Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of insurgent fatality reports in Iraq


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. I believe that reasons for deletion have prevailed in this debate. The content is already covered in other articles, if anything else needs to be merged, notify me on my talkpage and I can provide the content. Tone 11:21, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

List of insurgent fatality reports in Iraq

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

While I commend the people who have worked on this list, and have cited nearly 1000 references, I believe that the list fails WP:INDISCRIMINATE, as Wikipedia is not just a collection of information, and this list isn't really what I would call "encylcopedic". A related AfD to this that I just initiated is here. Killiondude (talk) 23:36, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep, words cannot express how much this nomination bothers me. This is not a "List of times the word "Toaster" is used in The Simpsons", it is a list of fatalities in a war (not even named, so zero risk of WP:MEMORIAL) Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 03:17, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Iraq-related deletion discussions.  -- Cyber cobra  (talk) 07:50, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Terrorism-related deletion discussions.  -- Cyber cobra  (talk) 07:50, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions.  -- Cyber cobra  (talk) 07:50, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep I fail to see how this is "indiscriminate" given the title of the article. -- 209.6.238.201 (talk) 21:40, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete This is a bit too much raw data to be informative. I am sure there are plenty of graphs and general statistics in Iraq War.  —  Jake   Wartenberg  23:16, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and we have a more suitable article - Casualties of the Iraq War. I suggest we delete this one. DS (talk) 23:19, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete Per nom - raw data like this isn't encyclopedic. Nick-D (talk) 07:51, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep, I am sorry Jake Wartenberg and DS, but you are wrong. You said I am sure there are plenty of graphs and general statistics in Iraq War. and Indeed, and we have a more suitable article - Casualties of the Iraq War. Those articles do not have any definite numbers on insurgent casualties in the war. The Iraq war article doesn't have any graphs and general statistics and, actualy, the article Casualties of the Iraq War mentiones the number of dead insurgents only in one small paragraph and the number used had been taken from this very article. Except for this one article on the Net there is no one who has any publicly available verifiable number of insurgent casualties. The list may be a valuable information source under WP:LISTPURP. Also, Killiondude, you nominated this article for deletion and ignored the fact that the article had been already TWO times nominated for deletion in the previous three years, and both times the results of those discussions were to keep. I did some research on the article and found the article was nominated for deletion previously and the nominations were rejected. This all has already been discussed, the basis for the previous two nominations for deletion were similar to yours. And both times the nominations were rejected. For any editors who join in on this discussion please read the previous two discussion here Articles for deletion/List of Insurgents killed in Iraq and here Articles for deletion/List of insurgents killed in Iraq. In addition, Sherurcij has made a valid point that this is not in violation of WP:MEMORIAL since no names are listed and I also see no indiscrimination with this article.MidnightBomber (talk) 05:18, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't "ignore" any facts. You can keep your assumptions of my actions to yourself. Thanks. Killiondude (talk) 05:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No insult intended, there is no reason to get agitated. It's just that your actions were completely illogical to me since I read the previous two discussions and I thought you didn't read them since they made valid points on keaping the article. In any case I agree with all of the previous editors who voiced their keep opinions in the previous discussions and I am all for keep now. In addition, three editors in one previous discussion stated that it would be a total waste to have all the work that went into this article lost. And I would agree. If it bothers you that much why not simply change the structure of the article somehow, not delete it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by MidnightBomber (talk • contribs) 05:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Please note that this editor has been confirmed as a sock puppet of permanently blocked editor User:Top Gun and been blocked. I have struck this vote as it was made in violation of a block. Nick-D (talk) 22:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. This list is useful and is modeled as many others we have in the project. --Againme (talk) 18:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep -- For the first years of the Iraq war Bremer and Sanchez did everything they could to obfuscate the number of Iraqi civilian casualties. That pretty young American woman, who the US military claimed had been killed by an IED, went there to use Iraqi sources to try to document the scale of Iraqi civilian casualties.  It is a very important topic.  It is encyclopedic.  We have lots of other encyclopedic articles that have the same ratio of text and statistics.  Text articles have their place in an encyclopedia.  And articles that contain a higher proportion of statistics also have their place in an encyclopedia.  We have articles on Olympic records, and other lesser sports scores, which are similarly statistics rich.  This is not an argument WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.  This is the nature of an encyclopedia -- people want to look stuff up -- like casualty statistics.  Geo Swan (talk) 03:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, this sort of information is what "External links" sections are for. I too appreciate the hard work that's gone into this, but quite apart from its dubious encyclopaedic value, I'm concerned about the borderline WP:SYNTHESIS and WP:OR that seems to be going on by collating numbers from different sources. The article has no value as a research tool (ignoring the fact that this isn't what we're supposed to writing anyway; no self-respecting researcher would rely on someone else's data... especially on Wikipedia!), and its other suggested uses ("It also allows readers and researchers to investigate patterns in the type of tactics by insurgents and the coalition") would be better served by writing proper articles to cover these subjects. The heavy reliance on a single non-neutral source - antiwar.com - is also concerning. EyeSerene talk 10:14, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - I have concerns of Synthesis/OR. (Aggregate information, eg monthly totals, would be more useful and possibly worth having but