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This is the talk page of WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation, a bipartisan effort to improve collaboration on and coverage of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

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Archive
List of Archived Pages

/archive - /archive 2 - /archive 3 - /archive 4

General

Sri Lanka articles dispute resolution in effect

As of 23:15, 30 October 2007 (UTC), a number of articles are subject to editing restrictions, following a dispute resolution consensus.
Please see the discussion, and details below.

Here's the list of participants

This is a list of signatories. If you agree with the conditions of the editing restrictions, please enter your name below with the acceptance symbol.

Legend:

  • : acceptance
  • : no-show or inactive
  • : rejection
  • : de-facto rejection (user has been blocked for disruptive behavior related to this conflict)
  • Users marked with a (*) star have been modified or added since the original resolution.
  1. User:Taprobanus - formerly "RaveenS"
  2. User:Lahiru k
  3. User:Netmonger/Mystic/Arsath
  4. User:Watchdogb
  5. User:Sinhala freedom
  6. User:Nitraven
  7. User:Sudharsansn
  8. User:Wiki Raja
  9. User:Supermod*
  10. User:Bodhi dhana*
  11. User:SebastianHelm*
  1. User:Iwazaki
  2. User:Pharaoh of the Wizards
  3. User:Gnanapiti
  4. User:Sarvagnya
  5. User:Lanka07
  6. User:Rajkumar_Kanagasingam
  7. User:Firewater101 (AKA User:Sharz (see )
  1. User:Snowolfd4 *

Progress

As of now, 6 of 11 issues have been resolved - more than half! Good work, everybody! I archived the resolved issues into /archive 4. — Sebastian 05:18, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Update: 9 of 12. — Sebastian 05:53, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Update: 11 of 13. Good news - resolutions are moving faster than new issues! — Sebastian 07:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Update: 10 of 13. One issue got reopened - I jinxed it! ;-) — Sebastian 01:57, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Update: 11 of 14. 03:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Issues

Ranil Wickremesinghe's Statement on state terror

I had stayed out of this article, but now that even the main opposition claim Sri Lanka is practicing state terror, I think its controversial to keep the tag. The article was tagged a while back and no effort was made to justify that. Therefore I am removing it and adding RW quote on the subject. Ranil Wickremasinghe is the head of the opposition in the Sri Lankan parliament. Lahiru_k removed this section

Here is lahiru_k's response to this:

"Undid revision 173130084 by Sinhala freedom (talk) nice. did the opposition party told you that this article is NPOV"

"rm section. www.lankaenews.com is the official news site of the Free Media Movement, which is a known biased source when commenting on government."

Where is it said that www.lankaenews is the official site of the Free Media Movement ? Where is mentioned that FMM is a biased source ? I am deeply concerned, unsupported statements like these are being used to censor articles. Sinhala freedom (talk) 17:29, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Sinhala freedom did have a ref for this. Does someone have a ref for the opposing view? — Rlevse • Talk • 18:07, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Apparently nobody does, so can we regard this as resolved? — Sebastian 03:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Image:LTTE child soldier.jpg

The above-named image - Image:LTTE child soldier.jpg - is labelled on its description page as being a picture of an LTTE child soldier, and is used in the article on Military use of children in Sri Lanka to illustrate the use of child soldiers by the LTTE. Whilst the LTTE has indeed used child soldiers - and very possibly still does - according to this piece in the Sri Lankan newspaper "The Nation on Sunday", the girl in this particular picture is actually not a child soldier, but the daughter of the person being buried, dressed up in military fatigues for the funeral. As such, it seems to me that its present use may be somewhat misleading.

I'm bringing this here because the article says it's subject to editing restrictions, and I'm not sure where else to take it - apologies if it's in the wrong place. -- Arvind (talk) 14:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This is true regardless if the Nation on Sunday is right. As long as we have no reliable source saying that this is proof for child soldiers being used, we can't WP:SYNTHesise such a statement from this one picture. Moreover, the picture is probably not fair use, but I'm not a copyright specialist. — Sebastian 01:09, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
In terms of copyright, the image may fail non-free content criteria #1, which states:

Non-free content is used only where no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose.

In theory, a free photo of an LTTE child soldier, and one in which the subject is more prominent displayed in the photo, could be produced. Of course, there is also the fact that an attempt to take an image of an LTTE child soldier could endanger the life of the photographer, which strengthens the fair use claim (if the image is to be kept, that should probably be added, as the current wording of the fair use rationale seems insufficient).
In addition to copyright and original research concerns (I won't comment on the latter as I can't access the source that claims that the image depicts a child soldier), we should also consider conformance to the BLP policy. The image depicts a living person, and the label "child soldier" should be applied only if it can be reliably sourced.
At the moment, given the information presented so far, I am leaning toward deletion of the image, possibly with the option to re-upload (under a different name, per WP:BLP) for use in the article S. P. Thamilselvan, to illustrate Thamilselvan's funeral. (Caveat: Unless more content is added to the section in that article currently titled "Death", use of the image in that article could be considered to serve a decorative purpose only, in violation of WP:NFCC #8). – Black Falcon 21:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

