Talk:List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces/Archive 4

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

The list should not contain individual killings and assassinations.

Oz346 The list should not contain individual killings and assassinations. And it would be better if the list is broken down since it's very difficult to read. ~~~~ @ Amrithsvar (talk) 18:07, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Please familiarise yourself with the definition of Assassination. Individual killings of non-prominent individuals does not satisfy the definition of assassination.
In the past you have tried to remove reliably cited content about atrocities committed against Tamils, which other users have called out as 'whitewashing' anti-Tamil violence, and have been warned of disruptive editing including the use of sock puppets:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1958_anti-Tamil_pogrom&diff=prev&oldid=1002481745
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_attacks_on_civilians_attributed_to_Sri_Lankan_government_forces&diff=prev&oldid=1002480091
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sexual_violence_against_Tamils_in_Sri_Lanka&diff=1002486284&oldid=999520001
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ASexual_violence_against_Tamils_in_Sri_Lanka&diff=1002489917&oldid=1002486485
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1058#YaSiRu11_%E2%80%93_POV-pushing_and_other_problems
Now you want to remove individual killings of Tamil civilians. This is not justified by wikipedia policies.
Secondly, how is it difficult to read? All you have added is section breaks. It makes no difference to the readability of the grids in the table which are well ordered, clear and very easy to read. This has been the status quo for years and there is no convincing reason for it to be changed. Oz346 (talk) 19:44, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

@Oz346

1. • How do you define if someone is prominent or not? Many of the individuals on the list are named. Doesn't that mean they are prominent?
• Even if they are not prominent shouldn't this article be about "attacks on civilians"? It is good if you create a separate page for individual killings since this page is already cluttered.
• Many of the sources are very dubious, Many of the individual killings do not have sources that prove a strong connection between the Sri Lankan government forces and the murder. And Most come from only a single source that is not considered a reliable source. And a lot of secondary sources also come from the LTTE or its related organizations. I think only the incidents that can be proved using reliable secondary sources should remain.
2. I have no idea about the edits you have mentioned. That user is not me. Don't accuse people without any evidence, just because usernames are similar.
3. The article should be split according to WP:SIZESPLIT. The article is very large and cluttered. Nevertheless, The list is very hard to scroll and read. How about creating a separate article for each decade?

