Talk:2015 Mina stampede

Translation

"Tactlessness" doesn't make sense in the quoted passages. Could a better translation be provided? Was "incompetence" meant? Also "mismanagement and improper measures that were behind this tragedy should not be undermined″ doesn't make sense. Instead of "undermined" perhaps "ignored", "tolerated" or "understated" was meant. I am only fluent in English, so even if I had access to the original I couldn't fix these "quotes".

Requested move 29 September 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not Moved - For now. There's clear tension in the discussion over the "academic" view of stampedes and WP:Commonname. I am reluctant to ignore our Common name POLICY, especially because of the recent nature of this event. In surveying articles in Category:Human stampedes it is evident that the term is not only widely used in titles but in content. My suggestion to those editors who are passionate about their percieved misuse of the term is this. Open a RFC at WP:W2W to get a much wider community view of the use of the word "stampede" and document that view in WP:W2W. Overriding COMMONNAME on a one-on-one article basis is more problematic than the improper use of a term in a single article. Point of order: Positions in RMs should be stated as either SUPPORT or OPPOSE as individual editors don't APPROVE RM title options. Mike Cline (talk) 20:38, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

---

2015 Mina stampede → 2015 Mina disaster – Rationale is already discussed above in two different sections (see Definition of stampede, Stampede or crush? Real danger for WP and Article moved too many times) Sheriff (talk) 19:43, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose it was a stampede where hundreds were crushed to death. There is no "rationale" just an opinion based on personal preference. Sticking with reliable sources (with which the article is blessed many times over), we have dozens of different yet reliable folks calling this a "stampede". If you find it distasteful, time to start getting over it – this is an encyclopedia, not Facebook. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:21, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

  Comment: I agree with your assessment on its face value, but you need to go read the discussion above. It's not as clear cut as it seems. Especially where User:SheriffIsInTown lists a bunch of articles that describe stampedes but instead use "Tragedy" or "Disaster". Please go read the discussion and respond to it because right now you're arguing against a strawman. 24.153.226.234 (talk) 21:41, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

  I did "go read" the discussion, it changes nothing. We have a clear term being used by the vast majority of reliable sources, in multiple languages, whose dictionary definition stands up to scrutiny. Those trying to dumb it down, censor it, obfuscate it, politically correct it, or whatever, are simply doing the encyclopedia a disservice. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:43, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose per TRM - I still believe it was a stampede and so do the sources by the looks of it, Crush IMHO does seem disrespectful and in my eyes it wasn't a disaster .... Stampede IMHO is the perfect title to describe this. –Davey2010^Talk 21:16, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
• Approve because I, personally and at first, thought it was a cattle or horse stampede-Mr. Man (talk) 22:16, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per TRM – We're not here to make our own opinion on the event and assign it a title of our own, we're here to consolidate and reiterate what is being published through reliable sources. WP:COMMONNAME overrides the idea of calling it a "disaster" as the vast majority of sources refer to the event as a stampede or crush. Whether or not the article is titled "2015 Mina stampede" or "2015 Mina crush" is a matter of semantics and difference in English dialect. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 22:22, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
• Approve, as nominator: I think as people with our own mind, it's our responsibility to cut the bias and clutter out from the reality. Although I agree that most sources use the word "stampede" but incident described does not fit the definition of stampede and neither do I believe that human beings can cause stampedes, it's an animal quality. Yes, it's possible that people can get crammed into a confined space and start dying because of suffocation or because of getting crushed. People can try to run away from a place where others are dying because of suffocation which our media terms as stampede so stampede is not an incident instead it's a result of a disaster which already started happening. It's just a matter of common sense, sometimes we accept one source as a reliable but at other times we are forced to think twice when a source is citing something which is against common sense and we reject that source no matter how reliable that is considered. I will reject a source if the source would say something against common sense. There are many stampedes which are referred as disasters only because people from certain religious or race were involved in that. That is why I say, it's time we reject all the bias and reflect reality, here are all those pages, do I need say that western media is biased and Wikipedia should not be tool to carry on that bias:
  Victoria Hall disaster, Khodynka Tragedy, Shiloh Baptist Church disaster, Barnsley Public Hall Disaster, Italian Hall Disaster, Burnden Park disaster, Estadio Nacional disaster, 1979 The Who concert disaster, Luzhniki disaster, Heysel Stadium disaster, Hillsborough disaster, Orkney Stadium Disaster, Nyamiha disaster, Ellis Park Stadium disaster Sheriff (talk) 23:42, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

  Please see WP:GREATWRONGS. —David Levy 20:19, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: There is one "crush" as well The Camp Randall Crush and 1971 Ibrox disaster, how many examples you need. I am missing one more, not sure which was that. Sheriff (talk) 23:54, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Football stadium stampedes are known as disasters. I've fixed the others, except Khodynka Tragedy and the Italian Hall Disaster, which have become known by those names. zzz (talk) 01:46, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose for now: Not pleased to see the pointiness of other articles cited above now being moved to "stampede" titles. WP:COMMONNAME is our guide in each case, not our personal opinions as to what is appropriate. Nominator admits that most sources are calling this event a "stampede," which seems more commonly used in massive death situations. Even the Arabic version of this article calls it a "stampede" ( تدافع )--Milowent • ^hasspoken 02:06, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• Approve See numerous earlier comments elsewhere on this Talk page. I don't accept the argument put forward by some that because numerous sources use a term, it makes it the right term; whether from a perspective of accuracy or bias/WP. The point has been very well made several times here and elsewhere that such incidents are not always referred to as "stampedes" - very far from it - and there does seem to be a case for cultural bias, as well as variations in interpretation of the word. I do wonder why some users seem to be so wedded to the word "stampede" and not apparently open to alternatives - "disaster" especially - when quite clearly "stampede" is not the sole choice and alternatives - namely "disaster" - are used elsewhere both in common usage and on Wikipedia.--Stratfordjohns (talk) 12:29, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment: Milowent is right; someone seems to think that re-naming the various non-stampede articles cited above is a clever wheeze. It's not. I'm not familiar with Wikipedia enough to find out who it is but - if you're reading this and I suspect you are, which is why you're doing it - are you sure you're doing the right thing?? --Stratfordjohns (talk) 13:00, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment: Silly meUser:zzz it was you, wasn't it? Other than your post above, are you going to give a rationale? Sorry to sound rude but you must know that if your argument is that somehow when it happens in a football stadium it's a "disaster" and elsewhere it's a "stampede" is weak to the point of being laughable....except for those two you have apparently decided are known by the names given. Re-read what came before: it is not about personal opinions. Thanks. --Stratfordjohns (talk) 13:59, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

  See several RS including published sources that refer to the incidents that have been moved to "stampede" as "stampedes". We are not here to reinterpret things based on our own sensibilities, we use reliable sources, most of which use "stampede" for most of those articles. And why would we have a template called "Human stampedes" if not? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:23, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

  There is a phenomenon called a human stampede. Something happens and suddenly people run like hell. That is not what happened here, nor in most of the articles labelled as stampedes. Do you consider our numerous dictionaries to be RS? As our use of "stampede" has been so racially separatist, we are justified in using things like dictionary definitions as RS to fix this travesty. Naming more articles as stampedes when they were not stampedes is ludicrous. If RS misuse a word, we are not bound to perpetuate that error. Dcs002 (talk) 05:45, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

• Approve: If you overlook the other Haj Stampede articles (which were all created within the last day and are each about one sentence long), you'll see that this type of event is generally referred to as a "disaster." "Stampede" is rarely applied, and when it is, it tends to be limited to incidents involving people of color. So let's not do that. Let's call it a disaster, which is what we'd call a comparable event in a Western stadium or concert. Tigercompanion25 (talk) 15:14, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

  I wrote 1990 Hajj stampede on 24 Sept and its a decent start article already. The sources there almost all refer to it as a stampede, and not only in Western sources. 1426 deaths is massive, its beyond most Western "disasters" in loss of life by far.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 15:32, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

  Comment: Yeah, I was thinking more of 1994 Hajj stampede or 2001 Hajj stampede, which were created today and have one line of text each, not counting the infobox. The 1990 article is a solid article. Tigercompanion25 (talk) 16:40, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

  Oh I see, the stubmakers are out in force now.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 16:56, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

  Stubs are good! Expand them! The Rambling Man (talk) 20:23, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment one thing to consider is recentism. We all refer to the Hillsborough disaster as such because that's the name it's adopted over decades. Right now, we're a few days after this event, there was a surge of movement from a large number of people, so "crush" or "stampede" are both perfectly acceptable. Disaster is also used for rare incidents, like Hillsborough. If we change the Hajj incidents then we'll have "Hajj disaster 2006", "Hajj disaster 2012", "Hajj disaster 2015" etc, and as been noted previously, we've had at least two disasters in this one Hajj, so that doesn't seem helpful for our readers. And actually, that's fundamental here. We're not here to self-serve, we're here, as editors, to ensure our readers get to the articles they want to read as easily as possible. Right now, the vast majority would be looking for "stampede", not "disaster". If we want to make our readers' lives more difficult then move the page to obfuscate the actuality of the incident. If we want to help readers get to the information they need quickly, it's a stampede, as most reliable sources, including Saudi and other foreign-language sources have stated. (Also, a lot of the support for this move starts along the lines of "I think this happened" or "I don't believe that definition of stampede", which is charming but simply unacceptable as a verifiable reason as to why we should suddenly start calling events which have clear definitions (e.g. a stampede resulting in hundreds of deaths by crushing) by something completely unhelpful and vague (e.g. a disaster!)) The Rambling Man (talk) 19:09, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment I cannot speak of anybody else but as soon as i heard about this incident in the news, i searched Wikipedia for "2015 Mina disaster", i did not find a page. I was about to create a page but then i thought let's google it. I googled "2015 Mina disaster" and i found "2015 Hajj stampede" Wikipedia article was the first search result. So i am quite certain, people will still reach the page no matter what their search term is. As for 2006 and 2012 incidents, i am not much aware of their circumstances. I will like to learn more about those incidents before i can say anything about them. Sheriff (talk) 19:15, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