How do we know whether this girl is a child soldier or just dressed as a soldier? Is there proof either way? Does it say this in the original newspaper article? Until we know, it should be removed from the wiki article and it could very well indeed fail FU rationale. The article on the person in the coffin is a better place, with no mention of the girl being a soldier. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:13, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Per Rlevse, the picture will be removed from the article. Sinhala freedom (talk) 17:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I have tagged the image for deletion per CSD I5 (orphaned non-free image) and CSD I7 (invalid non-free use rationale). Although a possibly valid non-free use rationale could be written for use of the image in the article S. P. Thamilselvan, the image would need to be re-uploaded under a different title (a "move" function does not exist for images). Tagging might seem overly cautious in light of the fact that this discussion effectively justifies an immediate deletion, I want to make sure that Lahiru k is aware of this discussion. – Black Falcon 06:23, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Reply to Rlevse,
1. LTTE is widely notorious for using child soldiers, so there is no need to hesitate reagrding that matter.
2. Yes, this picture made a great fuss in Sri Lankan community (news papers and web sites including blogs) just after it was first published in http://www.sankathi.com. As I heard few hours later they removed the child from the picture after they realised the fatal mistake done by them. Then afterwards they re-uploaded the picture and it was available when I discussed the matter on my talkpage with Taprobanus and now it is deleted from the sankathi.com. However Daily Mirror still have the sankathi.com's modified picture and it clearly shows the child's shoulder.
3. Actually it was mentioned in lots of published sources such as these web sites as I said above.
Summary,
  • LTTE is widely notorious for using child soldiers.
  • sankathi.com accepts that they have done a fatal mistake by uploading the picture with out removing the kid, hence they accept the kid as a child soldier.
  • If she is the daughter of the deceased person, her mom must have got wire crossed with a fancy dress parade and her husband's funeral to dress her up in the LTTE uniform.
Reply to Black Falcon,
1. I agree to re-upload the image with a different file name.
2. Actually this image does not violate WP:NFCC#1 because there is no free or equivalent media available in the cyberspace at this moment. I tried to find such a thing but failed to do so. Hence I moved to The Island's e-paper. If you are interested I will try to find a copy from a hard copy.
3. Also you made a point as this image could be a fake one. I don't like to accept your point at once because that argument was widely raised by many Lankan reliable published sources like The Sunday Island and Daily Mirror excluding the blogs. Also as I said above Daily Mirror still have the sankathi.com's modified picture and it clearly shows the child's shoulder.
4. I choose {{Non-free newspaper image}} as my FU rationale because I took The Island as my source. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ 17:33, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I am really surprised you are an avid reader of the pro-LTTE sankathi.com :P. The claim of fatal mistake for cropping the image may well have been a privacy issue. Unless if you can provide some reliable source to indicate this, then your claim is an obvious case of original research. Also you can't just takes images from newspapers and claim the need for fair use, when the images are copyrighted. Just because lankanewspapers or other sri lankan blogs does it, doesn't mean we are also allowed to break copyright.
If the child is holding a combat weapon, then I think thats a solid case to claim child soldier. The problem is that there are parents and relatives who do dress up there kids in GI Joe uniforms or costumes and so wearing camo alone doesn't mean much (consider ROTC, cadets) ? Are we going to claim they are child soldiers as well ? So I think this tangential extrapolation and original research abound.Sinhala freedom (talk) 19:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Reply to Lahiru k
The current wording of WP:NFCC#1 requires not only the current absence of a free equivalent, but also that a free equivalent could not be (reasonably) created. This is a matter of substantial dispute, but the current wording seems to reflect the prevailing consensus. It's technically possible to take a free image of a LTTE child soldier; the question is whether it's reasonable to expect that a free image could be created, since attempting to photograph a child soldier could be a risky endeavour. This, combined with the sourcing issue (see below), suggests that this photo may not be a good choice to illustrate the subject of child soldiers in Sri Lanka.
Use of the image (or the cropped version here) to illustrate Thamilselvan's funeral would be more defensible per fair use, as the event (the funeral) is not reproducible. Of course, WP:NFCC#8 also requires that the image not serve a purely decorative purpose, and that it illustrate information or ideas in the text of the article S. P. Thamilselvan.
As for your third point, I'm not questioning the authenticity of the image, but only suggesting that the label "child soldier" must be reliably sourced (per WP:NOR / WP:V and WP:BLP). The mere fact that the child is wearing guerilla fatigues is not proof that she's a child soldier; the choice of dress may be a symbolic act. – Black Falcon 20:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I really think this looks resolved, but since I already made a wrong call on this before, I need to be sure. Any objections to considering this resolved? — Sebastian 03:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

