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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.
Everybody is invited to participate in discussions here or to add a new topic. Members can moderate the discussion and delete any off-topic conversation; in particular personal attacks will be deleted. If you have a complaint about a user, please try to resolve it on their talk page first. For any complaints, please always be specific and provide links. To become a member, please apply in the Members and applications section.
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Category:Mass murder of Sri Lankan Tamils
 Stale.I have created the category Mass murder of Sri Lankan tamils per this definition. There seem to be some point of conflict or misundersatning about the term mass murder. I am opening it up here to discuss this in one location. Taprobanus (talk) 05:41, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
- All I really want to say is that if there is a clear definition by a reliable source, then we can use that definition to categorize articles provided the article fits, of course with RS, the definition. There is also another, much simpler, way of categorizing an article - giving RS that itself categorizes the article. Watchdogb (talk) 14:12, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
- I have posted on the talk page of the user this seems to focus on. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Example 1
But no explanation given about the Talk page discussion Taprobanus (talk) 20:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Example 2
But no explanation given about the Talk page discussion Taprobanus (talk) 20:37, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
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- This and the above case are synthesis/OR. No source is given at all, Taprobanus quotes a book, which he says tells us that riot = mass murder, but the book page doesn't mention rioting at all. I think this is a clear case of making things up and simply writing whatever one wants. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:01, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- You wrote Taprobanus quotes a book, which he says tells us that riot = mass murder. Please indicate where I wrote that. If not I expect you to take it back. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 04:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- I refuse to play games with you. You say on the talk page that mass murder includes riots. You're saying that riots are murder. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- I have quoted the book that very clearly said mass murder includes genocide, massacre, pogoram. It did not say anything about riots. You said that I wrote it. Please be careful when throwing accusations around. Again, please show where I wrote riot=mass murder ? Thanks Taprobanus (talk)
- Right on the talk page, you said that the book is a grounds for classifying riots as mass murder. I am not stupid. I do not worry too much if a bystander reads this and believes your fallacy. I do not choose what I do on Wikipedia based on popularity ratings. I don't think you do either. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:21, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- Only if it is a Pogoram not just any riots. In that case I have to find sources that say they are pogorams. For 1958 riots, I have a cite, for 1977 I will produce a cite. Thanks again for keeping the discussion to the point. Taprobanus (talk)
- From my understanding, you have to get it directly, otherwise one can get a legal definition and do theoretical judgments on people, which is still synthesis. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:37, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- Looks like we have a difference of opinion as to how to interpret WP:SYNTH here. Understandable, may be we should get a bunch of others to comment on that, because Mass murder includes Genocide, Massacre, Democide, Politicide, Pogoram as well as individual mass murder by criminals. It has two distinct meanings, one is criminal justice level and the other is at international political level.Taprobanus (talk) 05:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Other articles
Other articles where such edits are happening are
- Navaly church bombing revert war going on (see discussion Talk:Navaly_church_bombing#Categories)
- St. Philip Neri Church shelling (no discussion)
- Nagerkovil school bombing (no discussion)
- 1974 Tamil conference incident
- Vaharai bombing (see discussion Talk:Vaharai_Bombing#Removal_of_Mass_murder_category)
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- Murder means deliberate intent. Unless a source indicating deliberate intent to kill is shown, or a proper reference is given, then it can't go in there. You are adding things without a source. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:00, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
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- Murder means deliberate intent. Unless a source indicating deliberate intent to kill is shown, or a proper reference is given, then it can't go in there Good point, based on your observation, follwing is my analysis
- Agree it is WP:SYNTH
- Agree it is WP:SYNTH
- Thus far no RS sources
- [1]
- [2],[3]
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- That means for item 4 and 5, we should add the category back on Taprobanus (talk) 04:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
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- From my reading, the conference incident says that the police charged into the crowd, and in the ensuing chaos people were killed. That is not sufficient to conclude murder, otherwise any police action that precedes a stampede will count as mass murder. Synthesis again. The fifth one again doesn't say murder either. It says the LTTE took some children to their bases and then it got bombed and it says that LTTE propaganda convicted the army, not that the army knew they were not conscripts and decided to attack them anyway. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:37, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
