Talk:Schoharie limousine crash

The article title is highly problematic and etc.

Labeling this as 2018 New York attack without the slightest evidence that this was anything more than a tragic traffic accident is not going to fly. The article needs to be renamed post haste. It is also regrettable that it was created before the bodies have reached room temperature. The long term significance here is probably negligible and it might well end up at AfD. See WP:EVENT. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:19, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Requested move October 7, 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Consensus to move to Schoharie limousine crash from the original title at 2018 New York attack. (non-admin closure) В²C ☎ 18:23, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

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2018 New York attack → 2018 New York vehicle crash – There’s no evidence (at least thus far) that this was a deliberate act, which is probably a good thing. However, 20 people, let alone 20 members of a wedding party, don’t die every single day, and therefore this particular accident has some significance over the joe-average car crash. 24.34.85.169 (talk) 18:28, 7 October 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. bd2412 T 04:02, 15 October 2018 (UTC)--Relisting. —usernamekiran(talk) 18:18, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

•  Moved to 2018 Schoharie New York traffic accident per talk page discussion and WP:BOLD. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:35, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Upon reflection we could probably drop the "2018" as I doubt there are any other road accidents from that area that have articles. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:38, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

• Prefer Schoharie limousine crash, to avoid confusion with NYC; year not needed; emphasise limousine involved. WWGB (talk) 02:29, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
• +1 to that suggestion. Daniel Case (talk) 04:20, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

• I agree. I think the word "limousine" should be in the title, somewhere. That's the search term most people will use. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:14, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

• Support Schoharie limousine crash, but at the very least there should be a comma in the current iteration (Schoharie, New York). PrimaPrime (talk) 15:19, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Two commas, actually: one before the word "New York", and one after. Hence: 2018 Schoharie, New York, traffic accident. But, I assume that will be a moot point and that the title will change soon. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:24, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support move to either Schoharie limousine crash or Schoharie vehicle crash. The word "traffic" implies this was a collision between two or more vehicles. That is factually incorrect as this was a single vehicle accident (any collision that occurred was in an off-road parking lot with a parked vehicle). --Oakshade (talk) 18:35, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support move to Schoharie limousine crash per above. -Zanhe (talk) 18:47, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support a move to Schoharie limousine crash, or 2018 Schoharie, New York limousine crash. In addition, the current article version needs a comma between 'Schoharie' and 'New York'; there is no need for a second comma, though. -Mardus /talk 20:07, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

•  Moved I've made the move to a more specific name, even if discussion about moving has not ended yet. I hope it will stick. Agree in principle with Ad Orientem about the year, so, I guess, it might be dropped in the future. OTOH, there have been many previous vehicle accidents at exactly the same place, so the year does correctly suggest a rolling history of previous crashes, if not so deadly. -Mardus /talk 20:20, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

• Comment I think the title should contain both "limousine" and "New York" as those are the key bits of information that are appearing in story headlines in the UK media and so most likely to be remembered by someone looking for the article in future, but I don't have any strong preference beyond that. Thryduulf (talk) 00:28, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
• The new title needs a comma after "New York". Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:02, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Does it or doesn't it? Mardus said just above that it doesn't ... I presume the idea there is that the toponym is adjectival in that construction (cf. Sherman, Texas bus accident) and thus need not be followed by a comma? Does MOS or any other style manual say anything about this? Daniel Case (talk) 16:49, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Concur. 'Schoharie, New York' is a single item, and does therefore not require a comma after 'New York'. -Mardus /talk 02:52, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

No. Two commas are required. The Manual of Style (WP:MOS#Commas) states:

In geographical references that include multiple levels of subordinate divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element unless followed by other punctuation. Dates in month–day–year format require a comma after the day, as well as after the year, unless followed by other punctuation. In both cases, the last element is treated as parenthetical.

Correct: He set October 1, 2011, as the deadline for Chattanooga, Oklahoma, to meet his demands. Incorrect: He set October 1, 2011 as the deadline for Chattanooga, Oklahoma to meet his demands.

Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:54, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Not directly relevant here. The MOS bit you quoted refers to comma-separated geographical references used as nouns (per the example) We're talking instead about comma-separated geographical identifiers used as modifying phrases. In that case I think the second comma may not be required, as we do not routinely put commas after modifiers, regardless of whether the modifiers are themselves comma-separated. I notice, before we dropped the year, all the articles about the September 11 attacks never put a comma after "2001", either.

It would be as if we referred to the car in this wreck as a "2001 Ford Excursion, limousine". Daniel Case (talk) 06:52, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

• Schoharie limousine crash works absolutely perfectly. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:45, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Strongly support While the town name is fairly obscure and hard to spell, getting the proposed title down to three words is ideal(location, topic at hand; NO commas in the title!); it should come up easily in a WP search. --SteveCof00 (talk) 10:37, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@SteveCof00: Why is the the aim to have the minimum number of words in the title? The name of the town isn't prominent at all in UK media reports so will unlikely to be remembered. Thryduulf (talk) 13:59, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@Thryduulf: The state name would be technically unnecessary since there is (I'm pretty sure) only one Schoharie anywhere in the U.S. (compare Sherman, Texas bus accident; there are quite a few Shermans in the U.S.) However, I do take your point that it's not a community well-known outside the state of New York (and within it, most people would think of the county Schoharie's the seat of, the long watercourse it gets its name from, and the 1987 bridge collapse near that creek's mouth), much less outside the U.S., and I think we could include the state here. Daniel Case (talk) 18:15, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@Daniel Case: See WP:USPLACE. Other than about 30 very major cities, articles about places in the US are named in the format "Placename, State". This is usually carried forward into articles about events named after US places (e.g. 1999 Bourbonnais, Illinois, train crash, Prestonsburg, Kentucky, bus disaster, etc.) unless there is a clear common name otherwise. Thryduulf (talk) 20:17, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@Thryduulf: Yeah, I see it that way too, but we're just not consistent enough about it, and USPLACE is silent on the used-as-modifier issue—I could just as easily point to 2008 Chatsworth train collision (would you know it's a neighborhood of Los Angeles? Or even that it's in California?), Garrison train crash (in New York near me, but you'd never know that, and there are at least a few other Garrisons in the U.S., much less the English-speaking world) and Naperville train disaster (it's in Illinois).