2006 Mannar massacre

An entire section properly sighted has been removed twice now. Further the anti-vandalism tool is misused by the user who has a history of uncivil behaviour and has been blocked number of times as well as being warned number of times by admins. The section in question is Photo controversy. The user in question is User:Snowolfd4He has misused the anti-vandalism tool number of times over the last one year and has been warned at least one before not to misuse it. I can provide the diffs if requested by any admins. Resolution I am looking for from SLR is

Snowolfd4 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been warned not to do it again. Next time any admin can take away the tool right away. — Sebastian 03:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
My thoughts on the issue are as follows:
  • 1. Given the sources currently used in the section, I do not feel that it should exist. Although titled "Photo controversy", the section is primarily about the state of the victims; however, these details are already stated in the second paragraph of the Incident section. Also, although the massacre seems to have sparked general outrage, or at least expressions of such, I could find little to indicate that the publication of the photos was itself a source of controversy. If the act of publication was not itself a source of controversy, then perhaps it would suffice to note that graphic photos of the victims were published by TamilNet and republished in other media (the Reactions section seems most suited, at the moment, to contain such information).
  • 2. Even though I essentially agree with the removal of the section, I think the use of the term "vandalism" in the automated summary was inappropriate and unnecessarily inflammatory. I don't use automated anti-vandalism tools, so I don't know how easy or difficult it is to use a different summary, but I do know that it's possible. At minimum, the "undo" button in the "Revision history" page can give a more neutral edit summary. As a general rule, I'd say it's advisable to avoid the words "vandalise" and "vandalism" to describe actions taken as part of a content dispute (this applies equally both to the characterisation of the section's removal and of its restoration), and urge editors involved with Sri Lankan conflict-related articles to remember that the label of "vandalism" is appropriate only in the presence of intent to compromise the quality of an article (see WP:VAND), and thus to avoid using them to describe content disputes. – Black Falcon 03:14, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Minor note: There were more changes in 2006 Mannar massacre (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) than what Taprobanus reverted. — Sebastian 03:25, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Snowolfd4 has not yet violated our 1RR as the photo section cuts were 2 days apart. However, they were not "poison" nor "vandalism" as his edit summaries claim. They have valid citations. Hence, this is disruptive behavior, incivil, inaccurate and edit warring. A warning has already been issued to Snowolfd4. However, any further such actions by him on this article or any other edit restricted Sri Lanka article should draw a block of at least 72 hours, as that was the length of his last block. I also agree with Black Falcon that this paragraph is redundant and ask BF to merge it into the second paragraph of the incident section, merging anything not already mentioned and the refs. I'm advising Snowolfd4 to read this thread. 03:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and merge the non-redundant parts of the section and will post a note here once I've finished. In the spirit of WP:NOT#NEWS, I'll give preference to wording that describes what was done (e.g. "tortured", "beaten") over wording that describes the state of the bodies as depicted in the photographs (e.g. "intestines ... are seen protruding"). – Black Falcon 05:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
The section is merged, so unless there are substantial objections, I think that we can consider this particular issue resolved. As a side note, I discovered that the article had copyright problems (specifically, numerous unattributed quotes from sources) and so performed a series of modifications in addition to merging the "Photo controversy" section (see diff). Since my main focus during the course of these edits was to quickly bring the article in line with Misplaced Pages:Non-free content#Acceptable use of text and Misplaced Pages:Non-free content#Unacceptable text, I fairly liberally removed significant portions of unattributed text. I will re-review (for coherence, grammar, neutrality, proper attribution, and so on) the article and my edits in about 12 hours (after I've had an opportunity to rest) and will also attempt to expand it again at that time, using sources currently provided in the article and others that I can find online.
I will post an updated diff here once I have finished. – Black Falcon 07:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Black Falcon--excellent job. Exactly what we working toward, neutral, sourced and well formed and written articles. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:08, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Gracias team, Misplaced Pages should follow SLR model to resolve all its problems, really how do we get others to understand what is going on here ? Taprobanus (talk) 17:54, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is the updated diff I had promised. I also ask interested editors to take a look at Talk:2006 Mannar massacre#Proposed pagemove to Vankalai massacre (or, we can move the discussion here ...). – Black Falcon 01:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Category:War crimes in Sri Lanka

Category:War crimes in Sri Lanka - Template:Lc1
 I think we ought to consider the need and appropriateness of this category in the context of the Sri Lankan conflict.

The term "war crime" has a particular and complex definition, and its application to particular incidents or people is usually highly controversial. Its definition is not the same as "atrocity". When it comes to articles about incidents in the Sri Lankan conflict, this type of categorisation is too problematic to justify, in my opinion.

Let's look at the first three articles in the category:

Though a sample of three articles is small, these three are representative of the type of incident that currently appears in the category. In virtually all cases, the identity of the attackers and/or victims is disputed; sometimes the very existence of a human rights violation is disputed. I am not aware of any case where an independent inquiry concluded that any of these incidents constitute war crimes. Thus, for all of these reasons, I think that the classification of articles into this category necessarily requires original research on the part of editors.