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- On the 4th one In the confusion, in which tear gas and live ammunition were fired, overhead electric wires were dislodged and seven civilians died of electrocution. Live ammunition was fired into the crowd. That is intent to kill.Taprobanus (talk) 04:46, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- It did not say that they fired at the crowd. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:51, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- I am sorry Yellow monkey, you lost on on the 5th one, the cit says Father Harry Miller, an American Jesuit Priest who has been based in the region since 1948, says that the military fired artillery at the civilians to force them out of the region. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 04:40, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- To scare them, or to kill them? You can't force people out of the area if they are dead. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:41, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- We in wikipedia really cannot get into the mind of the people on the ground. All what I citing (not OR) is that Vaharai shelling or bombing was a deliberate act. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 04:48, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- What makes the eyewitness a reliable source? Why didn't the journalist simply state that it was deliberate. Obviously in any physical confrontation, the people present will say what different things depending on their opinion. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:51, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- Because the eye witness is neither Tamil nor Sinhalese, the chairman of the local Citizens council and an American jesuit and a vocal opponent of the LTTE.Taprobanus (talk) 04:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- No, it is not sufficient, especially the police one, because for instance, in some real legal cases, a hotel bouncer has tried to intervene in an incident and sometimes the situation gets out of control, eg David Hookes. In that case, the bouncer was charged with manslaughter (but was acquitted) because there wasn't a belief that he took physical action to kill the person. There are other cases where security guards attacked robbers and sometimes the robbers ended up dying from a punch. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 04:41, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- In that casee simply have to find additional citationsTaprobanus (talk) 05:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
I have reinstated the cats. A discussion here could be beneficial.Teasereds (talk) 01:18, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
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- Is YellowMonkey in violation of the Wikipedia :WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation one-revert rule?Teasereds (talk) 01:23, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
- Teasereds has been banned for running a sockfarm. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 03:50, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
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- I know you are behind the ban, but some of the accounts, which have been blocked are really not mine. I am forwarding a detail statement (via e-mail) to Jimbo Wales, other ArbCom Members, Bureaucrats and Check Users to verify whether you are a neutral editor or even worth enough to be an Administrator or an ArbCom Member on wikipedia.124.43.219.139 (talk) 05:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC) ( I am leaving my IP address visible to show only how fools you and your team are, in dealing sensitive issues which are more privacy concerned on Sri Lanka Conflict).
::: Technically the experienced editor is in violation of IRR. Notwithstanding the disregard for SLR conventions, we have to deal with citations and facts. If there is clear citation that says it was a massacre then the category applies. About the war crimes, it is a legal term. So we can argue both ways. About mass murder which is a neutral term as you can find as this describes all kinds of activities. I have cited why that category should be retained. Let’s see whether he wants to discuss it or not. Step at a time, you know Navaly Church Bombing happened may years ago. We are not going to resolve anything by editiong in an emotional tone or by trying provoke people by misleading edit summaries. At the end the facts will speak for themselves. Taprobanus (talk) 19:39, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
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- Regardless of who is blocked and who is not, this article's categories are cited. Following source is reliable and covers the category, specially war crime. Watchdogb (talk) 21:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Edit summary on LTTE article
Also would like to understand this edit summary considering the edit had nothing to do with the edit summary ?Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 22:35, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Extended to all article
Since there has been a heated debate over the categorization of articles, we need to resolve this issue for all articles that are related to WP:SLR. From above discussion it seems that the following can be drawn from discussion
- A Reliable source must be provided in order to categorize an article.
- Any POV source, including the two parties to the conflict, cannot be used to categorize an article.
Is there consensus on these issues ? If not please address your concerns. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 22:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
- I would agree on this consensus. Sri Lankan articles are of special case and has been the battleground many times before. By this criteria for categorization we can avoide WP:SYNTH, WP:POV and possibly any further edit war relating to this issue. Watchdogb (talk) 22:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
- I think your edits violate WP:POINT. I only removed some categories where there is ambiguity between deliberate targeting and collateral damage or riots getting out of control. Planting a bomb in someone's house is not an accident. I have not removed the category for people who were lined up and shot in the back of the head, or hacked with machetes, because there is no doubt that whoever did them deliberately killed the people. In your case you are blanking out bombs planted in trains and planes, which cannot be compared to riots and disputed collateral damage. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model!) 01:55, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
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- If that is your argument, do you think the Category:War crimes in Sri Lanka and Category:Civilian massacres in Sri Lanka don't belong to Navaly church bombing. You are blanking all the time. Don't try to be a "Proxy Warrior" as usual. Go and troll some less sensitive conflicts elsewhere in the world.124.43.194.119 (talk) 03:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
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- Please maintain civility all the time. Let's try to understand what Yellow monkey is saying. These categories need wide consensus to survive a 100 years. Not just now Taprobanus (talk) 03:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
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- Hallo, Taprobanus, I agree with you. But a person, who is narrowly escaped in the Navaly church bombing and then visited the area after the bombing and then by my own hands removed the human debris especially the long hairs of women with fractured skulls, doesn't seem, I am violating any such "Civility" if there is something which is always valued by all the humans.124.43.194.119 (talk) 03:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Summary
 N Not done
Archiving
This page has grown very big, with some old discussions. In the past, most of the archiving has been done by Lahiru_k, myself and Black Falcon. Lahiru_k and Black Falcon haven't been active at Wikipedia for several months, and I have long ago pleaded for these chores to be distributed more fairly. Much as I am tempted to do the archiving again, I really feel it is time for someone else to step up now. It seems like an easy task to me, but please don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions. — Sebastian 22:10, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
- Done Bro :(( Taprobanus (talk) 05:48, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
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- Some of it - but there's still a lot remaining. C'mon, guys, let's get this done together! I tagged some that were from the time that I was still active here; others who have been active later would be better predisposed to check if the more recent issues are closed. — Sebastian 06:01, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
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- Thanks, guys, it's looking much better now! With regard to the three remaining chapters in the general section: Originally, I had hoped these would stir some discussion, but I have to accept that people are not interested. Because they are not just talk page contributions but rather guidelines that some of us go by, I therefore propose to change them into essays. The one by Hcberkowitz is already one (User:Hcberkowitz/Sandbox-TerrEssay), and we simply can move his contribution here to the talk page there. I cold turn the other two into essays as subpages under WP/SLR. I will also add a short list of these and some other general proposals (such as the one to use skype) on our householding page. Does that sound good? — Sebastian 21:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
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- sounds like a very good idea Jasy jatere (talk) 21:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
LTTE "Rise to dominance" paragraph
The former half of this paragraph immediately struck me as biased upon reading it. It does not seem that the LTTE ever "dominated" as the heading would indicate. More importantly, the paragraph itself takes the events of Black July out of context to paint a pro-LTTE picture while failing to cite any sources. Additionally, the grammar is poor. In light of these issues, I propose removing this half of the paragraph. A much better summary of the events and effects of Black July could be procured from its article and the article on the Sri Lankan Civil War respectively.PerryMarkLevin (talk) 05:18, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you for asking! This headline made more sense originally because it was only the second headline after a "Beginnings" section.[4] Since the section now includes everything from the beginnings, I think the title "Rise to power" would be appropriate. The text you mention was basically added with this anonymous edit and later modified, such as here. Since it has been there for two months without a reference, I agree that it should be removed, with a reference to this section in the edit summary. — Sebastian 18:48, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
- I did the change as suggested. However, I can't close this as resolved yet. This section still is much worse than it was two years ago. The version at the end of our mediation described the beginnings, from the beginnings of the TNT. Maybe we should merge the old and the new? — Sebastian 22:21, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