I'm not disagreeing with you ... I'd be quite OK with Schoharie, New York limousine crash. It's just that the reason for including the state has to be consensus that we should, not policy/MOS, because policy doesn't say anything useful about this. Daniel Case (talk) 22:25, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

I've started a discussion about establishing a consensus one way or the other. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States#Naming of articles about transportation accidents and incidents in the United States. Thryduulf (talk) 00:52, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

• I'm torn here. Schoharie, New York limousine crash works, but so does Schoharie limousine crash. I'm not sure people are going to remember the name of the small town the crash happened in it, just that it was in New York State. –Daybeers (talk) 03:39, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

• Comment – I hate to beat a dead horse, but I will. It seems that a second comma is needed, after all. I started a discussion about the comma "issue" here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Question about Wikipedia Manual of Style regarding commas. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:54, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
• The article should move to: 2018 Schoharie, New York, limousine crash. The other titles that have been suggested or used are fine as redirect pages but the aforementioned is clearly the best per Wikipedia:Article titles#Use commonly recognizable names, Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Commas, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Article titles.--John Cline (talk) 07:04, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Addendum - seeing that Schoharie limousine crash is emerging in common use in reliable sources, I am not averse to the page being moving to that title. While I prefer the title I mentioned first, this is a very close second choice for me. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 04:18, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

• Also possible: 2018 Schoharie (New York) limousine crash or 2018 limousine crash in Schoharie, New York . Jmar67 (talk) 13:41, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Just when it seemed the consensus for Schoharie limousine crash was a fait accompli ... I am not entirely convinced by that discussion at the MOS talk page, largely because it took them a while to understand that we were talking about placenames used as descriptors, much like it did here. As I wrote there, in favor of the shorter title:

• Obviously, we all seem to agree, the year is not necessary as there is only one under discussion (The idea that we should use it as there may be other ones at this problematic intersection in the future is, I think, pretty clearly crushed under WP:CRYSTAL).
• I do not think ", New York" is necessary as there are no other Schoharies in the U.S. or indeed elsewhere in the world.
• Using "New York" alone is unsatisfactory as it conflates the city and state, something we've been trying to move away from for a few years now.
• If people elsewhere don't remember the name of the town, as noted at the MOS talk page, that's what redirects are for.
• I would further point out that we have dispensed with the state name for many incidents that have occurred in small communities, some of which certainly have names that recur elsewhere in the U.S. (2008 Chatsworth train collision, for instance). Even for events within New York City (July 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment, December 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment, both of which I include as examples because we had to make the rare use of the month in the title since they were at nearly the same spot in the same year; see also Kew Gardens train crash and Crown Heights riot), we have been able to use just the neighborhood they occurred in, not even the borough, without anyone saying they're confused.
• As I type, I see that "Schoharie limousine crash" seems to be becoming the common name for this accident: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] (from outside the region).

Daniel Case (talk) 02:22, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

If anyone is considering closing this, I ask that you strongly consider the only authoritative source I found on the second-comma-in-an-adjective-phrase question, Bryan Garner, who states unequivocally in The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style that the second-comma question should be dealt with by not using the second element at all, as doing so "lessen[s] readability and annoy[s] literate readers". I would commend your attention to a more in-depth discussion of this on my part at the MOS talk page. Daniel Case (talk) 04:37, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

• This needs to be resolved, whatever is decided, because I think we all agree the present name is not correct. –Daybeers (talk) 05:22, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support the current 2018 Schoharie, New York limousine crash. All sources are using “limousine” (count “limo” as including), not “vehicle”. All sources are using “crash”. “2018” is important for recognisability. “Schoharie, New York” is the location. Dropping “New York” might be ok, but dropping “Schoharie” would mean a need to disambiguate “New York” from NYC. In the current, a comma after “New York”. 2018 Schoharie, New York, limousine crash or 2018 Schoharie limousine crash. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:47, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

There is very strong source usage of "Schoharie Limousine Crash". Source usage of "New York" (actually spelled out) is much less. "NY" is frequently used in sources per the standard real world city naming convention Schoharie, NY, the common abbreviation of Schoharie, New York.

The year should be included per WP:NCEVENTS. Granted, sources are not specifying the year explicitly in introduction, but they are referring clearly to a very recent event in dated publications, so the year is obviously assumed. The question is what will happen in future years. Future sources will be preferred to 2018 source, because better sources are more distant in both time and distance, 2018 sources will be considered primary sources in future (ten years) coverage. Future coverage will specify the year, because coverage of old events always specifies the year. What if there is no future coverage? That would mean that this event is not notable, and NCEVENTS exceptions should not be made for weak articles. (I think there is no chance that this crash will seem non-notable in ten years). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:09, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Per NCEVENTS: "Some articles do not need a year for disambiguation when, in historic perspective, the event is easily described without it." As others here have observed, while limousine crashes are not uncommon, this is the only one in this location and I think it is widely believed that there won't be another (if there is, then we can add the year to the title).

Valhalla train crash has worked quite well for that article; even though there was another fatal accident at that grade crossing (in 1979) we have sufficiently described it in that article where necessary and have thus not needed to preface the title with a year; a brief edit war about that over there was easily dispensed with. A title prefaced by the year would be, as with that article, useful for a redirect (indeed, all the arguments you advance are useful for a redirect, but not so much for the main title). Daniel Case (talk) 02:56, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi Daniel Case. OK, the agreement that including the year in events is not universal, and you would go the other way. Valhalla train crash has worked quite well? I think that 2015 Philadelphia train derailment works much much better, and as is perfectly concise. My quick google of "Valhalla train crash" pulls up new (2017) sources [6] & [7] that refer to the incident as "the 2015 Valhalla train crash" (I didn't include "2015" in my search). Some articles need or do not need the year, but as a rule, all event titles are better with the year. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:07, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

It seems at the moment that this is something to be decided on a case-by-case basis by the editors working on each article. As for [2015 Philadelphia train derailment]], I do remember starting a rather involved discussion on that one, too, but the question was about using the city rather than one of its neighborhoods where the accident was more specifically described as happening, much as we used neighborhoods within New York City for December 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment and Kew Gardens train crash because the city was just too big and there have been multiple rail accidents within it over the years. But ... the idea behind using the neighborhood was to make it so we didn't have to use the year. Since we did just go with "Philadelphia" on the grounds that there were Philadelphians who'd never heard of the neighborhood partaking in the discussion, it then made sense to include the year.

