Talk:Sri Lanka Army/Archive 1

Removal of HR section
There is already a page detailing every single HR abuse by the SL army very clearly so another section here is unneccessary. A link to that page is sufficient. If you dont agree please justify the need for an additional HR section on wikipedia before reverting which would lead to the confusion of wikipedians. Forcibly_Recruited_Child_Soldier 20:31 24 Nov 2006 (UTC)

Buffel mine confusion
Buffel mine-protected APC - Body now built also by SL army Military with modifications - what modifications? what source? I can't find any source for the Buffel body now been maufactured in Sri Lanka --Jcw69 08:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you 222.165.176.40 for the information --Jcw69 16:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Human rights allegations

 * I added a new section, human rights allegations, I thought that it is essential to understand the nature of the organization. A member har removed what I wrote there, which I reverted later. Anyone can you independantly tell your opinion whether it is needed or not? -- ∞S echze h n 1 6 Ta l k∞ 14:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
 * As I noted before, I think it is needed to maintain a seperate section regarding the human rights allegations. Deleteing that will violate NPOV. -- ∞S echze h n 1 6 T<font color="#FF9900">a l <font color="#000000">k∞ 15:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree the human rights allegations section needs to be added and is long overdue. Elalan 20:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks Elalan for your opinion, hope you can help me to contribute more to the section. -- ∞<font color="#000000">S <font color="#DD0000">e<font color="#FF6600">c<font color="#FF9900">h<font color="#FFCC00">z<font color="#FFEE00">e h n 1 6 <font color="#DD0000">T<font color="#FF9900">a l <font color="#000000">k∞ 23:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I'll certain help where I can. Elalan 02:24, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank You for the references for the human rights section from Elalan/Sechzehn, well researched. Could you also find some references for the other sections as well. Also attempt to cite a fair and balanced description of the facts. Specifically the references from sangam.com and wsws.org are noted. Please try something from bbc etc, Im sure there's plenty. For more info see the help pages on referencing. Sankili_kumar 12:57, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
 * As it is obervable from the sites constant behaviour, Asian Tribune --explicitly politically biased source-- could not be trusted as a neutral media, I think it is necessary to delete/replace any citations from the site. --
 * I removed sections cited with Asian Tribune and noted with citations with BBC and other reliable ones. Can you give me a list of sites that cannot be trusted? I know Tamilnet, [Sri Lanka Defence Ministy http://www.mod.gov.lk] and Asian Tribune is hard to trust. But we should make a complete list. Both who has Pro-GoSL view and Pro-LTTE view please help. -- ∞<font color="#000000">S <font color="#DD0000">e<font color="#FF6600">c<font color="#FF9900">h<font color="#FFCC00">z<font color="#FFEE00">e h n 1 6 <font color="#DD0000">T<font color="#FF9900">a l <font color="#000000">k∞ 14:43, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I have to remove this section, because there's no any STF in SL army.-- ♪ ♫ Ľ ą Ħ ĩ Ř ǔ _ Қ ♫ ♪  <font size="-2">(Ŧ) 18:21, 4 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I changed the sentence "It is clear that the accusations made against the army is a part of the smear campaign by the LTTE to discredit the Army." into the less POV "It is often alleged by Government and Army that the accusations made against the army is a part of a smear campaign by the LTTE to discredit the Army." I don't see any sources that lead me to believe that is is clear that all accusations against the SL Army are baseless and part of a smear campaign, especially when there are instances of Army men being convicted of serious crimes that also constitute Human rights abuse (e.g. Corporal Somaratne Rajapakse and his testimony). Neuralolive 10:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Although this may have agreed by a subset of users, I think this section should stay to guarantee the neutrality of Wikipedia. I am putting it back there. Further removal of this section without proper discussion will treated as vandalism. -- 01:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Citations Needed
Whole sections and paragraphs need citations. It looks as if they copied from somewhere whole-scale. Nevertheless the citations must be there to ensure verifiability of all the details. If the stuff can't be cited after three weeks, then it will have to be moved to the talk page. Elalan 20:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Some citations on the HR abuses section provide only accusations by certain opposing groups or individuals and do not prove them as facts. Especially references 4, 5, and 7 from the BBC only contain accusations by individuals. Please kindly find references to prove these are facts or acknowledge that they are only accusations which are POV and hence duely removed from the wikipedia article. Again please read the help section for guidance. Sankili_kumar 01:35, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Accusation as long as they are  verifiable  (WP:Verifiability) is fine according to wikipedia policy. The use of the word allegation is sufficient to satisfy this concern. Elalan 14:48, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
 * By asking all over the Sri Lankan Army article for citations it seems this guy(Elalan) should have a personal problem with them. If you don't have such personal problems with Sri Lankan Army Elalan, I'm ask from you to move your step towards Indian Army article. If my vision is ok, there should be hell lots of works awaiting for you. Especially the bottom section of that article. Happy editing!!! Sri119 13:27, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
 * In Wikipedia the official rule is to assume Good Faith (WP:AGF). I only stick to Sri Lanka related articles. They are collectively in a mess. I would rather stick to these articles than move onto the Indian ones. Again, the facts within the article need to verifiable. Otherwise the encyclopedia becomes a magnet for hearsay. I should point everyone wants their work to be appreciated and so we must collectively try to make the encyclopedia authoritative. Elalan 14:48, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

