Talk:List of anthropogenic disasters by death toll/Archive 10

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 5 ← Archive 8 Archive 9 Archive 10 Archive 11 Archive 12 → Archive 15

Floods and landslides

Shouldnt tsunamis be listed under this heading? Recent tsunamis would need to be included if they were so listed.... Wembwandt (talk) 17:43, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Irish famine

Looking at Genocides_in_history#Great_Irish_Famine and the sources listed, I see that most historians say that it was not a genocide, that it doesn't meet the objective criteria for calling it a genocide (like purseful extermination of population, and others), that there are better explanations for what happened, and that only "a few nationalist historians" called it a genocide. Thus, it should be listed only under "famine". --Enric Naval (talk) 15:56, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I added more sources in that section, and google books has a handful of high-quality books saying that only a few nationalists have pushed the mistaken idea that the Irish Famine amounted to genocide. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:06, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure myself if it should be there or not. But it is included on the Genocides in history article. Quick view of that section shows one particular quote: "Francis A. Boyle, a professor of International Law at the University of Illinois, finding that the government violated sections (a), (b), and (c) of Article 2 of the CPPCG and committed genocide, issued a formal legal opinion to the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education on May 2, 1996, stating that "Clearly, during [the Irish Potato Famine] years [of] 1845 to 1850 the British government pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland with intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, and racial group commonly known as the Irish People".--Justice and Arbitration (talk) 09:24, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
That would be a question of weight. Those 3 articles are written by law professors saying that it's clearly genocide are published in a) a political website b) a minor cultural journal and c) the famine/genocide committee (from sources, I understand that it's a nationalistic organization, making political pressure to promote the idea of the "Irish Holocaust" because serious historians won't swallow it at all). I would take them way more seriously if there were published in law journals or history journals. Then there are these history books, written by professional historians, published by established houses, the whole book to dissecting the famine, saying that it's not a genocide, that this is only said some nationalist historians, and that no contemporary historian in Ireland would say such a thing.(The quorum of sources is devastating, even British history for dummies says that it was not a genocide!)
"Nevertheless, its sole relevance to this work lies in claims that it constituted an act of 'genocide' by the british authorities. Plainly, since the Famine was caused by a happestance fungal epidemic rather than by deliberate action, such a claim must be seen as far-fetched as it would e to label to deaths caused by a catastrophic earthquake or volcano as 'genocide'. Nevertheless, since the 1860s it has repeatedly been made. (...) [claim of geniocide by revolutionary Irish nationalist John Mitchel (1815-1875)] Mitchel's charge was one of the earliest accusations of what might now be termed deliberated genocide ever made by a modern state. Despite what one recent Irsh historian has stated to be its 'evident distortions of fact and suppresions of evidence that did not fit his thesis' Mitchel and his work began a recurrent theme in discussions of the irish Famine, to be echoed from time to time by Irish nationalists and British radicals. (...) In the late twentieth century, a strand of Irish nationalist activism and post- colonialist historiography has re-emphasised the allegedly genocidal aspects of the Irish Famine. A New York-based Irish Famine/Genocide Committee exists. In the 1980s, most remarkably, the new York State Legislature passed a law making it mandatory to teach, in colleges and universities in new York state, that the Irish Famine was a deliberate act of British genocide, as grotesque an example of interference with academic freedom, based purely in political pressuring, as can be imagined. 202 The allegued origins of the British response to the famine in anti--Irish racism have been stressd by some recent historians." Genocide: a history, Pearson Education, by historian William Rubinstein
Summary: "The famine is a genocide" is a political a historical view held by a tiny vocal nationalist minority, and it's objectively wrong. As a very minority idea, it should be covered only in its own article (this is explained better in Wikipedia:Fringe theories, specially in the "unwarranted promotion" section). In my opinion, it should appear in Genocides in history, but only because it has been claimed a genocide enough times to make it worth debunking its non-genocidiness. Its section should explain why it is objectively not a genocide, and how the claim of genocide is based only on flawed research by nationalist historians and supported nowadays only by nationalist political pressure. Just like the best quality history sources describe it. The current section leaves a lot to desire, since it misleads the reader into thinking that the idea of genocide is supported by good quality sources and respected history research, and that there is an equity of opinions among scholars. Sorry to be so harsh, but this is what the sources say. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
See also Legacy_of_the_Great_Irish_Famine#Suggestions_of_genocide. After reading my new text, someone has suggested to remove the Irish famine from the list of genocides Talk:Genocides_in_history#Irish_famine_genocide.3F. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:46, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

American Civil War

Shouldn't the War Between the States be put there? With total casualties as high as 1,030,000 and confirmed soldiers death at about 630,000 it should be here. It could be placed right under the Mexican Revolution. Freedom Fighter 1988 (talk) 04:28, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it roughly fulfills the criteria to be on the list, but you need to provide sources for those numbers ranging from 630,000 to a million deaths.--Justice and Arbitration (talk) 17:53, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
I know there's some in the wikipedia article on the war I just don't remember where exactly. You could look it up.Freedom Fighter 1988 (talk) 06:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 Done. I added it, referenced to a source I lazily found on the Internet: http://www.civilwarhome.com/casualties.htm. It had 618K to 700K so I went with that. I have never seen 1M, though perhaps if you find a source that tries to account for civilians that died in sieges and such I could imagine the number getting that high. –CWenger (^ • @) 23:17, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the help man. Freedom Fighter 1988 (talk) 00:47, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Just curious but how did Alan McFarlane arrive to the conclusion that the Qing dynasty overthrow of the Ming dynasty caused the deaths of 25 million people? It would seem rather unusually high and I've yet to read any credible historian of China from Mote to Gernet to Spence quote such high figures. How did he come up with those figures? From what I understand, McFarlane is not a specialist in Chinese history and I think a more credible source needs to be provided in order to validate such claims.