Also: 30 of the 31 articles in this category also appear in Category:Civilian massacres in Sri Lanka, so Misplaced Pages:Overcategorization#Mostly-overlapping categories is applicable.

Although the above text could be used for a CFD nomination, I felt it would be best to raise the issue here first. If there is consensus to disband the category, a CFD nomination may even be unnecessary. – Black Falcon 18:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd say get rid of both cats and put all applicable articles in Category:Atrocities in Sri Lanka. — Rlevse • Talk • 18:26, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Though the technical/academic definition of "atrocity" is tied to the political or ethnical motivations for a civilian massacre and Category:Atrocities in Sri Lanka is much more accurate than Category:War crimes in Sri Lanka, I worry that there may be confusion with the more common usage of the term "atrocity" to describe any incident that is (subjectively) deemed to be horrible. Also, Category:Civilian massacres in Sri Lanka fits into the Category:Massacres by country scheme. – Black Falcon 18:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
In wikipedia there is still an open discussion at to what should be in a category called War crimes. One is that if someone callas an act a Warcrime (from an RS source) then it should be categorized as such. The other is that only those that are prnounced as a warcrime in an international court should be in the category. This is not settled yet. I am of the view that the category should include those acts which are described as a war crime. In that respect, I will leave the category alone and remove any act that has no description of wracrime from an RS source Taprobanus 16:11, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
There is a fairly well-established precedent at Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion against "alleged" categories such as "Incidents alleged to be war crimes". Also, what if RSs disagree about whether an act is a war crime (not an uncommon occurrence, given how controversial the label really is)? Categories are not capable of reflecting such case-specific details. ... Still, I'd be interested to know what would remain of the category once that standard (allegation by at least one RS) is applied; none of the articles I've looked at mention the term "war crime". – Black Falcon 18:40, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Jaffna Kingdom article conflict

It is just starting apparently it is over a source . Please see here. It is clear indication of mirepresenting WP:RS and WP:OR. The book in case is a Phd thesis from University of Sydney in Australia that was published in 1999. It is

The book is available in all major libraries in the world and is verfiable. Just because a bunch of people dont know who the author it cannot become non reliable. Thanks Taprobanus 06:00, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Further to this, I have updated it like this
The details of the origins of this kingdom are obscure and still the subject of controversy. There is a school of thought which believes that there was an independant kingdom in Uttaradesa or the northern part of Sri Lanka during the classical Sinhalese kingdom period.This is hotly contested by various Sri Lankan authors.What most mainstream historians agree about the history of what eventually became the Kingdom of Aryacakravarti began with the devastating invasion of an previously unknown Chieftain called Magha (1215 - 55), from Kalinga in India. The article still has the OR tag ? Taprobanus 04:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

List of terrorist attacks attributed to the LTTE

Resolved

This article's title is of concern. The whole article is about attacks that are attributed to LTTE. However, there is no reliable source that claims that all (or most) of these attacks are Terrorist attacks. This is in direct violation of wikipedia rules and the naming convention. Furthermore, some of these citations claim that the Sri Lankan Military/ Sri Lankan Defence ministry or the Sri Lankan Police accuse the LTTE. As only one side of the story (or suspicion) is given this article also violates WP:NPOV. I have tried , in the past, to explicitly attribute some allegations of a POV party but that has just ended up in edit wars. Last, this article also violates POV fork. To take care of these problems I agree with User:Black Falcon and think that this article should be merged. I feel that this article should be merged to Human rights in Sri Lanka with Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka also being merged into it. Please comment on this situation. Thanks Watchdogb 07:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Note:This is an archived discussion regarding this issue. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ 14:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Black Falcon

I propose that the contents of this article be merged to List of notable attacks attributed to the LTTE for the following reasons:

First, per Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, "encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality". For instance, an "article might cover the same material but with less emotive words". The word 'terrorist' is undoubtedly emotive and moreso than terms such as 'separatist', 'rebel', 'insurgent', and so on.

Second, the adjective "terrorist" has no clear definition. I personally do not dispute that the Aranthalawa Massacre, for instance, is a terrorist act; however, we should not label these acts as 'terrorist' in the article without a reliable source to support that contention (even then, it would technically be a "list of attacks attributed to the LTTE and described as terrorist"). Otherwise, we delve into original research.

Third, this article and the article List of notable attacks attributed to the LTTE currently make a distinction between attacks on civilians and "military and guerrilla style attacks". However, it's not always easy to distinguish between the two. For instance, the 28 May 2007 Rathmalana attack was carried out against a military target (a truck carrying STF personnel) but killed civilians. Merging the two lists would eliminate the need to try to make this distinction.

