Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/AMG Chemmani/Archive

message: * Iwazaki, in your opening statement you said "With only 2 bodies founded..." However, the article, and a couple of the other parties, noted that there were around a dozen bodies found. Do you believe the dozen figure is incorrect, or were just talking about the two people known to have disappeared in 1996? -- tariqabjotu 06:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Out of those bodies only 2 had any sign of murdered marks on their bodies/remains . Rest, forensic experts are not even sure whether they belong to humans or not. Even with the ambiguity of the UN definition for mass graves (which clearly dis-qualified this as a mass grave) it clearly says there should be three or more victims of extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions. But we have only 2 here hence even by proposition arguments this is not a mass grave. And of course I would not consider this alone in my opinion. I would like to take the the fact that there is no clear definition for mass grave exist, and since we write an encyclopaedia here we should refrain from adding any self contradicted inherently biased info. Wikipedia is not a tabloid or a gossip column, its an encyclopaedia and considering that we should strongly oppose things which going to harm its nature.ThanksIwazaki  会話。討論 06:43, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Point A

message: * Snowolfd4 suggested that the graves must come from the same time period to be considered "mass graves". Again, how does this idea stand up? Do you each agree or disagree? -- tariqabjotu 06:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Disagree, I think timing issue is wiki lawyering. No one has said that they were NOT buried at the same time, also I think it is imaterial. If more than 3 bodies are found with trauma in the same location then it is a mass grave without any attribution to time frame per the UN definition of a mass grave Taprobanus 22:13, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Like I pointed out, if 3 people bury three bodies at the same location 100 years apart of each other do we still call the site a  mass grave? I really don't think so. --snowolfD4 (  talk /  @  ) 22:50, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is nothing to prove or disprove they were buried at different times. But I think in this case, the factor we have to take into account is that at the time of discovery, since this site was obviously kept secret, there were more than 2 bodies there.Thusiyan 01:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree. It's not a mass grave if each body is burried was 100 apart years long. However, it is when they were burried in a short period of time with a common reason and purpose.Watchdogb 02:50, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just a point of order -- Thusiyan, if you're going to join this discussion, could you please sign up as a party to the mediation here and here? It looks like you must have been overlooked when they invited interested parties. Thanks, -- Shunpiker 04:06, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

text: *Tabrobanus, how do you see the timing issue as wiki-lawyering? -- tariqabjotu 05:15, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Perhaps rather than formulating a precise -- and original -- definition of "mass graves", we could make an inventory of which sources use which phrases to describe the findings at Chemmani? -- Shunpiker 16:42, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That was close to what I wanted to do with Point D, but I'll restart the section with clearer instructions. -- tariqabjotu 16:48, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Point C

message: ::Although this discussion has somewhat deviated from the original, there does not seem to be any disagreement on the fact that the number of bodies found was less than the number of bodies alleged by the soldier. -- tariqabjotu 17:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it is essential that the article present the discrepancy between the scope of Rajapakse's allegations and the findings of the investigation. That said, it is equally important that the article doesn't make judgments or evaluations of Rajapakse's allegations that cannot be attributed to neutral, reliable sources. -- Shunpiker 22:58, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I can agree that the soldier exaggerated the number. However, to make things clear, I do not agree that this mass grave was false. Just to be clear on my point Watchdogb 23:40, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I dont even know and cant even assume that the soldier made it all up. He made an allegation and what we have found is 15 out ofthe 300 hundred he alleged. International community and Sri Lankan Tamils agree that the investigation has not exhausted itself on that basis I may compromise to leave the title as an allegation but leave the category as mass graves. Thanks Taprobanus 12:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to make things clear, the allegations were that the military murdered hundreds of people and buried them at this location. The fact that just two bodies were identified could mean instead of the military, either he alone or part of some criminal gang killed these people. That means this allegations would be entirely false. --snowolfD4 (  talk /  @  ) 19:42, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And so what ? it does not matterr who killed them, the bodies were identified or not or even buried in the same time. Simply 15 bodies that show trauma were found in one location. So clerically and technically it is a mass grave withouit any attributions as to whom may have commited it. Thanks Taprobanus 16:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Point F