European colonaizations

Hey guys, just wanted to make a couple clarifications/proposals:

Concerning the European colonization of Asia and Africa currently listed in "African genocides", I had entered that whole thing about half a year ago under "Genocides and alleged genocides", and I believe that this is really where it is supposed to be. The estimate of 50 to 60 million death toll encompasses both African and Asian colonies, with about 40 million casualties from India alone, and only about 15 in Africa. Moreover, the author of the book I mentioned doesn't actually say anything that is described as such in the right column, but merely cites a number of historians and social scientists who argue as such. Therefore, I think it's a good idea to re-edit that section accordingly. If anyone disagrees with that, please be so kind as to take due note of what is said here before you go ahead and re-edit the section again.

As for the colonization of the Americas currently showing 10'000'000 casualties as the highest estimate, I have to say that it is in no way compatible with any of my sources, who all claim that there was a demographic toll of up to 90% in the Americas as a direct consequence of the conquista, which implies that the highest estimate cannot be of 10'000'000 people, as the estimated pre-columbian population of the Americas reached 60'000'000 people. I therefore suggest someone look in to this to shed some light on the issue and correct the highest estimate if needed.

Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilyusha V. Novikov (talk • contribs) 17:19, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

An Lushan Rebellion

Why is the An Lushan still near the top? This is very embarassing for wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.158.59.134 (talk) 07:51, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Jonestown

"The event was the largest loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the September 11, 2001 attacks." Do the General Slocum or SS Sultana disasters qualify as natural? ' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.162.141.2 (talk) 00:20, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Falun Gong persecution NOT genocide

The Falun Gong persecution needs to be removed from the genocide section. To call it genocide is as clear a misnomer as it gets and whoever put it there was clearly motivated by political bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.250.126 (talk) 19:56, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I just reinserted information on different sources (including some judicial authorities) that have called the campaign a genocide. The determination of what is or is not genocide is always controversial, but the criteria employed here is whether notable sources have called these events genocides. This discussion on Falungong was played out and ultimately settled in the archives, if you want to revisit it.—Zujine|talk 20:17, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Hindu Genocide - 9 - 13 th century AD

I came across some articles stating the number of deaths in the Hindu-Kush mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan was as high as 80 mn - 100 mn making it the largest genocide in human history. In fact Hindu - Kush stands for Hindu deaths. See if we can find historical accounts of this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.197.126.107 (talk) 16:11, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

African genocides section

Is there any good reason why African genocides should be listed, as they are here, in a separate section from other genocides? - 128.36.204.230 (talk) 00:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing. If no one gives a good reason, it should be merged into the table with the rest of the genocides.--Wikimedes (talk) 09:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
At the very least it should be consistent - for example, the massacre of Tutsis in Burundi is listed in both the general table and the African Genocides section, but the Rwandan massacre of Tutsis (the larger of the two) is not. I would vote in favor of collapsing the separate African section and merging it with the general list. - Alexandriensis (talk) 19:44, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Done. Sparkie82 (t•c) 07:49, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

About neutrality of the article

One could add much more massacres in human history and it seems the existing ones in the article included according to global political climate. I think neutrality of the article is disputed tag should added on head of the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.44.215.165 (talk) 05:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

It's probably better to discuss specific issues on the talk page or just make edits to indicate that statements are alleged with attribution. (According to A, X happened, however, this is disputed by B, who says that Y happened.) If there are notable incidents, with verifiable sources, that are not here, feel free to add them. Sparkie82 (t•c) 08:03, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Re: Merge List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll and List of wars by death toll

Sorting.

The Afghan civil war appears at the top when you sort by % of world population. I thought it was because it lacked the leading zero (was just ".06%" previously), but the error still occurs since I changed it to "0.06%". No idea why that should be - it'll take someone more technically adept to sort it out I guess. And Gareth Bale should damn well stick to the left wing instead of roaming all over the park the daft Welsh muppet.

All the other entries had "ntsh|x" in double curly brackets starting off the last column. It appears to indicate the number to use when performing a sort. I added it for the Afghan wars and it sorts fine now.--Wikimedes (talk) 11:22, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Wars included

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but it appears to me that the list of war's seem to be ranked from highest minimum number of deaths to lowest minimum number of deaths, bottoming out at about half a million dead. The American Civil War has a range of 600,000 to 700,000 dead, which has a higher number of minimum casualties than the last three conflicts listed, and with wounded would be much higher (articulating that dead and wounded haven't been merged into our traditional numbers as has occurred in some other conflicts). Given this, shouldn't the American Civil War be included on the list, especially considering that it is certainly better documented than many of the conflicts from antiquity listed here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.56.151.34 (talk) 12:41, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I just logged in to ask the same question. Voigty (talk) 16:59, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

New column proposal: mean? Consensus?

Dear all, I noticed that in many cases, there can be a very significant discrepancy between the highest and lowest estimates. Would it be worth adding either an "average" column, or a "documented consensus value" one? --MarmotteiNoZ 23:33, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

separate "genocides" from "alleged genocides"

I would like to take all genocides that don't have several scholar books backing them, and listing them in a separate section "alleged genocides". --Enric Naval (talk) 16:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that would be a monumentally challenging task, the end result of which would be to engender endless conflict on the page. With very few exceptions (perhaps no exceptions), classifications of events as genocide is disputed in some circles, sometimes very fiercely (case in point: Armenian Genocide). I would certainly not relish the role of arbiter of these definitional issues, and I don't think we could even devise a set of criteria that would help with the task.Homunculus (duihua) 18:44, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
I think we could, and I think it's our responsibility to, separate those events for which the term "genocide" was coined and which have wide acceptance as such within academia, from those events which one eccentric Spanish judge, acting out of his jurisdiction and who is now under investigation for corruption, deems "genocide". Actually, it's questionable whether a separate section dedicated to "genocide" is desirable in this article at all. It only seems to facilitate the inclusion of events which would not make the cut in an article listing events with the highest death tolls. Shrigley (talk) 20:46, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

recent change to the Congo Free State death toll estimate

I reverted the recent change to the Congo Free State death toll estimate. It changed the numbers but not the citations, which presumably misrepresents the cited sources. The new numbers could be included with the citations used in the Congo Free State main article, but on the low end that replaces an estimate by a writer of popular history with that of an adventure story and on the high end uses a total drop in population, which can have other contributing factors than death (e.g. a drop in birth rate or emigration) or anthropogenic death. I have not read any of the sources, so if someone more familiar with them believes that Forbath is reliable enough to include as the low estimate, or that Wertham's or Britannica's population drop estimates were exclusively from anthropogenic death, feel free to include them.-Wikimedes (talk) 20:50, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Biafra/Nigeria civil war

Should the Biafra/Nigeria civil war be included, the death toll was reported to be between 1 to 3 million. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.133.24.120 (talk) 16:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes. It would be nice to have a citation for the death toll too.--Wikimedes (talk) 19:21, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The Killings of the America's, was worst then stupid World War 2.