A problem with following NCEVENTS here is that the transportation accidents subsection doesn't mention a preference for using years at all. It also gives us no guidance on naming articles about road accidents. However, I think the "bridge and rail" subsection is a good analog for how we should approach this, and it says those accidents "should be named according to the 'where and what' convention". Notice that when is not mentioned. Daniel Case (talk) 05:43, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I recall engaging in an extensive discussion on a project-space talk page about the use of the year in titles of events, incidents, accidents, but I am frustrated that I cannot find these discussions. My input is that for random brief events, like accidents, and riots, the year is extremely valuable to enough readers, give the small number of characters (five), but it to be worth always including. I recall indecision on whether the year goes best at the start or the end (at the end ", yyyy" means six characters, and " (yyyy)" means seven characters). Source analysis was pretty convincing that when the secondary source date was years later, it began by naming the indent with the year at the start, eg introduce like "2018 Schoharie limousine crash". Sure, "limousine crash" is unusual enough to make it a very reliable search term, but readers can't sure know that the title will include "limousine". Some here have already suggested changing to "vehicle", meaning that some readers may expect that too. Also, the US meaning of limousine is not universal. The vehicle involved is not, according to other definitions, a limousine. Some have called it a stretched SUV. It was, originally, and at the end in many respects still, a Ford Excursion. So, "limousine" while a pretty good search term, is not to be considered absolutely reliable. In contrast, the year is. Sources describing the event will always be dated from 2018, or will specify that the event was in 2018. This is generally true for all single random (non-scheduled) events/accidents. I honestly think that 2018 Schoharie limousine crash will be the best title for readers into the future. I think better to lose the "New York" and comma issues than to lose the year. "2018 Schoharie, New York, limousine crash" is a bit awkward. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:26, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Ah, those discussions where you just know you'll find support for your position, you just can't find it (not knocking you, I've been in that position too). But to get back to the point ... I think that this is one of the events that is singular enough, per the "Conventions" subsection of NCEVENTS, that "where and what" would be a sufficiently distinct identifier. Your reservations about the use of "limousine" as the most signficant search term are either hairsplitting or not really as significant as you claim—the issues with the meaning of "limousine" in other languages (or are you suggesting that applies to other varieties of English? The Wiktionary definition of limousine does not suggest that there are any significant differences) if any, can be resolved in titling the article about this event in those languages, when they get written.

If we had lots of other articles about notable limousine wrecks (as far as I can tell, we do not ... perhaps at some point we might want to have one about the Long Island wreck that killed four that's been mentioned in some news coverage of this incident, and indeed is briefly mentioned in this article, and if and when we do that I think you'd have a point in adding the year to the title. Consider Hyatt Regency walkway collapse ... that accident is so far rather unique, and no one has felt it necessary to prepend "1981" to its title. Daniel Case (talk) 05:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

• Prefer Schoharie limousine crash. No need for year or state. WWGB (talk) 10:43, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
• Current title (2018 Schoharie, New York limousine crash) Per WP:NCEVENT events should usually have the year, which greatly aides recognizability, especially in a few years when it is out of the news cycle and people have forgotten about it. Also, "New York limousine crash" is used quite often in sources, and that also aides recognizeability. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:45, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

It's NCEVENTS, actually, and I didn't find anything on that page supporting your assertion that all events should usually have the year in the title. And as I noted above (with links), "Schoharie limousine crash" is becoming more common as coverage recedes. "New York limousine crash" not only fails to disambiguate between the city and the state, it is largely used in foreign sources or coverage in the immediate aftermath when little was known. Daniel Case (talk) 15:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

• Move to Schoharie limousine crash. There is almost a consensus above, but not quite enough to call it so I'm adding an extra support for this version. Per WP:CONCISE there is no need to include the year or the state name.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:53, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
  • For sure, it is looking either Schoharie limousine crash or 2018 Schoharie limousine crash. The nomination statement is confusing, "2018 New York attack → 2018 New York vehicle crash". what's with those redlinks?? The current title 2018 Schoharie, New York limousine crash has comma problems, the crash did not involve a "New York limousine". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:24, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

When the article was created, news coverage was sketchy and some of it, particularly in Europe, seemed to suggest it was another vehicle-ramming attack. That title was quickly changed when it became apparent, within 12 hours of creation, that this was just a horrific accident, not a terrorist incident. But the discussion that was opened at that time is ... well, we're still having it. Daniel Case (talk) 05:33, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

• • • The year needs to be there for readers in the future. –Daybeers (talk) 03:37, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

As I just argued above, I think that per NCEVENTS this accident, as one involving a limousine and so titled, is at present rather unique among our articles about road accidents notable for their high fatality count (rather than the deaths of notable people in passenger cars, which, if we have separate articles about them, are usually and properly of the "Death of ..." variety (and as an aside from that, Karen Silkwood should really be Death of Karen Silkwood, per that logic, as but for the still-controversial accident that took her life nothing she had done up to that point would have met our notability standards, and the things that might have only became notable as part of the investigation into the circumstances of her death)) that we can just get by with "where and what".

I also think this reliance on the idea that future readers will need the year is a bit overstated, at least in the sense that people would use it as a search term, since I am old enough to know now and personally experience the fact that our memory of what year something happened is generally not as reliable as we like to think it is, if indeed it is reliable enough to merit the term to begin with.

For instance, in a discussion of the recent Kavanaugh nomination elsewhere, I had thought that Robert Bork's failed nomination to the Supreme Court took place before the late Antonin Scalia's nomination to the Court. It turned out upon looking it up here that I had in my memory transposed the two events ... Scalia had been nominated in 1986, one year before Bork.

Likewise, years ago when I researched and wrote New Coke I was astounded at how many people, perhaps younger than myself, stated confidently on their web pages, blogs, whatever, that the new formula had been introduced in 1986, along with the Max Headroom ads (the right year for the latter, but a year late for the former). And I don't know if we can blame David Edelstein for this or not, since I think this was in common circulation when he made that mistake, but too many people still seem to think that Michael Stipe wrote "Everybody Hurts" as a posthumous tribute to Kurt Cobain, when in fact it came out as a single almost a year before Cobain killed himself (Or not).