Any thoughts? – Black Falcon 20:23, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Rlevse

Black Falcon has stated things well, but let me point out a few things. List of notable attacks attributed to the LTTE currently redirects to List of military attacks attributed to the LTTE. In addition, per the WP:MOS lists should not have "notable" in them. The reason is that by definition the events must meet notability or not be included in a wiki list. I agree that terrorist is POV. In these types of conflicts, who is or isn't a terrorist depends on what side of the conflict you are on. For example, if Americans lost the War of Independence, imagine how different the history books would view those who fought it. I basically agree with Black Falcon except I think the new title should be List of attacks attributed to the LTTE. If we use Watchdogb's merge plan, the final article will be huge. So I propose that Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka have a summary paragraph of each additional article on this topic with a {{main}} link to it. This is standard procedure on wiki when a topic is big enough to warrant its own article. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

So you propose a name change ? That sounds like a solution. Also how do you feel about explicit attribute to POV statements ? Many RS say things like The Sri Lankan Military/The defence ministry blame the tigers for this attack. As a part of the warring party it is POV to just say LTTE did ]. In accordance with wikipedia rules can I add the explicit attribution to allegations made by a POV party ? Watchdogb 14:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
A POV should have a reliable source ref, as should any controversial statement. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
The statement have RS but the RS state that the Sri Lankan Military is the ones who blame the Tigers. So I think we should have explicit attribute such as X suspect y in this case. What do you think ? Watchdogb 14:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Please read the article's title properly (attributed part is there). So there is no need to state as X suspect LTTE. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ 14:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, yes it does. Attributed by who ? Unless you want to rename the article to Attributed, by the Sri Lankan Military, terrorist attacks by the LTTE. Just because something says attributed it does not mean that you can have only one side of the story. Attributed is ambitious because no one knows who it is attributed by. We need to stick to wikipedia rules and explicitly attribute to who claims what (if the people who are making the claim is a POV party- as it the case). Watchdogb 15:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
You have to read this one. See, most of the incidents in this list were reported by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, not by the SLGOV. Also we do not need to carry all the info on the article title. Attributed means somebody have attributed the incident to the LTTE. If our readers wants to know who did this accusation, they will find it by following the reference. We have given neutral citations which are accusing the LTTE or says X accused. If you wish to have the other side of the story then you can find and hang refs saying LTTE denied the involvement. We are Wikipedians, not investigation officers. If someone is accused, then we do the reporting. If someone says that LTTE has no involvement, we will remove those. But since someone is being accused we can't simply remove those. If you don't like the article, then you have to change it's title first. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ 15:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I did not want attribute to the UNHCR or any other HR organizations and RS. I only want explicit attribution to the citation that themselves have explicit attributions. This is in accord to say what the RS says and not to violate wikipedia rules. Watchdogb 16:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I recommend you to read the article again. There is no violation of Misplaced Pages policies here and nor X and Y confusions. The sources explicitly state the accusations are attributed to LTTE. Please go through the sources to find out who the X and Y are (We have properly attributed the suspected party in the article). References are there to refer. We cannot put the complete content of the references inside an article. That's the procedure. Thanks --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ 16:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I recommend you to read what I wrote. When Sri Lankan Military claims something, then we should explicitly attribute them. This is because they are part of the warring party and therefore only represent one side of the story. This is why even the RS citations given claim that "X blames Y". We should also do so for 2 reasons. 1) To stick to NPOV and 2) keeping our claims with only what the RS says and not violate WP:SYNTHWatchdogb 16:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
This is what I mean by explicit attribution. Watchdogb 16:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Rlevse, I agree with you about the title being List of attacks attributed to the LTTE, without use of the self-referential term "notable". I'm not entirely clear on what Watchdogb's merge plan entials (out of 4 articles, do we end up with two or one?), and I should note that a previous proposal made by me to merge Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka into Human rights in Sri Lanka essentially stalled after a few days of discussion. Anyway, I am ready/willing to perform the merge (a straightforward merge of List of terrorist attacks attributed to the LTTE and List of military attacks attributed to the LTTE to List of attacks attributed to the LTTE, without adding or removing any content or sources) if the discussion so far is deemed adequate and there is no significant opposition to it. – Black Falcon 21:05, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Lahiru_k

In my opinion this list should not be merged with the list of notable attacks because, we were careful in choosing the incidents to the list that go with the definitions of the terrorism. Simply, we took only the incidents with the civilian causalities. By going through the list anyone will notice that in all the incidents with security forces causalities, there is at least a single civilian causality. In other sides this list is the most comprehensive and the well referenced list regarding the attacks of LTTE which is an invaluable source for terrorism and other researchers in the whole world. We all used all the NPOV sources with LTTE attacks(lists), available in the cyberspace and even from 2007 we started to use 3-5 neutral sources to each incident. As we all know, more than 1000 civilian causalities and series of bomb attacks attributed to the LTTE reported within this year, but we chose the most notable incidents only. Thanks --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ 14:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