When the Europeans came to the America's, they killed almost 3 Billion, to 100 million Native american Tribes and Inca, Mayan, Aztec, Zapotec Empires. Don't you Americans cover it up, you know what you did, and it was not "Just Business"! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Archchinook (talk • contribs) 00:09, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Can someone please delete this, it's pointlessly incendiary. Lore Spinner (talk) 19:04, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Are you speaking of such things as the extermination of the Huron tribe, Archchinook? Because if so, know that the tribe was wiped out by the Iroquois. But apart from entirely unimportant details like that, otherwise you are right: all Indians were just like Hobbits, pacifist beings fully at peace with their neighbors and fully in harmony with nature (sarcasm off).

In a separate matter, I am surprised that the Italians and the British figure in the Individual extermination camps and concentration camps section, for at most a couple of thousand deaths, while there is not a single mention of any of the Soviet Union's or of any of China's gulags… Asteriks (talk) 14:57, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Additional source I found

Here's a pretty good pdf I found if anyone needs it to add sources for the article.

I removed the link to the White Lotus Rebellion because the figures listed on that page (16 million) seemed incredible high for the scale of the conflict. The only references to that figure were linking back to Wikipedia itself, so this, along with another source I found seemed to be more reputable/reasonable. (Although how such a figure could be grossly overstated amazes me). Shaded0 (talk) 04:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Individual extermination camps and concentration camps --> Deadly prisons and camps

Should we rename "Individual extermination camps and concentration camps" to "Deadly prisons and camps"? IMO Andersonville (recently added) belongs on the list, but doesn't square with the list's current title because it was a POW camp, not a concentration or extermination camp. There are many other deadly POW camps (eg. Nazi, Soviet, and Japanese POW camps in WWII) that also deserve mention, as well as labor camps in the USSR, China, etc. where thousands of people perished and prisons where mass executions took place (see for example the second paragraph of Katyn massacre). Renaming the list to "Deadly prisons and camps" would allow their inclusion.--Wikimedes (talk) 19:42, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Major Problems

How on earth can the Soviet war in Afghanistan numbers be higher than those for the entire Afghan civil war? Beyond the fact that self-published websites are used for many of these estimates, there's no way that a book from 1902 could tell us how many people died in the Soviet war!TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:53, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Good catch. The numbers and sources were copied from the entry on the Crusades. I've corrected it. It's still from a self-published website, but the site does reference it's figures well.
The figures for the whole Afghan Civil War (and a few others) are referenced with a website called paranormalknowledge.com, which aside from its dubious title does not seem to list references. I'll see if I can find a better source.--Wikimedes (talk) 06:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
The same new source has death toll estimates for the Afghan Civil War through 2000, which basically give the same 1.5 million to 2 million range as was already in the list. I changed the reference, but this still needs updating. So far I haven't found a better reference for the Yellow Turban Rebellion. (Neither the Yellow Turban Rebellion nor the Three Kingdoms War articles on Wikipedia seem to have casualty estimates, sourced or not.)--Wikimedes (talk) 07:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Well, thank you for your help.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 10:10, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Classification of Samar Massacre?

I have a few questions regarding the Samar Massacre:

  1. Is this really a genocide (i.e. an attempt to wipe out an ethnic group) or is it more of a general massacre or atrocity, which would put it in the "other deadly events" list?
  2. Should this be combined with other war crimes or civilian dead in the Philippine-American War to give a single total? (Individual events with a High death toll could be mentioned in the notes column.)

--Wikimedes (talk) 19:38, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

islamic invasion of Hispania

I can't find in this list the death toll of the islamic invasion of the hispanic peninsula. That war lasted for seven centuries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.202.2.127 (talk) 16:50, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Something is wrong with the math

Something doesn't make sense here. The chart contains the low and high end estimates of the death toll for each event. The top is WWII, where the high-end estimate is 72 million people or 3.1% of the global population. The Taiping Rebellion's high-end estimate is 100 million people, but it says that the death toll is 2.1% of the global population.

The Taiping Rebellion happened nearly 100 years prior to the events of WWII. How could the world population be higher at that point than during WWII? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.173.166 (talk) 16:20, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Good point. I calculated the world population at the time of the Taiping Rebellion from the lower estimate (20M/.016 = 1250M), calculated the per cent of world population of the upper estimate (100M/1250M*100 = 8%), and changed the upper estimate to 8%.--Wikimedes (talk) 07:25, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Great leap forward and Jonestown massacre

First of all, why isn't the Great Leap Forward in the Genocide list? If the Holodomor is there, shouldn't it? C'mon, this isn't China's wiki (Even Guinness lists it)! Second, the Jonestown massacre is listed as the largest American civilian death toll in one event until 9/11. In actuality, the Great Johnstown Flood is the highest. Did the similar names confuse them? Alexschmidt711 (talk) 02:29, 28 January 2013 (UTC)Alexschmidt711