Amrithsvar (talk) 20:43, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

1a. Names just means their identities have been established, that's not the same as being a well known public figure, which the word assassination is used for e.g. assassination of JFK
1b. Attack on civilians, means attacks on all civilians. It is plural only because there are many different cases. It does not exclude attacks on single civilians. You can't name this article 'list of attacks on a civilian', that would be pointless and illogical.
1c. If you are referring to Tamilnet, this has been discussed numerous times on Wikipedia's reliable source notice board and has been confirmed as a reliable source that can be used with the qualification 'according to the pro-rebel Tamilnet'.
2. A simple sock puppet investigation can confirm whether two accounts with the same name Amritsvar (which is not a common name in SL) and who both delete content of anti Tamil violence from this same page are the same person. If any more disruptive behaviour arises that would be the next logical step.
3.WP:SIZESPLIT mainly applies to large reams of text and prose, a table is not a typical article, all the text is already segmented into rows making it easier to read. And your argument about scrolling does not really make sense, as you still need to scroll even with your proposed section breaks. Oz346 (talk) 21:29, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
  1. Has it been established that whether TamilNet can be used for verify incidents that took place? Because since TamilNet is not considered to be RS, It should be more explicitly displayed that the only source for this is the TamilNet. For example, Colouring the rows of incidents that can only be verified via TamilNet
  2. There are a lot of individual killings which TamilNet does not specify anything about the Sri Lankan government forces having a connection with the murders. eg: Murder of Rasanayagam Jegan, Disappearance of Johnson, Disappearance of Antony Sureshkumar. These should be verified by other sources. And many of the others are just suspicions and there are no verifiable way of establishing a connection between SL forces and the particular incident.
  3. You can go ahead and do the investigation.
  4. I think WP:SIZESPLIT applies to this list too. According to WP:SPINOUT, "Very large articles should be split into logically separate articles. Long stand-alone list articles are split into subsequent pages alphabetically, numerically, or subtopically. Also consider splitting and transcluding the split parts". Since there is a very logical and easy way to split the article into decades, why not do that? I did not propose a section break, I proposed breaking article into several articles by the decade.
Amrithsvar (talk) 22:09, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
1. As long as the phrase "according to pro-rebel Tamilnet" is used it can be cited, that is the Wikipedia consensus.
2. I have answered below.
3. Only if further disruptive behaviour occurs
4. It not so large or difficult to read. It is better to have all the content in this one table. WP:SPLITLIST Oz346 (talk) 01:58, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
  1. I have answered below.
  2. I have answered below.
  3. I have no comment.
  4. It is large by Wikipedia's own definition. It is twice the size mentioned in WP:SIZESPLIT. It should be split according many of Wikipedia policies. But it seems like you are not willing to accept that. You are not even giving any reasons why you think as such too. Even WP:SPLITLIST mentions, "Regardless, a list or table should be kept as short as is feasible for its purpose and scope. Too much statistical data is against policy." and not break a table only when "If there is no "natural" way to split or reduce a long list or table", but there is a very natural and logical way to split the table by the decades. It should be only natural that we follow that.
Amrithsvar (talk) 05:19, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Article size#Size guideline and WP:SIZESPLIT refers to prose. This is not prose (prose is large amounts of continuous writing, by definition a table will always have small prose size for each section, as it's divided into small rows). So what you have cited does not apply to this case. Oz346 (talk) 08:08, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
There is no hard rule that says that WP:SIZESPLIT refers only to prose and that it excludes tables. Both WP:SIZESPLIT and Wikipedia:Article size#Size guideline also refer to tables. There is only a rule of thumb regarding size. But this table is clearly too large and not easily readable, This article suffers from all the three problems mentioned in WP:SIZESPLIT,
  • Reader issues, such as attention span, readability, organization, information saturation, etc.
  • Maintenance, such as articles becoming time-consuming to maintain when they are very long
  • Technical issues, such as limitations of mobile browsers
It makes sense to break up the table when looking at similar tables like List of attacks attributed to the LTTE. The table is hard to sort through and very cluttered. It will help a lot if the table is broken down following other examples. Amrithsvar (talk) 08:33, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
@Oz346 What is your consensus on this problem? If you don't want to split the article at least make it sortable by death toll. I still think that the article should be split because of the facts I've mentioned. Amrithsvar (talk) 20:48, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
I dont think it needs to be split. What do you mean by sortable? do you mean the death toll sorting not working? Oz346 (talk) 23:19, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
It is sortable. But the sort is incorrect. It does not sort correctly according to the number of victims. Amrithsvar (talk) 05:50, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
The problem is some of the death tolls lack the exact precise number, and are given figures like 30+ to reflect the minimal deaths. Unless whole numbers are given to every figure (which is not always possible) then the sorting application will not work properly. So it is not feasible. Oz346 (talk) 15:10, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
I understand. But since the table is very large, for convenience it must be either sortable or spilt. We have to choose one. Amrithsvar (talk) 13:46, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
@Oz346 I changed the outlook of the table by removing the Province and District columns since a Location column is already there. And added another column for Damages etc. Amrithsvar (talk) 06:13, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Request for multiple citations

@Petextrodon, can you please let me know why my tag for additional citations have been reverted by you with a rude comment "ne source is fine, especially for little known old attacks which didn't always receive international coverage or were censored by southern press" is this your policy or that of Wikipedia? Cossde (talk) 12:38, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