source quality of sangam.org
is this source reliable/partisan? It is used in some articles for LTTE military personnel. I think that the names given etc are factually correct, but I have no idea about the general quality of this site. Comments? Jasy jatere (talk) 23:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
- I Yahoo'ed for the name, and found the following:
- "Association of Tamils and Eelam & Sri Lanka in the US" [5]
- "The Association of Tamils of Eelam and Sri Lanka in the US - This site provides a range of information on Sri Lanka including links to various United Nations reports such as the Report of the UN Rapporteur on Torture (Feb 2000) and links to a range of United States government reports." [6]
- "Indian students' association at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston." [7]
- — Sebastian 08:24, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
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- It has to be attributed when used at the very minimum, if it contradicts an RS source then it cannot be used as we dont have assurance of third party counter checking of facts.Taprobanus (talk) 18:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
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- So, is it a QS or an unreliable source? — Sebastian 22:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
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- It depends on the material used. Sangam archives material from other sources such as government publications etc, then one may use it as a url provided they have copy right to the material or the material is copy right free. But directly quoting from Sangam is clearly not acceptable in most cases, unless the subject matter is uncontested such as Eugene John Hebert, if there is even an iota of conflict then Sangam cannot be used. I dont use it at all. 04:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
MP info box
 Resolved.I am planning to add MP info boxes to the following politicians who are all part of SLR: Appapillai Amirthalingam, Ariyanayagam Chandra Nehru, Joseph Pararajasingham, Nadarajah Raviraj, Neelan Tiruchelvam, Sarojini Yogeswaran and Vettivelu Yogeswaran. The information in the boxes will be non-controversial (see S. J. V. Chelvanayakam for example) but I thought I'd better check here first to see if this will be a problem?Obi2canibe (talk) 16:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for asking - that seems like the right thing to do, provided that they are/were all MPs. The first page I checked, Appapillai Amirthalingam, doesn't say so explicitly. Actually, this article does need major changes, as the stub note at the bottom states, which conflicts with the blue box on top. I think you have a track record of good edits, so I see no problem with you making major changes on these pages. — Sebastian 17:29, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
- OK, thanks for replying. They all held elected office (as MP, mayor etc) at some time in their life. Amirthalingam was an MP for 20 years but, as you say, the article doesn't mention this important fact. This is symptomatic of many articles.Obi2canibe (talk) 19:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Blue boxes on articles we don't actually watch are embarrassing
Resolved.
Yesterday’s message about the LTTE article and today’s question about the MPs alerted me of a fundamental problem: While conscientious editors come here to ask before they do any major edits that would improve articles, hasty and reckless editors blatantly ignore the blue box. Just look at the thousands of edits the LTTE article experienced since we put the blue box there! Making it harder to improve articles specifically for those who care defeats the purpose of our WikiProject.
We can not just demand extra steps from others, when we’re not doing our part of the duty. The reason we introduced the blue box was that we wanted to "soft protect" these pages. That requires work. Our work. Back when I was active here, I used our Watchlists and links to bluebox to keep an eye over these articles. I was under the impression that others here were doing the same. But I haven’t been doing this since my semi-retirement, and it seems that nobody else does this anymore, either.
Just a month ago, we voted to keep the Sri Lanka Dispute Resolution Agreement, but I now realize that, without an actual recommitment, that was meaningless. Can we recommit to watching these pages, and to enforcing the message we placed on top of them?
So, how can we make sure that all pages we claim to care about are actually watched at least by someone? Obviously, it wouldn't be wise to talk about our watchlists here publicly - there’s a reason why Wikipedia keeps them private. We could exchange lists by mail. If we had a chat room for members, that would be a good place. But all of these solutions are a bit too bureaucratic.
The most natural way to find this out is by actually caring for the articles. My idea is as follows:
- I will add a parameter "active" to Wikipedia:SLR/bluebox. If a blue boxes has "active=yes", it will be displayed as usual. If not, it will not be displayed at all.
- We look at what links here and links to bluebox, and check if the articles are still OK. If so, we add "active=yes", making the blue box reappear. If these have recently been edited in violation of the SLDR, then the editors will be warned.
Articles none of us watches can be classified as follows:
- Articles others care about. These are typically articles that bear the template of another WikiProject; we can assume that they watch it. These don't need our blue box displayed. We can just leave it inactive, or remove it.
- Articles nobody cares about anymore. These are typically articles that were created in the heat of the moment, such as after a certain incident in Sri Lanka, but have been forgotten by now. If, after several months, we still have such articles with inactive blue boxes, I would simply propose them for deletion.