I've not heard of the Great Leap Forward being called genocide, and as far as I know there was no attempt to wipe out a group of people. (At some point a historian may decide to stretch a point and say that because landlords and upper-middle peasants and their families were often targeted in the GLF that it could be considered a form of genocide, but I do think that that would be stretching the definition of genocide a bit far, and I haven't heard of it happening yet.) The Holodomor is considered a genocide because Ukrainians were specifically targeted.--Wikimedes (talk) 07:56, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
The claim for the Jonestown Massacre is for a non-natural disaster, and the Johnstown Flood was partly a natural disaster, though this is a bit of a gray area. The Johnstown Flood would be a good addition to the List of floods and landslides.--Wikimedes (talk) 08:16, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I forgot that it said non-natural for the Jonestown massacre. But if unintentional genocide like the Great Leap Forward is not genocide, then African exporting and American colonization are not on the list either. Alexschmidt711 (talk) 20:08, 28 January 2013 (UTC)Alexschmidt711

Well, the definition of genocide varies depending on who is using the word, but it generally involves more than just killing a lot of people, or generic horrible acts that a government commits. On the other hand, it’s generally broader than killing (cide) all people of a particular genetic makeup. It’s also used a bit differently than its original description of an attempt to exterminate groups of people during the Nazi Holocaust.
The Nazi’s attempt to wipe out Slavs, Jews, Roma, etc. is widely considered genocide, as is Turkey’s attempt to wipe out Armenians and Greeks in Turkey, Hutus' attempt to wipe out the Tutsis in Rwanda, etc. Even though Stalin never intended to kill all Ukrainians (nor was that the result) it’s sometimes considered a genocide because he did kill a lot of people because they were Ukrainian. Likewise Pol Pot never intended to kill all Cambodians (he wanted to reduce the population from ~7 million to ~1 million in order to turn Cambodia into an agrarian utopia), but this is often considered a genocide. If you find a reliable source that calls the GLF genocide, by all means move the GLF to the other table and cite the source.--Wikimedes (talk) 09:03, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned references in List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ReferenceB":

  • From Disaster medicine: Marghella, P. National Strategies for Medical Contingency Planning seminar, September, 2007
  • From List of events named massacres: In Georgia, Tales of Atrocities Lee Hockstander, International Herald Tribune, 22 October 1993
  • From Mongol invasion of Europe: Carey states on p. 128 that Batu had 40,000 in the main body and ordered Subutai to take 30,000 troops in an encircling maneuver. Batu commanded the central prong of the Mongols' three-pronged assault on eastern Europe. This number seems correct when compared with the numbers reported at the Battles of Leignitz to the north and Hermannstadt (Sibiu) to the south. All three victories occurred in the same week.
  • From Ottoman Empire: Stone, Norman (2005). "Turkey in the Russian Mirror". In Mark Erickson, Ljubica Erickson (ed.). Russia War, Peace And Diplomacy: Essays in Honour of John Erickson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-297-84913-1. Retrieved 11 February 2013.
  • From Srebrenica massacre: The Events in and Around Srebrenica between 10 and 19 July 1995" (The Republika Srpska Srebrenica Report 2004), June 2004, p 22 [1]. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
  • From Propaganda: Garfield, Andrew. "The U.S. Counter-propaganda Failure in Iraq." Middle East Quarterly 14 (2007): 26
  • From Flavian dynasty: Suetonius, The Lives of Twelve Caesars, Life of Vespasian 9
  • From Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: "Pakistan Military Consortium". PakDef.info. Retrieved 2012-07-27.
  • From Philippines: Joaquin, Nick. A Question of Heroes.
  • From French Revolution: Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 61.
  • From Indonesian occupation of East Timor: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB174/1010.pdf
  • From World War II casualties: R. J. Rummel. China's Bloody Century . Transaction 1991 ISBN 0-88738-417-X
  • From Great Purge: The Independent, "The History of Hell", January 8, 1995

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 07:46, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Let's just all throw mud at each other and flaunt our history in each others faces? Not here!

Look. Why are you doing this? Who is doing this? What is the political motivation for doing this on this encyclopedia. Take any encyclopedia such as Britanica, NE, or even the Soviet one. None list purges of political enemies, revenge-killings, small scale massacres as genocide. And further more nobody in their right mind unless they are hell bent at proving an ideological point could possibly CLASSIFY THE ENTIRE COLONIZATION OF AFRICA AND AMERICA AS A GENOCIDE TARGETING AFRICANS OR AMERICANS. Why the fuck are you people doing!? This site hits number one when kids search for genocide for their school projects and you're filling their heads with filth. I hate this! Why isn't any dedicated person taking their responsibility! Killing people is horrible but it's something we've been doing since we can count time. Killing for love, killing for wealth, killing for power. Whether you kill civilians or soldiers or someone in between. None of it - and especially not the bacteria on you killing someone is genocide. Enslavement is not genocide. Communists killing whites is not genocide. Genocide is a specific crime, a specific ill. It is the slaughter of people based on nothing more than what they are born by. It is the slaughter of their GENES.

PLEASE before this site turns into a bigger pile of shit than it is, fix it. I used to love spending time reading this wikipedia when I had some free time off. But it's just getting worse. Every day. Please, don't let truth die and don't let the English language get chopped up like this. There are sensible people out there. You guys and girls know that when someone uses genocide to for example the killing, enslavement and accidental extermination of native americans through disease then that person is doing it to shine a beacon of light on a history many of todays Americans refuse to acknowledge. But it is not genocide! Dont destroy the language! Strong words are needed for strong things. And the strongest of words for the strongest of things. Please! I beg you. I can't get involved into this and fix it. I hate the bureaucracy, elitism and for example distaste for anonymity on Wikipedia, but those of you who have accepted this as the lesser of two evils, please do something about this. 

