link. This article has been locked because of a dispute over a very small section of a very large article that, on the whole, represents Wikipedia very badly.

I'm happy to discuss this further... I'm wise enough to know I'm a noob and I don't know everything. Or very much, for that matter. --Dweller 13:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the idea of "pulling out" material and taking it to other pages. The whole idea of this page is to give a thumbnail picture of large death tolls of any type caused in part or whole by human agency, and I think that's a legitimate and indeed engaging subject for a Wiki page. IMO it's really just the title of the page that needs to be better thought out.

What I mentioned before, and what I would be in favour of, is having a number of other pages linked to this page which deal with specific categories of these man made disasters in greater detail. But that this would remain as the linking "master page" to them all.

That's my concept of how to move forward with the page. Gatoclass 13:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyone else? --Dweller 13:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I certainly think the "Animal attacks" section should go though. It would be better suited under "natural disasters" or somesuch, doesn't really fit in here. Gatoclass 14:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

to give a thumbnail picture of large death tolls of any type caused in part or whole by human agency I agree this is a good starting point, but does murder by individuals constitue human agency? I don't think so, and we can't include all murders, the lowest body count in this section is the murder of two people, I don't think we can add all of the recorded murders of two or more people here, we need a minumum requirement for inclusion, say 100 or more deaths caused by a single event, serial killers would be excluded in that case. I also think that events causing the deaths of less than ten people do not constitute a large death toll, so the whole Space travel section needs removing. I also agree that the title of the page needs to be changed to better reflect the article content. Something like List of events resulting in large loss of life, this is just a title off the top of my head, I'm sure someone can come up with something better. I also think we need some sort of consensus about what needs to be done before we all start to make changes willy nilly. Alun 14:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Meh, you'd probably want a different cutoff per section. When doing wars and battles, for example, I would suggest not listing anything with less than 10,000 casualties; otherwise, you'll get a list with thousands of entries. Kirill Lokshin 14:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it makes sense to have sections. If the purpose of the article is to list events by loss of life, with the largest first, so the reader can see at a glance which events have caused the greatest loss of life, then it might make more sense to have just a list, without sectioning off the seperate causes of loss of life. Currently the title implies that is simply a list by death toll, whereas in actual fact it is no such thing, it is a list of various different types of event that caused a loss of life, each type of event is by death toll. I thin the article needs to be defined better. By the way, what is Meh? Alun 15:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

See wikt:Meh ;-)

As far as combining it into a true single list, that would be possible. The obvious consequence, though, is that it would be dominated by military events. Kirill Lokshin 16:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the {{Editprotected}}, that template is actually to edit a protected page, whereas you wish to unprotect the page. The way to get the page unprotected is to contact the protecting admin (User:Voice of All). Or visit Current requests for unprotection.--Commander Keane 15:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --Dweller 15:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, perhaps some of the other sections need cutting or refining. I'm not suggesting that everything stay in. I'm just saying that, in principle, the idea of putting together a bunch of different manmade events which have contributed to a notable loss of life is not a bad idea. And when I say "notable loss of life", that could possibly include relatively notable losses, such as serial killers and so on.

But really, I'm not greatly concerned about the bulk of the article, what I personally am interested in doing is creating some new and hopefully interesting pages about war and other mass lethalities, with this page, or some other page, presenting a small subset of said page/s and otherwise acting as a masterlist.

Because quite frankly, I've been armwrestling John Flaherty for weeks over what I regard as fairly trivial matters and I'm sick and tired of negotiating ad nauseam over every little thing I want to do. I want to actually go and DO something for a change. John's already held me up for several days on this page when I could have got quite a bit done. And I'm anything but keen to start the whole process over with a new bunch of guys. I'm sick of bloody committee meetings, I've been doing nothing else on Wiki for weeks.