Please let me know what you think about this proposal. — Sebastian 19:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
- about second number 2, do you mean delete the article or blue box ? Taprobanus (talk) 00:25, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
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- I mean to tag them with the {{prod}} template per Wikipedia:Proposed deletion. This may sound harsh, but I believe that, if nobody looked at an article during the course of several months (or even years, if you count the time since their creation) then we should reconsider if the article is notable.
- BTW, it just occurs to me that it may be better not to make the blue box disappear while we're waiting for such articles to be checked. To be transparent, we could instead leave the box, and add something like "It is currently being considered to lift these restrictions. See WP:SLR#SLDRA for details". On WP:SLR#SLDRA, we would write that any signatory of the agreement can reconfirm a certain article by changing the parameter to "active=yes" if they promise to watch it. — Sebastian 05:07, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
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- I beg to disagree on proding article that dont have any edits after we place a blue box on it. Let's look at Encylopedia Britanica. It had X number of entries. Do all entries get attention from a critical mass of people all the time? I bet not. Some gets millions of hits yet others few dozen a year but that does not make those pieces of knowledge that much less valuable. What we are making here is an encylopedia not a popular encylopedia. Articles dont get to stay or die because of foot traffic. They stay because they are valuable piece of knowledge provided they meet the rules. Taprobanus (talk) 05:33, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
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- Interesting observation, after we came up with Blue box protection blatant vandalism has come to a halt. We cannot equate that with less interest in articles. Further many of the new articles of the same genre do not have blue box on them anyway and they still have no vandalism. This is the lasting legacy of the blue box. It drives away blatant vandals or keeps them at bay. See
- Allaipiddy massacre,
- 2006 Trincomalee massacre,
- 2008 Fort Railway Station bombing,
- Madhu school bus bombing,
- 2008 Sri Lanka bus bombings
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- 1 & 2 has bbox protection others dont and alsmost all can be argued as created as part of "spur of the moment" and "dont have a lot of activity" but in my view none of them deserved to be deleted from Wikipedia.Taprobanus (talk) 14:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
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- Better too to gauge interest is this, but even that is not grounds for deletion. Taprobanus (talk) 15:26, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
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- Thank you! From your list it seems that the blue box is still working, at least for the less "popular" articles; I'm happy about that! What we experience at the LTTE article is not necessarily the same problem: The problem there is less that nobody watches the article, but rather that we have been too permissive with SLRDA violations.
- For the less popular articles, let me first clarify a misunderstanding: I did not mean to prod articles that don’t have any more edits to their content. I meant to prod them if none of us cares for them. Editing the “active” parameter just seemed like a convenient way to ensure that at least someone cares for an article. I just felt it was more directly connected to the article itself than the alternatives I could think of.
- I completely agree with you that valuable information should just stay, just as in EB. But our encyclopedia has one deciding difference from EB: Anyone can edit these articles. Therefore, we need to watch them. I have two concerns: (1) Since we now have much less time for enforcing SLDRA, we need to be frugal with our time and concentrate on what’s important. We simply can't assume that every less popular article is still being watched. (2) How do we make sure that such an article hasn’t been changed a year ago, and escaped our attention since? Do you know any way to specifically check changes of - or even find - articles under SLDRA that have last changed more than 30 days ago? — Sebastian 04:08, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
- I personally have them in watch, almost all blue box articles:( but I dont overly interfere in popular articles like LTTE, Sri Lankan civil war etc as at the end, its the responsibility of Wikipedia community not just SLR members to keep them straight. In my opinion, its the obscure but important articles such as Taraki Sivaram, Jaffna lagoon massacre, that needs someone to keep a watch and improve with time. This is how I distribute my time. Keep mostly out of popular but keep an eye on the less popular. But the popular ones do link to many of the less popular ones too through linking. So I make sure even in the popular ones that Vandals dont remove the links to the less popular ones. That's the extend of my "watch". Taprobanus (talk) 14:42, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
- Wonderful - that resolves this issue for me. As long as you watch them, I'm happy. I realize that the problem with popular articles is very different; since it fits better in the below discussion about the LTTE article, I will reply to that there. — Sebastian 18:53, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Heavy vandalism is happening to the article and specially to the Administrative section. Editors are removing cited materials about administrative entities of the LTTE claiming that the fall of the rebels administrative capital to the SLA means that these administrative entities does not exist. The fact is that thought it might not be functional today, it did function at one time and might still be functioning in a smaller scale. Can members please watch the article. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 20:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