46.59.36.37 (talk) 23:04, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Please read genocide, a subject whose definition does not include the word genes. Rmhermen (talk) 19:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Genocide comes from the word geno which is the same word that gene is derived from. It means race or tribe or basically ethnical ancentry, cide means killing. Thus killing of your ancestry. (See for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genos ). The original article that you pointed me to has a category of actual genocides, limited in their numbers, horrendous in their scope and purpose as they are meant to be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide . In this article, under the category of genocide(s) there are 7 genocides, of them one not fully agreed upon but still certainly merited to a degree (holodomor). Then someone has taken upon themselves to create this baffling list of basically every large atrocity that has been expanded of those seeking pity or recognition for their cause and hoping to do so by adding themselves and their plight to this list. This list is completely outside the portal of those working on the article of genocide and is a new invention. I ask you to seriously consider my proposition and remove it or limit it to the 7 that are listed in the one article you presented me. Those people who insist on doing it the way it's being done here are not only destroying the meaning and the strength of this word but generally diluting the English language in an Orwellian manner
Look take for example this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_conquest_of_the_Caucasus
It is listed here as a genocide, the most baffling out of all. In that article itself, where people dedicated in the Russian and Caucas portals work nobody has thought to merit it as a genocide. According to the article the number of casualties are 1:2 (who genocided who?). Sure people get deported, sure populations are subdued, sure even killings are employed on a large scale to frighten, indoctrinate someone. But it differs from genocide in that its purpose is not the physical annihilation of these people. It is just as the word terrorism. The most brutally mauled word in the world today. Every oppressive government screaming terrorism when a rebel group attacks them. We must remember why the word genocide was created, where it comes from. It was an unknown concept before world war 2. It was then raised because there had never in history been such a concentrated effort by a large group of people to exterminate an other people (excluding the armenian one). One can't now simply retroactively apply it to anything one doesn't like.
In fact, considering its origins one should be careful to even apply it to efforts that may seem genocidal but that never reach the proportions of genocide considering, again, its origin.
46.59.36.37 (talk) 00:45, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
I have nothing to say about any particular item in the list. I was trying to point out that you are incorrect about the definition. We have an exact statement from the creator of the word telling us what the word means. We do not need to delve into ancient word roots or derivations. Rmhermen (talk) 01:56, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
The word was coined by the polish jew Raphael Lemkin and not the source you provide. In his words: "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves."
But I digress. Forget my gene-definition and then do something about my concerns! I beg you. There is such a discrepancy between this list and that of those people working diligently in the specific portals of the topics listed here and in genocide in general. As an admin you should hasten to amend this before it poisons minds. 46.59.36.37 (talk) 23:57, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
You still seem to have failed to read our article on genocide which quotes Lemkin extensively and early in the lead. Also you must understand that administrators are "No big deal" - in terms of editing we are no different than any other editor. And any subjects we are involved heavily in editing we recuse ourselves from using our admin powers on. Rmhermen (talk) 00:35, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
It appears to me that the list carefully notes who calls each event a genocide and links to the articles show further information. I don't see any large problems here. Rmhermen (talk) 00:56, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Japanese Colonialism and Eastern Front of WWII

I've taken out the excessive detail in these two recently-added entries and tweaked them a bit. The details contain several references and can be found in this diff. Unfortunately the total death estimates didn't seem to be in the details, so I added citation needed tags.--Wikimedes (talk) 02:23, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

why isnt this listed

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which had a moment magnitude of 9.1–9.3,[36] triggered a series of lethal tsunamis on December 26, 2004, that killed approximately 230,210 people (including 168,000 in Indonesia alone), making it the deadliest tsunami as well as one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.3.33.81 (talk) 19:37, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Because it was a natural disaster. This list is for anthropogenic (i.e. man made) disasters.--Wikimedes (talk) 05:22, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Khmer Rouge famine deaths citation

I was unable to find an estimate of the number of famine deaths during the Cambodian Genocide on the website cited by TheTimesAreAChanging above and now used in the article. Could one of you indicate where the estimate is (section and paragraph or quote so that I can do a text search) or describe how you calculated the famine deaths if the estimate is not mentioned explicitly on the website?--Wikimedes (talk) 18:51, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Source estimates 1.4 million executions and 800,000 deaths from starvation and disease. There are other sources, of course. Marek Sliwinski estimates 950,000 famine deaths.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:57, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
OK, but the question is where does the source say 1.4 million executions and 800,000 deaths by starvation and disease? I see in paragraph 3 of Ben Kiernan's estimate that about half the deaths were from starvation and disease and there were about 1.5 million deaths total, which is close to 800K starvation deaths, but much less than 1.4 million executions. How did you get 1.4 million executions and 800,000 deaths from starvation and disease from this source? (I'm not disputing that there were many famine deaths, but I do want to make sure that the source contains what we claim it does.)--Wikimedes (talk) 05:05, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
The executions figure (1,386,734) is from Craig Etcheson, based on the findings in the mass graves. In all probability, it is a conservative estimate. Bruce Sharp's thesis in "Counting Hell" is that Kiernan's estimate of 1.7 million excess deaths is far too low, by about half a million.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:25, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
OK, but once again the question is how did you arrive at 800,000 famine deaths?--Wikimedes (talk) 06:06, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Math.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:11, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Would that be half of 1.7 million equals 800,000? Wait, that's not quite right. Whatever. I can see it's impossible to get a straight answer out of you, so I'll give up trying. Thank you for providing 2 sources for the number of famine deaths. (Which I have been unable to do myself, in spite of checking four other likely places.)--Wikimedes (talk) 06:51, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
It's your answers that seem willfully obtuse. Sharp estimates 2.18m unnatural deaths including 1.39m executions. If you doubt that the remaining 800k excess deaths were from starvation and disease, then I will give you Sharp's email and you can try asking him for yourself.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:05, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Where are crusades figures?