message: ===Compromise A===
(Related to the category) I didn't find much useful Wiki guidelines that could help us in this case, however WP:CAT says
:Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category.
Note, Uncontroversial. Going by that policy alone, the fact that we need this RFM at all would be a good argument against the article been included in the category.
But since some editors really want the category included, I could suggest the use of subcategories as a possibly solution that is more agreeable. As an example from a related topic, take the article about Tamil Eelam, the country the LTTE is hoping to carve out in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The LTTE hopes for it to be a country someday, but it is certainly not a country right now. So it does not go under :Category:Asian countries which Sri Lanka comes under, even though it hopes to be an "Asian country" someday and is therefore "a topic related to" (as Shunpiker put it) the Asian countries category. Instead it is included in a separate category :Category:Unrecognized or largely-unrecognized states, which is a subcategory of the main :Category:Countries. I would think that applies in most similar cases. Simply because it is related to the category it does not go under the main category.
Another example, Al Gore does not come under :Category:Presidents of the United States even though he was at one time incorrectly declared by the media (sound familiar?) as the next US President.
However as I believe Shunpiker means, and I agree to some extent, categories are there as sort of a documentation tool to group related articles together. So it would make some sense to connect this article to :Category:Mass graves, even though it has been proven that it is not a mass grave.
Therefore I propose we create a new subcategory, something like :Category:False mass grave allegations or :Category:Disproved mass grave allegations which, like the article title, conveys that this site is not a mass grave. We can then make that a sub category of :Category:Mass graves. That way, while the article will be connected to and included in the category, it will also allay concerns that the category may mislead a reader of the article to believe that this was the site of an actual mass grave. --snowolfD4 (  talk /  @  ) 01:43, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dissagree. Snowulf himself has added "Terrorist" cats to the LTTE. There WAS a lot of dissagreement there. Yet the cats still remain put. So if he is going to suggest and go by wikipedia rules then he should be the first one to take off the Cats from those articles. No hypocrism here sorry. Watchdogb 23:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree too, it is uncontroversal that we found 15 bodies with trauma in one location hence we dont violate WP:CAT by placing it in Cat mass graves. Thanks Taprobanus 12:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

text: That is exactly what I said in point F. Thanks Taprobanus 12:44, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I think we should be able to get common sence agreement that title may be left in as Alleged mass graves at Chemmani as the investigation has not exhausted itself. Taprobanus 16:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Phase III: Compromises

message: (Related to the category) I didn't find much useful Wiki guidelines that could help us in this case, however WP:CAT says
:Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category.
Note, Uncontroversial. Going by that policy alone, the fact that we need this RFM at all would be a good argument against the article been included in the category.
But since some editors really want the category included, I could suggest the use of subcategories as a possibly solution that is more agreeable. As an example from a related topic, take the article about Tamil Eelam, the country the LTTE is hoping to carve out in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The LTTE hopes for it to be a country someday, but it is certainly not a country right now. So it does not go under :Category:Asian countries which Sri Lanka comes under, even though it hopes to be an "Asian country" someday and is therefore "a topic related to" (as Shunpiker put it) the Asian countries category. Instead it is included in a separate category :Category:Unrecognized or largely-unrecognized states, which is a subcategory of the main :Category:Countries. I would think that applies in most similar cases. Simply because it is related to the category it does not go under the main category.
Another example, Al Gore does not come under :Category:Presidents of the United States even though he was at one time incorrectly declared by the media (sound familiar?) as the next US President.
However as I believe Shunpiker means, and I agree to some extent, categories are there as sort of a documentation tool to group related articles together. So it would make some sense to connect this article to :Category:Mass graves, even though it has been proven that it is not a mass grave.
Therefore I propose we create a new subcategory, something like :Category:False mass grave allegations or :Category:Disproved mass grave allegations which, like the article title, conveys that this site is not a mass grave. We can then make that a sub category of :Category:Mass graves. That way, while the article will be connected to and included in the category, it will also allay concerns that the category may mislead a reader of the article to believe that this was the site of an actual mass grave. --snowolfD4 (  talk /  @  ) 01:43, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dissagree. Snowulf himself has added "Terrorist" cats to the LTTE. There WAS a lot of dissagreement there. Yet the cats still remain put. So if he is going to suggest and go by wikipedia rules then he should be the first one to take off the Cats from those articles. No hypocrism here sorry. Watchdogb 23:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree too, it is uncontroversal that we found 15 bodies with trauma in one location hence we dont violate WP:CAT by placing it in Cat mass graves. Thanks Taprobanus 12:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Compromise A

message: (Related to the name of the article) Is this article supposed to about the bodies and the grave site itself or about the allegations? I say that because the article as it is currently written highlights the allegations; the intro begins by summarizing the allegations and the first section of the article summarizes the allegations. Is it possible, then, to keep the article about the allegations (and the findings related to them), and leave off deciding whether the facts surrounding the case make a mass grave? Ultimately, most here seem to agree about the basic facts – what the soldier alleged and the number of bodies found. Thus, the debate over the name of the article appears to be whether the findings are enough for one to call this a mass grave. Would it be enough, then, for the article to stay at "Allegations of..." and let those reading the article itself decide in his or her own mind whether the facts on the table make this a mass grave? -- tariqabjotu 17:29, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is exactly what I said in point F. Thanks Taprobanus 12:44, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Compromise B

message: (Related to the name) Another suggestion: perhaps the article can be named Graves at Chemmani, avoiding the controversial term "mass graves". Any thoughts on this? -- tariqabjotu 16:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should be able to get common sence agreement that title may be left in as Alleged mass graves at Chemmani as the investigation has not exhausted itself. Taprobanus 16:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Compromise D