So do people really remember these things in the future by the year they happened? Try this: Without looking at the article, can you remember what year the Miracle on the Hudson happened? Daniel Case (talk) 06:11, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

 Page mover comment I have temporarily moved the article boldly to Schoharie limousine crash, given the fact currently consensus is to keep that title. But instead of closing the discussion, I have relisted it, as it is still a current event. The "common name" might change in upcoming few days. —usernamekiran(talk) 18:18, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I doubt that; news coverage is slowing down. However, it will probably spike up again if and when a) Hussain is formally indicted, as if some of the coverage suggests, he and his brother acted illegally to circumvent the state's efforts to keep the limousine off the road, I wouldn't be surprised if the charge is upped to second-degree manslaughter, since those actions go beyond criminal negligence to "evinc[ing] depraved indifference to human life", or b) the NTSB comes out with its preliminary report, which it has said it probably will by the end of the year or shortly afterward. We can see how it is referred to then. Daniel Case (talk) 18:23, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

List of victim names

There is no policy or guideline for or against the inclusion of victim names. Their inclusion or exclusion is determined by editors on a case-by-case basis.[8] IMO, the reader's understanding is not enhanced by reading a list of names. Significant features such as sibling or spousal relationships, or age ranges, can be written in general prose. I was intending to remove the list pending the outcome of this discussion, but I have left it there IGF until there is consensus one way or the other. WWGB (talk) 22:49, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

I put in a lot of effort writing that, because we have similar lists of victims who aren't notable in some of the other transportation-accident articles I've worked on: Valhalla train crash and December 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment. In the first case one of the victims (Walter Liedtke) was decided to have been notable during his life after the crash; later we also found that Robert Dirks had done some significant research in computational chemistry and wrote an article about him. But, the latter list does not have anyone notable on it.

I would agree that perhaps in a case like this where we have a lot more victims than either of those accidents, perhaps a full list is too much.

Might Brian Hough, the SUNY Oswego geology professor, accomplished anything notable to merit a posthumous article? Can someone look? Daniel Case (talk) 02:05, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

I've always liked lists of names, ages and hometowns, and today's no different. Alphabetical order, if you please. Any old order, if you don't. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:46, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Why? They're not notable, and almost all readers will never have heard of them. WWGB (talk) 04:42, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

The writers and lead producer of Fred Penner's Place, half of Kiribati's Speakers of the House and all of Ted Bundy's victims are "nobodies", too. Call me old-fashioned, but I still think people come to an encyclopedia to learn new things about topics they were introduced to elsewhere. And call me naive, but I think we editors (like reporters and storytellers) still have a duty to present our audience with what, where, when, why, how and who, especially when the main hook of a tale is an extraordinary body count. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:38, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Another idea I have—maybe we could put it in a collapsible box or something? Daniel Case (talk) 02:55, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Maybe if your first idea turns out to be unpopular, but I can't get behind collapsing just yet. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:28, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Why not? I think a collapsible box is a great solution. It allows readers to click to open it if they'd like, but it doesn't have to take up lots of space in the article if they don't. –Daybeers (talk) 03:45, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Readers who don't use Javascript here just see everything highlighted in a green (sometimes red) non-collapsible box. Sort of forces them to look at it. It's good info, but not so good it deserves to be conspicuous. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:58, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

• I am strongly opposed to including lists of non-notable victims in situations like this as it is directly contrary to both the letter and spirit of WP:NOTMEMORIAL. That said I am typically fine with adding a link to an appropriate memorial website or a news site that lists the victims in the External Links section. -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:16, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

That's about subjects of articles, in letter and spirit. There's not, nor has there been, a requirement for anyone (dead or alive) to qualify for a standalone article before being mentioned in an article about something that involved them. If there was, recalling actual past activities of Scott Lisinicchia, Erin McGowan, Robert Patnaude, Shahed Hussain, Nauman Hussain, Susan Mallery and/or Lee Kindlon should be frowned upon harder than the relatively mild reminiscence of how some other guy from Halfmoon unwittingly happened to be 31 when he died. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:23, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

I have no objection to mentioning people who died in a WP:EVENT that may not warrant their own article... provided there is an encyclopedic reason to mention them. That is to say they were involved in a material way in the EVENT beyond simply dying. If their only relationship to the EVENT is that they died in it, then there is no encyclopedic justification for their being named. And yes, we are at that point running afoul of NOTMEMORIAL. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:04, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

But NOTMEMORIAL is really about whether people who died in an event with no claim to notability otherwise should have their own articles, not whether they should be named as victims in the article about the event. Daniel Case (talk) 02:11, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Dying at an event like a concert, wedding or hockey game is relatively simple and immaterial. But dying in this event fundamentally distinguishes it from the Schoharie limousine ride or Schoharie fender bender. That is to say, without these particular people dying, there's no significant coverage and no justification for an article at all. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:45, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Comment / Question – I think that we definitely should list the victims' names, ages, etc. This has been done in many other similar articles. They are part of the story – a huge part – whether or not they are independently notable. In fact, they are the story. Furthermore, I think that we should have a Wikipedia policy, for once and for all, about this topic (i.e., "Are victims' names appropriate to add to articles, where many deaths occur?" or some such). I don't see the point in us re-inventing the wheel, every single time a tragedy strikes and a Wikipedia article is written and we have this same exact debate. Where does one go to suggest a new policy about this? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 14:23, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, you could first look at WP:VL, an essay arguing strongly against the inclusion of victim lists. But ... I think someone above referred to a previous VP discussion to the effect that this should be determined by consensus on a case-by-case basis rather than us making a one-size-fits-all policy. Daniel Case (talk) 20:24, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. But that is "just" an essay. I myself (or anyone else) can write a second essay, advocating the exact opposite point. Here are the problems that I have with the "case-by-case" basis approach. First, it leads to inconsistency across articles. Second, it "forces" us to keep re-inventing the wheel, every time the issue arises. Third – and most importantly – the results will be very random and arbitrary, depending on which specific editors participate in any given individual article discussion. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:00, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

That could be said about so many other things we do/don't do, as well. I think if you really want there to be a policy, you ought to reopen the discussion at the Village Pump. Daniel Case (talk) 01:43, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

For reference, here's the last discussion of this, from this past summer. Daniel Case (talk) 02:29, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Or "this past winter" for the 12% of us who live in the Southern Hemisphere! WWGB (talk) 02:35, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Hey, I was in Cape Town for a week in late July, and while the days were short, it was generally warm enough to walk around in short sleeves during the day (at least) (one day it even got above 80 °F (27 °C)!). And quite a few trees kept their leaves.