  People will use reliable sources, just as Wikpedia should do, and they almost all say "stampede". We can easily keep a redirect at "disaster" but as mentioned many times, there has been more than one disaster at Mina this year, and why are we afraid to use the actual words that describe the actual events? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:05, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose At least in American English, this type of disaster is referred to as a "stampede." Per MOS:RETAIN the term should remain, absent reason for change. A minority of similar incidents have articles titled a "disaster," but many of those may violate MOS:PRECISION and should be renamed. Mamyles (talk) 19:29, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

  BritEng too. Perhaps in 30 years it will be otherwise referred to, but now, it's a stampede, per the dozens of RS. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:05, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. As discussed above, we base our content on reliable sources. We don't overrule them whenever someone decides to reject a dictionary definition that he/she finds insensitive. —David Levy 20:19, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment: Sorry to say but this from our last three contributors are pretty much the same argument as from opposers since the outset of this discussion. See the various sections of this page cited above. The argument simply runs that this is common usage and there's not a lot else to it, to be blunt. I won't rehearse the arguments counter to "stampede" on grounds of i) definitions and ii) bias/WP here - they are set out at length elsewhere on this page - but I would feel more compelled by opposers' arguments if there was any evidence in the points they make that they had actually read and given some thought to the arguments previously presented...... The curious thing is that, in any case, on the general usage argument there is plenty of evidence to the contrary; again I'd refer users to the many articles cited above, which before the recent intervention of a certain user did not use the offending word to describe similar events. So, how can the common usage argument stand up? So, respectfully, if you haven't already, please read the earlier contributions, so perhaps we can get away from a to/fro based only on what we do or do not think is the common usage here, there or everywhere!?!? The point being made is that there may be other considerations. And before you say it The Rambling Man this is not about euphemisms. "Disaster" is neither more nor less euphemistic than "stampede". In the same vein, there is nothing more nor less accessible about "Hajj disaster 2006", "Hajj disaster 2012", "Hajj disaster 2015" when compared to "Hajj stampede 2006", "Hajj stampede 2012", "Hajj stampede 2015". Your point about recentism was well made though but, to turn it around, can we not take a slightly longer and wider view than the sources for this particular event thus far and read across intelligently and helpfully to the terms used for other similar events, in which quite clearly there is a choice of terms and "stampede" is not the only option. Thanks, all. --Stratfordjohns (talk) 20:37, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

  No, not buying that. A disaster could be electrocution from overhead powerlines, a massive sinkhole opening up and swallowing people, a tsunami washing people away. A stampede is a very clear and easy to understand concept. That's what happened here. You don't like the word, I get it, I read it in dozens of reliable sources. Sorry you don't agree with our use of reliable sources or with the term, but continually using emotion or personal opinion to bias this is a waste of time. It's a stampede that crushed hundreds of people to death. I would be completely happy with "2015 Hajj crush" by the way, those people were crushed to death, no questions asked. Stick to the facts please. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:42, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

  Sorry to say but this from our last three contributors are pretty much the same argument as from opposers since the outset of this discussion.
  This observation reflects agreement among several editors as to why the requested move shouldn't be carried out. Would you prefer that we invent fictitious rationales, for the sake of variety?
  but I would feel more compelled by opposers' arguments if there was any evidence in the points they make that they had actually read and given some thought to the arguments previously presented......
  I assure you that I did. Evidently, beginning my response with "As discussed above" doesn't constitute evidence of this, so feel free to assume that I'm lying.
  The curious thing is that, in any case, on the general usage argument there is plenty of evidence to the contrary; again I'd refer users to the many articles cited above, which before the recent intervention of a certain user did not use the offending word to describe similar events. So, how can the common usage argument stand up?
  Please see WP:CIRCULAR.
  [The Rambling Man's] point about recentism was well made though but, to turn it around, can we not take a slightly longer and wider view than the sources for this particular event thus far and read across intelligently and helpfully to the terms used for other similar events, in which quite clearly there is a choice of terms and "stampede" is not the only option.
  Please see WP:CRYSTALBALL. —David Levy 21:24, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment There are many which are using the word "disaster" and "tragedy", for example:
  HAJJ TRAGEDY LATEST: 100 NIGERIANS MAY HAVE DIED
  Hajj Disaster Leaves Many Unidentified-US News
  Death toll in hajj disaster much higher than Saudi officials originally reported-New York Post
  More than 700 pilgrims die in crush in worst haj disaster for 25 years-Reuters
  Iranian survivor slams Saudi Arabia over deadly Mina disaster-Iran's PressTV
  Saudi’s Health Ministry: Mina Disaster Death Toll Hits 4173-ALALAM
  More Than 700 Pilgrims Killed in Deadliest Hajj Disaster-Haaretz
  Top Iranian Quran reciters confirmed dead in Mina disaster-Tehran Times
  Mina Disaster Due to Saudi Mismanagement, Inefficiency: President Rouhani-ALALAM
  Iran vows legal action against Saudi after hajj disaster-Associated Press
  Iraqi Lawmaker Calls for Lawsuit against Riyadh over Mina Disaster-Islamic Invitation Turkey
  Mina Disaster Death Toll May Rise above 1,000-TEMPO.CO
  WAS THE MINA DISASTER A COVER TO GRAB SOME IRANIANS?-SACHTIMES
  Mina disaster death toll crosses 4000-The New Nation
  Iranian senior clerics slam Saudis over mismanagement in Mina disaster-The Iran Project
  And there are many more so why call it "stampede" over "disaster"! Sheriff (talk) 20:50, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

  While Google index counts are admittedly not the most reliable, there is more than an order of magnitude difference in use counts between "Mina disaster" (~60k results) and "Mina stampede" (~972k results). Clearly, one is the common term. Mamyles (talk) 21:14, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment User: David Levy thanks for the forensics on what I wrote - it was skillfully done - but I won't do the same back as it doesn't lead anywhere; it tends to miss the point by taking issue with what I wrote about what you (and others) wrote, all of which is really beside the point. What I was attempting to do was to get the argument off a simple preference for one term over another - or rather an argument over which is the commonly used term - without reference to other considerations, by drawing attention to those other considerations (without repeating them). I'm not now and never was wedded to "disaster". As I said quite early on in all this, "crush" is an option - as User: The Rambling Man suggests above. My question - and it was framed as a question - was whether "stampede" was the best term we could use. My approach was around definitions. Others weighed in with comments re bias/WP and I was persuaded. Others also chimed in to point out that many similar incidents are not commonly or on Wikipedia referred to as "stampedes". I genuinely don't understand why some users are so determined that stampede is retained as the right/best term for this incident. I have said enough - more than, most will say - so will let this be my final comment and see how it comes out. Thanks to all anyway, though.--Stratfordjohns (talk) 22:39, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Stampede in English means running. But this incident was not one in which anyone ran - rather they were crushed. So people read the title and get confused. I suggest naming this 2015 Mina crush instead. - User JoeyZ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.152.114.160 (talk) 19:01, September 30, 2015‎|19:01, September 30, 2015‎ Moved from new section.

Not necessarily. A stampede can be relatively slowly moving if the individuals involved are not showing proper awareness of their surroundings and care for those around them. Also, in my dialect of English, that usage of crush (as a noun) is unknown. If you spoke to me of "a crush", I would think you were speaking of a soda. --Khajidha (talk) 16:45, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Maybe a stampede can start slowly, but it always involves increasing speed and an impulsive beginning. That simply didn't happen. People walking in a slow, deliberate way cape upon others who were slower or stopped, and a crowd of 5,000 was unable to stop suddenly. They were slowing, not stampeding. I have yet to see a definition of a stampede that refers to a crowd that is slowing down to a stop. Dcs002 (talk) 04:35, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

• Comment Or, if somebody spoke to me of a "crush", i would think of this crush. Sheriff (talk) 17:01, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Khajidha & Sheriff: this is what I was trying to get across to a UK user but he didn't understand. (on ITN/C for the Shanghai "crowd disaster"). Note that constriction (probably not by a British author?) makes a point of snakes not crushing their prey when they kill, which is how I always understood what death by crushing meant. The British apparently see things differently and consider suffocation being crushed to death. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:34, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand. I am American, and the place where I have most often heard "crush" used as a noun is on UK news media, e.g., "96 fans were killed in the crush." I have heard it used numerous times on BBC World Service and on UK television, whenever an event such as this occurs, regardless of the magnitude. Dcs002 (talk) 22:27, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

That's what I was saying, crush (disaster type) is used much more in Britain than the US. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:50, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

And this is not the only place I've seen that made a point out of snakes not killing by crushing. Nothing in the site of the definitive US dictionary mentions deaths or injuries for this word either (Webster's: crush). Nor asphyxiation. It's part of a foreign dialect (though some words like boot are too and they often stop bewildering Americans after some context like "car boot" or "96 fans died in a crowd crush") Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:20, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

• Approve Regardless of WP:COMMONNAME, and IN AGREEMENT WITH all definitions I have seen, I think we would be furthering a wrong if we followed WP:COMMONNAME to the letter. Look at the numbers and see how this is racially separatist language, and that cannot be ignored or allowed to stand in WP. As of September 28, 21 of 25 articles (84%) describing these events in non-white countries used the word "stampede," while only 2 of 22 (9%) in white countries used "stampede" in the article title. That is far beyond any reasonable variation in naming, and it is unrelated to the definition of "stampede." This is the strongest evidence of racial bias I have ever seen in WP, which (to our credit) ordinarily goes out of its way to use racially neutral and inclusive language. "Stampede" may be the favorite word in Western media (and let's make no mistake which sources we are referring to here), but am I the only one who sees this sharp and blatant division along racial lines as a problem? 84% of articles about events in non-white countries are stampedes? Yet only 9% in white countries are stampedes? WE don't stampede in white countries; it's THEM in non-white countries who do. That's not the WP I want.

I don't believe for one second that WP editors are racist, intentionally or unintentionally. I think our sources are. No one here is acting like a racist, and no one wants to be accused of racism by the likes of me. But the numbers are absolutely undeniable. We have disasters, tragedies, and crushes. They have stampedes. There is political pressure in the US to make Muslims seem dangerous and unreasonable. (A stampede is dangerous and unreasonable.) A lot of Americans still refuse to fly with a Muslim on the plane. We MUST regard our sources carefully, and remember to keep them in context. We have disasters, but they have stampedes. This is unacceptable in an encyclopedia, and it's shameful to perpetuate this linguistic game of us vs. them. This, IMO, FAR outweighs any principles outlined in WP:COMMONNAME. Racially separatist language is inexcusable, even if sources are using it. If it's wrong, it's wrong.

The definitions of "stampede" that I have seen so far, including WP's own, all refer to an impulse, and a start of a crowd movement, usually chaotic. This is a crowd that was already in slow, orderly motion, and the people in the back didn't know the people in front had stopped. That is the opposite of a stampede. This was a crowd coming to a stop, not one taking off on an impulse. This was not a stampede of any type. It was a crowd disaster involving non-white people, and we need to face that. The numbers are irrefutable, and Wikipedia is right now irrefutably supporting the use of racially separatist language. (Run a statistical analysis on those numbers. It's not randomly distributed across racial lines - not even close.) I think we need to right this wrong, starting right here. Words mean things. A stampede means a crowd takes off impulsively and begins running. That is not what happened here. The pilgrims did not kill over a thousand of their number on impulse. I will vote to oppose any use of the word "stampede" for something that was not a stampede, especially if it furthers our racially separatist language. Dcs002 (talk) 04:28, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

I think we need to right this wrong, starting right here.

Please see WP:GREATWRONGS (and see my other reply with this timestamp, in which I address your "racism" argument). —David Levy 00:24, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: The fact that RS use the word "stampede" incorrectly, or contrary to all definitions, does not bind WP to the use of the term, not does it make it right or wise to perpetuate its misuse, especially in light of our racially separatist history of its use in WP. On the contrary; I think that makes it a very BAD idea. I have seen no definition of "stampede" that remotely fits this crowd disaster. A stampede does not describe a slowly moving, organized crowd coming to a stop. It does, however, connote many ugly things. Dcs002 (talk) 04:48, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
• Comment My apologies if I am speaking more than my share, but I think it is misguided to go through and change article names to include "stampede" in an attempt to make things more neutral. The fact remains that until this event happened, WP has had a long history of using "stampede" in a racially selective way, and the word now carries that taint. We cannot repair that damage by applying racially divisive language equally to all races, especially to articles describing events in which no stampede occurred. WP has a history with this word now that cannot be ignored. Quick-fixes like this do not help when there is a wound of racially divisive language in our history. We can't bury this problem so easily. Why have we been using "stampede" in such a racially unequal way? How did this come about? Spreading the language to places where it doesn't belong gives the illusion of fairness, only the illusion. We did this, and we need to figure out why, and quit this nonsense of finding quick fixes by spreading the label farther. I find this problem and these quick fixes very troubling. We MUST face our history and figure out how this happened. We need to learn from this, not sweep it under the rug. Dcs002 (talk) 09:31, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
• STRONGLY approve change of article title, avoidance of word "stampede" Dcs002 you are absolutely correct that the word "stampede" is prejudicial not only in cultural terms, but also in understanding how this massive human crush happened and how disasters like it can be prevented in the future. Experts on crowd crush disasters, and what in this specific case is believed to be a "progressive crowd collapse" (possibly in the context of two streams of human traffic ordered to move against each other), as described in this Guardian article, firmly reject the word "stampede" and its connotations of deliberate trampling. Here's a quote:

For all their complexity, however, crowd disasters are as much a political problem as a technical one. A common reaction – indeed the usual reaction – is to evoke the idea of an indiscriminate mob, of mass panic. To blame, in short, the crowd. In the case of Hillsborough, this was done deliberately by the police and the Sun newspaper. In other cases, it may just be assumed and implied. People who have never seen mass panic find it easy to imagine, but in fact that’s almost everybody, because mass panic virtually does not exist. Indeed believing in mass panics is dangerous, because it means the authorities sometimes conceal alarming but important information for fear of starting one. “Utter, complete rubbish,” is what [Edwin] Galea thinks of that strategy. “All the evidence shows that people will be able to react and take sensible decisions based on the information you provide [...]"

One word bears a lot of blame here, at least in English. Mention a “stampede” in front of Galea and he starts to look pretty wild-eyed. “This is just absolute nonsense,” he says. “It’s pure ignorance, and laziness … It gives the impression that it was a mindless crowd only caring about themselves, and they were prepared to crush people.” The truth is that people are only directly crushed by others who have no choice in the matter, and the people who can choose don’t know what is going on because they’re too far away from the epicentre – often reassuringly surrounded by marshals and smiling faces. [...]

On the extremely rare occasions that a real stampede happens – that is, people running over you – it is unlikely to be fatal. “If you look at the analysis, I’ve not seen any instances of the cause of mass fatalities being a stampede,” says Keith Still, professor of crowd science at Manchester Metropolitan University. “People don’t die because they panic. They panic because they are dying.” In Still and Galea’s small but growing field, this is now the consensus view. “Crowd quakes [or collapses] are a typical reason for crowd disasters, to be distinguished from those resulting from ‘mass panic’ or ‘crowd crushes’,” says Dirk Helbing, a computing professor at ETH Zurich. “The idea of the hysterical mass is a myth,” says Paul Torrens, a professor at the Center for Geospatial Information Science at the University of Maryland.

Anyway, good luck convincing the above editors, none of whom cited any scientific knowledge or insight drawn from the field which actually studies crowd crush phenomena, why the word "stampede" is inappropriate. "That crowd" has probably all moved on by now, to opine on other things. Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 19:49, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: Most of the editors who are opposing the name change, are citing WP:PRECISION so let's nip it in the bud, WP:PRECISION clearly says

  The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects.

So, what I am not understanding here is how "2015 Mina disaster" does not "distinguish it from other subjects". Whereas you have year "2015", city "Mina" preceeding the word disaster, there is no other incident which so far has happened in year 2015 and in city of Mina. Sheriff (report) 20:43, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

"2015 Mina disaster" works for me. For what it's worth, The New York Times called it a "stampede" in its first story headline, and in subsequent days' reporting called it the "Mina (or Hajj) tragedy" or "Mina disaster". Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 21:42, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

That explains, they realized that they used a wrong word and we should learn from that as well and do away with wrong terms. We will not do justice to encyclopedia if we kept sticking with them. Sheriff (report) 03:06, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

And yet the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, to name but three, have used stampede from the beginning and continue to do so. This isn't a "wrong term", it's a term that has been over-analysed and has been made to become offensive to some. How can anyone find a ... reaction of a mass of people in response to a particular circumstance or stimulus. offensive, or claim it to be an incorrect description of what happened at Mina? The Rambling Man (talk) 06:35, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

As quoted, who indeed? But if someone believes that you intentionally left out the key words in that definition, "sudden" and "rapid", they might find it offensive or incorrect. And you should have a look at what the Guardian published on the subject [[1]], as pointed out above by Vesuvius Dogg. They have been using both 'crush" and "stampede" all along, but it seems some at the Guardian feel strongly about this issue too. Dcs002 (talk) 17:21, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you find it difficult to read logical English: there is an "OR" in that sentence, the second clause is abundantly clear: reaction of a mass of people in response to a particular circumstance or stimulus. You can deny it as much as you like, but that's not getting you far. This is plain and simple an attempt to derail the English language, stampede it was, stampede it is, that's why it's still being reported as such. And don't attribute a "feeling" to The Guardian, it's a piece written by one journalist, working empathetically with those who clearly have some difficulty understanding that in English, this isn't an offensive term. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:47, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

One journalist? The article now draws from three different journalists (writing for The Guardian, Newsweek, and The New Yorker) each of whom quotes experts, all apparently at top of the field, unanimously decrying the use of the word "stampede" in circumstances like the Mina disaster. John Seabrook's excellent 2011 New Yorker investigative piece, "Crush Point", includes the following paragraph:

So why do we still think in terms of panics and stampedes? In many crowd disasters, particularly those in the West where commercial interests are involved, different stakeholders are potentially responsible, including the organizers of the event, the venue owners and designers, and the public officials and private security firms whose job is to secure public safety. In the aftermath of disasters, they all vigorously defend their interests, and rarely are any of them held accountable. But almost no one speaks for the crowd, and the crowd usually takes the blame.

It takes time to read this and other articles, more time than it takes to read (say) a dictionary definition which is then altered to suit a Talk page argument. But it's VERY clear that "stampede" does NOT describe what happened in Mina, according to usage preferred by those who research these crowd phenomena, and it's also VERY clear that "stampede" is often used after the fact to deflect responsibility. Hardly surprising the House of Saud would first blame a bunch of Africans for not taking directions, and use the word "stampede" in their own press releases.... Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 20:40, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I think you're wasting your time, particularly when responding to me. The word stampede, in my language, in my culture, is not negative, is just purely descriptive. It is by far the most commonly used term for this event. If you weren't already aware, Wikipedia works on a principle of verifiability, not just some particular individual's interpretation of their version of the "truth" of a particular situation. I'm certainly done here, but I'm sure you'll be around for the next stampede at the next Hajj, and I'm also sure you'll be working hard on all the other "misnamed" articles and categories that use "stampede" in this precise and accurate fashion. Good luck with that. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:58, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose I've been doing a lot of work cleaning up references in this article, so I decided to make a count of how those cited articles refer to the event in Mina. Of the cited articles that were 1) written in English and 2) had headlines that directly referenced the event, the following words are used to describe it.

I did not count articles that were not in English (as words can be translated multiple ways) and I did not count articles where the headline did not directly refer to the Mina event (examples: "Saudi royal calls for regime change in Riyadh" and "Indonesia offers body identification assistance to Saudi Arabia". A number of articles used "stampede" along with other descriptors (such as "Chief of Baghdad crimes unit died in hajj stampede" and "Hajj: More than 700 dead in Mina stampede"). In those cases, I counted such articles under "stampede" rather than "Death(s)/Death Toll" as "stampede" was the primary descriptive term.