This list is highly biased against the Islamic religion and Chinese nation. Neither there is mention of hundreds of millions killed in Christian crusades nor any thing about millions killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam. Biased article. Pease don't take it seriously. These ugly Christ followers and Americans will always paint their attrocities in other colours but pinpot attrocities committed by Muslims and Chinese with direct names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.22.176.62 (talk) 10:40, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Sources please. It is very unlikely the death tolls of the crusades were that high. Rmhermen (talk) 19:50, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
The Crusades are already in the article, as are the Vietnam War and the Afghan Civil War. (The Afghan Civil War mentions Nato intervention, but casualty estimates are only through the year 2000.) There's no reason why the Iraq wars should not be included, all it takes is an editor with a reliable source....--Wikimedes (talk) 01:32, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
You guys will never find crusade death tolls as high as jihad death tolls because we all know why. To paint Christian wars as holy and justified. And deaths in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan must be listed in Genocide category because war is when two equally powerful countries are fighting. A military power for its military advantures knowing that it'll not face any (or very low) resistance attacks a very weak nation is never a war but genocide. Americans committed genocides in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. You guys are never going to consider any proof as valid so no point in giving proofs to you. But it was genocide at the least (if not extinction of those races) and not any war. If Turkish and Armenian armies attacking each other and many Armenians die is genocide (and not war) then America attacking poor Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan is genocide not war. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.23.100.252 (talk) 05:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Enough with the propaganda and hyperbole. If the US had committed "genocide" in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, the American government could have done so without losing a single American life, by raining nuclear bombs on those countries. Very simply, if the US government wanted to commit genocide in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, then there would be no Vietnamese, Iraqis, or Afghans left. Boneyard90 (talk) 22:25, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
First, main reason the Crusade numbers aren't that big is not propoganda, it's math, they didn't have that many people to kill and the associated massacres were mostly urbanized, at a time when that didn't represent as large a percentage as it does today. The Albigensian Crusade, which was later, massacred a French city of 15000, not a lot of people by todays standards by alot by the standards of then and how big cities got at the time. Similar with the USSR, Stalin apparently drew inspiration from Ivan Grozny and his Oprechniks. Ivan didn't kill near as many people, but by percentage of the population of Russia at the time, probably not very different from Stalin, maybe more. As for Boneyard, you prove nothing, if they wanted to nuke someone again they would get nuked by EVERYOTHER NATION IN THE WORLD, not just the USSR/Russia/badguyofthedecade, the relationship they have with the "free world" is the can pretend to lead it as long as they at least attempt to maintain an image of civility. The US government, through military personal and the CIA have admitted that they attempted small scale genocide in Vietnam, and when people heard about it they blamed lower ranking officers acting "interdependently", although according to many credible witnesses under orders. Iraq and Afghanistan are more complicated, there are certainly warcrimes and the indiscriminate killing of civilians but it appears to be more of a byproduct and less of goal. The effectiveness of nukes for killing an entire country is also doubtful, combined Little Boy and Fatman did not even kill the total population of Nagasaki, the smaller city, or maybe just with the long term effects. Over a large desert with nomad tribes, villages, hamlets, a lot of civilians would escape completely, the cost would also be extraordinary and it would damage the local resources, making them useless which sort of contradicts the entire reason for going, oil. Also probably harm neighbouring nations, which the US is allied with and which have already suffered more civilians casualties, namely Pakistan. Also piss off local enemies, like Iran who can EASILY blockade the Gulf of Hormuz, cutting off something like 80% of the world's oil supply. So yeah, nukes are not very practical weapons, which is why no one uses them. 108.175.230.14 (talk) 22:07, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
If you were more moral than the Christians, Americans etc, you tolerate so much, you would at least assume good faith and be polite. "Don't take it seriously" is just like as if you told a guy to f*** himself, and then say that you didn't mean to offend him, or say that black people have theft more than any race in the planet and then say that you didn't mean to insult them. And were the Muslims who attacked Israel, after years of martial mobilisation (evidencing intention to start war), creating a large army to begin a conflict which none wished it had occurred by taking possession of Christian holy lands in Israel (not Muslim territory at all). The Muslims had intended to provoke grievous conflicts previously (since 400 years before the Crusades) by capturing and invading several territories of the Roman Empire in Africa, Byzantine Empire, Asia Minor, Spain, etc, which contributed to the military response of the Western Civilisation after 2/3 of the previous size of its territory was invaded. And the Christians only won one Crusade, in case you have studied History the least... and there were nine! Which Christians enslaved Muslims in the Crusades? None, but the Muslims enslaved many Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Africans despite those who were being caged and executed since four centuries before the counter-attack occurred. Imagine if the Japanese in WWII invaded two thirds of U.S.A.'s territory and the Americans only retaliated after Pennsylvania had been overtaken... The so "uncivilised" Middle Ages' Christians tolerated an outrage achieve that level. St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas etc., stated in books that the Gentiles should be respected and not disturbed, but whichever Gentile has ever wrote a liturgical book defending such argument concerned to any other Religion or belief?
P.S.: in the period of the Islamic Crusades there were only ~350 million people on Earth; if Christians had killed hundreds of millions it means we are in the Island of Lost or in the Matrix indeed. The Islamic sites around Google say that Muslims only murdered 9.1 million people in general and the Christians, 76 million. The number of Christians martyred by Islam is 9 million [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-10] . A rough estimate by Raphael Moore in History of Asia Minor is that another 50 million died in wars by jihad. So counting the million African Christians killed in the 20th century we have: 60 million Christians (only) and around 270 million of people in total killed by Muslims for Islam, while the vast majority of people killed by "Christians" were for secular reasons, not for theological affairs and convertions. Sources: http://www.thearma.org/essays/Crusades.htm http://factreal.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/muslim-crusades-started-four-centuries-before-the-western-crusades http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/history/world-population-growth.htm http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/onlinediscipleship/understandingislam/IslamHistory0212.aspx http://www.politicalislam.com/tears/pages/tears-of-jihad/
There are more sources though not in English. --177.140.188.13 (talk) 09:21, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Japan

What an evil horrid nation. No seriously it comes off like propaganda when you group 51 years of wars together and call it one action when next to it there are individual wars. 108.175.230.14 (talk) 22:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

On the Great Irish Famine as an anthropogenic disaster

The Great Irish Famine does not meet the criteria of anthropogenic disaster as it is well established that it was caused by natural causes. The fact that it has been poorly responded to does not point to a cause, but rather to an exacerbating factor. If one were to review the list of famines, not a single one would have no political exacerbating factors (or major events in world history in general). See section on Great Irish Famine on the list of genocides in history where the historians cited are in consensus Genocides_in_history#Great_Irish_Famine . Therefore the entry on the Great Irish Famine as an anthropogenic disaster should be removed. It is already on the List of Famines. This list should only include famines whose primary cause is anthropogenic.