You seem not to get the point. This is wikipedia and as editors we cannot say what is Terrorist attack and what is not. We need citation to make such exceptional claim (Terrorist attack). It does not matter how many sources have been used for the claim (to verify an attack) but unless the sources say that this is a Terrorist attack we cannot claim that this is a terrorist attack. Some of the claim are directly from the Sri Lankan Defence ministry or the Sri Lankan Military. This is a simple case of POV and either they should be explicitly attributed, as done in the actual citations, or they need to be take off entirely until a RS claims that LTTE is the ones who are responsible. Watchdogb 15:29, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Watchdog here, we need to be clear and everything per WP:REDFLAG has to be properly cited or removed. Thanks Taprobanus 21:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Although the article is well-sourced, the problem is that there is no single, accepted definition of terrorism (the article Definitions of terrorism lists many). Some definitions focus on the method of attack, some on the identity of the attacker, some on the identify of the target, some on the intent of the attacker, and some on a combination of these and other factors. Simply limiting the list to incidents that caused civilian casualties is not enough since: (1) an incident may cause civilian casualties and not be generally considered a terrorist attack (e.g. "collateral damage"), and (2) an incident that is generally considered a terrorist attack may not cause any civilian casualties (e.g. attacks against infrastructure).
The sources provided in the article mostly verify that the incident happened, and attribute the incident to the LTTE, but there are still two problems. First, not all sources explicitly apply the label "terrorist" to these attacks. Second, even if all sources did do this, the list would still be a "List of attacks attributed to the LTTE and described as terrorist" rather than an actual "List of terrorist attacks attributed to the LTTE".
Finally, while the list may be among the most comprehensive and well-referenced of its kind, merging it will not change that, as virtually all content will be preserved. – Black Falcon 20:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Sinhala_freedom

Merger of attacks of one sort or another and human rights can't be done since its incompatible. I am not so sure its the same subject. One is about rights, the other would be considered acts of war. So I would oppose attempts at merger, till better justifications are given. Sinhala freedom 16:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Haemo

Calling things "terrorist" attacks is hard; I edit 9/11, and it's contentious even there. The best thing to do is to either source everything, completely, or change the name to something less divisive. "Terrorist" is a word to avoid in general, but it can be used accurately, however, the previous comments make a good point about the blurry distinction between civilian and military targets. You might be able to write a better article about the two subjects combined. --Haemo 20:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Settle this

Time to settle this, vote what you think should happen here, with no more than one line of comment. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

This appears settled. Who is going to implement the merge? — Sebastian 03:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Snowolfd4