• Stampede: 51

BBC x4, CBS, International Business Times x2, Daily Trust (Nigeria), The New York Times, The Washington Post x2, Saudi Gazette, PBS NewsHour, Yahoo! News, NewsGD.com (China), Ethiopian News Agency, Outlook (India), Rappler (Philippines), Rudaw (Kurdish Iraq), Libya's Channel, New Straits Times (Malaysia), Vanguard (Nigeria), PhilStar (Philippines), Daily News (Sri Lanka), Dabanga (Darfur & Sudan), National Mirror (Nigeria), NAIJ (Nigeria), Nigerian Eye, Al Bawaba (Jordan), Al Jazeera x4, Daily Mail, The Telegraph, Al Arabiya News (United Arab Emirates), Asharq Al-Awsat (Saudi Arabia), DNA (India), The Quint (India), Naira Naija News (Nigeria), The Guardian, CNN, ABC (US), Al Alam (Iran), Trend (Azerbaijan), The Express Tribune (Pakistan), Daily Sabah (Turkey), Premium Times (Nigeria), Nigerian Tribune, Independent (UK), The Cairo Post (Egypt), [Not counted for Stampede: Laila's Blog (Nigeria)]

• Tragedy: 17

92 News (Pakistan), The New York Times, NewsX (India), Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran) x3, Myanmar Times, The Maravi Post (Malawi), PressTV x3 (Iran), Saudi Gazette, The News (Nigeria), SAMMA TV (Pakistan), Hürriyet Daily News (Turkey), Yahoo! News, Wall Street Journal

• Death(s)/Death Toll: 10

SAMMA TV (Pakistan), The Daily Star (Bangladesh), StarAfrica, News24 (South Africa), The Citizen (Tanzania), PressTV x2 (Iran), Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran), Nigerian Eye, Jakarta Globe (Indonesia)

• Missing: 8

The Point (the Gambia), CitiFM (Ghana), Antara (Indonesia), The Jordan Times, Times of Oman, BBC, SAMMA TV (Pakistan), PressTV (Iran)

• Crush: 7

Arab News (Saudi Arabia), The Guardian x3, Sunday's Zaman (Turkey), ITV (UK), ISNA (Iran)

• Disaster: 6

Belfast Telegraph, The Guardian, Hürriyet Daily News (Turkey), Yahoo! News, The Guardian (Nigeria), The Exponent Telegram (US)

Based on my analysis, it seems clear that, among the sources cited in this Wikipedia article, "stampede" is the overwhelmingly the most common word used to describe the Mina event. As such, I vote for the article title to remain as it stands: "2015 Mina stampede".

I hope this is useful for the discussion. Carl Henderson (talk) 08:17, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

• Comment We are not bound by the majority in any sense. Thank you for your work, Carl, but the majority of sources are misusing the word "stampede." WP has a history of blatantly racist application of the word that we are only now discussing. We have an extra burden now to ensure that we don't use that word inappropriately, even if everybody else does. We are here to make a great encyclopedia, not to repeat the mistakes of others. No definition of "stampede" describes any account of this event, and the word has been used with racial bias. If ever there were a case for WP:IGNORE, this has to be it. Dcs002 (talk) 12:07, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Of the sources used in the article (as of evening of 3 October 2015), 51 used "stampede". Of those 51, 32 uses (a clear majority) were from non western-sources:

Daily Trust (Nigeria), Saudi Gazette, NewsGD.com (China), Ethiopian News Agency, Outlook (India), Rappler (Philippines), Rudaw (Kurdish Iraq), Libya's Channel, New Straits Times (Malaysia), Vanguard (Nigeria), PhilStar (Philippines), Daily News (Sri Lanka), Dabanga (Darfur & Sudan), National Mirror (Nigeria), NAIJ (Nigeria), Nigerian Eye, Al Bawaba (Jordan), Al Jazeera x4, Al Arabiya News (United Arab Emirates), Asharq Al-Awsat (Saudi Arabia), DNA (India), The Quint (India), Naira Naija News (Nigeria), Al Alam (Iran), The Express Tribune (Pakistan), Daily Sabah (Turkey), Premium Times (Nigeria), Nigerian Tribune, The Cairo Post (Egypt)

Thus I question whether then association of "stampede" with some sort of Anglo-American cultural racism is reasonable. Carl Henderson (talk) 20:58, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out (perhaps to the detriment of my original argument) that only 12 western sources used a non-stampede term for the event in Mina. Carl Henderson (talk) 21:12, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Additionally, of the 48 sources that used another term as the primary descriptor, 11 were Iranian

• Tragedy: Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran) x3, PressTV x3 (Iran)
• Death(s)/Death Toll: PressTV x2 (Iran), Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran)
• Missing: PressTV (Iran)
• Crush: ISNA (Iran)

It is possible that in an effort to avoid what some believe may be a racist word choice in the title, that Wikipedia would be instead promoting the Iranian official POV. Carl Henderson (talk) 21:12, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

For your additional consideration, here is the Google count as of 4:45 CDT 4 October 2015:

• 2015 mina deaths 8,110,000
• 2015 mina stampede 5,050,000
• 2015 mina martyr[s/ed] 2,920,000
• 2015 mina disaster 2,410,000
• 2015 mina tragedy 2,020,000
• 2015 mina missing 1,930,000
• 2015 mina crush 1,580,000

To my surprise, "deaths" leads the results, followed by "stampede", and then by "martyr[s/ed]". The title "2015 Mina deaths" would be most NPOV by this metric. My vote is still Oppose as the option on the table is to change the article tile to "2015 Mina disaster". Carl Henderson (talk) 21:33, 4 October 2015 (UTC

• Comment: The word "stampede" is a scape goat for those who wants to put the blame on the crowd. It's like saying "people killed people", there is no one to blame, it was an accident. They just ran over each other, the word stampede classify the incident as an accident that is why governmens tand their non-free media like to use this word to describe such events. If animals run over each other then there is no one to blame, you cannot blame the sheppard or a hunter with a gun in his hand and that is the reason media tries to steer free and use the words which are not offensive to governments so their license to operate cannot be revoked. The other reason is that most modern media in third world countries take their clue from the western media and sometimes they get their news from a western source or host country source (in this case Saudi Arabia) so they carry the word forward. The perfect example to the contrary is Iranian media and why they are not using the word "stampede" is that they do not get their news from a western source or Saudi source because of long standing conflict with the West and Saudis. We should not play into hands of those entities who are trying to put the blame on the crowd that they just moved on an impulse and stampeded and crushed each other. The word "disaster" has a broader definition and does not classify the event in one category or another and we should rename this page to that. By using the word "stampede", we are not being neutral and impartial as an encyclopedia and instead putting a blame on one party which is the "crowd", that people in the acted on an impulse but in reality the incident happened without them even knowing about it. The word "disaster" is more neutral compared to "stampede".I will accept "2015 Mina deaths" as an alternative if we cannot reach to a conclusion to change it to "2015 Mina disaster". Sheriff (report) 01:24, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

If the word has been used in a racist manner, the solution is NOT to cease using the word entirely. The solution is to use it for all appropriate events, regardless of the race of the people involved. As The Rambling Man pointed out above, this DOES fit at least one definition of the word stampede and is the word used by several high quality English language sources. --Khajidha (talk) 14:33, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree with what you say about using the word for all appropriate events, but The Rambling Man's definition (if I have found the correct one) is incomplete, and it does not represent the full definition from the source. (Always question the ellipses...) He wrote "a ... reaction of a mass of people in response to a particular circumstance or stimulus." By that definition a crowd who laughs at a comedian's joke has stampeded. That is a reaction (laughter) of a mass of people (the crowd) in response to a particular stimulus (the joke). You can see this definition is an absurdity in its incomplete form. But if you look at the whole definition from that source, you get "a sudden rapid movement or reaction of a mass of people in response to a particular circumstance or stimulus." For whatever reason, The Rambling Man left out the key words "sudden" and "rapid." (This is from The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English 2009, accessed via Encyclopedia.com.)

There is no credible definition of a stampede that fits what we know of these events unless we cut them up until they are meaningless, as in the example above. If there were a definition that fit the events, this discussion would be moot. (I think someone would have posted and sourced such a definition by now. It would be a very easy way to shut me up anyway.) The word "stampede" does not mean a slow, deliberate crowd movement resulting in a crowd collapse or crowd crush. We cannot force-fit the definition of the word into the events in Mina. All three dictionaries in my apartment (American Family and School, Webster's New American, and Merriam-Webster) require at least impulse-driven action or sudden action. This was slow and deliberate movement into a crowd collapse or crowd crush. (Definitions from the Guardian, which published a piece against the use of the word "stampede" in this story - linked and quoted above by Vesuvius Dogg.) The Guardian is changing, the New York Times is changing, and we should have changed our usage long ago.

Yep, try "reaction of a mass of people in response to a particular circumstance or stimulus." Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:47, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

The Rambling Man, please stop citing that definition without citing it competely. Your argument about the use of "or" fails because, as I wrote above, it leaves us with an absurdity. The conjunction "or" in this case means "A sudden rapid (movement or reaction)," not "A (sudden rapid movement) or reaction." The context gives the definition, as the latter case results in an absurdity. When you chop out part of the definition and fail to give the source, you are not giving people a fair chance to consider the actual definition, only your custom-edted version, and I think that compromises the integrity of this discussion. Dcs002 (talk) 08:46, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

You'd be better off leaving this to others to decide, rather than continually insulting everyone's intelligence and continually badgering me. It doesn't help your crusade. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:56, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Or "a mass movement of people at a common impulse " or "overrun (a place)". See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stampede and http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stampede --Khajidha (talk) 22:57, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Ths again requires the movement to be "at a common impulse," which was not at all the case, and nothing was overrun. As far as I can tell, the crowd remained in the streets, within the fenced-in areas. Had there been a place to overrun, few, if any, would have died. Dcs002 (talk) 08:46, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

The "common impulse" was the desire to move forward and the place overrun was the area where the movement was stopped. That area was overrun to the point where crowding led to deaths. This is really quite simple. --Khajidha (talk) 11:58, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

No, It's not that simple and your account of the incident does not make sense. On the contrary, Vesuvius Dogg and Dcs002 have provided information from reliable sources explaining why this incident was not a stampede and should not be called stampede. Sheriff (report) 14:20, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

How does "As they neared the area, they converged with an existing group of people who were already in the area, which pushed the area to over capacity." not equate to the area being overrun? --Khajidha (talk) 15:12, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Khajidha, no area was overrun because the area had been set aside for the crowd, and people were present the entire time. They did not take over or invade a space. They remained within the fenced-in area designated for the crowd. The crowding became more dense, and their movement slowed, eventually to a deadly stop. (That's the opposite of a stampede, which features an impulsive or sudden start, not a stop.) Dcs002 (talk) 23:36, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

When people kept coming in after it reached capacity, that was overrunning it. The continual flow of people into the area was the stampede. --Khajidha (talk) 01:15, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

"Pushing an area to over capacity" does not mean "stampede", it's called "crushing or suffocating people because of overcrowding", it does not automatically mean that people ran over each other, if an area got over crowded or went over capacity then there is no room for people to move less run over each other, that is what we have been trying to make sense, good thing, you quoted that text. It also proves the point that it was not a "stampede". Sheriff (report) 15:20, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

And "to overrun a place" is one definition of a stampede. --Khajidha (talk) 15:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

No, it's not. Not sure what you have been reading. Stampede defines stampede as

A stampede is an act of mass impulse among herd animals or a crowd of people in which the herd (or crowd) collectively begins running with no clear direction or purpose.

