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Massacre

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Massacre is a dictionary word, not an article name.

The article has been created by moving Massacre to Massacre (disambiguation) and copying the lead from List of events named massacres. The evidence from the two AfD's and many archived pages under talk:List of events named massacres that is word is hopelessly open to POV and the agreement from the last two AfDs was that the name List of massacres shoudd be moved to List of events named massacres and since that time massacre has been a disambiguation page.

See

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres, 8 December 2007
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres (2nd nomination) 22 February 2008

So I propose we delete this new page (as it is a copy from the lead in List of events named massacres nothing is lost), move the dab page back, and leave the definition of massacre to wiktionary PBS (talk) 07:45, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The move of "Massacre" was to Massacre (Disambiguation) instead of to Massacre (disambiguation). This has now been cleaned up at 04:03, 18 February 2011 LadyofShalott deleted "Massacre (disambiguation)" (G6: Housekeeping and routine (non-controversial) cleanup) and at 04:45, 18 February 2011 Geniac (moved Massacre (Disambiguation) to Massacre (disambiguation); but the article "Massacre (disambiguation)" that was deleted had a history of 32 edits. So if the new article at massacre is deleted, the content of "Massacre (disambiguation)" should be moved back to "Massacre" and the history of "Massacre (disambiguation)" should then be restored. --PBS (talk)