Now, if I had gone to Argentina or Chile instead, I might not have argued with you. Daniel Case (talk) 06:38, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Follow up: So, what's the consensus? Adding or not adding the victim list? I see that names of victims were recently added to this article: Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:43, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

That was per a discussion initiated on the talk page for that article, one that was initiated before adding the list to the article. I would submit that there is a difference between 20 dead in an accident and 11 dead in a mass shooting motivated by antisemitism that might have swayed editors in the latter case. Daniel Case (talk) 18:22, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Addendum: A discussion you participated in, so my link is for other readers' benefit. Daniel Case (talk) 18:24, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

• Query. It's this still being discussed? I feel we don't need that list. I'm not convinced it really has encyclopedic relevance here. It doesn't really aid the understanding of the article.Tvx1 14:59, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

I suppose if we want consensus, we should wait till it goes on the Main Page for DYK tomorrow and see if anyone else weighs in. Daniel Case (talk) 16:30, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose list of victim names – I work mainly on air accidents (WP:AATF) and the general practice there is to omit victim names, not just because of the often large number of victims involved, but because of the lack of encyclopedic value. Exceptions are usually made only if victims are notable (e.g. passengers with WP articles) or are referenced elsewhere within the article in relation to the accident itself (e.g. flight crew members mentioned in relation to their actions during the event). The spirit of WP:NOTMEMORIAL, paraphrasing, is that Wikipedia is not the place to memorialize deceased people who do not meet its notability requirements. Victim lists are what you would expect to find in a newspaper article, but Wikipedia, as we know, is WP:NOTNEWS. --Deeday-UK (talk) 14:52, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I believe that basic information about the deceased is of "encyclopedic value" because a reader wants specific information. We don't have Talk page discussions over whether or not we should mention in the article that the group were on their way to the Brewery Ommegang. The reader wants specific information. We don't just refer to it as "a brewery". And WP:NOTMEMORIAL does not prohibit the inclusion of victim names. It prohibits the creation of articles on deceased individuals who are not notable. Victim lists are found in other, similar articles. And this question has been raised at the Village pump and the conclusion was not reached that WP:MEMORIAL prohibits victim lists. Bus stop (talk) 19:18, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

@Bus stop, your example adds to my point: we don't refer to Brewery Ommegang as just 'a brewery' precisely because that brewery is notable enough to have its own article, something that cannot be said for the victims of this crash. We cannot indiscriminately add every bit of information just to be specific; we need to draw a line somewhere. And in any case the reader is only one click away from the relevant source that has victim names and every other information that doesn't belong to an encyclopedia. --Deeday-UK (talk) 20:30, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

@Deeday-UK—I don't know if that makes all that much sense. I don't think it matters whether we have an article on something or not as a determining factor on whether we can include it or not. An entity can be pertinent to an article without it meeting our notability requirements. We don't have an article on the "Apple Barrel Country Store" yet we name it in the article. (It is mentioned in the Schoharie County, New York article.) I think the names of the deceased would tend to constitute pertinent information in an article on an incident that involves fatalities and therefore should warrant inclusion. Bus stop (talk) 21:02, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, scrap the first part of my post; the argument is not very sound. In fact, which brewery the party was heading for is another encyclopedically irrelevant piece of information that could well be dropped. --Deeday-UK (talk) 18:21, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Why drop information? Should we drop the name "Apple Barrel Country Store" and just refer to it as a country store at the junction of New York state routes 30 and 30A north of Schoharie? I'm trying to understand why we would drop information when the reader is coming to the article to get information. Is it that you have foreknowledge that no reader could possibly want to know the names of the deceased? Bus stop (talk) 18:38, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Oppose: WWGB, Ad Orientem, Tvx1, Deeday-UK

Support: InedibleHulk, Bus stop, Joseph A. Spadaro

Leaning Oppose, and/or supporting a collapsible box: DanielCase, Daybeers

Thus, nobody can claim that there is a consensus to include the list here (that is, without asserting the radical claim that their side has consensus because they have the "objectively stronger" arguments). The list should never have been added without that consensus, and it appears that none of the few Opposers cared enough to press that point. Aside from the process violation, the problem with that is that one or two list supporters then point to this article as precedent to argue for lists in other articles.

I personally favor corrections to process errors, even 7 months after the fact. Therefore my first inclination was to remove the list pending consensus to include it. However, I'm taking the kinder, gentler approach in this case and starting an RfC. Unless there is an overwhelming numerical margin with high participation, an uninvolved close will be needed. If the closer assesses "no consensus", I'm prepared to leave it to them to decide whether the list should remain in the article in a situation like this. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:50, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Please fix this sentence

Can someone please rewrite this sentence? It is awful. It is very wordy and has far too many "twists and turns". Thanks. The sentence is this: A couple who had had the same limo, driven by Lisinicchia, a year earlier, when Prestige had done business as Saratoga Luxury Limousine, for their wedding, told Albany station WNYT that the limo was in poor condition, with rust and duct tape, and they, too, found its engine loud. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:16, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

One of my usual first-draft run-on jobs. I'll do something about it. Daniel Case (talk) 04:18, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:09, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Took a pass at it. Hopefully it reads more clearly now. 8.19.241.10 (talk) 19:46, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Nauman Hussain

I added his identity as the son of the limousine company's owner. Please explain in the article why the owner wasn't arrested. Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 23:39, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

The article explains that the father is in Pakistan. WWGB (talk) 00:38, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

So why was the son arrested? Something needs to be said about him running the company in his father's absence, if that's the case. Yoninah (talk) 01:06, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

The father was apparently in Pakistan before the accident. The state police came to believe, after they interviewed Nauman, that he had allowed the vehicle to be operated in his father's stead despite knowing that it had failed inspection and had been declared unserviceable.

However, they haven't said much about why they believe that he knew those things.

A grand jury is currently considering the case; once an indictment comes down (if it does, which I think it quite likely will) it will go into more detail. Daniel Case (talk) 01:53, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Victims names list

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should the article include a list of the names of the deceased victims? 12:02, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

The precursor discussion—at Talk:Schoharie limousine crash#List of victim names—did not reach a consensus, but the list was included anyway.

