Talk:2021 Canadian church burnings/Archive 1

Scope of this event and number of incidents.
The citation for the first sentence of this article, "A series of vandalizations, church arsons, and suspicious fires in June and July 2021 desecrated, damaged, or destroyed 68 Christian churches in Canada." now leads to a 404 error on the True North website.

I gave the title of the original cited article a web search, "A Map of Every Church Burnt or Vandalized Since the Residential School Announcments", to see if it had just been moved and it appears that article was updated with additional occurrences. The title is now "UPDATE: A map of the 83 churches that have been vandalized or burned since the residential schools announcement"

I was scanning through the article and it caught my eye that at least some of the occurrences are from 2023. The title of this wiki article is "2021 Canadian church burnings" and the date in the info box is given as "21 June – 8 July 2021"

Also, while virtually all the occurrences in the True North article properly cite news articles and web pages, a good portion of the linked articles don't reference any connection to the "probable discovery of over 1,000 unmarked graves at Canadian Indian residential school sites." that is mentioned in the wiki article.

I went through every occurrence of "arsoned or burned" and "vandalized" listed on the updated True North article and this is what I found:

10 of the 35 listed "arsoned or burned" occurrences linked to articles that did not mention any connection to the probable discovery of unmarked graves.

18 of the 35 listed "arsoned or burned" occurrences did not occur between 21 June – 8 July 2021.

12 of the 48 listed "vandalism" occurrences linked to articles that did not mention any connection to the probable discovery of unmarked graves.

26 of the 48 listed "vandalism" occurrences did not occur between 21 June – 8 July 2021.

1 of the listed "vandalism" occurrences was an altercation with no vandalism.

1 of the listed "arsoned or burned" occurrences is from April 4, 2021, before the reports emerged in May 2021 of probable the unmarked graves.

1 of the listed "vandalism" occurrences is from April 18, 2021, before the reports emerged in May 2021 of probable the unmarked graves.

I was going to just update the link for the citation and update the number of occurrences, but it doesn't appear that the number is correct, based both on the nature of the events included and the timeframe of the events.

So my question is, what would a reasonable timeframe for events related to this article be? 21 June – 8 July 2021 seems too short as there are events that occurred later into July and earlier into June that are related, even some into August and Sept.

For that matter, should a definitive number even be listed, if the article cited for that number includes 22 occurrences that are not related.

Perhaps there should be a table added that lists each of the occurrences?

I will await others input before I make any edits. Bussche (talk) 18:26, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your interest in improving the page. If possible, I would encourage you to seek sourcing that comes from an entity other than True North, as they are a partisan political outlet. English Wikipedia doesn't appear to have a standard for dealing with True North as a source, but right-wing political news outlets have a habit of being deprecated as sources (I think their coverage here is reliable, but others might think differently). In order to ensure any improvements you make survive longterm, sourcing from more mainstream news outlets (like the CBC) or government publications/announcements helps. Thank you! ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:25, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Bussche Thank you for going through the sources in such detail! The article as it currently stands mentions fires "of all causes", and I'm curious if the number listed is counting confirmed natural causes under "all", eg the June 30, 2021 wildfire that damaged hundreds of buildings in Lytton BC including a church. That fire falls under the time frame, but it would obviously be misleading to count that fire in this article without explicit clarification. Elfangor9 (talk) 18:53, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I asked the same question and apparently it is "bizarre" to think that "stuff burns all the time in BC". By the way I volunteered to help refugees from the Lytton fire and followed it very closely. That fire was started by a train.That is general knowledge but might be hard to source. The people who saw the train on fire were scattered. But apparently Lytton is confident that the fire started at the tracks not at the church. But that is just what several people from Lytton told me; I do not have a source. But the investivation did not attempt to contact any residents either And yes, that fire was right in that period 15:20, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Article now at Neutral Point of View noticeboard
courtesy notice Elinruby (talk) 15:33, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * RSN is not a first step. You also are edit-warring to enforce your BOLD changes. I recommend slowing down. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:44, 24 June 2024 (UTC)


 * This has been copiously discussed at Canadian Indian residential school gravesites already
 * I question whether the Catholic Standard is a BESTSOURCE for this material
 * Portland is still not in Canada
 * These fires were probably not set by Canadians
 * I need you to explain to me in what way that fire in Portland is "Canadian"
 * WP:ONUS is on you Elinruby (talk) 16:09, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