So I intend to continue with my little pet project on my own behalf. And naturally, therefore, I'd prefer you guys worked on some other parts of the article, but if you want to cover the same ground then my suggestion is you do your thing and I'll do mine and we'll decide at some stage which was the better approach, and then either merge the pages or eliminate the ones that didn't work out so well. Gatoclass 16:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest something like this. Have an article listing, say the 50 top events that caused mass loss of human life by death toll. Then have a series of related articles that each list loss of life by death toll, each article being defined by the cause of loss of life. So an article for largest death tolls by wars, another for Battles, another for sports etc. Then a category could be created, like Events causing large loss of human life or something, and all the articles could be included in that category. That way the biggest events, regardless of cause would be listed in one article, with several other related articles by cause would be included in the same category. Personally I think this would compartmentalise things is a more systematic way. It would also mean that events with a relatively small loss of life, like the Space travel section need not be lost. It's just a suggestion, any takers? Alun 16:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment: From my perspective, I don't really care too much what format is agreed. What irks me most about this page is the masses of stats that are unverified. I'm unwilling to state which at this point, but some of them seem like fiction to me. --Dweller 17:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. This article is in severe need of some properly verified info. Alun 17:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

There's also a ridiculous degree of precision at some points. Consider, for example, "398,218,714, perhaps as high as 640,951,868" for the total number of casualties (presumably obtained by adding up all the numbers, which ignores that some of them are rounded to the nearest million). Kirill Lokshin 17:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest something like this. Have an article listing, say the 50 top events that caused mass loss of human life by death toll. Then have a series of related articles that each list loss of life by death toll, each article being defined by the cause of loss of life. So an article for largest death tolls by wars, another for Battles, another for sports etc...

In principle this idea doesn't sound too bad. I'm not sure how it will fit into my own plans however - it may be there will end up only a peripheral crossover between the pages I'm thinking about creating and this page. I don't suppose that's necessarily a bad thing in itself though.

What could also be done with this list, as well as it being a list of "top 50" death tolls from any cause, is to have, say, the top 10 or top 20 or something from each subcategory listed here. But I'm not sure if that's the best way to go. Maybe it would make more sense just to have the top 50 or whatever, and then a list of links to the other pages.

I think my main concern would probably be though, how exactly are we going to organize the listing of this top 50 (or top 100, or whatever it is that seems most appropriate). I ask this question because there is clearly always scope for considerable politicization of such figures, as evidenced by the fracas between John and me.

I would propose that there are two top 50's, one listing the events by their lowest sourced estimate and one listing them by their highest. That would seem to me to be the best way of avoiding squabbles about who or what should go into the list where. Either that, or have the figures expressed as a range (where available), and sorted by the most conservative (ie lowest) estimate.

Apart from that, your proposal seems like a reasonable enough way to proceed ATM. If it turns out there's a better way to approach this subject, we can always make some changes later.

Meanwhile, I agree with Dweller that there's a lot that needs verification on this page, some of the info here is blatantly wrong. I just discovered that John left a message to me earlier agreeing to have the page unprotected, so I'm going to put in a request for unprotection now. Gatoclass 01:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking that the best way to list the events would be by most conservative estimate. I have also been thinking that this is just recorded and estimated events, it can never be deffinitive because there must be events that lead to large loss of life that simply haven't been recorded. The estimates of loss of life from events from long ago are the most problematic, like the Mongol Conquests or the French Wars of Religion, though all we need is a published source for inclusion, remember verifiability is not truth, so published estimates from reliable sources are OK, but they must be published, original research is not acceptable. There are also some glaring ommisions, like the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War, to be accurate we need to try to avoid systemic bias, something wikipedi suffers from quite badly on occasion. As for politicisation, what you should be doing is getting proper verifiability, if there are sources that contradict each other, then both should be included in order to achieve neutrality, if an assertion is not supported by a published source, then it cannot be included. It is good to remember What wikipedia is not, it is Not a soapbox or a vehicle for propaganda and it is not an indiscriminate collection of information. I think unverified information should usually be tagged like this {{fact}} and after a week or so it should be removed, possibly to the talk page. I don't think it is acceptable to include information for verification later, editors have a responsibility to verify their own edits as they make them. It is perfectly acceptable for any editor to remove unverified assertions at any time, there is nothing personal about this and it is not in breach of wikiquette. Alun 05:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

