Talk:2008 Christmas massacres

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Redirect[edit]

Note: This page started as Talk:International reaction to the Christmas massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The article has been redirected here.

Deletion[edit]

The event itself doesn't have its own page, so why a "Reaction .." fork? Kind of WP:POINTy really, see this --Nickhh (talk) 16:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notwithstanding WP:AGF, that appears to be so. But let's give it some time because it only happened about a week ago.VR talk 17:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, whether the creation of the page was pointy or not (and we seem to agree that it probably was, indeed the creator's comments can't be construed any other way really), it surely makes no sense to have a Reactions article when there's no parent article. Currently the event itself is only noted as a small para at the Lord's Resistance Army page here. Surely the minimal content can just be merged into that? I'm not a fan of people creating dud pages and then everyone having to wait and see whether information to fill them will turn up or not. I guess it'll get 5 days though under the proposed deletion procedure. --Nickhh (talk) 17:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since when does a reaction need a "parent article"? The fact that no article on the actual massacre that killed over 400 civilians exists does not mean that a page on the reaction should not exist either. Chesdovi (talk) 18:43, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it's daft to have a "Reaction to XXX" page when there's no "XXX" page. If it's warranted, create the page on the massacre itself. Part of that page would then be a section or paragraph on the reaction. Considering that your WP:POINT for creating this page in the first place appears to be that (unfairly) no-one in the rest of the world is getting as excited about this massacre and criticising the alleged perpetrators as they are about the events in Gaza, surely even you would admit that there's not much material on which this page can be built? Speaking more generally, whether you, I or anyone else likes it or not, this kind of incident simply does not get the attention that events in the Middle East do. Nor do they generate as much public discussion or outrage in the West - unfortunately but inevitably - because the perpetrators are often non-state actors who do not receive financial, military and political backing from western governments. --Nickhh (talk) 22:56, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • redirect to Lord's_Resistance_Army#International_reactions, since a separate article can be made later on if/when the Christmas massacres need to break off from the LRA article as a new article and if/when the international reactions need to break off from the Christmas massacres article. Boud (talk) 21:45, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

comments[edit]

It quite obvious that a massacre of 400 people in the XXI-st century is a highly notable event. i suspect that the point that you (Chesdovi) are making is WP:CSB. That is a very valid point, which is valid in the english language wikipedia, as testified by the quite thorough article WP:CSB backed up by empirical demographic evidence regarding our systemic bias.

The next question is: are the Christmas massacres ready for an individual article? And then: are/were the international reactions notable enough to deserve a separate article themselves? The most obvious international uproar and reaction that we could expect would be from Africa. Suggestion: Try starting at Category:African_media and see if you can find the international reactions there.

There are Africans online and others willing to help do the wikipedia editing, but for the moment IMHO it would probably make more sense to leave the Christmas massacres and the international reactions to them as part of the LRA article. If the article eventually gets long enough - like the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict article, then that will be a good time to split up into separate articles. In any case, it seems to me that a redirect to Lord's_Resistance_Army#International_reactions would make the most sense at the moment. No need to delete. Boud (talk) 21:45, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed an inconsistency in the death toll numbers between this page and another titled “List of major terrorist incidents” this Wikipedia page claims that the death toll of this event claimed over 860 lives whilst this page supposedly claims 620 deaths in the incident. Hopefully this was done in error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.196.7.173 (talk) 20:52, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Parent article[edit]

I've started a parent article at Christmas massacres (Democratic Republic of the Congo) but it needs a lot of work, I'd appreciate if some of you could take a look at it. For what it's worth, I agree that we shouldn't have a "reaction" subpage unless the reaction section of the parent article gets too long. Which is unlikely. Polemarchus (talk) 12:31, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect[edit]

Ok, it seems to be that most users want this to be redirected to either Christmas massacres (Democratic Republic of the Congo) or Lord's_Resistance_Army#International_reactions. Are there any other suggestions?VR talk 19:07, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Name of article[edit]

The current name of this article doesn't convey sufficient information about its subject. In fact, it sounds like it could be an article on the subject of Christmas massacres in general -- not one linked-set in particular. I see that the original title was "Christmas massacres (Democratic Republic of the Congo)", which is a bit on the long side, though not out of the question. Here are a few other possibilities: "2008 Christmas massacres"; "Christmas massacres (Congo)"; 2008 Christmas massacres (Congo)". Another approach would be to incorporate a reference to the LRA, as in "2008 Christmas massacres (Lord's Resistance Army)", or some variant of that. Other suggestions are welcome... Cgingold (talk) 00:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that "Christmas massacres" is too ambiguous — a quick web search for "Christmas massacre -Congo*" shows that several notable events are referred to as "the Christmas massacre", including massacres in Srebrenica, Mexico, Wales, Italy, South Africa and the United States. Any time a bunch of people are murdered around that time of year, people call it a "Christmas massacre". As a reader, I'd expect an article called "Christmas massacres" to mention most of these events or at least disambiguate.
My first preference would be to move this article back to "Christmas massacres (Democratic Republic of the Congo)", which was my original title. I don't think it's too long — dozens of articles have "Democratic Republic of the Congo" in the title, after all. Like it or not, that's what the place is called.
I'm not sure how useful "2008" is as a modifier, since there was at least one other "Christmas massacre" in 2008. (I get 11,000 google hits for ""Christmas massacre" California", compared to 3,500 for ""Christmas massacre" Congo*", so I suspect a lot of people will assume "2008 Christmas massacres" includes this.) And I think people searching for information about the Congolese massacres are more likely to use a geographical term than a year or the name of a rebel group.
I'm not too keen on "Congo" as a disambiguating term because the word can refer to two different countries or a river. I guess "Christmas massacres (Congo)" does the job though. Polemarchus (talk) 15:40, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your very thorough reply! I do think that "Congo" is sufficient to dab, since there's not likely (I hope!!) to be another Christmas massacre in the other Congo. When all is said & done, I would prefer "2008 Christmas massacres (Congo)". It's fairly common to include the year in titles of articles like this (viz. 2008 Mumbai attacks) -- and given the number of massacres that have taken place in the DRC/Zaire over the years, I think it would be useful to include the year. Your thoughts? Cgingold (talk) 14:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, I'm cool with whatever you decide. Polemarchus (talk) 15:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay then, seeing as nobody else has commented, let's go with "2008 Christmas massacres (Congo)". Cgingold (talk) 13:33, 27 January 2009 (UT

LRA Marked Dubious?[edit]

From pretty much every source I found on the massacres they said it was by the LRA, so why is it marked dubious? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WipperWapperWop (talkcontribs) 01:50, 7 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@WipperWapperWop: If you check this edit in the article history, the contributing editor, Korsryttaren (talk · contribs), says "The reference given asserting blame to the LRA is a dead link. The LRA has denied responsibility for the act (see ref 8)" - Cameron Dewe (talk) 22:07, 7 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed these terrible tags. The Lor'ds Resistance Army is not a reliable source. Streamline8988 (talk) 01:57, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]