Talk:List of anthropogenic disasters by death toll/Archive 14

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RfC: Should we include the entry on Muslim Conquests?

see box. Formerip (talk) 12:43, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Result: The material should be excluded from the article.

There were four "keep" votes and six "delete" votes. In addition, one editor appeared to be siding with "delete", although they made their comment outside of section for voting.

There were two main arguments for removing the material. Firstly, it was doubted that the source used supports the claim made in the article. It seems to me that this is a legitimate concern, which is not fully met by WP:AGF. The citation does not include a page reference, making the material difficult to verify. Looking at previous discussions, there seems to be an awareness among editors that the source does not directly say what our article says, but that some interpretation (albeit, perhaps an uncomplicated interpretation) is required. However, it does not seem clear to me that any editor has actually been able to access the source in order to check it (there may be an issue of WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT involved here). In this context, I don't think it easy to be sure that no OR or Chinese whispers have been involved in the conversion of the source to material for the article. Particularly given the contentious nature of the material and its significance within the article (because of its Top of the Pops derived presentation), I think concerns over its general reliability should be taken into account. An alternative view might be taken that the burden lies with anyone wishing to challenge the material, but I don't think this would be correct because it would go against WP:BURDEN and because verifiability does not guarantee inclusion: anything can be removed from WP if there is consensus to do so.

The second argument for excluding the material was that it categorises a period of Indian history of over 500 years under "wars and anthropogenic disasters", and that this may be a mis-categorisation. This was the most common view in the RfC, and even found some cross-party agreement. On the other hand, it was pointed out that some other items in this may be similarly questionable. This is a reasonable argument, but I am not persuaded that it entirely meets the objection. Firstly, it is akin to WP:OTHERSTUFF. I can't really close the RfC by observing that there may be other problems with the article and saying "so anything goes". Secondly, I'm leaning in favour of arguments made in the discussion that the Muslim conquest period appears more disparate than anything else in the list. Not only does it span a long time-period, but it also brings together various conflicts in various places involving various actors which are only really unified by all involving Muslims. There was discussion of whether the period is treated as a coherent topic in sources. This was inconclusive, but in any case I don't think it would be enough if it were, because it would really be required that sources treat the period as a single ongoing war or anthropogenic disaster.

Because participation in the RfC was low, it might have been possible to close as "no consensus". However, I am swayed by weighing the significance of the material to the article against the facts that the sourcing appears at least questionable and that the material itself may be considered to fit awkwardly. I think this allows me to go with the numerical majority.

To editors wishing to see the material included, I would suggest that this might be achieved by firstly providing a clearer explanation of how the source supports the material than has been given to date and, secondly, by working to re-structure the article so that it is clearer that oranges are being compared to oranges and apples to apples.

Should the entry on the Muslim conquest be kept or should it be removed? --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 16:27, 5 July 2014 (UTC) Time stamp changed

This RfC is for input regarding the inclusion of the first entry under this section, on Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent.

The entry in question was first removed in May, and then has been added and removed a lot of times. A number of discussions were started: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. The most active are number 1, 3 and 7. The arguments were put forth, and some are still standing. An editor of one side has not yet addressed the concerns raised by the other side due to they being busy in real life. --16:38, 5 July 2014 (UTC) Time stamp changed

Keep or Remove

  1. Keep, with caveat It's a tough call. On the one hand, most of the arguments that have been made against the inclusion on the basis of the sourcing wander well into the area of original research, formulating complicated (and for Wikipedia purposes, mostly non-germane) arguments about why his methodology has failed to capture the situation accurately, rather than addressing the source on any grounds of its viability as regards WP:RS or any other policy that actually governs verifiability (vs. "truth"). All of that being said, I think the table, and the article in general, invite these kinds of disagreements; the one argument that has been made by those against the inclusion of this entry that has some traction derives from the fact that the decision to roll the various constituent conflicts into one and treat them as a single over-arching topic is one that is always going to be immediately assailable as arbitrary. This is really an issue that can be raised for a good number -- probably a majority -- of the entries on the list. I do appreciate that if this article is to exist at all (and I think it's hard to argue against it having a strong encyclopedic purpose) that reasonable distinctions have to be made based on how historical record, research, and literature categorize these topics, but contributors on both sides of particular issue need to at a minimum acknowledge that in a scenario like this, how these topics are divided up in general often comes down to a lot more editorial discretion than is ideal, owing to the lack of secondary sources which compile such a list in any encyclopedic fashion that we can lean on for these distinctions. But keeping these reasonable concerns in mind, the topic is one which is treated by sources as a composite historical period of warfare and the source in question from which the specific figures are derived does more than meet the requirement of a reliable source. If those opposed to that author's interpretation of the topic can find valid sources that question his conclusions are welcome to present them and if they are found viable they can be added to balance the tone of our own content.
In the meantime, I agree that there seems to be some suggestion of meat or sock-puppetry at work here, which should be looked into. And on a last note, it has been suggested above that part of the problems in sourcing here derive from the fact that there are very few quality anglophone works of scholarship on the subject, so I remind every one that there is no requirement that a source be in english -- we do prefer, for the obvious usefulness to the bulk of our readers, to have and English source confirming all claims, but when it's simply not a possibility, that doesn't void the claims made in quality sources of other languages. Snow talk 03:43, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
The concerns raised have already been addressed. The source cited does not mention what is portrayed in the list, which straightaway calls for removal. The arguments which have been put forward are pretty straight forward and can easily be realized by the way of common sense. (Although the bullets under point no. 4 may not be relevant, the rest is). And then, I completely disagree that the topic is one which is treated by sources as a composite historical period of warfare. It fails DUE and FRINGE, as explained in the diff. It is not even a single period of warfare. A pinch of salt in an ounce of sugar does in no way make it an ounce of salt. If a similar argument was to apply, 60+ wars have involved US in 225 years, so there is a 225 year period of conflict in the US. The fact that (assuming) some source exists does not warrant inclusion, as too explained in the diff.

Number of Google results for X's conquest of the Indian subcontinent shows more results for X=Lodi, etc than X=Muslim. Coming across sources in other languages is nevertheless, difficult, hence we need an expert in the field.

Regarding socks, the outburst is fortunately over now. I hope I have addressed your arguments. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 18:55, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Well clearly you feel those concerns have been addressed, but I did in fact read that section before commenting and I wasn't convinced on the strength of those arguments. You say that you completely disagree that the topic is one which is treated by sources as a composite historical period of warfare -- so is it your assertion that the source cited (Lal) does not make this case? Because, that seems to be exactly his position. You also argue the position is a fringe one given undue weight, but the author of the source in question is a respected mainstream authority on the history of the region and the source itself apparently a highly regarded one. You compare the assessment that considers these various events as a joint topic to other periods of warfare that could be so-combined and aren't, but this is an argument steeped in original research; of course you and I might divide the historical record up differently, but on Wikipedia we don't utilize the perspectives of our editors but rather report those of valid sources. If we had a source which treated those 60+ wars as one uniform period of conflict bound together by a common thread, it would be admissible content in exactly the same manner. And, frankly, if we were having this conversation anywhere else, and were discussing our own perspectives on these historical events, I'd probably be a lot more amenable to your perspective that there is a little bit of an artificial conflation going on here. But taking my own perspective out of the matter and assessing this content as a Wikipedian looking for consistency with WP:V and WP:N, I think the way the source has been implemented is policy-consistent. And it's not the first nor the last time I will have to live with that manner of dissonance between my general outlook on a subject and how to treat it in my approach for this project. Snow talk 23:46, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
I disagree that the topic is one which is treated by sources as a composite historical period. But I agree that the topic is one which is treated by this one source as a composite historical period. The author may or may not be a respected or mainstream, but simply more mainstream authors consider the period as fragmented. Take for example, Our pasts II, a history school textbook which covers the concerned period of time. We are not going to find Muslim conquests but independent conquests by the various rulers. This can also be judged from the excerpt in the diff. The book is published by a body of the Indian government and is thoroughly researched, which naturally makes it more reliable than reasearch of an independent author (not citable, but trustworthy). That is the reason why I am arguing that the author's views are not mainstream. As far as the term "Muslim Invasion" is concerned, this book considers the period upto 750 CE only. This book considers the 13th century rulers as Sultanates. More sourced exist that give distinct coverage to the events in these five centuries.

As for the US remark, sources do exist, though they may not be reliable. Regarding the wording of the statement, the book is not accessible for me, but I have a vague remembrance that I read somewhere what I said in the diff under point 3; anyway that's another thing. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 19:19, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that's still original research. You are presenting sources which do not in any way discount or even directly address Lal's perspective; just because the authors happen to discuss several different eras which happen to fall within the period the process Lal references doesn't mean the authors would automatically agree with your assessment that there was not a wider definable historical trend, process, or era at work -- that's an assumption on your part which, again, is quite definitely original research. Consider another entry on this list - theSecond Sino-Japanese War; some historical work treats (and refers to) this conflict as an element of World War II, while others consider it more in its own context, but the fact that one source might refer to military engagements in this conflict while discussing the broader conflict of War War II without specifically mentioning the label of the Sino-Japanese War does not suggest that said source is supporting (or attempting to support) the notion that it wasn't a war in its own right that would be of historical significance regardless of the nature of the broader conflict, nor is a source treating the Sino-Japanese conflict as its own war necesarily arguing that the war was in fact a distinct phenomena from World War II -- in both cases, the source is simply discussing the topic in a different context and this does not in itself in any way suggest opposition to a different outlook or that the two perspectives are mutually exclusive in any way. Even better parallels can be found in scholarship on the crusades -- each of these conflicts had its own unique players (in terms of individuals, states and cultures), but they are considered a composite subject and if one source were to be concerned largely with just the First Crusade and made minimal or even no mention of the larger context, we wouldn't then treat that source as providing evidence that the crusades should not be considered a composite historical era. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; that is, that fact that a general school textbook and references that do not even concern the time period in question from two other sources do not directly support Lal's position does not mean there is no such thing as support for Lal's position, nor that there is outright opposition to it - either in those sources or broadly.
As to your U.S. parallel, you are welcome to try to introduce such a change on the matter of those events and their sources if you like -- though I rather assume you were just using that scenario as a rhetorical device and that you're aware it stands no chance of passing muster for inclusion here -- but in any event, it's not relevant to how we assess the content and sources for the present issue -- that's WP:OTHERSTUFF thinking -- and I'm afraid that I still see no policy reason to exclude Lal's estimates or perspectives. Frankly, I think there is only one argument that you can hang your hat on here that is going to get you any traction -- "extraordinary claims require extraordinary sourcing" and that's really more of a matter that speaks to the specific figures he gives and less so the distinction he makes in how he divides historical eras and processes. Again, allow me to reiterate that I don't necessarily disagree with your arguments as regards actual historical interpretation, but you'll need better sources and a better policy argument that doesn't build off of original research before I can shift my opinion as to how we should be treating this entry. Snow talk 03:14, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Citing sources or comparing their magnitude and reliability is not OR. Sources like Our Pasts II outright and explicitly disregard the view point. Anyway if the argument about the mutual agreement/disagreement is applicable to the cited sources, the same argument also applies to Lal. (Does he deny the fragmented version of history? It's an assumption too.) If the magnitude and reliability of sources treating the period as fragmented greatly exceeds that treating it as single conflict, it does not even qualify as a significant viewpoint to talk about mutual agreement in the first place

The SSJW has a lot of reliable sources which well document the war from both the perspectives, and both the perspectives can coexist without cutting any corners. Talking about whether to include it separately or as a constituent of WW2 is well outside the scope of this RfC. The crusades, though more similar, are yet different in multiple aspects. First, "The Crusades were military campaigns sanctioned by the Latin Roman Catholic Church..." whereas what we have in this case is a dozen different dynasties, from different parts of the world who conquered the place at different times. Second, the crusades had a clear common objective of conquering Palestine for "...restoring Christian access to holy places..." whereas in this case, there is no specific common ground apart from the fact that most conquerors were Muslim from the religious point of view.

Regarding more sources, I do not have much time to scourge for more, I hope the email turns up some. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 15:15, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Delete - Too much controversy to keep in a list. There have been too many trips to the drama boards already. Let's take this out of a list and leave in it in article and let wiser and more rational people work it out. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:35, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
I must say, that's a novel rationale. The entire point of this RfC is to find a durable consensus for this article, one way or the other. If you have no interest in that then why even comment? GraniteSand (talk) 03:53, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps, you may at least want to cite views already expressed in previous discussions for clarity. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 09:19, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment - As MapRoom notes, a series of wars over half a millennium is not a single disaster. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:44, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Delete for two reasons.
  1. A series of wars, spread over 500 years and interspersed with other wars, should not count as a disaster.
  2. In the article Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, which is about the only source cited, it is said that the author Lal regards the figure given as a "tentative estimate". I do not myself have access to the book. I hope someone who does can comment further.
I disagree that the involvement of socks has any relevance. I also disagree with deleting content just because it is controversial. Maproom (talk) 12:10, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Maproom (talk) 12:10, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Delete per Maproom. We shouldn't remove things because they're controversial or unpopular. However, this gives a strong impression of being unreliable, and that's an excellent reason for removal. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:08, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Impression? Could you elaborate? GraniteSand (talk) 03:33, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
I agree with maproom. I have formed an impression on the basis of the argument maproom advances, which is that inclusion of this material is a fringe position - neither the figure itself, nor the idea that the 'event' it is tied to is really a single coherent event, have any widespread support. I'm really not prepared to get into nit-picking arguments about this. AlexTiefling (talk) 11:44, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Keep per previous discussions and comments by GraniteSand and Snow Rise. This article includes a diverse range of highly controversial estimates, such as a widely discredited high estimate of 100,000,000 for the 400+ year colonization of the Americas, which would be mainly referring to disease even if it were remotely accurate; yet there is only one entry on the list which has attracted such a highly disruptive pattern of drive-by editors calling for deletion. In truth, even something as seemingly noncontroversial as World War 2 has merely been agreed upon by academic consensus; only a small fraction of the death toll is accounted for by soldiers fighting on the battlefield--as opposed to deliberate mass murders by the Nazis, Soviets, and Imperial Japanese--and elements of other wars, such as the civil war in China, are included. To be frank, it is difficult for me to assume good faith when the deletionists are so obviously grasping at straws--from Fauzan's original research and spectacularly ludicrous blogpost denouncing US foreign policy to Robert McClenon's argument that controversial material should be blanked as a matter of policy, from AlexTiefling's inexplicable "strong impression" to Maproom's comment on Lal's use of the commonplace "tentative" qualifier. Previous discussions resolved to include this material with appropriate qualifiers such as the period of time elapsed, but there is no serious argument whatever that the source is reliable and not fringe.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:31, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
    Here are a few of the very thick "straws"! I don't want to copy paste all of it all over again here, and I have explained my arguments in the subsequent lower comments also as to why it fails due, etc. Regarding the "ludicrous blogpost", I don't know how it denounces US foreign policy, but I had found it on a cursory glance on search results showing some estimates, and it does cite sources in the end. I am sure more solid sources are available, but that's not the pressing issue currently. And the reason why this has attracted these "drive-by editors" is because more editors have second thoughts on the issue which warrants a discussion. And keep AGF, it keeps things running smoothly! --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 11:40, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Delete --- Just because one historian decides that 550 years of "Muslim conquest" are a war doesn't mean it is. It's still a fringe theory. This might best addressed through the Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. There needs to be several people arguing the same thing (and not just on this talk page) for it not to be a fringe theory. Second, I would like to see the exact quote from the text of this source to see whether the author actually portrays the Muslim conquest as a single war. Again though, even if she does, she seems to be the only one out there saying that it is the largest in human history (which she just so happened to discover). To me this is clear fringe theory. This is also a sensitive topic since Muslim-Hindu violence is ongoing in India and arguments and "facts" like this one are often played up to elicit certain emotions in people.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 12:34, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
She is actually he. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 16:09, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
Just to be clear, for you, the entry is not listed as a war and no such assertion is made here. GraniteSand (talk) 20:24, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Delete. We cannot possibly justify inclusion of such a claim based on a single source. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:41, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Keep, unless we also remove other long term and/or non-continuous entries which amount to series of related events/conflicts (e.g. Mongol conquests, European colonization of the Americas, Human sacrifice in Aztec culture, Human sacrifice in the Shang dynasty, Soviet crimes 1917–1953, etc). Despite the longer period of time involved, this is no less of a distinct anthropogenic event than several other entries found in this article. --Philpill691 (talk) 20:07, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Keep, but - The problem I would address isn't restricted to this entry, but includes quite a few of them. I guess you're assuming your readers can figure out that the statistics given are often not very reliable, but I think you ought to add some disclaimers to your introductory paragraph. These estimates cover many different periods and conflicts of many different sorts. For periods like the "Muslim conquest of India" there are no real statistics, only guesses by scholars. Even for periods for which there are good statistics estimates of death tolls seem to vary enormously. It might be desirable to add links to articles on how historical statistics are developed. As for inclusion of "meta-events," this is only one of several in the table. It is the longest-duration one, but the "European colonization of the Americas" comes close, and is equally subject to criticism as involving numerous different attacks by different agents at different periods. If you're going to include these, the slave trade certainly should be added to the table; there are plenty of statistics on it. Wallace McDonald (talk) 03:20, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
  • It should be removed considering the following:
    • We cannot come to a conclusion that it is the mainstream view – important sources like the textbook which discuss the period do not mention any "conquest" at all. Others attribute different terms and time periods. So WP:DUE/WP:FRINGE here.
    • The cited source may not be mentioning it explicitly, as I said above. The editor who first included the entry will be knowing what is explicitly stated, so should provide excerpts to clarify. WP:SYNTH here.
    • For being on top of the list, we need some extraordinary sources to support rather than an indirect passing mention. WP:REDFLAG here
    • Other than that, WP:IDL that the entire half a millennium of conquests by different dynasties is lumped into one without any basis for commonality. Also, mere existence of sources should not be a criterion for inclusion as explained in an above section. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 17:26, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Do other death toll estimates for the Muslim conquest of India exist?--Wikimedes (talk) 00:58, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Not that I can point to. I've done some serious scouring of Anglophone internet sources and come up largely empty or abut a pay-wall. I don't have access to JSTOR anymore but that would be an excellent start. My local library hasn't tuned up much but I'm just getting started and the demographics of my city lend themselves to 5,000 copies of the latest Clive Cussler and not much on Medieval Indian/Turkic/Arab history. There's serious and lengthy scholarship on the issue in Hindi, Urdu and other common languages in the subcontinent. Both Imperial Britain's prescription against scholarship which held the potential to incite division among its colonial subjects and the post-colonial turn of the West's attention away from India has left English speakers bereft of much of the region's serious history. Fauzan is a native Urdu speaker, I assume he's Pakistani, so if he's willing to do the leg work he might be able to help. I'm sure some editors at the India WP who read Hindi or any other Sanskrit language may have a lead on sources as well. That's the best I can do while I wait for some academic works to come in and/or reach more affordable prices. GraniteSand (talk) 04:36, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Well, it bothers me that in the 40+ years since Lal made his estimate, no historian, demographer, etc. seems to have found the field compelling enough to try to reproduce his results or come up with their own estimates. It's difficult to determine where this falls on the spectrum of "widely accepted", "substantial minority opinion", "fringe", or "ignored". It doesn't really seem to fit any. I would feel more comfortable with inclusion if a couple more historians had seen fit to make an estimate so that it could at least be established as a substantial minority opinion. Non-English sources are not ideal, but they are acceptable. (Fauzan wants to take the entry out, so it's not really his responsibility to find sources to support keeping it in.)--Wikimedes (talk) 07:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Were the field to be sourced by a single source I'd be first in line to agree. In this instance, though, it's no that the parameters of the incident are sourced by a single scholar; instead it is that the cumulative death toll is. That the Muslim invasion of the Indian subcontinent is widely regarded as a topic is without a doubt. Therefor it is only the actual sum stat that is sourced in isolation. Bearing that in mind that the nature of the article lends itself to this situation, most entries and statistics are carried by a single source because such information is largely parochial. To remove entries with stats bearing only a single source for a specific statistic would be to delete almost the entirety of the article. I'd also say agree that it is not incumbent on Fauzan to find sources. Still, his conduct up to this point has suggested that he's more interested in finding a resolute outcome that is both truthful and complainant than wining an "argument" here. Whether or not he dedicates any of his personal time is entirely up to him and I have no expectations. Nonetheless, I have no reservations in assuming good faith on his part. GraniteSand (talk) 07:49, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
I would suggest that we should tighten the inclusion criteria accordingly, and only allow things in this list for which at least two reliable sources have made death toll estimates for roughly the same period of time. The other problem is, this is not a list of "Historical periods when people died (due to violence, or natural causes precipitated by bad policies, or where the overall population dropped due to a combination of factors), by death count" - it is a list of wars and anthropogenic disasters - 500 years of conquest by a diverse group of invaders is certainly not a war and it can hardly be called a single "anthropogenic disaster". Otherwise, we would start adding things like "European conquest of Africa" and "Homosapiens genocide of the neaderthals" and "Roman conquest of Europe" etc. It really makes no sense to compare a war like WWII to 500 years of Indian history. I think we need to look at several different elements in this list with a sharper eye, and tighten the inclusion criteria significantly. One key thing should be two separate reliable sources giving death estimates for roughly the same event. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:56, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
It might be good to have 2 (or 3) reliable sources as a necessary but not sufficient criterion for inclusion - fringe theories often have more than one adherent. On the other hand, there may be events widely recognized as a disaster with only a single death toll estimate, with that estimate also being widely accepted (I can't think of any off the top of my head), so I'm a little leery of making a hard and fast numerical rule. Also we should be wary of wp:citation overkill. A single citation in the article (or one each for the high and low estimates) is sufficient as long as they're representative of a wider body of scholarship.
The list has moved beyond things that are widely considered to be disasters to be more of a "list of historical events where a lot of people were killed by other people". I'm not sure whether the answer is to pare down the list or rename to the article to expand its scope, though renaming would likely be beyond the scope of this RfC.--Wikimedes (talk) 01:48, 11 July 2014 (UTC)


