Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2020 May Kado massacre (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Deleting for a variety of reasons presented - WP:NEVENT, failure to present WP:RS and WP:SIGCOV and the looking sockpuppet investigation taking place around link spamming.

Thanks for your contributions and assuming good faith with this decision. If you have a problem with it, please bring up your concerns at Wikipedia:Deletion review. Thank you and happy holidays! Missvain (talk) 23:15, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

2020 May Kado massacre

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Per outcome of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2020 May Kado massacre, resuming in smaller batches (25 articles), articles Category:Massacres of the Tigray War rely on deprecated source (Atlas of the humanitarian situation). This source is a data table listing dates and numbers of casualties. Each line on that data table does not warrant its own article; they do not fulfill the notability guidelines set forth in WP:EVENT. They also have some clear WP:NPOV issues in most articles through the use of other sources that don't mention the specific event, or through social media based source WP:SPS. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 22:45, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Not enough sourcing for a standalone article. Information is already in Timeline of the Tigray War#Timeline. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 02:02, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User:Timtempleton Hello, just to let you know, this is a batch of 25 articles, not just one. I'm trying to resolve this, but i'm not sure where it went wrong, i'm trying to link related pages such as Megab massacre to this deletion discussion, so far no luck, can you help? Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 02:32, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2021 November 17. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 22:58, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Rather than calling it a deprecated source, the report has been published online at ResearchGate which is considered generally unreliable at RSP. The report has also been constantly evolving; per the authors, they are continuing to update it as information comes in. I have no doubt that the authors have been meticulous in the compilation of their data and presentation in this report, but it is still evolving and changing online, and is published on a website where it is considered a self-published source. Platonk (talk) 04:48, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - ehm: opening the same discussion again after a decision was made? Rastakwere (talk) 07:38, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Per the earlier AfD: "I would recommend renomination in much smaller batches, after searches for sources have been completed." Platonk (talk) 07:43, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. Rastakwere (talk) 07:38, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Rastakwere (talk) 07:38, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ethiopia-related deletion discussions. Rastakwere (talk) 07:38, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In defence of the articles on recent massacres in Ethiopia
- Major source of these articles is indeed the “Atlas of humanitarian situation”: I have no idea whether it has been reviewed or not by Journal of Maps. Probably that is also not the issue, as the journal’s reviewers will look at mapping issues, and will not verify the facts on the ground. But the main review of the veracity of the massacres reported in that “Atlas” was done by the dozen of journalists who extensively quoted the document – one can hardly imagine Associated Press, The Economist, or The Guardian publishing headline articles about it without cross-verification.
- The same “Atlas” appears now in a new version^[1] – there is no more mention of the Journal of Maps, but authors cooperate with the UK-based NGO Every Casualty Counts (ECC), an organisation that dedicates its activities to documenting war crimes and war victims. This gives additional authority to the work, as this organisation makes a strong point of the correct use of methods and standards in casualty recording. It would be good to add the reference to the new version of the “Atlas” to the articles, and even mention the involvement of ECC.
- To prepare the articles that are discussed here, I have indeed started from lists presented in the said “Atlas”, and then verified systematically whether the massacre was mentioned by a other sources also; this could be another database of victims, or an article in international press. As a consequence, less than half of the massacres listed in the Atlas were covered in a Wikipedia article.
- The validity of the Tghat victims list, that was used in parallel with the Atlas has been verified in a recent detailed article published by Associated Press.^[2]
- Note also that the Wikipedia project "Military History" visited most of these articles, and rated them mostly as “Start Class”, sometimes B Class – all are invited to further contribute to these articles.
- Several articles have also been rated for the Wiki projects “Death”, “Ethiopia” and “Africa”, again without the project coordinators listing any major problems with these articles.
- Use of similar structure in many of the articles, certainly when originally published – is there any Wikipedia rule preventing this?
- Deleting articles on massacres in Ethiopia, simply because media have no access, while having pages and pages about shootings in the US, is unbalanced – and, as mentioned above, leads to “continental bias” in Wikipedia.
- Obviously, there is so much editing work to do on many of these articles, and likely I may have missed sources.
- My suggestion is that editors can pick up any article in the Category:Massacres of the Tigray War and further work on it, cq suggest to qualify one or another as draft. In the meantime the suggestion for deletion should be removed from all these pages.
- Reversely to some intervenants in the discussion about the first nomination, some of the reviewers of those difficult pages on these massacres left messages of appreciation: See for instance Talk:Addi_Gabat_massacre, or User_talk:Rastakwere#A_cup_of_tea_for_you. Rastakwere (talk) 07:55, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

— Rastakwere (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. (of Tigray War)

— Note to closing admin: Rastakwere (talk • contribs) is the creator of the page that is the subject of this AfD. (all 25 nominated articles)