Uninvolved close has been requested at WP:ANRFC.[9] ―Mandruss ☎ 01:16, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Survey: Victims names list

• Oppose - Per WP:ONUS and WP:NOTEVERYTHING, verifiable RS reporting alone is not enough. The names are completely meaningless to all but a very few readers. The criterion for inclusion of any information is whether it adds to a reader's understanding of the event; these names do not and cannot. If they are deemed relevant, genders and ages could be summarized in prose.
  Further, there are arguable privacy concerns. These victims are not "public figures" who chose to waive their privacy, they had absolutely no say in their selection. "Well it's available in the news anyway" has never been an accepted reason to include something in Wikipedia.
  For the multiple excellent counters to arguments about precedent in other articles, including the vast majority in which the lists have received little or no discussion, search for "90%" at Talk:Aurora, Illinois shooting/Archive 2#RfC: Victim names. The 90% number largely represents the effective equivalent of democratic voting by editing, and it falls dramatically when you look at articles where the issue has received significant scrutiny in recent years.[10] It falls so far that nobody can claim that it represents a community consensus for the lists. Attempts to reach a consensus in community venues such as the Village Pump have repeatedly failed, despite arguments about precedent, and there could be little clearer evidence of the absence of a community consensus for the lists. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:15, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

"there are arguable privacy concerns" Just as the name of the perpetrator is available at many sources, so too are the names of the victims available at many sources. I don't believe there are "privacy concerns". You may have other reasons for objecting to inclusion of victim names but I think the "privacy concerns" argument is farfetched. Bus stop (talk) 13:13, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:18, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. While I have no concern with describing the victims' genders, age ranges and inter-relationships, publication of individual names does nothing to enhance the reader's understanding of the event and the deceased. WWGB (talk) 12:23, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support. I am listed above as having "leaned oppose" on this several months ago; I am not really sure that my stance could have been accurately characterized that way then and it is not now.

  In eight months of working on this, there have come to be reasons to mention several victims by name elsewhere in the article: Lisinicchia because he was the driver, the Steenburgs because they planned the trip and it was her birthday (as well as being a part of the larger group of four sisters and their three husbands), Erin McGowan and Allison King because of their texts to others before the accident, Adam Jackson because of the snafu his death caused at the local board of elections and Amanda Rivenburg because her family has filed a lawsuit. In addition, the town of Guilderland recently held a softball tournament and unveiled a memorial bench for Patrick Cushing, which I will be adding to the Aftermath section.

  With this many victims already having to be named at various points in the article (and, WP:CRYSTAL notwithstanding, I cannot imagine that there won't be more), I think having the names in a central place is helpful for readers. Daniel Case (talk) 14:47, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

  @Daniel Case: Apologies for misreading your position in the other discussion, if I did. But even if you were a Support, there was no consensus there. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:48, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Accepted, but you don't need to apologize; I wasn't entirely clear to myself, either. Daniel Case (talk) 16:38, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

This is not atypical at these sorts of articles. Some names call for singling out. But the entire list, if it is not too large, can be in the article, and supplemental information can be provided as needed in prose form. Bus stop (talk) 06:14, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per Mandruss. I don't see encyclopedic value in a list of names.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per WP:BLP#Presumption in favor of privacy. Names might be appropriate on a case-by-case basis, but I've seen no basis for including the names as a list. As previously noted, the names of the victims don't help readers understand the event. R2 (bleep) 16:55, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support inclusion of victim names. In my opinion the relatively recent initiative to deliberately omit this sort of information from these sorts of articles only does damage to the affected articles. Similar articles have been created since Wikipedia's inception. Approximately 90% of those articles, by my estimation, identify all victims by name.[11] Bus stop (talk) 18:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose (pinged by bot). WP:NOTMEMORIAL, WP:NOTNEWS, and all the reasons mentioned above. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 07:43, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

  We need to stop citing NOTMEMORIAL on this, or at least change the wording of that section so it makes it even clearer than it is already that it only applies to creating articles about people who recently died, regardless of notability. It has been made explicit that choices like including victim lists are a matter for the editors of an individual article. Daniel Case (talk) 18:44, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

  It would be useful if we inserted the words "the spirit of" before the WP:NOTMEMORIAL shortcut link. No one has yet explained why it should be verboten to memorialize a dead person by creating an article for them, but ok to memorialize them in other ways, nor has it been shown that that was the considered intent of NOTMEMORIAL. And it's clear enough that memorialization is the main motivator for many list-supporting editors, particularly those with less editing experience. Per Pillar 5, it's not about strict adherence to written rules but about the reasoning and intent behind them—which is unclear at this point and therefore a matter of editor opinion and interpretation. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:57, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

  or at least change the wording of that section... - BTW, I did hear your entire comment, and my preceding comment is a poorly-placed response to other comments, here and elsewhere, that have effectively stopped at We need to stop citing NOTMEMORIAL on this. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:16, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - How would adding the names of people who died in a car crash improve Wikipedia ? How would it make it a better encyclopedia? Who are the readers who would benefit from having this information readily available in the page? I'm not actually expecting answers to any of these questions and that's kind of my point. PraiseVivec (talk) 12:55, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Posing questions is different from providing reasons. The information is amply sourced and within the scope of the article. Why should it be omitted? Bus stop (talk) 14:29, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support yet again per the Five Ws, WP:V and WP:NPOV. Unlike when these things first happen and people object for hypothetical privacy reasons, we've now had eight months to wait and see whether the list has any apparent detrimental effect on the family whatsoever. My Google-fu indicates it hasn't, at least in no big way. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:51, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support. We have 20 fatalities - which is a fatality count which would not overburden the article with a list (unlike, say, 40+ fatalities) - on my screen this takes 6 lines. The names of the victims are possibly useful for the reader who may wish to search for further information as well as being useful for Wikipedians looking for sources on the event or aftermath.Icewhiz (talk) 16:26, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NOTMEMORIAL, which is also used for lists of victims, not just one-off obituaries. I have no problem with including the names of the deceased in prose, but they should not be in list form. SportingFlyer T·C 16:55, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

As I said above, NOTMEMORIAL is NOTGERMANE to this discussion, since it applies, in its own wording, to articles themselves rather than lists in articles, and previous consensus on whether we should have a blanket rule on victim lists has been that it is better to leave it up to editors on individual articles, as we have, as noted (and I think linked) in discussions above. Daniel Case (talk) 17:17, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't logically follow for NOTMEMORIAL to only apply to individuals. But nevertheless, I'm opposed to listing victims in list form, as there's no logical reason to do so here. SportingFlyer T·C 17:37, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

As I said above (we can all continue this dance as long as you and others like), the spirit of NOTMEMORIAL, as many editors interpret it, is NOT NOTGERMANE to this discussion. And Pillar 5.