- It should be semi-protected for the time being. Taprobanus (talk) 00:23, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
- I thought the same thing yesterday, but today there have been a number of good-faith edits by IP editors. I think this can be solved if we only enforce the editing restrictions, as I pointed out in the previous section. I added a warning to that effect on the talk page; please bring up any accounts that flout it from now on. — Sebastian 04:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
- Today we had two edits that did not follow the editing restrictions, I am warning the users with variations of the following text:
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== Please respect editing restrictions ==
You recently edited [[Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam]], which is currently subject to editing restrictions. Please follow the instructions in the blue box on top of that page before you do any edits that could be regarded controversial. You may also want to check out our [[Wikipedia:Introduction|intro page]], which contains a lot of helpful material for new users. ~~~~
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- If others want to use the same text, feel free to do so. I think it's better than a template because it allows us to vary the text as appropriate. — Sebastian 04:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
- Summary, blocked for repeated vandalism: 99.228.164.238; warned for ignoring blue box and for adding unsourced text: 76.90.65.51; just friendly warning: 67.186.227.139. — Sebastian 04:55, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I want to reply here to Taprobanus' statement in the previous section: "I dont overly interfere in popular articles like LTTE, Sri Lankan civil war etc as at the end, its the responsibility of Wikipedia community not just SLR members to keep them straight.":
If, by "Wikipedia community", you mean the mass of editors outside of SLR and SLDRA, including vandals and other inconsiderate editors, then there's no reason to rely on it. But the Wikipedia community includes us. We are that part of the community that emerged for the very reason to protect such articles. When we put our blue box on these articles, we promise to the rest of the community that we will fulfill the purpose of our WikiProject and SLDRA. We have to keep that promise, or the blue box is not worth the space it takes. — Sebastian 19:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
- As you have correctly pointed out earlier, we dont have time to do everything all the time, with the limited time I have I have decided to keep a "watch" on all the not so popular articles and keep creating DYK+ articles, someone else who cares about LTTE and SL civil war should keep an eye on them. Taprobanus (talk) 20:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
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- Fair enough. I'm happy about what you're already doing. But I'm as concerned as Watchdogb, who started this thread, that those who watch this article may be overwhelmed by those who deteriorate it. I don't know if semiprotection is the way to go; I still would prefer if we tried enforcing the blue box first, but I don't want t obe the only one doing that. It's fine now, but how is this going to work in the future? What will prevent the situation from getting as bad as it has become recently? Maybe we can call on other project members who haven't shown up in a while? — Sebastian 20:32, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Religion of Velupillai Prabhakaran
Resolved. Apparently, the request was to remove unsourced information, which has been done now.
The article states that his religion is Christian. However, multiple sources on the web denote that he was born a Hindu and still practices this, being particularly fond of worship of Lord Subrahmanya (Lord Murugan). Particularly, the US Pacific Command's assessment of him, listed as the first external link, discusses this. Perhaps this should be changed.
0seeker0 (talk) 08:28, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
- Please bring the citations here, so we can add it properly using WP:CITE formatTaprobanus (talk) 14:34, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
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- Actually, I did not see a reference for the claim that he is Christian in the article. I am therefore removing it now. — Sebastian 21:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
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- Prabhakaran is a lapsed Methodist [8][9].Pectoretalk 08:51, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Reliability of YouTube and tamilnet.tv
Resolved.
A new user posted links to http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=GjKzcbF2ka4&feature=related and http://www.tamilnet.tv/index.php/ltte-tactical-withdrwal-from-kokavil?blog=1 on the LTTE article. That has been removed by a well-intended person watching that article, but these links are related, so we should discuss how realiable they are, and if it is appropriate to include them somewhere. The YouTube seems to be from France 24. — Sebastian 21:39, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
- if the content if from France24, we should link to their site. If it is not to be found on their site, it is likely that it is copyrighted, and should not be linked at all per Wikipedia:External_links#Restrictions_on_linking.
