Talk:Brazzaville arms dump blasts

Subjective Judgement

I've noticed that a user used "excessive", "irrelevant" without giving what "excessive" and "irrelevant" is, if any. I don't think that giving the name of the church is excessive description. I don't think that the sanitary condition and the horrible scene near the cordoned zone is irrelevant. Qrfqr (talk) 22:04, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Please explain how it is remotely surprising that dead, decay bodies stink? Of the 2000 stories written on the disaster, 99% don't mention the smell - there is probably a reason for that. Namely, it is common sense that decaying bodies smell bad.

Then please explain how "Many people were trapped in collapsed buildings, including two churches holding mass, one being the St. Louis Catholic church and the other a smaller evangelical church" is not a long run on (and confusing) sentence. Again, I did not remove the name of the church, I simply reworded the sentence for better flow.

Finally please explain why you keep reverting to preserve your wording instead of editing to reach a version acceptable to all parties. --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:05, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

P.S. All editing involves making subjective judgement calls, including yours. The difference is I have provided you a long explanation (twice) as to why I made my edit and tried to work with you to create a version you'd be fine with, while you have blindly reverted me and made no attempt to justify why you feel those details and your exact wording are important. --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:08, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm giving some concrete explanations.

1. For the church thing, in your revision of 21:06, 5 March 2012, you deleted the reference to the second church and retained the first. And in your comment - "remove excessive details"... if you were including the mention about the second church as well, what made you think that the reference to the first church is not excessive and the reference to the second is? As for the explanation on the personal talk page - "wording", I cound not agree that the deletion of information about either both or one of the collapsed churches is a mere "wording". Information lost.

2. For the cadaver smell thing, please compare the following two paragraphs:

A: "Fires continued to ravage Brazzaville on 5 March, threatening to ignite a second arms depot with more substantial munitions. Small blasts continued throughout the day. On March 5, bodies were still being retrieved from the cordoned zone, just outside of which cadaver smell started to appear. However, in the city center and southern neighborhoods of Brazzaville life returned to normal."

B: "Fires continued to ravage Brazzaville on 5 March, threatening to ignite a second arms depot with more substantial munitions. Small blasts continued throughout the day. On March 5, bodies were still being retrieved from the cordoned zone, however, in the city center and southern neighborhoods of Brazzaville life returned to normal. One source noted that the decaying bodies stunk."

The structure of A is

continuing fire and blasts and risk for second armes depot(March 5, Brazzaville) -- small blasts (March 5) -- bodies in cordoned zone (March 5, #cordoned zone) -- sanitary condition in cordoned zone (cordoned zone) -- life back to normal (#city center and south)

The structure of B is

continuing fire and blasts and risk for second armes depot(March 5, Brazzaville) -- small blasts (March 5) -- bodies in cordoned zone (March 5, #cordoned zone) -- life back to normal (#city center and south) -- decaying bodies stunk

Each time if a time and place is given, it will be shown in (). # means a new time point or place. So in A, we can know WHEN, HOW the cordoned zone was, where as in B, not only the information of HOW the cordoned zone was is partially lost, it is in this case the last sentence becomes confusing and lost its meaning: "Decaying bodies stunk? But hasn't the previous sentence say that life has been back to normal?" So in B, we lost part of the information about the cordoned zone, and we got a confusing information about Brazzaville as a whole. I can hardly agree that "wording" from A to B is something "concise" or will make reading more enjoyable.

As I have said, I will assume good faith toward your edits, but I won't take any empty label, such as "excessive", "irrelevant", and there's a new one, "concensus". By reverting my edit with comments "do not blind revert people to preserve your originally, but instead work toward consensus version" to your edit, there is an implication that, my edit is farther away from the consensus version than yours is. Could you provide any evidence?

I tried to reach a balance between overwording and confusion caused by unclear context. But since this is an encyclopaedia, facts are more important. Also, we can infer many things from the context. For example, of course decaying bodies stink. But it is important to ask WHO WHAT WHEN WHY HOW. When did the body start to stink? Why is it that the smell emerged just one day after the blasts? (local climate?). If everyone knows that, did the rescue team put body recovering first on their work list? If yes, why so slow? If no, why not? Then we will notice that there's another depot nearby at risk. Then how can people help? Of course this is an encyclopaedia, and only fact should be included, not personal inference. But this does not prevent us to include facts which help people infer, analyze, and learn, and any information helping people grasp the concept the article is about is useful. It is not just "dead bodies. stunk. period." Qrfqr (talk) 09:58, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

The only thing you "tried to do" was repeatedly revert to your preferred version. You seem to think 1) you own the article; 2) every detail listed in every source has to be in the article. Both are false. If you are unwilling to work towards a consensus version through editing, there is no point "discussing" anything as you will just keep reverting because you find it an insult that someone changed your wording.