In general I agree with your comments, except perhaps the one about removing unverified stuff "after a week or so". It may take a lot longer than a week to get verifiability for a lot of this stuff, depending on how much time people can find to spend on it (and believe me, having just spent several weeks trying to get verification for a couple of numbers on the Stalin page, I know how problematic these issues can become). Personally, I think either a warning template of some sort on the page, or simply a comment at the top that a lot of the numbers are still unverified and should not be relied upon, would be sufficient, at least at this stage. The page as it is has some utility I think, even if most of it is still as yet unverified. Gatoclass 06:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and here's another idea - I think it would probably not be too hard to find some sort of verification for many of these figures outside of what are normally considered "reliable sources". So I think that in the absence of reliable sources it would be acceptable to use less reliable sources until something more definitive comes along. But in order to do that we would need to have some means of distinguishing which numbers are properly sourced and which are only tentatively sourced. So I think some sort of note next to each such reference saying something like "- more reliable source needed" would be a way of quickly distinguishing in the footnotes which numbers still haven't been adequately verified. Gatoclass 07:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It's all very well to leave unverified information on a page for a limited time, but without some sort of limit, then some of the info might remain unverified on the page add infinitum. I do think it is the responsibility of editors to verify their own edits (though I'm happy to engage in some fact checking myself), and some of the info might just be the opinion of an editor, rather than a published estimate. Information that is unverifiable does need to be removed at some point, the not verified and fact tags are not meant to be permanent fixtures. An alternative is to go through the history pages of the article and find out which editors made which contributions, and then request that they verify their own edit, if they fail to do so in a reasonable time then the edit can be removed. I'm open to suggestions about how long an unverified assertion should remain. Be that as it may, the info doesn't need to be lost completely, it can be moved to the discussion page untill such time as it is properly verified or not as the case may be. I tend to the opinion that an assertion is either verified or not, less contentious figures do not necessarily require solid accademic source IMHO, but remember Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence, from the reliable sources guideline. Alun 07:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've started doing a little preliminary research myself. I've got a range of (believe it or not) between 3 and 30 million for democides committed by Imperial Japan, from what appears to be reputable sources quoted at the Japanese war crimes page, so I guess that's one potentially controversial entry out of the way for now.

I wish they'd hurry up and unlock the page though so I could start adjusting some of these figures and adding the verifications. Gatoclass 07:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm impressed by your dedication. Alun 08:27, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Unverified material

My thinking was to include all the unverified material, but not rank it.

So the table pops up on your screen with the top 20 or whatever in order. Then below it as an Appendix, follows a wodge of unverified stuff. Anyone wanting to get "facts" into the table needs to demonstrate verification. --Dweller 09:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think unverified material should be included at all. Editors should be able to source material properly, to show where they got the material from in the first place, if they cannot do this then it just becomes their personal opinion, and wikipedia is not the place to express personal opinion, at least not on article pages anyway. Alun 10:07, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with that Alan but not so much in relation to the current entries. If we eliminate everything that is not currently verified the page will be practically empty!

And in any case, who is going to be able to police future entries? Users ought to know that they have to verify entries, but as this list demonstrates a lot of them just don't bother. So in the end the job devolves on whomever has the interest to do it. Gatoclass 18:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think we should look up everything, and whoever finds a legitimate source first will be able to legitimately edit the page once he/she puts up a citation. That will be the ONLY number UNTIL someone finds a source just as legitimate. For example, one would be able to put up the 30,000,000 figure, as the source is up there, but until the 5,000,000 figure is directly cited (not original research), it won't be put up. Sure, it seems logical, right? So why isn't it happening?