That it has to be decided at each article doesn't preclude citing the spirit of NOTMEMORIAL as all or part of an oppose rationale at each article, so I don't see your point with that. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:03, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, OK, but too many editors just mouth (ahem) "NOTMEMORIAL" in these discussions unmindful of what it actually says. Yes, it's in that spirit, and I do not dismiss that argument out of hand, but until we rewrite NOTMEMORIAL to make it clear that victim lists in articles are a case-by-case thing this will continue to happen. Daniel Case (talk) 21:26, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

SportingFlyer, Daniel Case, Mandruss—the spirit of WP:MEMORIAL is that memorialization is not a sufficient reason for creating an article on a decedent. We only can create articles on decedents who meet WP:Notability requirements. Victim names in articles are content. WP:Notability says: "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article. The criteria applied to the creation or retention of an article are not the same as those applied to the content inside it. The notability guidelines do not apply to contents of articles or lists (with the exception of lists which restrict inclusion to notable items or people)." Bus stop (talk) 23:38, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:NOT applies to content as well as notability. SportingFlyer T·C 23:51, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

@Bus stop:, as far as I can tell I agree with everything you say, Is there something you think I'm missing? Daniel Case (talk) 02:56, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Daniel Case—I merely "harvested" the 3 user-names that appeared beneath the immediately-above "oppose" vote, your name being among them, and all of which were discussing WP:MEMORIAL. I sometimes find it easier to weigh in on a general theme than to address individual editor's points. I will reiterate that "in the spirit of" is the unacceptable idea that we can apply policy where it is inapplicable. Bus stop (talk) 06:15, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

SportingFlyer—you say "I have no problem with including the names of the deceased in prose, but they should not be in list form." Prose can supplement lists and tables. This RfC should not be asking "Should the article include a list of the names of the deceased victims?" It should be asking "Should the page include the victims' names?" as seen here. Note how similar information is found in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and Columbine High School massacre. A good example of this would be the supplemental prose "Among the dead were two brothers (the Rosenthals) and a married couple (the Simons)" found at the synagogue shooting article. Bus stop (talk) 00:00, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

I'd be fine with that, but the question here is specifically "list," hence my oppose on memorial/directory grounds. SportingFlyer T·C 00:18, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

The question should not be specifically about lists. This is a problem pertaining to the formulation of this RfC. The question is not prose or lists (or tables, for that matter). There is no reason that this RfC should be pointedly (too pointedly) asking "Should the article include a list of the names of the deceased victims?" That question is too specific because we should add information in whatever form is best for conveying that information. We want information to be quickly grasped by a reader. In the case of 20 deaths that is probably best accomplished by a combination of means involving a list and supplementary prose, with the prose sentences serving to single out individual names for further commentary. Bus stop (talk) 12:42, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per NOTMEMORIAL, Having looked at Manchester attacks, 2017 Westminster attack, 2017 London Bridge attack, 2017 Finsbury Park attack and Christchurch mosque shootings none of these name victims, Ofcourse this article isn't attack related however there are still no victims on these because the consensus I assume was not to include. –Davey2010^Talk 14:51, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

I assume you meant Manchester Arena bombing for the first one? Your argument actually concedes the opposing point: there was no consensus to name victims in those articles, which means it's entirely up to consensus here and what the editors did on those articles really has no bearing on whether we decide to have it here. Daniel Case (talk) 18:01, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

I did indeed, My point was that consensus everywhere seems to be to not include these sorts of lists, I see no benefit to having a list here anyway. –Davey2010^Talk 12:02, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

"consensus everywhere seems to be to not include these sorts of lists" This is not true. You can see over 200 articles naming all victims here. And by the way, we are not talking about "lists". The RfC is malformed. It should not be asking "Should the article include a list of the names of the deceased victims?" A more apt question would be "Should the page include the victims' names?" Bus stop (talk) 13:11, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

The arguments against have nothing to do with format, so (thankfully) we needn't spend a lot of time debating the definition of the word "list". ―Mandruss ☎ 03:18, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Mandruss—you formulated the RfC improperly. The question is not "Should the article include a list of the names of the deceased victims?" A more apt question would be "Should the page include the victims' names?" as we see in this RfC. Even at this late time I think you should strike through the one question and replace it with the other. Bus stop (talk) 04:12, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

No, we don't change the question a few days before the close, nor is there is any need to do so, as I indicated in my previous comment. The arguments against have nothing to do with format. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:46, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

We don't pose non-neutral RfCs. WP:RFCBRIEF: "Statement should be neutral and brief ... If you feel that you cannot describe the issue neutrally, you may either ask someone else to write the question or summary, or simply do your best and leave a note asking others to improve it. It may be helpful to discuss your planned RfC question on the talk page before starting the RfC, to see whether other editors have ideas for making it clearer or more concise." The central question is whether or not the victim names should be included, not whether they should be included in list form. A common method of including this sort of information involves both list and prose in close proximity. See Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and Columbine High School massacre. Information in prose form often supplements information in list form. I am not saying you are doing this on purpose but you are skewing the outcome in your favor by minimizing the importance of the identities of the victims to this article. You are doing that by presenting the identities of the victims as merely a component of the article that would be included as a list. Their importance to this article should not be minimized because that is the fundamental question under discussion—what is the importance of the names of the victims to the article? You are eliding over that question by reducing it to whether or not a "list" should be included. For the sake of an RfC the question posed should be neutral. In this case that means allowing for the possibility of supplemental material being included in prose form. To encompass that possibility the more apt question should be posed: "Should the page include the victims' names?" Bus stop (talk) 05:59, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

You are free to start another RfC after this one has been closed. If you do, I will notify all participants in this one and the precursor discussion, and I suspect all Opposers will continue to Oppose for exactly the same reasons. But we don't change the question a few days before the close, no matter how high you build your walls of text about it. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:15, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Could you please just tell me what the privacy concerns are? I would be interested in knowing what the privacy concerns are. You are saying "there are arguable privacy concerns". Bus stop (talk) 09:17, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support per well-reasoned arguments by Bus stop, particularly the distinction between NOTMEM and Notability, and my own belief that names add to encyclopedic value of the article. DonFB (talk) 21:40, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Agree with arguments put forward by Mandruss and WWGB. --ColumbiaXY (talk) 06:00, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Above account initiated yesterday. Contributions thus far predominantly to Talk page controversies. Their User page suggests to me they may have an ax to grind. Bus stop (talk) 15:19, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