Furthermore, I have explained 3 times what editing towards consensus means. I am NOT claiming the rewording is consensus. I am saying reverting does nothing to build consensus. I have tried 3 times to reword things in different ways to satisfy you and everytime you have simply reverted because you wanted your wording. That is not constructive behavior. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:48, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I agreed with your edit about the homeless people. Why? Information was repeated, so no information was lost after merge. So I didn't oppose to everything you did. Had I believed that every source has to be in the article, the article would have been a collection of coverages of CNN, New York Times, and so on, but it is not so. It has nothing to do with how many times you tried to reword to satisfy some specific person. I don't know if someone who insisted in deleting the same place of the same paragraph for three times can claim that he is working to build a consensus. How do you know that I think that I own the article? Let's not get it personal. Qrfqr (talk) 16:06, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

For the fourth time, the difference between my actions and yours is I tried different ways to satisfy your judgement. You made no attempt to satisfy mine, but instead just reverted to your preferred wording with no changes whatsoever. We can't build toward a consensus if you insist on your wording. Your actions suggest you feel you own it and can revert to your preferred version instead of attempting to work towards a consensus.

Additionally, I said every detail not every source. You seem to think that just because someone, somewhere printed some detail about the event that it is automatically relevant. This is not the case. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:12, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

If you're not working toward a concensus, why are you "teaching" me what it is to work toward a concensus? What is excessive without definition of excessiveness, and what is irrelevant without definition of irrelevancy? OK, sorry I didn't write carefully, and let me correct it hereafter: "Had I believed that every detail of every source has to be in the article, the article would have been a collection of coverages of CNN, New York Times, and so on, but it is not so." Qrfqr (talk) 16:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I am attempting to work toward a consensus by modify your changes rather than wholesale reverting them. (Clearly I have failed to achieve a consensus version, but I am at least trying.) You are not attempting to do so by wholesale reverting instead of editing. There is no possibility of achieving a version acceptable to all when one party refuses keeps reverting back to the same version. I don't know how I can make that any more clear. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:50, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Uh, you said you reword 3 times, but actually the first two times you just deleted the "cadaver smell" part directly, that's not rewording, and the third time it became "One source noted that the decaying bodies stunk.". I didnt say that your wording is consensus. I said "I don't know if someone who insisted in deleting the same place of the same paragraph for three times (OK maybe just two and a half) can claim that he is working to build a consensus." And sorry, let me rephrase it again, "I don't know if someone who insisted in deleting the same place of the same paragraph for two times giving comments such as "excessive" and "irrelevant" and the third time just cut it off from and sticked it to the butt of the paragraph in a who-knows-what context with comment as "try to please user X" (were these changes editings? okay they were... "formally") (more desirable than bare revertings? who knows!) can claim that he is attempting to work toward a consensus." Qrfqr (talk) 18:23, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

To argue this further is pointless. You seem to be unable to understand the concept of "editing towards consensus". Instead you insist you are "right" and thus are "justified" to revert, revert, revert, revert until others give up and give you your beloved wording. Congrats you won the "battle" to include blatantly obvious/trivial facts into the article - and with your preferred wording too! I;m sorry I deeply offended you by calling using the word church three times in one sentence "excessive" and stating that saying dead bodies smelled bad was an "irrelevant".

And yes, any attempt at editing toward compromise is better than reverting. It is impossible to move forward by reverting. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

If you find the word "church" is used too many times in a sentence, to replace (with "one", for example) or omit is rewording, to delete the information of the churches is not. Not offended by "excessive" and "irrelevant". Just found these labels hollow and empty and editing the same place twice with such comments no different from bare reverting. Qrfqr (talk) 18:55, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

The sentence is a horrible run on and difficult to understand whether the word used is "church" or "one"; the issue was never the use of the word "church" or any of the other things you've chosen to focus one. Both sentences were poor grammar with unnecessary details crammed into them. But like I said have it you way - I don't care anymore, you "won"; drop the stick please. Put all the redundant and trivial detail you want into the article and make sentences as long as the page, if you like. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:05, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Eyewitness

I don't want to leave my real name, so I will go as Doug. I live in Brazzaville about five km from the blast. Today I went up to with 2km of the blast, and took pictures of some of the buildings with colasped roofs. There is a impoverished quarter just south of the blast area that is flatened. I will see if I can find out tomorrow. I suspect the death toll is well over a thousand, but I doubt the truth will ever see the light of day. Buildings did not colapse near the blast, rather they were pulverized by the shock wave. I also have video of the blast from 5km away. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.137.129.49 (talk) 19:39, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

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Differing claims of fatalities

Currently, the article states that there were at least 250 deaths. However, the BBC just said there were "more than 500". Perhaps we need to give a range? GreenReaper (talk) 08:59, 13 August 2020 (UTC)