This is not what happened. Sheriff (report) 15:40, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Check the second definition I linked to above. "To overrun a place" is one definition of stampede. --Khajidha (talk) 15:44, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Khajidha (and others): what do you think of the consensus among crowd behavior experts, and among academics who study such crowd phenomena, counseling against the use of the word "stampede" in crowd crush and crowd collapse situations? No matter how many ignorant European headline writers used it, the word "stampede" is freighted with unwanted and unnecessary connotations here, thanks to its primary and widely-understood definition. "Stampede" (as these experts point out) pre-supposes a callous, animalistic impulse which attaches blame to the crowd (while exonerating and excusing officials) even before the investigation has happened; the word "stampede" thus seems to me prejudicial and insensitive to victims and their families, much in the way that Sun headlines were insensitive to Liverpool "hooligan" victims of the Hillsborough disaster in their reporting just after that sad 1989 event (which I saw unfold on live TV, policeman idly linked arm-and-arm across the middle of the pitch, guarding against motionless "hooligans" who were gasping their last breaths just yards away). We can't change the whole culture, but we can use words responsibly. "2015 Mina disaster" is not misleading any more than "Hillsborough disaster" is... Why not, just for the sake of neutrality, change this to "2015 Mina disaster"? Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 16:04, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I think they are being overly sensitive. The word is simply referring to the movement of large numbers into the area within a reasonably short time period. And "2015 Mina disaster" is not a good name, it tells you nothing about what sort of disaster occurred. --Khajidha (talk) 16:09, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't think experts who have dedicated their lives and careers to preventing these events from happening are "overly sensitive". They make the point that words like "stampede" and "panic" often cause officials, unfamiliar with the phenomenon, to withhold or delay important safety advice until it is too late, for fear of inciting a crowd. There is nothing "simple" about this word with its animalistic connotations, which you cannot ignore or discard even with your cherry-picked secondary definition from one dictionary. Again—you think people who study crowd crushes are "overly sensitive"? You think people who have made their careers studying and modeling fire evacuations (i.e., TRUE stampede and panic situations, unlike the 2015 Mina crowd disaster) aren't aware of how popular semantic misunderstandings of the word "stampede" can actually worsen the gravity of a crowd crush incident? If only I hadn't seen such a tragedy unfold before my eyes.. So what is wrong with "2015 Mina crowd disaster"? Still descriptive but neutral, yes? Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 16:38, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I am completely okay with "2015 Mina crowd disaster" as a second choice. Sheriff (report) 16:56, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

It's still a bit lame, you have a couple of journo's whose opinions you are now declaring as absolute fact, while there are dozens of reliable sources who use the term "stampede". It's becoming a problem of your own making now, there's no real issue with this term except in the minds of those who are seeking to find an issue. To the vast majority, it's not an issue at all, there's no connotation, no racism, no transference of blame, nothing, it's all stuff you're making up. Anyway, since this has disappeared from the main page, my interest is somewhat diminished. But, in parting, if you actually believe in any of the things you're saying/claiming, please address it on a wider forum. We have a template for human stampedes, that also includes a number of Hajj incidents. It would be utterly remiss and totally irresponsible of you to focus on just this one article, if you genuinely care about this issue. You should construct an RFC and include all relevant stampedes that you do not believe to be stampedes, and allow the community as a whole to get involved. Good luck! The Rambling Man (talk) 18:24, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

The Rambling Man, those are not opinions that can be dismissed, as you do, as coming from "a couple of journo's." These definitions and usages come from academic (primary) sources as quoted in secondary sources. (Remember that secondary sources are the preferred sources in WP.) I don't know what would satisfy your requirements for a definition other than the one you hold, but every single source, including the one you introduced, has an element of impulse or suddenness. Most list animal or herd behavior before human behavior, thus acknowledging animalistic connotations. The racism was covered above. It is not a matter of the term being inherently racist, only our application of it. We (Wikipedia) have for years now applied it overwhelmingly and selectively to articles about non-white events. On September 28, the WP article List of human stampedes pointed to 22 events in predominantly white countries and 25 in predominantly non-white countries. In white countries, 9% of the articles in this list (which is titled as a list of stampedes) used the word "stampede" in their titles. In non-white countries, 84% had the word "stampede" in their titles. This application of the word is not only a matter of incorrect usage, but also a matter of racist word selection, i.e., word selection based on race. If the RS use racist language, it does not follow that we should use it here in our namespace. Dcs002 (talk) 23:36, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Correlation does not imply causation. That the disparity is attributable to racism is entirely speculative. It might reflect unrelated factors, such as a greater tendency for incidents occurring in certain countries to become widely known as "__________ disaster" (or something that translates as such) within the relevant cultures.

I suggest that you focus on potential confusion among readers instead of seeking to use Wikipedia to right a great wrong that you perceive. —David Levy 00:24, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

David Levy, I am a retired neuroscientist. I know all about correlation and causation. I have taught those concepts and many other scientific and logical pitfalls to thousands of students. That's not what this is about. (Another slogan to consider is "words mean things.") Racial hatred might or might not be the cause of this lopsided application of the word "stampede," but the word has been applied along racial lines in WP. As such, there is a bias in its use here. It is not applied evenly, without regard to race. Its use is biased toward non-white populations without any credible justification, just speculation. I have said several times that I don't think any WP editors were applying their own racist attitudes, and I have offered other suggestions that might explain its origin. Nonetheless, maintaining that bias along racial lines is unacceptable, not because it comes from hate, but because we are treating people differently because of their race. We are applying a word with ugly connotations on people who are not like white Westerners, and that word does not describe what happened. I reject the notion that this might be the result of local preference for the word "stampede" in non-white countries for two reasons. First, most of these incidents in non-white countries happened in places where English is not the primary language (e.g., Saudi Arabia), so what they call it locally isn't going to be useful in the English Wikipedia. Second, we are not meant to be a reflection of the linguistic habits of non-English-speaking countries. We are the English language Wikipedia. We specify which style of English to be used in a given article and go from there. For your last points, I believe it is more confusing to readers to use words that mean something other than what they are describing. No stampede happened in Mina, by any reliable definition. I think it is confusing, and worse, misleading, to the readers. Finally, I have already argued that we are not here to right great wrongs, but that refers to the world's great wrongs. If WP has committed a wrong, it is our imperative to make it right, right now. Dcs002 (talk) 17:18, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Racial hatred might or might not be the cause of this lopsided application of the word "stampede," but the word has been applied along racial lines in WP.

This is where you're conflating correlation and causation. You've observed a correlation between usage of the word "stampede" and countries with predominantly non-white populations. This doesn't mean that the word "stampede" was used (either at Wikipedia or at sources upstream) because the countries' populations are predominantly non-white.

David Levy, the correlation indicates biased usage, not the cause of the bias. The word has been applied along racial lines. The correlation is enough. I am conflating nothing. I am not pointing fingers or trying to establish cause right now. The bias is easily demonstrable through mathematics. That bias can later become causation for something uglier. This is what my racist usage argument rests on. I am sorry if I seem to be bludgeoning, but I do want my point to be understood. If you still think I am conflating correlation and causation, then you still don't understand my argument. Regardless of any cause, we have separate terms for the same behavior, depending on the predominant skin color where the behavior occurred, and that could lead to ugly consequences. Dcs002 (talk) 23:18, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

We are applying a word with ugly connotations on people who are not like white Westerners, and that word does not describe what happened.

Editors from multiple countries have expressed disagreement with your assertion that the word "stampede" has ugly connotations. You're entitled to your opinion, but there's no need to continue bludgeoning us with it.

I reject the notion that this might be the result of local preference for the word "stampede" in non-white countries for two reasons.

That isn't what I wrote. It's possible that "stampede" is simply the default terminology, used by English-language writers to describe this type of incident when no particular designation clearly predominates.

"Stampede" already means something. It is not one option among many for an event like this. That is linguistically backwards. We have language to describe this event. We have no need to fall back on a default that is literally incorrect. Dcs002 (talk) 23:18, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

First, most of these incidents in non-white countries happened in places where English is not the primary language (e.g., Saudi Arabia), so what they call it locally isn't going to be useful in the English Wikipedia.

But if an event's de facto name contains a term conventionally translated as "disaster", reliable sources are more likely to be label it as such. It's a vague description, so we generally should use it only when it's strongly associated with a particular subject (such as the Hindenburg disaster).

To clarify, I am not advocating any particular alternative. I think "crowd disaster" is a good idea, but my goal is to get rid of the problematic "stampede." Dcs002 (talk) 23:18, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Second, we are not meant to be a reflection of the linguistic habits of non-English-speaking countries.

We are meant to reflect usage by reliable English-language sources, some of which might reflect the linguistic habits of non-English-speaking countries.

No sir, again I disagree. We are meant to be writing an encyclopedia in English whose goal is to serve global readers of the English language, not a small group of people whose English is influenced by other languages. Dcs002 (talk) 23:18, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

For your last points, I believe it is more confusing to readers to use words that mean something other than what they are describing. No stampede happened in Mina, by any reliable definition.

I see definitions of "stampede" that appear applicable to the incident and others that obviously aren't. Perhaps another description would convey the relevant concept with greater clarity. We should be brainstorming possibilities instead of speculating as to our sources' motives. "Stampede" needn't be linguistically invalid or racially biased for something else to be preferable. —David Levy 18:14, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly endorse that idea! Dcs002 (talk) 23:18, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I suppose the more times you claim a word to be racist, the more people will become convinced that it is, even if it isn't the case. I guess it's a modern proclivity to find issue where issue doesn't exist. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:25, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Again, The Rambling Man, I have not claimed, nor do I believe, that the word "stampede" is racist, offensive, or even rude. I sure would appreciate it if you characterized my words fairly. You have been doing this and promoting your own edited definition that fits your position. Why do you do these things? The issue gives us enough to talk about. Make your case with words that support your case, or talk about why you think my case is flawed. Your case would be much stronger without stooping to these tactics, which really feel personal. Speak to the message please, not the messenger. (If you knew me in real life, you'd laugh at the thought of me being a politically correct vigilante.) Dcs002 (talk) 17:18, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Ultimately, your position has been more than adequately dissected above, and shows that your crusade, while important to you, is not going to change Wikipedia's usage of reliable sources and of idiomatic language which is commonly used in English. I don't need to make a case to define why your position is flawed, the status quo will remain the status quo, it meets the WP:V requirements of Wikipedia policy as multiple, multi-language WP:RS use the term. Just because you and a handful of others don't like it for one reason or another, it doesn't mean we'll be modifying some of the basic tenets of Wikipedia to accommodate your desires. Sorry about that. Time to stop pretending you know what happened at the Hajj and time to get on with making the article better, and all the other stampede articles which you have summarily ignored thus far. Good luck. P.S. I think someone just above erroneously claims that The New York Times has stopped using the term, well that's completely false, e.g. today's article which is titled "Pakistan Moves to Quiet Outcry Against Saudi Arabia Over Hajj Stampede" and starts "For years, Saudi Arabia has enjoyed a hallowed status here, considered above question or criticism. Yet the hajj stampede near Mecca last month......", written by Salman Masood. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:07, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

The Rambling Man, Your choice of the word "crusade" astonishes me. I don't know if you are just trying to dismiss me personally instead of the points I have made, or to use that word for some other emotional impact beyond that. If your goal is to make me look like a fool, give it up - I have done a far better job than you could. If I do look like a fool, at least I am sincere fool who is trying his best to improve this encyclopedia. But in an article about an Islamic tragedy with over a thousand dead, one as sensitive and so emotionally charged as this, you could have chosen your words better. I have tried to assume best intentions, but you have really pushed things. This is not a place to accuse me (or anyone) of things like pretending to know or impugn my motives or offer sarcastic apologies, and if you don't understand the baggage carried by the word "crusade," I think you should stop right now and find out why that word is particularly emotive and insulting to some. And I did not say that about the NYT. Are you just baiting me now? FWIW, people are thanking me every day for my posts in here. Maybe they don't want to deal with the kind of disrespect that you continue to lay out. Is that your goal? Is that why you refer to our cause as a "crusade"? If you are offensive enough the opposition will go away? Has that been working for you? Dcs002 (talk) 23:18, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Listen, it's all getting a little TLDR and off-topic. If you get this page moved, then it will be by emotional blackmail and not through policy. That will diminish the encyclopedia a little bit, but I guess nothing can be done about that given all the "ICANTHEARYOU" votes here. The article now contains the one "stampede" more than 100 times, the denial is astonishing. But I really am done here, much better things to do, so thanks, and bye. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:05, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

• Approve I agree that the title of the article should be changed to "2015 Mina Disaster","2015 Mina Tragedy" or some other title that does not carry the value-laden prejudices often connoted by the word 'stampede'. Even "2015 Mina Crush", although the word 'crush' is somewhat region-specific in its English usage. "2015 Mina Disaster" is probably best.Heavenlyhermes (talk) 22:43, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
• Approve. It is factually incorrect to describe this as a "stampede". I, for one, have been given the wrong impression by the use of the word. TomS TDotO (talk) 13:57, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Sources

Iran and Saudi Arabia rank 8th and 17th last, respectively, on RSF's 2015 World Press Freedom Index.[2] If there is the slightest indication that a statement citing only sources from either country is implausible, skewed or extraordinary, just remove it.[3]--Anders Feder (talk) 19:06, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

"the slightest indication that a statement .... is implausible" Oh! what an extremely, incredibly arbitrary criterion to suppress important sources covering POVs party to the conflict, especially set by someone with a demonstrated record of anti-muslim anti-Iranian anti-Arab racist prejudice! You should stop this behavior. It is beyond obvious that Iran and Saudi Arabia are important parties to this tragedy and controversy, and hence the need to include POVs reported by Iranian and Saudi Arabian sources as per WP:NPOV. I'm restoring the sweeping removals. Strivingsoul (talk) 05:37, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

There is no "need" to include anyone's POVs at all, and certainly not yours: "Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity."[4] There is a need to only cover what is covered in reliable sources: "in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public", nor among state-propaganda outlets that individual editors cherry-pick in order to prop up their favorite dictatorship.[5] As for "prejudice", you need to look no further than your own block log.[6]--Anders Feder (talk) 08:47, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Are you calling Iranian and Saudi reportings "anyone's opinion" when they are the ones most involved in the incident?! Who else have more authority than countries with pilgrims lost in the incident to have a say in this? It is clear that their accounts are significant for their connection to the subject. Do you expect to hear eyewitness accounts from Iranians or Nigerians arriving at their home-countries from Western sources?! As always, you're imposing a gross systematic bias even on topics that require sources whose accounts are critical for their connection to the subject. And your repeated allegations of dictatorship against Iran is also false and dishonest considering the fact I've refuted your allegations elsewhere. Iran is a democratic Islamic Republic where the highest authority is appointed by and accountable to an elected body of Legal Experts. Your mentioned anti-muslim rhetoric in the past also reveal prejudices that influence your edits in Islam-related topics. Strivingsoul (talk) 11:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

We had also agreed earlier to include eyewitness accounts from Iranian sources here, and your false claims against Iran can not undermine that consensus. Strivingsoul (talk) 11:38, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

You have agreed to nothing of the kind, and even if you had, the burden would still be on you to achieve consensus that your sources are reliable and have any relevance at all per WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS, neither of which you have done while you have been edit warring. I have no "prejudices" of any kind except against POV warriors like yourself.--Anders Feder (talk) 18:22, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

You claim to have no prejudices but your record as I said speak for itself. You continue to cite WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS ignoring and providing to counter argument to my argument that Iranian perspective and testimonies should be covered because Iran has been a great part of this tragedy and there is also a dispute between Iran and Saudi Arabia on the causes and death toll of the incident. So as per WP:NPOV we should include POVs from all parties. I am looking forward to your counter argument instead of baseless allegations against me. Strivingsoul (talk) 06:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

You claim not to be a POV warrior but your block log as I said speak for itself. I continue to cite WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS for as long as you fail to follow it and edit war instead. I have already countered your claims a long time ago: Wikipedia is not a soapbox for state propaganda and "Iran" is not a party to the event anyway, unless you have reliable sources that say the Iranian government somehow conspired to cause it. So as per WP:NPOV no policy states or implies that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream sources as if they were of equal validity.--Anders Feder (talk) 12:59, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

First off as for your repeated allegations of POV-pushing, here is a reminder for you from WP:POVPUSH: Calling someone a "POV-pusher" is uncivil and pejorative, and even characterizing edits as POV-pushing should be done cautiously. It is generally not necessary to characterize edits as POV-pushing in order to challenge them. Unnecessary and uncivil, especially because presenting POVs can be crucial for upholding WP:NPOV and moderating WP:BIAS. That said, you continue to intentionally dodge my argument and ignore or falsify what I've been repeatedly saying: since Iran like many other countries has lost a high number of pilgrims, and since different aspects of the incident are disputed among the affected countries, as per WP:NPOV we should include POVs by those countries. Those countries' POVs also do not count as minority or extraordinary. In fact many of the countries and analysts share the view that Saudis' mismanagement had been instrumental in the tragedy as already documented in the page. So if anything these POVs represent a majority view not minority. Calling Iranian reports "propaganda" is also rooted in your personal hatred of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Islam in general as evidenced in the discussion I linked earlier. Perception of propaganda can be quite subjective and considering your general anti-Iranian and anti-Islamic bigotry, nobody buys your allegation as having any substance. Strivingsoul (talk) 06:28, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I haven't called someone "a POV-pusher". I've called you what anyone can see from your block log that you are, which certainly is better than your calling others "prejudiced" without any evidence. As for you "presenting POVs", WP:NPOV doesn't authorize you to edit war just because you are incapable of convincing others of your POV. Iran hasn't "lost" any pilgrims. Hajj is not video game, and pilgrims are not units that belong to the state of Iran. The undemocratic government of Iran does not represent any of those who were killed. If many "countries and analysts" support the content you are trying to include, why don't you just put forward the plethora of reliable sources for it you must know of to make such a bold claim? Calling Iranian propaganda for propaganda is rooted in every reliable source on the matter[7][8][9]—your subjective opinion of media suppression is not relevant.--Anders Feder (talk) 09:40, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about anything else but this last comment was completely prejudiced and show a strong prejudice towards Iran. How can you call Iran's government, an undemocratic government? Would you indulge us about your definition of democracy? 464 Iranian pilgrims were killed in this incident and state of Iran has every right to speak for them. They were Iranian citizens. You cannot criticize Iran for that. Sheriff (report) 13:05, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

"... this last comment was completely prejudiced and show a strong prejudice towards Iran." No, it wasn't prejudiced in any way, shape or form. Please substantiate your accusation, or it counts as a personal attack. "How can you call Iran's government, an undemocratic government?" Perhaps because that is how every reliable source in existence characterizes it? E.g. Democracy Index#Democracy index by country (2014) -> tenth least democratic country out of 167. See also the discussion here. For an explanation of what democracy is, see e.g. this page.--Anders Feder (talk) 15:03, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

As I have explained in the past such as this discussion here, such claims against Iran coming from you or your "reliable" sources are all ideologically, politically and/or financially biased. Politically and financially, there's a serious conflict of interest in claims that draw on reports from such sources as the US-funded anti-Iranian Freedom House or a study run by a magazine like The Economist funded by the powerful Rothschild banking/corporate family or the BBC that has historically acted as a propaganda outlet for British Imperialist agenda against Iran. It is critical to note that the Islamic Republic of Iran came out of a glorious Islamic Revolution that in fact terminated the imperialist/colonialist subjugation of Iran to those very same powerful interests that have been hel bent on toppling the Iranian government ever since they lost their imperialist grip over the country. And Iran is not unique. Just as the example of Iraq war also showed, throughout history Western imperialist agendas against independent/resisting nations or governments has always been advanced under the guise of human rights and democracy promotion and often based on similar charges promoted by western government/corporate-funded institutions such as the ones you referenced above.

Moreover, if this pattern of political/financial bias and conflict of interest is not enough, the ideological bias of these sources is on itself sufficient to take their claims against Iran with a grain of salt. These institutions all adhere to the Western liberal notion of rights and since Iran's constitution is based on Islamic law it obviously conflicts with the liberal ideology on the basic premises of rights and values. So using liberal standards to judge a distinct notion of democracy that has emerged from the idea of Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists in a muslim nation is beyond faulty and flawed, and this faulty practice is inherent to all Western liberal organizations that publish reports against Iran. So your constant references to these reports considering their various deeply entrenched biases prove nothing of the claims you repeatedly make to discredit Iranian sources. And indeed these typical allegations can only be taken seriously by someone who himself shares the same ideological prejudices against Islam and Iran. So I conclude by saying, that we are bound to include reports by Iranian sources on this topic as per WP:NPOV and to avoid WP:BIAS. Strivingsoul (talk) 17:03, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Yadda yadda yadda - you have not "explained" anything. The only thing you have ever done is waste everybody's time with moronic conspiracy theories. As your block log shows, you are not here to build an encyclopedia.--Anders Feder (talk) 03:40, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Please keep civil! Calling referenced historical information "moronic conspiracy theories" speaks much about your integrity. Any honest sane person can read and understand my explanations but given your strong prejudice against Islam and Iran, I never expect you to admit my obvious reasonings. But it is useful for other readers to know who we are dealing with here. Strivingsoul (talk) 07:11, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Other readers can see in your block log and extended history of edit warring exactly who they are dealing with - there is no need to waste space on this talk page on it.--Anders Feder (talk) 07:26, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I admit my faults in the past due to my newness to Wikipedia! But that does not discount your willful ignorance and bigotry against Islam and Iran even when you are allowed an opportunity to learn about the historical prejudices and ignorant perceptions that you have inherited from the status quo. Strivingsoul (talk) 07:41, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

If I'm "ignorant and bigoted", ask on WP:RSN or through WP:RFC and see if you can find anyone agreeing with your allegations that there is a vast "bias" in reliable sources due to the machinations of CIA, British Petroleum, the Rothschild family (naturally), and whoever else. Of course you won't do this because you know you are simply lying.--Anders Feder (talk) 08:46, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm simply lying because I substantiate every claim I make here with references and specifics, whereas you're the farthest thing from bigotry and dishonesty, God forbid, considering that you continue to dismiss everything, regardless, by dropping out your favorite mind blocker rant or the "conspiracy theory" -- a worn-out, disgusting method of deflecting and suppressing any serious intellectual discussion about documented history. And rest assured, there will come a time sooner or later when we expand the scope of the acknowledged WP:BIAS to include the patterns I mentioned above. By the time, these discussions could be viewed as warm-ups for a major change in Wiki guidelines on WP:RS and WP:BIAS! Amen! Strivingsoul (talk) 11:15, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

That only thing that is disgusting is you and your wasting everybody's time with your trivial soapboxing across multiple articles.--Anders Feder (talk) 13:00, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Please calm down - there is no need to be emotionally involved. As editors do not make allegations, we only state in a neutral manner what reliable sources say. I agree the article would be biased if it included pages of Iranian government testimony, and only a few sentences from other sources. Mamyles (talk) 19:44, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

But other Wikipedians can add testimony from other sources as well. I neither have time nor knowledge of Arab/Indo/Pakistani sources to include testimonies from those countries. Moreover, Iran as I said is an important part of this tragedy. More than 500 pilgrims lost. So it is reasonable to give Iran's perspective and testimonies a proportional coverage. Strivingsoul (talk) 06:12, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Strivingsoul: Is there any special statement being discussed here or you are talking about Iranian/Arab sources in whole? Mhhossein (talk) 13:24, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I mean the sources in general. We need to include reports from all afflicted countries. Strivingsoul (talk) 17:04, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Strivingsoul: Of course, why not? Mhhossein (talk) 13:53, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

@Mhhossein: The issue being discussed here is a lack of information from sources other than Iranian. Removing the Asharq Al-Awsat account, the newspaper of which is described as "one of the oldest and most influential in the region", is not productive toward including information from a broad variety of sources. As such, I've re-added the one sentence account from this source. Mamyles (talk) 18:28, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

@Mamyles: Of course, as you know, being "one of the oldest and most influential in the region" does not justify not obeying WP:ONUS and ignoring WP:UNDUE. I expected you to pay attention to what I said instead of reverting the edit. Mhhossein (talk) 18:41, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

@Mhhossein: Frankly, your opinion that this source not be included does not constitute a consensus. ONUS and UNDUE do not justify your removal of content. Tell us, why would including such a well-reputed source be providing undue weight? Just as some sources suggest that African pilgrims going the wrong way began the disaster, it is neutral and necessary to include at least one of the many sources pointing toward Iranian pilgrims, at least until a more clear investigation is completed. Mamyles (talk) 19:24, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

@Mamyles:: I agree with you when you say that "it is neutral and necessary to include at least one of the many sources pointing toward Iranian pilgrims...," but according to UNDUE we should pay to it as much as it deserves (in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published). That's why I say a report from an unknown Iranian official with unknown rank is not some thing to be included here, specially when the investigations are not completed. This is an encyclopedia, not a place for reflecting such a minor opinion from an unknown man be it published anywhere. Anyway, you can find a better source accusing Iranian pilgrims, this one is not really suitable. Mhhossein (talk) 04:46, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

@Mhhossein: In that case, the source PressTV should be removed from the article. The viewpoint of that government-backed source is unique to Iran, and is not representative of any western or Saudi sources. In contrast, the Asharq Al-Awsat was widely reported across the world, and is supported by eyewitness accounts. Again, UNDUE does not justify your unilateral removal of content. Mamyles (talk) 14:14, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Contrary to what you said, Press TV has to be there, as Iran is one of the major involved countries whose viewpoint toward the incident is of a great importance here, just like African countries or any other countries whose pilgrims died there. I explained why UNDUE and unreliability made me remove the paragraph, but you did not explained why UNDUE does not justify the removal. I'm not saying "Asharq Al-Awsat" is not reliable, neither I say it is absolutely reliable (there's no absolutely reliable source). By the way, if you want to add materials accusing Iran then search for a better source and simply add it here. Mhhossein (talk) 17:50, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

So, why you don't consider "Asharq Al-Awsat" a better source and why you need a better source than that. Please indulge us with an example of a better source so we can look at proper places. If you think only an Iranian source is a better source then i am afraid we won't find one criticizing Iran or Iranian pilgrims. Sheriff (report) 18:18, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Mhhossein has a long history of pro-Iranian-Islamist bias, see e.g. this discussion. If you have any problems with him, report him there again, linking to that discussion. As I wrote in the OP, if you find anything from Press TV to be implausible, just remove it in accordance with WP:BURDEN. Iran's views have no primacy of any kind, here or anywhere else in Wikipedia, in contrast to what is being suggested. What has primacy is reliable sources. You can ask at WP:RSN if you want help establishing the reliability of particular sources, or search the archives there. Generally, the best sources with regards to news are Associated Press, BBC etc.--Anders Feder (talk) 20:44, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I afraid Anders Feder gets the boomerang if the thread is prosecuted. Any way, @SheriffIsInTown: if you read the thread you'll get to know that "Asharq Al-Awsat" is just reporting an speculation from an unknown Iranian official and we actually don't know how much his speculations are valid. Does that make sense? I never said "only an Iranian source is a better source!". I think You might simply find other sources reflecting the viewpoints of other analysts criticizing Iranian pilgrims. Mhhossein (talk) 04:29, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Thread has strayed off-topic here. Since this conversation has moved to ANI, permit me to hat it in an attempt to keep page scrolling down and civility up. Mamyles (talk) 21:04, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

No threads are "prosecuted". Wikipedia does not have kangaroo courts like Islamist countries do.--Anders Feder (talk) 05:14, 6 October 2015 (UTC) It The phrase about Islamic countries has nothing to do with our discussion. Mhhossein (talk) 05:28, 6 October 2015 (UTC) Then don't bring it up.--Anders Feder (talk) 05:40, 6 October 2015 (UTC) I do not agree with Mhhossein, but it is clearly you Anders Feder, seizing every opportunity to push in your anti-Islamic rants! I wonder how a person can be so shamelessly dishonest, projecting his own digressive rants on others before everyone's eyes! Strivingsoul (talk) 06:10, 6 October 2015 (UTC) Stop wasting people's time on your soapboxing here. If anyone is being "anti-Islamic", take it to WP:ANI so they can block you again.--Anders Feder (talk) 06:17, 6 October 2015 (UTC) I seriously consider that! But do you think you would have any other recourse at ad hominen if I had not violated the three-revert rule and got temporarily blocked once in my early activities in Wikipedia?! And do you think my wrong once in the past justifies your fanatic atheist prejudice that persists and escalates to this day and shamelessly lying before our eyes?! Strivingsoul (talk) 06:25, 6 October 2015 (UTC) Stop "considering" and start doing instead of continually derailing the discussions on this talk page.--Anders Feder (talk) 06:42, 6 October 2015 (UTC) "Derailing the discussions!" Shameless lair! Strivingsoul (talk) 06:44, 6 October 2015 (UTC) If it is "shameless", why don't you move it to WP:ANI where it belongs? Is it that you can only engage in your pathetic off-topic yelling and screaming when admins aren't watching?--Anders Feder (talk) 07:06, 6 October 2015 (UTC) Proposals for combating/minimizing several systematic biases that exist against Islam and Islamic countries is on my long term plan, and it's not therefore originally a personal matter with you. But by the time I will have prepared my substantial proposal, I will still have to negate your anti-Islamic anti-Iranian allegations since you continue to bring them up despite knowing that they are at best disputed or at worst negated. Strivingsoul (talk) 07:29, 6 October 2015 (UTC) Plus we never need any consensus on basic Wiki policies that you regularly violate such as WP:CIVILITY by derailing discussions and then dishonestly accusing your counterpart for that exact violation! Strivingsoul (talk) 07:32, 6 October 2015 (UTC) I have never claimed "we need consensus on basic wiki policies". I have said you aren't taking your off-topic user conduct accusations to WP:ANI because you know you will be blocked for your moronic antics when you do.--Anders Feder (talk) 07:48, 6 October 2015 (UTC) Oh, if you seriously believed that I can get blocked for my "moronic antics" then you wouldn't have needed to beg me to open an ANI! You would've already done that yourself long ago! And don't make any mistake! I will continue to disprove your repeated anti-Islamic/Iranian allegations anytime you bring them up again to justify your biased editing! Strivingsoul (talk) 07:54, 6 October 2015 (UTC) As you wish.--Anders Feder (talk) 08:24, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