Funny, I'm the user who has edited the article the most, and I didn't even know that such a discussion was going on. Just so that editors know, decisions such as deleting/merging articles cannot be taken on a Wikiproject where users are "banned" from contributing, and where other users votes are not welcome. There has already been a number of AFDs and extensive move/merge requests related to this article, and you can't bypass all those discussions and have users from one side of the argument decide what to do with an article. If someone wants to rename/merge/delete the article, I suggest it be brought up on the article TALK PAGE (which hasn't even been notified that such a discussion is ongoing), WP:AFD or WP:RM. --snowolfD4 04:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Snowolf, please! Who are you trying to fool?
  1. You know very well that the box below is on the articles.
  2. You know very well that, as part of the agreement, discussions are to be held on this page.
  3. You have been involved in the discussions on this page since the agreement is in place.
  4. And nobody ever banned you from participating here. To the contrary - you have been blocked for revert warring while not participating here. — Sebastian 05:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Excuse me,but could you please scroll up and see whats written after snowolfs name here ? Doesnt is explicitly says, hes been banned from editing for disruptive behaviour??!! So how do expect him to engage in any discussion here, when such insult remain in-front of his name, even now ?? And, regardless of the box, you should at least try to inform editors who are involved in the article. Especially, when you are trying to merge these kind of article. for which I strongly oppose. Most of the issues raised by black falcon and others have been already answered at the talk page, and I found nothing news to add to the relevant talk page. There is a general consensus about using the word ,terrorist and I see absolutely no problem having that in the title,because every single incident can be attributed(like the bombing near my home town ,yesterday killing many innocent civilians) as terrorist incidents. I just went through the discussion here ,and found absolutely nothing new about it. most of them was raised and have been answered already at the talk page, even the reason to have 2 separate articles. So I am against any move to remove word, terrorist from the article. To add to this, I am finding it actually extremely amusing about this whole move, esp when we have more worse titles ,such as non-existing extremely bias/false/ridiculed article, state terrorism sri lanka. Sri Lankan is a democratic country, and had many states, so even to keep article in this title, is like calling Germany a terrorist state but giving conditions under Nazis! If you guys make any new points, I would more than happy to reply, but judging from whats written here, its the same old story and do not even slightly justify the action to merge the article.ThanksIwazaki 15:10, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Regardless of what his comment does or does not explicitly state, he was not banned from editing, nor was he banned from this page; he was temporarily blocked for removing dispute resolution tags. Also, your claim as to the discussion on the talk page is inaccurate, as no response was given to any comment made after 18:00 UTC on 12 October. Moreover, pointing out the existence of other problematic articles and questioning my motives for not addressing them first – especially after I had previously stated my support for merging/disbanding the "Allegations of ..." article – does not in any way address the problems of the lists under discussion. If you oppose the merge, then please address the reasons why it was proposed in the first place, keeping in mind that the title of this list is not List of attacks attributed to the LTTE and described as terrorist. – Black Falcon 18:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
He was blocked ages ago, and the reason to keep reminding everyone about this block by having its written in front of name is absolutely useless and only prevent people with any dignity from joining this forum. If I were him, I would never ever join this, because simply I believe whats written is insulting and damaging.
The reason for not making comments at the talk page is described already. I didnt see any new points other than the ones already been addressed. I don't know whether I' missed any new ones, but from what I read I thought issues have already been addressed.
There are policies in wikipedia about the sizes of articles. And we all know articles shouldn't be too long.And if it's very long must be broken up. And we also know, LTTE never stop killing, never stop suicide bombings, never stop political assassinations. So, its practically impossible to have one article to cover all these things. Actually initially we had only one article, and even this was extracted from the main LTTE article(to my knowledge ,sorry if am mistaken here). SO there is absolutely no need to go back to ONE single article.Esp, considering the amount of killing carried out by the LTTE, one article will eat up a huge wiki space and I am sure it will not look good.
Most of these incidents, have in fact described as terrorist incidents. LTTE is a terrorist organization and when they cold bloodedly massacre people, just like they did at Anuradhapura few days ago, its a terrorist act. Expert of terrorist activities, Mr Rohan GUnaratne has explained in his books, most of the earlier massacres of LTTE and has called them terrorist activities. I don't mind taking civilian massacres, and naming it List civilians massacres carried out by the LTTE. Picking up their suicide bombings and making, List of suicide bombings carried out by LTTE, etc. But to put all these things to the article you stated , make no sense to me.
If you insisting changing name, why don't we have several articles, covering LTTE's civilian massacres, Suicide bombings etc. Since they have carried out countless number of those acts, I am sure we can have few nice articles on these.
I reiterate putting everything into one article would only make it unnecessarily large and would lose its scholarly value.Thanks Iwazaki 15:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
As I understand it, you're referring to the section on this page titled #Here's the list of participants. Well, that would be changed the moment he discontinues his rejection of this dispute resolution process.
As I stated above, pointing out another problematic article does not in any way address the issues that had been raised.
Guidelines about article size do not trump policies regarding original research and neutral point of view. Additionally, the list can be split in ways that doesn't raise OR and NPOV problems, such as by decade or by type of attack (as you suggest). Also, you wrote that "Most of these incidents, have in fact described as terrorist incidents", so I want to point out once again that the title of the list is not List of attacks attributed to the LTTE and described as terrorist incidents.
I think the idea of creating separate lists by type of attack (e.g. List of civilian massacres attribued to the LTTE and List of suicide bombings attributed to the LTTE) definitely deserves consideration, but it's something that can be discussed and done after the merge has been performed (in fact, it will probably be easier to do when the information is all in one place).
On the whole, I think your worries about article length are a bit excessive. List of terrorist attacks attributed to the LTTE is a 67 KB list and List of military attacks attributed to the LTTE is 18 KB long. The combined article length would be about 80 KB (after redundant parts, such as the introductions, are trimmed), which is long, but is not too great an increase over the current length. – Black Falcon 19:15, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply.There are certain facts that you have ignored in your reply.And there are certain things I am not quite getting from your reply too.Could you please tell me(sorry if you have already), why do you find the word Terrorist unnecessary?? By merging we are losing this term, which I think is the best word fit for this article.
About the size, 80 KB is still big. But more importantly judging the way LTTE behaving the article, if merged would soon cross 100KB mark. And please be noted, that many suicide bombings/massacres/political-civilian killings are not in the article and in the future we might see people coming and adding those missing things.SO, here we are expecting an article of 120 KB in size, and even this is a less approximation.From what I have read from wikipedian policies on article size, I am not sure whether article of this size is tolerable.
You have agreed with the splitting this to more sections, then how about doing it before the merge. Because the merge would only unnecessary expand the article and would definitely make bit difficult to split. While, in the present article we do cover most of the civilian massacres and isn't it easy to put them to a one, as I mentioned in my previous reply ?
And Why would you think the term, attributed is better ? When we have evidences and non-denials ,which proves beyond doubt that these were carried out by the LTTE? Could you please name one civilian massacre in the article, which you think LTTE was not involved?? To my knowledge LTTE is proud of these killings and have not even bothered to deny its involvement.
I won't be able to reply you for few days. I ll be back on friday with my reply. till then, cheersIwazaki 15:11, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
The word "terrorist" is unnecessary and inappropriate because there is no clear definition for it. I personally consider most of the incidents on the list to be terrorist acts, but I'm using a personal definition which others may not share. We should not label these acts as 'terrorist' in the article without a reliable source to support that contention (even then, it would technically be a "list of attacks attributed to the LTTE and described as terrorist"). Otherwise, we delve into original research.
You're right that the size of the list will grow; however, as noted, it can be split on less problemtic lines (such as by decade or by type of attack). More importantly at this point, guidelines on article size are subordinate to policies on neutrality and original research.
So why not split right now? The short answer is that there's been little discussion about splitting, and there is therefore no consensus for it. We can discuss splitting after the information is consolidated into one place: it's always easier to split one article than to simultaneously split and merge two.
The use of "attributed" is necessary because the participation of the LTTE has not been proven in most cases. Yes, the LTTE hasn't denied involvement, but it also hasn't accepted responsibility. Yes, the GOSL has blamed the LTTE, but they're a biased source on these matteres. Although I personally believe that most or all of the incidents in the article were carried out by the LTTE, our personal opinions as editors should not be reflected in the article. Cheers, Black Falcon 18:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
I want to add three technical points, in addition to those noted by Sebastian:
  1. AFD requests resulting in "no consensus" and/or "keep" do not preclude merging if a consensus to do so develops at some time in the future. Also, although AFDs can and do often result in "merge" outcomes, AFD is not the appropriate venue to propose that articles or lists be merged. The first sentence of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion states: "Articles for deletion (AfD) is where Wikipedians discuss whether an article should be deleted."
  2. WP:RM is oriented toward pagemoves, so it too isn't the best venue to discuss merging.
  3. Although no notification was posted to Talk:List of terrorist attacks attributed to the LTTE regarding the initiation of this particular discussion, it's important to keep in mind that the original discussion at the talk page was never resolved. Specifically, no response was offered for comments/arguments presented after 18:45 UTC on 12 October. Also, as Sebastian notes above, it's not unreasonable to assume that all editors involved with the article were and are aware of the ongoing dispute resolution. – Black Falcon 07:43, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Excellent points by Sebastian and Black Falcon. Totally agree. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

