Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Mass killings under communist regimes

Users involved


 * (Rnd 15-21)

Dispute overview

In August two editors (Davide King,Paul Siebert) started making edits in the article that completely reversed the status quo on this sensitive topic. A heated dispute over specific edits followed, which was largely led by AmateurEditor and Cloud200 on one side, and Davide King Paul Siebert on the other. Their position can be summarised as attacking practically every single aspect of the article (while declaring they don't), starting from validity of the very concepts of "mass killings", "communist regimes" and any causal connection between the two. The subject is complex and subject to interpretation, but rejecting it completely is equivalent to denialism since mass-scale extermination of people in countries declaring themselves as "communist" is a well-documented fact, and link between the ideology and these exterminations is clearly demonstrated by large body of primary and secondary sources, all linked in the article.

Both AmateurEditor and myself engaged in the discussion, honestly analysing and responding to every single argument of the opponents, however their position doesn't seem to be impacted by any number of sources or arguments. They ignore any arguments and just continue flooding the discussion with extremely lengthy and verbose comments that are loosely related to the subject and rarely directly respond to the arguments we raised. The discussion thus was unproductive and I have personally disengaged from the discussion after being treated with ad hominem arguments that implied I have no right to take part in the discussion for being from Eastern Europe.

Since September they have practically taken over the complete article rewriting it to their liking, in a manner that is best illustrated by this edit[]: WP:WEASEL, unsourced and WP:POV.

How have you tried to resolve this dispute before coming here?

Massive dispute in Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes, continued to some extent in personal talk pages [] and archived in Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes/Archive 50

How do you think we can help resolve the dispute?

Revert all edits done by Davide King and Paul Siebert since September. Both AmateurEditor and myself were open to discussion and changes to the article, but not a complete and subjective rewrite that turned it from head to heels.

Summary of dispute by AmateurEditor
Please keep it brief - less than 2000 characters if possible, it helps us help you quicker.

Summary of dispute by Davide King
Siebert gave an accurate summary, while Cloud200's not only lacks context and assumes that their position is the right one, and we must be some Soviet/Stalin apologists, which could not be further from the truth, but is actively harmful, inaccurate, and misleading — WP:BOOMERANG. Guess what? You stopped discussing, you did not revert me (as I wrote here, everything is sourced in the body, previous lead was not sourced either, and we need not to source it if a summary and paraphrase of what the sourced body already says), and eventually my edits have been accepted (see here). The real problem is that some users have a complete lack of knowledge about the topic — see this (the new lead and Siebert's explanation for comparison with the previous lead, this is what users like Cloud2000 actually believe in, even though is OR/SYNTH). It is absurd I have to do this but ...

No one is denying that many, many people have died under Communist regimes, what we are disputing is that this is a scholarly discourse (it is at best only discussed by genocide scholars, which are a minority within a minority, and have not been published in mainstream political science journals, and even then they mostly limit themselves to Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, which are the only ones who fit the most commonly accepted definition of mass killing) or consensus, or that MKuCR is an accurate categorization; the truth is that it is OR/SYNTH the same way mass killings under capitalist, Christian, fascist, Muslim (mockup) regimes, yet we do this only for communism because, as summarized here, "victims of communism" (e.g. the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation) is more of a propaganda topic than a scholarly debate (see this, especially the notes with sources) but many users actually believe in the former and merge the two, when that is far from an accurate summary of the topic, hence the heart of the matter of that article's diatribe.

The new lead is a better and more accurate, though by no means perfect, summary and proper introduction of the topic, which should show how it is has been misunderstood, falsified, and a good source of citogenesis for years (Conservapedia and Metapedia's "Mass killings under Communist regimes" — I cannot link the latter, not Encyclopedia Britannica or any other proper encyclopedia that would establish notability as those users want the article to be structured), which is not a good thing at all. The real issue is that some users have been supporting and defending atrocious policy and guideline violations (NPOV, OR/SYNTH, and WEIGHT), not Siebert and I, who have been arguing in good faith; clearly, one of us must be wrong but I am still not convinced it is Siebert and I. You have yet to show they are wrong in their summary of the dispute and article's problems.

Davide King (talk) 03:48, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Paul Siebert
Please keep it brief - less than 2000 characters if possible, it helps us help you quicker. First, I disagree with Cloud200's description of the conflict, this describes my position in more details. Second, the overall description of the dispute is as follows:
 * "''The article is describing numerous and poorly connected events that happened in XX century in different countries. Numerous publications exist that describe those events separately (Type 1 sources). Some publication do comparative analysis, for example, compare two or more Communist states, or compare one or several Communist states with non-Communists etc (Type 2 sources). And, there is a relatively small group of sources that discuss "Communist mass killing" as a single concept (Type 3 sources). Currently, the article relies heavily on Type 3 sources, and other sources play just a subordinated role, or are completely ignored.
 * ''The problem is that the type 3 sources sometimes directly contradict to other sources, and they may contain biased interpretations, use outdated figures and questionable facts etc. Type 3 sources are essentially ignored by country experts, so there is no open disputes between Type 1&2 and Type 3 authors. Even worse, Type 3 sources are unhomogeneous, and they frequently contradict to each other, without saying that openly.
 * ''Nevertheless, the article treats the topic as a well defined and universally recognized topic (similar to the Holocaust), which has some common terminology (it doesn't), commonly accepted statistics (in reality, the number of victims is a subject of one's political views, because there is no agreement what category of life loss can be considered victims of Communism), some common causes (which is not true, for most country experts provide different explanations for each case). And it is not a sruprise that this article directly contradicts to Wikipedia articles about almost every individual event taken separately (Cambodian genocide is one obvious exception).
 * ''In other words, this article is a single huge POV fork, and that situation should be either fixed, or the article should be deleted. I am comfortable with both outcomes, because all essential information will remain in Wikipedia, in such articles as Mass killing, Democide, Classicide, The Black Book of Communism, Red Holocaust, Great Purge, Cambodian genocide, Holodomor and many others.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:12, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

One side note. It seems there is some behavioural issue here. Thus, the filer provides that link as a proof of her attempts to resolve the dispute. As we can see, that post was made by me, and the filer never responded. In connection to that, I am wondering why the filer presents her own refusal to collaborate as my ostensible "ownership" of the article. Not only that is an unprovoked personal attack, it is simply not true.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:27, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Siebert has replied on my personal talk page after I clearly stated I'm disengaging from the discussion on article talk page due to his ad hominem attacks which led me to a conclusion that any further debate on their terms is pointless. Cloud200 (talk) 11:42, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Mass killings under communist regimes discussion
Please keep discussion to a minimum before being opened by a volunteer. Continue on article talk page if necessary.
 * Volunteer Note - The filing editor has not notified the other editors, which is required as part of a filing at this noticeboard. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:32, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my mistake. All parties have been notified per the protocol, although I have also posted a notice in the article's talk page yesterday to which two people already responded. Cloud200 (talk) 06:40, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Volunteer Note - This case appears to involve both a content dispute that is more extensive than the usual scope of disputes that are handled at this noticeboard, and allegations of conduct violations. The statement of what is being asked appears to include rolling back one to two months of editing to an earlier version of the article.  We don't act as arbitrators or as an editorial board.  Also, both sides have said that there may be conduct issues by the other side.  However, if all editors agree to moderated dispute resolution, I am willing to try to mediate this dispute, with the understanding that it is likely to break down either into one very large RFC or several relatively large RFCs.  All editors will have to agree that they will allow me to try to mediate in order to proceed, and I will request that an administrator back up my authority as mediator.  After notice is given, the next question is whether the editors want moderated dispute resolution and whether they will agree to set aside any conduct concerns.  Robert McClenon (talk) 04:12, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Volunteer note: Note Cloud200 canvassing users to this discussion with non-neutral messages (and choosing those who they think would support them).--Ymblanter (talk) 07:47, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Example--Ymblanter (talk) 07:48, 5 November 2021 (UTC)


 * , thanks for pointing this out — I thought it was just one user but it was more than that. Here, they again made false accuses against Paul Siebert and essentially bordering on personal attacks by falsely accusing Siebert of denying the Katyn massacre when, as one can see from this, it was a dispute about the fact secondary reliable sources did not include, or find it due, the wording Cloud200 preferred but that only appeared in the primary source; by the way, it ended with the previous wording but I added the quote from the primary source in a note. This is bordering on WP:SHOT. Davide King (talk) 10:55, 5 November 2021 (UTC)


 * This is precisely what these two users have been doing since August and I was engaging in a civil, fact-based discussion for nearly a month, while all arguments simply ignored or countered with personal attacks on myself. I have collected a long list of these statements here and disengaged from the discussion since, as it was waste of time. Since these two editors also started pushing edits of the same character in other articles on that subject, it's quite obvious that editors countering them there should be notified as these are parts of the same dispute, just in different articles. Cloud200 (talk)


 * I would be very happy for to mediate in the article as this is precisely what we need there - an objective, experience third-party who will moderate arguments on both side.

I would like to highlight that I'm not rejecting changes proposed by Siebert and King and I have on multiple occasions proposed a civilised way to discuss their specific edits, one by one, based on sources and include them in the article as specific views on the subject. What I am rejecting is their way of turning the discussion into a Gish gallop where any specific statement on our side is countered by a five pages of text that involves dozens of digressions interluded with ad hominem attacks, accusing us of being "Eastern European" and "a Stalinist"|here (!) only because I do support the idea that USSR as a state was responsible for the mass atrocities it committed as a state. At the same time these editors do not seem to accept any alternative views on the subject and gradually replace them in the article, thus completely overturning its meaning.

Cloud200 (talk) 11:29, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Before I agree that Robert McClenon mediated this dispute, I would like him to answer several questions.
 * Do you know that the filer is actually a newcomer, and the conflict around this article is more than 10 years long, and almost all concerns and objections raised in the gigantic talk page archives remain unaddressed and unresolved?
 * Do you know that the number of potential participants is much bigger (I can name more than 10 other users who may be interested in participation)?
 * Are you ready to delve into all details of that conflict?
 * Do you realize that potential outcome of this dispute may range from compete restoration of the article to its full rewrite (and even deletion)?

If the answer to all those questions is "Yes", then I am ready to accept you as a mediator, but be prepared that the mediation may be very long and hard.

In addition, the filer is throwing accusations that are factually incorrect and may be interpreted as personal attacks. The filer has already been duly notified that the topic is under WP:DS, and I warned the filer that their behaviour may result in AE actions. I think it would be incorrect to conduct the mediation process in parallel with AE. Therefore, since it seems it is hardly possible to discuss content and conduct issues simultaneously, the most productive way would be as follows:
 * (1) The filer explicitly confirms they understood my warning, and there will be no unjustified accusation of others during that discussion and the discussions closely related to it from her side.


 * (2) I agree to participate in mediation, which will be devoted exclusively to the content dispute, and no behavioural questions will be raised.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:46, 5 November 2021 (UTC)


 * User:Paul Siebert - I will be posting Statement Zero by the moderator (myself) within a few hours. The participating editors will be asked to agree to it.  The rules for mediation at DRN have always said that we discuss content only, and that there is to be no discussion of editor conduct.  No editor except the moderator or an administrator may issue warnings to any other editors.  There will be no casting of aspersions, incivility, or personal attacks.  All editors will understand that ArbCom discretionary sanctions are in effect, and that there will be no reports to Arbitration Enforcement or WP:ANI.  I will be posting Statement Zero within a few hours.  If the editors agree, then I will post Statement One, which will start a mediation process that may last a few months (not just the usual two to three weeks).  If any editor does not agree, then what I do next may depend on who the survivors are.  Robert McClenon (talk) 15:09, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I got no answer to my second question. IMO, it is important to invite the users who participated in the MKuCR talk page discussion during the period from 2015 (tentatively) till now. Many of them, such as, or quit because they came to a conclusion that the dispute came to an impasse, but I have a feeling they may express a desire to participate in this DR. It would be incorrect to start the process until all potential participants have been duly informed. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:38, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * See below, but one of those editors has been banned. The other editor may be notified.  I do not intend to have a large number of participants in mediated discussion, because that becomes chaotic.  The principal means for participation by other editors will be the RFC process, but a limited number of other editors may be invited.

Robert McClenon (talk) 15:58, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Zeroth Statement by Moderator (Communist Killings)
I am ready to begin mediation about Mass killings under communism. This mediation may take a few months, not just the usual few weeks of DRN. The mediation will focus on Mass killings under communism; however, since articles must not contradict each other, it may be necessary to look at other articles, in particular on specific atrocities.

Other Editors

The participants may invite other editors who are in good standing to join in the mediation. The mediation will not be delayed while waiting for responses from other editors. Any invitation to join the proceedings must be neutrally worded. The main mechanism for involving other editors will however be the RFC process. This is because trying to conduct moderated discussion with a large number of editors becomes chaotic.

Ground Rules

The editors are asked to read the ground rules and to understand them: Robert McClenon (talk) 15:58, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * 1)  Be civil and concise.
 * 2)  Civility is required everywhere in Wikipedia and is essential in dispute resolution.  Uncivil statements may be collapsed.
 * 3)  Overly long statements do not clarify issues.  (They may make the author feel better, but the objective is to discuss the article constructively.)  Overly long statements may be collapsed, and the party may be told to summarize them.  Read Too Long, Didn't Read, and don't write anything that is too long for other editors to read.  If the moderator says to write one paragraph, that means one paragraph of reasonable length.
 * 4)  Do not report any issues about the article or the editing of the article at any other noticeboards, such as WP:ANI or Arbitration Enforcement.  Reporting any issue about the article at any other location is forum shopping, which is strongly discouraged.  Any old discussions at any other noticeboards must be closed or suspended.  If any new conduct discussions are opened, this mediation will be failed.
 * 5)  Comment on content, not contributors.
 * 6)  The purpose of discussion is to improve the articles, not to complain about other editors.  (There may be a combination of content issues and conduct issues, but resolving the content issue often mitigates the conduct issue or permits it to subside.)  Uncivil comments or comments about other editors may be suppressed.
 * 7)  "Comment on content, not contributors" means that if you are asked to summarize what you want changed in the article, or left the same, it is not necessary or useful to name the other editors, but it may be important to identify the paragraphs or locations in the article.  It isn't necessary to identify the other editors with whom you disagree.
 * 8)  Discuss edits, not editors.  This means the same as "Comment on content, not contributors".  It is repeated because it needs repeating.
 * 9)  Do not edit the article while moderated discussion is in progress.  If the article is edited except by the moderator, the mediation may be failed.
 * 10)  It would be better not to discuss the article on the article talk page or on user talk pages while moderated discussion is in progress, because discussion elsewhere than here may be overlooked or ignored.
 * 11)  Be specific at DRN .  Do not simply say that a section should be improved, but tell what improvement should be made.  Do not simply say that "All viewpoints must be discussed", but identify the missing viewpoints.
 * 12)  Do not engage in back-and-forth discussion to statements by other editors (except as noted below); that is, do not reply to the comments of other editors.  That has already been tried and has not resolved the content dispute.  Address your comments to the moderator and the community.  Except in a section for back-and-forth discussion, replies to other editors or back-and-forth discussion may be collapsed by the moderator and may result in a rebuke.
 * 13)  The moderator will provide a section for back-and-forth comments.  Keep your comments in that section, so that anyone else can ignore them.  Comments in the back-and-forth section, like everywhere else, must be civil.
 * 14)  Every participant is expected to check on the case at least every 72 hours and to answer questions within 72 hours, unless they have said that they will be taking a break of not more than a week.

Archives and Blank Pad

The moderator has not read the lengthy archives, and may or may not read the archives. This means that the participants may be asked to restate what they have already stated. If the participants think that they are starting over, that is because we are starting over. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:58, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Zeroth Statement by Editors (Communist Killings)

 * Agreed. I neither expected nor proposed the Moderator to read talk page archives, I just said that the concerns raised in them must be addressed too. I can present summaries of archived discussions (with links) --Paul Siebert (talk) 16:26, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed and thank you for participation. Cloud200 (talk) 17:19, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

First statement by moderator (Communist killings)
Here are a few more thoughts on how I plan to try to handle the mediation.

First, we will try to divide issues between those having to do with the reliability and choice of sources, those having to do with balance and due weight, and other disputes. Both academic and non-academic (popular press) sources may be used. If necessary, disputes over the reliability of sources can be referred to the reliable source noticeboard, which will put that dispute on hold here, in which case we will try to work on other issues. We will try to resolve disputes over wording, balance, and due weight by compromise, and if necessary will rely on RFC.

If reliable sources are in direct disagreement, which is likely to happen with numbers of deaths, we will list all of the differing opinions or viewpoints.

The editors are asked to reread the neutral point of view policy, which is the second pillar of Wikipedia, and to reread the verifiability policy. These policies are paramount, and no exceptions will or can be made.

I will be posting a note at the administrators' noticeboard stating that we are starting mediation. This does not mean that anyone is being reported for conduct; no one is being reported for conduct. This is only a matter of visibility. Editors should not try to discuss this case at WP:AN, and I am saying not to discuss this case at WP:AN.

Editors should be aware that Eastern Europe discretionary sanctions are in effect to deal with disruptive editing. So avoid disruptive editing.

Each editor is asked to state, in one to three paragraphs of ordinary length, what they think are the most important issues, and also to ask any questions about how we will be working. After I see the introductory statements, I will have a better idea how to prioritize the various parts of the dispute. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:16, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Paul Siebert
(It may be somewhat lengthy, but this introduction is necessary. My other posts will be more brief)

Before discussing concrete sources, we need to come to an agreement on categories of sources. As I already explained (see above), all available sources can be divided on three groups. The problem is that the group 1 sources essentially ignore the group 3 sources, so there is no direct discussion between them. Let me demonstrate it using the Great Chinese famine as an example. This case is very important, because it is responsible for lion's share of deaths ascribed to Communist regimes, so if we exclude it, the "global Communist death toll figure" will become much less impressive. If I were a "naive Wikipedian" with zero preliminary knowledge of the subject, I would have typed something like this or that. However, if I believed that the Great Chinese famine was a mass killing, and wanted to find sources supporting this idea, I would have typed this. Clearly, the sources from these two lists are quite orthogonal. What is more important, if you look at the sources from the first list (for example, O'Grada's "Great leap into famine: A review essay", cited in 12 scholarly publications, or Kung&Lin's "The causes of China's great leap famine, 1959–1961" (cited 170 times), these sources use much more calm tone, are more cautious in conclusions, do not use such terms as "genocide" or "mass killings", and, importantly, never cite the authors from the last list (e.g. Rummel). The group 1 and group 3 sources exist in "parallel universes", and they tell totally different stories about the same event. Importantly, the group 1 sources are much more detailed, their analysis of facts is more careful, and their conclusions are much more balanced. However, the group 1 sources are dramatically underrepresented in the MKuCR article. Moreover, the "Debates over famine" section is quite misleading, because it creates an impression of false balance, whereas there is virtually no debates over, e.g. Great Chinese famine in majority of scholarly research papers or books, which do not consider it "genocide" or other "-cide", or a "mass killing" (for example, see O'Grada's opinion).

If you look at other topics, the situation is pretty much similar: we have a large number of good quality sources on each concrete country or each separate event, which provide a quite adequate description of each separate topic (group 1 sources). We have works authored by "genocide scholars" (group 2 sources) who, as they themselves concede, are not too accurate in some concrete facts figures or interpretations, but who are mostly focused on finding general global dependencies between the type of a society and a likelihood of onset of mass killings, a.k.a geno-politicide (group 2 sources). These sources analyze all geno/politicides (Communist and others), or do comparative analysis of some separate events (e.g. China, Cambodia, USSR, or Cambodia vs Rwanda vs Bosnia, or Cambodia vs Indonesia). And we have a bunch of sources who focus exclusively at "Communist mass killings" as some separate event. These sources (the Black Book of Communism, more concretely, its scandalous introduction, is an example), represent an overwhelming minority of view, and they have been severely criticized for pushing some specific agenda (for example, that Communism was greater evil than Nazism). However, these sources are the core of the article: they set article's structure, and until that flawed structure is changed, the article will be remaining a single huge POV-fork.

Interestingly, due to its structure, the article managed to distort even the views of Benjamin Valentino, the author, whose book gave a name to the article. The main Valentino's idea is that the regime type is not a good predictor for mass killings onset. He came to that conclusion by having analyzed similar type regimes, and he found that one of them committed mass killings, whereas another one didn't. His main conclusion is that leader's personality is the main factor responsible for mass killing, and a practical conclusion is: if we remove some concrete group from power, we may eliminate a risk of mass killings even without making serious transformation of the state's political system. It is ironical that the work of the researcher who wanted to demonstrate that some limited number of persons are real culprits became a core of the article that puts responsibility for mass killings on Communist ideology as whole.

I see two possible solutions of this problem (article's deletion would be too radical, so I do not consider it seriously).
 * First, the article is re-written based on "Group 1" sources, and its structure should be:
 * Introduction
 * Events in the USSR (including the analysis of a historical context and country specific causes)
 * Events in China (same as above)
 * Events in Cambodia (same as above)
 * Events in ...
 * Proposed general causes (in a proper context and supplemented with a due criticism)


 * Second, we can discuss only group 3 sources, which will include a brief description of the views of the authors AND their criticism. This approach is much easier to implement, because we do not need to duplicate factual information that a reader can find in other Wikipedia articles.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:33, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Cloud200
The title of Mass killings under communist regimes is very straightforward: it describes events when large groups of people have been killed ("mass killing") in countries that described themselves as communist ("communist regimes"). The article is not called "genocide under..." or "politicide under...". It uses the most basic and widely understood term of "mass killing", and I don't think any of the parties disputes these killings actually happening.

Siebert raises a number of issues with academic or legal definitions of the term "genocide", clearly siding with one specific side of that debate, but the article is not about "genocide" in the first place. It's about "mass killings", which is one reason why its scope is so broad to include mass executions, mass mortality due to conditions in concentration camps, deaths during mass deportations and mass mortality due to state-induced famines.

Siebert then does dispute the attribution of what he euphemistically calls "excess mortality" in China or Soviet Union on the ideology of communism. This is a complex topic and there are many popular and academic views on this subject. One of them can be seen above in Siebert's comment, but this view it's by far not the only one. To the contrary, there's massive body of evidence going from Marx and Engels, through Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders, to Stalin, that quite explicitly postulates that the communist revolution must be performed by means of mass killings. There cannot be a single universal view on these subjects, as they all look at different angles. Most notably, the perspective looking at intentions of communist leaders, and the perspective of outcomes as experienced by their citizens are dramatically different, and you simply cannot average them.

I do not have any problem with presenting all these views in the article in WP:DUE and WP:NPOV manner. The whole dispute originated from position of editors who pushed for removal or rewrite of large parts of the article in a way that would result in just single perspective being presented.

Cloud200 (talk) 11:56, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Second statement by moderator (communist killings)
In this case, rather than taking no position on how the article should be developed, I will provide my own opinions based on the policy of presenting accurately what reliable sources have written, and different sources have taken different viewpoints as to how they are describing what has happened.

Paul Siebert has, in my opinion, provided a useful division of sources, except that I would characterize them not as types of sources but as types of measurements or metrics. Type 1 metrics are of casualties resulting from particular events, policy failures, atrocities, or episodes, in particular countries. Type 1 metrics are also provided in articles about the specific events or episodes, and should be consistent between articles. Type 3 metrics are estimates of the total casualties caused by communist governments.

Cloud200 refers to 'the most basic and widely understood term of "mass killing", and I don't think any of the parties disputes these killings actually happening.' No. We do not dispute that there have been mass killings by communist governments, but there is reasonable dispute over whether some particular sets of deaths should be counted as mass killing. Many of the deaths occurred in concentration camps, where there should be no disagreement that they were mass killings, even if there is disagreement as to the exact cause of death (shooting, poisoning, starvation). However, much of the controversy has to do with at least two famines, in the Soviet Union between 1931 and 1933, and in China between 1959 and 1962. Were these mass killings, or mass deaths? To what extent was the loss of life intentional, the use of starvation as a means of policy, and to what extent was it the result of policy failures (that in retrospect we can see caused starvation)? It is my understanding that nearly all reliable sources agree that Stalin used famine as a tool of policy in Ukraine, but that there is disagreement as to whether the famine elsewhere in the Soviet Union, and the famine in China, were intentional, or the result of policy failure. So there is reasonable dispute over what mass deaths were mass killings.

Paul Siebert says that we should structure the article to report either Type 1 sources (specific metrics) or Type 3 sources (aggregate metrics). I agree that we need to decide how to structure the article, and what types of metrics are to be used, but it is my opinion that we can also choose to have both, but in separate sections. My own thinking is that, because both types of metrics, which are different and inconsistent, have been widely reported, as should report both, but separately. However, that decision is up to either the editors or the community.

If an editor thinks that there is a synthesis issue, they should state if clearly. Reporting the total number of deaths by Type 3 sources who report total deaths is not synthesis.

Each editor should make a one-paragraph statement saying what their view is on which type or types of sources and metrics the article should be organized into. If there is agreement, we will then proceed to more specific issues. If there is disagreement, we will develop an RFC on the overall structure and focus of the article. Each editor may also make a one-paragraph statement identifying any other issues. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:40, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

2nd by Cloud200
Regarding structure and sources I'm for inclusion of as broad selection of sources as possible, so both group 1 and 3 should be represented, as well as dissenting voices. The latter primarily dispute two things: one of them is the link between the communist ideology (largely presented in Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes), thus trying to present the waves of mass-scale "revolutionary violence" as some kind of independent incidents that had no ideological underground in Marxian class war. The second disputed point is attribution of responsibility on specific events such as famines or mass-scale executions. Robert wrote that "nearly all reliable sources agree that Stalin used famine as a tool of policy in Ukraine", which does accurately represent the scientific consensus, but that's the whole point of this DR: it was specifically one editor's disagreement about this responsibility that fueled the dispute in Denial of the Holodomor (quote: "the scale of Holodomor, it significance, and even the very question if it was genocide or not is a subject of scholarly debates", and subsequent reverts), lengthy dispute about USSR's responsibility of the Katyn massacre (quote: "Stalinism was intrinsically non-genocidal") etc. In that dispute, for example, Russia's own Duma admission of responsibility for Katyn was rejected by another editor because "Russian government is not a reliable source" (!). So once again, I'm for inclusion of any WP:RS sources that present any relevant view on these events but we cannot remove perpetrators' admission of guilt from the article under the pretext that it's a WP:PRIMARY or that the perpetrator's admission is "not reliable". In case of this particular topic use of WP:PRIMARY falls in the policy exception 3 ("A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge") and no number of WP:SECONDARY academic sources can remove the historical admission of responsibility by lawmakers (not "government") of the country that perpetrated it. Cloud200 (talk) 17:44, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Third statement on communist killings (moderator)
There has been canvassing, which is not useful. I don't see the point to bringing additional editors into this discussion. It isn't even likely to skew the result toward a particular result. First, any decisions as to the structure and focus of the article will either be made by consensus, not by rough consensus, or by the community in an RFC. Second, if there are too many editors, I will fail the discussion, which I don't want to do, but will do if the discussion gets out of hand. In that case, it will probably end up at WP:ANI or Arbitration Enforcement, which will probably result in some editors being topic-banned, and will not resolve the content dispute anyway. So avoid canvassing and other efforts to game the system.

I have posted a notice at the administrators' noticeboard. No one editor is being put on report. This topic has already been on report as Eastern Europe discretionary sanctions.

The editors are still or again asked to provide their views on what the structure of the article should be. The editors are also asked to provide their views on any renaming of the article. Be civil and concise. Put your statements in "Third statements on communist killings (editors)". Robert McClenon (talk) 16:51, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Statement 3.1 by moderator on communist killings

First, if the article is nominated for deletion, as has been discussed at its talk page, this discussion will be put on hold until the AFD is resolved.

Second, any statements that anyone was planning to enter in Second Statements may be entered either in Second Statements or in Third Statements. I will consider them either way. Remember, as noted above, that this proceeding may be put on hold. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:07, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Fourth statement about communist killings by moderator
I am resuming moderated discussion of this dispute, with the intention that one or more Requests for Comments can be used. An editor asked, at the article talk page, that I request the editors to summarize the issues that were raised at the article talk page with regard to whether to nominate the article for deletion. So I am asking each of the editors to provide a summary of what they think were the points that were discussed at the article talk page. You may also ask any questions about how we will be going forward. Make your statements in the section for Fourth statements about communist killings by editors. (Do not make your statement in the back-and-forth discussion, because it may be ignored.) You are not limited to one paragraph, but make your statement short enough so that it can be read, not merely written. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:40, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Paul Siebert
Before we continue with the moderation process, I would like to make sure any consensus is achievable in principle. That is possible if the point of view advocated by each party is falsifiable. In the context of the current DRN it means that each participant acknowledges a possibility (at least, a theoretical possibility) to find and present some facts or evidence that directly contradict to their view point, so if such evidence has been provided, the viewpoint may be considered successfully refuted. The point of view that I am advocating is as follows: The title and the structure of "MKuCR" article reflects a minority point of view "Mass mortality events and mass killings in Communist states" (forgive me for using this umbrella term to cover the whole range of quite heterogeneous events described in the MKuCR article). The whole structure of the article, its title and its content must be massively rewritten to reflect what majority sources say."

This my claim can be refuted if the evidence will be provided that the current version of the article represents a majority viewpoint. The aforementioned evidence may be:
 * A representative sample of peer-reviewed articles and/or university level books that describe such events as Great Chinese famine, Volga famine, Great Soviet famine of 1932-33, WWII famine, and post-WWII Soviet famine, as well as deportation deaths as "mass killings", "genocide", "politicide", and similar terms.
 * "Representative" means that the sample must be obtained via a transparent and reproducible search procedure, which rules out a possibility of cherry-picking of sources that support some particular POV. No POV-laden phrases are supposed to be used as keywords during that search. An example of a neutral keyword set may be Great Chinese Famine "Causes of". An example of a POV-laden phrase is "mass killings under communist regimes" (yields the MKuCR Wikipedia article and its mirrors). A search must be performed using some specialised search engine, such as google scholar or jstor, not just google (the latter yields too many garbage non-scholarly sources).
 * A representative sample of peer-reviewed articles and/or university level books that discuss mass killings in different Communists states more in each other's context that separately, or grouped with other events of that type.
 * Here, "representative" means the same as in the above example. "In each other's context" means that the sources draw substantial parallelism between those events and/or demonstrate some common causes, and/or demonstrate a substantial causal linkage between them. "Separately" means the events are described, discussed and/or explained based on each country's specific historical context and/or current socioeconomic situation. "Grouped with other events of that type" means that the events are compared/contrasted with similar events that occurred in non-Communist states (e.g. Bosnia vs Cambodia, Rwanda vs USSR).
 * A representative sample of peer-reviewed articles and/or university level books that describe a whole set of mass killings/mass mortality events in Communist states as a single phenomenon attributable to Communism. Adequate examples: Courtois, Rummel (they both discuss Communism in general, and they both discuss mass mortality as a whole. Inadequate examples: Valentino (the author selects just three cases, and he contrasted the murderous Communist regimes with non-murderous, which is an essential part of his approach).

If somebody will be able to present the aforementioned evidence, I will concede my viewpoint has been successfully refuted, and will stop any arguments about the MKuCR rewrite.

If Mediator finds these falsifiability criteria acceptable, I am waiting for a similar post from another party. --Paul Siebert (talk) 02:07, 14 November 2021 (UTC)


 * To avoid possible misunderstanding, it is necessary to point out that I presented the above falsifiability criteria mostly to demonstrate that my claims are falsifiable, and hence I can be a participant of a rational discussion. I cannot rule out a possibility that some weaker evidences may be presented that will force me to amend my position just partially. Paul Siebert (talk) 02:30, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Nug
Apologies if this isn't the right place to comment, I saw the Moderator's invitation on the MKuCR talk page

Rather than descend down the rabbit hole of “falsifiable POVs” to prove to Siebert’s satisfaction that consensus is achievable, let Siebert first demonstrate to our satisfaction that he can progress to a consensus on the original point of issue identified by him in his summary of dispute, being the appropriateness of source categories used in the article, three types were identified. Siebert suggested in the First Statement a possible solution of either re-writing the article based upon Type 1 sources or based upon Type 3 sources. The moderator in his second statement made some observations in that regard, before the case was suspended due to threats of AfD, I’m interested to know Siebert’s response to that. —Nug (talk) 12:08, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Fifth statement on communist killings by moderator
No, User:Paul Siebert, not exactly. First, are you saying that you are imposing this as a condition for your continued participation in moderated discussion, or are you recommending that I, as moderator, ask this of the editors? At this point, I am moderating this discussion, and I welcome suggestions from the editors as to how to direct the moderated discussion, but I reserve the right to be the person who decides whether another editor's posts are non-falsifiable pseudo-history. Second, any particular thesis or conclusion may be non-falsifiable pseudo-history. However, I am not at this point looking for theses or conclusions. At this point, we need to decide how to structure the article. Third, we do not have to reach consensus except as to what the various viewpoints of reliable sources are, and report on what the reliable sources say. Fourth, I had asked each editor to summarize any points that were taken away from the talk page discussion. I want to hear from the other editors before we start trying to exclude them. Fifth, when we start hearing competing viewpoints, we can ask which ones should be excluded. We are not even requesting competing viewpoints at this point, at least not as I think I am conducting the discussion. We are discussing the structure of the article.

So, in the fifth statements, please either summarize any points from the talk page discussion, or discuss the structure of the article, and what sources can be used. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:57, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Cloud200
Regarding sources: any WP:RS sources should be used in the article (you can how the Siebert-proposed "neutral methodology" worked for Katyn massacre here). Scholar articles on genocide are one WP:RS but are not the only WP:RS, especially as we're dealing with events that happened in non-English speaking countries and significant amount of research is published in local languages (for example, Ukraine published NKVD and KGB archives just a couple of years ago, which are barely covered in English literature). WP:PRIMARY are also WP:RS as it comes to statements like "government X admitted to doing Y" or "Lenin wrote Y". There is also significant amount of WP:RS that are not academic literature but still describe the events from third-party (Gareth Jones, Malcolm Muggeridge) or first-hand perspective (Margarete Buber-Neumann, tons of Eastern European authors).

Regarding topics:


 * Proposed causes - the link between communist ideology and mass killings is well-sourced. The only part that is missing here is what Siebert is contesting - the clear summary of dissenting voices that perceive no such link, preferably in a separate subsection.
 * Specific countries - WP:RS and WP:DUE applies. In case of Eastern Europe it's pretty clear and well-sourced. Sections aren't too long and properly link to detailed articles. What I see as a problem is the strength of the link between communism (defined as Marxism-Leninism) and particular countries - in case of USSR it's strong and clear (plenty of direct references to Marxism-Leninism), in case of North Korea not so much (Juche could be at best described as inspired by Marxism-Leninism). This issue could be mentioned in individual sections and, in general, in Proposed causes.
 * Debate over famines - should be moved to the front, possibly as part of the dissenting voices section. I personally see most of the counter-arguments in that section as misleading, for example statements that famines also happened elsewhere are nothing but tu quoque and whataboutism; others, such as Solzhenitsyn, ignore all the measures that have been applied exclusively in specific regions thus multiplying death toll in that region. But I don't mind having them as long as we apply WP:DUE.
 * Legal status and prosecutions - the section is OK as it comes to this exact topic, but is probably missing gentle introduction into the semantic complexity around academic, national legal, international legal, and popular use of the terms. This should be probably moved to the front so that the reader what minefield they're entering.
 * Double genocide theory - mentioned in lead and, rather surprisingly, in "Memorials and museums", is a WP:FRINGE that has been routinely used by several editors to frame the whole discussion of "excess mortality under communism" as a form of Holocaust denial. It has its place in the article, but WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE apply.

The statement quoted below (from lead) and other similar added since September must disappear as it's a textbox example of WP:POV written in completely unsourced WP:WEASEL, victim blaming and strawman at the same time, that has survived in the article only thanks to most editors (but not those who added it) refraining from any edits until this DRN is resolved:

"The victims of communism narrative, as popularized by and named after the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, has become accepted scholarship, as part of the double genocide theory, in Eastern Europe and among anti-communists in general but is rejected by most Western European and other scholars. It is criticized by scholars as politically motivated, an oversimplification, and an example of Holocaust trivialization for equating the events with the Holocaust, positing a communist or red Holocaust."

Cloud200 (talk) 19:31, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Paul Siebert
First, as Moderator proposed, I summarize the recent discussion at the MKuCR talk page. My own opinion, and Moderator's comments are not included in that summary.
 * The article is very problematic from the point of view of NPOV and NOR, and its complete deletion (per Levivich) or split (per TFD) can be possible solutions.
 * The article meets notability criteria, because the events described there are notable. However, the article does not need to discuss the events by themselves, it probably should discuss theories that links mass killings with Communism (per North8000).
 * It is quite necessary to come to an agreement on what is the article's subject, (per North8000 and schetm ) and it seems incorrect to group mass killings by a political system: it is better to have separate articles for each of them (per North8000).
 * We need to come to an agreement on what sources should be used in the article (per Davide King)
 * "Mass killing" is a straightforward term, and the topic of the article ("mass killings under Communists) seems to be clear and non-controversial (per Cloud200)
 * The above thesis was contested by Levivich and User:North8000
 * The idea to combine all events described in that article under a category "Mass mortality (or excess deaths, or even "population losses, per Nug) that was proposed by Paul Siebert was accepted positively by North8000 and (probably ?) Nug.

These were the main points of the recent discussion as I see it. If someone believes I misienterpreted something, or ignored some important points, please, correct me.

Based on all said above, and before we started to discuss sources, it seems one important question should be answered: what type of information this article is supposed to contain that is currently absent in the Wikipedia articles that already cover each of those events taken separately, and how this information should be presented to avoid POV-forking?"

It is absolutely necessary to answer the above question, because, per our policy, this article must be either complementary to already existing articles (variant A), or it must correctly summarize them (variant B). I am neutral, I am ok with both solutions, however, currently, the article is neither A nor B: it just tells a totally different story that contradicts to what other articles say. --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:32, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

If Moderator finds it useful, I can comment on each point raised by the filer in her 5th statement, however, my responses may be long, for most statements contain factual errors, and their explanation can be done only by presenting quotes and sources.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:01, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Back-and-forth discussion (Communist killings)
Will other editors be welcome to contribute here? —Michael Z. 19:11, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Mzajac - If you want to participate, please add your name to the list of participants at the top, and then make a First Statement in the space for First Statements. (So yes.)  Robert McClenon (talk) 21:07, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I would not commit to answering questions every 72 hours, but I feel I might be able to offer occasional comments, if warranted. —Michael Z. 22:04, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * In that case, you don't need to add your name to the list of participants, but may comment. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:25, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

I respectfully ask the filer to be polite. I am not using euphemisms, for "excess mortality" is a standard umbrella term used by most scholars who study Stalinism to describe executions, camp and deportation death, and mortality as a result of war, famine, and disease. If the filer is not familiar with their works, I can recommend an excellent article by Ellman, which is being extensively cited and contains a brilliant analysis of sources authored by various experts in the Soviet history. I suggest to pay attention at the conclusions ##6-8, and on his note that the number of victims strongly depends on who should be considered a victim. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:17, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

To add to what Siebert wrote above, that is precisely why discussion between us did not lead us nowhere and is what I complained about here, namely the lack of understanding and knowledge of, and about, the topic. There is a clear contradiction from its main article Mass killing, whose most scholarly used database only includes the 1959 Tibetan uprising, Cambodian genocide, and Cultural Revolution, and we may likely add Stalinist repressions in the 1930s as proper mass killing events in a Communist regime pre-1955.

For genocide scholars, who are a minority and is a point that is ignored from the other side, there is very little regime-type categorization, as they compare what we may call capitalist, Communist, non-Communist, and anything in between, yet we do such categorization only for Communism,1 whereas this article, despite having mass killing in the name, includes any possible death (e.g. mass murder and excess mortality) rather than mass killing proper; the most accepted designation is 50,000 killed within five years, which may fit only Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes, not the Soviet Union or even China as a whole, much less the dozens of other Communist regimes, which may be a fit only if the threshold is much lowered, at which point you are no longer doing scientific research and are trying to prove a point. We may have an article about a Communist death toll, but it would only discuss the estimates and not the events, for which we already have individual articles, and it would include only the Terminology and Estimates sections.


 * Notes
 * 1) Do not get me started on the fact that the Communist grouping itself is controversial, e.g. scholarly criticism of The Black Book of Communism (Mecklenburg & Wippermann 1998, Dallin 2000, David-Fox 2004), and is misleading or a convenient label (Walker 1989, Morgan 2001).

MKuCR is SYNTH and POV fork the same way for any other regime type — if you want to list any death, it is SYNTH; if you want to include only those events which are proper mass killing events, it is fine and may not be SYNTH but will have to be limited to Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, and we already have main articles for each event and very little comparative analysis; so either we at least make an attempt to fix the article by following Siebert's proposal, or it should be deleted (with all content already covered in other articles, nothing would actually be lost), or you must prove that Siebert and I are wrong, which so far no one has been able to conclusively do. Davide King (talk) 11:16, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Addressing this comment by Robert McClenon (SYNTH)

If it is not clear how the article is SYNTH, it is SYNTH the same way as would be any similar Mass killings under ... regimes article;1 it is not sufficient that a regime was capitalist, Christian, fascist, Muslim, or in this case Communist, and that many people have indeed died — we need a clear connection,2 and that is ignoring the fact the Communist grouping itself is disputed and controversial among scholars (see above). See also those very short, useful summaries by The Four Deuces in regards to SYNTH and connection (1, 2).

The article is already really about a Communist death toll, which usually includes all kinds of deaths—which are disputed by many scholars—and as conceded by genocide scholars, are inaccurate and reliability is not their point. It then moves into SYNTH or POV fork by presenting all those events, on which again experts and scholars disagree, as mass killings and as consensus, even though it contradicts their main articles, there is no consensus among scholars on many things, and there are disputes around the terminology3 — that is until my edits, which the filer wants to revert tout court, finally gave the lead a topic sentence and at least addressed the controversy and scholarly disputes.

1. It is not a coincidence we have it only for Communism — that Communist death toll may be a notable topic, it does not mean we must have an events-focused MKuCR article.

2. Whether Siebert's proposal is also SYNTH (AmateurEditor claimed it was and have rejected the use of country experts, while The Four Deuces said both are), if it means focusing the article on excess mortality and deaths, I cannot tell — I am just really curious about what it would look like and then analyze it. I would prefer a name change like Communism and mass killing, or more accurately Communist state and mass killing, that better reflects the cautious, controversial, and politically charged nature of the topic.

3. I understand mass killing in its academic and scholarly usage, as the main article says, not its dictionary definition. The death toll itself is controversial, especially the 100 million number, precisely because it includes many events which are not proper mass killing events, nor are they described as such by experts and scholars, and they are the lion's share of fatalities. The body-counting itself, especially those on the high-end of the estimates, amounts to score a political point rather than reflect scientific analysis.

See also this, which may be added here, for possible solutions and alternatives. Davide King (talk) 06:54, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I just got notified of this discussion with a message on my talk page. I'm not going to take part because it feels far too much like inappropriate canvassing to me. I would agree that Davide King definitely has a history of pro-communist POV pushing. However, Cloud200 has not behaved particularly well with the notifying of random editors (even not very active ones, like me), with similar points of view to her. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:21, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * You either show examples, and they must be pretty good, or you both should be reported for making false accuses and personal attacks, not just on me but on Siebert and others as well. just made my same points at the article's talk page; are they a pro-Communist, too? Davide King (talk) 04:07, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, should the Third Moderator's statement be understood as the Second editors statement should be skipped, and we should post our third statement, or I can continue to work on my second statement?--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:14, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, sorry to ping you again but I would say that Cloud200's second statement should be collapsed, as they have violated the moderation rules, for they again focused on the edits or users, and previous disputes, rather than content and how to work together to improve the article.

They are writing from a Eastern European perspective (please, take a look at Double genocide theory and Holocaust trivialization to understand what I mean by "Eastern European perspective", and you will see that Siebert's edits were not only in good faith but justified), e.g. Cloud200 took the concept of Communist genocide (there are laws about it in such countries, as in Poland), as undisputed fact (ironically, MKuCR started out exactly as Communist genocide, and was created by a banned user in an attempt to troll and should have been deleted outright) when scholars actually disagree and is indeed seen as part of double genocide and Holocaust obfuscation. Again, that a genocide happened in regime A, it does not result that ideology name was necessarily the main culprit, as Communist genocide or MKuCR actually implies and has been one issue of disagreement among us; ironically, MKuCR would not be SYNTH if scholars actually agree that communism was the main culprit (that would be the common link) and wrote a literature about it (Communism as a whole, not Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot) but that is not reality. Again, Siebert has always backed their statements by not any reliable source but the best ones, i.e. academic books — as for Stalinism and genocide, see Doumanis, Nicholas, ed. (2016). The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914–1945. pp. 377–378. — so any statement about us is to be taken with a grain of salt for their misleading, lack of context, and outright false statements.

One final note, there have been no pro-Communist editor on that talk page, at least not one who has been taken seriously (by that I mean somebody who said Communists did nothing wrong or that said the article should not exist but did not cite any clear policy and guideline in their arguments), but there have been plenty of anti-communists (small-c for a reason),1 while Siebert, others (including some of whom we disagreed with), and I are simply the neutral ones; we are "pro-Communists" only from a New Right perspective, or you must be very right-wing to have the spectrum of the dispute so far to the Right to see us as "pro-Communists", when we are simply making sure articles respect Wikipedia's policies.
 * Important note in light of false "pro-Communist" accusations, which should be reported

Let me remind the gentlemen that anti-fascism defeated fascism and stopped genocides,2 while anti-communism resulted in politicide in Indonesia3 and Latin America. One can be strongly critical of Communist regimes without being an anti-communist, or even without engaging in Holocaust obfuscation and trivialization by considering them equal to, or worse than, Nazism, or conflating them with the Left, which is the point of MKuCR and was even noted by The Black Book of Communism when summarizing the views of Le Monde.

1. I mean "anti-communist" in a descriptive, neutral sense, as in representing the "anti-communist", "orthodox", or "totalitarian model" historiography of Soviet and Communist studies that is more reflective of the Cold War than archival research and recent developments.
 * Notes

2. That those same regimes engaged in atrocities does not change this fact, which has also been a source of revisionist history of the worst kind by positing the West should not have allied itself with the Soviet Union, with fascism and Nazi Germany seen as the lesser of two evils, when not outright whitewashed, especially in regards to the Holocaust.

3. Ironically (for the MKuCR article's status as OR) but sad (for the tragic events) — "communist mass killings" et similia on Google Scholar do not redirect us at MKuCR but actually discusses the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66. Davide King (talk) 04:07, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Sixth statement on communist killings (moderator)
There seems to be agreement that something needs to be done to clarify the focus of this article. Deleting the article, and moving its content, has been considered, but does not have much support. So a Request for Comments is probably the best step at this point.

The request that started this discussion, and has been restated, has been to roll back changes that were made in the last few months, reverting to an older version of this article. The exact date and version should be specified. A second proposal has been to specify what type of sources should be used, which in turn controls how the deaths are reported, whether they should be Group 1 sources by country and event, reporting deaths by country and event, or whether they should be Group 3 sources reporting estimates of total mortality from communist governments. A third proposal has been to convert the article into a disambiguation article. All of these are 'large-scale' changes, so that any of them should probably be considered before any less drastic changes are considered. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:59, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

It is not necessary to respond to any factual points made by other editors. We need to decide how to restructure the article before we decide how to proofread the article,

Does any editor have any other suggestions for how to restructure this article, or for an RFC on restructuring this article?

Each editor may provide one paragraph as to what they think should be considered next, but if there is a new idea, it may be stated in two or three paragraphs. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:59, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Cloud200
If we take this debate back to Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes under WP:RFC, I'm very much concerned that we will just end up exactly where we were in September, as you can see specific editors sharpening their strawmans and ad hominems here. The format of the DRN, with actively moderating the discussion by collapsing digressions certainly worked and allowed us to focus on the topic and if you think such format can be achieved in WP:RFC, then let's try it. I'm ready to discuss each disputed paragraph and agree a consensus text in the talk page, assuming there will be someone ready to step in and stop evasive tirades that made any consensus impossible so far. On sources proposed, I already wrote above in 5th statement. Regarding return to a particular version, this is where the wholesale disputed edits started. Cloud200 (talk) 21:21, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
Rolling back is absolutely unacceptable unless serious evidences are presented that recent changes are not an improvement. Such evidences are hard to provide (if possible at all), for the "stable version" was a result of freezing the article for several years (due to incessant edit wars) and then imposing 1RR. As a result, any significant changes were not possible, and it created a situation when majority of users gave up, and gradual addition of information by few editors just led to slow article's drift into even greater POV-fork state. I can provide numerous examples of direct distortion of sources and of synthesis in the old version (which, by and large, are still present in the current version). However, it seems Moderator doesn't think it is needed at this stage. Just keep in mind that this information can be presented at any moment upon a request.

With regard to the Moderator's summary of the second and third proposal, I somewhat disagree with the former. First, it puts a cart before the horse: for making a decision about sources, we need to come to an agreement on the article's subject. One important point was raised by North8000 (and, independently, by me): the article doesn't need to tell about the events themselves, it should discuss the theories that link those events and Communism. That is the first proposal how the article can be re-written. The second proposal is to convert MKuCR into a "summary style" article for Great Purge, Great Chinese Famine, Volga Famine, Cambodian genocide and all other articles, because that is the only case when our policy allows existence of more than one article about the same subject. As I already noted, I am equally ready to support each of those scenarios. The only my objection, which is absolute, for WP:NPOV is non-negotiable, is that the article cannot combine both approaches, which currently takes place. Indeed, it pretends to be a summary style article, but it is written from the perspective of a bunch of highly ideologically loaded books, and/or it distorts the views of quite neutral scholars to support some very specific ideological doctrine.

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the current participants are not main contributors to the article, so even if any agreement will be achieved, it is unlikely that it will be supported by other contributors.

In connection to that, I propose to work on an RFC in the following format:

The article is suffering from numerous NPOV, NOR and V problems, and to fix it, two options are proposed:
 * To convert the article into the story about the theories that link Communism and mass killing. To do that, the following is necessary to do (briefly describe proposed changes; we need to come to an agreement what those changes should be)
 * To make this article a full scale "summary style" article about mass mortality events under Communist rule. (Again, we should briefly explain what changes are proposed). Here, I write mass mortality events because we must use maximally uncontroversial terminology. Since an overwhelming majority of country experts do not consider the most deadly events in Communist states (e.g. famine) as "mass killing/democide", usage of the term "mass killing" is totally inappropriate for a "summary style" article, and the first step in its conversion to a "summary style" article should be its renaming into "Mass mortality (or "excess deaths") under Communist regimes".

Therefore, as a first step, I propose to come to an agreement that the article suffers from numerous NPOV, NOR and V problems. It seems majority of talk page discussion participants agree with that, but if the opposite party of this dispute disagrees, I can provide needed evidences to support this thesis.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:05, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Seventh statement on communist killings (moderator)
It appears that I need to clarify a few points. First, I didn't instruct the editors to read WP:Be Specific at DRN, so I will do so now. It is all right to state that an article has neutrality, verifiability, and original research problems, but that is insufficient, because what is needed is to identify where those problems are and to rectify them. I think that we can agree that there are neutrality issues and other issues about the article, and that is why we are here, and we should be focusing on where to go from here.

I agree on the need to clarify the subject of the article before deciding on Group 1 versus Group 3 sources, which is consistent with what I said on the article talk page that the sources should be consistent with what is being measured.

I was not at this point proposing that we discuss disputed paragraphs and resolve them by RFC. I had stated, both above and on the article talk page, that we should have an RFC on the structure or focus of the article, and I am restating that here.

I do not like the idea of rolling back the article to a particular date, because that may just repeat the intervening dispute. But I will not prevent an editor from submitting an RFC for that purpose, and I will assist an editor in formulating that RFC, or any RFC with which I disagree, with the understanding that other discussion will continue while the RFC is running.

I will again ask each editor to state, in one paragraph, what they want to do next. I will continue asking the editors each to provide one paragraph until the editors each provide one paragraph. I am not collapsing the overly long replies, because they are useful, but I also want concise replies. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:52, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
Robert McClenon, with due respect, I AM specific. To come to an agreement about NPOV/NOR violations is by no means a sufficient condition for moving forward, but it is a necessary one. Keep in mind that the main filer's request was Revert all edits done by Davide King and Paul Siebert since September. Both AmateurEditor and myself were open to discussion and changes to the article, but not a complete and subjective rewrite that turned it from head to heels. Therefore, the main point of disagreement is that I (as well as several other users) believe the article has severe NPOV/NOR problems, and, therefore, need almost a complete rewrite, whereas another party maintains that the article needs just cosmetic changes, and it has no systemic problems. In my opinion, until we come to an agreement about that major point, we cannot move further. Thus, a decision about the article's subject (the need that you yourself acknowledge) implies its potential major revision, however, that can be possible only when all parties agree that there is some systemic problem with the current version. Taking into account that I see no signs that the filer's position has changed, I don't feel it would be productive to discuss anything else until the need of major revision of this article is acknowledged by all parties. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:51, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Eighth statement on communist killings (moderator)
User:Paul Siebert - Okay. I will agree that you have made a specific statement about the article. Perhaps I need to clarify the wording of the essay about being specific. I am not looking for statements of what is wrong, but how to fix what is wrong. You have identified the problem, and have made a diagnosis. I was asking for proposals to change the article. That is, having made a diagnosis, what treatment do you suggest? You may propose two or three alternate approaches or treatments. In particular, if you want to propose the two approaches that you described in your sixth statement, a summary article, and alternatively an article about theories linking communism and mass killing, then that is a valid proposal for how to go forward. In that case, we will wait to see what any other editors say. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:24, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

There are two reasons that I do not want to pause and agree that there are neutrality problems. The first is simply that my style in mediating a dispute is to ask each editor what they want to change or to leave the same. You don't want to leave it the same, because you think (and I agree) that it is non-neutral in its current form. So we need to propose something or somethings. There is nothing wrong with making a statement of what is wrong with the article. It is just that I am asking how to fix what is wrong. The second is that I anticipate that an RFC will be needed, and an RFC that asks whether an article has neutrality problems is not a good RFC, and will either waste thirty days, or be shut down as a waste of bytes.

So: User:Paul Siebert - Propose something, or somethings. Other editors: Propose something (or somethings). Robert McClenon (talk) 05:24, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
Well, I thought I already explained what I want to change. I want to change almost everything, but I can accept two options. I am equally comfortable with both approaches, and can ready to discuss pro et contra.--Paul Siebert (talk) 07:31, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
 * First, a "summary style" article, where the events will be described according to majority viewpoints, and the theories that link those events with Communism will be discussed, along with their critical analysis.
 * Second, an article about the linkage (according to some sources), the lack thereof (according to other sources), and the criticism of "generic Communism" theory (something similar to what North8000 proposed).

Nug
To begin with, this page ought to be reset back to this version, which is before user:Davide King started wholesale changes to the page beginning August 8th. If the participants want to make a sincere effort in resolving this dispute, they shouldn’t have a problem with this. We need a stable baseline upon which we can determine what the real problems are, and the way forward if it means a total re-write is required. The reason is that there have been some very problematic edits like inappropriate Primary Source tags and other edits that were reverted. Given the sheer volume of edits by user:Davide King in the last three months, representing 9.4% of the total edits over the page's 12 year existence, the current article no longer resembles the original article under dispute and a reset will give us clarity. —Nug (talk) 09:03, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Davide King
I disagree — per both moderator and Siebert's argument — that this page ought to be reverted back to months ago, though the moderator may find it useful to compare both versions, e.g. the previous version stated as fact (for a decade) that all events discussed in the article were mass killings and lacked a topic sentence, and it clearly failed WP:LEAD, with no mention of controversies and disagreements. We can do this (e.g. compare both versions) without having to return to one user's favourite version and start another diatribe, which would be deflecting. The statement also included yet another falsification, e.g. the primary tags have been already removed, though perhaps the moderator may help us — because most of the article is "He said, she said" but we rarely cite that to secondary or tertiary sources, which would help us avoid OR/SYNTH and determine what is DUE.

This is an issue also related about the topic — because those authors are secondary sources about the events but are primary sources to their own interpretations (e.g. Valentino is a primary source about his views and theories but is secondary about describing the events, e.g. uncontroversial facts), which I believe is supported by WP:PRIMARY and WP:SECONDARY — just change war for events, and experiences for theories and views, and the sense is the same. Davide King (talk) 12:13, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Proposals
Sorry if I may not have responded about what to propose, I did not read the latest moderator's comment. I would love to see 's sandbox for both of their proposals — we do have a sandbox, and I think it may help us moving forward if they can start working over it, which is how the article would be fixed — perhaps the reason why they have not done it yet is because they would like to gain consensus first so it will not be wasted, but perhaps it could help them to better understand us and what we propose is an improvement. As for my proposals, specially for why I prefer the theory-based topic over the summary style and their possible problems, see this. To achieve this, we need to:
 * (1) Identify possible topics and general sources
 * Events-focused (MKuCR, EMuCR)
 * Theory-based (Communism/Communist state(s) and mass killing(s), Victims of communism)
 * (2) Agree on them
 * (3) Gain consensus
 * Consensus for rewrite
 * Consensus for not rewrite
 * Alternatives or None of the above
 * (4) Respect consensus
 * No consensus (???)
 * Compromise and find solution
 * No solution found?
 * Delete article and/or restart all over
 * (5) Collaboratively work to improve the article irrespective of which side 'won'

Davide King (talk) 17:52, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Cloud200
I proposed specific changes to the article in the Fifth statement here. Responding to the moderator's request, I have clarified the version to which I believe the article should be reverted (mine is later than Nug's above because I joined that dispute later and haven't seen the massive changes introduced before). I do share Nug's argument supporting the revert and unilateral change. I am at the same time ready to continue work without a revert if you think that helps consensus. Basically, anything that allows us to continue work on the article in constructive and non-disruptive way works for me. Cloud200 (talk) 12:22, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Ninth statement on communist killings (moderator)
Well, well. I will try to summarize what I think that the editors have said. We have two editors, Nug and Cloud200, who want all edits in about the past three months rolled back, so that further editing will be from a mid-2021 baseline. We also have two editors, PS and DK, who made many of the edits in the past three months, and who oppose rolling back the edits, but PS says that the article has major neutrality, original research, and verifiability problems, and also says that the article needs to be restructured in either of two ways.

At this time I will ask whether my summary is correct, and will also ask different questions of different editors, depending on what they have proposed:
 * 1. Is the above summary correct?
 * 2. If you favor rolling back the article:
 * 2a. Do you think that the earlier version of the article satisfied neutral point of view?
 * 2b. What changes do you think should be made to the article after it is rolled back?
 * 2c. What is your opinion of Paul Siebert's statement that the article should be restructured?
 * 3. If you oppose rolling back the article and favor restructuring:
 * 3a. What do you think was the benefit of the recent edits to the article?
 * 3b. What in the current article are some of the neutral point of view issues?
 * 4. There have been references to "majority views" and "dissenting views".  Without addressing which set of views is the majority, if you think that there are two (or three) sets of views by scholars, what do you think that they are?  Just summarize them.

That means one sentence to answer question 1, a concise answer to either 2 or 3, and a concise answer to 4. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:17, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert

 * 1. Robert, I think you have to adjust your statement: contrary to what you say, I made just 4-5 edits during last six months, and those edits were re-addition of POV/V/NOR templates and minor reverts. One of my edits was this. Just note, whom I reverted, and what was the edit summary. It seems you need to more critically analyze what the participants of this dispute say.
 * 2. I do not favor that, but I would like to comment on 2a.
 * 2a. I, and other users repeatedly pointed out that the old version had severe NPOV/SYNTH problems and it misinterprets many core sources. This criticism was almost completely ignored. In that situation, a request to roll back is tantamount to a request to violate our policy. That means the conflict may elevate to a conduct issue.


 * 3.
 * 3a. The recent edits were a minor improvement, because they partially resolved NPOV issues.
 * 3b. The core issue is its structure. It creates an absolutely false apparent hierarchy of facts and opinia, and present a minority view as majority (NPOV violation). Furthermore, it creates an absolutely false impression that many authors cited in that article support the general concept of the article (SYNTH problem). Importantly, if we look at country specific/event specific sources, you will see that there is absolutely no disputes about "Communist mass killings": the latter concept is just completely ignored. Therefore, to present it as a subject of controversy is tantamount to presenting the flat Earth theory as "controversial": there is no controversy about it.


 * 4. "Majority views" are the views expressed in the majority of the most cited works about each event discussed in this article. They can be easily obtained by doing a neutral search, for example, search results for the most deadly incident, Great Chinese famine. Similar search procedure for each event yields excellent sources on each concrete country/event, and they discuss them ''not in a context of "Communist mass killings".
 * Therefore, the "majority set of views" you are asking about is as follows: the experts in history of each of those events discuss each event in its own historical context, and, by and large, separately from other events. In other words, there is no mainstream views of "Communist mass killings" as a single topic. Majority of authors are disinterested in this topic, which is not a serious part of a scholarly discourse (hence the lack of wide criticism of those theories). That my claim can be easily demonstrated, but, as far as I understand, it is a little bit premature to talk about that.
 * In addition to the views of country-specific schools, there is a group of so called "genocide scholars", who, like Valentino, Harff, Staub, Wayman&Tago, try to find general laws that can explain onset of mass killings. They are doing global studies, and Communist states are a subset of their data sets. Most of them do not single out Communist regimes (although some of them see some specific features of mass killings in Communist states). Their findings and conclusions may be relevant to this article, because they put the topic into a broader context. However these sources can be easily misused, because by their selective usage and taking them out of context it is possible to totally distort their view and create a totally false impression that they separate "all mass mortality events under Communist regimes" into a separate category.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:43, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Davide King

 * 3a. For one, they were more in line with our policies (WP:LEAD), included criticism and controversy to the lead (again in full respect of WP:LEAD), and in general was an improvement from NPOV by making it clear there is, in fact, no consensus — no consensus on terminology, no consensus on estimates — and that only Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes can be accurately categorized as MKuCR per Jones and Valentino, who are the core sources for MKuCR and limit themselves mainly to those regimes, not as the article currently do; it is of note that Jones actually discusses together only Stalin and Mao, while Pol Pot is separated, which just further proves Siebert's point about grouping, and how even supporting sources are misunderstood. In general, other views were added but mainly in the first two sections (plus last one) and lead, which is where I did most of my edits. Finally, each edit should be valued singularly and not reverted in toto — they would have to revert some additions I did not add that they would support.
 * 3b. The previous version treated the article as established scholarly consensus, contradicted even more Mass killing, and treated any death under any Communist regime as a mass killing, even though only events under Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot can be categorized as such.
 * 4. The majority is the views of those scholars who are dismissed as "dissenters" and all the scholars who completely ignore the topic.1 As shown by my tertiary source, which the other side has supported,2 Courtois and Rummel (the main sources) are, in fact, the minority — genocide scholars (Jones, Valentino, and others) are themselves a minority and have not achieved mainstream status. I know that Wikipedia articles are not reliable sources but sources in such articles (Genocide studies and Mass killing) certainly are and support pretty much Siebert's views, from their minority status to the complete misreading — through primary sources and not secondary and/or tertiary ones — of Valentino.

Crimes against humanity under communist regimes (CaHuCR) and Mass killings under communist regimes (MKuCR) are content POV fork and coatrack articles3 of Crimes against humanity and Mass killing, which do not discuss them in a way that warrants such separate articles and show they are, in fact, the minority — and OR/SYNTH3 because scholars do not do such categorization, which we do only for Communism — any crime against humanity and mass killing, which for the record indeed happened under Communist regimes, is a tragedy, and is precisely why I care so much about both articles to be fixed, is categorized as such, not as a CaHuCR or MKuCR. In this, I agree with North8000's comment here.

1. Not because they are fringe and/or denialists but because they, like any other majority scholarly source, do not make any such generalization or categorization, which is done only by minority sources like Courtois and Rummel, and/or genocide scholars, who are not fairly represented because they do not focus on regime types or such categorization (e.g. they discuss both Communist and non-Communist regimes together). Again, Wikipedia, Conservapedia, and Metapedia are the only ones who do this, and it should be telling.
 * Notes

2. I would like to note that Karlsson is a core source for both articles in question, and has been dismissed here. In addition, I only took part to discussions since 2019 and/or 2020, there were three consecutive no consensus AfDs, there has not been one since 2010, and the last one noted that there were still issues and encouraged users to discuss them — WP:CONSENSUS can and does change. As for the database, we have no problem with the global database of mass killings because that is precisely as is presented in the source, and there is no regime type categorization or MKuCR — inclusion of some events under Communist regimes does not equal MKuCR, or such a MKuCR article.

3. Here, the moderator themselves said "there is a rough consensus that this article needs something drastic done to it, but there is disagreement as to what", so there is no point acting like there are no issues and dismiss so many users and old discussions like that. Finally, there was a recent shift in the talk page in that a rough majority of involved users seemed to favour a theory-based article, while only Cloud200 and Nug remained to favour the events-focused article as it is, which could be telling.

Davide King (talk) 18:26, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Edited to add 2. and 3. Davide King (talk) 21:44, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Cloud200

 * 1: Yes
 * 2: I do favor rollback
 * 2a: Generally yes, but I would support consensus-based work on individual parts which are poorly sourced, underrepresented or WP:POV in opinion of Siebert and King.
 * 2b: My 5th statement contained detailed list of sections in the current article with proposed changes. The changes proposed by Siebert in 6th and then 8th statement is basically to leave the Proposed causes section ("theories that link those events with Communism") and Specific countries ("events will be described according to majority viewpoints"), or just leave the Proposed causes section ("article about the linkage"). I think my proposal is largely compatible with the first option Siebert "can accept".
 * 4: There is not a single "majority" view. Views on communist killings wildly vary geographically and change over time. Countries that have been directly affected by these killings tend to have more negative views on communism in general due to widespread personal experiences of its class war policies, better access to state archives and better cultural and language understanding. Western Europe and USA, which only experienced socialist movements operating as part of their political framework tend to have more moderate views, and their experience with real-life communism was usually limited to whatever refugee reports were published in English, which then were immediately countered by Soviet propaganda (as in case of Kravchenko). As result, these "neutral" views often openly justify or empathize with the communist states based on arguments like "they didn't know", "they didn't intend to", "maybe they were provoked", "maybe they just didn't have enough space to keep these prisoners", "but Belgium in Kongo", "it was personal decision of X" (a lot of these has been seen in this dispute after which I left) or simply ignoring particular events as if they didn't happen or weren't linked to official state policy that presumed physical elimination of particular class. But then, we also have temporal changes, as seen for example in Russia, which starting from ~2010 started to restore the Soviet historiography practically in verbatim, thus closing archives and often practically reverting earlier admissions made back in 90's on the wave of Glasnost. In summary, people talking about "majority" view in this field actually describe "majority view in left-wing European authors" or "majority view among US Republicans", just to demonstrate two extremes, but none of these are either majority or WP:NPOV. Cloud200 (talk) 21:08, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

A side note: I'm not engaging with any of the disputes started by King and Siebert in the comments section. I have already spent a month responding in great detail to their excuses for some of the Soviet crimes being presented as "neutral view", as can be seen here. This has led us nowhere, which is the reason we are having this DRN and I'm not getting pulled again into the Gish gallop I saw there. Above, I was asked to summarize what "majority" views are, which I did. Cloud200 (talk) 10:44, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Nug

 * 1 Yes, your summary is essentially correct, Paul only did a handful of edits, and DK doing 79.7% of all edits during that period.
 * 2a. The earlier version certainly attempted too, the current version has muddied the water. While no article is perfect and can always be improved, I just don’t buy the proposition that this article is complete POV fork, that has been disproved by previous five AfD attempts and extensive re-work over the years. This article has been subjected to the blow torch of scrutiny since its inception over 12 years ago. Paul has dominated the 52 pages talk page discussion in that 12 years, contributing to 37% of all discussion. Many of his suggestions were taken onboard, and many did not achieve the necessary consensus.
 * 2b. I think those changes outlined by Cloud200 in the fifth statement is a good starting point.
 * 2c. Paul’s statement statement that the article should be restructured is predicated on the view that the article is irretrievably broken due to NPOV issues, as exemplified by this tag . On reading that edit comment I looked at Mass killing where Barbara Harff's database is given prominence and Rummel’s is discounted as being flawed and unreliable. I looked at sources underpinning that section and noted that Tago and Wayman's paper was cited extensively, which I have a full copy of. A large portion of Tago and Wayman's paper is devoted to a comparative statistical analysis of Rummel's and Harff's databases, but this was never mentioned in the article. Tago and Wayman concluded Rummel’s larger numbers were entirely consistent with the fact that democide is a broader definition of mass killings, so it includes deaths not counted in the narrower subset of genocide and politicide, which Harff focused on.
 * My attempt to add an attributed summary of the paper’s findings was promptly reverted, and a talk page discussion ensued . Paul disputed my reading of the Tago and Wayman paper and suggested that Karlsson's one line statement about ideologically motivated inflation of figures by Rummel in combination with Dulic's analysis of methodological flaws related to Yugoslavia (which itself proved to be flawed since Dulić only covered a portion of the time period covered by Rummel ) was sufficient to exclude Rummel’s dataset as some kind of outdated ideologically motivated relic.
 * But on the other hand it seems anything that challenges that narrative, like Tago and Wayman's paper’s core finding, is excluded. Of course Rummel isn’t some fringe source, but widely cited and used, and for example, is of sufficient quality to be used by this Oxford University affiliated genocide webpage using Rummel's numbers and definitions.
 * They think Mass killing is a model of NPOV, so why wouldn’t they think MKuCR has grave POV issues. But when you dig a little bit deeper into these claims of NPOV issues that under pin their desire to restructure the article, it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. That is why a wholesale restructure is fraught with issues. An incremental approach would lead to better scrutiny, and it is easier to work section by section than by a wholesale re-write.

--Nug (talk) 20:14, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
 * 4.	I think this is really a section thing because the article is in many ways already a summary style article, and probably best discussed on a section by section basis if we agree to rollback and incrementally improve the article rather than total re-write. As for the title, it was chosen as a neutral descriptive title arrived via consensus after 17 separate talk page discussions, per the article FAQ

Tenth statement on MKUCR (moderator)
This is really an interim statement. I am not addressing the substantive issues until the next statement. I will respond first to User:Nug, who said that they thought that the cycle was every 48 to 72 hours, but are seeing that the exchanges are much faster. I had thought that there would be exchanges of statements every 48 to 72 hours, but some of the editors replied more frequently. It had been my thinking, and it is still my thinking, that any statements that were previously requested can be provided later, either on time anyway or late. So go ahead and answer any questions.

Perhaps I made a mistake in responding quickly to input from editors who made quick replies to my requests. I am wondering that now because some of the editors are referring back to previous unpleasant exchanges. I will remind the editors that this is a content mediation, and we are not discussing conduct, and that we are not discussing previous discussions of conduct. If any of the editors really want to discuss conduct, I am ready to put this discussion on hold while they go to WP:ANI or Arbitration Enforcement. I recommend against it. You aren't likely to "win" your content dispute by getting another editor topic-banned either for what they say in November 2021 or for what they said in September 2021.

Also, I will respond to the criticisms of sources, and demands for falsifiability, and arguments about the previous arguments. Stop making side points. I am the moderator, and that means that I will decide how the discussion proceeds. Either allow me to continue the moderation, or withdraw from the moderated discussion. If you don't want to let me decide how we make progress, I don't think that administrative intervention will make any progress either, except maybe topic-bans.

One of the reasons that I am saying to be concise is that when you post at length, some of the points are off the direction that I am trying to lead. So be concise. Longer posts do not always help.

User:Nug - Go ahead and make a statement within 36 hours or so, and you may answer any previous questions. I will work on an eleventh statement.

User:Paul Siebert, User:Davide King, User:Cloud200 - I am leading the moderated discussion. I don't want to discuss past discussions. If I seem to be ignoring a point that you have made, maybe I have a reason. I will work on an eleventh statement.

Robert McClenon (talk) 16:38, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
(An interim statement). I am acknowledging a full authority of Moderator during that dispute, with one exception: When a violation of our content policy has been identified by some participant or Moderator, it should be discussed first, for our content policy is non-negotiable. Thus, we cannot discuss pro et contra of the rollback: I clearly explained that the rollback will restore severe policy violations (which have been partially fixed in the new version). Therefore, unless another party demonstrates that I was wrong, and we achieved consensus about that, any serious discussion of the rollback is just a waste of our time (and a violation of our policy). Remember, if we are seriously discussing a possibility to restore NPOV/NOR violations, we are knowingly violate the policy in the area covered by DS. Therefore, whereas I fully agree that Moderator may have serious reasons to ignore any comment/statement, I cannot imagine any serious reason for discussing an implementation of a proposal that violates our policy. --Paul Siebert (talk) 19:31, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

(I'll make my full statement after Nug posts his statement and Moderator commented on it).--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:31, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Cloud200
I was going to ask everyone to slow down at one point as I missed like two exchanges, but nothing has been lost and as of now I see everyone being pretty much on the same page. I will be off the grid this weekend, but can catch up easily if we keep the 72 hours schedule. Cloud200 (talk) 20:19, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Nug
Thanks, I've added my statement to the ninth section now. --Nug (talk) 21:22, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Eleventh statement on MKUCR (moderator)
There seems to be what I will call a negative consensus, that the current state of the article is not satisfactory. I think that the editors agree that it has neutrality problems, although they disagree on the nature of the non-neutrality. Some editors have identified other, possibly associated problems, such as verifiability issues. We will address how to deal with those issues in another round of statements. In the meantime, I will respond to at least one statement by an editor. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:25, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

User:Paul Siebert wishes to impose, or to have me impose, or to agree to, a condition as to what will be discussed in this moderated discussion. He writes:

'''When a violation of our content policy has been identified by some participant or Moderator, it should be discussed first, for our content policy is non-negotiable. Thus, we cannot discuss pro et contra of the rollback: I clearly explained that the rollback will restore severe policy violations (which have been partially fixed in the new version).'''

I agree that the content policies of Wikipedia, including neutral point of view and verifiability, are non-negotiable. The second sentence appears to involve a contradiction. Paul Siebert and Davide King state that the edits between September 2021 and November 2021 were needed to reduce the non-neutrality. User:Cloud200 has said that those edits should be rolled back in order to reduce non-neutrality. Since Paul Siebert and Cloud200 are in direct disagreement as to the effect of the edits on neutrality, a discussion of neutrality and of neutrality violations seems inseparable from a discussion of the merits of rolling back the edits. I understand that User:Paul Siebert thinks that rolling back the edits would introduce violations of neutral point of view. But I don't understand an argument that we cannot even discuss something if different editors disagree.

I have another comment and maybe a question for Paul Siebert. He cautions against knowingly violating neutral point of view in an area covered by discretionary sanctions. I don't think that anyone is proposing to knowingly violate NPOV. However, we have good-faith disagreements on what neutral point of view is. I don't understand why he is referring to discretionary sanctions. We already know that the subject matter is covered by Eastern Europe discretionary sanctions, but why is that relevant? Discretionary sanctions authorize expedited action against editors who edit disruptively in areas subject to discretionary sanctions. Disruptive editing is a conduct issue, and this is a content discussion. I have said at the start of this proceeding that we will not discuss conduct, and that our objectives including discussing content without discussing conduct.

I asked what were meant by the majority view and the minority or dissenting view, and the answers were not clear and concise. I will not ask for clarification, but it is my opinion as moderator that all references to a majority view or a minority view are ambiguous and should be avoided or removed.

I have one interim question also for all editors. Please identify any inconsistencies that you are aware of between this article and any other articles. Any inconsistency is of course a WP:FORK, either a content fork or a POV fork, and should be resolved either here or in the other article. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:25, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Davide King
Have the moderator taken a look at Crimes against humanity and Mass killing? Do they treat Communism as a separate category? No, hence why the articles are POV content forks. Again, have the moderator did some research as suggested by Siebert? You will see sources (majority) do not describe most events as mass killings, or MKuCR; Jones 2011 (a core source) separates Stalin and Mao from Pol Pot, yet we treat them as if they are connected. Can you now see the inconsistencies? When even sources that are supposed to be core sources are so misunderstood, when even core sources like Jones and Valentino (minority) disagree with each other, what more Siebert and I need to do to prove this point?

Just because some events under Communism were indeed crimes against humanity and/or mass killings, it does not mean we must have separate articles, especially when they fail NPOV, OR/SYNTH, and their own core sources — we need sources that do it for us, and they do not make such categorization (e.g. the global database of mass killings makes no separation between Asian, capitalist, Communist, fascist, Muslim ... regimes). It has to be understood that if such categorization is fine for Communism, all such similar articles (e.g. capitalist, Muslim, etc.) can no longer be dismissed or deleted as OR/SYNTH (which I agree they also are). We must be consistent and apply our policies and guidelines equally.

I think that if we truly want to move forward, we need to identify the main topic of this article. If we cannot agree on what the main topic is, and is to be structured, we should have both AfD and RfC — because it is not sufficient that AfD results in Keep or No consensus, if we, in fact, do not agree on what the main topic is, hence a RfC will be necessary.

I have identified some main topics and possible solutions here.

I will let Siebert better explain and clarify this but there may be a conduct issue — Cloud200 wish to impose a Central and Eastern European-centric POV, while Siebert and I support a broad Western mainstream view, which is dismissed as Communist apology, so I suppose they think there may be a conduct issue with us too, but any rational and neutral person would come to realize that Siebert and I are no Communist apologists. Again, if the moderator is not aware of it, there is a serious politicization problem (Subotić 2020) in which Communism and Nazism are seen as absolutely equal, where anyone who disagree with this extreme and controversial view (Karlsson 2008, p. 54) is seen as a Communist apologist (Liedy & Ruble 2011), when Siebert and I can perfectly agree with Dovid Katz's recommendation that "states in the region honor the victims of Communism and expose the evils of Communism as unique issues, 'without the equals-sign.'" (Liedy & Ruble 2011) In addition, Nug has cited WND Books, which as I showed here is a far-right publisher.
 * This is relevant because it may be a reason why we do not move forward (e.g. the politicization of the topic in Eastern Europe)

The issue is not that Siebert and I are too left-wing (we are relying on mainstream sources), the issue may be the other users are too far to the right where Communist and Nazism not being absolutely equal, a mainstream Western position, is somehow seen as Communist apologia, where the mainstream scholars I have cited here are dismissed as fringe, so I do not know whether this is a conduct issue or a mere lack of competence but it clearly does not help us. Davide King (talk) 13:01, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

In light of Siebert's comment here and since other users have not yet commented, I have to agree and ask that either the other users address in their section our arguments and sources (e.g. main topic, contradiction between articles, Courtois and Rummel, why we categorize by political system only for Communism, etc.), rather than just saying the article is fine (e.g. there is no need to rewrite it because you say so) without rebuking our points, providing no source, or move the goalpost (e.g. false accusses) — or I do not see how we can have a productive discussion. I believe that Siebert and I have done enough to meet our burden of proof, it is your turn now. Davide King (talk) 22:16, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Edited to add

In regards to statements by Nug, I thank them for trying to address our points, though I am obviously not satisfied by their answer, and I have a few questions that I have they can address in the next rounds. For readability purpose, you can see them here.
 * Questions for next round

The moderator themselves recognized that mass killing is not as straightforward as Cloud200 made it out to be, and the previous version is not only a NPOV problem but a basic verification problem, which is probably even worse. I ask the moderator to compare the two leads (current version — previous version). The previous one fails basic verification because it states as facts all those events were mass killings (Jones and Valentino say only Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's were), therefore I ask that we move on from this, for (1) the new lead has been stable (they were free to revert us and discuss on the talk page, there is no number of edits Siebert and I can or cannot make), and (2) it is up to them to gain consensus for revert it in toto, as an arbitrary such revert would be ... well, arbitrary and uncalled for in light of NPOV and VERIFY violations, which the moderator is free to check.

Davide King (talk) 16:40, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
In response to Moderator's "But I don't understand an argument that we cannot even discuss something if different editors disagree", it seems some clarification is needed. When I say "The article contain some fundamental NPOV violations, which consists in X,Y, and Z", and another user refuses to address my arguments and speaks about other (more minor) issues, that means they accept a possibility that  of NThe disagreement between me and Cloud200 has different levels. The first level is that I demonstrated (with facts, sources ad arguments) that the old version was a blatant violation of NPOV/NOR/V, whereas Cloud 200 seems to disagree. Other levels of disagreement include the question about sources, about the article's scope etc. All of that can and should be discussed, provided, but only provided that the first level disagreement is resolved, because it is the most fundamental one. To demonstrate this my thought, let me give an example (it is completely artificial, to make my point more clear). Imagine we have a disagreement about usage of some image: we are arguing whether it should be used in some article at all, whether it should be put into an infobox or into the article's body, what caption should be added etc. However, if one user claims that the image should be removed because its usage violates WP:NFCC, and provides some arguments, those arguments must be discussed first, and anybody who refuses to address those arguments and insists on inclusion of that image is de facto proposing to violate our policy. I believe, I was able to explain my point. Contrary to the Moderator's interpretation, I implied that we can and should discuss our disagreement with Cloud200, however, this discussion should initially focus on real (as I claim, with facts, sources and arguments) or perceived (as Cloud200 claims, without providing any argument) violation of NPOV/NOR/V.

In response to Moderator's "I don't think that anyone is proposing to knowingly violate NPOV." Going back to the above example, if I claim that some image cannot be used in some article, because its usage violates WP:NFCC's #1 (a free equivalent is available) and #3 (minimal usage criteria are not met), and another user, without addressing my arguments maintain the image can be used, that user is proposing to knowingly violate our policy. However, if that user explicitly address my arguments and demonstrates (with facts and arguments) that the minimal usage criteria are met, and there is no free equivalent, there is no violation of policy in that. We may continue to disagree about NFCC's ##1,3, but, as soon as we continue to discuss it, there is no policy violation in that.

In response to Moderator's " my opinion as moderator that all references to a majority view or a minority view are ambiguous and should be avoided or removed", let me point out that our policy says Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence. "Prominence" implies some views are more prominent than others, i.e., some of them represent majority, and some of them are minority views. In connection to that, how can we discuss neutrality issues if we are not allowed to use the words "majority" and "minority", which are the core terms WP:NPOV is built upon? The policy says Indicate the relative prominence of opposing views. How can we achieve that if we are not allowed to discuss the relative weight of each point of view?

In response to the last Moderator's question ("Please identify any inconsistencies that you are aware of between this article and any other articles"), let me provide just one example. This example is important, because it is the Great Chinese Famine, the most deadly incident, the incident that makes "global Communist death toll" so impressive. Let's compare what MKuCR and GCF articles say: Space limitations do not allow me to continue, but I can prepare more detailed analysis of MKuCR vs other articles if Moderator decided that that should be done.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:51, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * MKuCR says the famine was a Communist mass killing, or democide, or politicide, or classicide, or Red Holocaust; GCF says it was a man-famine that happened in China (the words "mass killing/-cides/Holocaust" are not used in that article at all)
 * MKuCR says that Communist ideology, Communist political system and Communist leadership were the common causes for all mass killings in Communist states, and it implies the same is true for Great Chinese Famine; GCF provides a long list of causes, starting from Great Leap Forward economic policy, to extermination of some birds. "Ideology" is not discussed at all. The word "Communist" is used almost exclusively just as a qualifier (i.e. "Communist authorities" used as a synonym for "the authorities of PRC").
 * MKuCR says that the question if famine death should be considered as mass killing/-cides is a subject of debates. GCF article contains no mention of such debates.

With regard to Moderator's "I asked what were meant by the majority view and the minority or dissenting view, and the answers were not clear and concise," in my answer, I was trying to be not clear or concise, but as neutral as possible. I provided an algorithm for finding sources, and the advantage of that algorithm is that its result are independent of one's POV. I can provide a more clear answer, but it may look less unbiased. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:47, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Nug
I agree that WP:NPOV policy is non-negotiable and we should not knowingly violate that policy. Upholding NPOV is a matter of consensus. As the Moderator pointed out, there is a negative consensus that aspects of the current version of the article violates that policy. However it should be noted that half the participants here agree that the previous version generally conforms to a neutral point of view. So it follows that reverting the article back from the current version where all four agree has NPOV issues to a previous version were there is no consensus that a NPOV issue exists is the rational approach. Thus in not agreeing to a revert, as Paul says in his own words, “knowingly violate the policy in the area covered by DS”.

One article, that I have recently reviewed, certainly has a different POV to MKuCR, which DK asks the rhetorical question “Do they treat Communism as a separate category?”. That article is Mass killings, where DK and Paul account for 73% and 16.8% of the total authorship respectively of that article. The only reason that Mass killings doesn’t align with MKuCR is that Mass killings is egregiously POV. It is POV because it does not include Rummel’s database, giving preference to Harff’s database. Harff’s database only includes genocide and politicide which is a subset of democide. Rummel’s database includes additional mass killings that are not defined as genocide or politicide, and includes regime classifications such as authoritarian (i.e. right wing) and communist regimes. But no where in that article is Rummel directly cited, even though he is still the most prominent and widely cited (his book Death by Government is cited 1572 times) scholars in the field. The only mention of Rummel is through the criticisms of him by a handful of obscure authors, and when attempts are made to insert a material from more prominent scholars to balance that view, it is promptly removed. I called out the issue on the Mass Killing article talk page, given that Paul has full access to Wayman and Tago’s paper and that he has long lectured us on the importance of adhering to WP:NPOV, I don’t understand why he hasn’t rectified the clear POV breach in that article, preferring a one sentence criticism by Karlsson, over a ten page comparative analysis that defends the reliability of Rummel’s dataset and use of regime type. Wayman and Tago’s paper is cited five times in that article authored mostly by DK and Paul, but the core finding about the reliability of Rummel’s dataset is entirely ignored. DK and Paul makes no mention of that finding of reliability of Rummel’s dataset at the time of the two RSN discussions, either. It is one thing not to be aware of a source, or not to have full access to a source due to a paywall. But to cite a source that you have full access to five times in an article, but omit the central finding, how can that be justified? Paul and DK say there are grave POV issues the the previous version of MKuCR, but how can they be trusted in light of this not to be omitting core information from other sources, as has been demonstrated in Mass killings.

--Nug (talk) 06:14, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Cloud200
In my opinion the article is not inconsistent with any other articles, and I have explained above why I don't think we're dealing with a POV fork in this case - various political systems killed people for very different reasons, and communism had one such reason, which is described with examples in this article. The argument that King and Siebert in their personal article and other such listings do not make any distinction between the presence of the mass killings and the ideology, and thus this article should disappear, is simply non sequitur.

I would also like to point out that verification of the sources referenced by Siebert and King, such as this one, doesn't really inspire trust in their impartial reading of these sources. King summarizes the source's position on Rummel as "considered to be fringe", while the article really gives two examples of extreme views: "While Jerry Hough suggested Stalin’s terror claimed tens  of  thousands  of  victims,  R.J.  Rummel  puts the death toll of Soviet communist terror between  1917  and  1987  at  61,911,000.  In  both  cases, these figures are based on an ideological preunderstanding and speculative and sweeping calculations." On the very next page however the authors discuss "considerably lower figures ... that have been widely accepted", which range from 10 do 25 million (adding that these do not include another 10 million of victims of famine and civil war). We should however note that while Rummel's allegedly "fringe" figure is 2.5x higher that this "widely accepted" estimate, the other extreme, the one by Hough that seems to be more empathic towards Soviet system, is off by 1000x from the same "widely accepted" estimate.

Furthermore, the emotional argument that "Siebert and I are no Communist apologists" is easily disproved by numerous examples of rather openly POV statements like "Stalinism was intrinsically non-genocidal" and many others, which were raised while framing others as believers of a fringe "double genocide" theory (with Siebert and King being the only who mention it obsessively) and continuously patronizing them, while refusing to accept any arguments, however well sourced. Cloud200 (talk) 22:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Twelfth statement on MKUCR (moderator)
This post is long. Please take your time to read it and consider it before replying to it. If you have any questions, please take your time in composing your questions about it. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:31, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Conciseness

Just because this post is long does not mean that your replies should be long. They should not.

Some of the statements have been very long. I am not sure who they are replying to: me, the other editors, the community? I am a moderator and not a judge, so I do not need to be persuaded by long posts with a lot of evidence. The other editors probably either agree with you or disagree with you. The community is more likely to be persuaded by concise statements than by lengthy statements.

Negative Consensus

As I previously noted, there seems to be what I will call a negative consensus, that the current state of the article is not satisfactory. I think that the editors agree that it has neutrality problems, although they disagree on the nature of the non-neutrality. Some editors have identified other, possibly associated problems, such as verifiability issues. So the question is where to go from here. I think that a Request for Comments is in order. What we will do now is to identify the alternate ways forward, and to put together the RFC to choose between them.

AFD ?

I will address at least one comment by an editor. User:Davide King writes:

''I think that if we truly want to move forward, we need to identify the main topic of this article. If we cannot agree on what the main topic is, and is to be structured, we should have both AfD and RfC — because it is not sufficient that AfD results in Keep or No consensus, if we, in fact, do not agree on what the main topic is, hence a RfC will be necessary.''

Does that mean that User:Davide King thinks that an AFD is in order? On the one hand, if they think that an AFC is in order at this time, they might as well initiate it now, and I will put this DRN on hold again. On the other hand, I think that an AFD at this point is premature, and an AFD is only necessary if the RFCs result in No Consensus or are otherwise inconclusive. But if there is to be an AFD first, rather than RFCs first, let us have it now.

Inconsistencies

I don't need any more evidence that there is a serious POV fork problem. The inconsistencies are one of the issues that must be resolved. Either this article should be reorganized and made consistent with the other articles, or the inconsistencies should be resolved in this article in some other way, or the other articles should be revised. However, I don't think that revising the other articles is feasible. Changes, probably to this article, are needed to resolve the inconsistencies.

Conduct Allegations

I don't understand what any editor expects to gain by raising conduct issues. We are aware that there is strong disagreement as to how to achieve a neutral point of view, and on other content issues. I have no reason to believe that any editor is consciously trying to impose a non-neutral point of view. If any editor really wants to report a conduct violation, they may report a conduct violation. I may then fail this mediation, or I may put it on hold. If an editor wants to complain about conduct issues in order to gain an advantage in discussion, that is not useful and will not work. Remember to assume good faith, and avoid wasting time with unnecessary comments about conduct. I may collapse any further comments about conduct issues, unless they are substantial.

The Immorality of Communism

I think that we all agree that atrocities have been committed in the name of Marxism-Leninism, also known as communism. We do not need to argue about whether there is or is not a moral equivalence between Stalinism and Nazism, or between any form of dictatorship and any other form of dictatorship. We will not discuss whether anyone is a "Communist apologist". Whether anyone was "soft on communism" was a distraction in American politics in the 1970s, and it is still a distraction. I may collapse any comments about moral equivalence, which is irrelevant, or apologies for communism, or any similar distractions.

The Name of This Article

The title of this article raises at least two questions. First, we have already discussed that it is not always clear what was a mass killing, and we should continue to be aware of this. In particular, there are questions among scholars over the extent to which at least two famines, the Soviet famine of 1932-1933 and the Great Chinese famine of 1959-1961 were human-caused.

Second, this article is about Mass killings under communist regimes, but that really means mass killings under self-identified communist regimes, governments that had a stated ideology of Marxism-Leninism. Not all governments that described their economic and political policies as Leninist have been the same, and no government that described itself as Leninist has followed the same policies over a period of more than five decades. This means that any decision to lump together atrocities under different governments may be controversial. This does not mean that it should not be done, only that it must be recognized to be combining atrocities based on an identified ideology rather than specific actual policies.

The point is that parsing the meaning of the title of this article should illustrate that the topic is not straightforward, and requires resolution.

RFCs

There seems to be agreement that this article has major issues that need to be resolved. The next step is to identify one or more RFCs concerning how to fix this article. If there are two or three competing ideas, they can be proposed as alternatives. User:Paul Siebert has said that this article should be reorganized in either of two ways. Those can be options on an RFC. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:31, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Davide King
I thank the moderator for their response and apologize for the length of the posts; I agree in trying to better summarize and avoid conduct allegations, Communism and Nazism comparisons, etc. I think their response was satisfying and helpful, especially in regards to the recognition of inconsistencies but also the Name of the Article question.

"Not all governments that described their economic and political policies as Leninist have been the same, and no government that described itself as Leninist has followed the same policies over a period of more than five decades." This is indeed correct and the lumping was, in fact, something I personally lamented. I also accept that it "does not mean that it should not be done [and subsequent caveat]." It can be done through Siebert's proposal of either this topic (theory-based only, with relevant events linked when mentioned or See also — does the moderator think the linked topic is a notable one and could be a solution?) or one similar that also discusses events but without contradictions and related issues.

If the moderator accept those as two possible solutions, do the other two users accept them? If they do not, while the moderator does, how can we resolve this, and what would be the next move? As for my quoted comment, I would not want to put this in hold now — I was more thinking of AfD and RfC as a future possibility when this discussion is actually closed by the moderator with hopefully a clear result either way, and I agree that the RfC should be held first in such a case. Davide King (talk) 05:34, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

As in my edit summary, I am not going to respond further in light of moderator's comments above but I am going to say this — while MKuCR has now finally proved issues, which I believe the next step should be how to fix them (I proposed two possible solutions, the latter of which may be a compromise, though I think the first one is the best in accord with our policies), all other articles' remain unproven and unwarranted allegations; if it was true, rest assured there would have been plenty of discussions about it if scholarly sources were ignored — in fact, I repeatedly asked Nug to participate to the discussion and prove those issues, e.g. at Mass killing (I am still waiting).
 * Edited to add (I pledge to not comment further until moderator's response in next round)

I believe both users violated moderator's comments:
 * 1) Overtly long comments
 * 2) Refusal to acknowledge proven issues at MKuCR and of any proposed solution
 * 3) Make unproven allegations in regards to other articles, which are not even controversial to make it to the talk page discussions by most users
 * 4) Make conduct allegations and references to Communism and Nazism, which I stopped to make in full respect with the moderator's latest comments

What to do when users refuse to accept the moderator's summary and fail to adhere by their requests? Davide King (talk) 13:56, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Here. Davide King (talk) 16:02, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Link to my response to Cloud200 in regards to double genocide theory (the moderator is free to ignore it, I am only giving the link if anyone is curious)

Here. Davide King (talk) 16:12, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * If Nug refuse to engage with us at Mass killing and do not gain consensus, they must concede that their allegations are wrong, and stop using this as an argument

Cloud200
Communist states (and parties, movements, websites etc) are by widely accepted definition specifically those that self-declared allegiance with Marxism-Leninism as any other criterion leads to No true Scotsman fallacy, because most (all?) of these countries directly refer to communism in their foundational documents and names of their ruling parties (Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Communist Party of China). If we're going to have an RFC on this, then it would largely undermine the whole Communist state article. Also the fact that "there are questions" does not cancel vast amount of evidence that does support the notion that both famines were fueled by state policies such as Law of Spikelets, Propiska in the Soviet Union, production quotas, requisition (!) quotas for NKVD and others documented in Causes of the Holodomor, which is the reason these "questions" have no other modus operandi than ignoring or justifying these well-documented facts. And finally, no "questions" about link of mortality in famines to state policies also cancels the mass-scale explicit executions that form the majority of the Mass killings in Communist countries article. Cloud200 (talk) 11:57, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Nug
Inconsistencies

Actually, the Moderator could be onto something. Revising some of the sub articles is a valid approach and certainly is feasible. It is clear that some of these sub-articles like Mass killings are poorly written and exclude valid scholarship based literally upon a single sentence in the paper by Karlsson while ignoring a ten page paper showing that same scholarship to be reliable. It seems apparent this may also be an issue for the Great Chinese Famine article too. According to Paul’s points:

MKuCR says the famine was a Communist mass killing, or democide, or politicide, or classicide, or Red Holocaust; GCF says it was a man-famine that happened in China (the words "mass killing/-cides/Holocaust" are not used in that article at all)
 * No, MKuCR says the famine was a mass killing under a Communist regime, where “Communist” is a qualifier of the regime type. The reason GCF doesn’t use the words “mass killing” or any of the -cides is that it doesn’t cite any RS on mass killings. Much in the same way that the article Mass killings does not mention the communist regime classification because it also excludes any mention of that in RS cited in the article.

MKuCR says that Communist ideology, Communist political system and Communist leadership were the common causes for all mass killings in Communist states, and it implies the same is true for Great Chinese Famine; GCF provides a long list of causes, starting from Great Leap Forward economic policy, to extermination of some birds. "Ideology" is not discussed at all. The word "Communist" is used almost exclusively just as a qualifier (i.e. "Communist authorities" used as a synonym for "the authorities of PRC”).
 * I don’t see the contradiction here, the Great Leap Forward economic policy (which GCF article states is a reason) arose from a combination of Communist ideology, political system and leadership. And the “Communist” in the title of MKuCR is also used as a qualifier of the regime type.

MKuCR says that the question if famine death should be considered as mass killing/-cides is a subject of debates. GCF article contains no mention of such debates.
 * Again, that’s because no reference is made to RS that discuss such debates

Conduct allegations/The Immorality of Communism

The moderator is right to call this out, after all, the role of a moderator is to moderate, and I thank him for that.

Name of the article

I already pointed to the article FAQ on why the article is named as it is (the fact that a FAQ exists indicates some kind of consensus was achieved in that regard, no?). Should I summarise the 17 page talk discussions on the subject here?

RFCs

Seems to me that if we go down the RFC route then one question I would like answered concerns the article Mass killings: Should we now include Rummel’s scholarship in light of Wayman and Tago’s comprehensive analysis and finding on the reliability of Rummel’s database? --Nug (talk) 12:15, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert

 * Conciseness. Agreed. Will do my best.
 * Negative Consensus Yes.
 * AFD Yes, that is a last option. We must do our best to avoid it, which, imo, is quite possible.
 * Inconsistencies. Great. I am open to a discussion of possible ways of their fixing.
 * Conduct Allegations. I am trying to ignore any comments on user's behaviour (or intents), unless they contain some factual inaccuracies. I am trying to correct just wrong facts when that seems relevant.
 * The Immorality of Communism. Disagree. There is nothing immoral in the idea to built a society on scientific principles and eliminate social injustice. This idea is a direct development of ideas of Enlightenment. However, that does not change the fact that most leaders of Communist regimes were deeply immoral.
 * Marxism-Leninism and Communism are not synonyms, the former is an odd pseudo-theory created by Stalin, and it has little in common with Marx or Lenin's ideas. It solidified into some concept after most brilliant Communist thinkers were either physically eliminated or suppressed, and it is not a surprise that that concept is confusing and fragmentary.
 * With regard to apologies, Communism does not need any apologies (for the reason described above), and the leaders who committed numerous crimes in the name of Communism deserve no apology. They deserve a neutral and accurate description of all their deeds. In connection to that, both understated (e.g. "Communists killed just few tens of thousands") and exaggerated ("Communists killed hundred million") claims equally undermine a credibility of the story of real crimes of some Communist leaders.


 * The name of the article. This article was heavily based on a "Final solutions" book by Valentino. One chapter of the book has a title "Communist mass killings", and it describes mass killings (this Valentino's category includes famine deaths) under three regimes: Stalin's, Pol Pot's, and Mao's. This article was a justification of existence of the topic, hence the name. Ironically, the core Valentino's idea is that regime's type is not a reliable predictor of mass killings onset, and leader's personality is more important factor. Valentino demonstrated that by the fact that many (majority) of Communist regimes had not been engaged in mass killings (his own words), and the core of his methodology was a comparison of similar regimes, one of which committed mass killings, whereas another didn't. That means the article twisted the idea of the main source it is based upon. A title that correctly transmits Valentino's views would be "Mass killings under some Communist regimes", but I am not proposing it, for that would be non-encyclopaedic, and because the views of genocide scholars are not fully in agreement with views of historians.
 * RFC. Yes. In connection to that, let me point out the following. I looked through 12th statements of other users, and I find that the discussion has a worrying tendency to split onto many minor topics. In connection to that, instead of finding various points of disagreement, it would be better to start with the points of agreement. I propose to start with the question: what events are universally seen as Communist mass killings by all sources? Please, feel free to add items to this list:
 * Cambodian genocide
 * Great Purge
 * Cultural Revolution
 * Red Terror
 * (feel free to add non-contraversial items here, or to strike through the items that seem controversial)

--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:38, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Update. I've just noticed that the article was nominated for deletion. I think this DR a good place for development of our joint position about that. '''This DR discussion involves proponents of two opposite views, and we already came to a consensus that the article has severe problems. That is a strong argument in support of article's deletion. If we demonstrate that we a capable of finding some common solution, that will be an argument to keep the article. Otherwise, it may happen the article will be deleted'''.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:13, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Thirteenth statement on MKUCR (moderator)
This is a procedural statement only. This discussion has become longer than the rest of the discussions, and is interfering with them. So I am creating a subpage for this case. This subpage is at Dispute resolution noticeboard/Mass killings under communist regimes, and its shortcut is WP:DRNMKUCR. I am copying all of the discussion to the subpage, and am collapsing it in the main DNR project page. Your twelfth statements will be copied. If you have not yet made a twelfth statement, you may make it either as a twelfth statement or as a thirteenth statement. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:16, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Fourteenth statement on MKUCR (moderator)
I am resuming this DRN without waiting for the formal close of the AFD. At this time it is clear that the article will be kept. The next step should be RFCs concerning the restructuring of the article. We should set up the RFCs to run during one period of one month, so as not to stretch the discussion out any longer than is necessary, when more than a month is already long.

Please do not reply to this statement except with questions or procedural comments until the AFD is formally closed. I may add to my statement when the AFD is closed. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:08, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

The RFC topics that have been proposed include:
 * Restructuring the article to a summary style linking to event articles (and so not including details about the events).
 * Discussing only those sources that discuss "Communist mass killing" as a single concept, and not specific events, or genocide scholars.
 * Cutting this article down to a disambiguation page with links to other articles, including about communism and human rights violations under communism, and about specific events including the two famines and the Cambodian genocide.
 * Rolling back the article to its state at the start of September 2021, and continuing normal editing at that point.

Takeaways from the AFD include:
 * There are significant inconsistencies between articles.
 * Many editors are in agreement that the article has neutrality problems, but there is disagreement as to what the nature of the non-neutrality is, and therefore what the fix is.
 * The title of this article raises two issues.
 * There is disagreement as to what events were mass killings, in particular as to whether the Chinese famine falls into that category, and the extent to which the Soviet famine falls into that category.
 * While there is agreement on what regimes were communist regimes, in particular, those with a stated Marxist-Leninist outlook, there is less agreement as to whether they were really comparable.

Each editor may, after formal closure, make a concise statement concerning another RFC for restructuring or otherwise improving the article.

Each editor may, after formal closure, make a concise statement on takeaways from the AFD. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:08, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

- For your information. I am not requesting input yet, because the AFD has not yet been formally closed by a panel. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:04, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Davide King
That was a good summary of the dispute, the AfD's results, and of possible solutions. I think we may also need to have a RfC about the main topic (Communist death toll, Communist state(s) and mass killing(s), Communist mass killings, Victims of Communism)1 and which sources support it, e.g. Nug cited "The Cold War Struggle (2): Communist Atrocities", but which topic does it support? This is the problem of the whole mass killing naming. By the way, that same source also has "The Cold War Struggle (1): Capitalist Atrocities"; as noted by Siebert on the talk page, that confirms "an obvious notion that when some author group some fact into one book chapter, that does not implies a new topic is created."

One problem is that most sources about Communist mass killings are in fact chapters within general works about mass killing, and Communism is not discussed as a separate category (e.g. Fein 1993). Nug say that Mass killing is a content POV fork of MKuCR, I say it is simply a NPOV article, e.g. it reflects majority of sources which discuss the topic in general and do not make such grouping and/or treat it as a separate category, so MKuCR remains a content POV fork of Mass killing, and not vice versa.

1. Victims of Communism is also the only topic to have secondary and tertiary coverage, e.g. Ghodsee 2014, Neumayer 2018, Dujisin 2020. One problem of MKuCR is that if we have to attribute everything, then what is the point? We should use secondary sources to summarize Courtois, Rummel, and Valentino's thoughts, not their own work. If there are no secondary sources that summarize for us the author's thought, then they are undue2 and should be removed from the article as soon as possible; there certainly are for Courtois, Rummel, and Valentino but Nug obviously disagree with our reading and understanding.
 * Notes

2. It is also important in which work they are cited. Are they cited in works about Communism and mass killing, or are passing mentions in completely different ones?

Davide King (talk) 06:10, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Nug
Firstly to please don’t make up claims about what I may have stated elsewhere, it is irrelevant here as well as misleading.

In regard to the Moderator’s proposed RFC topics, I think the AfD has rendered them moot. An RFC on these topics would likely have the same outcome since the AfD discussion had raised the first three options and there was no consensus on them. Also during the AfD some of the more contentious changes that originally triggered the DR process was rolled back anyway, and currently there is active editing of the article and associated talk page discussion, which Paul Siebert appears to be fully engaged in. So it seems the fourth option has been adopted by default.

The statement Many editors are in agreement that the article has neutrality problems, but there is disagreement as to what the nature of the non-neutrality is, and therefore what the fix is. is probably the key takeaway from the AfD which can be usefully addressed by this DR process. So maybe further exploration of this to see what some RFC topics related to that could be? --Nug (talk) 17:07, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Fifteenth statement on MKUCR by moderator
The purpose of resuming this dispute resolution is to formulate any Requests for Comments that will resolve any of the issues about this article. There have been at least two distinct proposals for RFCs. The first issue is the topic and title of this article, and consequently also the structure of the article. Some of the proposals have been:
 * 1. The article should focus on specific instances of mass killing, in which case it should be written in a summary style with links to the articles detailing specific events.
 * 2. The article should focus on the linkage between Communism (Marxism-Leninism) and mass killings.
 * 3. In my opinion, an article could have both sections, but they should be separate, although cross-linked.  This would of course require more work by the editors.
 * 4. The article should be cut down to a disambiguation page.

It is my understanding that User:Paul Siebert is also working on an RFC to distinguish between 1 and 2, but is doing so in the "noisy room" of the article talk page. I am willing to do this in the "quiet room" of this subpage. It is my opinion that while 1 and 2 are distinct, and cannot overlap, they are not mutually exclusive.

The second proposed topic for an RFC is whether we should have a Terminology section. Paul Siebert is in the process of moving the Terminology section to other parts of the article. At least one other editor has objected. An RFC may be in order on whether to reverse those edits and maintain a Terminology section.

These possible RFCs do not overlap with the current RFC on tagging. It is my opinion that the tagging RFC is a distraction and should be ignored.

Will the other editors please comment on whether there are any other RFC topics, and provide any ideas about any RFC topics? After reading the input, other editors and I will develop the draft RFC language. I may add to this post within the next 24 hours. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:39, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Vanteloop
First, I have not read the previous 14 rounds of discussion and the back-and-forths. I have too much MKUCR in my life already! Please forgive me if I at any point retread old ground. I have been working to create a RfC that is acceptable to as wide a range of users as possible. I am still in the early stages but I am optimistic that progress can be made. The RfC as currently proposed is as follows, with input from 3 other users. You can read the discussion here
 * 1 The article should be a summary style article, providing an overview of mass killing events under communist governments
 * 2 The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept
 * 3 The article should be split, one for each of the above
 * 4 The article should be both 1 and 2 together

The main objection has been from Paul Siebert that 4 should not be allowed as an option. However after discussion he has agreed that it is theoretically possible, although noting that option is only feasible with a re-write it from perspective of majority point of view. The assessment of North8000 is that it's not possible to exclude that choice. ,I am sympathetic with Nug's view below that a source analysis could be useful to give whatever RfC runs the best chance of reaching an informed consensus. Vanteloop (talk) 11:14, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Note: This is an expansion of my previous statement, in the future I will try to avoid coming back to significantly change my statements

Cygnis insignis
Joining the discussion, having familiarized myself with its long history before commenting. I first became of aware of the page because of links from discussions I was viewing elsewhere, several years ago. I don't intend to edit the article itself. Of the proposals emerging I favor moving it to "Victims of Communism", the current title sounds like the essay question. ~ cygnis insignis 10:03, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

The description of VOC in Davide's list as a common name, a weighty notion in RMs, is not something I had considered before.13:32, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I have been considering the current redirect to Victims of Communism, and what the consequences of creating an article on that topic would be; I hesitate due to concerns about WP:Point because it duplicates verifiable assertions implied by this article.

As always, Davide has provided some worthwhile commentary, I'll replace this comment with a response when I have taken time to digest it. 13:25, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Siebert is correct in identifying that one proposed option [King's list: 1.] is tantamount to deletion, and as a dab it might be could be wiped away as not supported by its target articles. There are many articles that are essentially puffed up disambiguation pages, those inclined to collect FAs have made it a craft, but few pages that propound a received idea in this way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cygnis insignis (talk • contribs) 13:39, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Nug favours 3 of that list, does re-badging in that way, like the current title, put enough distance between a synthetically contrived topic in French and US 'intellectual discourse' to create encyclopedic content? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cygnis insignis (talk • contribs) 13:51, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Davide King
Identified topics and possible titles include:
 * 1) Communist mass killings – only events universally recognized as mass killings (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, plus the Red Terror); either a disambiguation, list, or summary style
 * 2) Communist state and mass killing – link between 20th-century Communism and mass killings, and discussion of whether the link extends to broad communist ideology
 * 3) Excess deaths under Communist states — de facto Communist death toll, which can serve as an alternative title
 * 4) Mass killings under Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot — comparative analysis of those three Communist leaders
 * 5) Victims of communism — another name for No. 2, which is the common name of the advocated theory, with communism as major cause and 100 million as the number

No. 4. is the NPOV version of the currently-structured article, which mixes mass killings with excess deaths, and discuss the link by relying on minority or popular press sources.

Here, I already have a work in progress about my proposed topic and its sources. Davide King (talk) 11:05, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Nug that we should follow the panel's advice for source analysis, and first of all we should come to an agreement on whether Communism is discussed and/or categorized as a separate category or new topic by majority of scholarly sources. Plus, I would note that Nug is essentially saying that article has no serious issues (e.g. they are proposing the same structure, with their mention of 'Proposed causes' section), which is in contradiction to what the panel ruled, and to what I believe also the moderator have said. Their proposed topic, of merging discussion of events and theories, is essentially the same as the current one, which is why I agree with Siebert that this is problematic.

In fact, majority of sources given in support of the topic actually support my theory-based approach, e.g. they do not go in great detail about what happened and are more concerned about why that happened (the 'Proposed causes' section does a really bad job at summarizing them and mixes them with the popular press, and Siebert can provide further proof of this), how it can be prevented, not a description of the events themselves in details, for which they must rely on country specialists. Indeed, those genocide scholars are interested in patterns and generalizations, which is why the topic should be theory-based and focused, and discussing those scholarly theories, with any significant event linked when mentioned or through 'See also' links. Davide King (talk) 13:13, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
Robert's summary of the proposals seems generally correct, with three exceptions.
 * 2. The article cannot focus of the linkage between Communism and mass killings. That is a direct violation of NPOV. Below, I reproduce my post on the talk page where I elaborate on that:
 * "Imagine we have some phenomenon X and three theories that explain it (theories A, B, and C). Can we write an article that discusses only the theory A and the phenomenon X? Obviously no. That is explicitly prohibited by our policy,which says All facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article except in the case of a spinoff sub-article. The theories B and C are "significant points of view on a subject X", therefore, we either include ALL theories, or discuss only A, but it should be the object of the discussion. That can be achieved only in one way: if a discussion of X is removed from the article (it must be only briefly mentioned to explain the context)."


 * In our case, that means that #2 should be
 * The article should focus on the discussion of the theories that link Communism (Marxism-Leninism) and mass killings.
 * A minor comment: "Communism" and "Marxism-Leninism" are not synonyms. The words "Marxism-Leninism" must be removed.


 * 3. That is also a violation of NPOV, for the same reason. All important points of view on MKuCR must be presented in one article, and 99% of sources available to me do not discuss those mass killings in a context of Communism. Majority of those deaths are even not described as "killings" by majority of sources.


 * An RfC proposal cannot contain anything that violates NPOV, which is non-negotiable. We need to eliminate policy violations from our proposal.


 * 4. Correct me if I am wrong, but conversion to dab is tantamount to deletion. I am not sure we are going to restart the RfC#4.

With regard to the title, I propose to postpone its discussion. The title and the topic are two deeply connected issues, and an attempt to solve them concurrently may be even more difficult than an attempt to solve analytically Schrodinger's equation for a hydrogen molecule (spoiler: it is impossible). The only approach is to separate variables. In our case, that means we resolve one problem first, and then start thinking about another one. --Paul Siebert (talk) 21:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Nug
I appreciate the good faith efforts to formulate suitable RFC questions in regard to the topic both here and on the article talk page, but on reflection I'm thinking that at this stage RFC formulation is premature. Re-reading the AfD decision the admin Panel recommended that the DRN process be resumed and the attempts at source analysis be picked up again as the most promising way forward.

I know the Moderator is somewhat reluctant to follow the panels advice and would prefer to jump straight into an RFC, but RFC questions not informed by source analysis would likely be just as rancorous as the previous AfD. So I propose RFC question formation be parked for the moment and talk about the fundamentals first. Paul stated "Imagine we have some phenomenon X and three theories that explain it (theories A, B, and C). Can we write an article that discusses only the theory A and the phenomenon X? Obviously no. That is explicitly prohibited by our policy, which says All facts and significant points of view on a given subject should be treated in one article except in the case of a spinoff sub-article." I agree with that quoted text, an article must include all facts and significant points of view per WP:RS and WP:NPOV.

To my mind option 3 best fits with policy and the current article is closest to option 3. The phenomenon X here is the mass killings that have occurred under communist regimes, and the theories A, B, and C are discussed in the section Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes.

Paul states option 3 is a violation of NPOV because "99% of sources available to me do not discuss those mass killings in a context of Communism". But these same sources do discuss mass killings as having occurred during Collective_farming for example, and mass killing scholars have grouped these regimes together for the purposes of analysis because collectivization is a characteristic common to communist regimes. Single country experts are focused on single countries and don't necessarily make the connection or see the bigger picture. The AfD has shown that this POVFORK argument was not proven to the Panel's satisfaction to warrant a deletion. So let's have this source analysis that the AfD Panel recommends, let's see these "99% of sources available" that Paul bases his claims upon. --Nug (talk) 10:11, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Sixteenth statement by moderator (DRNMKUCR)
I took a break from moderating, and I apologize for the delay. I am ready to resume moderated discussion if the editors think that moderated discussion will be useful to identify the scope of an RFC.

I will comment in passing about the quantum equation of the hydrogen molecule. Of course it isn't analytically solvable. See three-body problem. Why would anyone expect that the quantum mechanical version of an intractable problem in classical mechanics would become tractable?

I do not think that there are any small issues that can be decided other than by RFC. If a small group of editors come to a conclusion here, it will not be even a local consensus until an RFC is posted.

I think that I respectfully disagree in detail with a statement by the AFD closers, when they wrote: "We therefore strongly recommend that the DRN process be resumed and pick up the attempts at source analysis carried out in this discussion, which show promise in breaking the deadlock." I do not understand how source analysis will break any deadlock, and in fact this recommendation by the closers seems to contradict their conclusion: "Unfortunately, we can find no consensus on them [the debate about whether sources were interpreted correctly], and consider it unlikely that further discussion in this forum will produce one." It is clear to me that source analysis isn't going to resolve the dispute, because there are a multitude of good-quality sources supporting different viewpoints.

If someone has an alternate approach for source analysis, please describe it. There are reliable sources to support multiple viewpoints and approaches, and enough of them so that looking for what is the "majority" viewpoint probably will not be helpful. I am willing to create a separate discussion subpage if it seems like a useful approach, but I do not intend to delay work on an RFC to try to pursue source analysis.

I agree with the statement that verifiability is not the key policy here. It is an important, non-negotiable policy, but there are sources that support multiple viewpoints. So the question is one of balance and due weight, which are aspects of neutral point of view.

What we need to do is to identify a topic for an RFC that will be useful. I think that the proposal by User:Vanteloop (which is not very different from what I proposed) has the best likelihood of resolving the focus. I am willing to consider other ideas.

I don't think that changing the name or arguing about the name is likely to be useful at this point, but am willing to consider working on the name issue in parallel with the structure issue.

On the one hand, neutral point of view is non-negotiable. However, that does not mean that any one editor has a veto on any approach simply by saying that it violates NPOV. Any editor has a right to ask that their NPOV concerns be addressed, and the community can decide on what is a neutral point of view.

Unless there is a better idea, I will, within 48 hours, create another draft subpage for the RFC as per Vanteloop, and we can edit it. If there is another idea for an RFC, we can work on two draft RFCs at the same time. In the meantime, comments on RFCs are welcomed and requested. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:28, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Statement 16.1 by Moderator

User:Nug - You object to my identification of communism and Marxism-Leninism. What is your definition of communism that is different from Marxism-Leninism? How do you define a communist regime, since the subject is Mass killings under communist regimes? Have there been any communist regimes that were not Marxist-Leninist, or any Marxist-Leninist regimes that were not communist? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:22, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
WRT three body problem: a key step in the Born-Oppenheimer approximation is to assume that movement of one body is negligible, so it can be ignored, so the problem becomes solvable. Similarly, I proposed to ignore, for a while, one aspect of the dispute, and to focus on another one. I totally agree that verifiability problem is not a key problem. The key problem here is neutrality. All verifiability issues of this article are a result of its non-neutrality: the sources "resist" to their usage in a non-neutral way, and significant distortion, cherry-picking or direct falsifications are needed to write this non-neutral content using these sources. An example that demonstrate my point is "Causes" section (I already wrote about that, so I will not repeat myself). A fresh example is "Estimates" section: it uses four sources closely affiliated with the US government (and which cite essentially the same obsolete data), one desperately outdated source, of source authored by an amateur scientist, one source that cites demographic data (which is intrinsically incapable of identifying causes of deaths), one highly controversial source, which was severely criticized for its figures, and a couple of sources authored by country experts (and leaves beyond the scope tons of good quality modern sources authored by excellent country experts). Some of those sources were already recognised as lousy at RSN. Why better sources cannot be used? The reason is that the sources used in this section are the only sources that tell about "Communist mass killings" in general, and they are the best available sources about the topic defined as "Communist mass killings". However, if we start to talk about each of those events separately from each other, we immediately find tons of good, modern, high quality sources. The only problem is that they do not tell about Communism as a single phenomenon, they discuss each country and each event in their own historical context and separately from each other. Clearly, this section has severe verifiability problems, but the key issue is its non-neutrality. By choosing a totally non-neutral topic and non-neutral structure, the article leaves beyond the scope tons of good sources and distorts those sources that are already being used in it. Again, the reason is non-neutrality, and Robert absolutely correctly identifies it.

WRT the veto approach. I think the right of veto is an intrinsically bad thing, because that allows some user to skip a consensus building stage. However, the DRN discussion is supposed to be a place where we must come to some joint decision. It is a least noisy platform (in that sense, I agree with Robert), and if we cannot come to a mutually acceptable version of an RfC text here, then there is absolutely no hope that that issue will be resolved elsewhere. We may disagree about something that may be a matter of taste (for example, the community may vote for the option 1 or option 2 in my proposal, or for the Nug's proposal, but each of those options are in agreement with NPOV. However, if some user claims that some additional option violates neutrality, we cannot just ignore that argument: it must be addressed and resolved here, at DRN, otherwise we de facto propose to a communisty to !vote (let me be frank, AfD in this format will be just a vote). Therefore, I think it is quite impossible to propose any RfC if there is a serious concern about non-neutrality of some of its options. Remember, consensus is marked by addressing legitimate concerns held by editors, and, until this legitimate concern has not been addressed, we cannot speak about any consensus version of the AfD text.

There is a big difference between a user who uses their right of veto, and a user who expresses a legitimate concern: the former is not a part of a consensus building process, whereas the latter is a legitimate participant of it.

A response to the Statement 16.1 by Moderator The user who objected to equating of Communism with Marxism-Leninism was not Nug. I said that. Communism is much broader concept even than Marxism. "Marxism-Leninism" is a concept that formed during Stalin's rule, and it significantly deviates from the original Marx's (and, to lesser extent, Lenin's) ideas. "Communism" may refer to some general concept of the society without private property of means of production, which (optionally) may be organised based on some scientific or rationalist principles (in contrast to a free market society). Malia defined Communism as a regime ruled by a party lead by intellectuals (sic!). Other interpretations of this term can also be found. In contrast, Marxism-Leninism is a more concrete concept. It is a pseudoreligious ideology that was based on Marx's writings, but that was significantly distorted by a group of philosophers and economists who survived Stalin's repressions, and adopted to provide a "theoretical ground" for a political system created by Stalin. It is easy to imagine an intellectual capabilities of those authors.

With regard to the term "Communist regime", it is a Western invention, for no "Communist state" described themself as such. They use such terms as "Socialist", "People's" etc. They never claimed to be Communist, they claimed that their goal was to built a Communist society in future. And, by the way, from the point of view of Marxism (and even Marxism-Leninism) the very term "Communist state" is oxymoron. According to Marx, a state is a social institution needed to maintain a dominance of one class over others. It is logical to conclude (and Marx and Lenin made this conclusion) that there will be no "state" in a Communist (classless) society.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:50, 12 December 2021 (UTC)


 * The statement 16.1
 * Upon reflection, I agree that source analysis is really important, and Nug and Davide King are right.
 * However, we can start it only after a decision is made about the article's topic, for the choice of sources strongly depends of what topic the community chooses.
 * Only three options are logically non-controversial and are in accordance with our policy:
 * 1. The topic is a concept, or a group of concepts that links Communism and mass killings;
 * 2. The topic is all events that lead to premature deaths of several tens of million of people in Communist states;
 * 3. Both topics should exist, so the article must be split.
 * It is easy to see that any other option either contradicts to our policy or is de facto some variation of these three.
 * Thus, 's #4 (The article should be both 1 and 2 together) is a violation of the policy, because it proposes to discuss the events predominantly from the point of view of one school of thought. We don't know yet if this school of thought represents a majority view, and there is no reason to expect the community may give an informed answer. To answer this question, a careful source analysis is needed, but the format of the RfC discussion is totally unsuitable for that.
 * Therefore, we need to act in two steps.
 * First, we ask a community, WHAT should be the article's topic (either a group of views, or the set of events; a third option is: "both" and that requires a split). We CANNOT ask a community HOW concretely should this article be written, because that is hardly a legitimate question: the answer to this question requires a thorough analysis of sources, and it would be ridiculous to expect that majority of users voting at RfC did that analysis.
 * Second, after the RfC gives us an answer to the article's topic, we may start a discussion HOW it will be written based on the analysis of sources: if it demonstrates that the school of though that links Communism with mass killing is a majority viewpoint - ok, then we will write the article in that way. That may require some additional local RfCs, which is, in that context, pretty much ok.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:34, 12 December 2021 (UTC)


 * To summarise:
 * Option #1 is a question "WHAT is the subject of this article?" (if the community votes for it, the decision is: "the article tells about a group of views");
 * Option #2 is a question "WHAT is the subject of this article?" (if the community votes for it, the decision is: "the article tells about a group of events");
 * Option #3 is also the same type question (if the community votes for it, the decision is: "make one article about events and another article about theories");
 * Option #4 is the question "WHAT is the subject of the article and HOW the content should be represented (if the community votes for it, the decision is: "Write the article about the events, but discuss them in a context of one school of thought").

Therefore, the option #4 is unacceptable: in contrast to options ##1-3, it is a composite question (WHAT is a topic and HOW it should be represented?). Clearly, if the community votes for #2 (or #3), we should perform a careful source analysis to show if the sources allow us to make a discussion of Communism an important part of the story about those events.
 * There is one more argument against the option #4. Imagine that we included it, and the community vote for it (which is very likely). After that we will start to analyze sources, and this analysis shows that 99% of sources do not link those mass killings and mass mortality events to Communism (which is, according to my preliminary analysis, is very likely too). What should we do in that situation: to implement the RfC results (which are not supported by our analysis of sources)? to ignore the RfC and act accordingly to the results of our analysis? to start a new RfC? As you can see, the option #4 can be a source of huge problems.

Meanwhile, the option #4 is, in reality, quite redundant. If the community votes for #2, and our subsequent source analysis confirms that many sources discuss those events in a context of Communism, we automatically switch to de facto the option #4 without any conflicts and RfCs.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:46, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Davide King
With all due respect, but I fail to see how the panel closure got it wrong in regards to source analysis; while I can agree that it is a difficult process and how to do that, I maintain they still got it right. I agree that verifiability issues are a result of its non-neutrality but they are serious because they are misinterpreted as if they are single outing Communism as a special phenomenon, separate category, and new topic when, as showed by Siebert, that is not the case (e.g. Mann) — we must seriously discuss this and what weight it has.

I agree that the question is about balance and due weight, but I fail to see how we can settle this without some form of source analysis. This is inevitabily interlinked to it — how can we achieve balance and due weight when we cannot even distinguish between majority and minority views? When we do not have a single tertiary source about the topic, and the only one that comes close to it dismisses Courtois and Rummel, and does not mention at all Valentino (three core sources), and acknowledges the lack of research and impossible task, while recognizing that majority of sources discuss it individually, not as a special, separate phenomenon as we do, how are we supposed to achieve balance and due weight?

Therefore, I have to respectfully disagree that majority and minority views are not an issue, and with no tertiary source, they are all at best minority views — we cannot write an article based on minority views, can't we? I also think that whether we should merge the events with theories, treat it as a single Communist phenomenon, merge it with the Communist death toll topic, and discuss causes, all in the same article, and whether this is a good topic and solution, is a legitimate question that must be addressed in the RfC — indeed, the AfD ruled that there was no consensus among Wikipedia editors on whether this structure was a encyclopedic topic. And we cannot have more than one topic in a single article.

For the record, it does not mean that one cannot support such structure, but it is a legitimate concern that should be addressed, and that is further legitimized by the AfD closure, or else it would have resulted in a 'Keep.' Perhaps the moderator may ask one or more admins to help them with this, both to improve the process and whether they, along with the moderator, help us to find a solution in regards to source analysis, and how we can resolve balance and due weight issues without any analysis thereof.

It is clear to me that source analysis isn't going to resolve the dispute, because there are a multitude of good-quality sources supporting different viewpoints. I disagree because it all comes down on whether such sources support Communism, rather than Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes, as a single phenomenon in a separate category or new topic from other regime types, and if so how much support they have in the scholarly literature and whether they are isolated — this is precisely what balance and due weight are about, and I fail to see how we can get to this without analyzing and comparing sources, or something like that. I have two possible solutions for this.

'''A simple solution may be to look at academic reviews of Chirot, Mann, and the likes, and how much weight they gave to Communism and whether Communism is an important aspect of their reviewed work. Indeed, one problem of the article is that we are all citing this to their own works, which increases the chance of cherry picking and decontextualization, rather than secondary coverage'''. Another simple solution would be to find a topic that has tertiary sources, and that is this one about theories, memories, and narratives. A discussion explicitily limited to Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot (three Communist leaders, not Communist regimes) is another option, as is a disambiguation page, or list, linking to universally recognized mass killing events. Anything that keeps it simple and focused rather than merging topics and stuff all in one.

P.S. Nug still got it right that on reflection I'm thinking that at this stage RFC formulation is premature. Re-reading the AfD decision the admin Panel recommended that the DRN process be resumed and the attempts at source analysis be picked up again as the most promising way forward. ... RFC questions not informed by source analysis would likely be just as rancorous as the previous AfD. We must resolve this one way or another, which is interlinked with the issues of balance and due weight, so whether we perform a source analysis or we find another way to solve this issue in a simpler way, it must be addressed for the exact same reasons Nug outlined. Nonetheless, I am curious to hear from the moderator and other editors how we can fix such issues of balance and due weight in a simpler way — I see no other way so far. Davide King (talk) 10:03, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Vanteloop
I agree that working to formulate a RfC is the best thing we can do work productively on this article. I think the discussion since the AfD has shown how little improvement has been made to the article to address the fundamental concerns of all editors and the only way to break this 'deadlock' I think is for the wider community to unambiguously decide what the focus of the article should be.

I am still willing to work on improving my RfC proposal with all other editors. However, that does not mean that any one editor has a veto on any approach simply by saying that it violates NPOV. Any editor has a right to ask that their NPOV concerns be addressed, and the community can decide on what is a neutral point of view. This is key, and gives me hope that this moderated discussion can be more productive than the talk page by ensuring the process cannot be 'gamed' whether intentionally or unintentionally. Vanteloop (talk) 10:25, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Following up, I strongly support the creation of a subpage whatever we decide the next step is. It seems this discussion is substantially new that we can seperate it from the previous 14 rounds of discussion and doing so may encourage other users to join by lowering the perceived barrier of entry. Vanteloop (talk) 10:32, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Regarding further arguments put forward by other editors I just want to re-iterate I fully agree with 's assessment I still disagree that #1 & #@ can't coexist. And add to that, that coexistence is what the current article is.....arguments that policy says that the current article shouldn't exist are arguments of the AFD's. I'm not arguing for "both", but am observing that it's not possible to exclude that choice. Saying option 4 cannot even be offered is re-litigating the AfD. It should be up to the community to decide what is the neutral point of view, not us writing the RfC which is why I've tried to include all serious proposals for the future of the article. If option 4 so clearly violates NPOV it should be fairly easy to explain to the editors in the community why that's the case (and this is true of the other arguments against #4 put forward). There's clearly many established editors who disagree it is unacceptable to include and no editor has a 'veto' Vanteloop (talk) 22:33, 12 December 2021 (UTC) updated 1st 22:55, 12 December 2021 (UTC) updated 2nd 23:14, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis
Every related discussion stems from a failure of NPOV, an open invite to a battleground, I maintain it is likely to be irresolvable under this fugitive title. The closing statement was by in large appropriate, despite the scent of media statement, no consensus being a reasoned interpretation of the consensus from the discussion. ~ cygnis insignis 12:28, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Seventeenth Statement on DRNMKUCR (Moderator)
Draft RFC

I have created a section for a draft RFC. The draft will be moved to the article talk page and activated when we think that it is ready to request input from the community. Do not start !voting in the draft RFC while it is a draft. You may edit the statements of the options in order to improve them. The draft RFC is at Dispute resolution noticeboard/MKUCR RFC 1. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Source Analysis

I think that I have four questions and a comment at this point about source analysis. The first is who will be doing the source analysis. In particular, will it be done by all of the editors, or some of the editors, or by the moderator, and with what breakdown of responsibility? I do not plan to do the source analysis. If the source analysis is to be done by a group, I would like to see an explanation of how it will be structured and managed.

The second question is how long the source analysis will take. This will affected whether the source analysis should be done prior to the RFC on article structure, or concurrently with the RFC on article structure. Is it expected that the source analysis will take a week, a few weeks, a few months?

The third question is how source analysis will affect the need to define the topic and structure of the article. There are many sources, supporting different viewpoints. Does anyone think that source analysis will determine that certain sources are the majority of sources and therefore the prevalent sources to be used?

Fourth, I wonder whether the comment in the close about source analysis was made by one of the closers with minimal coordination by the other closers. It isn't obvious to me how source analysis would proceed.

Fifth, I may be less optimistic than the editors who think that we need to conduct source analysis at DRN. I have the feeling that any source analysis that is intended to resolve the issues with this article is like the quest for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The end of the rainbow moves as one approaches it (if the weather remains otherwise the same, so that it is still raining overhead and to the east and the sun is still visible in the west). I don't think that any amount of source analysis will persuade those editors who disagree with the editor conducting the analysis. I think that a source analysis intended to resolve the issues or to break the deadlock will result in more references to add to the article, but leave the issues unresolved, because it will leave the disagreeing editors unpersuaded. For that reason, I think that we need to proceed with an RFC in spite of having disagreement about the sources. That is my pessimistic opinion.

Communism and Marxism-Leninism

An editor took issue with my equating of the term communism and the term Marxism-Leninism. It is important that we know what is meant by communist regimes in the title of the article. I think that the term should encompass governments that proclaim any sort of ideology that they claim to be Marxist-Leninist. That is, if a government says it is Marxist or Leninist, we should count it as Marxist-Leninist, and therefore as communist. If someone else has a different set of definitions that has utility, please provide it for discussion.

Comment

I have been asked to look at some of the comments made in the back-and-forth discussion. I will do that, but am posting this now because I am also posting the draft RFC for comments and discussion.

Timeline

There is no particular schedule or deadline for any editor to respond, and there will not be any particular deadline unless I say that there is one, but comments are always welcome. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Statement 17.2 by moderator (MKUCR)
I was asked to read and comment on the discussion in the space for back-and-forth discussion on Mass killings under communist regimes. I assume that the particular issue has to do with the planned RFC on restructuring of the article, and the argument that Option 4, which permits both Option 1 and Option 2, should not be permitted because Option 4 would be non-neutral in its point of view. User:Paul Siebert states that User:Vanteloop has failed to present a rational counter-argument to support their claim that Option 4 is a valid option. I think at this point that I do not understand Paul Siebert's argument, so it is not necessary or possible for me to judge whether Vanteloop has countered it. The argument by Paul Siebert is lengthy, but I do not understand it, possibly because it is too long. I have tried in the past to say that overly long arguments are not always persuasive, and maybe this is such a case. At this point, I will not exclude Option 4. The parties are reminded to be concise in their further arguments. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:48, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
Draft RFC

I generally like it. However, each options must be formulated as precisely as possible. That will allow the community to clearly understand what they are voting for. In addition, the proposal must be free of potential NPOV violations, for I share the Moderator's concern about the need to resolve NPOV problems first (and to avoid creating them). I also see some minor inaccuracies in the Moderator's text, and the wording is sometimes ambiguous. These ambiguities may be the seeds of potential disputes over a correct interpretation of the RfC's verdict. If we don't want to start another RfC about a results of this RfC, let's be as precise as possible in our definitions.

First, the word "correlation" in B gives an undue weight to a small group of researchers who performs factor analysis of genopoliticide data. In addition, this term is too narrow, for majority of authors (including most sociologists, like Michael Mann) discuss causation. Furthermore, the phrase "the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments" is unclear: what does "Correlation (or causation) between mass killings and ... government" is supposed to mean? In reality, the theories that we propose to discuss tell about correlation/causation between mass killings and such factors as ideology, Marxist doctrine, etc. The term "Communist government" does not necessarily has a direcgt relation to that: in many sources "communist" is just an identifier, for example, the name of the Soviet government after 1917 (similar to the Democratic party, which is not more "democratic" than the Republican party: they both are a part of the democratic political system, and "Democratic" in this context is just a name).

My second concern is that the wording of C may contain a direct violation of NPOV. Concretely, it a priori sets some structure ("consist of two sections"), which may create an apparent hierarchy, which WP:STRUCTURE requires to avoid. That is a seed of future conflicts, so I propose to change the wording to minimizes that possibility. We cannot make the article's structure a subject of this RfC, for, per our policy, article's structure is an important tool in achieving article's neutrality. A decision about the structure must be made only after the source analysis will be performed. Therefore, C should contain no mention of any concrete structure.

I also think that the questions are too short and abstract. That is a problem, because majority of users are not aware of many details that are obvious to us. I propose to add some concrete examples into each question. By doing that, we will make the life of RfC's participant easier and show more respect to them.

My text is as follows:
 * A. The article should be reorganized as a summary style article, providing an overview of all excess mortality eventsThis term should be used because majority of sources do not use "mass killing" in that context (e.g. Great Chinese famine, Soviet famine of 1932-33 etc.) and mass killing events (such as Cambodian genocide, Great Purge, etc) that occurred under communist governments., and linking to articles on each of the mass killing events . It will also include a brief discussion of all significant views on causative factors that lead to those deaths, including the role of Communism, which will be discussed fairly, proportionally and without an editorial bias.
 * B. The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments that links mass killings with Communism as a primary causative factor,, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept.


 * C. The article should consist of two sections, the first of which is A, and the second of which is B be an amalgamation of the topic A and topic B, where B will be discussed fairly, proportionally, and without an editorial bias, along with other significant points of view on the subject.


 * D. The article should be split into two articles, as described above.

Source analysis I am not sure I understand what type of source analysis can we do before we get the RfC verdict, for the direction of the analysis strongly depends on the RfC results. I promise to make my part quickly after the RfC yields some definite conclusion.

"Communism" vs "Marxism-Leninism" Instead of engaging in theorising, I propose to use another approach. Wayman&Tago (Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 47, No. 1 (january 2010), pp. 3-13) says that there were 18 Communist states, according to a consensus among genocide scholars. Let's just take this list. This does not imply all of them committed mass killings, that just defines a potential article scope.

Comment

If Moderator means my comment, I respectfully ask them to disregard my request and focus on more important things.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:00, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Nug
Proposed RFC

I prefer Vanteloop's amended RFC questions for the reasons explained:

A. The article should be reorganized as a summary style article, providing an overview of all mass killing events and excess mortality events that occurred under communist governments.

B. The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept.

C. The article should consist of two sections, the first of which is A, and the second of which is B.

D. The article should be split into two articles, as described above.

Source Analysis

I think plunging straight into an RFC will be business as usual, with both sides entrenched in their respective positions. A source analysis is something different, and may help better inform both sides on any prospective RFC. That’s got to be a positive. In answer to the moderator's questions: I’m sure Paul has some thoughts with respect to the importance of conducting a source analysis before diving head first into an RFC. --Nug (talk) 08:47, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) Who will be doing the source analysis: This could be done by a small group of editors who want volunteer, I’m sure Paul would be keen, I can contribute too, as can others. The role of the moderator would be to facilitate, give feedback and moderate in case we start losing our tempers. ;o) Probably needs a subpage to aggregate, sort and discuss sources.
 * 2) How long the source analysis will take: I wouldn’t expect it to take any longer that three or four weeks. With the Christmas/New Year break coming up I certainly will have some spare time to devote to it.
 * 3) How source analysis will affect the need to define the topic and structure of the article: We have four initial RFC options, that can steer the source analysis. On conclusion it may well be the case that only two modified options remain, so we can then have the formal RFC on that. WP:UNDUE has been identified as issue, that is what source analysis can address. First we need to identify which sources are relevant, then assess their weight based upon various criteria.

On reflection I'm probably a bit overly optimistic on the potential duration of any source analysis, so I have no objection to having the RFC first and basing the source analysis upon the result. --Nug (talk) 20:05, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Davide King
I think Siebert's rewording for the RfC should make everyone good — all options are considered and they are explained in better details that those who did not take part to discussion here or on the talk page, and the article's long-standing issues, can easily understand. WP:STRUCTURE is clear, and C should not contain mentions of any concrete structure, other than be an amalgamation of A and B. If there is consensus for this, the structure will be decided together, keeping or taking in mind source analysis.

I agree with Nug on source analysis, including the whos, hows, and whens. I think it makes more sense to have it before the RfC because imagine what a mess it would be if there is finally consensus for a given topic but then it is found out there are clearly issues in regards to sourcing, and we are back to this, but I can wait and accept what the moderator say.

Davide King (talk) 11:10, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I am fine with Vanteloop's suggestion to have A be a summary style of the events, but I still think Siebert's re-wording for C is the correct one; it is also very awkward, as if there are going to be only two main sections, while amalgamation of both A and B is more clear, and the structure can be decided on source analysis. None of the options should include proposed structures, which must be discussed later on, the RfC must only summarizes the given topics, while making them clear to those who have not followed discussions.

Davide King (talk) 18:52, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Vanteloop
Firstly, I would like to say how pleasantly surprised I am at the progress being made towards an RfC. I was always hopeful but I think this discussion has been handled well and is on the right track. Especially for this article, if we can improve it I think we all deserve a drink. But I won't get ahead of myself.

Source Analysis I agree with the moderator's concerns. I've also read Nug and Davide King's replies. I think if there can be an agreed upper time limit (note that this doesnt mean the discussion has to use all this time) and a structure agreed upon - it would be helpful to wait for this to be done before presenting the RfC. The users involved clearly have an extensive understanding of the resources on this topic so a structured discussion could be useful.

Statement 17.2 Agree fully, especially that we must be concise in order to be fully understood. I think that back-and-forth section is a good example of why no significant progress has been made on this article on the talk page (so far).

Draft RFC

I have read the draft and Paul Siebert's proposed changes. I would suggest:

A. The article should be reorganized as a summary style article, providing an overview of all mass killing events and excess mortality events that occurred under communist governments. It will also include a brief discussion of all significant views on causative factors that lead to those deaths, including the role of Communism, which will be discussed fairly, proportionally and without an editorial bias.

B. The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments that links mass killings with Communism as a primary causative factor, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept.

C. The article should consist of two sections, the first of which is A, and the second of which is B.

D. The article should be split into two articles, as described above.

Vanteloop (talk) 14:41, 14 December 2021 (UTC) Reflist added 16:26, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis
B, as edited at time of post, with reference to A for the noted "régimes" and contentions, is a slightly less synthetic topic, [but it could be made redundant by development of other articles on the historiography of US anti-communist propaganda (beginning with the totallynotnazis who paperclipped these articles of faith to any and every questioning of predatory-capitalist hegemony)] ~ cygnis insignis 15:28, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Eighteenth Statement by Moderator (MKUCR)
On the one hand, I am pessimistic about the possibility that source analysis will result in agreement about how to improve the article on Mass killings under communist regimes. On the other hand, it seems that some editors either are pessimistic about an RFC on restructuring the article without source analysis, or are optimistic that further source analysis will make it easier to go forward. So I will open another subpage for source analysis. It is at Dispute resolution noticeboard/MKUCR Source Analysis.

As User:Nug has suggested, my role will be primarily that of an observer, but I will provide headings to organize the source analysis, and will collapse negative interaction if necessary. I will expect the editors to provide me with one-paragraph status reports on this page, approximately weekly, and I will provide the dates that I want the status reports. I will allow no more than four weeks for the analysis of sources before an RFC is posted on restructuring the article. The RFC will be posted no later than 12 January 2022. If the source analysis either bogs down or results in too much negative interaction, I reserve the right to post the RFC at any time, in which case the source analysis can continue while the RFC runs.

The first report will be due on 18 December 2021. If it isn't one paragraph, it isn't the required report, which means that I may guess as to whether you and the other editors are making progress. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:17, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Revised Ground Rules (15 December 2021)
Here are the ground rules for interaction on this page. There is no longer a rule against editing the article. Most of the other rules are still in effect. The rules for the source analysis subpage are at the top of the source analysis subpage. If there seems to be repetition, it is because sometimes that is necessary. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:17, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1)  Be civil and concise.
 * 2)  Civility is required everywhere in Wikipedia and is essential in dispute resolution.  Uncivil statements may be collapsed.
 * 3)  Overly long statements do not clarify issues.  (They may make the author feel better, but the objective is to discuss the article constructively.)  Overly long statements may be collapsed, and the party may be told to summarize them.  Read Too Long, Didn't Read, and don't write anything that is too long for other editors to read.  If the moderator says to write one paragraph, that means one paragraph of reasonable length.
 * 4)  Do not report any issues about the article or the editing of the article at any other noticeboards, such as WP:ANI or Arbitration Enforcement.  Reporting any issue about the article at any other location is forum shopping, which is strongly discouraged.  Any old discussions at any other noticeboards must be closed or suspended.  If any new discussions are opened elsewhere while discussion is pending at DRN, the mediation at DRN will be failed.
 * 5)  Comment on content, not contributors.
 * 6)  The purpose of discussion is to improve the article, not to complain about other editors.  (There may be a combination of content issues and conduct issues, but resolving the content issue often mitigates the conduct issue or permits it to subside.)  Uncivil comments or comments about other editors may be suppressed.
 * 7)  "Comment on content, not contributors" means that if you are asked to summarize what you want changed in the article, or left the same, it is not necessary or useful to name the other editors, but it may be important to identify the paragraphs or locations in the article.  It isn't necessary to identify the other editors with whom you disagree.
 * 8)  Discuss edits, not editors.  This means the same as "Comment on content, not contributors".  It is repeated because it needs repeating.
 * 9)  Do not engage in back-and-forth discussion to statements by other editors, except as noted below; that is, do not reply to the comments of other editors.  That has already been tried and has not resolved the content dispute.  Address your comments to the moderator and the community.  Except in a section for back-and-forth discussion, replies to other editors or back-and-forth discussion may be collapsed by the moderator and may result in a rebuke.
 * 10)  The moderator will provide a section for back-and-forth comments.  Keep your comments in that section, so that anyone else can ignore them.  Comments in the back-and-forth section, like everywhere else, must be civil.

Paul Siebert
In my opinion, the only point of disagreement that prevent us to start the RfC is C ("article should consist of two sections, the first of which is #1, and the second of which is #2.").

I disagree, because that implies a strong linkage between "#1" and "#2", which is stronger than with other topics. disagreed, and he asked me
 * "Let #1 = views == NPOV, #2 = events == NPOV, #4 = merge of #1 and #2 = events + views == NPOV + NPOV => POV. That's illogical. —Nug (talk) 11:12, 13 December 2021 (UTC)"

In responce, I gave him this example:
 * "If #1 is Race and crime ("views"), and #2 is Crime in the United States ("events") is it possible to just combine #1 and #2?"

I expected the answer "No", because saying otherwise would be a blatant racism (for by making a two-part article, we would imply that race is a primary cause of crimes in the US). To my big surprise, Nug pointed my attention at the article Race and crime in the United States. However, and  quickly responded, and pointed out that this article doesn't have a two-part structure (the first part about "Race and crime", the second about "Crimes in the US"), and it is more a discussion of a controversy over a linkage (or lack thereof) between race and crime. That reinforced my belief that Wikipedia is not racist.

I checked "Race and crime in the United States" by myself, and I found that it is a spinoff article of the main ("summary style") article Crime in the United States. Which is a pretty correct and neutral structure. Meanwhile, the Race and crime in the United States is a close analog of our option B (a discussion of a controversy over a linkage between Communism and mass killings).

This example shows us how we should approach to this problem, and what is not allowed. It confirms confirms that the two-part structure is not compatible with out policy, unless majority of sources demonstrate that there is a confirmed and universally recognised linkage between mass killings and Communism (as a single phenomenon).

The paragraph below is a philosophical digression, and it may be collapsed by Moderator for better readability.
 * START
 * "The Pauli principle of Wikipedia says that two articles on the same topic cannot exist unless one of them is SS and another is SPINOFF. If one article tells about, e.g. Great Chinese famine is a general context, another article cannot do the same in a context of Communism. If we combine a narrative about Great Chinese famine and a story of the linkage of Communism and mass killings (including Great Chinese famine), we create a second article about the same event, but it is neither SS nor SPINOFF. That is not allowed.
 * END

In this situation, I see the following solutions:
 * (I). To remove the two-part structure from RfC (it is the fastest and the most painless way to move forward). If the subsequent source analysis demonstrate a significant linkage between mass killings and Communism, we will have no choice but to return to this structure (for A automatically becomes C).
 * (II). To suspend this discussion, and to move to the analysis of sources. If the outcome will be as I anticipate (based on my superficial familiarity with sources) then the option C will be removed as a result of source analysis. If the source analysis gives the opposite result (i.e. it confirms that a major fraction of the representative set of RS do see a significant linkage), then the option "C" stays, and, possibly, the option "A" is removed from the RfC.

I am equally comfortable with any of these scenarios, I am not going to vote for (I) or (II), that is up to you guys to decide.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Although I am not sure if we should make comments on other user's statements during the same round, but I think there is some minor issue that does not deserve an additional round. I point your attention at the text of B. I already explained that, and I need to stress that again: the proposed text may be a source of serious problems. "Correlation" is a strong reference to the works of a small group of genocide scholars who study correlations specifically. Importantly, most of them do not focus at Communism at all, and they study the subject in a global scale, so this makes this topic illegitimate (there are little or no sources that study such correlations specifically in a context of Communism). In addition, the word "correlation" leaves beyond the scope such authors and Courtois and Mann. However, that is up to you. I just informed you about possible problems. Paul Siebert (talk) 00:05, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Vanteloop

 * Re. Paul Siebert's statement above, I reject the framing of our only two options to proceed as a false choice. The argument for why C must be included have been given ad nauseum by myself and other editors both here and on the talk page, so in the interest of conciseness I won't re-re-re-repeat it here.


 * Re. Moderator's statement I agree those strict rules for the source analysis are needed, and a 4 week deadline seems reasonable given that discussion is a spin-off of a spin-off. I am happy for the RfC to be put in 4 weeks, or earlier at any time (at the moderator's discretion). Vanteloop (talk) 13:26, 15 December 2021 (UTC) updated 14:50, 15 December 2021 (UTC) updated 15:58, 15 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Re 's statement. I feel I didn't state my position as clearly as I could have done. I understood Paul Siebert's position as Robert McClenon did, that he: was stating that an RFC could not go forward with option C unless option C was substantiated by source analysis. That appeared to me to be a conditional veto. That is what I was objecting to. Both the phrasing that I used in my original proposal "The article should discuss both the topic A and topic B" and the alternative "The article should be an amalgamation of the topic A and topic B" are perfectly acceptable in my opinion. Vanteloop (talk) 03:23, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Davide King
C'mon, guys, are we really arguing about this? "The article should consist of two sections, the first of which is A, and the second of which is B" gives a structure that user(s), even those who support that, may disagree with; I may well argue in favour of such an option, but not when it restrict myself to see it as two separate sections.

"The article should be an amalgamation of the topic A and topic B", or "The article should discuss both the topic A and topic B", is exactly the same thing but leaves much more liberty and options on how to structure it. Wasn't having option C a must to give all options? I do not understand how giving a precise structure, leaving no other possible options, is fine ...

I thought that the main issue was not having an option C at all but I am fine with it — I only disagree with the wording about precise two sections which implies a clear structure, e.g. there are less options, which is exactly the same argument used in support of having option C. Both not having an option C and having an option C with predefined structure are problematic. Is using amalgamation, or whatever other term you may think off to imply both A and B are discussed together, while leaving the door open for many possibilities on how to best structure it, rather than say there must only be two separate sections, really too much to ask? Davide King (talk) 19:29, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Nug
I think we are all in agreement with A, B and D, the only sticking point is C. Davide King is happy with C if it is reworded to use the term "amalgamation", Vanteloop is okay with that, and I see no issue with it either. I was probably a bit over optimistic that source analysis could be done quickly, so I'm okay with the trigger being pulled on the RFC now.

A. The article should be reorganized as a summary style article, providing an overview of all mass killing events and excess mortality events that occurred under communist governments.

B. The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept.

C. The article should be an amalgamation of A and B

D. The article should be split into two articles, as described above.

--Nug (talk) 21:35, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Nineteenth statement on MKUCR by moderator
I wrote: "Do not report any issue about the article at any conduct forum, such as WP:ANI or Arbitration Enforcement" and was asked to clarify it, with the following question: "Does it mean the article's issues or some issues related to behaviour of some third user (who is not a party of the dispute?" Do not report any content issues to a conduct forum.  Do not report any content issues to an unrelated content forum, such as the neutral point of view noticeboard either (although that was not the question).  Clearly disruptive conduct (vandalism, edit-warring) by a third party who is not a party to this dispute may be reported to a conduct forum.  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:09, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

There is no need for editors to make statements here if they are instead working on source analysis. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:09, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Twentieth statement by moderator (MKUCR)
Unless there is any other suggestion for changing its wording, I will publish the RFC that is listed at Dispute resolution noticeboard/MKUCR RFC 2. Any suggestions for changes to the wording of the RFC should be made before it is published (after which time any effort to change the wording is disruptive). Discussion here may continue while the RFC is running. Source analysis at Dispute resolution noticeboard/MKUCR Source Analysis may continue while the RFC is running. But you only have between 24 and 48 hours to discuss the wording of the RFC. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:02, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Davide King
Dispute resolution noticeboard/MKUCR RFC 2 should be updated to change Option C from The article should consist of two sections, the first of which is A, and the second of which is B to The article should be an amalgamation of A and B, as we resolved to accept. Davide King (talk) 21:29, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Twenty-first statement by moderator (MKUCR)
The RFC on the overall approach of the article is now running. Discussion may and should continue in the RFC, and may continue elsewhere in the article talk page, and in this DRN subpage. Discussion in this DRN subpage is not required, because the most important question is being addressed in the RFC. Editors may, if they wish, list any other disagreements about the article that they would like to discuss. Source analysis may continue.

WP:Neutral point of view is the second pillar of Wikipedia. Civility is the fourth pillar of Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:32, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
I presented some source analysis at the MKUCR talk page, but if DRN participants prefer to discuss it in a quite place, I am ready to continue here. In general, it may be useful to make long posts with sources and quotes that the article's talk page, and to discuss them here. What do you guys think?--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:41, 22 December 2021 (UTC) I am a little bit confused, I thought WP:DRNMKUCR was a link to the source analysis discussion, but it is not. Where is the source analysis subpage now?--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:44, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Twenty-second statement by moderator (MKUCR)
User:Paul Siebert - There is a link in the twentieth round to the source analysis. Since you have asked, I am providing a new shortcut, which is WP:MKUCRSA. Source analysis may continue. Participation in the RFC may continue. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:55, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Twentythird Statement by Moderator (MKUCR)
- Well, well. I took a few days away from watching the WP:MKUCRSA subpage, and I am called to settle a dispute. I wasn't sure what the purpose of the source analysis subtask was, and I thought it couldn't do any harm and might be helpful. The list of 69 sources provided by User:Nug makes it nearly impossible to navigate the Table of Contents of this subpage. I will be moving it to a subsubpage shortly.

Now I will ask each of the editors to tell me, in this page, in the space below, in not more than two paragraphs each, what they think the objective of the source analysis task should be, and in one or two more paragraphs, what they think that they have accomplished so far. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:54, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Davide King
I do not think source analysis is the problem; the problem is that we must agree on group sources and essentially what Siebert wrote here. I would like to see the moderator more involved, as they do here and did at their twelfth statement (their second statement in particular, and in general we should go back to Siebert's identification of the three group sources), and ask questions and set some clear criteria, and also weight in — what we desperately need is someone to analyze each side's argument, summarize, and weight it, otherwise we are just going to argue against each other like walls because we clearly understand the topic differently and discussion among us has not changed anything. I think that Robert McClenon is perfectly capable of that and is a good choice, but I wonder whether they are still willing to do this, and if they need any help, it should be given.

As an example, do they agree with Levivich's criteria here? If so, that would help us, as it would give a clear criteria to work on and that we all must respect and follow — Fiveby's sources do not respect that criteria and Nug's sources also included many pre-21st century sources; if they had followed Levivich criteria, and also only listed sources that summarize for us the literature (e.g. rather than cherry pick quotes from Harff et al., they should rely on secondary sources summarizing them for us and tell us their weight in the literature; also is it suddenly Karlsson 2008 good again? Did they not repeatedly question that it was not cited by anyone?), they would not have bloated the page. The issue is the weight of sources, not that they exist, and what they actually say (is it a separate, new topic or is it a subtopic within a broader context?) and what kind of structure they support (A, B, C).

Davide King (talk) 03:17, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Twentyfourth statement by moderator
User:Davide King would like to see the moderator take a more active role in the source analysis task. Before I agree to take a more active role, I will ask two related questions:
 * 1. What is the end purpose of the source analysis task?  How will the source analysis result in improvement of the article, after the RFC on the content and structure of the article is closed?
 * 2. What should be the role of a moderator in the source analysis task?  (In particular, do the parties expect that the moderator will review and comment on the sources?)

I started the source analysis task because some editors said that source analysis was needed before there could be an RFC on the structure and content of the article. Then the editors agreed that the RFC should be published but the source analysis should be conducted also. Future work on the article will be controlled by the result of the RFC. How will the source analysis affect the improvement of the article.

I think that I have two more questions:
 * 3. Is either the DRNMKUCR subtask or the MKUCRSA subsubtask, which are being done by a subset of editors while the RFC and other editors are involving the entire community, still serving a purpose?
 * 4. Should the DRN thread be:
 * a. Continued in these subtasks?
 * b. Deferred until the RFC is closed?
 * c. Closed as having served its purpose by starting the RFC?

So before I either agree to take a more active role in the source analysis task, or try to find another moderator, I have some questions about what we are trying to do in order to improve the article. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:04, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Davide King

 * 1. Once the RfC is closed, it will be much more clear what is the topic and which set of sources will be adeguate. Source analysis should verify that the chosen structure is reflected in majority of scholarly sources, and reflect what their weight are. Do they treat this as a separate, new topic or as a subtopic within a broader and general scope?
 * 2. Indeed, that was what I expected them to do. If they have followed discussions on the talk page and there too, it is clear that we have a different reading of the same sources themselves, so someone uninvolved who is good at source analysis should step up and weight in. If a panel group worked for the AfD, a similar panel may work for this too?

Source analysis will have to affect the improvement of the article by fixing NPOV and related issues, and establish its core sources. In particular, it should try to answer the AfD's closure point — is the topic encyclopedic, and can there be consensus for it? I imagine that there is also going to be another RfC about its name to reflect the chosen structure.


 * 3. I do not feel ready to answer yet, but perhaps a better way may be found; either active users at the talk page should take part to this, or this should be moved there? I do not know about the latter, or if it is even possible, but it may help to have someone moderating (e.g. keep us focused on the topic, give clear questions to answer, no new ten threads opened, apart from those relevant to current editing, and rather than back-and-forth arguments between two users who are not going to agree each other, one or more moderators may weight which argument was better and reflected by sources)1 and may be easier to get more participation; I do not know why I am the only one still writing here. One criticism was that this does not involve all interested users and it is not binding. I do not really know, I hope the moderator will find this useful and find a solution.
 * 4. I think that as long as there are going to be disputes and controversies about the article, this venue is always going to be useful and I do not think the purpose was by starting the RfC; that was perhaps Vanteloop's purpose but not why we came to this — we came to this because one user falsely thought that I and Siebert were controlling the article and wanted to revert all our edits back to August 2021 or even January 2021. I see this venue's purpose to be fixing the article in respect with our policies and guidelines. Certainly, at this point we may take a break until the RfC is closed and see each other again to discuss its aftermath and what will be next.

Davide King (talk) 21:34, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Notes
 * 1. I know that this may sound difficult2 but I see no other way. A possibility may be to take relevant sources at the noticeboard but I am not sure which one because we disagree about what they say or that they may be synthetized and misread by one side, if they support the current structure, not their reliability.
 * 2. Indeed that is why I favored deletion, namely that there were so significant NPOV, OR/SYNTH, and even VERIFY issues that could not be solved otherwise after over a decade, and that starting all over again, especially if we cannot even agree on the topic or structure (I hope that the RfC will find some positive consensus), was the only way to eventually fix it and have a good, neutrally written article about such a controversial topic. I hope that we will not need to have yet another AfD late in 2022 or by 2023.

Paul Siebert

 * Re: "What is the end purpose of the source analysis task?" As you probably noticed, the whole talk page discussion revolves around a handful of sources, and it seems most users believe these are the major sources on that topic (if we define the topic as a set of concrete events). However, there are very strong reason to believe that the sources most of us are talking about is just a small fraction of sources, and that other sources are left beyond the scope due to a biased procedure for source selection. I can support this my assertion with concrete example, but I would prefer to do that latter to avoid inflation of my posts. Therefore, before we started moving further, it is absolutely necessary to make sure that we are having a representative set of sources on this topic.
 * Re: "What should be the role of a moderator in the source analysis task?" I think the most important role of the Moderator would be to summarise a discussion at each step, which will allow us to use these summaries in subsequent discussions. In addition, the role of the Moderator may be to keep the discussion more organized, otherwise this page will become the same mess as the MKuCR talk opage.
 * Re: " Is either the DRNMKUCR subtask or the MKUCRSA subsubtask, which are being done by a subset of editors while the RFC and other editors are involving the entire community, still serving a purpose?" It depends on how many users will participate in that. I think, we will know that after the RfC closure.
 * Re: #4, that strongly depends on the results of the RfC. In connection to that, I propose to wait several days until the RfC is closed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:38, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Twentyfifth Statement by Moderator (MKUCR)
User:Paul Siebert and User:Davide King have provided statements in response to my question about the source analysis subtask and about the dispute resolution thread. I am not sure whether either the source analysis or the dispute resolution is accomplishing anything that the participants couldn't accomplish in user space. Paul Siebert and Davide King have provided sources and have commented on them.

User:Nug hasn't replied to my requests for opinions as to the continuation of these subtasks. However, Nug has provided 69 quotations of varying length. Many of them do not satisfy Paul Siebert's criterion that the sources should be from the twenty-first century; Nug didn't agree to limit himself to twenty-first century sources. I have not read all of Nug's quotations, but it appears that they state that communist regimes have engaged in atrocities. We knew that. I don't think that there is disagreement that communist regimes have engaged in atrocities. I don't think that anyone is disputing that mass killings occurred under some communist regimes. There does seem to be a backdrop question of whether communism was and is worse than Nazism. That is the wrong question. Both systems were and are evil. (I personally believe that Hitler and Stalin are and will be fighting World War Two eternally, and that means that they are in the same circle of Hell.Robert McClenon (talk) 05:59, 31 December 2021 (UTC))

Unless a common purpose for the source analysis subtask is agreed on, I think I will let it continue, but without active moderation. Unless a purpose for the dispute resolution thread is identified, I think that I will conclude it, and will open a new dispute resolution thread after the RFC is closed if one is requested. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:59, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Nug
I did post a response in the previous section, but have moved it down to here. --Nug (talk) 06:38, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Paul has said previously that "99% of sources available to me do not discuss those mass killings in a context of Communism", and just above he says "there are very strong reason to believe that the sources most of us are talking about is just a small fraction of sources, and that other sources are left beyond the scope due to a biased procedure for source selection". I’ve been hoping that Paul would use this Source Analysis period to shed light on these mystery sources, this so-called “silent majority” viewpoint, and identify them for us. Nothing is stopping him creating a subpage to list these new sources, there must be hundreds of sources given his claim that 99% do not discuss mass killings. This is one of the reasons why I supported a Source Analysis phase. However the sum total of Paul and Davide's efforts thus far is to just continue their efforts to attempt to deprecate the existing sources we already know about, without bringing any new sources to the table. Then complain to the Moderator when I post 69 sources (which is still work in progress) as if that was somehow improper. Others have recently called out Paul’s misrepresentations of other editors, so we need to confirm the veracity of Paul’s representations with respect to these sources. Therefore I think the Moderator’s involvement in Source Analysis is premature, and Paul just simply needs deliver what he promised in terms of identifying these 99% of sources. —Nug (talk) 06:30, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
In a response to Nug's post, I can say that I never planned to convert the discussion of sources into a contest between "sources cherry-picked by Nug vs sources cherry-picked by Paul Siebert". It is not our goal to overwhelm each other with quotes picked from source that were selected according to some obscure criterion. That is not serious, just compare this and that. That is why I proposed to start with a development of some agreement about the procedure for source selection. Nug refused to participate in that work, and his approach will lead us to nothing but spamming the DRN page with tons of quotes taken from unknown context. It is totally unworkable. We cannot analyse all sources, but we can create are representative set of them. After that set is created, we can continue a serious discussion.

One comment on the Moderator's statement about Stalin and Hitler. There are many differences between Nazism and Communism, and one of them is the following: Nazism was a very simple phenomenon, which was created and lead by the same person, and which was localized in time and space. It was not based on any serious sociological theory, and its main "theoretical" source is just a demagogic book authored by some politician. In contrast, Communism is much more complex and non-uniform concept, and one of its school was founded by one of the most brilliant sociologists (actually, Marx, along with Weber, is one of the founding fathers of sociology). therefore, Nazism and Communism are as incomparable as apples and oranges. Yes, many authors compare Hitler and Stalin, or Nazism and Stalinism, and that comparison is pretty legitimate. Few authors compare Nazism and Communism as a whole, but even more authors openly disagree with that, and openly criticise this approach. Furthermore, some authors (like Fein), compare Khmer Rouge with Nazi (Fascists), but that is not a comparison of Communism and Nazism: this author argue that KR regime had more traits of Nazi (she uses the term "fascist") regime. This article can and should discuss all of that, including who compare what, why this comparison is made, what ideas these authors are advocating, and who disagrees with that, and what is the subject of the most severe criticism.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:52, 31 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I checked the sources "collected" by Nug, and it is easy to see that that is just a collection of quotes that I removed from the article, because they violated WP:NFCC. Not only that is a totally unjustified violation of NFCC, it is a form of a disrespect. Nug haven't bothered to check the sources he quoted, and some (or most) of then simoly do not support his POV. Thun, Nug cites Mann, but he totally ignores Mann's main idea (he says that "classicide", which happened in Cambodia, and, in much lesser extent, in China and USSR), was a perversion of socialist theories of democracy, and he does not derive it from Communism. It is quite obvious that Nug just uncritically picked quotes collected by another user without bothering to familiarise himself with the context and with the main ideas of the sources he cites.
 * That is a disrespect to other participants of the dispute, and I respectfully ask Nug to refrain from showing this type disrespect in future. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:34, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The rest of this day I am going to devote to drinking various alcohol containing liquids in a company of my relatives and friends. I wish, , and to have a happy New Year, and I hope that next year we, under Robert's moderation, will resolve our dispute in a productive, respectful and collaborative way.
 * Happy New Year guys. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:40, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Davide King
I have to agree with Siebert, and strongly reject Nug's allegations (especially 'deprecation', which is absurd). I believe Siebert's approach is also in line with what the moderator have said in their second statement, we need to discuss and analyze the various group of sources, rather than discuss any source mentioning Communist mass killings, which is besides the point because no one is denying anything here and is thus unhelpful. I think Siebert's approach is much better because it is grounded in the RfC, whereas Nug's approach, rather than help us to individuate group sources, is more an attempt to prove that Siebert and I are wrong, and that sources support C and the status quo. We already went through this in the AfD, and we did not get any consensus. I think it is high time that we try another approach, and if the moderator agree, I think that Siebert's approach is good.

I also have to reject Nug's allegations against Siebert, which may be an attempt to unjustifiably exclude them. They said others but it was really just them and Vanteloop. Again, Siebert's approach at sources has been positively reviewed in an academic journal, it does not mean that they are always right but certainly such attempts to criticize or even discredit them are disingenerous. Indeed, both Siebert and I have been misunderstood and strawmanned by them (e.g. that we deny Communist regime as a thing, which is absurd) but we never assumed bad faith or made comments like this that border on personal attacks. That is why the moderator's involvement is absolutely necessary, especially if Nug's allegations are true; surely, if such allegations are true, if the moderator is more involved and summarize for us, those allegations would be tested. To avoid any further misrepresentation, I agree with Siebert that the moderator summarizes what we said and help us with group source types. Davide King (talk) 21:42, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Twentysixth statement on MKUCR by moderator
I have read the statements by User:Paul Siebert, User:Nug, and User:Davide King. I am still not sure what if anything is to be gained from my efforts at moderation. The participants have different ideas as to what we are trying to do with the source analysis subtask. As a result, I think that the participants have different ideas as to what the moderator should do, and I think that they want me to take a more active role in validating their analysis than I am ready to provide.

I will in any case demand that if I am considered to be the moderator, I at least have the control over the organization and naming of materials. Nug provided 69 quotes from sources. I moved them out of the main subpage into a subsubpage because they made navigation of the table of contents difficult. I named them as Nug's sources. Nug then renamed them as sources, without identifying them as his sources. They aren't really sources. They are really quotes from sources. I won't rename them again without discussing, but I expect that I will be renaming them as quotes from sources. The quotes all seem to be making one point, which is that there are atrocities under communism. Duh. We knew that. Those who were arguing to delete the article were not arguing that there had not been mass killings under communist regimes. There were. That wasn't and isn't the issue. Just because large numbers of single-purpose accounts were brigaded for the purpose of arguing that there were mass killings under communist regimes doesn't mean that anyone said there weren't.

Davide King has analyzed various sources and has found that different authors have attributed different characteristics, such as democide, politicide, classicide, and has commented on reliability of sources. Paul Siebert and Davide King have said that the categorization of sources is useful.

I also thank User:MarioSuperstar77 for contributions.

Paul Siebert and Davide King have both said that the moderator should summarize what the participants have said. Sometimes I can do that more readily than other times. I am not entirely sure why they think it is important for the moderator to do that, but I am not entirely sure what they think should be the end result of this task.

I asked four questions about the purpose of the source analysis task, the role of the moderator, the continuation of the subtasks, and the continuation of the DRN thread. Paul Siebert and Davide King provided partial answers. They have not persuaded me that the source analysis subtask is useful while the RFC is running. Nug hasn't said what the purpose of the source analysis is, and hasn't really said what the reason for the quote farm was. It seems that Nug is trying to refute a statement that was never made, which was a denial of communist atrocities.

Unless I am otherwise persuaded, I will:
 * a. Separate the analysis of sources from the listing of sources and quotes, both of which may continue without interfering with each other.
 * b. Mostly limit my involvement to ensuring civility, which includes the assumption of good faith and the avoidance of casting aspersions.
 * c. Close the DRN thread as pending the outcome of the RFC, and be ready to open a new DRN thread if requested after the RFC.

Comments are welcome. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:06, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
In my opinion, the more control Moderator has, the better. Moreover, the the quotes provided by Nug clearly violate NFCC (most of them are irrelevant pieces of copyrighted text, which were posted for unknown reason). It seems it is Moderator's duty to fix this NFCC violation: all those quotes were copypasted from the old version of the article, so no information will be lost it they are deleted. I agree with most of what Moderator says, but I would like to point at some misunderstanding. I never meant that source analysis is needed before the RfC ends. My point was quite different: instead of discussing concrete sources, I propose to discuss a common approach to identification and collection of the representative set of sources on the topic. I joined the discussion of concrete sources because other users started it, but it was not my primary goal. This is task (an agreement about source identification procedure) does not depend on the RfC's outcome, so, if we come to some consensus on the procedure, we will be ready to start implementing the RfC results right after it will be closed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Davide King
I am very satisfied by the moderator's response, and I can totally understand their points as well, which is why I feel they are very much helpful and needed. I agree that we better wait for the RfC's results, if that was the point; I was talking more in general that source analysis will have to be performed if we are going to fix the article, even though it will be hard but I see no other way — their comments about Nug's sources is precisely what I aspect them to do to keep it focused. I also agree with Siebert, and it is true that it was supposed to discuss such common approach; however, Nug appear to dismiss it outright, and we never really went further. Whatever the approach will be, if the moderator find Siebert's approach (or something similar to it), we will follow it; the important thing for me is that we will rely on secondary coverage that summarize for us what those authors says and are proposing, rather than quote them directly,1 otherwise we are just cherry picking them and may give undue weight to something of their work that is not really due. In this regards, I think that this was good, which the moderator may find useful for SYNTH issues, and explained some issues that we have, e.g. majority of sources do not make generalizations.

To summarize, I wrongly thought that the moderator was questioning the whole purpose of source analysis (I think they still made fair points if it will solve the dispute but I see no other way) rather than doing this while the RfC was pending. In that, I agree with them it is not useful, and I hope that, whether it will be here or in a new thread, they will help us find some consensus on the source procedure; if they can do that, we can indeed starting to implement the RfC results and may be limit themselves to make sure it proceeds smoothly.

1. We may still do this, of course, to get their main points, but they are primary sources about what they say, and they cannot be used to prove a point like Nug did; that job, including assessing their weight and what they actually say and theorize, will be up to secondary coverage — in line with Wikipedia's purpose. Davide King (talk) 14:21, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Notes

Twentyseventh statement on MKUCR by moderator
I will address a few comments. However, I do not think that Paul Siebert or Davide King have made a case for continuing this effort at moderation. It does not appear that Paul Siebert and Davide King are working toward the same objective as User:Nug, although I am not sure what Nug is trying to do. I see that Paul and Davide have the objective of categorizing sources. Do we need a moderator at this time for that effort? There doesn't appear to be a difference of opinion that amounts to a content dispute. There might be one again after the RFC is closed.

In particular, I will respond to the argument that Nug has violated the non-free content criteria. Wikipedia has established criteria that are stricter than fair use for copyrighted content. These criteria primarily have to with images, but also with text. These criteria also state that non-free content may only be used in articles; conversely, these criteria only apply to articles. This source analysis subtask is not in article space, but in project space. It is my conclusion therefore that the non-free content criteria are not applicable to the source analysis subtask. As a result, the applicable policy is fair use until any of the material is copied into the article. The stricter non-free content requirements are not necessary. It is also my opinion that Nug's collection of quotes from sources is consistent with fair use. I will be renaming it from being a list of sources to being a list of quotes from sources. Other than that, I am not sure why Paul and Davide object to the list. The list simply proves a point that we and I have already agreed is not in dispute, which is that communist regimes have committed atrocities and mass killings. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:13, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Nug does seem to be arguing that Paul and Davide are denying the history of mass killings under communist regimes, which is not what they are saying, and is a distraction. So what point is Nug trying to make?

There is a contextual disconnect between what Nug says Paul Siebert said, and Nug's own disagreement with it. Nug says that Paul said that 99% of the sources do not discuss mass killings in a context of communism. First, I am sure that Paul was exaggerating, and that the exaggeration was not useful, but that is not the issue. Second, Nug then writes: "there must be hundreds of sources given his claim that 99% do not discuss mass killings." No. Paul Siebert didn't make that claim. He is quoted as having made the more subtle claim that the sources did not discuss mass killings in a context of communism, as opposed to discussing mass killings and communism separately in the same source.

Nug writes: "However the sum total of Paul and Davide's efforts thus far is to just continue their efforts to attempt to deprecate the existing sources we already know about, without bringing any new sources to the table." That statement is remarkable. It is not clear what Nug means that he says that PS and DK are deprecating the existing sources. I do not see any effort to label them as unreliable. Is Nug expecting that the sources should lead to a particular conclusion, such as a conclusion maximizing the total number of excess deaths? Such an expectation would turn the neutral point of view upside down, although it would explain Nug's complaint. What does Nug mean? Has Nug created a receptacle of round holes, and is Nug then looking only for round pegs to go into the round holes?

I still do not see the value of moderation when Paul Siebert and Davide King appear to have different goals than Nug. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:13, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
I have to respectfully disagree with Moderator, who said that they see not value in moderation. In reality, the Moderator's post clearly demonstrates the value of a moderated discussion.

Moderator correctly summarised the core issue: it is nor clear what is the main point is advocating. It would be extremely helpful if Nug elaborated on that. Moderator's comments on NFCC seem quite satisfactory and encouraging. If extended quotes are allowed in non-article space, that dramatically facilitates our future discussion. My words about 99% is hardly a serious exaggeration, for the amount of sources about individual Communist states and individual events is immense. I can demonstrate that using a simple example. The "Estimates" section contains several sources that provide a figure of a total number of victims of Communism. Most of those sources are desperately outdated sources (Rummel), other sources are highly controversial (Courtois), other two sources were removed as highly unreliable (White, VoC), and remaining sources just mention that figure in passing (Brzezinski) and/or express official US point of view. Only two or three sources are relatively reliable, but they do not discuss a "global death toll of Communism", they deaths in three Communist states. Despite numerous attempts, Wikipedia users failed to find more reliable and more fresh sources on this topic. In contrast, I know at least 20 sources that discuss in details the deaths in the USSR alone, and many of those sources are much more fresh, they (in contrast to the above sources) are published mostly in peer-reviewed journals, and are of much better quality. Clearly, the number of sources that left beyond the scope of this article is immense, and the main reason why that happened is an extreme bias of the article's structure that affects the source selection and their representation.

That is a reason why I insist on collection of a representative set of sources: we are physically incapable of discussing all of them.

With regard to Moderator's "I do not see any effort to label them as unreliable", that is not completely correct. Nug is right that I maintain that some of the sources are unreliable, biased, outdated, or not relevant to the topic. However, Nug is not right when he claimed that I brought no sources to the table. Actually, I already presented many sources, and I can present many more. However, since I want to avoid a fruitless dispute about reliability and relative weight of each source (I can present tens or hundreds of them), I propose to collect a representative set of them, but Nug seems to refuse to join this work.

I think that the future development of this DRN process is totally in Nug's hands, because it seems there is no significant disagreement between me and DK. If Nug withdraws himself from the process, then this dispute should be closed. In that case, it would be preferrable that Nug openly recognized that he, for some reason, decided not to participate in this DRN (either by making some explicit statement or by striking his name in the participants list). If Nug still wants to participate in this DRN (which would be highly desirable), it would be highly desirable if he made some post to address our questions and concerns.
 * Yes, I can provide a list of sources, but the discussion of those sources must be focused. To this end, I propose to start a discussion of sources on some very specific topic, e.g. Chinese Famine, Cambodian genocide, Great Purge, or a role of Marxist ideology in mass killings. I am still waiting for a feedback from, and I propose him to pick the topic.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:56, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * will you make a summary of this round and open the text one, or I should directly answer to the last 's post?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:06, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Davide King
Again, I have to agree with Siebert that "the Moderator's post clearly demonstrates the value of a moderated discussion." They did a very good post. I think they are needed because we need to do such collection of a representative set of sources by group types; however, Nug have so far show no interest in doing this, therefore if the moderator agree and think that Siebert's proposed approach is fine, Nug should participate if they want to move us forward and the moderator should help us to make sure that we can get something productive out of it. They are desperately needed because we have already tried again and again to discuss sources on the talk page but we remain entranched in our positions because we have totally different approaches, and a moderator would help us to stay focused and make all of us accountable by making sure none of us bludgeon the process.1
 * Moderator have indeed been useful and proved why they are needed

As for the list of quotes, which I agree is a more accurate wording: "Other than that, I am not sure why Paul and Davide object to the list. The list simply proves a point that we and I have already agreed is not in dispute, which is that communist regimes have committed atrocities and mass killings." This, especially the bolded part, is precisely my same point expressed perfectly; that is not in dispute, so what is the point? Especially if all such sources are not even new but already in the article?
 * List of quotes

If that is indeed fine, I encourage Siebert to present their own list, so that we can compare them and check that their point is correct as I believe it is, and that we got the current structure totally wrong. In addition, I am genuinely interested to see it, read them, and get an even better understanding of the topic and academic analysis. If you need any help, I can help with copy-editing and formatting, but I think that you should do it, especially to put an end to false accuses about not providing sources or engaging in OR,2 and to further highlight the current structure issues that many other users may not see or understand at first (indeed, I was one of them years ago).
 * Siebert should present their own list of sources to counteract the other to prove our points, which can be verified and no longer be dismissed

If Nug do not address the moderator's questions and our concerns, and refuse to engage us in such source analysis representation, with clear rules and criteria, as outlined by the moderator,3 then I agree that this dispute should be closed.4 I hope that the moderator can still look at the talk page because disruptive behavior and bludgeoning any attempt to fix the article (this should include denying that the article has any problem or make it about the events, which no one is denying) should be seen as disruptive and there will no longer be any ground rule about not reporting conduct issues. I hope that we will not have to come down to that, and that the RfC will result in a productive discussion and some consensus.
 * Conclusions

1. Strawman and misreading examples in the moderator's post are good example of stuff that is to be avoided if we are to make any progress.
 * Notes

2. This discussion may be of interest for the moderator, and how progress on the talk page has not been made by dismissing us like this.

3. Again, I am talking mainly after the RfC is closed, where hopefully everything will be much more clear, and the moderator will be persuaded that their help is indeed helpful.

4. If it is closed, I would really appreciate if the moderator could make a summary of it (in particular, they should dismiss or reject as unfounded the false accuses about Siebert and I by Cloud200 that started this whole dispute) ​and any further suggestion to how to move next, and whether a new DRN thread after the RfC is closed may be useful, etc.

Davide King (talk) 00:28, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Nug
I wasn’t aware there was a continuing discussion here until Paul mentioned it to me on MKuCR Talk today. It isn’t clear what this new dispute is that requires moderation. Is it to compel me to adopt Paul’s source analysis methodology? I’m not convinced it is a sound approach for the reasons previously outlined. There is nothing stopping him pursuing that with DK if he wants to, I don’t see how it hinges on me. I find the Moderator’s questions a total misrepresentation of my position. I’ve said countless times that the absolute number doesn’t matter, whether it is 10 million or 100 million, it really makes no difference, so no, I’m not "expecting that the sources should lead to a particular conclusion, such as a conclusion maximizing the total number of excess deaths" as the Moderator wrongly suggests. If you read the section Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes the very first line states "According to professor of history Klas-Göran Karlsson, discussion of the number of victims of communist regimes has been extremely extensive and ideologically biased.", and despite Karlsson’s statement that such discussion of the numbers has been extremely extensive, Paul and DK seemingly want to gut that section. Reading that section further, after a bit of discussion we have a survey of notable estimates ordered by date. However Paul and DK succeeded in removing the VoC estimate as "unreliable" because it is ideologically biased, so now we have no example of an apparent ideologically biased estimate that Karlsson alluded to, and they also want to remove Rummel’s estimate because it is “outdated” even though the date is clearly given and the appropriate criticisms are presented. They also as well as remove other estimates due to “unreliability” even though it is clearly attributed to the person stating the number, leaving maybe two or three, so then the reader will not have an overview anf history of the different numbers. I won’t be responding any further here until after the RFC if necessary. I think I must have missed the many new sources that Paul said he had already presented, could someone post some diffs. --Nug (talk) 13:06, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Twentyeighth statement by moderator (MKUCR)
User:Paul Siebert - Just because I haven't closed this working page doesn't mean that I plan to summarize what the participants have said. Go ahead and state your disagreement with User:Nug. This isn't a moderated discussion in any meaningful sense, because there appear to be two different agendas, and in asking me to continue to go through the motions of moderation, I really feel that User:Paul Siebert and User:Davide King are trying to get me to advance an agenda. User:Nug appears to have a different agenda. I never was sure why Paul Siebert said that a source analysis subtask was needed, and I am also not sure why Nug provided 69 quotes.

Within two or three weeks, the RFC should be closed, and then we will have a better idea what the final article should look like. We may then have a better idea whether a new moderated DRN is needed, and, if so, who the participants will be.

User:Nug - You still haven't answered what your objective was in providing the 69 quotes. They all say that there were atrocities committed by communist regimes. We know. We know. Nug wrote: 'I’m not "expecting that the sources should lead to a particular conclusion, such as a conclusion maximizing the total number of excess deaths" '  Good. I wasn't suggesting; I was asking. Apparently Nug wants to refute something, and so has 69 quotes. It isn't clear to me what they are trying to refute, but maybe I have missed something. I know that someone has missed something.

User:Davide King wants the moderator to "dismiss or reject as unfounded the false accuses about Siebert and I by Cloud200". Comment on content, not contributors. I will not deal with a conduct dispute. If anyone wants to raise a conduct dispute, WP:ANI is over there, and Arbitration Enforcement is that way. I don't recommend going there. Otherwise leave the conduct claims alone.

I suggest that the source analysis be put on hold until we know what the structure and content of the article will be, but I have had my doubts about the source analysis since it was started.

I don't know what Nug's agenda is, but at least they aren't trying to get me to do work for them. It appears that Paul Siebert and Davide King are trying to get me to do work for them, and that isn't my plan. I think that waiting for closure on the RFC is the best approach. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:27, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Davide King
If there is any 'agenda', whatever it means, Siebert and I are pursuing is fixing the article's problems (NPOV/OR/SYNTH) and have a NPOV article; of course, Nug is free to disagree with this but their perspective, which is essentially that the article has no significant problem and the structure is perfectly fine, does not bode well with the article's long history and the latest AfD's closure, which reversed consensus to 'Keep.' I do not understand what the moderator mean by 'working for us.' I thought that their 'job' was to help us all (including Nug and others, not just Siebert and I) to find a solution to the article, to improve it, and moderate this? If they do not want to do this, they can tell us. I think they did a great job so far, and I do not really understand their latest statement and I am surprised by it. I do agree with them about conduct issues and waiting for closure on the RFC is the best approach.

As for Nug's accuses, that is clearly contradicted by this, which includes discussion of a the global Communist death toll; the problem is that Nug think this is a mainstream, majority, and controversial view, when the scholarly source I put shows otherwise. In addition, it was not Siebert and I who found the VOC source unreliable, and not because it was biased, but previous discussions at RSN (1, 2). Same thing for Rummel, whose criticism by both Siebert and I is, in fact, based on Karlsson & Schoenhals 2008 (pp. 35, 69–72, 79), the same source they have cited in support of the article, and was also discussed at RSN before. Davide King (talk) 06:52, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
Robert, if two different agendas prevents you from being a full scale moderator, let's choose one agenda and focus on it until some meaningful result is achieved. Like you, I feel uncomfortable when I have to discuss several topics simultaneously. I would prefer to focus at one topic, and, imho, it should be the development of source selection criteria. Contrary to 's claim, my goal is not to compel Nug to adopt my source analysis method, but just to develop a common approach. I see this process as follow: one user proposes some method, other users either agree or disagree. In the latter case, they point at flaws or omissions in that method, and we together discuss possible improvements, or propose some different approach, and after several iterations we develop some common method. The problem, however, is that I am the only participant who proposed any concrete method. Nug just pointed at some (minor) flaws, and stopped to discuss it. Why I am so obsessed with the source selection method? The reason is simple: the actual amount of sources on this topic is immense, and we cannot discuss each separate source if we do not know its proper place in the overall pool of sources. Thus, a recent talk page discussion is focused on two sources that claim that Marxism provided a theoretical ground for extermination of Jews by Hitler. It is possible to put forward some arguments for and against their inclusion, but, instead of discussing these concrete sources, we must answer a more general question first: what the whole body or RS says on that issue? Clearly, that question is not possible to answer it terms of "a source that was cherry-picked by me says A, whereas the source cherry-picked by you says B". To answer this question, we need to collect a representative set of sources (for we will hardly be capable of reading them all), and check, what they say on Marxist attitude to genocide. And we can do that only if we develop some common approach to selection of a representative set of sources.

However, if does not want to discuss sources, I agree to focus on some other topic. I am waiting for concrete proposals from Nug. However, as soon as we decided to discuss that new topic, let's agree to stay focused until some agreement is achieved.

If Nug wants to discuss the "Ideology" section, let's do that. However, I remind Nug to stay civil, and to avoid discussing other user's motives. I explained my intentions about that section very clearly: first, I am going to check each source for factual accuracy, and then I am going to eliminate an obvious synthesis. That will be an iteration number zero. After that, we will discuss other steps. Do that really mean that I want "to gut that section"? If Nug sincerely believes that that section is full of unreliable or improperly used sources and synthesis, then the answer is "yes", but in that case, to "gut this section" is what any good faith user is supposed to do. However, if Nug is confident that this section contains no synthesis, and all sources are good and used correctly, then why Nug concludes I am going to "gut" it?

Twentyninth statement by Robert McClenon (MKUCR)
I will be marking this subpage as historical.

I am completely confused as to what User:Paul Siebert and User:Davide King think can or is likely to be accomplished by my involvement in a source analysis task. We still do not have agreement as to what the objective of the source analysis task is. What we know is that there is an RFC that will determine the structure of the article. I started the source analysis task because PS and DK initially said that it should precede the RFC. Then we all agreed to the RFC.

I had written: "It appears that Paul Siebert and Davide King are trying to get me to do work for them, and that isn't my plan." Since there isn't agreement as to what our objectives are, I am not really acting as a moderator. Since I don't know what I am supposed to be doing, if I summarize what PS and DK have written, then I will either be doing their work or wasting my time.

We don't know what the structure of this article will be, and analyzing sources in support of an article with an uncertain focus seems like an exercise in nothingness. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:59, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Davide King
I will just say their help will be helpful precisely to keep us focused and help us to find a common approach. If Nug completely reject Siebert's approach, or any compromise, they may end it here and other users may be invited to participate. We may take it back to the talk page but I do not think we are going to get anything useful out of it because without some form of moderation, we will just be going around in circles entranched in our positions. I do agree that analyzing sources in support of an article with an uncertain focus seems like an exercise in nothingness, which is exactly what we are doing now; I think that they are needed precisely because they may give us a clearly focused approach and criteria that will be very helpful for source analysis, which may start soon after the RfC is closed and is when their help may be needed. Davide King (talk) 04:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Paul Siebert
, I have written:
 * "However, if does not want to discuss sources, I agree to focus on some other topic. I am waiting for concrete proposals from Nug. However, as soon as we decided to discuss that new topic, let's agree to stay focused until some agreement is achieved."

I think I couldn't be more clear: we have very serious disagreements with Nug, and the only way to resolve them is moderation (or arbitration, but that scenario is too premature). I am not pushing any specific agenda, I am ready to start discussing each point of our disagreement (out of many), and I propose Nug to chose the topic. It is very sad that you decided not to be out Moderator, and I humbly hope that you may reconsider your decision.

I see no reason to wait for the RfC outcome, for many disagreements are independent on it.

If source analysis is something that you are not feeling comfortable to moderate, then I propose to pick some other topic, for example, the dispute about the role of ideology and Communism in general. However, that is up to you guys to decide. I am always open to a discussion, and I am ready to restart the process whenever you are ready. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:36, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Thirtieth statement by Robert McClenon
User:Paul Siebert, User:Davide King - I know that the two of you mean well, and that you think that I might be able to accomplish something by going through the motions of acting as a moderator in a dispute with User:Nug. I don't know why you think that User:Nug is interested in moderated discussion, when they most recently said that they were not interested. I also don't know why you think that moderated discussion with Nug is the best way to improve an article. There are many other editors active on the article and on the article talk page.

I know that you and Nug have different ideas about sources and about the article. So do other editors. I don't want to be harsh, but I think that, if you think that you and I can improve the article by pretending to engage in moderated discussion with Nug, then that expectation is just weird and silly. What evidence do you have that it is going anywhere?

I agree that there are problems with the article. I don't see how analysis of sources is the way to resolve the problems. I don't see how a shadow-dance of moderation is advancing the article. I think that we should wait for the RFC to be closed, but I have already said that.

It appears that, in asking me to continue pretending to be a moderator, you are attributing some sort of mystical power to me, either to engage Nug or to do something else. I don't think that I have a mystical power. You really haven't given me an explanation of what you want me to do. I know that you are frustrated. I would be frustrated also in your position. I know that part of your frustration is that it is clear to you and to me that Nug has a different agenda. Why do you think that I can get Nug to engage in dialog (or to agree with you)?

Any further explanations of what you want me to do should be made on my talk page. If you want Nug to engage in dialogue with you, I suggest that you ask on their talk page. For the last week (actually more than two weeks), I have had no idea what you are asking me to do. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:30, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Back-and-forth discussion on communist killings
I find the latest DK's comments especially important, for Karlsson's "Crimes against humanity ..." (the source he cites) is one of the core sources for the Crimes against humanity under Communist regimes article. This article exists mainly due to this source, and it is being used in the MKuCR article too. It seems the opposite party sees no problem with that source, and does not consider it biased or minority. And this source says the two other sources, Rummel and Courtois, which were presented in the old version of the article (and are still partially presented in the current version) as pretty non-controversial, are controversial in reality. These two sources are core sources for MKuCR, and the fact that they are described as controversial by another author is an additional strong argument in support for article's rewrite.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:32, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

With regards to the filer's proposal to improve the article, it directly contradicts to our policy, which says that segregation of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself, may result in an unencyclopedic structure, such as a back-and-forth dialogue between proponents and opponents. It may also create an apparent hierarchy of fact where details in the main passage appear "true" and "undisputed", whereas other, segregated material is deemed "controversial", and therefore more likely to be false. Try to achieve a more neutral text by folding debates into the narrative, rather than isolating them into sections that ignore or fight against each other.. In addition, the apparent hierarchy is opposite to what we have in reality: what she calls "dissenting views" is actually majority views.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:58, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Cloud200's 9th statement is an emotional appeal rather than a rational one — no sources have been provided to support such claims (I have cited one, which was supported by both of them, to show Courtois and Rummel are minority — but just look at all sources at Genocide studies and Mass killing). It is apparent that for them any source that does not support equivalency between Communism and Nazism, and thus may say things that they may consider as too positive for Communism, is somehow pro-Communist or left-wing! Are Michael Ellman, Sheila Fitzpatrick, J. Arch Getty, Ian Kershaw, Moshe Lewin, Stephen G. Wheatcroft, and many other well-respected scholars in the field pro-Communists? It also completely ignores how the double genocide theory and Holocaust trivialization and obfuscation have been used as state policy in Eastern Europe, which has grown increasingly illiberal, and unlike their claims about "left-wing European authors" we have sources for this (again, I ask the moderator, just look at the relevant articles and their academic sources).

The reason why English sources are preferred is because of WP:RSUE and WP:VERIFY, and because so-called "left-wing European authors" (mainstream scholars in the field) do not engage in Holocaust trivialization, or write historiography through the double-genocide lens, which is fringe in mainstream Western academia (it may be mainstream in some Eastern European countries but we should not give them undue weight, especially when they have been extensively criticized because of it — it is also the same reason why we do not actually use Russian sources, for mainstream Russian scholars work with mainstream Western ones, hence no double standard; the ones you should be referring to, those who are truly pro-Communism, are considered fringe, though their rejection of equivalency between Communism and Nazism is not fringe or pro-Communism), and that Communism was equal to Nazism remains a controversial and revisionist view across the Western world (The Black Book of Communism was controversial mainly because of this and its intro, which was not subjected to peer-review). Again, actually cite such sources, they may be used (but keep in mind WP:ARCHIVES) — what are your core sources for the article?

P.S. In that same discussion they have linked, I have literally said:

Of course, they did not say I made this edit, which includes what they wanted to add. I am such a hardliner (sarcasm). Davide King (talk) 22:05, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Cloud200's statement #9 clearly says that our policy, which says that academic peer-reviewed publications are the best sources, is not working for this topic. Athough, according to her, that relates only to those authors who never lived under Communists, however, imposing this artificial condition excludes (or undermines credibility of) a wide range of the best quality sources. Interestingly, since her rationale is non-falsifiable, it is really unbeatable, for her says that the sources that "have more moderate views" (her own words) are less trustworthy, because the authors do not have access to full information. And, accordingly, the authors who have less moderate views are more trustworthy, because (these are my speculations) the authors are more informed about a true picture. This is a non-falsifiable circular argumentation ("I am right because good sources support my views, and those sources are good because they paint a correct picture, i.e. the picture that I am advocating"). Robert, frankly speaking, I anticipated that type arguments, and that is why I insisted that every statement of each participant must be falsifiable. The topic that we are discussing can be non-falsifiable, however, our own position during that dispute must be falsifiable, otherwise the whole dispute is senseless.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:57, 17 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Although I am becoming more and more skeptical about a possibility of a rational discussion, I am still curious how can Cloud800 answer the following question:
 * You say that Western scholars, due to insufficient information about real-life Communism have more moderate views on Communism. How can you explain the fact that "archival revolution" of 1990 and intensification of East-West contacts led to a more nuanced and moderate depiction of Communism as compared to the Cold war era views?"--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:13, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

If they cannot answer the points Siebert and I raised, what is the point of this discussion? It should be based on rationality and verification through sources (again, not a single source has been provided by them), not emotional appeals and personal attacks — Siebert and I did not deny anything! (If they think all those respected scholars I cited are 'denialists', I do not know what to tell them, other than questioning their competence and being here to right great wrongs) In fact, that whole dispute was about our policies and guidelines in regards to WP:PRIMARY. Siebert and I wanted to respect our policies, which say independent, secondary sources are to be used, so they were advocating that we violate our policies to put their POV, and they also wanted us to violate WP:WEIGHT because they wanted to give more WEIGHT to PRIMARY over SECONDARY (The New York Times) and other scholarly sources found by Siebert that supported the previous wording, which has been long-standing until they changed it for no good reason. This is a conduct issue, a serious one, and those are personal attacks, misleading summaries of disputes, and defamation to both Siebert and I, which I am tired of. Davide King (talk) 11:37, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Sources, facts, comments (Paul Siebert)
(To make a discussion more organized, I propose to collect all my factual comments in one place. That may help Moderator to understand some arguments better.

In response to Nug's eleventh statement (06:14, 21 November 2021 (UTC))
 * Rummel was a subject of at least two recent RSN discussions, , where a consensus was achieved about his unreliability for figures.
 * Rummel's major achievements are application of Factor analysis to social sciences and Democratic peace theory, hence the large number of citations.
 * Rummel's figures are considered outdated and ideologically inflated by Karlsson, the author who is extensively cited in the MKuCR article (and is not recognized as "obscure" in that context). Criticism of Rummel's methodology by Dulic was recognized by his colleagues in a separate volume devoted to him.
 * The Mass killing article is devoted to the "mass killing" concept, which is different from Rummel's Democide, which already has his own article. To claim that former is POV just because it does not describe the concept that has its own article is ridiculous.
 * Finally, the reasons for removal of the text were explained on the talk page. Since Nug never responded, I concluded he was satisfied by that explanation. Paul Siebert (talk) 07:01, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

In response to Cloud200's elevenths statement (22:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)):
 * "Stalinism was intrinsically non-genocidal" one of the authors who claims that is W.D. Rubinstein, Professor of Modern History at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He says unlike Hitler, Stalin was not genocidal. The same was said by Zuroff. I can find other sources on that, which explain how Marxist ideology acted as a limiting factor preventing Stalin from unleashing a full scale genocide, but I need some time for that. Rosefielde (in his "Red Holocaust" also claimed that Communist regimes were "genocidal in lesser extent" than Nazi). I also recommend Cloud200 to read the article by Margolin (I believe she knows that name).
 * I never said Rummel is fringe, and it seems Cloud200 should familiarise herself with two RSN discussions on that account (the links are provided) before throwing such accusations.
 * As I already explained, the question is not only the figures themselves, but in their interpretation. As Rosefielde pointed out (Premature Deaths: Russia's Radical Economic Transition in Soviet Perspective Author(s): Steven Rosefielde Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Dec., 2001, Vol. 53, No. 8 (Dec., 2001), pp. 1159-1176) 3.4 million of Russians died prematurely in 1990s, after fall of Communism. If we consider all "premature deaths" as mass killings, should we speak about "democratic mass killings" in that case? It seems Rosefielde does not consider premature deaths in neither post-Communist Russia not in Communist USSR as "mass killings". The problem is not only in Rummel's figures, but in his interpretation of those figures.
 * With regard to " while the article really gives two examples of extreme views", that is quite correct. The claim that Stalinist terror lead to just tens of thousands of victims is absolutely ridiculous, for a consensus figure for Great Purge victims alone is 1.2 million. If Karlsson draws parallelism between Hough's absolutely ridiculous claim and Rummel, it is logical to conclude that the latter is equally ridiculous. Meanwhile, I don't remember if anybody here tried to seriously discuss Hough's claims. In connection to that, I am wondering what is a reason to discus another, equally ridiculous claim?--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:36, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

False accuses and deflecting (Davide King)
I thank Siebert for their effort but I am honestly tired of Cloud200 deflecting by making false accuses again here, especially in light of Siebert's sources, which is exactly to what we were referring to when we made such comments, which Cloud200 obviously does not understand and take out of context — those are all respected, mainstream scholars who are by no means pro-Communist (those who are, they are fringe, which is why Siebert and I never cited them in the first place). The problem is that they put their personal views first and then look for sources that confirm those views, while Siebert and I are simply commenting not our personal views but what cited mainstream scholars say, which contradicts MKuDR as a whole. Double genocide theory is indeed fringe but is, in fact, mainstream in much of Eastern Europe, which may explain Cloud200's emotional appeals in their false accuses.

At least Nug attempted to address our concerns and questions, and I look forward to their response to my next round's questions, but Cloud200 continue to link to our past comments without context; for all they know, Siebert and I may well think Stalinism is genocidal, we were simply providing mainstream sources that said otherwise,1 since MKuCR blames communism in toto, while individual articles (e.g. Siebert's example about the great famine in China) and majority sources tell a much different and more nuanced story — hence the complete lack of context of their 'proofs.' As for Rummel,2 he is mainstream for his democratic peace theory but a minority or controversial when it comes to Communism and estimates, which are fringe (not necessarily him, though certainly he does not represent a majority source) not in a negative way but in a descriptive way in being rejected by the mainstream scholars, although they may be relied on by some popular press authors on the Right. I ask the moderator to either intervene or that they stop making such claims.

Cloud200 believe that anyone who does not think Communism and Nazism were absolutely equal and the same is a Communist apologist. Many mainstream scholars are Communist apologists according to their absurd view. Britain and the United States are Communist apologists because they sided with the Soviets rather than Nazi–fascism in the 1930s and 1940s, even though the Soviets indeed did awful stuff during that same period.3 In fact, this is the view of the nationalist Right in post-Communism — Soviets were not equal to but worse than the German Nazis. "As it seems to reduce the responsibility of the Nazis and their collaborators, supporters and claqueurs, it is welcomed in rightist circles of various types: German conservatives in the 1980s, who wanted to 'normalise' the German past, and East European and ultranationalists today, who downplay Nazi crimes and up-play Communist crimes in order to promote a common European memory that merges Nazism and Stalinism into a 'double-genocide' theory that prioritises East European suffering over Jewish suffering, obfuscates the distinction between perpetrators and victims, and provides relief from the bitter legacy of East Europeans' collaboration in the Nazi genocide." — Thomas Kühne

1. I do not know about you, but this4 does not sound at all like apologetics.
 * Notes

2. What they failed to realize is that we are not relying on Hough, and they completely ignored the fact scholars use so many different definitions, so that much-lower estimates are because they may consider only direct deaths (e.g. Hough referred only to two years in the 1930s, while Rummel to almost the whole Soviet period), while the higher-estimates may include people who were not even born due to demographic catastrophes, therefore their argument makes no sense. They may have had a point if Hough was in the article or if we were specifically pushing for him as a mainstream source on estimates but we are not, and it does not rebuke Rummel as a minority and unreliable for estimates.

3. They indeed did, this is a fact. That does not mean Communism was worse than Nazism, or that Britain and the United States should have allied with Nazi Germany.

4. I do not know whether Genocide: A History is the work Siebert referenced to, since I could not get access to their link, but there is no way one can dismiss Rubinstein as either Communist or apologist. Davide King (talk) 02:09, 22 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Edited to add

Davide King (talk) 02:37, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

— (Fifelfoo)
This topic is shamefully in violation of coat, wp:histrs (essay IIRC), and standards of discourse. None of the synthetic claims by academics that persons kill people due to reasons have any traction in the literature. This has been twenty years of coat push by people who don't wish to advance individual articles on scholarship on the awful fucking shit done in the Soviet Union or People's Republic of China but, rather, to engage in politics that the rest of the scholarly world is utterly disinterested in. Everyone has a real interest in how the 2nd five year plan resulted in outputs ("failed" is a generally summary category)). Just because something is god damn horrific and violates your personal views doesn't meant that a few classicists publishing their hot takes constitutes a scholarly opinion.  And this is the sufficient category: do the majority of histories of the 1927-1943 crisis in soviet society privilege the racial categories so common here: no, no they don't.  Andrle.  Fitzpatrick.  Even our chaps employed by the British state don't concieve it so.  Nor should we:  This crap has gone on too long:  an article about a folk myth deserves good article status.  An article about class warfare in the soviet union deserves to have a lot of detritus removed from it.  Fifelfoo (talk) 08:15, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Double genocide theory (Cloud200)

 * I'm just going to reiterate a simple fact that I have repeatedly invoked before, and which can be easily verified by any of the participants here but has been so far ignored: you keep stating that "double genocide theory is mainstream in much of Eastern Europe", yet you have failed to provide any source to support this far-fetching statement either here, or in the lead of Mass killings under communist regimes, where this shameful WP:WEASEL and WP:POV has been on display for over a month, and which I would kindly ask to consider as my complaint on your conduct. Cloud200 (talk) 12:39, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * And no, "double genocide theory" is not mainstream anywhere in the Eastern Europe and whenever such claims are being raised usually by right-wing politicians they are promptly and correctly dismissed as Holocaust denialism and whataboutism. Also no, nobody in mainstream of Eastern Europe is "downplaying Nazi crimes to up-play Communist crimes". In reality, any Eastern European capital today has museums which are dedicated to both Nazi occupation (such as Auschwitz concentration camp museum in Poland) and communist occupation (such as Museum of Soviet Occupation, Kyiv or Museum of Communism, Czech Republic). I find it entirely possible that you were not aware that Holocaust alone took life of 6 million Jews, many of which were also citizens of specific countries (Ukraine, Poland etc) and are equally commemorated by Jewish and these specific communities, but at the same time also 2 million Polish citizens who were not Jews, 5 million Soviet prisoners of war of various ethnicities, over 200 thousands Roma people and dozens of other ethnicities. Here comes Siebert and King to mansplain to everyone that remembrance of the victims of all these totalitarian regimes that have rolled over Eastern Europe are "rightist circles" only because one ignorant scholar believes so. So one more time: you are the only people who in the whole Mass killings under communist regimes debate are in any way comparing these killings to Nazi Holocaust, which I find not only ahistorical but also deeply offensive and nonconstructive. Cloud200 (talk) 12:39, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I think this type arguments should be avoided on this page. We came here to present our rational arguments. We are expecting that our rational arguments will be rationally addressed by others, and we are prepared to accept them if their logic is correct and the facts they are based upon are valid. The argument: "I want this to be included, and other users support me" is not a rational argument: it cannot be refuted by rational means and, therefore, does not belong to this page. If those "other user" have some good counter-arguments, please, describe them: maybe, these arguments will be convincing, and I will have no choice but to accept them. However, just to claim that "other users support me, so you must bow before a majority" is exactly what our policy prohibits. In my opinion, DRN is a place where not the number of votes, but the strength of arguments matters.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:22, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The point is, However, that does not mean that any one editor has a veto on any approach simply by saying that it violates NPOV. Any editor has a right to ask that their NPOV concerns be addressed, and the community can decide on what is a neutral point of view.
 * I am concerned you have not taken on board these important comments I am aware that you are acting in good faith and are trying to improve an article that needs improvement. However, you should be aware that it looks to other editors as if you are attempting to exercise ownership in improving the article ... The appearance was that you had to be in charge... It looks as if you are trying to control the improvement of the article. I am sure that you have had your reasons each time, but the impression adds up. If you want to regain the trust of the community, it might be a good idea not to try to lead the development of an RFC, but to let it be developed at DRN. (editorialised by me) Accepting these points will help in working constructively in the development of the RfC Vanteloop (talk) 23:36, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * WRT veto, you are absolutely right. The problem is that "veto" means: "I disagree, and I will not allow you to do that, no matter what you say". Therefore, my position has nothing in common with "veto". I present quite rational arguments, and if you will address them, I will accept your point, and will never raise my (debunked) argument again, neither in a discussion with you, not elsewhere. That is my strict rule that I am trying to observe.
 * The problem is that you presented no rational arguments. You say: "You have no right of veto, you must accept what I say, because other users support me". That is not a rational argument.
 * Your references to "other users" is totally irrelevant. You literally say: "Some other users, including some admin say that #1 and #2 may coexist, therefore we must include that". However, this page is not an RfC, where we are collecting opinia. On this page, we analyze arguments. If those users bring some fresh arguments, show me them. If not, why are you referring to those opinia? If those opinia matter, why this DRN? maybe we just vote, and that's it?
 * I am perfectly aware of North8000's opinion. I respect this user, but in this concrete case, there is nothing to analyze: North8000 just says he does not see why the #1 and #2 cannot coexist, and that is the only information about his vision of the problem available to us. Why he "doesn't see it? What is his rationale? We do not know that, and that is why there is nothing here what we can discuss. If you want, you may ask North8000 to elaborate on his statement, maybe he will say something new, something that I overlooked. However, until then, please, do not refer to his opinion: that is just an opinion.
 * Therefore, please, stop referring to opinia of other users if they bring no fresh arguments: present your own arguments. We are here to analyze each other's arguments, and, possibly, to amend our own point of view if the arguments presented by another party are stronger.
 * So far, I cannot understand what I can address in your arguments: you literally say that the opinion #4 should be added because that is an opinion of some users. This argument is not rational.
 * And, importantly, you failed to address my own arguments, which are quite rational. Let me reiterate one, the most important point. If you demonstrate a logical flaw or a factual error in this my argument, I will accept your point without reservations.
 * My main argument against your #4 is as follows.
 * "''The policy does not allow us to write an article from a perspective of only one viewpoint, especially when it is not a majority view.
 * By combining #1 and #2, we de facto'' describe the facts and events from just one point of view, or at least give an undue weight to it.
 * ''It might be possible that that is ok, because the linkage between Communism and mass killings is acknowledged by majority of sources. We don't know that yet, because we haven't analyzed a representative sample of sources yet.
 * ''Therefore, if the community votes for #2, and our subsequent analysis of sources demonstrates a significant linkage between mass killings and Communism, so we automatically get #4 (without any additional RfCs). If the analysis shows no such a linkage, the article becomes a list or a neutral SS article, in a full accordance with NPOV. However, this decision will be made only after a thorough source analysis.
 * In other words, your #4 puts a cart before the horse: you are de facto'' proposing the community to endorse one POV without making sure that that POV is a majority view. That is not fully correct from a point of view of our policy.
 * '' Let me reiterate that If your #4 reflects a majority POV, then it is not needed, for #2 will automatically become the #4 after a thorough analysis of sources. If your #4 represents a minority POV, it is unacceptable, because it is POV-pushing.
 * I believe I was able to explain my main argument, and I am waiting for your logical counter-arguments. Paul Siebert (talk) 03:14, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Your argument that #4 is POV doesn’t make any sense. You say both #1 and #2 are NPOV when standalone but combined is somehow becomes POV. Let #1 = views == NPOV, #2 = events == NPOV, #4 = merge of #1 and #2 = events + views == NPOV + NPOV => POV. That's illogical. —Nug (talk) 11:12, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, Nug.
 * Consider this example.
 * 1. Race and crime is a pretty legitimate topic.
 * 2. Crime in the United States is also a pretty legitimate topic. They both are in agreement with NPOV.
 * Now, please, answer this question:
 * Would it be in agreement with NPOV to combine the first and the second articles together? Paul Siebert (talk) 16:27, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, see Race and crime in the United States. --Nug (talk) 07:19, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The first line of that page, "In the United States, the relationship between race and crime has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century. [Gabbidon & Greene (2005a:ix-x); Gabbidon & Greene (2005b:37).] Crime rates vary significantly between racial groups. Most homicide victims in the United States are of the same race as the perpetrator". It is not NPOV. ~ cygnis insignis 07:33, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * All three linked articles fit more B than A or C/D. Additionally, the lead makes it very clear that it is a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate, which is something this article never said in the long-standing lead. In fact, they are how B could look like, totally devoted to theories, narratives, correlations, etc. Any event can simply be directly linked when mentioned or through 'See also' links. Davide King (talk) 10:56, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, see Race and crime in the United States. This gave me a good chuckle, but more seriously...
 * the lead makes it very clear that it is a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate, which is something this article never said in the long-standing lead. In my opinion the current lead still needs re-writing to address this, although I don't think we'd have any luck without the RfC first. Vanteloop (talk) 15:13, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I was pinged above regarding my statement on offering the "#1 & #2 co-exist" option. I'll expand on my rationale, but want to emphasize to just take my words literally, I'm not implying for any particular choice.  So "co-exist" would mean to (to some extent) cover both instances of such killings and explore the possible cause-effect relationship between communist regimes  and mass killings.  First, co-existence is the status quo right now.  While one could argue that it is a bad idea, it's hard to imagine an RFC without offering the status quo as an option.  By my "I don't see why they can't" statement. I sort of meant that someone that is saying it's impossible would need to explain that claim. Lastly I did say that co-existence might be inevitable, but that was just a pragmatic observation given the state of affairs, not a preference. BTW I'm not really watching this, so I'd need a ping if anyone wants my 2 cents.  Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:46, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for explanation, I agree with your assessment Vanteloop (talk) 15:55, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I think Siebert's two-question proposal already allows No. 4 through No. 3, plus analysis of sources to determine weight. It is a fair compromise and does not preclude it at all (your concern), while also making sure that such a topic will not fail NPOV and WEIGHT, which is our concern. Davide King (talk) 16:39, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, to make it more clear, option No. 3 may be "either a split or merge of No. 1 and No. 2"; if there is consensus for No. 3, we will have a RfC about whether they should be split or merged (by merge, I include North8000's "co-existence"), and that will have to include source analysis to verify which of those possibilities is (1) in respect of our policies and guidelines (NPOV and WEIGHT), and (2) in respect of literature and reliable sources. I see no need for No. 4. It is better to keep the RfC simple. Davide King (talk) 16:47, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * re. The need for #4 it's hard to imagine an RFC without offering the status quo as an option. re. "Option 3 is now 'split or merge' and then if that's chosen we have a second RfC" Let's keep things simple. Note how all your arguments against #4 I am not disagreeing with, they seem reasonable and if they are strong the wider Wikipedia community should be convinced by them. Vanteloop (talk) 16:56, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I still think it would be better to have three options, but I can live with four, and I really appreciate your compliments and kind comments and behavior. I think No. 1 should be made more clear — is it about mass killings or excess mortality? Because events under Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes are universally recognized as mass killing events, or 50,000 deaths within five years, another is the Red Terror, which must be contextualized with the civil war and White Terror, and the debate about the Holodomor — other famines are not really debated, they were not mass killings), so that will limit the scope to three Communist leaders and very specific eras rather than Communist regimes (indeed, majority of sources given in support of No. 4 actually discuss those three leaders and their rulership), while excess mortality/mass deaths would be much broader. I think this has the same problem of No. 4 because most scholarly clearly distinguish between the two, but I also think the RfC should make this clear, as North8000 suggested. What do you think? Davide King (talk) 17:27, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * In my experience with you, you've always conducted yourself with civility and respect. I suspect we all could learn from that (myself included of course). Wrt your main point, I think it's an important distinction to make. I think you should also raise it at the new subpage or wherever we end up developing the RfC. I completely agree with your assessment wrt 'mass killings' vs 'excess mortality'. I will think about this more but currently I would lean towards excess mortality as that seems more in line with the article's contents at the moment. However, like I say I hope you raise this point later where it will not be as buried in this section, as it is an important one and requires the attention of all the editors involved in my opinion. Vanteloop (talk) 17:59, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your explanations. I myself agree that #4 is more a confirmation of the status quo rather than a path forward. In connection to that, I still cannot understand: in a situation when the AfD revealed severe article's problems, and the panel stressed the need of thorough source analysis to fix NPOV problems, how can we propose the community to de facto endorse the status quo (as one possible option)? Wouldn't it be tantamount to overruling the results of the AfD by means of a new RfC?
 * In addition, as I already noted, the option #2 may potentially become an option #4 if a subsequent source analysis reveals a significant connection between Communism and mass killings. Therefore, a possibility of #4 is not ruled out if it does not contradict to majority views. Therefore, #4 is an attempt to push some views irrespectivelly to what sources say. I would be interested to see your opinion on that. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The logic is simple, #4 has been suggested by a significant number of editors. The RfC should include all serious proposals in moving forward with the article. That means stated explicitly, not "#2 can become #4 and if not we have another RfC". The several arguments against #4 will be accepted by the Wikipedia community if they are sound Vanteloop (talk) 16:56, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, the RfC should include all serious proposals. Your proposal does not look serious: despite my numerous requests, you failed to provide any rational arguments, and, importantly, you are ignoring my rational arguments. The argument "other editors say so" is not rational. If "other editors" say that, and they support their opinion with some rational arguments, I would prefer to communicate directly with those "other editors". Paul Siebert (talk) 17:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I want the RfC to have legitimacy so it cannot be easily dismissed by those seeking to disrail the process, excluding a significant viewpoint flies directly in the face of that. Wanting an option to be included in a discussion =\= supporting that option. You are asking me to argue a position I don't agree with. Vanteloop (talk) 18:18, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

An important question: If option 4 was included in the RfC and the consensus was achieved for that option, would you accept that outcome User:Paul Siebert? Vanteloop (talk) 23:40, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I am not sure I have to answer this question. It de facto implies the lack of my good faith. Let's do the following: you never asked this question, and I never saw it. Deal? Paul Siebert (talk) 01:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll take that as a yes Vanteloop (talk) 07:54, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, and I'll take that as, by having asked this question, you cast a doubt on my good faith. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:33, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * you cast a doubt on my good faith No. The important thing is that we who are involved in creating the RfC know that users will respect the decision of it, otherwise we are all just wasting our time. Your response implies to me that you will accept the outcome (correct me if i'm wrong) and I thank you for that. Vanteloop (talk) 16:47, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You did. As you correctly noted, "we who are involved in creating the RfC know that users will respect the decision of it". By asking your question, you implied that you had some specific reason to suspect that I, in contrast to other users, may not respect the decision of this RfC. That is an implicit personal attack. I proposed that we both may pretend that that personal attack had never occurred, which would be the best and least painful way to stop an emerging conflict. You refused to accept this opportunity. I consider this your post as a personal attack, and I see no value in a further dialogue with you. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:48, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * That's fine, I disagree with your interpretation. The reason I asked you was because, as Robert McClenon pointed out, your behaviour wrt the development of this RfC may have been considered disruptive, and you have a history of making changes to the article in blatant disregard to consensus as I have warned you about before and for which you were warned by multiple users. There's no need to pretend a personal attack never occured, we can simply read the text and see it didn't. If another editor had asked me the same question my reply would have been simply: 'yes'. I am regarding your replies objecting to the question as the same even though you are still yet to commit to an answer Vanteloop (talk) 18:08, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Even though personally I still see No. 4 as violating our policies and guidelines per Siebert, I hope you guys do not argue over this because I would not want either of you to be thrown out; as Vanteloop have shown shown to be open minded about our arguments, I think it would be better if you could discuss this instead and work together to for a better, NPOV topic structure. And I do not doubt that Siebert is going to accept the outcome, like everyone else. In regards to Option 4, I think Siebert would be good, like I would, as long as the moderator took into account their arguments presented here, that those are legitimate concerns and not vetoes, and whether they are convinced by it, and if they have a solution to accomodate both or a better solution in general. I would respect it too. Davide King (talk) 18:22, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your thoughts, I agree this has gotten to a place that is not working towards improving the article, which I regret. (I guess this shows why not allowing us to reply to each others statements is important !) Vanteloop (talk) 18:32, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * This is why source analysis is important — we need to make sure that none of the proposed topics significantly fail our policies and guidelines (having the current structure as an option, without any source analysis on whether we can fix balance and due weight issues, essentially negates all the issues that have been highlighted at the AfD and would have resulted in 'Keep', if they were not significant enough), and you guys can do the same for mine — I am not going to say my proposed topic is supported by other users because that is not an argument and this is not a vote. For the record, we are not vetoing anything, we simply want to make sure that every proposed topic is in line with our policies and guidelines; again, you can, and are free to do so, scrutinize mine and Siebert's proposals as well. Topics must be supported by literature and not merged without source support.
 * I think Siebert's two questions proposal is a good compromise in accommodating concerns about a topic, without removing it entirely as an option in the second question. Having more than three options may also risk another 'No consensus' result which makes no one happy; following Siebert's proposal would still essentially result in both topics, if there is consensus for it and is indeed a majority POV. The bottom line is we must have source analysis to see whether majority of sources support merging the topics in the first place, or else it is OR/SYNTH on our part. The two-questions proposal seem to be the best compromise and solution for that. Davide King (talk) 11:17, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

No. 4 is essentially within the context of Communism as a single phenomenon, or Communist mass killings in general, which is done only by a minority of sources. It would not be an issue if we were allowed to discuss all views but the fact the article is within that context,1 it does not allow us to do that. Did not Nug complain that most of sources Siebert is talking about do not write within the context of Communism? I suspect that most of the sources you suggest that do not discuss those mass killings in a context of Communism are not experts on mass killings or experts in demography either. Then how can we achieve balance and due weight if such sources are not allowed because the topic is structured like this? If we can only use genocide scholars and not historians of Communism and country specialists, who represent the majority views? Davide King (talk) 11:29, 13 December 2021 (UTC) 1. As showed here by Siebert, sources remain a big issue — if Siebert is indeed correct, sources do not support No. 4 because they do not write within the context of Communism either, as it is assumed and taken for granted. How can we have No. 4 if we disagree on whether they are writing within the context of Communism or mass killings in general? Davide King (talk) 11:35, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Notes
 * Using your logic, given that the majority of sources related to communism don't actually discuss the education system in communist states, we can conclude that the idea that communist states had an education system is a minority viewpoint. --Nug (talk) 07:37, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry but that is clearly a strawman, and there is no point further discussing this, since we actually agree on the need for source analysis — therefore, whether we are right or wrong, it will be determined by that. The only way in which genocide scholars are useful is for a theory-based and -focused article, since they are theorising, finding correlations or causations, though that is not limited to Communism and can easily be done at Mass killing in a general discussion, which is what majority of them do.
 * Ironically, the only way for a NPOV article discussing both events and theories would be discussing events using country experts and specialists, and genocide scholars and other scholars for the theories, which is what I believe Siebert proposed. Yet, you do not apparently accept using country experts because they do not write within the context of Communism, or Communist mass killings in general. That is neither our fault nor theirs but totally of the article's structure that you so strongly support.
 * By the way, Crime in the United States and Race and crime in the United States only discuss the possible theories, correlations, and causations, which is what I support for this topic too; we need not to summarize the events according to a single or minority POV, when we can simply link them directly when they are mentioned or discussed in theorising, or as 'See also' links, we can simply discuss the theories, which is what your examples give. Indeed, Communist state and mass killing, singular or plural, would be a good name for such proposal, and would not preclude a section about communism in general. Davide King (talk) 10:43, 14 December 2021 (UTC)


 * A note to Moderator. It seems all active participants have already made their statements. I found some thoughts expressed by Nug, Cygnis insignis, and Davide King during the Back and Forth discussion very useful and important, and I would like to discuss it in my next statement. I would prefer to do that after Moderator has summarized this round. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:27, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Back-and-forth on and after 15 December 2021
WRT "The argument for why C must be included have been given ad nauseum by myself and other editors both here and on the talk page, so in the interest of conciseness I won't re-re-re-repeat it here." If some argument is repeated ad nauseum that means there is some problem with argumentation. Sincec the OP refuse to "re-re-re-repeat", I tried to summarise their arguments, and the only summary that I was able to make was "I insist C must be in the RfC, and other users support me" (I still don't understand what this argument is based upon). In contrast, I am proposing fresh arguments, which another party refused to address: their old arguments, which had been made before I made my new statements, are incapable to address the latter.

One way or the another, since another party resorted to !veto, that de facto means that the only option is (II). Let's start source analysis, and let's see what majority sources say about connection between "A" and "B". I suspend my participation in this DRN, and I made my first post at Dispute resolution noticeboard/MKUCR Source Analysis. Let's hope a discussion there will be more productive.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:28, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If some argument is repeated ad nauseum that means there is some problem with argumentation. That's one way to look at it...
 * WRT to !veto: Again, no editor has the right to veto an option in this RfC. Even though you may strongly disagree with an option we simply cannot work that way if we're going to make progress as has already been pointed out above. I can understand why it is frustrating but at some point we have to move forward, you can present your arguments again at the RfC Vanteloop (talk) 15:50, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Vanteloop, the difference between you and me is that I never just say "I strongly disagree". I usually say "this option is impossible, because (...)". My position is always supported by arguments, and if my arguments are refuted (of another party's arguments are stronger), I accept another party's arguments. I usually propose several options which are consistent with human logic and Wikipedia policy. I never use the right of veto, and I never claimed I have it. For example, even in this dispute I don't say "C is unacceptable without any reservations". I say "ok, if my arguments do not convince you, let's see what sources say: if they support "C", then it will be included".
 * Therefore, it was not me, but you who try to use the right of veto. Please, don't blame others of your own sins.
 * I have no hope that my arguments may persuade you, let's switch to source analysis. I stopped to post at this page until we finish the first round of source analysis.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:07, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Paul Siebert - No. Just because you think that option C is impossible doesn't make it impossible.  It only means that you think that it is incompatible with neutral point of view.  But you are not the final arbiter of neutral point of view.  It does look to me as though by saying that the burden is on me or on User:Vanteloop to persuade you, you do appear, to the moderator, to be claiming the right of veto.  It does not appear that Vanteloop is claiming the right of veto.  I have already compromised with you in deferring the RFC for a period of source analysis.  Please do not persist in saying that option C is impossible.  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:04, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * with due respect, I am reminding you that you are the Moderator, and one of the basic skill of a good moderator is to correctly summarize the arguments of each party. I never said that "C" is impossible. In contrary, in my last statement, I stressed that, although my superficial familiarity with sources suggests that it may be impossible, "C" may be quite possible if our joint analysis of sources will demonstrate a strong linkage between "A" and "B".
 * Importantly, neither (I) not (II) rules out a possibility of "C". In both cases, "C" may be implemented if our source analysis shows a strong linkage between Communism and mass killings. You totally misinterpreted my words, which is an unpleasant surprise, because you are a good Moderator.
 * I am reiterating my main argument specifically for you:
 * "The option "C" is unacceptable in the RfC, because it sets some structure that may contradict to the results of our future source analysis. I never said that the structure described in "C" is unacceptable: I am not familiar with a full set of reliable sources, and it may be quite possible that we may come to a conclusion that "C" is a correct structure. However, that conclusion can be made only after we analyzed sources. It is impossible to ask a community "Do you want "C"?" if there is a possibility that "C" contradicts to what reliable sources say, and, therefore, violates NPOV."
 * By excluding "C", we by no means rule out a possibility that the article's structure may be "C": if the community votes for "A" (as I formulated it), and our source analysis reveals that majority of authors see a strong linkage between Communism and mass killings, a subsection about Communism will be expanded, so we get the structure "A" first "B" second (exactly how it is described in "C"). However, what if the community votes for "C", but our search reveals no strong connection between Communism and mass killings? What should we do in that case? Start a new RfC?
 * I believe I explained my point clearly enough. If it is still unclear, please ask.
 * If the OP does not want to analyze and address my new arguments, I don't see how any progress can be achieved here (for the essence of DRN consists in analysing and addressing each other's arguments, imho). I think it would be more productive to move (temporarily) the discussion on the "Source" subpage that you created. I am waiting for you guys there. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:38, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * How many different people need to tell you the same thing before you would even consider the possibility that it is you who is wrong?
 * with due respect, I am reminding you that you are the Moderator, and one of the basic skill of a good moderator is to correctly summarize the arguments of each party. I believe this moderator has shown they are due more respect than that after 18 rounds, AfD, and article talk page comments. They clearly know what they're doing. I request you strike through that sentence as a gesture of good faith. Vanteloop (talk) 18:48, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If 100 people repeat the same wrong argument that does not make it more valid. If one person says: "Look, this you statement is a logical fallacy, because (...)", I will accept this argument, no matter how many people support me. You actually stopped to present any logical arguments and facts several days ago, you are just repeating that "many users" (by the way, who are they?) believe (by the way, for what reason?) that I am not right. All of that adds nothing to this discussion, it carries zero information, and I don't see what to discuss. I switch to source analysis. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:56, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I request you strike through that sentence as a gesture of good faith. Please don't ignore this. Vanteloop (talk) 19:04, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Which sentence? Paul Siebert (talk) 19:07, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * with due respect, I am reminding you that you are the Moderator, and one of the basic skill of a good moderator is to correctly summarize the arguments of each party. This one. If not for any other reason than that it damages the legitmiacy of this whole process to question the moderator's competence or good faith. Vanteloop (talk) 19:08, 15 December 2021 (UTC) updated 19:10, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * And what is wrong with this statement? Do you claim that I said that the structure "C" is impossible?
 * Everybody, including even such a good moderator as Robert, can make errors. Competence consists not in making no errors, but it a correct reaction on errors. I am sure Robert's reaction on his error will be quite reasonable, which will be a good demonstration of his perfect moderator's skills, and by no means legitimacy of this DRN will be undermined by this minor incident. In any event, if Robert wants to comment on my statement, he can do that by himself. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:14, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I am concerned if you don't think this DRN or the RfC reaches the 'right' decision you will disregard them through some twist of logic as you are threatening to the ground rule at source analysis and have done elsewhere in the past. By removing the identified sentence which insinutates the only way a moderator could disagree with you is through error or bad faith you would be demonstrating that you are able to accept the outcome, which adds legitimacy to this process. Vanteloop (talk) 19:25, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * ...and that is what you probably should strike. That has nothing in common with what I think. In general, it is not correct to assert on what some user "thinks" (that may be considered as a personal attack).
 * Furthermore, your statement is factually incorrect: my post was not about Moderator's disagreement with me (that is quite acceptable, and even desirable, for moderators are not supposed to take sides). I argued that Moderator misinterpeted my words, and I explained why and how exactly he did that. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:38, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok I'm convinced at this point explaining why you should strike that sentence isn't getting anywhere as you will continue to to resort to your favourite (fallacious) argument. Your refusal to strike is noted. Vanteloop (talk) 19:43, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * There is another reason to conclude that your statement "Just because you think that option C is impossible doesn't make it impossible" is a misinterpretation of my words. In my seventeenth statement, I included "C", which is a clear demonstration that I object not to "C", but only to its explicit two-part structure, and my rationale is clear and transparent. Therefore, it is absolutely clear that I am prone to dialogue (in contrast to the OP, who insists on their own wording without explaining their rationale). Paul Siebert (talk) 20:06, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Therefore, it was not me, but you who try to use the right of veto. Please, don't blame others of your own sins. Oh boy. I think you said it best, at this point I have no hope that my arguments may persuade you Vanteloop (talk) 16:22, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

WRT "Both not having an option C and having an option C with predefined structure are problematic." I would expand that:
 * "Not having an option C, having an option C with predefined structure, and having "A" without a discussion of Communism are problematic."

In other words, "A" also must include a discussion of a linkage of Communism and mass killings (because it is at least a minority view). And now imagine:
 * "A" discusses mass killings and, to some degree, their linkage with Communism (as a subtopic)
 * "C" discusses mass killings and their linkage with Communism; in both case, the relative weight is determined based on source analysis.

In connection to that, can you imagine a situation when a neutrally written "type A" article and a neutrally written "type C" can be different?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:49, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * More than it being a minority view, there must be a link to group such events and states, otherwise it is OR/SYNTH (as was noted by The Four Deuces); the fact that it is indeed at best a minority view shows that such an article cannot be created because we cannot write a NPOV article from the POV of minority views. While there are country experts, discussing the events and doing the "generic Communist" grouping is not a sufficient link to establish it as a topic without failing OR/SYNTH. It would be the same if we were attempting to group all fascist regimes by using a few reliable sources to categorize a regime as fascist, even though scholars of fascism do not discuss it and/or do not do such grouping, and so on for any regime type. It is not sufficient that mass killings indeed happened and the regime type was nominally capitalist, Communist, fascist, or whatever — majority of scholarly sources do not do such general grouping, do not discuss Communism, or other regime types, as a single phenomenon or Communism in general.
 * It is indeed like TFD said about Jews and Communism, an antisemitic article that they helped to delete after proving this point and its antisemitic nature — it is not sufficient that the article "should list Jewish Communists and explain their relative representation and role in Communism", or that "there [are] sources for Jewish involvement in Communism in different countries and at different times." We must have scholarly sources drawing that link for us, and they must represent a majority or mainstream position.
 * You noted it yourself, in most cases majority of sources discuss the events singularly or in grouping with different regime types (Holocaust, Cambodia, and Rwanda), only minority of sources are about grouped events by same regime types, geography (e.g. Asian genocides), etc.
 * I am referencing what you said in the AfD: (i) check how many good sources discuss, e.g. genocides in Africa as a separate category, (ii) check how many sources discuss separate African genocides in a context of different events, (iii) check how many sources discuss each genocide separately, without references to the group (i) sources. If the group iii sources are majority, there is no reason for discussing genocides in Africa as a single group. From what I have seen, Communist mass killings are discussed as mass killing in general, and in many cases are even grouped with non-Communist ones, which further proves the point. There is no such issue for the topic about theory only since sources who do those "generic Communist" grouping and discussion of Communism as a single phenomenon are indeed part of that theorising, rather than being presented as fact or consensus (as it would be, in practice, in discussing the events), e.g. I have no issue with saying "A categorizes 18 Communist states and found that ... ."
 * Yet, I see no point because even though I think such options are problematic, and there is really only one or two options, for which I am confident there will not be failure in regards to out policies and guidelines, they are just not going to be removed from the discussion. If the moderator can accept to reword option C to give more liberty on its structure (e.g. there should be no hard structure that we must adhere to, as the current wording implies), we may go ahead with the RfC. I am confident source analysis will prove what I said above about how majority of scholarly sources do not indeed discuss Communism as a single phenomenon. Davide King (talk) 20:24, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Reminder
If multiple editors misunderstand something, that may (not necessarily, but may) imply that it wasn't stated clearly. It appeared to me, and evidently at least also to User:Vanteloop, that User:Paul Siebert was stating that an RFC could not go forward with option C unless option C was substantiated by source analysis. That appeared to me to be a conditional veto. At no point did it appear that User:Vanteloop was exercising or trying to exercise a veto or a conditional veto. If Paul Siebert was not attempting to exercise a conditional veto, I suggest that they take into account that their statements may be subject to misconstruction. I have compromised, because I did not think that source analysis was required, or that it was likely to resolve the dispute. There will be an RFC on the structure of the article when the source analysis is declared to be completed. I know that User:Paul Siebert and User:Vanteloop know that neutral point of view is the second pillar of Wikipedia. I remind them that civility is the fourth pillar of Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:22, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I totally agree (and I suspect that by myself) that some of my posts may be not completely clear. Usually, the most helpful way to understand the OP is to summarise their views in your own words. That helps your opponent to better understand the points of disagreement. You summarised my position using your own words, that summary was incorrect, but it helped me to understand the main reason of misunderstanding. That is absolutely normal, and I didn't mean anything bad under "misinterpreted": that was a good faith misinterpretation.
 * I was somewhat disappointed by your post because I thought you are too perfect to misunderstand me. Now I see that no human is perfect, and even you can make mistakes. That is quite ok. Thank you for your explanations.
 * Unfortunately, all of that does not refer to the OP. I still don't understand the position of that user, and, what is even worse, I don't understand rational reasons for that position: the OP does not explain anything except "I explained that many times, and other users support me". That is a total impasse, and I think the best way would be to take a break and switch to source analysis. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:37, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * the OP does not explain anything except "I explained that many times, and other users support me".
 * I came across a comment from a user called Paul Siebert that may interest you. It reads You are repeating questions that had been already asked and answered here (and elsewhere) several times. That is a disruptive behaviour. I was hoping he would be able to join us for this discussion but it appears no.
 * Regardless, I agree we are at an impasse, and we should start the RfC. Thank you to Davide King, Nug, North8000, and especially Robert McClenon for engaging constructively on the development of the RfC. I'm glad my proposal could serve as a useful basis, even if it took a lot of collaborative effort to get there! Happy editing Vanteloop (talk) 20:43, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, the difference is quite obvious. VM was provided with the link to the RSN discussion that addresses all his questions. His next question was a demonstration that he hadn't bothered to read it. This, as well as a long talk page discussion, already addressed all his questions. That is obvious to any good faith users. In contrast, I still have no idea who those "many users" were, especially taking into account that you appeared to have incorrectly summarised the opinion of North8000 and Robert. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:56, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I haven't been following (just glancing) but would suggest that if you have an RFC with three or more choices, that you ask respondents to give their opinion on every choice. Otherwise you introduce math problems. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:40, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * User:North8000 I know what you mean, but how do you suggest doing it in an RFC ? McClenon mobile (talk) 21:48, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Robert McClenon The simplest way would be to ask every respondent to give their opinion on every choice......don't have them just pick one favorite. This would avoid the main way that these can go awry when you have three or more choices...where the majority sentiment can get split between two choices.  This would also help on a second objective, which is seeking sincere arguments vs. people voting. A more complex way would be to offer more than one (binary) question. The details of how to do that would depend on what the choices are. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:20, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Technically, it can be organized as "My first choice is "A", me second choice is "C", my third choice is "B", my fourth choice is "D"".
 * That will be very easy to summarize.
 * However, what should we do with those answers that does not fit in this format? Paul Siebert (talk) 17:58, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * My idea would be to ask them to give their opinion on every choice, not just make ranked choices.North8000 (talk) 20:49, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I am not sure that will work. It would be very hard to summarise. And, remember, since the choice between these versions is a purely a matter of taste (all of them comply with our policy), we have a true vote here (which, in this context, is pretty much ok). Keeping in mind that users very infrequently change their opinion during RfC discussions, I am not sure opinia on each version really matter. Paul Siebert (talk) 21:02, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Actually, these two approaches are not mutually exclusive. Users may answer like:
 * "''"A" is my first choice, because.that is in agreement with what I know on the topic".
 * "''"B" is my fourth choice, because it seems unacceptable.
 * Etc
 * That would make a life of the user who will be closing it much, much easier.
 * However, since it it will be definitely not me, I am not insisting. Paul Siebert (talk) 21:08, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, my recommendation would make it messier and messier / more fun :-) for the closer, but would would avoid some more severe potential problems. North8000 (talk) 02:36, 18 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I have a question. From this and that personal remarks (which looks somewhat odd, keeping in mind the obligations that we voluntarily took upon themselves), I conclude these users active. However, I see no indication that, as well as , are intentded to post anything on the Dispute resolution noticeboard/MKUCR Source Analysis page. Taking into account that there seems to be not much disagreement between me and Davide King and Levivich, I am wondering what is a point to continue this dispute?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:34, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * My second question is about the RfC. It seems we achieved some consensus, and my minor concern (which is still unaddressed) is not a big problem: it will create a problem for you guys, because it narrows the scope of the article (in the case if the community will select "B"). However, I can perfectly live with that. In connection to that, I am wondering what prevents us from starting the RfC?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:54, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree, let's start the RfC Vanteloop (talk) 16:37, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with North8000's to "ask every respondent to give their opinion on every choice", which is exactly how I envisioned my comment to be but it would be good to make it clear in the RfC so that respondents know they are free to give their opinion on every choice, and on "a second objective, which is seeking sincere arguments vs. people voting." Davide King (talk) 17:38, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment - Well, this is strange. I may not have understood what was happening, but it appeared first that User:Paul Siebert objected to going forward with the RFC until source analysis was conducted.  Preparations were made to conduct source analysis first before the RFC could go forward.  Then,  before the source analysis was conducted, Paul Siebert has said that we can go forward with the RFC.  The appearance is that Paul Siebert either changed his mind, or won an argument with himself, or was prepared to argue with someone else and found no opponent.  I am displeased that Paul Siebert has spent time by multiple volunteers asking to have a concern satisfied that turns out not to be a concern, but my primary objective is to resolve the content issue, which means to start the RFC.  I will be providing a new draft for comments to reflect the concept by User:North8000 within six hours.  After agreeing to the format of the RFC, we will start the RFC.  Robert McClenon (talk) 22:59, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Please, take my words literally. English is not my mother tongue, and, what is worse, my manner to covey my thoughts is more direct that that of most English speakers. When I say "I object", that means that I object. But if I don't say "I object", that means I by no mean objecting.
 * Can you please explain me were I wrote "I object"?
 * I would say, I wrote something directly opposite:
 * " It seems we achieved some consensus, and my minor concern (which is still unaddressed) is not a big problem: it will create a problem for you guys, because it narrows the scope of the article (in the case if the community will select "B"). However, I can perfectly live with that. In connection to that, I am wondering what prevents us from starting the RfC?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:54, 17 December 2021 (UTC)"
 * Can you please explain me how can that be interpreted as an objection?
 * Yes, I would like to do source analysis as quickly as possible, but, in a situation when there is no significant disagreement about RfC, these two processes can go in parallel. I assumed that was obvious. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:17, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * With regard to the format of the RfC, I proposed some ideas, but I wrote, absolutely unequivocally, that is up to you guys to accept or reject them. In that aspect, as well as in most other not important issues, I am totally neural. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:20, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Paul Siebert - That statement wasn't the objection. The statement that I construed as an objection was earlier.  Due to the length of the dispute, I will try to find the previous objection within 24 hours.  We are now in agreement that you want to start the RFC.  There is a new draft RFC at Dispute resolution noticeboard/MKUCR RFC 2.  Robert McClenon (talk) 23:28, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I misunderstood your previous post.
 * A discussion about RfC came to an impasse when one user started to insist on a two-part structure of "C". To resolve this issue, I proposed to start source analysis. However, another user is not insisting on the mention of the two-part structure anymore, which means my proposal was accepted. That removes the obstacle that prevented us from starting the RfC. I hadn't changed my mind, but another user changed their mind, so everything is ok now.
 * However, source analysis is still needed, because there are some issues that need to be resolved independent on the results of the RfC. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * , it is probably some mistake here: this draft contain, again, the text that may be unacceptable per our policy. If I understand the situation correctly, another party does not insist on the two-part structure "The article should consist of two sections, the first of which is A, and the second of which is B" anymore. If this variant is proposed as a draft, I obviously object, because you literally propose the community to vote for the option that contains a policy violation, which uninvolved users, who are not deeply familiar with the topic, may not notice. That is unacceptable.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:40, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Here is a quote:
 * "That is what I was objecting to. Both the phrasing that I used in my original proposal "The article should discuss both the topic A and topic B" and the alternative "The article should be an amalgamation of the topic A and topic B" are perfectly acceptable in my opinion. Vanteloop (talk) 03:23, 16 December 2021 (UTC)"
 * For me, only the second version is acceptable, but, since the OP does not insist on the first version, I conclude the problem is resolved.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:44, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Robert McClenon I believe you are referring to this section of PS's 16.1 statement where he attempted to veto what is now option C 'as a violation of policy'. Thus, @Vanteloop:'s #4 (The article should be both 1 and 2 together) is a violation of the policy, because it proposes to discuss the events predominantly from the point of view of one school of thought. We don't know yet if this school of thought represents a majority view, and there is no reason to expect the community may give an informed answer. To answer this question, a careful source analysis is needed, but the format of the RfC discussion is totally unsuitable for that. At first, he accused me of attempting to veto, then repeatedly asked me to provide the same argument and when I refused to repeat myself again said I had never provided one in the first place. But now (I assume) he has changed his mind and is happy for C to be included, so we are all in agreement. That he denies he ever objected to it in the first place is par for the course. I also don't like this delay in development but at this point my energy in constantly dealing with the behaviour of this user is low, so I propose we start the RfC before they try anything else. Both your original draft and draft following North8000's suggestions have my agreement. Since I am currently not intending on carrying on with this after the RfC I hope it's now appropriate to say it is a testament to you that you have managed to make progress out of an article most administrators wouldn't go anywhere near. If you become an administrator in the future I think WP would be better for it. Vanteloop (talk) 01:31, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If I may comment, I do not think Siebert vetoed anything. What Siebert did, as I did too, was expressing legitimate concerns about the way Option C was written, which implied a clear structure and that may have violated our policies and guidelines. Perhaps neither I or Siebert expressed this clearly, but I want it to be clear we were not vetoing anything and did not exclude an Option C. Our main concern was the way it was written, it has been addressed and accepted by everyone else, so can we please move on from this? I thought that this was solved, and that you both misunderstood each other (e.g. Siebert was expressing concerns about Option C as written, not Option C in general); they have proposed amalgamation and that has been accepted, and Siebert have been okay with it — I think this is proof they were not vetoing anything and that there was indeed a misunderstanding among both parties. It appears to be than Vanteloop and I got along much better than they with Siebert, and I hope they can get along better with Siebert too because by working together we can get great results. Again, I thought that this was solved and we moved on. Indeed, you guys changed Option B but no one has said you were vetoing anything, or perhaps that was what Siebert was referring too, but as I said there was misunderstanding — I do not think anyone here has been 'vetoing' anything, there was simply a misunderstanding, it has been solved, there is no need to accuse each other of vetoing, stone walling, and badging. I hope that this will be my last comment on this. We only need to update to amalgamation and can finally go. Davide King (talk) 02:37, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, there was a misunderstanding. It does appear that Paul Siebert was misconstrued as vetoing a proposed formulation of the RFC.  I would suggest that all editors avoid any statement that could be construed as a veto or a conditional veto, and that all editors avoid any statements that could be interpreted as implying bad faith.  Robert McClenon (talk) 05:14, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Here, Nug listed Option C as "The article should be an amalgamation of A and B", which is fine for both Siebert and I, and Vanteloop also appeared to be fine with it here, so it seems that this problem has indeed been solved and I am very thankful for it. It only needs to be updated and reflected in the drafted RfC, and we may move forward. Thanks again to everyone for solving this issue. Davide King (talk) 23:48, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The issue with Option B also appears to be solved, since Siebert said they do not have particularly problems with it, though they think it may limit too much the scope. The article should discuss the concept that links mass killings with Communism as a primary causative factor, including critiques of the concept. —Siebert The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept. —Nug and Vanteloop
 * It is not a big problem for me either, since I do not think they necessarily exclude each other, and whether it will be structure B1 or B2, it will hopefully be determined by source analysis. I also like the structure of commenting each choice, and have a separate thread for discussion, and wording such as "Please reply as to each approach, indicating whether it is acceptable, with a brief explanation." Therefore, we are very close to get the RfC done, if there are no other suggestions or wording proposal. Just one question, can the source analysis discussion be used during the RfC, or will it be put on hold until the RfC is formally closed? Davide King (talk) 00:02, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It is not a big problem for me either, since I do not think they necessarily exclude each other, and whether it will be structure B1 or B2, it will hopefully be determined by source analysis. I also like the structure of commenting each choice, and have a separate thread for discussion, and wording such as "Please reply as to each approach, indicating whether it is acceptable, with a brief explanation." Therefore, we are very close to get the RfC done, if there are no other suggestions or wording proposal. Just one question, can the source analysis discussion be used during the RfC, or will it be put on hold until the RfC is formally closed? Davide King (talk) 00:02, 18 December 2021 (UTC)


 * User:Davide King - The source analysis discussion and the RFC can both continue, and discussion in the RFC can refer to sources identified in the source analysis. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:14, 18 December 2021 (UTC)