Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/War on Terrorism casualties


 * 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. After reading through all of the arguments it's pretty clear that there is a consensus for deletion. No one is questioning the notability of the topic, but there are a nexus of concerns that led most who commented to support deletion. The central worry is that, given the lack of real-world definition for the term "war on terrorism," the scope of this article is difficult or impossible to define. Delete !voters argue that this has led (and will continue to lead) to a coatrack type article with a significant amount of material that would constitute original research since independent reliable sources do not establish its relationship to the ill-defined term "war on terror." This is certainly a valid concern given our policies, it was articulated to greater or lesser degrees by a super-majority of editors who commented here, and it was not really addressed directly by most of those who support keeping the article (indeed several ignored it completely). Given the discussion I believe deletion is the only outcome at this time. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:48, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

War on Terrorism casualties

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Completing nomination for IP. There seems to be a mini-AfD on the article's talk page. I abstain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrKIA11 (talk • contribs)


 * I feel that this article should either be deleted or restrict the data on those concerning only casualties resulting from the US-led military operations conducted under the WoT banner. Data concerning countries that did not formally join the WoT, such as UK, should be removed as well.--79.167.189.239 (talk) 13:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete What a mess. I think it is important for there to be sourced figures about how many military and civilian deaths there have been in any war or conflict.  We need to know how many bystanders died along with the number of combatants from each side.  In this instance, however, all of those figures are thrown together in one crockpot called "War on Terrorism", which apparently gets redefined with every new edit.  The only things that seem to be certain are that these occurred (a) on or after September 11, 2001 and (b) on a shining planet called Earth.  Userfy this, come to an agreement on how it should be presented, come back when you have something useful.  Mandsford (talk) 15:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. WP:SYNTH, WP:COATRACK, WP:POVFORK (War on Terrorism) and WP:NOT, all combined in one. The article's conclusions are not supported by its sources. For example the so-called sources for the claim that the War on Terror killed 1,561 Colombians are: "7 [Colombian] soldiers killed by Colombian rebels' landmines", "Colombia police seek rebels after bomb kills [15] elite troops", "Colombia's President Vows to Eradicate Coca Plants . . . after rebel forces killed 29 soldiers standing guard as workers destroyed coca crops", and two nonexisting 404 pages. Considering that the article contains little but dry statistics and most of these statistics are misrepresented or downright false, I see nothing here that could justify this separate treatment of the subject. — Rankiri (talk) 16:07, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete I had nominated this article for deletion earlier. The concept behind the article seems to beg for POV debates. NickCT (talk) 16:16, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Even if you could magically get rid of all the POV issues that come with this, there's still a ton of problems. Terrorism was not invented by Osama, Hussein, or Barney the Dinosaur. You would have to take in all historical cases as well, and then you would have to be able to measure terrorism in some quantifiable fashion. An article listing the top ten expletives used in hand-to-hand combat would be a cleaner article than this... - Warthog Demon  18:07, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * While we can't statistically measure the toll of terrorism over the ages, there is indeed a "war on terrorism" as this FBI bulletin(reliable source) suggests.Smallman12q (talk) 19:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That does help narrow the scope but there are still POV problems and weak sources. The article even says this when it speaks about civilian casualties: There is no widely agreed on figure for the number of people that have been killed so far in the "War on Terrorism"... - Warthog Demon  20:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Terrorism-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep I don't really see what type of POV issues can be raised (could someone list these out?). What this article should do is list out the casualities...a list of non-debatable nuimbers regarding the number of casualties in the War on Terrorism. This article clearly needs to be revised, but it certainly shouldn't be deleted. (I'd like to point out that there is a similar article for World War 2 and for World War I).Smallman12q (talk) 19:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * How is throwing Battle of Mogadishu (1993), Operation Scorched Earth or some fake stats about Colombian drug-related matters in the mix not POV? Also, what about the rest of the mentioned problems? — Rankiri (talk) 20:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

World wars were actual wars, though. If this article is to be kept, then what is the definition of WoT that would be used and what would be listed as a WoT casualty? By some definition of WoT, all operations labeled as counter-terrorist (and maybe attacks labeled as terrorist?) since 9/11 and until the end of time are included... See the mess of this concept? All we seem to do here is, pretty much, replicate Bush POV, which is actually not supported by reliable sources.--79.167.189.239 (talk) 20:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Apparently the GAO has a put a cost figure to the War on Terrorism (also Time has an article to the cost as well).
