Talk:Foreign hostages in Iraq

Google help
This page could really benefit from a couple of us making a point to google some names that are currently unresolved, and find out what happened to them. Sherurcij 14:19, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Some of the hostages' fates are unknown. The captors simply showed one video and that's it. They never showed an update video to reveal what the hell happened to them. Other kidnapping victims just simply disappeared with no hostage video at all. George Ramos

The ransom amounts aren't clear. I recall that some of the ransom demands were for US dollars, some demands were for gold. It isn't made clear which was which in this reportage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.199.196 (talk) 19:52, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Colorizing vs tagging
Instead of colorizing this page needs tags instead it will make the page easier to read and more organized.

(Killed) (Released) for those released by the kidnappers (Freed) for those released by police or military forces (Unknown) Status unknown
 * (Coalition) (Released) Reporter Michal Kubal and cameraman Petr Klima, of Czech Television and Vit Pohanka from Czech Radio were kidnapped April 11, 2004. They were freed April 16.

The tags could be colorized but colorizing the entire text is excessive. SusanLarson 20:37, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree we need to distinguish those freed by police/military forces, though I'd simply suggest a third colour. This isn't an article, it's a listing, which I think is an important distinction to make.  Thus colourising the entries, like listing whether a country is a member of the coalition, makes it much easier to get a clear indication of the context.  (One can look at Canada, see it's not a member of the coalition, but even only paying brief attention, sees that it has had hostages killed).  So ideally it seems, list the killed in red, the freed in green, and the rescued in orange or something.  Very few people will read the entire list, and even fewer will make little notes on a piece of paper to get a fair idea of what percentage are killed/freed/rescued, so it's important that we make a list like this one as visual as possible Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 20:41, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The goal is for this to be easy to read not colorful please limit the excessive use of colors in this page. It's hard on the eyes and for the colorblind can be hard or impossible to read. Thank you SusanLarson 20:44, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * For the few colourblind people, I'm certain they have their browsers set up to ignore colour tag text anyways, so they'd be seeing it in b/w just like any other website. As I explained, as a list of a highly debated nature, it's important that the list be not only easy to read, but easy to interpret.  Part of that means admitting that most people aren't going to read 200 entries, they will skim over it...so we should leave them an NPOV way of taking in the information.  You could use bold versus italic theoretically, but that would be worse I think.  I acknowledge this isn't a perfect system, but it's the best possible within the WP framework. Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 20:47, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Please see Manual of style: formatting issues section specifically

Formatting issues such as font size, blank space and color are issues for the Wikipedia site-wide style sheet and should not be dealt with in articles except in special cases. If you absolutely must specify a font size, use a relative size i.e. font-size: 80%; not an absolute size, for example, font-size: 4pt. Color coding of information should not be done, but if necessary, try to choose colors that are unambiguous when viewed by a person with color blindness. In general, this means that red and green should not both be used. Viewing the page with Vischeck can help with deciding if the colors should be altered. (http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php)

Thank you :) SusanLarson 21:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Hrm, I'd still argue that it doesn't want 'information', meaning articles (as opposed to lists) sorted by colour, but I certainly admit you're right about the red and green...do you have other suggestions for colours that would be more visually adept? Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 21:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Not for colors however I did reformat the page perhaps that will suit both of our tastes :) SusanLarson 23:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * retouched the TOC, I assume this is an improvement still? Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 21:47, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

References/names
I've gone through with google and tried to find references, and actual names (instead of "A Swiss couple" or "A truck driver") wherever possibile, and would just like to remind/encourage others to do the same. Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 21:47, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Micheal Chand, kidnapped 17 August 2007, Amarah Iraq —Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.13.130.104 (talk) 13:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that the term mercenary be used, where appropriate, instead of the euphemism "Security contractor".203.184.41.226 (talk) 04:40, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Eugene Armstrong merge
Eugene Armstrong isn't going anywhere as an article, and it's now failed AfD twice even though it's an obvious WP:COATRACK. I think the details of the execution should be merged here and then the article redirected. As-is, we're pretending that an article which contains almost no information barring the execution is a biography. Chris Cunningham (talk) 17:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC) Merge - No sources. Subject is known for one event which is an encyclopedic topic. I'm going back right now to remove some of the speculation/OR/POV and see what's left. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 15:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * as it has been kept twice on afd there is noconsensus that it is not a suitable article by itself. DGG (talk) 18:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge - I think this article really has no substantive reason to be stand-alone, and thus should be merged.-- K u k i ni  háblame aquí 18:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Split hostages held or executed in Syria
Since there's now been two, and soon probably three hostages captured, held, and executed in Syria by ISIS I think a new page similar to this page should be created for those individuals called Foreign hostages in Syria. ~Technophant (talk) 03:38, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

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Extremely out of date
The updating ceased over a decade ago. There have been, of course, others since then. Such as John Cantlie, whose article linked here in "see also" only to have no trace of him here. 94.254.152.192 (talk) 10:18, 10 November 2023 (UTC)