Furthremore, the special heading which states "Note: Some of these famines may be caused or partially caused by nature. This section includes famines that were caused or exacerbated by the policies of the ruling regime." should be removed as it contradicts the actual subject of this page, and is confusing since, as stated above, every famine has political exacerbating factors. --195.124.114.42 (talk) 15:55, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Rereading our article on the Great Irish Famine and your link to Genocides in history, I have to strongly disagree with the proposal to remove the Great Irish Famine from this article's list. The second paragraph of Genocides_in_history#Great_Irish_Famine states "During the years of the Famine, Ireland produced enough food, flax and wool not only to feed and clothe its nine million people, but enough for eighteen million." If an area is producing twice as much food as is necessary to feed its population and people are still dying of famine-related diseases, there is a significant anthropogenic component. There seems to be a lively debate over whether the Famine constituted genocide, but there seems to be agreement on both sides that government actions were a major contributing factor.
I do think that the note in the heading should be modified by
1) changing "caused or partially caused by nature" to "partially caused by nature"; if the famine was wholly caused by nature it doesn't belong on the list.
2) changing "exacerbated" to "significantly exacerbated"
As the OP has pointed out, nearly all famines will have some political component to them, and this list should only include those famines in which human factors were among the major ones. (I believe that there is a reasonably mainstream school of thought that all famines of the last few centuries were primarily human-caused, so I'm not sure that this is a significant limitation in practice.)--Wikimedes (talk) 17:20, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
My problem with your formulation is that "significantly anthropogenic" can be extrapolated to mean virtually anything. It is too vague. China alone has had 12,620 recorded major famines, most of them due to a mixture or nature and political instability. Let's take an arbitrary look at some entries on the List of Famines and test the "significant" wording.
1. Bangladesh famine of 1974 : natural cause, and there was ample food just not where it was needed. Government response inadequate.
2. Khmer Rouge genocide 1975-79 : People starved to death for ideological reasons.
3. Uganda Famine 1980-81 : Drought and warfare (poor entry)
4. Ethiopia famine 1984-85 : People starved to death for ideological reasons (drought started after the famine)
5. Somalia famine 1991-92 : Drought and warfare
6. North Korea famine 1996 : Flooding, poor infrastructure, poor agricultural policy, collapse of Soviet Union
7. Sudan famine 1998 : Drought and warfare
8. Ethiopia famine 1998-2000 : Drought and warfare
9. Congo famine 1998-2004 : Warfare
10. Somalia famine 2011-12 : Drought and ongoing warfare
All of these have a "significant" anthropogenic aspect. In fact, nearly all of them had a stronger anthropogenic cause than the Great Irish Famine. Should they all be added? In fact #2, #4, #6 and #9 don't even have natural causes to begin with. Meanwhile the remainder would not have occurred should international aid been freely accessible. By comparison, the Great Irish Famine had a clear natural cause, and there was no UN or any body in charge of encouraging, collecting and distributing food aid back in the 1840s. The primary cause is nature, with an inadequate government response (similar to the Bangladesh famine).
Regarding Ireland having enough food to feed its population twice, while that's true, it only proves that the natural cause struck the country unequally, i.e. those practicing a monoculture of the potato in Ireland (and elsewhere) were the ones particularly affected by the potato blight, while those not practising monoculture were not. There is a socio-economic context to this, but this is beyond scope. For the ones affected by the clear natural cause, no crop meant no food. Food exports increased because the natural cause struck most of Western Europe as well (notably Scotland and Belgium), so food was sold to the highest bidder, which usually is not a poor subsistence farmer; food exports therefore increased because of natural causes as well. Furthermore, take a read of the Bangladesh famine of 1974, there as well there was enough food for everyone but poor distribution. Having enough food in the country does not mean a famine does not have natural causes.
Therefore :
a) I think the heading should be changed to make an entry much stricter, i.e. "Not primarily caused by nature", and apply the logic "would this famine have occurred without natural causes?", otherwise there are going to be hundreds of entries here.
b) the famine in Ireland should be removed as it is primarily natural;
c) the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879 should also be removed as it is also primarily natural, and add the Chinese famines of 1850-1873 (Taiping Rebellion) and of 1942-43 (Eastern front of WWII);
d) Famines in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Congo, and dozens of other anthropogenic famines should be added.
We really have more than enough blatantly anthropogenic famines to choose from. I do think this article is a great idea and has relevance, I just think this section is problematic as the anthropogenic aspect of it is poorly defined and open to abuse. 195.124.114.44 (talk) 16:19, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Good points. I agree that there are dozens of anthropogenic famines that should be added to the list. As your criteria for what is anthropogenic is more stringent than mine, and indeed more stringent than what is included in the current article, please do add them as you find them.
Wikipedia's article on the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876-1879 lists no anthropogenic component, so I have no objection to removing it. I don't know much about this famine, so it might be worth waiting a few days to see if anyone else objects. (The link you provided goes to the Great Famine of 1876-1878 in India. Are you proposing to remove this famine as well?)
Where to set the bar for inclusion in terms of how anthropogenic a famine needs to be is trickier, so I'd like to take a few days to think about it. No natural causes whatsoever seems too stringent a requirement to me, but where to draw the line among the numerous shades of grey and even determining where the various famines fit on the spectrum between anthropogenic and naturally caused are difficult questions.--Wikimedes (talk) 03:03, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Regarding the Khmer Rouge genocide, the full death toll is mentioned here--not just the famine. The best estimates are that the KR perpetrated 1,386,734 violent killings and starved or worked to death a further 800,000 Cambodians.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:30, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Link to "Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879" fixed :) --195.124.114.44 (talk) 13:54, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, “significantly anthropogenic” is a bit vague, and it would require some consensus among editors about what is significant enough to warrant inclusion. However I don’t think that “would this famine have occurred without natural causes?” is the correct criterion either. It appears that the Bangladesh Famine of 1974 would not have occurred without flooding, however scholars have expressly refuted that lack of food availability caused the famine, so the floods themselves were not sufficient to cause the famine. Scholars instead say that speculative hoarding prevented food distribution and that the United States delayed food aid because the US objected to Bangladesh exporting jute to Cuba, both anthropogenic causes. (According to the Wikipedia article anyway.) So in my opinion the Bangladesh Famine of 1974 belongs on the list.
“Would this famine have occurred without anthropogenic causes?” is perhaps a better question to ask, but still involves value judgments such as how much effort could be reasonably expected to be spent on famine relief or how much culpability is involved in selling excess food to a well fed highest bidder rather than giving it to your starving neighbor.
There is also the matter of how many of the famine deaths can be attributed to natural vs. anthropogenic causes. Even if the “primary cause” of the famine is not anthropogenic, it might still belong on the list. If a drought is bad enough to cause 80,000 famine deaths, but a local warlord prevents international food aid from reaching starving people, causing another 20,000 deaths, should this famine be on the list? It probably should if our list includes famines where 20,000 people or fewer died. For this reason I prefer “significantly anthropogenic” to “primarily anthropogenic”, with the idea being that “significant” means that anthropomorphic factors caused a large enough number of deaths to be on the list. How many deaths are attributable to each cause can be largely a matter of speculation, and such estimates may not even have been made by reliable sources, so there is still considerable ambiguity with this approach, unfortunately. (I’m not sure how new you are to Wikipedia, but we try to rely on reliable sources rather than individual editors’ reasoning or claims.)
In terms of the Great Irish Famine, neither its article nor several of the discussion threads in the talk page archives make as good a case as the Bengal Famine’s article does for being anthropogenic. (I read O Grada’s ‘’Famine: A Short History’’ a few years ago, but nothing comes readily to mind.) There is no mention of sources that explicitly refute that food availability was a problem (though the above mentioned production of twice the amount of food needed seems to imply this). There is also the quote from O Grada in the penultimate paragraph here that there were “enormous challenges facing relief efforts”. It does still appear to have a large anthropogenic component to me, though, and also to authors who put a great deal of blame on the British Government.
I think it’s time to invite other editors to participate in the discussion, so I’ll put note on the Wikiproject Death page asking for additional editors to comment. Given the controversial nature of the topic, I hope this does not result in too many POV rants marring what has so far been quite a good discussion. In the mean time, I’ve changed the table heading from “caused or partially caused by nature” to “partially caused by nature” and added “actions” to “policies” of the ruling regime until we work out some of the other details of what this heading should say. Please don’t let the disagreement over the Great Irish Famine or the quibbles over how to word the table heading keep you from adding famines that meet your stringent criteria to the list.--Wikimedes (talk) 20:17, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
While your adding in all these horrific famines caused by governments don't forget Churchill and India during WW2, 10million people (I want to hope fewer though) died as I recall due to government redirected the food away from the large population to the soldiers. I'm also gonna say I disagree, entirely, there should be a separate page for this famines and whatever else that may fall into a similar category. Placing exacerbated natural disaster next to wars muddles the information for people actually trying to look up specific information, this is why we have the every ability to make separate pages. 108.175.230.14 (talk) 22:15, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
I also strongly disagree.
As pointed out by sources you note and then proceed to ignore, yes, the Irish famine (people dying of starvation) was absolutely anthropogenic, however much the same system might have worked better if not for the blight, and denying that is frankly POVy Anglophilia. If other famines can also be shown to have been as man-made as the Irish one (and many modern ones such as the USSR's and the Great Leap Forward certainly were even worse), yes, of course they should also be included. The argument from laziness really doesn't work here, since someone else can always pick up your slack later if need be. — LlywelynII 01:59, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Congo Free State?