Comment some text that was added to the text copied from the lead of List of events named massacres was a "See also" section which demonstrates what a POV nightmare this word is, as it demonstrates that the creation of the article has introduced a bias. Who says that a massacre is a "disaster" or a "tragedy (event)" it depends on ones point of view. For example the very first use of the term as mentioned in the OED (its coining in English) was the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, for Protestant Europe it was a "Disaster" and a "Tragedy", but for the supporters of Catholic France it was neither. -- PBS (talk) 11:47, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - The article, as it currently stands, is about the word "massacre" (its meaning, first usage, etc.). It should be deleted per Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. I might change my opinion if it can be shown that the article has a realistic potential be turned into a neutral article about the concept of "a massacre". However, I do not know if there are sources to support such an restructured article. Unfortunately, what I expect will happen to this article is that it will turn into another POV slug fest... as various POV editors attempt to add OR "alternative definitions" in an attempt to justify using the label "massacre" to describe events discussed in other articles. Blueboar (talk) 13:13, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is a stub, not a dictionary entry. It contains information that would not be found in a dictionary. Wikipedia can indeed have encyclopedic-quality articles about words describing they way they are used in society. This article has a lot of potential for expansion too. Also, there are hundreds are pages in different namespaces that link to this one, referring to the concept of a massacre, so deleting it would create a lot of red links in places where currently, there are lots of blue links of the term leading to this meaning. Shaliya waya (talk) 14:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Well he would say that, wouldn't he?" (Mandy Rice-Davies), because you moved the old article history to a new page and created the new article! Deleting this new article It will not create any red links because the dab page you moved will be moved back. BTW There are hundreds of links "in different namespaces" but the vast majority of them are talk page links. There are at the moment only 48 articles linked to the Massacre page, which would have been delt with in the usual way that dab page links are dealt with, but to speed up the process I will run AWB over those so that they link to the wiktionary:massacre article. -- PBS (talk) 21:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In anticipation that this becomes the dab page it was, there are now no article links to Massacre. -- PBS (talk) 23:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Clearly a dictionary item. There is nothing wrong with that but it belongs in Wiktionary not Wikipedia by policy. Note that the article is about the word "massacre" not about incidents when large numbers of people are unjustly killed. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:25, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes and the trouble is that unjustly is in itself a POV perspective. As far a Cromwell and his adherents were concerned killing those in Drogheda were justified (s:Cromwell letter to William Lenthall) this is an ongoing and now nationalistic and also academic argument about 350 years old. The problem we had with list of massacres was that it was too subjective. The solution was to create a List of events named massacres, named in two or more reliable sources. It is still far from perfect, because if someone calls it the slaughter of the innocents or the Dresden holocaust the it does not make the list so the list is very arbitrary if one is looking for a list of massacres. My real concern with this article is that it is the seed for a new POV list of massacres which we know are not possible to create without endless arguments. -- PBS (talk) 21:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. -- Danger (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. -- Danger (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The amount of some of the massacres that have happened, makes it all too tragically necessary for there to be some sort of page here. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:33, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How about articles on each incident, articles on the wars and conflicts in which they were involved, murder, mass murder, civilian deaths in war, state murder, genocide and a few more? Then they will be documented here and discussions about the meaning of the word "massacre" will be avoided. Kitfoxxe (talk) 23:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kitfoxxe, FYI we have civilian casualty ratio. Anthony aside from the dictionary definition, what do you think can be added to this article that is not in List of events named massacres? -- PBS (talk) 23:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~Delete~~ as a dictionary definition, and one that is essentially duplicated on List of events named massacres. I'm not seeing the potential for expansion, but maybe someone could make explicit what potential they see? Cnilep (talk) 01:28, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Colonel Warden has effectively deleted the article I suggested should be deleted. His new article seems appropriate for Wikipedia. Cnilep (talk) 11:22, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep We do not improve a topic of this kind by reaching for the dictionary or the delete button. Nor should we just compile a catalog of examples. The best approach, for our purposes, is to find sources which address the topic in a general, scholarly and analytical way. Such sources exist for this topic and I have started a rewrite, citing two of them: The massacre in history and Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide. We have no dictionary content or sources now and so we should hear no more of WP:DICDEF please. That policy clearly explains that we may have short articles as stubs which we may expand and develop over time. Deletion would be disruptive to this and contrary to our editing policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:32, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But what you put together was a complete synthesise, the three authors are not using the same definition for massacre. And it is likely to remain a sysnthatis without a precise definition for massacre. It is difficult enough with a term like genocide which has a precise definition to write an article that does not have too much synthesis in it, but with massacre there is no agreed definition (as your first citations shows). The first citation does not support that definition it is supposed to support. Jacques Semelin writes that "massacres can be difficult to investigate because they are often done secretly" were Cromwell's massacres done secretly? Was Peterloo a secret massacre? Massacres are done for many reasons and secrecy is not a common factor. I am not sure what the point of the Ronald A. Francisco citation was meant to prove about massacres. --PBS (talk) 11:45, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: The article under discussion here has been flagged for {{rescue}} by the Article Rescue Squadron. SnottyWong ^chat 14:34, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - So many reasons to delete. Firstly, and most obviously, WP:DICDEF. Colonel Warden's additions of irrelevant sentences haven't changed the fact that this article attempts to define what a massacre is, in my opinion. Secondly, this article is a content fork of various articles. I don't believe it's possible to create an article here that includes information that isn't already available at Mass murder, Genocide, List of events named massacres, and so on. The problem is that "massacre" doesn't have a clear definition distinct from "mass murder", they are synonyms. "Massacre" is just a POV term that people apply to an event when they want to describe it in a more emotionally charged way than "mass murder". My suggestion would be to delete this article, move the dab page back here where it was, and add a link to Mass murder and List of events named massacres to it. SnottyWong ^chat 14:34, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with nom, fix the fork. >Radiant< 15:42, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 *<small class="delsort-notice">'''Note''':  The article under discussion here has been flagged for {{tl|rescue}} by the [[WP:Article Rescue Squadron|Article Rescue Squadron]].</small> [[User:Snottywong|<span style="font:13px 'Copperplate Gothic Light';border:#AAAACC 1px inset;background-color:#FEF7E3;color=#648113">Snotty<font color="#648113">Wong</font></span>]]&nbsp;<sup><small>[[User talk:Snottywong|chat]]</small></sup> 14:34, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 *'''Delete''' - So many reasons to delete.  Firstly, and most obviously, [[WP:DICDEF]].  Colonel Warden's additions of irrelevant sentences haven't changed the fact that this article attempts to define what a massacre is, in my opinion.  Secondly, this article is a [[WP:CFORK|content fork]] of various articles.  I don't believe it's possible to create an article here that includes information that isn't already available at [[Mass murder]], [[Genocide]], [[List of events named massacres]], and so on.  The problem is that "massacre" doesn't have a clear definition distinct from "mass murder", they are synonyms.  "Massacre" is just a POV term that people apply to an event when they want to describe it in a more emotionally charged way than "mass murder".  My suggestion would be to delete this article, move the dab page back here where it was, and add a link to [[Mass murder]] and [[List of events named massacres]] to it.  [[User:Snottywong|<span style="font:13px 'Copperplate Gothic Light';border:#AAAACC 1px inset;background-color:#FEF7E3;color=#648113">Snotty<font color="#648113">Wong</font></span>]]&nbsp;<sup><small>[[User talk:Snottywong|chat]]</small></sup> 14:34, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
+*'''Agree with nom''', fix the fork. [[User_talk:Radiant!|<b><font color="#0000DD">&gt;<font color="#0066FF">R<font color="#0099FF">a<font color="#00CCFF">d<font color="#00EEFF">i</font>a</font>n</font>t</font>&lt;</font></b>]] 15:42, 19 February 2011 (UTC)