And most of his points have already been addressed at the talk page, from reason to have 2 separate articles to the use of word , terrorist. Sorry, I dont see any god valid reason for the merge and as long as I don't see them, honestly i can never support this move. And I think its erroneous even to think, there is a consensus among editors, when we have editors who have actually contribute a lot for this ,remain oppose to this move. And also, why do we have to keep that wording in-front of snowlfs name? You blocked them for 72 Hrs, and thats it. Do you have to keep telling every one loud and clear like this, esp in the place where you expect us to engage in meaningful discussions?Iwazaki 15:10, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Iwazaki, it seems that you do not understand wikipedia rules. To make a claim of "Terrorist attack by x" needs citation in the article. To name an article "Terrorist attack attributed to x" needs not only have a RS citation for EACH attack (calling it terrorist attack) but the name is in direct violation of the wikipedia naming, which requires article name to be NPOV (and the article too :) ). Watchdogb (talk) 03:00, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Also remember that it is better, in situations like SLC articles, to have neutral editors to voice opinion. Please explain why you think that page merge is not good. Please point to wikipedia rules and also please answer my concerns above. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 03:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Also when majority of the people are of the opinion to merge and most of them are neutral how can few filibuster it. Are they going to keep reverting it ? Just curious? Thanks Taprobanus 23:10, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
No, this is resolved. The detractors chose not to sign the agreement, therefore they chose not to have a right to vote. I could say more, but I'm too tired now. — Sebastian 09:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Excuse me, this is far from over.I don't think you can force anyone to join a certain group, I chose not to join and that is my freedom. But If you read my posts I have shown both here and at the article's talk page why this merger fails in many areas and why should we avoid this.I am sorry to say this, I see only 5 votes for merger, and 3 of it can be easily ignored, due to their extremely pro-LTTE behaviour, and having experienced their edits, I would say they would anything to cover up LTTE activities. And other than black_falcon none has given any reason for name change.And as you can see here, I am showing him why he is wrong in this occasion. Thank you Iwazaki 15:11, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Iwazaki says I see only 5 votes for merger, and 3 of it can be easily ignored, due to their extremely pro-LTTE behaviour, which is a direct attack on my intergrity personally. He has a habbit of following my edits, has been blocked twice for calling me a racist and now he says my vote should be ignored (that is I am a no body) because I am a pro terrorist organization. I have never ever said I support LTTE and this repeated violation of WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL has to be taken care of. Thanks Taprobanus 16:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

1RR violation

Resolved

Watchdogb (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has violated one revert rule restrictions imposed by the above proposals on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article, which is subject to editing restrictions.

User knows about the restrictions, yet continued to edit war on the article.--snowolfD4 03:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

That is indeed a violation of our 1RR agreement. Watchdogb is blocked for 72 hours. 03:21, 1 December 2007 (UTC) forgot to sign.... — Rlevse • Talk • 11:42, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, indeed. I agree with the block. — Sebastian 09:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
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  3. Kunarasa, K The Jaffna Dynasty, p.1-53
  4. "The so called Tamil Kingdom of Jaffna" (html). S.Ranwella. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
  5. Cite error: The named reference DS91 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. Nadarajan , V History of Ceylon Tamils, p.72
  7. Indrapala, K Early Tamil Settlements in Ceylon, p.16