Tagged by Platonk (talk) 21:38, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I have searched for reliable sources for all of 25 articles before the nomination per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2020 May Kado massacre recommendation. These 25 articles don't have reliable sources that is also independent of the subject, these articles are specifically supported by unreliable/self published sources discussed in the first AFD. The creator of these bad articles, recent edits underscores the lack of credible sources [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. I have mentioned this several times before in the previous AFD and i will mention it again, the creator, Rastakwere also repeatedly uses other sources such as CBC^[3] ,Euronews^[4], World Radio^[5] and The Guardian^[6] which doesn't mention the claimed events, one of many examples such as in Bizet massacre. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 18:26, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rastakwere i saw your use of a tag [[6]], and i just want to respond, i'm not the one creating 100+ articles based on WP:SPS sources, nor am i the one editing on this topic on almost daily basis for months. I already drew concern back in July Talk:Grizana massacre about your use of questionable sources, but refained from pursuing this matter in hope(out of good faith) better sources would be used by you. Since July you created even more articles based on dodgy sources, and you used other sources which didn't mention claimed events, in a very misleading manner. Just so you know, i have identified and searched for sources (in vain) for another batch of 25 trash articles your created, which i will nominate right after this nomination concludes. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 00:11, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete 2020 May Kado massacre, no comment on rest - This is the one I spot checked, and it does not appear to pass WP:GNG. 2 unreliable sources (ResearchGate is WP:SELFPUBLISH), rest are primary sources. Google News and Google Books searches didn't turn up GNG passing articles that I could see. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:37, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I spot-checked a few articles, and did not see any with sufficient sourcing to be kept. (by comparison, in the first mass nomination, some articles did plausibly have sourcing) If Rastakwere (or somebody else) cannot demonstrate a good source, these will all be deleted. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 21:31, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete I haven't checked all 25 of these personally, but I now trust that other editors have done so. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 21:34, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
~~Keep 2020 Shire massacre~~ (multiple good sources including The Guardian; the time scale for university researchers to get articles through peer review can take 6-18 months, especially during the pandemic epoch and depending on the discipline and journal, but research articles by Wikipedia notable authors (and many non-notable university authors too) at well-respected universities still tends to be better fact-checked and put into context than mainstream western media articles, so being pedantic about "self-published" sources is somewhat misleading); Boud (talk) 21:55, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete 2020 Shire massacre on the grounds of copyright violation. The events in Shire Inda Selassie have been quite significant in the Tigray War, so I have re-used the sources, but not the original parts of the Wikipedia article text, in Shire in the Tigray War. This will make the copyright clerks' task easier (i.e. no tidying to do if the article is deleted). Boud (talk) 21:03, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Ala'isa massacre into Hagere Selam massacres and extend the definition of the Hagere Selam massacres to include a wider date range; the Nyssen quote from Ethiopia Insight is useful to illustrate the event (Hagere Selam massacres of December 2020) beyond raw statistics; Boud (talk) 21:55, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Merge the others into Casualties of the Tigray War#Civilian deaths and/or Timeline of the Tigray War in the cases where the information is not yet there. Boud (talk) 21:55, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Rastakwere is correct that Desta Haileselassie's victim list that is hosted on GAFAM and (sort of) linked to by Tghat is considered reliable for listing Tigrayan victims by Associated Press (but irrelevant for listing Amhara victims). The bad choice of hosting by Desta is annoying and violates the privacy of people wishing to consult the list, but that doesn't make the source unreliable. Here's a more complete form of the reference to the AP in-depth profile of Desta Haileselassie and his list.^[7] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boud (talk • contribs) 22:34, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment @Boud: please provide the mutiple reliable sources you see for 2020 Shire massacre here, and read carefully again the Guardian source ^[8] It says about a fiery exchange in early December, no casualty figures given. The article relies on Atlas about a claimed event between 15-17 November and 200 casualties. Sources don't match, this is what i tried to warn other users about Rastakwere misleading use of sources that doesn't mention the claimed events. Another misused Guardian source^[9] where Jan Nyssen is described as; Prof Jan Nyssen, a geographer who led the investigation and who has spent decades living and working in Tigray. the source is considered unreliable and self published by Wikipedia, and it's questionable whether the person leading the investigation can be considered indepedent of the subject. Furthermore that Guardian source is frequently used in articles that doesn't mention the claimed events such as on Ba'ati Akor massacre, Beles massacre, Berakit massacre, 2021 Selekhlekha massacre and others. That's why users should carefully read whether sources introduced by the creator actually matches the claimed events. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 22:57, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks for the alert. See my update. Boud (talk) 21:03, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all - Each one of these 25 articles fails WP:NEVENT — specifically, and in spirit. Each one is being used as a WP:COATRACK ("a Wikipedia article that gets away from its nominal subject, and instead gives more attention to one or more connected but tangential subjects.") The authors of these 106 articles (including these 25) on individual events of the Tigray War are engaging in WP:ADVOCACY ("the use of Wikipedia to promote personal beliefs or agendas at the expense of Wikipedia's goals and core content policies, including verifiability and neutral point of view").