day to day reports: no) GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:30, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - Apart from being unreadable because of the number of citations it does really add any value to the encyclopedia that could not be done with a summary in an article like Casualties of the Iraq War. Also support previous comments about OR and the like. MilborneOne (talk) 11:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - Again, this doesn't seem to have any purpose, being far too detailed, and as several people have highlighted above, the possible Original Research problems that the article appears to possess are also worrying. Skinny87 (talk) 13:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - I fail to understand. How is it original research? As far as I see it it's not. It has sourced info from reliable resources verified with citation/reference links. You said that the article has a heavy reliance on a single non-neutral source - antiwar.com. I checked out that web-site. All of the reports on antiwar.com, which the references are based on, are themselves referenced by a large number of well-notable and neutral sources, like CNN, BBC news, AP, AFP, Reuters, Guardian UK, Al-Jazeera, China Post etc. Everybody should check that out. In addition, I also took a look at the previous two discussions on the deletion and one user said I do not believe that adding up claims by troop commanders constitutes original research or synthesis. I would agree with this. I fail to see how a summary in the article Casualties of the Iraq War could be done without the support of this article, it's simple impossible, there already is a summary, but it is based on this article. The importance of this article is too much. LiquidOcelot24 (talk) 17:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Please note that this editor has been confirmed as a sock puppet of permanently blocked editor User:Top Gun and been blocked. I have struck this vote as it was made in violation of a block. Nick-D (talk) 22:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - raw data, synthesis. Buckshot06(prof) 21:09, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:LISTPURP and EyeSerene. Just a dumping or raw data that holds little to no encylcopedic value, and has OR concerns. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 02:04, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Proposition on restructuring I have been looking over this article and, while I'm still for a strong keep, have been looking for a way to restructure the article (like I proposed before), to at least keep the most important information if the majority of editors are in the end for deleting. I myself think that a little bit too much references and raw information has been put into this, but again I think that too much important information is here as well. I think I found a way. Somebody (who is in the deleting votes) had proposed to do only a year-by-year, or at least month-by-month brakedown and not day-by-day. There is one reference (which is an exclusive U.S. military claim I mind you) that brakes down the deaths of insurgents by year up until September 22, 2007. We could use only this one reference for up to that date, my only concern is that there are 5,500 deaths more in the US military toll than in the researched data. Which I think we should, at least even un-referenced, mention to warn readers. As for 2008, I have been looking around on the Net and found one reference that states the exact number of insurgent deaths in 2008. And as for 2009, the Iraqi MoD has been sporadicly giving monthly tolls of insurgents this year. We could use that. As for all of the other references/links of various incidents, we delete them since we would have totals for specific years. Structured like this the article would be substantialy shortened. No disrispect to the editors that have done great work for this article but I think this is the best way so it is not in violation of the OR rule to which most deleting editors point out to. Any opinions on this? MidnightBomber (talk) 02:55, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that restructuring this list would calm other users' thoughts that this article violates WP:NOT. I'm don't think your suggestion would makes me change my mind that this article violates WP:NOT. I would like to point you, or anyone interested, in Alternative outlets. It lists other wikis that would probably accept this, or any other article that en.wiki deems a violation of WP:NOT. Killiondude (talk) 05:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Than please explain to me how it would be in violation of WP:NOT? In this form the article wouldn't be in violation of the OR or Synthesis rule and wouldn't contain the massive raw data anymore, and those three things are the bigest reason why everybody who voted for delete voted for delete. We would delete all of the individual reports of deaths and save only the yearly totals, plus the yearly totals of suicide bombers killed. I'm not trying to change your mind, what I'm trying is to change the article so it would be within Wikipedia standards. Like this the article wouldn't be even a list anymore. We would change the name of the article even. It would be in essence an overview of year-by-year deaths of insurgents in Iraq, just like we have the articles of Coalition casualties in Afghanistan, which is an overviw of their deaths as well. As well as the British casualties in Afghanistan article, the Canadian, and the German. We would just call this article Insurgent casualties in Iraq (without the list, since it wouldn't be a list anymore). The purpose of a deletion nomination is not just to decide eather to keep or delete an article, but, if need be, to also change the article so the problems that existed and called for deletion be rectified. MidnightBomber (talk) 06:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment Please note that User:MidnightBomber has been confirmed as another of User:Top Gun's sock puppets and has been blocked. Nick-D (talk) 22:43, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep a useful list. Maybe cited by media outlets. -- TheFE ARgod (Ч) 08:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:SYN. Peter Symonds ( talk ) 09:07, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. A glob of statistics does not an encyclopedia article make. This is not a list as defined at Lists: "The items on these lists include links to articles in a particular subject area, and may include additional information about the listed items." That said, WP:SYN does not apply here because it's just a bunch of stats without interpretation. Evil saltine (talk) 09:55, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment The first set of total casualties were calculated by adding up the figures in the casualty reports, which seems to be synthesis (and wrong given that it's inevitable that there will be double counting in the reports and some casualties won't be in the reports). Nick-D (talk) 10:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Routine calculations aren't considered synthesis. There would have to be some margin of error on those numbers though. Evil saltine (talk) 10:13, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.