Shouldn't the actions under Leopold II be listed here somewhere, given that the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State) cites between 5 and 10 million deaths? It's a full order of magnitude (if not two) above some on those lists, and is less controversial than others.

I'd add it myself but I don't want to screw up the formatting of the tables.OneCatch (talk) 14:40, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Just been checking archives, and Leopold II was initially excluded because it did not feature on a separate list of genocides. However, that list no longer seems to exist. Further, the activities in the Congo Free state have been more explicitly recognised - the British Parliament recognised it as a genocide in 2006 for example.
While it may or may not be a technical genocide, it's still an extremely lethal anthropogenic disaster and should at the least be in the 'other deadly event' category, or perhaps 'deadly camps' (I'm not sure how loose the definition is intended to be - would it include wider plantations?OneCatch (talk) 14:56, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
It was in the list of genocides until about a week ago [2]. I agree that it belongs in the article, though mentioning tropical diseases as the main cause of death, in addition to being inaccurate, would bring back the reason it was removed. If you have a reference for the British Parliament (or a scholarly work) calling it genocide, it belongs in that table. If not, the "other deadly events" table would be more appropriate. If you're up for it, be bold and add it yourself. The table type is sortable and the formatting is explained at Help:Table#Sorting. If it messes the table up, revert yourself (view history tab --> undo link) and I'll see if I can figure out why. I'm not particularly computer savvy, but I found tables, along with much of the basic markup in Wikipedia, to be pretty straightforward.--Wikimedes (talk) 15:26, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I think I'll put it in the 'other' category - upon looking further it appears that the British Parliament thing is just an early day motion (a relatively well subscribed one, but minor nonetheless), i.e. less significant than France's official recognition of the Armenian Genocide for example. It's arguably a genocide (I'd personally class it as such on the grounds that the Atlantic Slave Trade is listed), but until there's a significant amount of popular consensus it's probably not appropriate. Will have a go at putting it in the other category if I can't find any formal recognitions as genocide.
Also, thanks very much for that link about tables - I've been wondering how to do it properly for a while! OneCatch (talk) 16:18, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:List_of_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll/Archive_10&oldid=1136931071"