 * In addition, it the GAO also has put out [www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics] which lists some statistics on the casualties on the global war on terror. The problem lies in defining the scope of the article which I understand to be the global war on terror as bush "declared" it.Smallman12q (talk) 00:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Hard to say, but a weak delete from me. There is so much grey area that it's hard to say how useful or encyclopedic this article really is. For one, what do you consider part of the WOT: all terrorism since 9/11, or earlier, or something more constrained? How do you separate the normal inviolence and political fighting that occur in these unstable regions? Considering that it is hard to draw a conclusion on anything regarding an ongoing war, the sources are piecemeal at best. The whole thing smacks of OR.  bahamut0013  words deeds 20:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete - the 'War on Terror' needs to be consistently defined before an article on is casualties is created. OR, COATRACK, etc. Also as per Rankiri. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:33, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 'Keep All of these events listed have been called a war on terrorism by the news media. Listing how many people from each nation died, be they there as soldiers, embassy workers, or contractors, is relevant, and plenty of references to back up the information.  If you have a problem with the name of the article, then discuss changing it to another.  We are here to discuss whether the article itself, by whatever name, should be allowed to exist.   D r e a m Focus  22:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This is the first result in a google search. Notice the use of quotes there at 'War on terrorism'. Also check these out: and . The WoT is not used by the media as anything more than a name that was given to a campaign. --79.167.189.239 (talk) 23:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Dream Focus, can I please see some WP:RS sources that mention these exact casualty figures and directly link all of these events to the War on Terror? So far, my search for "War on Terrorism"+"Operation Scorched Earth" yielded no results in Google News, Google Scholar or Google Books. By the way, take a look at and . — Rankiri (talk) 00:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The article itself already has references for all the numbers. As for news sources, I find 89,100 on Google news search, when I search for "War on Terror" "Bush" "Iraq".  News headlines such as "Bush: Iraq is a victory in global war on terror." appear.  Remember, the news media calls it a war on terror, not a war on terrorism.  Perhaps the article should be renamed to reflect that.   D r e a m Focus  04:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep I see a reasonable amount of sources. There is an obvious problem with some events known exactly to the individual, and some only to the nearest 10,000, but this does not affect the overall validity as a measure of the effects of warfare--though the spurious precision does require caution in interpretation--one could correctly conclude that the most civilian deaths are in Iraq without knowing whether the Iraq/Afghanistan ration is 10:1 or 5:1 .  I see only one totally weird figure: the civilian deaths in the table for Thailand, though a number of the other civilian figures are unsourced & perhaps somewhat dubious. The other columns seem much more reliable.  I suppose we could limit it to military + contractors.   DGG ( talk ) 04:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Once again, most of the article's numbers don't come directly from its sources, and most of these so-called sources are completely fake and non-WP:RS. As another, absolutely randomly taken example, its source for Israel's War on Terrorism casualties is Wikipedia's article on 2006 Lebanon War. Next to it, there is another Lebanon statistic: 850 deaths. The source for this one? Another 404 page. The number of US casualties in Afghanistan (5,186) is supported by yet another nonexistent page and a rather dubious source that shows an entirely different number of 999 deaths. As for "terror" vs. "terrorism", let me correct myself: my searches for "War on Terrorism"+"Operation Scorched Earth" or "War on Terror"+"Operation Scorched Earth" yielded no relevant results in Google News, Google Scholar or Google Books. I understand that the squadron is trying to save the article, but would it kill you to take a closer look at it or perhaps even read my earlier post on the quality of the article's sources? Come on. — Rankiri (talk) 05:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, while your concerns about sourcing is a completely valid concern could you please explain how deleting this article is a solution? Sourcing this information is going to be just as much hard work if it is in a separate article as if it were stuffed into War on terror -- with the addition of the serious technical problems that arise when a wikilink is to a subsection heading that I describe below.  Geo Swan (talk) 23:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Kill it with a flame fringe POV, poor sources, most of the entries there are a very bad misunderstanding. The name itself is flawed: to refer to these conflicts as "War on Terrorism" is supporting a fringe POV. The term is the term used by the Bush administration with no support (for the term) from the alleged allies, nor is it used by the new Obama administration that is carrying on the conflicts that were previously under the "War on Terrorism". As for the casualties of the conflict that Bush used to call "War on Terrorism", they are already in the main article and do not warrant a fork with a bad name like this. But thats besides the point, 90% of the entries here have nothing to do with Bush's campaign.