[note by me: It might seem a little impractical, but if we all just hold hands and get along, we can live with having multiple citations for various numbers, so long as they're all legitimate sources. Just an example here. If we have a range of 6 million to 20 million for Hitler, but that includes five different sources, which go from 6, 12, 15, 18, and 20, we put ALL five sources up, and let the reader decide. Of course, if there's ever an obviously unqualified source, anyone can revert so long as they leave a note on the talk page. BUT, obviously if we try to cite every single ridiculous number here, it'll get out of hand. So I say we leave a message on the top which clearly indicates that most of these numbers (without citations) may or may not be accurate (at least until we manage the arduous task of finding a citation for all of the numbers).]

Oh, and this may have been a while ago, but who even considered putting up 42,000,000 for Hitler? I mean, is that including war-dead? By genocide and democide, we're implying that it's civilians only, right? I mean, if we're going to do wars of aggression, and include POWs and/or soldiers KIA, all of these figures would skyrocket. In the end, it would basically be the same list based on order, but we can't just have military AND civilian dead for one dictator and have only civilian dead for all the rest =/ We should make certain that whichever way it is, it's standardized. (small note here: by railing on Japanese war crimes, I don't consider that to be a war of aggression. If we were to include those who died because of Japanese wars of aggression, we could easily stack up the tens of millions of Chinese/Vietnamese/Filipino/Malay/Korean/etc. soldiers who died from wars of aggression. If we do create another section, whether it be wars of aggression or most deadly regimes, and we choose to incorporate military deaths, we should be very careful with our numbers.

Oh, and I personally think Rummel is a qualified source, but his figure for Imperial Japan is inherently inaccurate because of the date. I think that if us editors judge as a whole that there should be a larger time frame (which I think is acceptable after anybody looks for a second at the atrocities committed PRIOR to 1936), that the larger one should be used. OR, do one large figure (for example, 1910-1945), and under that, do (1910-1936): # here, and (1936-1945): Rummel's #. It just doesn't make sense to do a figure for Japan with a low point that covers nine years but then to have the "high" point cover the entirety of Japanese Imperialism (generally accepted to be three-four decades). Oh, and while without a doubt Japan's crimes were absolutely horrendous in China, I don't think we should do anything like "Japan's War Crimes in China" or "Japan's War crimes (especially in China)," because that's just ignoring the imperialism in Korea, and even worse, the millions who died in all of Southeast Asia.

--69.117.38.223 21:57, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, multiple citations, I don't know about that, it might be impractical, the page is only so wide after all.

As for who proposed the 42 million figure for Hitler, that was me, on the grounds that Nazi Germany was found guilty of waging multiple illegal wars of aggression at Nuremberg (meaning they were ultimately culpable for all the deaths which those wars incurred, including combatant deaths). But we eventually agreed this figure would not strictly fit the definition of "genocide and democide".

I might add however that if this figure had been included, the total for Japan would also include combatant deaths since Japan too was found guilty after the war of waging wars of aggression.

As for how exactly to list crimes committed by Imperial Japan, I agree that's a bit of a thorny one, but I'm undecided on how best to resolve it. And our access to resources is limited after all. But I think it might be best to just leave it at a 3 - 30 million range, with a footnote to explain some of the reasons for the widely varying figure. Otherwise, one is opening a large can of worms about how to organize the listings. The place for the more detailed discussion is really the Japanese war crimes page itself IMO. Gatoclass 22:22, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it's daft to try to include stats like deaths caused by a single despot or state due to multiple events. I mean it seems to be contrary to the stated purpose of the article, if one wants to create an article listing the greatest tyrants the world has known, by number of deaths caused by their actions, then that is a different deffinition altogether. The article should concentrate on the individual events that have caused mass loss of life. For example an estimate of the total loss of life due to the Second World War (irrespective of whether the dead were legitimat military targets or due to war crimes like the Bombing of Dresden in World War II ), estimates for the total loss of life caused by the Final Solution or estimates of the loss of life caused by Stalin's Great Purge. Total deaths caused by the multiple actions of a single tyrant do not constitute individual events. Trying to include deaths caused by the multiple actions of a tyrant would also lead to paradox, does one attribute the mass murder of the German Sixth Army after the Battle of Stalingrad to Stalin or Hitler, different sources may include these deaths in both totals. I also think that it is clear that the Nuremberg Trials were little more than politically motivated show trials, not that the people on trial were anything but guilty as hell, but there were no trials for the crimes commited by any Allied states, and they all commited crimes, like the one mentioned above. User 69.117.38.223 still does not address the issue I raised earlier about unverifiable sources, the user seems to think that all of the data presented here must be verifiable and should therefore remain eternally untill such time as verification is provided, but I take the position that much of the data may be merely the whims or opinion of certain editors. I am not advocating the immediate removal of all unverified sources, but i am saying that unverified data cannot remain untill references are found for them, as these references may not exist at all. The lack of verification is the biggest problem in this article, but the second problem is that this article is poorly defined, with differing editors with different agendas using it in various different ways. i suggest that the purpose of the article be more clearly defined, are we dealing with deaths caused by individual events or individual people? These are very different things and seem to have caused a lot of argument on the page. Alun 05:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