As per WP:RS :

Bulletin boards, wikis and posts to Usenet ''Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or messages left on blogs, should not be used as sources. This is in part because we have no way of knowing who has written or posted them, and in part because there is no editorial oversight or third-party fact-checking. In addition, in the case of wikis, the content of an article could change at any moment. For exceptions, see the section on self-published sources.''

''The same reasoning applies to trivia on sites such as IMDb or FunTrivia.com, where the degree of editorial oversight is unknown. However, film credits on IMDb are provided directly by the Writer's Guild of America and can be considered reliable.''

Any references to blogs or bulletin boards will need to be removed, nevertheless I leave the citation tag for spots where we need to fill in better citations. I should say the situation is really on the borderline.

The picture of one of the tanks from the chinese blog does show the Sri Lankan flag in the background. A second source maybe necessary to show that it is indeed what it is independent of the blog source so that no one barks at it in the future. Elalan 15:27, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I should take the time to say Lahiru_k has done a good job filling in for quite a sizable number of references. I have also a filled in a few, where I a spotted stuff.  There is still some left, but that should hopefully be taken care of soon.  Elalan 15:32, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Phew, Citing references is almost finish except two of them(Personnel section) :-) Lahiru_k 08:55, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Reverting changes by user Snowolfd4 citing mickey mouse claims. Elalan 05:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

NPOV section
The title Notable fallen heroes is very POV. I changed it to Notable casualties which is NPOV but got reverted without explanation. Bad show. Er rab ee 13:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, How about War Heroes as per Indian Army? Notable casualties never goes with the true meaning of that section. -- ♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪  Walkie-talkie |undefined 13:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't have any problems with Notable fallen members. I do have problems with War Heroes (and I think the Indian Army article is also POV). Why not let it out, as it is not included in British Army, United States Army or Israeli Defense Forces either? As is stated in WP:NPOV, actions should speak for themselves. So if your fallen members acted heroically, it should become apparent from their actions, not because of the title. Also take a look at World War II, which never mentions any war heroes at all. Er rab ee 13:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * First I appreciate that you have raised the same question on Talk: Indian Army and I will change the title as Notable fallen members now. BTW do you have any questions regarding the actions of those fallen heroes? Have you read their articles? Hope you don't have any knowledge regarding the fate of Dutch's, in front of the Sri Lankan kings on 1600s & 1700s. Isn't it? -- ♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪  Walkie-talkie |undefined 14:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for changing it. I haven't read those biographies. If you say they are war heroes, who am I to say otherwise? As for the Dutch war heroes, we mostly acknowledge Michiel de Ruyter and Maarten Tromp (who, as you may notice aren't mentioned as heroes either). The problem with the term hero is always that they are hero for one side but evil for the other side of the conflict. Just let the facts speak for themselves is the best way to proceed. As for the Dutch who sailed to India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, I don't know much (anything, really) about them, so I cannot comment on those issues. Er rab ee 14:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see u moving into the Indian Army article too and do the same change there and show your neutrality. -- ♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪  walkie-talkie  07:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not appreciate this insinuation that I am not neutral. Furthermore, what a new header should be is a lot less clear than in this article, but I'll give it a shot. Er rab ee 10:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