--Anon 05:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. Aside from being a dubious topic for an article, much of its content appears to be the work of the now indef-blocked editor, who routinely made up his/her own casualty figures from his/her interpretation of random news reports. As such, the figures sourced to Wikipedia articles and the like (most of which were also targeted by Top Gun) are entirely unreliable. Nick-D (talk) 06:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * So, some are objecting to the article based on the numbers given. I'm looking through the CIA factbook now, and I'll search other government websites also.  If the references in the article don't confirm all the information presented, I'm sure we can find it somewhere.  They do keep track of these things.   D r e a m Focus  07:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Congressional Research Service, www.crs.gov CRS Report for Congress, Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress . Searching the CRS site, one can find all sorts of information, confirming or correcting any information in the article that is in doubt.  All information presented will obviously be listed on one .gov site or another.   D r e a m Focus  07:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You're still not focusing on the bigger picture. As mentioned by Anon, the term "War on Terror", or "War on Terrorism", was principally invented and used by the Bush administration, and 90% of the entries in the list have nothing to do with Bush's post-9/11 anti-terrorist efforts. Whatever its unclear definition is, the War on Terror almost certainly doesn't have anything to do with Israeli–Lebanese conflict, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Illegal drug trade in Colombia, War in Somalia or, say, 1993 CIA shootings. The article in its current state is a completely unnecessary POV fork of War_on_Terrorism, one that blatantly violates a number of WP policies and requires a fundamental rewrite to become accurate, useful and encyclopedic. Consequently, it needs to be removed out of the main namespace before some unsuspecting Wikipedia visitors start using it as an encyclopedic reference. — Rankiri (talk) 13:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Finding reliable data is only part of the problem. The biggest issue is that there is no universal definition of WoT and we definitely should not be using Bush definition. --79.167.189.239 (talk) 09:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Neutral I've never been happy with this article, but maybe another solution could be found...-- TheFE ARgod (Ч) 10:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Smallman12q, let's discuss this at the bottom of the page. It makes things less messy. The total cost of WoT, in the Government Accountability Office report, is calculated by aggregating separate costs of Operation Noble Eagle, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Are these the operations you are suggesting we should use to calculate casualties? And what do you think should be included? --79.167.189.239 (talk) 12:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe that we should be using the definition as provided in the War on Terrorism article...ie. the bush definition. What this article ought to be is a fork of War_on_Terrorism. That's how I view it...Smallman12q (talk) 22:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete doomed to be a POV mess, the figures quoted will never actually be confirmed or sourced correctly. . Terrorism is a nebulous term at best and Victims of terrorism even more so. Ridernyc (talk) 13:47, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete - a nice idea in theory, but in practice this is almost certain to stay a POV WP:COATRACK just as it is now. There is no clear criteria and will probably never be a consensus as to what constitutes an event in the so-called "War on Terror", so I think this article is just going to end up as an ongoing headache for everybody concerned. Gatoclass (talk) 14:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - per WP:SYNTH and WP:OR Wikireader41 (talk) 23:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Problem is, Smallman12q, that the WoT article simply presents what Bush wanted WoT to be, that is a globalized war on terrorists "that would not end until all terrorists have been defeated". That is what it presented to be, and the WoT article simply states that claim. Now, in reality, it wasn't all that global, and probably wasn't that counter-terroristic (war in Iraq). So, basically, to use the definition in the WoT article we practically must espouse the Bush POV of the WoT.--79.167.179.246 (talk) 09:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Seems to be a list of a number of conflicts some of which are only linked to the war on terror by rather dubious associations. Some of which are not even listed as fronts in the war on terror article.Slatersteven (talk) 16:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete as this list has no verifiable definition in accordance with WP:Source list, without which it is just a collection of loosely assoicated of topics without any externally validated rationale for inclusion in Wikipedia. A verifable definition is also needed to demonstrate that it is not the product of original research. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:23, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You do know there is a War on terrorism article?Smallman12q (talk) 21:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If you check the talk page over there, you will see that it suffers from the same illness, we are describing here. The definition that is being used over there is pretty much unsourced, as you can see, and someone could very easily claim it's WP:SYN. It seems like the only reason, we are using that definition, is that we haven't come up with something better yet and I'm not sure that there are any reliable sources out there that specifically define WoT.