i suggest that the purpose of the article be more clearly defined, are we dealing with deaths caused by individual events or individual people? These are very different things and seem to have caused a lot of argument on the page.

Yes, this is exactly where things can get tricky, but in my opinion, in the genocides and democides section, the events should be listed, basically by regime responsible (with the leader of that regime, or the leader most responsible, also cited where appropriate). This seems to be the most appropriate way to list this particular kind of event.

In fact I already create a table listing the genocides and democides in this way, and I think it works well as a methodology. It also has the added advantage of naming those most responsible, which is not only appropriate in my opinion but also lessens the temptation for POV warriors to meddle with the entries.

In the case of regimes like Imperial Japan though, where some democides may be separated by significant degrees of time and space, my argument would be, to list a total figure in the main list and then to have a sublist giving a breakdown of the larger figure (assuming we have the necessary information). If you look at the existing list, this has already been done to a certain extent for Nazi Germany and the Armenian genocides. My only change to this method would be to break out such instances of multiple genocide by a single regime into their own separate lists, rather than have them cluttering up the main list. And if we do it that way, we can also add more entries to the sublists as more information becomes available. Gatoclass 05:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

But this brings me back to my point about not having sections at all. I don't see the point of having sections, it should be a list of events causing large loss of life, sectioning it off seems to defeat this purpose does it not? The sectioning off of the article means that the events are not listed by loss of life at all, they are listed by different causes of loss of life, with each cause listed by event causing loss of life. I am especially concerned with events like murders by individuals, killing two people (serial killers for example are cases of multiple events), or the Space travel section, these are really in the wrong place, how can the murder of two people by an individual, or the death of two-seven people by space rocket malfunction be comprable to the millions of people killed by events like the Second World War? I really do think that the individual sections really need to be seperate articles. This article should be a list of the top 50 or 100 events that caused the largest loss of life. There should be related articles with lists of loss of life by type of event, and one of these could include a list for individuals/regimes listed by the numbers of deaths/murders perpetrated. These could all be included in a single category for easy reference. Alun 06:15, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand if there is a consensus for keeping the different sections then I will accept it. Alun 06:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, are you suggesting that we separate this into various articles? Sure, this one article is cluttered, and I wouldn't mind having different articles. Perhaps we should create several articles, each with the headings already on here, but to prevent cluttering, just link to those articles from this page? I mean, the individual areas seem alright (if/when we find citations). But, I don't think we should take the "only individual events" thing too far, because what exactly is a single "event." Do we define the Holocaust as one event, or a series of events? And if I recall correctly, this is supposed to be a list of events, and simply out of common sense, the party(ies) most responsible are listed.

And, I do NOT think that there are references for everything. The thing is, there are two choices:

A) Lower the quality of this article by leaving in unverifiable sources

B) Lower the quality of this article by barely having any information at all, when without a doubt there were certain facts that were true, which we were simply too lazy to dig up the citations for.

So how about we just add one of those "citation needed" signs to all of the uncited figures? I mean, that tag alone is enough to lower the credibility of that one fact (at least to me. I always highly doubt something if I see that tag), but it should also encourage those with "agendas" to find facts. If they find the right ones, well, that's good for everyone. If they just push a ridiculous source, obviously, revert it. If they push a source that's credible, but which you disagree with, just find another source just as credible and create a range for the figure. I don't understand why this has to be so hard, and why we're letting our e-paranoia take control of us. --69.117.38.223 16:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

EDIT: Well, actually, it seems the majority of citations are on the links to the related pages, and all we (theoretically) should have to do is attach a link from that page to the specific number, and everyone will be happy. But without a doubt, in its current state, this article is unacceptable (because if we only leave citations in the linked articles, this kind of issue will always turn up again). The clearest example of this is that in this entire article, there are eight direct citations. EIGHT. In this enormous list, there are eight. No, worse yet, as one person, I am responsible for 25% of them. Does anyone see the problem here? Does that mean that all the other numbers are wrong, and that Hitler didn't slaughter anyone at all? Or does that mean we just have to do the mundane job of transferring citations from Hitler's article to this one.

Oh, and this is obviously minor, but as an example of removing an unverified source, I think we should take out the "slave trade in the islamic world" item? It doesn't link to another wikipedia article, it doesn't link to an external page, and the "citation" attached to it is completely irrelevant to the islamic slave trade. Just an example of the kind of thing I'm suggesting. --69.117.38.223 16:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what we should do about links to pages that are not verified, but where there is verification on the linked page. I would suggest that we simply include the same reference on this page. Wars and disasters are individual events, and the page claims to be a list of deaths caused by these sorts of events. This is why I don't think the unrelated murders purpotrated on the orders of despots over a period of time should all be grouped together. Stalin's Great Purge is clearly a different event to his regimes deliberate starvation of the 6th Army after the battle of Stalingrad, or the internal deportation of the Chechen people. The Holocaust is a single event to my way of thinking, as it was a part of Nazi ideology, though it could be debated as to whether the Final Solution was a single event, and the murders that occured before that were just seperate individual events. Certain sections of the article are clearly not related in any way to disasters or wars and really don't belong here. I really don't see how removing unverifiable material decreases the quality of the article, I think that most people would argue that removing unverified information increases the quality, though may decrease the size and scope. Quality is surely measured by reliability, and unverified edits are clearly unreliable. I would imagine that most of the information in this article can be sourced, though this may not be possible for some of it, and residual unverifiable information should be removed. I suppose what is required is a few weeks or months of work by those of us who are concerned with increasing the reliability of the content, to try to get verification for as many events as possible, those events for which we can find no verification after trying can then be removed. I don't think the citation needed tag can remain eternally, because if we are dealing with OR or just plain POV peddling then some information may just simply be unverifiable. As for the individual sections, as I have said before I would simply list the wars and disasters all together by number of dead, then create seperate articles for the different categories of event, I would create a category for these and put all the articles into the same category, though your suggestion of linking the articles together is also a good option, maybe with an info box running down the right hand side of the article? Alun 17:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

But this brings me back to my point about not having sections at all. I don't see the point of having sections, it should be a list of events causing large loss of life, sectioning it off seems to defeat this purpose does it not?

I wasn't referring to the issue about sections. I was simply replying to your question about how the events pertaining to genocide and democide should be listed. My response was that they should be listed by regime, with additional tables or lists giving a breakdown of the various events within that regime that go to make up the total.

How exactly to organize the various sections in this article - whether on this page or on dedicated pages of their own - is another issue and not one that requires instant resolution IMO. Gatoclass 19:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and this is obviously minor, but as an example of removing an unverified source, I think we should take out the "slave trade in the islamic world" item?

I think I have to agree that that one should go for the time being, because there is no support I can find on other Wiki pages for the claim that 11 -16 million died due to the Islamic slave trade, and I think getting a number for this might turn out to be pretty difficult. So I think just an entry under "slave trade" will do for now. Gatoclass 19:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

This is why I don't think the unrelated murders purpotrated on the orders of despots over a period of time should all be grouped together. Stalin's Great Purge is clearly a different event to his regimes deliberate starvation of the 6th Army after the battle of Stalingrad, or the internal deportation of the Chechen people. The Holocaust is a single event to my way of thinking, as it was a part of Nazi ideology, though it could be debated as to whether the Final Solution was a single event, and the murders that occured before that were just seperate individual events.

I don't think I would be in favour of this approach. After all, where do you draw the line? There are dozens of different horrors committed by the Soviet regime under Stalin. Are they all going to be listed separately?

I think it's just more practical for the main list to have a single entry entitled "Stalin's regime" or whatever which gives a total for all democides committed by that regime, expressed as a range. A full breakdown of that total can be provided in a separate list, which could probably put into a separate page, say, one entitled "Democides and Genocides" or something similar. Gatoclass 19:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I would list them seperatly on this page, but draw up a page called something like List of Dictators/Regimes by number of victims or something like that, and list all the victims of a despot or regime in their totality on that page. It really depends what we want this page to reflect, I still think that deaths caused by events are different to deaths caused by people or regimes over a number of years, in which case there may have been several seperate events. I think it is better to compare like with like, individual events on one page, whole regimes and dictators on another. Alun 20:19, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I've been thinking along much the same lines. Genocides and democides and nasty regimes in general probably deserve their own page, just as battles, sporting events and so on. This page is probably more suited to recording events of any type that have resulted in large loss of life, with a bunch of links to other pages dealing with separate categories such as those mentioned above. I think we're pretty much in agreement here.

I wish they'd hurry up and unprotect the page though. We've been waiting days now, I can't understand why it's taking them so long. It sure as heck didn't take them this long to protect the page in the first place! Gatoclass 21:04, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I suppose what is required is a few weeks or months of work by those of us who are concerned with increasing the reliability of the content, to try to get verification for as many events as possible, those events for which we can find no verification after trying can then be removed.

That's exactly what I'm proposing. But I don't think it will take weeks or months, seeing as how as you and I both said, most of the references (that actually exist) are on the linked articles, and all we have to do is transfer them. But until we have a chance to actually look for such references (seeing as how, they probably DO exist), we shouldn't just immediately remove a figure. Unless of course, we've determined that there really are no references, and there is no article, and Google yields nothing (like in the Islamic Slave Trade figure).

And considering the sectioning... How about we turn this one into just CLEARLY individual events. As in, single battles, single murders, single sporting events, single disasters, and then at the bottom, where most articles link "see also:" we link to a slew of new pages such as "Wars by death toll," "genocides and democides by death toll (this would obviously include death counts that covered the entirety of such regimes as those of Mao, Stalin, Tojo or Hitler)," "serial murderers," etc. etc.

Just as an example, I'll take WWII. A lot of things happened in WWII, right? But they all go in different places. The number of soldiers who died in WWII would go in the war list (most likely with a "see also" link to the genocides and democides page for obvious reasons). However, those civilians who died due to Japanese imperialism, Hitler's regime, or Stalin's regime would go under Genocide & Democide. But something like the Rape of Nanking would go under individual events (which I assume will also be subdivided by what type of event it is: natural disaster, battle, siege, massacre, etc.). Siege of Leningrad would also go under individual events. If we're going to include concentration camps and the like, places like Auschwitz-Birkenau and Unit 731's headquarters in Harbin would be on the list. --69.117.38.223 23:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

We seem to be developing a nice consensus here. I am still of the opinion that individual events should be listed by death toll, irrespective of the type of event, but it's not something I am not prepared to compromise on if there is a majority opinion against it. It seems reasonable to have Battles as individual events on that page, and have a seperate page for Wars by death toll. I agree with your assessment concerning verifiability, we'll see how much info can be actually verified, and remove only those figures for which we absolutely cannot find verifiability, they can be removed to the talk page and put back in by any user at a later date if they can find a source that we couldn't. Alun 05:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)