Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of civilian killed by US force in Fallujah

was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was DELETE

Doesn't seem like a stand alone article is necessary. Rmhermen 15:48, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: Unverifiable in the extreme. Also, there are supposed to be more than 30,000 Iraqi civilians killed by US forces in the latest war, plus any killed during the "No Fly Zone" days.  Since the US military will not release estimates of numbers, we'll have zero ability to know the number, much less the names.  Geogre 17:52, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Unverifiable and it doesn't really serve a purpose. C R  18:02, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Quadell (talk) 20:31, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Unverifiable, ungrammatical title.   &mdash; Gwalla | Talk 03:59, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - unnecessary. Deb 17:33, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep I find "doesn't really serve a purpose" and "unnecessary" very shocking. I wonder whether the people who wrote that feel the same way about the Vietnam War memorial in the U.S.? The civilian deaths in Iraq and especially in Fallujah are woefully underreported in the mainstream media. Every day you can read about the n-th U.S. soldier who died, but most articles don't even bother to mention that the number of Iraqi civilians killed is at least an order of magnitude higher. Never mind, they're just Iraqis -- they don't really serve a purpose. The blanket assertion that entries on this page are "unverifiable" is wrong. They are potentially difficult to verify, but so is a lot of other stuff on Wikipedia, about political scandals etc. -- the standard procedure on Wikipedia is that if there are conflicting reports all opinions are voiced. If someone doubts a particular story, it can always be prefixed by "channel X reported that...". This is no reason to delete a page that could potentially give valuable information that is extremely hard to come by by other means. Fpahl 04:55, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * But there is no list of Americans killed in Vietnam, even though that list would be fairly-well verifiable. There's also no list of Israelis killed by Palestinians or list of Palestinians kliied by Israelis. These Fallujans aren't notable or encyclopedic. Wikipedia is not an obituary list. (By the way, you're assuming the worst about those who voted to delete. I protest against the war every week. I wear a pin with the name of an Iraqi child killed in the bombings. But I know it doesn't belong on an encyclopedia.) Quadell, 11:45, Sep 15, 2004
 * I didn't assume anything merely on the basis of "Delete" votes, and I'm glad to read that your vote was based on an argument that I can appreciate. If the parents of the child whose name you wear had started this page and saw an argument that this sort of thing doesn't belong in an encyclopedia, they might agree, but if they just saw comments that this is "unnecessary" and "doesn't really serve a purpose" they would probably be offended. It's not a coincidence that you who apparently care about Iraqi children didn't write such a comment. Answering your argument, though: Take a look at Casualties of the September 11, 2001 attacks. One detailed listing after another, and a pointer to a special memorial site that even has its own separate hostname at Wikipedia -- all for a fraction of the people that have been killed by US gunmen and bombthrowers in Iraq sofar. These people were just as "unnotable" as the people killed in Iraq. This has all been thoroughly verified, since the tax money of the world's richest nation has been thrown at verifying it. If that nation cared as much about Iraqis as it cares about "its own", we'd have the same DNA tests for every single person killed in Fallujah. Verifiability cannot be separated from power and its abuses. We have two separate issues here. One is unsuitability for an encyclopedia. If this page is deleted for that reason (which I could accept), all those September 11 listings need to go. The other issue is NPOV. I note that you personally haven't claimed that this page is irremediably POV. I have yet to see an argument that distinguishes this page from other pages where there's difficult-to-verify stuff that needs to be prefixed with "channel X reported that", "it has been alleged that", etc. to make it NPOV. Capitalization is not an argument. Fpahl 08:25, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * As the discussion stands at 07:57, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC), I would find it very problematic if this page were deleted due to a majority of votes largely unsupported by arguments. There are important questions of the relationship between both verifiability and notability and power at issue here, and brushing these aside with a mention of the author's incomplete grasp of English grammar is highly inappropriate. The discussion has yielded a consensus (among those who addressed this question, both keepers and deleters) that this page is not more or less notable than Casualties of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It's not hard to imagine what will happen if this page is deleted and a corresponding deletion of the latter page is requested. There would be a massive outcry -- how dare we call into question the work of remembering those "heroes". Even if the keepers were to be in the minority (which I'm not sure they would), I doubt that anyone would want to risk an acrimonious edit war by deleting the article against their will. We would then be left in a situation where US victims of violence are listed in detail while victims of US violence are considered "unnotable". The last thing we need is another "fair and balanced" source that reports every single US death but doesn't particularly care for those swarthy types down in Iraq. One way to prevent this would be a common vote on both articles together. Another would be a continuation of the discussion on the connection between power and verifiability that I started; perhaps this would bring into focus the danger of writing only about what those in power want us to be able to verify. Fpahl 07:57, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - IT IS unverifiable. And more significantly totally POV. -- Crevaner 15:47, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Unverifiable, quasi-POV, delete with extreme predjudice.  Oh, and learn the difference between singular and plural, or stick to Sunniwiki.  Terrapin 16:07, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Move to correct grammatical errors. Don't see any particular POV, and yes, if we have Casualties of September 11, why not this? Just because it is more poorly developed page? I'd prefer to see a few more people on it. I note there have been a few improvements since Vfd began...Bosmon 00:19, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not encyclopedic. FWIW, I'd like to see Casualties of September 11 deleted too, and if it hasn't already been proposed for deletion, expect to see it here soon, courtesy of me. --Improv 17:18, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * D Perhaps it has a place alongside List of Wikipedians killed in VFD. Would it be missed?  Didn't think so.  Chris 00:07, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep of course, and additionally establish a Fallujah memorial wiki. (Or alternatively, delete and also delete the 9/11 memorial wiki.) Gzornenplatz 19:25, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.