PS I am also not edit-warring. Please look up the definition of that, and strike your untrue aspersions above. Correct the noticeboard while you are at it. Elinruby (talk) 16:13, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * No, that's edit warring. 3RR is a limit, not an absolute. ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:06, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Feel free to report my two reverts at the edit warring noticeboard and let me know how that turns out. Tellng you you are wrong is not edit warring. Nor is it a personal attack, btw. Do you want to discuss the article or not? Elinruby (talk)
 * It's been two hours since you complained I wasn't discussing whether Portland is Canadian, and I don't see a rationale. I think I has given enough of my attention for now to the proposition that a fire in Portland is "Canadian". Let's see what other people say. I will check back in later, I have stuff to do. Elinruby (talk) 17:43, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * crickets Elinruby (talk) 22:46, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I have a day job. I'll respond once I have some time and the patience. ~ Pbritti (talk) 00:45, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That's fine. I promise not to report you to ANI for refusal to discuss. By the way your Catholic source says that people lit a puddle of gasoline on fire, not that there was a fire at the church. What is with all the Catholic sources, btw? Elinruby (talk) 00:57, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The concern with CNA is unfounded, as their reporting is regularly picked up by other RSs like the NYT (eg CNA breaking the priests with invalid baptisms story a couple years back) and almost all editors either immediately accepting CNA as an RS or eventually conceding to considering it one in the last RSN discussion. Diocesan Catholic newspapers have to be treated with a little more caution (and any speculation they perform should be attributed when included), but generally are of a higher caliber than your typical college newspaper or local small town paper. ~ Pbritti (talk) 02:18, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * We should probably see what RSN says Elinruby (talk) 14:44, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The overwhelming number of individual sections and RSN discussions is going to reduce our ability to address these concerns. In the future, please consider consolidating concerns and bulleting or numbering them. Obviously, too late now, so we can wait on the RSNs (though I don't think more than a couple of them are going to prove definitive on the sources). Recent conversation indicates Western Standard should be deprecated on this subject, so at least there'll be that consensus. ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:21, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I tried grouping them at RSN. Got feedback saying that that was confusing and convoluted and they couldn't figure out what was going on. And that was at WikiProject Canada, where there's a presumption that people know that graves were found. Elinruby (talk) 22:11, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This can partially be explained by your use of discussion boards and WikiProjects as what amounts to a first step. In this situation, you first posted to RSN fewer than 15 minutes after opening discussion here. Most issues should be first hashed out in a discussion on an article talk page. Persistent problems, unresolved disputes, and project-wide concerns are the purview of things like RSN. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:21, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Given your proclivity for perceiving and reporting content discussion as personal attacks I think it is uderstandable that I think that the more eyes on this the better. Especially since you seem to think (above) that reverting you is a breach of policy. Elinruby (talk) 02:45, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

The Pillar
Getting a 404 error on this source Elinruby (talk) 17:01, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Western Standard as a source for Canadian residential schools
there is a thread at RSN with the above title. Last I look I looked the consensus was LOL. Therefore removing, but here is the text in case another source can be found Another Catholic church in Peace River suffered minor damage on July3; the RCMP confirmed the cause was arson.

Elinruby (talk) 17:09, 24 June 2024 (UTC))

Aleteia
Never heard of it. Need someone to explain to me how it is RS. The link does not work in my browser, but that may be my browser. Elinruby (talk) 17:23, 24 June 2024 (UTC)


 * See Aleteia
 * Their site says Aleteia (aleteia.org) is an online publication distributed in five languages (English, French, Spanish, Polish and Slovenian). അദ്വൈതൻ (talk) 16:44, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * A .org domain and the publisher is the "Foundation for Evangelization through the Media". Someone really needs to demonstrate how this is reliable before we should be using it. Woodroar (talk) 21:50, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Now at RSN Elinruby (talk) 09:54, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Three year old tweet
Is this DUE? Elinruby (talk) 17:30, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Georgia Strait
Is this RS for this topic? Elinruby (talk) 17:35, 24 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I can't find this in the article right now. Possibly gone. In any event, it was the source for the Coptic church, which is really out of scope anyway. Elinruby (talk) 09:51, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The statement in the body about the Coptic church, for which this was a reference, was removed by someone. It was still being used as a reference in an image caption for the idea that these fires where retaliation for Kamloops, which it manifestly does not support, since the Coptic church is the fire that was started by a woman who was mad at her boyfriend. Elinruby (talk) 03:33, 28 June 2024 (UTC)


 * to be clear I removed the reference in the image caption, and since the source is no longer used in the article, it is no longer of any particular urgency to debate the reliability of this Vancouver alternative publication. Elinruby (talk) 03:35, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

True North
I have started a discussion at RSN about using this source at this article. Elinruby (talk) 17:55, 24 June 2024 (UTC

Someone has removed it from the article saying that it is never a reliable source. Elinruby (talk) 09:53, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Synth
Why does this article include the Coptic Church burned down by a mentally ill woman? Elinruby (talk) 20:44, 24 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Agreed, the section itself states it is not connected. I don't see why it should be included. The article is about some spate of specifically targeted arson events, driven by some specific motive. It isn't an article about "every church burned down during this time frame". Whether it was a copycat event, inspired by the perception of other churches being burned down etc might be logical to deduce, but that would constitute original research and/or synthesis. I will remove it Lostsandwich (talk) 21:12, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I am uncertain that the targeting even existed. It is possible but as the article says, speculation. At from three years out with no followup. If when the article is updated somebody has been found guilty and they did it because of the graves in Kamloops, there might be a basis for the article. But this is not that.Afaict this Coptic church was included because somebody went to jail. Elinruby (talk) 03:20, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Massive undiscussed changes on national holiday
Stop. You know the article is contentious. Elinruby (talk) 18:23, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh shoot it is Canada Day. It also happens to be my first full day off in a while. Hopefully other editors are like you are on-project for the holiday, I guess. What changes do you have complaints about? I've focused on the tag you added about updating things regarding charges. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:28, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

original research
There is now a post about this article at WP:NORN Elinruby (talk) 18:36, 1 July 2024 (UTC)