Talk:List of mass stabbings in the United States

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Inclusion criteria for mass stabbings[edit]

@JSwift49, @Silent-Rains and others: The main reason that Wikipedia has lists is so that readers can find articles that are similar or have a common theme. This means lists need to have clear inclusion criteria. There seem to be several lists for mass stabbing incidents, each with their own inclusion criteria, but none for a comprehensive List of mass stabbings that is general to all Wikipedia articles.

I can understand the specific list for the United Kingdom where knife crime is a particular problem, and in Germany the issues might be similar. However, having a "List of mass stabbing incidents" spread across three article and divided by time period seems to have been done more for convenience of managing an article's size, as the time slicing appears to be an arbitrary decade division, and is not tied to a particular causal event. as far as I am aware, that encourages people to commit mass stabbings.

I know this list article has gone through the articles for creation process, which is supposed to identify basic problems with articles and fix them, but it seems like this article has been promoted without a proper consideration of its quality and need for publication. Specifically, why does Wikipedia need a list of this nature that is devoted to the United States, when there is not a global one? What problem in the United States is this list trying to address when the sources seem to be focused primarily on issues related to gun control? Is there a knife problem in the United States of a similar magnitude and profile as in the United Kingdom or is this list just because we want one for our country too?

Also, what are the inclusion criteria for this list? Is it the same as the other lists? The lead section starts off with explaining what a mass stabbing is but then goes on to compare it with mass murder, but only with a knife. Why mention this? Is it even relevant in the US context? Does this mean that several people have to die for an incident to be included in this list? If so, how many? If not, what type of incident gets included and what does not? And why is it divided by decade and century? This seems like duplication of other lists. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 01:06, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]