Talk:Beheading video/Archive 1

Explain deletion
Please let us know why this article is being nominated for deletion, thanks.

Failed AFD
This article's AFD debate did not get consensus to delete the article. Johnleemk | Talk 13:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

religion is awesome. cough.

cleanup: Generality
This article should talk about beheading videos in general, not just a list of specific events. Pcu123456789 05:02, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Third Afd attempt
Another AfD on this article was started on 22 August 2014. Please chime in there! Vycl1994 (talk) 22:43, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Mexican's beheaded belong here?
I didn't see any Mexican names here. Note: not linked to the Middle East. I went looking, as people other than those linked to the Middle East (by just being there) are no less worthy of life. I actually found a posting that includes a video (a warning/message to America). I have a dilemma. I want to have names (not in the post) in this WP article or even just "four Mexican women beheaded in one video" (but source would be needed for this new low) but do not want to link to a graphic video. As for the names of the Mexican men I found, I could add:

August 18, 2006: Jesús Rodríguez Valencia is beheaded by La Familia Michoacana. December 4, 2006: Los Zetas beheaded the cheese-maker Raúl Farías Alejandres.

The women were relatives of gang members and at least the cheese-maker had some relation - should (possible) gang members NOT be included here (also not sure there are videos of the men)?:

Los Zetas decapitated cheese-maker Raúl Farías Alejandres, a relative of The Grandfather, on September 4, 2006. A note next to the corpse warned: “One by one you go falling. Greetings. La Familia sends its regards.” Four more beheadings followed. comp.arch (talk) 10:21, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, any beheading video would be on topic here. The article originally gave the impression that this was a solely Islamic thing, but I already added a few details about Mexican drug cartels.  Remember that Wikipedia is not a reliable source.  You can use Wikipedia to locate sources, but you can not use Wikipedia in a citation.  The list of victims needs citations, too, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 19:42, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * First, regarding the Nepali one I added, I was looking for a source with the actual name (without video, I only find them and not even with the names). In that case 12 were killed and all the names are known just not who was not killed by gunshot. However, you didn't really answer, unlike the Nepali, the Mexican ones are not related to religious extremists that the lead mostly talkes about. Should one "reason" for the beheadings be given special status and even changing the title of the page? Another thing, while the page survived AfD, should it not include any names? I see now the list could be a lot longer and should this page be a list article? And could not ALL victims not be listed somewhere (else) regardless of execution method? comp.arch (talk) 09:20, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm ambivalent about the list. I don't like when lists are tacked onto the end of prose articles, but it's fairly common practice for smaller lists (and topics prone to list cruft).  As long as the list is eventually sourced, it's probably fine to include.  Again, any beheading video is on topic for this article.  It just happens that beheading videos are frequently associated with religious extremists.  This article used to be heavily biased toward that POV, but I attempted to fix it.  I don't know about other lists or articles.  If those execution methods receive significant coverage in reliable sources, articles about them could be written, too. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 10:38, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

This article is wrong, even if it would allow only beheading videos with religious backtrack, the Chechen beheading videos of Russian POWs sould be mentioned as they were the first videos appear to public offline and online. The continous deletion of mentioning these beheading videos (even if lot of sources were referenced, even original video links) wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.10.37.112 (talk) 05:14, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Deleting names from the page
I did delete names from the page and it seems I was not convincing in my edit summary (full reason didn't fit) as I got reverted. Now, I had previously added names. I can argue for both sides of this but came to the conclusion that leaving out the names is appropriate. I know the page survived AfD for the third time, with one of the given reasons "pretty insensitive, to the point of being a BLP violation". The reason for the page, regarding the videos themselves, may have been established as a "concept". I'm not sure, however, about an inclusion criteria for the names.

I would hate to have "This list is incomplete; please help expand it". But the list is biased against at least criminals or people related to Mexican gangs - that is, those names are missing. You could say only certain people or videos related to religious extremists and/or (Mexican) gangs should be included but it's not clear that any line should be drawn. I'm not proposing one, two or three list articles, I'm saying this article is that and a "non-list" article. List articles have special rules. I have very mixed feeling about adding people's names to this article and potentially criminals with honest people. I however do not view Mexican lives in general as less. And for all who want to "improve" the article in this way you'll see a lot of graphic videos but not many names. That is not helping with finding names.. And all names added might "promote" or be some success to people making the videos. So I think no names is better considering "all or nothing".