You make some non-points there ... and your ax to grind non-conclusion does not add to the discussion either. Everyone is free to contribute to whatever part of wikipedia is available and of relative interest to the person. That being said, I find listing the names of private individuals killed in accidents abhorrent and grotesque. Just because tabloids and click-bait journalists do it does not mean wikipedia should do it!!! --ColumbiaXY (talk) 06:51, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia should create articles on a topic ostensibly being addressed. A problem that you do not seen to be addressing is the deliberate omission of on-topic and reliably-sourced information. The New York Times is generally not considered a "tabloid". There is nothing "abhorrent and grotesque" in on-topic and reliably-sourced information. Your sensibilities should not override the purpose of providing the reader with information on the topic ostensibly addressed in the article. By the way, welcome to the discussion. Please ignore my earlier comments in relation to your participation. I hope you will forgive me for anything untoward. Bus stop (talk) 13:11, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose Not sure of the encyclopedic value of naming the victims. Cynistrategus (talk) 10:05, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

• That is fascinating—omit information because individual editors are "Not sure of the encyclopedic value of naming the victims." Wouldn't that be a Failure of imagination? Should we omit information willy-nilly? In my opinion there has to be a reason for omitting information. This is an article about the deaths of 20 people in an accident. The article has a scope; the names of the deceased fall squarely within that scope. Certainly the names of the deceased can be omitted—but only if there is a reason for doing so—not simply because we cannot imagine why a reader would want to know the names of the deceased. The material in question is on-topic for the article that it is in and it is reliably-sourced. For what good reason should we omit it? Bus stop (talk) 12:52, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Chronology of this issue

• 10 October — Names of the dead were added as a BOLD edit.
• 10 October — Four hours later, discussion was started.
• 10 October — Forty minutes later, the BOLD edit was disputed by reversion.
• 1 November — The names were re-added without consensus.
• 15 November — After multiple periods of silence, discussion ended, still without consensus.
• 10 June — I started this RfC.

Thus there was a process error—an editor (who was not otherwise involved) re-added the disputed names without consensus—and the error went uncorrected. These are the neutral facts and I will refrain from trying to sway the uninvolved closer to my viewpoint on this process issue—provided others do likewise. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:32, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Photo request: The Saratoga Springs Mavis

If anyone's reading this who lives up around there, could you get a photo of the Saratoga Springs Mavis Discount Tire that seems to be playing a bigger and bigger part in this story? That would be great ... Daniel Case (talk) 06:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Cause of death

Did I miss it? The article does not indicate the cause of death of the 18 people in the limo. I am left wondering how they all could have possibly died. Shouldn't the cause of death be included? Or am I missing it? What would cause all 18 to die, especially the people sitting further back, away from the front-end that crashed? It just seems very odd to me. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:58, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

AFAICR, there has been no official statement of the cause of death, and probably won't be any time soon given that we all for the time being have more important things to worry about. I'm sure that it will be something like "blunt force trauma due to injuries suffered in motor vehicle accident". Daniel Case (talk) 16:56, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I am also sure that it would be something like "blunt force trauma due to injuries suffered in motor vehicle accident". But, I am still having trouble understanding how the people sitting further in the back are killed, just as easily as those sitting closer to the front impact. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:01, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Here is a source: Schoharie crash autopsy results released. It states: The cause of death for all 20 victims is listed as multiple severe traumatic blunt force injuries. This info should be added to the article, somewhere. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:04, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Overly detailed

While well-sourced and reasonably well-written, I find the amount of detail in this article simply overwhelming, so I've tagged it. This article does not need to be almost twice the length of articles on more well-known transportation accidents such as United Airlines Flight 93 and Lion Air Flight 610. I'll try to shorten some sections but I have several other ongoing projects so I can't really address the whole thing. To get started, I deleted the section about Hussain's hotel in its entirety, as it seemed entirely off-topic in an article about a transportation accident. Carguychris (talk) 23:27, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

While I don't think we should use the length of other articles as a standard (it could, perhaps, be just as easily argued that those other articles are too short? And United 93 cannot be characterized as "an accident" BTW), I agree that at this point (by which time we had all originally expected that Hussain's trial would be over), some of the stuff I added as events unfolded could probably be trimmed down or summarized now that they're mostly in the past and dormant—indeed I expected to do as much.

However, I've also got some other projects going and may not be able to fully attend to that. But I'll try. Daniel Case (talk) 05:23, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Proposed removal of civil litigation

In my ongoing quest to shorten this article, I propose to delete the "Civil Litigation" section in its entirety per WP:NOTNEWS and WP:RUNOFTHEMILL. It's routine in U.S. fatality accidents for the victim's families to sue vehicle operators, insurance companies and other involved parties such as maintenance shops; discussing such suits does little to enhance the understanding of the subject, and such discussion is usually omitted from aviation accident articles for this reason. In the case of this particular accident, a successful suit against the State of New York for alleged DMV and/or DOT negligence might be notable, as the complaintant would have to overcome sovereign immunity; however, as I read it, the article only states that some victim's families intend to sue the state, and not that they have been successful in doing so. Carguychris (talk) 17:17, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure we should delete this purely on the grounds of "well, we don't usually do this in plane-crash articles, so we shouldn't do it here." We don't usually have criminal charges brought against the aircraft owner, either. I have included civil-suit sections in a couple of articles about train wrecks that I've gotten to GA; both of them go into issues that weren't addressed by official investigations, or where the plaintiffs allege that the investigative findings were incorrect, or that parties held blameless by the NTSB weren't. And in another the settlements have made the accident in question the costliest in the railroad's history.

I agree that the suits against Prestige and Mavis were probably to be expected, and at this point need merely to be noted, not distinguished. But some of the other ones have atypical defendants. Has the next of kin of any air casualty ever named one of the richest people in a developing country as a defendant due to some tenuous financial connection to the airline? That's notable. And the suit brought by the widow/daughter of the two guys killed in the parking lot against not only Prestige and Mavis but the store where the crash happened? That's not something that happens in air crashes, not that I'm aware of (like ground casualties suing the airport, I suppose).

As for the suits against the state, I think one of the lawyers has said that they will probably not be filing them until after the criminal trial is concluded (which, per your mention of sovereign immunity, might make sense as they might have better evidence to overcome it, if they need to, then), and that's been delayed and delayed thanks to the pandemic.

It has always been my intention, as events progress, to shorten this section as (I'm pretty sure) most of these suits will be eventually be settled (and since a conviction or guilty plea by Hussain would be the equivalent of a liability verdict against him, that's very likely IMO). Daniel Case (talk) 20:17, 16 March 2021 (UTC)