 * I'm the nominator IP btw. --JokerXtreme (talk) 00:18, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - AfD's should not be used for POV pushing. Sure the article needs work but casualties are an imported part of the cluster of the "War on terror" articles we have. Nothing that could not be fixed. Tons of sources and the different definitions can be worked out and presented in a neutral way sure not easy but as a high quality encyclopedia we have the obligation not to leave out important aspects of a topic and i think it is possible. Really, IMO no reason to sanitize the story by leaving out the casualties. IQinn (talk) 02:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * These casualties are already discussed on War on terrorism. As mentioned above, the article's problems have little to do with the notability of the subject. — Rankiri (talk) 04:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * POV fork? "POV fork" is itself based on a POV judgement. Not a POV fork at all for me. Also War on terrorism is already very large with 118 kb and War on terrorism is one of the biggest sections with lot's of sources. Better to move material from there to this article here. This is just one reason more for me to vote for keep.IQinn (talk) 09:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Deleting this article, doesn't necessarily mean that it can't be recreated. It just means that the current content is inappropriate. What could be done, is delete the current content AND move surplus content from the main article. --JokerXtreme (talk) 10:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep the current article and move surplus material to the article here that should be done. Deleting articles is not the right way to fix articles. Your proposed solution does not make sense to me. Move surplus content from the main article to where? I do not think deleting is the right way to fix articles. There is nothing "inappropriate" in the article here. It needs fixing and with the surplus material from War on terrorism it would significantly improve. IQinn (talk) 11:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that the overwhelming majority of the editors that have replied here, seem to believe that there is something wrong with the current content and probably with the whole idea of having a separate article. Yet, I don't just want to press this issue and enforce the opinion of the majority. I'd like to exhaust all possibilities first. Why do you think that the current content must be kept? --JokerXtreme (talk) 13:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You are right outcomes of Afd's are not decided by voting, it's done by the strengths of the arguments and through discussion to find a solution that increases the quality of Wikipedia. I have given reasons for the importance of the topic and as i see the discussion now. Nobody really disagrees that this is an important topic that should be covered and well presented in Wikipedia. The counter argument to that was, we already have a section in War on terrorism, War on terrorism. My counter argument to that was that War on terrorism is already oversize with 118 kb and the casualties section is one of the biggest sections so material should be moved to the article here. And i do think that nobody so far gave compelling counter arguments or a working alternative solution to solve this.
 * Therefor i agree with the from user Geo Swan proposed solution, a solution that i have also proposed. Keep and move most of the material from War on terrorism to the article here. IQinn (talk) 00:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Articles that need to be entirely rewritten fall under the deletion policy. Did you read my previous comments about the quality of the article's facts and sources? If you did, I'd like you to respond to them. I have no problem with having an accurate and objective article on the subject, but right now we have an unnecessary fork filled with original research, distortions and outright falsehoods. At least the parent article doesn't list victims of the South Thailand insurgency as a casualty in the War on Terror. — Rankiri (talk) 13:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I do not think we need to delete this article here in order to merge War on terrorism into this article. I think i have pointed out that i do not share your interpretation that this article is a POV fork? "POV fork" is itself based on a POV judgement. And as i said i agree that there are problems but i strongly disagree that these problems can not be solved through editing. OR? Why didn't you cut it out with a small explanation on the articles talk page? I do not think that Afd's should be used to discuss things that can be solved through editing. If the conflict in South Thailand belongs to the "War on terror" is an interesting controversial topic and i respect your POV but i do not think that this AfD is the right place to discuss this point. There are different views and the article may end up with your view or it will end up with another view or it will represent both views what is often the better solution. I think it will work out when merged with War on terror IQinn (talk) 00:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't mind merging the article with War on terror if I thought that it had any additional informational value in it. The way I see it, the parent page already contains all the relevant information, and this article's potential additions would mainly be limited to bad sources, fake numbers and completely unsubstantiated WP:OR claims. — Rankiri (talk) 14:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment -- those voicing delete and merge opinions raise concerns with some validity. "War on terror" is an amorphous term.  Additionally, it is a term the Bush Presidency stopped using, and which the Obama Presidency has never used.  So the term is of historical, not current interest.  On the other hand, how is merging this article into War on terror an improvement?  Once merged "war on terror" remains amorphous, and of historical interest, since no official body uses the term any more.  War on terror directs readers to Casualties of the Iraq War and Civilian casualties of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present).  These are more clearly defined areas -- less amorphous than "war on terror".  IMO whether the central discussion remains in this article, or at War on terror I think it would be best if it quotes some WP:RS about the problems of defining "war on terror", and then directs readers to the more specific articles.  In addition to casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan "casualties of the war on terror" could include:
 * Casualties of jihadist attacks on civilians in Europe -- if this article existed it could include the Madrid bombings, and the UK bombings;
 * Casualties of jihadist attacks in Pakistan
 * Casualties of jihadist attacks in Africa -- if this article existed should it include the bombings of the US embassies in Africa? There have been other bombings since 9-11;
 * Casualties of jihadist attacks in Asia -- if this article existed it could include the Bali nightclud bombings; Should it include casualties of muslim rebels in the Phillipines?
 * Casualties of jihadist attacks in the Americas -- 9-11 of course
 * Casualties of jihadist attacks in the Gulf region -- if this article existed should it include the USS Cole bombing? Al Qaeda attacks on western oil company employees?  Al Qaeda attacks on Saudi princes and their body guards?  Al Qaeda support of Huthi rebels in Yemen?
 * Casualties of the Iraq War
 * Civilian casualties of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
 * Casualties of the "war on terror", outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, have not all been inflicted by jihadists.


 * The CIA and US special forces were involved in incursions into Somalia by the forces of neighboring countries with friendly ties with the USA. The USA ran or helped run black prisons in Africa, following the 2006 incursion.
 * During the Bill Clinton Presidency American intelligence (falsely?) believed that a new pharmaceutical plant being built in Sudan was actually a biological warfare plant -- sponsored by Osama Bin Laden, who was then living in Sudan with his entourage. The plant was destroyed in a surprise air attack, with some loss of life.  Arguably the casualties of that bombing could be classed as "war on terror" casualties.
 * The CIA or US special forces have used missiles launched from unmanned drones, or small teams of commandos to attack vehicles that were believed to be carrying high-ranking jihadists in Somalia, Yemen, and elsewhere. Those killed or wounded in these attacks should probably also be considered considered casualties of the war on terror.
 * Later in the Clinton Presidency, after Osama bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, and established training camps there, in retaliation for the embassy bombings, Clinton ordered air strikes on some of those al Qaeda training camps. I suggest therefore that it would not be unreasonable to accompany Civilian casualties of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present) with something like Casualties of attacks on al Qaeda prior to 9-11.
 * Another related topic could be something like Mercenary casualties. There are WP:RS that assert that the reason that under the Bush Presidency tens of thousands of mercenaries performed soldiers' duties in Iraq was to mask from the American public how many casualties the Bush policy was inflicting.  Granted, sources to document the numbers of casualties may be impossible to come by.  But WP:RS have asserted that the figure, if published, would be on the order of a thousand.  I suggest there are enough WP:RS to address this topic, even if there are not enough WP:RS to offer a figure.
 * In 2003, 2004 and 2005, there was a lot of controversy over the number of civilian casualties in Iraq. I am sure there are sufficient WP:RS to justify Civilian casualties of the Iraq War.  Geo Swan (talk) 22:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment -- I know some wikipedia contributors think that wikilinking to subsection headings within articles is a perfectly acceptable practice. Several contributors have suggested here that it would be useful to replace this article with a redirection to War on terror.  There are several important technical reasons why this specific suggestion, and the general practice of wikilinking to subsection headings within articles are a very bad idea:
 * Among the most important factors that makes the wikipedia superior to plain old ordinary pages on the plain old world-wide-web are:
 * Wikilinks are bidirectional, while plain old world-wide-web links aren't.
 * Wikilinks are robust, in ways that plain old world-wide-web links aren't.
 * There is no reliable way to know how many other web pages link to a plain old world-wide-web page.
 * There is no reliable way to know whether a plain old world-wide-web page has been modified since your last visit.
 * The wikimedia software provides us with moves -- page renames -- that make sure our links continue to work, even when articles are renamed. When a page is renamed the wikimedia software automatically creates a redirection page.  The wikilink continues to take you to the right page, even when its name has been changed.  But when someone creates a wikilink to a subsection heading within a page, that link breaks, it the subsection is renamed.  The use of wikilinks to subsection headings returns us to the terrible situation of plain old world-wide-web pages.
 * The wikimedia software provides us with watchlists -- a very powerful feature. We are told when the pages on the topics we are most interested in have changed.  We can find out, with trivial effort, what other articles link to the current article.  There is nothing like this for plain old world-wide-web pages.  And the wikimedia software does not support telling us what wikilinks link to a section heading.  A wikipedia contributor who sees something wrong with a section heading -- a spelling error, a punctuation error, an awkward phrasing -- and decides to change the heading, has no reliable way of knowing that they are going to break wikilinks anchored to that subsection heading.  They have no way of knowing that heading change will break links.


 * If a topic is worthy of a wikilink that topic is worthy of an article of its own -- for the reasons I offered above, and so that our watchlists continue to be useful. The wikimedia software only supports putting full articles on our watchlist -- not subsections within articles.  If I am specifically interested in "casualties of the war on terror" -- but not the "war on terror" in general, I can watchlist the one and not the other -- so long as they remain separate articles.  If the two topics are merged our watchlist becomes less useful.  Similarly, the "what links here" button also becomes less useful.  When one is looking for information on topics where our coverage is not complete, and the articles that seemed most likely to contain that info don't contain it, a technique worth trying is to click on the "what links here" button, look at that list, and think about whether any of those articles might contain the information we need.  This works best when each article is focussed on one specific topic.  Unfortunately, when the urge to merge perfectly adequate articles on related topics succeeds it seriously erodes the usefulness of our watchlists and the "what links here" feature.  The results of the "what links here" will be inflated by a lot of false positives.  And our watchlists will show changes to topics we actually aren't interested in anyhow.  Geo Swan (talk) 22:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep -- for the reasons I offered above I think the War on terror section of War on terror should be confined to brief context setting, and use main or seealso to direct readers to article(s) that are more specifically focussed.  I agree that there are problems with the article, in its current state.  But those problems are shared with the War on terror section, in its current state.  Geo Swan (talk) 22:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No to keeping slanted articles for "technical reasons". War on terror is a bad article itself, it needs a major rewrite, you can tell that by looking at the number of templates at the top of it and the years of bloody disputes on the talk pages. Because one poorly written article is organised in a way that it needs a POV-slanted sub-article such as this supposed "casualties list", does not mean that we should keep the bad sub-article.--Anon 06:53, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * What you are actually proposing is to keep the article but delete its content and just redirect to War on terror? Well the part with the watchlists isn't very convincing, since wikipedia should be more convenient to readers not editors. I'm also opposed to listing terrorist attack victims as WoT casualties. --JokerXtreme (talk) 23:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd just like to second Joker's sentiments regarding watchlists. Not convincing in the least. NickCT (talk) 02:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * JokerXtreme, you wrote that I suggested we "keep the article but delete its content and just redirect to War on terror..." I am willing to accept this assertion was made in good faith, but I am frankly mystified as to how you could reach that interpretation.
 * WRT to being convenient to readers, not editors -- first, you don't think our regular readers use watchlists? second, you seem to be asserting that larger, omnibus articles serve our readers better than smaller, more focussed articles. I have never seen anyone make a serious effort to defend this position.  Frankly I believe this position is based on a completely mistaken view of how the wikimedia software is used.  I suggest it is easier for a reader to go to a topic by clicking on a wikilink, than it is to find a topic through scrolling through an inappropriately large article that tries to address multiple topics.  Books were linear.  The wikipedia doesn't have to be.  To what extent should wikipedia editors be allowed to control how our readers transit from topic to topic to arrive at the information they really want?  I suggest that our readers should be free to go from topic to topic in the order that best serves their interests -- not in the order wikipedia editors think best.  That is the unfortunate result however when we allow inappropriately broad merges.
 * You also wrote: "I'm also opposed to listing terrorist attack victims as WoT casualties." Really?  Do you think it would be possible for you to explain this opposition?  Haven't the victims of terrorist attacks routinely been described as WoT casualties by those who use that term?  Geo Swan (talk) 20:45, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, that is what I understood. To be honest I'm not so sure any more. Can you sum up briefly what exactly you are suggesting?
 * My guess is that no or very few non-editors use watchlists. That is only an assertion of course, but I think it's valid.
 * You may be right about the terrorist attack victims. Can you support this with any sources? --JokerXtreme (talk) 00:20, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree keeping an article so that it can be watched males no logical sense at all. Ridernyc (talk) 02:07, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


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