NEVENT says "Routine kinds of news events (including most crimes, accidents, deaths, celebrity or political news, "shock" news, stories lacking lasting value such as "water cooler stories," and viral phenomena) – whether or not tragic or widely reported at the time – are usually not notable unless something further gives them additional enduring significance."

NEVENT requires for a standalone article, both:

Depth of coverage: "An event must receive significant or in-depth coverage to be notable." Very few news articles have any such depth of coverage for these individual events.
Duration of coverage: "Notable events usually receive coverage beyond a relatively short news cycle." There is no duration of coverage of these individual events.

The majority of the citations used in these 25 (of 106) articles are for the purposes of COATRACK and do not cover the individual event for which the article is named, or they mention them as one of a collection of multiple events. The focus of the reliable sources that have been included in these articles is broader than any one individual event. This alone supports the idea of using these sources for an article such as Timeline of the Tigray War (which exists already) while it does not support the idea of individual standalone articles for each individual event (skirmish/massacre/incursion/battle).

Several of the other sources/citations used in these 25 (of 106) articles do not meet Wikipedia's reliable source standards. Blogs, self-published websites such as ethiopiatigraywar.com and tghat.com, self-published sources such as ResearchGate being used to host an as-yet-unpublished and not peer reviewed work, and more violations of RS guidelines. The authors of these 25 of 106 articles would have us bend the rules for their specific ADVOCACY, when instead we should be sanctioning them for wasting editors' time.

The issue at hand is not whether or not these events are true and happened, it is how we handle them in Wikipedia.

The authors of these 106 articles (and for this AfD, these 25), have been using these article as COATRACKs to hang all manner of mention of how bad this war is, how the victims are suffering, how the perpetrators are committing war crimes, etc. These themes are repeated for each and every article. Though a tragedy, Wikipedia is not to be used as a news medium to get our their advocacy message.

Taking a single article for example, 2020 Shire massacre, which Boud would have us keep, there is but a single citation, The Guardian that even comes close to contributing towards notability... and it is the only one (thus failing to pass notability standards). Of the other five citations: there are two self-published sources, two that don't mention "shire", and one is radio (ain't gonna listen, but based on its title it probably doesn't mention 'shire' either).

All of these events are already listed in Timeline of the Tigray War, therefore delete all of these 25 (and probably the other 81 of the original 106 collection). Platonk (talk) 23:37, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I will revisit the specific case of 2020 Shire massacre soon; Dawit S Gondaria has a valid point that I looked through it too quickly (thanks!).

However, please do not confuse the other 81 articles with the current 25 articles. There is no way of having a constructive discussion if we try to discuss 106 articles in parallel. Please respect the consensus of the previous discussion. Thanks.

Regarding the claims of WP:ADVOCACY, your extension from the original author of the articles to other authors is verging on a violation of WP:AGF, and I think it's better to avoid responding to it, since it's a distraction from the issue of the 25 articles themselves.

I'll get back to 2020 Shire massacre hopefully within the next few hours and update my !vote. Boud (talk) 17:10, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done Scroll up for my updated !vote. Boud (talk) 21:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - this is clearly going to end in a trainwreck if the question is keep/delete, I don't think it's realistic to do due diligence to this many articles on the timeline of a regular AfD. If it is the case that a significant amount of these articles have serious problems, however, mass draftification or merge-based solutions may be an option. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 18:45, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all misleading use of sources and fail of WP:NEVENT, see my comment on NPP talk. In the case of Megab massacre, there do not appear to be any reliable sources that I could find confirming the occurrence of a massacre. These articles should not have passed NPP. (t · c) buidhe 19:08, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Heads up, the creator Rastakwere is adding more sources that do not mention the claimed events [[7]] & and in the case of 2021 Shire massacre [[8]], he changed the dates and tries to present 2 separate events as one, one claimed extra-judicial killings by the self published source, and one after a protest event by the Nation Kenya source. Read carefully if sources introduced by this user matches claimed events!Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 19:40, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Read the full articles and do not only do a search on the place name; spelling can differ in transliteration from Tigrinya to English. Begasheka = Bega Sheka, etc. And, with telecommunication and other blockades imposed for months, the same event can be reported months later with a few days margin.Rastakwere (talk) 20:31, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In case of Begasheka Tsion massacre you recently placed a Telegraph source^[10][[[9]] after the date 06 December 2020 which is unsupported by the Telegraph source, which discusses incidents in February 2021. The claimed event with the December 06 date, and the victim count is only mentioned in the Researchgate(Atlas) source. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 20:47, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion: Maybe you two could work together to create some merged articles, keeping in mind WP:AGF. To some degree, you each have valid points. Boud (talk) 21:57, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all per WP:NEVENT; these events do not have enough secondary-source coverage to meet notability guidelines. Most sources cited are unrelated to the events, and the ones that are related fail WP:RS. --WMSR (talk) 22:02, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all. It's refspam for Tigray: Atlas of the humanitarian situation, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jnyssen. MarioGom (talk) 14:02, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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