Talk:Human cannibalism

What do do about article length?
This article is very long – the Page size tool show about 17,550 words of "readable prose". WP:SIZERULE recommends that articles with over 15,000 words "almost certainly should be divided or trimmed", while those with over 9,000 words "probably should be divided or trimmed". I don't think that "trimming" the article to less than 9,000 words would be a good option – it would require very hard editing and probably throw out a lot of potentially interesting information.

So, what about splitting? Moving out some parts into specialized articles in summary style? I think that's a more reasonable option.

But if so, how to split? Which articles to create? Here's a breakdown of the major sections by size (all sections not mentioned have considerably less than 1000 words):


 * Reasons and types: 1750 words
 * Body parts and culinary practices: 2800 words
 * Scepticism: 1000 words
 * History: 12,900 words

So, the bulk of the article is in the History section. Even if we moved it out into a separate article History of cannibalism or History of human cannibalism, that article would still be a candidate for further splitting or trimming. Plus, such a "general history" would be a very broad topic for one article, and maybe not what readers will expect. So, how about we split the section further? My suggestion would be to create several articles, roughly one for each continent:


 * Cannibalism in Africa (that article currently redirects to this one, don't ask me why)
 * Cannibalism in Asia
 * Cannibalism in Europe
 * Cannibalism in Oceania
 * Cannibalism in the Americas – should be merged with the existing article Cannibalism in pre-Columbian America

Each of the articles would then document the history of cannibalism on that continent, with only a short summary remaining in this article. The proposed list of articles is very similar to the subcategories listed in Category:Cannibalism by continent, except that there are two separate categories for North and South America (there used to be a category for cannibalism in the Americas too, but it was recently deleted). However, as much of the historical evidence comes from Mesoamerica or the Caribbean, I don't think the distinction between North and South fits so well here and would therefore suggest to cover this double continent in a single article.

What do others here think? Gawaon (talk) 18:10, 18 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree. The article is unreadably long and needs to be split. The proposed continent-based division sounds right, and would also be a good framework for future expansion of information to cover. BioLabEmergency (talk) 00:43, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your feedback! I'll start working on the re-organization in a few days. Feel free to join if you like (especially, the new articles will need lead sections that have to be written). Gawaon (talk) 18:44, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll start working on the reorganization now. Gawaon (talk) 10:17, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * As the text continues to be moved to the new articles, we will need to decide the more limited summaries that appear in the short-form of this article. It's quite a mess and will need to be rewritten. Perhaps simultaneously writing the lead sections of the new articles along with the summaries here can help sort it out. Personally (and I don't think it because of my contributions or interest) I think having much of the prehistory together in one space (here or in its own article) may convey a sense of "naturalness," though it also should not be mistaken by the reader as something that only occurred back then.
 * I see at least four possible ways to summarize information here:
 * 1. Brief list-like paragraph or two for each continent category, while redirecting to the new articles - essentially telling the reader to go to them.
 * 2. Brief summaries of each continent, emphasizing big cultures (e.g. Aztecs) rather than specific incidents, while directing the reader to the articles.
 * 3. Prehistory section, plus some kind of brief summary of each continent, while redirecting to the new articles.
 * 4. Longer summaries with more examples, while redirecting to the new articles - essentially a shorter form of what previously existed.
 * I favor 1, 2, or 3 since the goal is to make this article shorter. BioLabEmergency (talk) 06:03, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, my plan is to write a lead section for each of the new articles (the Americas article already has one, but it needs to be updated) and then use that lead section, with minor changes as needed, as section summary in this article. In this way we'll have about two to four paragraphs for each of the five continental sections, with the link to the full article for more comprehensive coverage. I think that's quite common for summary style.
 * The prehistory section will be split over the different continental articles – though most will end up in the article of Europe, I think. That may not be quite ideal, but I don't see how it could be reasonably avoided. Right now there's only a fairly short intro (one paragraph) at the very start of the History section. We can also expand that one a bit, adding a paragraph on prehistory and maybe a sentence or two on the fact that cannibalism as an institutional practice has largely disappeared. But I think we should keep this general intro short too (at most five paragraphs, say) – after all, considerably shortening the History section and hence the whole article is the point of the exercise. Gawaon (talk) 12:50, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Pictures in "Breasts, palms, and soles"
It occurred to me that the current pictures in "breasts, palms, and soles" could be replaced instead by pictures in "modes of preparation." This would avoid the long wall of text problem whilst avoiding that section being potentially off-putting to some readers. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about where good pictures on that topic would be found, so it's just an idea for others that I throwing out there. BioLabEmergency (talk) 07:48, 24 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Personally I think these images are fine, but I'll look into it. Gawaon (talk) 08:57, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I have now added an image of an earth oven and removed the image of the breasts from the previous section, as I suppose it's the one that caused most offence (though personally I think that's a fairly stupid prejudice). Gawaon (talk) 09:13, 1 June 2024 (UTC)