HR section
Looking at similar military articles like US Army, British Army and even the Imperial Japanese Army, I don't see any "Human Rights Violations" sections. Nanjing, My Lai, Amritsar to name a few. I mean 200,000 people were killed by the Japanese army in Nanjing. Why are none of them mentioned? Most likely because they are all covered in other articles about individual nations human rights record. And hence the Wikipedia consensus appears to be not to cover details of such incidents in the individual military website. So to maintain parity, I'm deleting the section from here. --<b style="color:#9696A0; font-family:Tahoma;">snowolf</b><b style="color:#0A0096; font-family:tahoma;">D4</b>( <b style="color:#339966; font-family:Constantia;">talk</b> / <b style="color:#CC0099; font-family:Constantia;">@</b> ) 21:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree but would it be fair to have HR violations by the rebels ? I mean it is also "covered" in other articles no ? Watchdogb 03:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Please take a closer look. There are whole articles about such crimes, like Japanese war crimes, Japanese human experimentation on the Chinese, and even a category:Nanking Massacre. Not only that, there is a whole Category:War crimes by country! The lack of similar articles and categories for the two English speaking nations is, however, conspicuous. That really smells like systemic bias to me. You may want to bring that up at WP:BIAS. &mdash; Sebastian 05:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with you Sebastian, we need that section. This is needed to be included in the article. If Snowolf wants to remove it, let it be done trhough WP:BIAS. -- 01:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I see absolutely no connection with what you have said to my post. So I'll ask a simple question to make sure you get it, is there or is there not a mention about these massacres in the articles about the respective militaries. At this point what does is matter if there are separate articles or categories of templates or whatever? What does it have to do with this article?
 * And Sebastain you say WP:BIAS? Just like you mentioned WP:N on the Anton Balasingham article. Again its simply got nothing to do with the discussion. I just have no idea why you keep bringing unrelated guidelines up.


 * Sorry, that was a misunderstanding. I did not mean that this article should go through WP:BIAS. What I mean was that if British Army does not contain any references to HR violations, and you feel it should because they committed the Amritsar massacre (and more) then I recommend bringing that up on WP:BIAS. Basically, my point was that just because other articles violate policies doesn't give us a license to violate policies, too. Another place to bring this up is WikiProject Human rights, although I'm not sure how alive that project is. &mdash; Sebastian 03:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * And watchdogb asks why the LTTE article mentions its HR violations while this does not? Are you seriously comparing an organization which is banned all throughout the developed world due to its terrorist activities with a national army? And going with the consensus, compare the Al Queda and US Army articles or the Real IRA and British Army articles. Notice the similarity with this case? --<b style="color:#9696A0; font-family:Tahoma;">snowolf</b><b style="color:#0A0096; font-family:tahoma;">D4</b>( <b style="color:#339966; font-family:Constantia;">talk</b> / <b style="color:#CC0099; font-family:Constantia;">@</b> ) 02:17, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

First off I was agreeing with you there snowolfd. Secondly I was just saying that your logic was faulty as per "other articles have it". I was not suggesting to take off the HR violations by rebels. I think it should belong there for all to see. Anyway sorry for the misunderstanding. Watchdogb 02:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Watchdogb thanks for your considerate reply, and what I'm saying is that I'm going by standards here. I don't think there is a policy anywhere which says whether specific sections like this should be included or not in articles like this. In such instances we simply have to go by what the community consensus is. And considering that there are a whole lot more editors who edit the articles I've mentioned above, I'm pretty sure we can accept what's on those pages the as community consensus. --<b style="color:#9696A0; font-family:Tahoma;">snowolf</b><b style="color:#0A0096; font-family:tahoma;">D4</b>( <b style="color:#339966; font-family:Constantia;">talk</b> / <b style="color:#CC0099; font-family:Constantia;">@</b> ) 03:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * How about putting the HR violations on the related tags ? I mean that would be a proper compromize seeing that it will not be here but there will be a link to the actual page ? Watchdogb 20:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Hey, just jumping in here. First off, it's not a wise idea to have the Human Rights section incorporated within the Sri Lanka Army page simply because it is extremely hard to maintain edit and keep in a certain state of quality expected in Wikipedia. And on another point, the LTTE is irrelevant here, if you wish to do something about the Human Rights section on the LTTE Page -- LTTE Talk Page.

My suggestion, which I hope both of you agree with, is that a link to the Human Rights Page be on a the See Also list. Also if I could have some feedback on my changes to the "equipment section", that would be apreciated. --Sharz 05:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)