This article has no shortage of speculation and opinion by interested parties. I think we should be trimming speculation and estimates as more facts emerge. (I don't think it's reasonable for any fatality estimate over 4000 to appear in this article anymore.) I also think that we should avoid adding new opinions from interested parties unless we remove old ones. There is already a great deal of very harsh criticism of the Saudi government in the article, which IMO is excessive given 1) many come from people or publications with known hostilities or bias against the Saudi government, and 2) the investigation has only just begun. There is a lot of complaining in the press and by government officials, before the fact, that the Saudi investigation will be inadequate. That is not our concern right now. Wikipedia does not exist to advocate anyone's position, right great wrongs (whether historically justified or not), or promote any opinion. I think we are giving undue weight to blame against the Saudis. Regardless of their history, we do not know what happened, yet we repeat premature blame and rumor in our article. That's not how to build a great encyclopedia. Just think of the WP:BLP standard applied to Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, who is said in one source (Ad-Diyad) to have blocked a street and caused this catastrophe. The cited page is largely opinion, and IMO the paper is a bit dubious in its mixing opinion with news. We are on very thin ice as things stand. We should not be talking about balancing opposing opinions. Wikipedia is not a battleground where opposing factions hammer things out. We should be talking about reducing opinions and increasing factual content, especially in emotional articles such as this. Dcs002 (talk) 03:47, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be proposing that all possible causes of the incident be removed from the article. Such theories are typically included in Wikipedia articles about recent events, and are important content in this developing article. Our job as editors is to provide such content in as neutral, unbiased manner as we can, not remove it entirely. Mamyles (talk) 19:24, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, but that is not what I think we should do. I think we should reduce the opinions of blame to a representative sample (without undue weight) and not add more. I also think we should reduce opinions and speculations when these opinions and speculations can be replaced by reliable fact. The rest is my reasoning. "All possible causes" is not a good standard though. That includes fringe ideas like UFOs, Christ's punishment for 9/11, and the Illuminati. Dcs002 (talk) 09:01, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

• The following source contains much that can be used as reference under Reactions|Governments and Reactions|Analysts, as well as Eye-witness Accounts. It includes accounts from important eye-witnesses from Nigeria. I don't have the time at the moment to collate and sift through it all at the moment but one of you might.Heavenlyhermes (talk) 22:18, 6 October 2015 (UTC) http://saharareporters.com/2015/10/05/nigeria-narratives-saudi-tragedy-and-need-critical-choices-yinka-salaam

DYK proposal?

There are more than 3,000 victims of the 2015 stampede in Mina, Saudi Arabia but none of them is Saudi national? 98.112.79.59 (talk) 10:23, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I like the suggestion, I think we should mention that no Saudis were killed in the incident and only few victims belonged to Arab nations. Sheriff (report) 13:11, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

The article has appeared on "In the News" before and hence is not eligible to be shown in DYK box, unfortunately.Mhhossein (talk) 13:20, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

• This would have been a loaded and controversial hook anyway. Pilgrims are grouped by nationality in the tent cities, so deaths in these stampedes usually cluster in fewer countries, depending where and when the stampede occurs. Perhaps the international outcry for this event will be different than in past stampedes and lead to more serious reforms.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 15:33, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

The Missing and the Deceased

This article documents and updates the total numbers of dead, injured and missing. As reported by the NYTimes and other reliable sources Pakistan Moves to Quiet Outcry Against Saudi Arabia Over Hajj Stampede there may be ongoing attempts to suppress the death toll by categorizing them as missing. Iran originally reported over 200 missing, over 200 deceased. Within a few days it became clear that nearly all of the missing were dead, and that the total of missing + deceased accurately reflected the true death toll. This appears to be the case also with Pakistan and other countries, by watching the statistical trends in the deceased and missing columns. So the sum of confirmed deceased and confirmed missing points to a possible maximum death toll. Thus, when the total number of those confirmed by their home countries to be missing in the wake of this incident is taken into account, the maximum death toll could reach as high as 2798 (as of October 6, 2015).--‎ Heavenlyhermes

• Please keep in mind that we are not an original reporting source, however. We need to cite reliable sources for the number of dead. This can be frustrating, I know, because it requires good reporting to be done in an area where getting accurate information is difficult (and that NY Times article you cite gives me hope). I was just expanding 1994 Hajj stampede, and it appears very likely that more than 270 people died there; some reports estimated the death toll could go over 1,000, and then the reporting stopped, and we now have 270 as the official figure.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 17:39, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
• Of course we are not an original reporting source. However, we are required to be consistent with our own numbers, as reported and updated in the Table of Nationalities of the deceased, missing and injured. Further, we have the statistical trends of this incident available, as in the case of Iran and other countries, so the 1994 incident is not statistically relevant.Heavenlyhermes (talk) 17:56, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

And we are consistent with our own numbers, we have sum of the numbers from the table in info table on the top and in the heading as well but i have a strong objection to include a speculative unsourced paragraph that you have been trying to include where you say

Thus, when the total number of those confirmed by their home countries to be missing in the wake of this incident is taken into account, the maximum death toll could reach as high as 2798 (as of October 6, 2015).

As an encyclopedia, this is not our place to speculate that death toll could reach as high as 2,798. It might reach and you are welcome to update the article with that number when the death toll reaches that high. Sheriff (report) 18:07, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

• 1. This is an "ongoing event". 2. It is not a "personal opinion" or "speculation" that 2+2=4; adding numbers is math, not speculation. 3. That the missing, when found, are overwhelmingly turning up in the deceased column is not "personal opinion" or "speculation". The NYT and others are reporting attempts to suppress the totals by manipulating the numbers of missing; that is not "personal opinion" or "speculation". The sum of missing+deceased gives a current scientific maximum ceiling to the total deceased; that is not "personal opinion" or "speculation". Kindly refrain from reverting until the dispute is resolved; those are Wikipedia's rules, not "personal opinion" or "speculation". Thanks!Heavenlyhermes (talk) 18:21, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

There is no point of opening a discussion while you continue with your reverts and edit warring. Your saying that it is not speculative does not change it from being speculative. The paragraph you are insistent to include is unsourced, disputed, speculative and ugly. It does not have right language or flow of language in it. It is misplaced. The words "at minimum" are misplaced as well. "At least" is better and adds flow to the sentence. Please remove that paragraph, reach consensus here, let other editors comment on it and if more editors thought that it should be included then i have no problem with the inclusion. Sheriff (report) 18:35, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me, but just because one calls oneself a "Sheriff" does not make it so. It is the self-appointed sheriff who is engaged in edit-warring by continual reverts. You have not responded to a single point made above, nor have you refuted the sourced NYT article. Instead, you engage in subjective attacks (using words like "ugly" and "right language flow"). That's ad hominem and a red herring.Heavenlyhermes (talk) 18:48, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Talk about the message and not the messenger, NYT article does not say that all the missing could turn up dead and the total could be as high as 2,798. That is your speculation, it is not sourced. Sheriff (report) 18:55, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

The sum of the two numbers cited within this very article provide an objective ceiling for maximum deaths, using 'objective' in the quantificational, scientific sense. One could consider various rephrasings, that I am open to. The sense of the word 'maximum', in tandem with the other points, makes it an objective observation, not speculation.Heavenlyhermes (talk) 19:04, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

It is still not objective observation, it is still a speculation. The dead can still be more than that sum. Some injured could turn up dead or there could be a flaw in reporting of missing numbers. We cannot just speculate that as of this this and that date we have so many dead and so many missing and when we add them up, the death toll could be this and that. We should leave that to reader to come to that conclusion. Our readers are smart. Let them come to their own conclusion. Sheriff (report) 19:13, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, "the dead can still be more than that sum", but we only have the figures that we have. To go beyond that would indeed be speculation. For an ongoing event, the numbers in the table change every day, sometimes more than once a day. We shouldn't have one standard for the table and another for the text. 'Maximum' means "maximum possible based on the best figures we have at the moment". That's a useful figure to have (for discussion, analyses, etc.): I also think readers are smart enough to see what 'maximum' means in this context as well ;-)Heavenlyhermes (talk) 22:00, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

The table of death by nationality is great, let's keep it well-referenced.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 18:02, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Death toll

I previously said we should stick with the official (Saudi) toll of 769 - but actually now think there is a good case for putting some higher tolls from other sources. For example the "BBC Monitoring put the death toll at 1,216, based on official statements and media reports from 34 countries who lost citizens in the stampede." (Source). It is a difficult issue as I would rather we stick to 'official sources'. Either way we should tidy up the intro and discuss the details in the 'Casualties' section.--الدبوني (talk) 08:24, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

• BBC is probably more reliable at the moment. Seems the death toll will exceed the 1990 as the worst one.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 18:51, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
• King Salman's title calls him "Custodian of the Two Holy Shrines (Mecca and Medina)". Does that title give him the right to hide the true death toll? For lack of another statement from the Grand Mufti excusing the King's behavior, we should certainly continue to report the aggregate numbers and BBC total, alongside the House of Saud's increasingly preposterous and unchanging "official count". Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 15:02, 8 October 2015 (UTC)