Let's say we would make a category of beheading videos and add all these people to it, that would probably be a violation? Even just saying you are gay if you are (but not publicly) is a BLP violation. Only if you've indicated (made public) then adding "guy" to your BLP page (or anywhere) is ok. I very much doubt anyone said, "in case I'm beheaded I'm ok with you adding my name to a WP-list article". Is the list of names helpful or ok? I currently do not think it is. comp.arch (talk) 18:58, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 one external links on Beheading video. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20141031161337/http://au.ibtimes.com:80/articles/519273/20131104/beheaded-woman-facebook-mexico-drug-cartel-narco.htm to http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/519273/20131104/beheaded-woman-facebook-mexico-drug-cartel-narco.htm#.VFShQNapdKp
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20040625225503/http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/22/iraq.hostage/ to http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/22/iraq.hostage/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160304001624/http://archives.dailytimes.com.pk/foreign/11-Aug-2004/egyptian-spy-beheaded-in-iraq to http://archives.dailytimes.com.pk/foreign/11-Aug-2004/egyptian-spy-beheaded-in-iraq
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20141006112802/http://news.sky.com/story/286773/iraq-beheading-video-of-us-man-a-hoax to http://news.sky.com/story/286773/iraq-beheading-video-of-us-man-a-hoax

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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 22:43, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Dubious claim w.r.t. intent
I know I'm probably going to be hated by a lot of people for even daring making a post on an article like this, but a small but important part of this article stands out to me as factually questionable and possibly misleading. The statement in question is:

[videos have been] growing in sophistication, using animated graphics and editing techniques apparently aimed at embellishing the audio to make a victim's final moments seem more disturbing

The source cited for this claim is from 2004 - barely two years after the first publicly known example of such a video, and nearly 15 years ago now - which alone already makes it very debatable as to how relevant its comparison to "early videos" is today. More importantly though, this claim appears to be largely (if not entirely) false. Firstly, this is the first and only time I've ever heard claims about computer animation being used in this type of propaganda video, although it's certainly not implausible considering the ubiquity and affordability of near-professional grade video editing software nowadays; I'd still argue more sources are needed for this, and ideally more recent ones (the computer graphics scene and the tools used have both changed a lot since 2004). Secondly, concerning the statement about the use of editing techniques "to make a victim's final moments seem more disturbing": the videos released by Islamic terrorist groups (albeit not technically the same groups that existed at the time the Chicago Sun article was published) over the past several years actually seem to have gone in the opposite direction, with most of the video usually being dedicated to a long monologue prior to the execution, and the beheading itself apparently usually being left out altogether, with sometimes a grainy still photo of the aftermath stuck on at the end. The emphasis evidently doesn't seem to be on the victims' final moments, let alone exaggerating them to appear more disturbing for propaganda/PR purposes; in fact, they're typically not shown at all. If anything, the impression I got from these videos and the reports about them is that, for the people producing them, the death of the hostage was above all a shock tactic to achieve a wider circulation of their propaganda.

Now, obviously that last sentence is only subjective speculation on my part. But what is objective and verifiable is that, contrary to the statement in the article, recent highly publicized videos of this sort do not embellish or even place emphasis at all on the victim's dying moments, and that the source for the claim that they do is almost 15 years out of date (while we're on that topic, can anyone fill me in on whether there any definite rules/guidelines on Wikipedia regarding the acceptable age for sources in articles, especially for news reports in articles which descibe events that are still current and/or evolving?). --Mojace (talk) 19:20, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It's a direct quotation from the source, and it's even attributed to the source, instead of being written in Wikipedia's voice. Not sure what else could be done.  You could date it, too, like "The Chicago Tribute said that by 2004 the videos had become such-and-such". NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:04, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion, thanks. Don't know why I didn't consider that beforehand. --Mojace (talk) 18:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC)