Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Palestinian civilian casualties in the Second Intifada

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep. The main argument for deletion is based on the idea that the individuals on the list are not independently notable, although the nomination also mentions potential POV problems. If someone were creating articles on these individuals then that would be a valid argument, but individual items on a list are not required to have sufficient notability in and of themselves. POV problems can be fixed by editing the article and are not a reason for deleting an article. Any merger/renaming/etc of this content can be discussed on the list's talk page. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of Palestinian civilian casualties in the Second Intifada[edit]

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What is the notability of a list of civilian casualties? A newspaper mention of a casualty doesn't make that person notable. Nor is the subject of "List of casualties of ..." notable. Do we have such a list for the 9/11 terrorist acts? I have a minor suspicion this list was created more to make a point, than for its encyclopedical value. The entries are clearly supposed to make a point: "elderly shepherd", "pregnant woman", "sleeping children". If this article were encyclopedical, it would not go into such details, but just mention the facts.Debresser (talk) 16:58, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This list was created after a group of editors continually resisted adding Palestinian casualties to List of attacks on non-combatants in the Second Intifada (see talk page archive [1]). That list was subsequently renamed to reflect its Israeli only contents. Since summer of 2009, both List of Israeli civilian casualties in the Second Intifada and List of Palestinian civilian casualties in the Second Intifada have been copied into the article Civilian casualties in the Second Intifada. Given that we now have two spin-off lists linking back to one main article, I cannot support deleting one without the other as that would be POV. The information in both lists is useful for those who want to see a breakdown of casualties from this period in the conflict. The Palestinian list still needs to be expanded and so will require a separate page as it will be too long for the new parent article once completed. Tiamut^talk 17:21, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Palestine-related deletion discussions. —Tiamut^talk 17:26, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is no argument, or rather a non-argument, see Wikipedia:Arguments_to_avoid_in_deletion_discussions#What_about_article_x.3F. But feel free to nominate on Afd whatever you want. Debresser (talk) 18:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Each entry on the list has at least one reference attesting to its having happened and there are many entries in the list that can have many more than one. Palestinian civilian casualties in the Second Intifada are the subject of much discussion. Having a breakdown of those casualties in list format seems reasonable, particularly given the existence of a parallel for Israeli casulties. These are both spin-off articles of Civilian casualties in the Second Intifada. Once the Palestinian list is expanded further (it is not comprehensive at present), space constraints will make it impossible to include the entire list in the parent article. These are all valid rationales to keep the article, despite your opinion to the contrary. Your lack of concern for consistency in the treatment of articles, and your dismissive, robotic comments responding to people who took the time to formulate their thoughts is both disturbing and unimpressive. Tiamut^talk 19:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is no "lack of concern for consistency in the treatment of articles": I happened to see this article, and nominated it. As I said, feel free to nominate on Afd whatever you want. And please remember WP:NPA: I just didn't see any reason not to copy my comment when the argument you and User:Sean.hoyland used has the same logical fallacy. Debresser (talk) 19:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is no personal attack in my comment, though perhaps I could have been less harsh in my choice of descriptors for your comments. There is also no logical fallacy in my argument or Sean's. This is not a case of otherstuffexists. These two articles have a history together and link back to same parent article. Nominating one for deletion without considering the other will not increase NPOV at Wikipedia. It decreases it. Tiamut^talk 19:31, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now that I had a look at List of Israeli civilian casualties in the Second Intifada, I'd like to note that it is more a list of bombings and other terrorist attacks, than a list of casualties. Just that it mentions the number of casualties by the way. It was created in January 2004, while its Palestinian counterpart was created only in November 2007. Debresser (talk) 02:53, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of Israeli civilian casualties in the Second Intifada was previously named List of suicide bombings during the Second Intifada. It was renamed sometime after the List of Palestinian civilian casualties in the Second Intifada list was created. As I explained above, the latter list was created because of the refusal of a certain group of editors to include Palestinian casualties in the List of attacks on non-combatants in the Second Intifada, even though these entries had referncing just as good as the references for Israeli entries. That list was subsequently renamed to reflect it Israeli-only contents. It was later renamed to Civilian casualties in the Second Intifada, where now, both the Palestinian and Israeli civilian casualty lists are linked to.

Your proposal is basically to delete one half of the article on Civilian casulaties in the Second Intifada (i.e. the half which lists Palestinian casulaties). If an editor came to that page and blanked the Palestinian section, such an edit would be viewed as incredibly POV. That's how I view this nomination. I suggest that if you are truly concerned that lists of this kind at Wikipedia are inappropriate, that you nominate both lists together, and retain only the parent article Civilian casualties in the Second Intifada where editors interested in writing a more encyclopedic entry in line with NPOV can focus their energies. Tiamut^talk 09:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - What is the notability of a list of civilian casualties? Probably about the same as the notability of a list of Palestinian rocket attacks I would imagine.

Were any of these lists created more to make a point than for their encyclopedical value ? Who knows but I do know that this kind of information, whatever it is, casualties on either side, armed attacks by either belligerent in the conflict need to be handled consistently and neutrally. Nominating one article is not the right approach in my view. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:11, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is no argument, or rather a non-argument, see Wikipedia:Arguments_to_avoid_in_deletion_discussions#What_about_article_x.3F. But feel free to nominate on Afd whatever you want. Debresser (talk) 18:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm familiar with the otherstuff opinion. It's counterproductive in cases like this with narrative wars spilling over to wikipedia covered by discretionary sanctions. My argument is that nominating this article as if it is an isolated object is not in the interest of this project, it will not increase NPOV compliance across the subject area, it will not encourage a mature, collaborative approach to addressing sets of related articles and it is in my view inconsistent with the discretionary sanctions covering the I-P conflict since they oblige us to act neutrally. In these circumstances is not possible to be neutral and employ the otherstuff argument. They are mutually exclusive. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, I would like to disagree with you about that. But I agree with you that those articles are not among the most important on Wikipedia. Still, those are attacks, and as such are listified in an article about attacks that took place in an armed conflict, while this article list casualties that are not connected to anything: people killed in crossfire, other unintended victims, etc. Debresser (talk) 03:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC

All of these articles that list casualties, rocket attacks etc etc deal with information about events that are part of the set of all events that make up the Israel-Palestine conflict. The events described in the articles were reported by one or more reliable sources. To say that the events in this particular article are 'not connected to anything' is incorrect. Obviously they are connected to the actions that resulted in these casualties and these actions took place within the context of the Second Intifada and they were reported. This is a subset of reported events in the Israel-Palestine conflict that relate to the Second Intifada. Whether a particular event is worthy of mention in wikipedia depends on the sources not on any editor's personal taxonomies and information weighting schema. It's not an editors place to argue on the basis that a person killed is not notable/not connected to anything but a weapon that lands in a desert/in a city is notable and pertinent just because that is the way they happen to classify information. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:04, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as it's a list of non-notable persons. Armbrust ^Talk _Contribs 02:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - as all or virtually all individuals and incidents on the list are non-notable. I suppose there is an article on the Second Intifada where the content of this list can be appropriately summarized. Демоны Врубеля/Vrubel's Demons (talk) 07:26, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is one of the worst examples of bad faith nominations I've seen. So we can keep List of Israeli civilian casualties in the Second Intifada but not this one? This would be a blatant violation of WP:NPOV, even more so given that the numbers of Palestinian deaths and other casualties are much higher than the Israeli ones. The WP:OTHERSTUFF argument is inapplicable here, since what is really being proposed is a WP:POVFORK, as is obvious from the history of this article explained by Tiamut above. --NSH001 (talk) 09:04, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for assuming good faith. Debresser (talk) 12:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I think this is a valuable resource. Currently when following up events of interest I have been relying on the Journal of Palestine Studies which has an excellent chronolgy. But there are gaps, and they don't name casualties. This is what Wikipedia is good at. Also I find the non-notable arguement problematic.Padres Hana (talk) 15:56, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This AfD nomination was incomplete (missing step 3). It is listed now. DumbBOT (talk) 14:32, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge. Probably best to create List of civilian casualties in the Second Intifada and merge with List of Israeli civilian casualties in the Second Intifada. Should keep all the belligerents happy (not holding my breath). -Quartermaster (talk) 15:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up comment: Nod in favor of User:Tiamut's comments above. Keep both the Israeli and Palestinian lists, or delete both. -Quartermaster (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to argue, as I mentioned before, that there is a difference between a list of rocket attacks and a list of persons who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although I made my deletion proposal without being aware of that other list, in my opinion these are not two parts of one and the same list, and the titles (that suggest otherwise) are misleading. Debresser (talk) 16:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Noted. But if we start parsing articles into the mechanisms by which death is achieved by these unfortunate civilians, seems like one could have all sorts of odd article forks. We're already segregating the articles by religion/nationality/ethnicity, something I find problematic. Keeping it simple in one single list (with accompanying information as needed) would seem to serve the end user best. Sighs. Frankly, we all know that this is a hot potato topic with common sense likely to be the victim of political desire. -Quartermaster (talk) 16:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Believe me that I had no idea what I was starting. But I do have a tendency to defend my position when I feel it is correct. I hope nobody is taking this personal. Debresser (talk) 16:49, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per Armbrust. JBsupreme (talk) 21:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 17:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.