There is no Wikipedia policy saying that you need more than one reliable source. Stop your repeated disruptive edits along these lines. Oz346 (talk) 12:48, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
@Oz346, can you please tell me what is disruptive about my edits? In this case I am asking for additional sources since I don't feel that cited source can be considered as a WP:RS. Cossde (talk) 13:06, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
Tamil sources were the only ones covering these less known local incidents. Sinhala-owned press had a pro-state policy and whitewashed the murders of Tamil civilians by describing them as terrorists and the Sinhala government prevented foreign press from entering Tamil areas. Both these statements are backed by Rajan Hoole in his book "The Arrogance of Power", coincidentally on the same page dealing with the 1985 Muttur massacre for which you added that tag. I have no problem adding the citation but then to be consistent every major Sinhala-owned newspaper should have their status revised and be treated the same. --- Petextrodon (talk) 19:55, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
@Petextrodon, can you please explain how NESOHR can be used as a reliable source in this context given that NESOHR has been described by Amnesty International as "In 2004 the LTTE established the NESOHR to monitor the human rights situation in the north and east. However this body has limited autonomy, and capacity and security constraints restrict its access to the east." in its report [1] ? Cossde (talk) 01:03, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
The book cited here was published toward the end of 2009 by an Indian publisher. Authors (primarily N. Malathy, a New Zealand citizen) were not LTTE members and could not be regarded as having lacked autonomy after the defeat of the LTTE. The source for its content came primarily from the Statistical Centre for North East, a project that had the involvement of the Jaffna University staff. The issue seems to be that this group retained the name NESOHR and not something else? --- Petextrodon (talk) 02:59, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
@Petextrodon, are you referring to Massacres of Tamils (1956-2008). Chennai: NESOHR/Manitham Publications. 2009 ? Cossde (talk) 03:37, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
Massacres of Tamils (1956-2008) has been published under the name of NESOHR by the Indian publisher Manitham Publications. N. Malathy, who is a netrualized New Zealand citizen was a member of NESOHR, while it operated under the LTTE. Cleary it cannot be used here as a WP:RS and needs to be removed. Cossde (talk) 11:03, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
No I disagree that it needs to be removed wholesale, I think explicit attribution can be used for it in this case. By that token, all the state aligned Sinhala owned national newspapers which have already been shown to lie and whitewash government massacres of Tamil civilians by falsely claiming that they were terrorists, also needs to be removed from all Sri Lankan Civil War pages. They have already been proven to be dodgy sources in regards to fact checking. Unlike NESOHR which has not lied like the Sinhala owned newspapers, and actually interviews the victims of such massacres. Oz346 (talk) 11:18, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
@Oz346, is that you own opinion or a fact? Cossde (talk) 12:58, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
It's a FACT. Oz346 (talk) 13:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
@Oz346, please prove it. Cossde (talk) 13:11, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
i will prove it in due time, but first I will post NESOHR's book in the Sri Lanka Reconciliation source discussion board to ascertain it's status as a source, and to settle this never ending argument. Oz346 (talk) 17:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
yes, it was published after the destruction of the LTTE. so how does the 2006 statement about limited autonomy apply to a post-war book published in a foreign country? --- Petextrodon (talk) 16:30, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
@Petextrodon, goes to show unreliability of the content. For example it doesn't contain details of crimes committed by the LTTE against Tamils. Cossde (talk) 14:36, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
N. Malathy a New Zealand citizen has done a Ph D from the University of Canterbury is a human rights activist. She did human rights work in the then LTTE controlled Vanni.She was not a member of NESHOR and LTTE.She has written another book as well A Fleeting Moment in My Country.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 12:51, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
@Pharaoh of the Wizards, that's strange, in her book A Fleeting Moment in My Country, Malathy states that she was the first Secretary of the North East Secretariat on Human Rights, working full time in NESHOR for an year from March 2005 and thereafter she left NESHOR to be involved in the LTTE Peace Secretariat, returning to work in the NESHOR after its chairperson Fr Karunaradnam was killed and worked till the NESHOR stopped functioning in 2009. Cossde (talk) 13:12, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Sorry my mistake and thanks for pointing it out.She was not a member of the LTTE but did work with NESHOR while doing human rights work in Vanni.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 13:48, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

NESOHR

NESOHR has not been listed as a QS in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources, hence it can not be treated as such in this page. The the discussion on NESOHR was inconclusive and Sebastian WP:DISENGAGE without listing NESOHR as a QS. I have left a message on Sebastian talk page and if he doesn't respond in 72 hours, NESOHR cited content will have to go. Cossde (talk) 14:26, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

No, that's not how it works around here. It can't "go" without discussion and consensus building. Unlike Chandraprema, N. Malathty was not a member of an organization that was party to the conflict (suggesting otherwise without evidence can be slander which isn't allowed on Wikipedia) nor was she accused of human rights violations. --- Petextrodon (talk) 14:49, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Malathty held a leadership possition in the LTTE Peace Directorate. Per WP:BURDEN, it is the responcibility of the editor who is introducing content to prove WP:RS. You may take this to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Cossde (talk) 15:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
The discussion was conclusive. He clearly deemed it a QS, as did the other Sinhala editor. Only you failed to respect the decision of the neutral arbiter. You are not an admin to make your own 72 hour rule up. Oz346 (talk) 14:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Then why is it not on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources list? Cossde (talk) 15:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Its the same time Petextrodon gave me. Cossde (talk) 15:06, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
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