For policy or technical reasons, editors are restricted from linking to the following, without exception: Material that violates the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations should not be linked. Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work. Knowingly directing others to material that violates copyright may be considered contributory infringement. If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors. This is particularly relevant when linking to sites such as YouTube, where due care should be taken to avoid linking to material that violates its creator's copyright. Sites that match the Wikipedia-specific or multi-site spam blacklist without being whitelisted. MediaWiki's code will automatically block any edits that contain such links.
Jasy jatere (talk) 21:51, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
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- Thank you! What about tamilnet.tv? It obviously is not the same as tamilnet.com. — Sebastian 22:12, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
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- tamilnet.com is much better than .tv as far as journalism is concerned. Read the page you link. It is full of malice, sarcasm and polemics. Nothing against that, but the writer's competence in the English language is not enough for these text genres. Hell, there is even a typo in the link (withdrwal). Definitely not reliable for the textual content. I would rate tamilnet.tv as a personal blog, very much like gwbushsuckx.com or similar things. Jasy jatere (talk) 22:30, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
- It is a parody site not a RS source Taprobanus (talk) 04:26, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Bruce Fein and the reliability of tamileelamnews.com
There was an edit war at Bruce Fein about inserting the link http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20080605_12. I think this is noticeable; it doesn't happen very often that an American lawyer gets accused of supporting terrorists by the government of another country. I propose that we add this incident (with correct attribution), along with the reply, which I found at http://www.tamileelamnews.com/news/publish/tns_9429.shtml. How reliable is tamileelamnews.com? I could not find a page that represents Mr Fein directly. What would be a fair summary of the rebuttal? — Sebastian 02:36, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
- Because accusing one has to be balanced with his/her rebutal as far as WP:BIO is concerned that too accusation coming from a non reliable source, I would say that if the accusation has to be in the article then we have to attribute to the source and then the rebutal has to be made available and attributed to the source. Taprobanus (talk) 04:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
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- Bruce Fein is currently working for an organization that is currently trying to press Genocidal charges against one american citizen and another green card holder - Sarath Fonseka and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Watchdogb (talk) 15:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Change wording of blue box?
It seems that adding of unsourced information currently constitutes the bulk of what most people here fighting against. If that is so, do you think it should be added to the blue box? Another change to the blue box that might make sense would be to replace “Before making any non-minor changes or before reverting changes” with “Before changing anything that might be controversial”. This wording is shorter, and even though it does not have exactly the same meaning as if I had written “Before making any potentially controversial changes”, I think that it might appeal better to people who feel "this is controversial - I need to change it". To I also don't see a need for the line break before "Please do not remove"; it doesn't happen that often that people remove it, and cutting that saves a whole line. All together, it would look like this:
What do you think? (BTW, I also removed "#Issues", since we don't have that distinction anymore.) — Sebastian 01:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
- this new version is an improvementJasy jatere (talk) 11:23, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
photos
I have a query, in the following website they have mentioned the following.
http://www.tamilnet.com/
“Reproduction of this news item is allowed when used without any alterations to the contents and the source, TamilNet, is mentioned.”
Is this means I can download photos from Tamilnet and upload into Wikipedia articles when necessary ? Is this is an issue for Wikipedia Administrators ? -Iross1000 (talk) 02:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC).
- Glad you asked, I 've run into problems with this before. It is still not totally free, it still needs attribution. So the best place to approach this problem is not Wikipedia but Wikimedia. Wikimedia admins will be the better guys to help you out with this. Look at this and this, this is the amount of trouble one need to go to get pictures used in wikipedia. This is an upload from Wikimedia. Attribution share alike licence may be simialr waht Tamilnet is saying it is for its pictures.
- Another is to ask tamilnet editor to release the pictures directly in Wikimedia by themselves. I've had such luck with other Sri Lankan journalists who have released their material in Wikimedia. Taprobanus (talk) 03:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I find this site quite well-written and neutral in tone. Seems quite critical of Rajapaksa, but not necessarily pro-LTTE. I would find it difficult to find a good attribution for it. On the other hand, I also do not know, whether it is reliable, but I have not come across any gross misrepresentations of facts. Any ideas? Jasy jatere (talk) 11:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
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