I have sent an email to AnSI, PACC and MOC(Ind) for information about sources and the classification of the period, as coming across sources is difficult. I will post here if I get any response. Anyway, I am not a Pakistani! --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 16:46, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
Email

Bcc: <info@pacc-ca.org>, <info@nationaheritage.gov.pk>, <hohq@ansi.gov.in>
Subject: The Indian subcontinent in the period 1000 CE-1500 CE

Sir/Madam

I want to know the classification of the period between 1000 CE and 1500 CE, and the changes in the the population of the region during that time.

Is the period better classified and known as "Muslim conquest", or as separate fragments as Ghaznavid period, Delhi Sultanate, Timur period, the Mughal Empire, etc. Also, are there any estimates about the causalities among the different parties during this period?

I would be thankful if you can also provide citations from published books and/or websites for reference.

Regards,
Fauzan

While I applaud your proactiveness, I hope you are aware that only the sources they provide will be of use to us here, and only if they pass muster as reliable sources themselves; the correspondence itself will certainly not be usable for citation. In any event, it's definitely an above and beyond attempt to find additional information and I hope it will yield something of use to us here. If any sources they provide turn out to be non-English in nature, don't hesitate to mention them anyway; translation is always a possibility. Snow talk 03:27, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
I am not getting a reply. Hence we only have the single source supporting the view, and multiple sources not supporting it. This is only regarding sources, there are are also other points which do not support the inclusion. I am not finding any counter reason that supports the entry. As of now, again, I feel no obligation in maintaining the entry, unless it is established that the viewpoint is mainstream. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 10:03, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Could you clarify what you mean by "multiple sources not supporting it"? GraniteSand (talk) 10:21, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
By "not supporting", I mean that a different viewpoint; that the period is fragmented and is not a single period of conflict; is provided. I am unable to find sources supporting Lal's views, so, as of now, we don't have another source. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 21:40, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
You have not provided any sources that specifically criticize Lal's work, or even discuss it. Instead, you have cited sources (like an Indian school textbook that covers the individual conflicts) which are irrelevant to this dispute and used them to justify your own original research.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:37, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
That is the problem, I did not find any reliable sources that discuss the work. Why do you think the sources are irrelevant? The book discusses the period in question in and out, and yet it does not include a reference to the conflict. The text book has been developed by dozens of academicians, and is published by a body of the Indian government and is enough to determine the reliability and established viewpoints. The other two books are in disagreement with Lal's book with respect to the time period and relevance of terms like "Muslim invasion". Can you clarify what original research you are referring to here? Anyway WP:OR does not apply to talk pages discussions. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 15:06, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
Speaking as a non-expert just passing through, I'm inclined to side with the view that it is lumping together too many disparate events. As others have said, it involved a lot of separate invasions by separate entities acting for separate reasons, over a very long period of time. On top of that, a lot of these entities were invading other places at the same time. Not only that, some of these entities (e.g. the Mongols) were either not wholely Muslim and/or only became so some time after their invasions began. As such, both "Muslim conquests" and "of the Indian Subcontinent" seem rather arbitrary groupings. It seems to me to be like lumping together, say, the Timur and the Ottoman Empire into a "Muslim invasions of Europe", or post-Constantine Roman Empire and the Crusades into a "Christian conquests around the Mediterranian", or pre-Islamic Turk and Mongol invasions into "Tengerist wars in Eurasia". Iapetus (talk) 10:38, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
You're absolutly right, for editors to do that would be original research, but we have reliable sources, not editors, treating these as over-arching historical events. The Muslim conquest of Sicily, for example, was just on the front page yesterday. The Muslim invasion of the Indian subcontinent is treated by many reliable sources as a historically contiguous event and Lal has provided an estimation of the demographic consequences of that event. GraniteSand (talk) 23:18, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Suggestion for a section on likely threats, including climate change

Anthropogenic climate change has the potential, per mainstream sources, to surpass just about everything on this list. Mentioning this is entirely fine per the 3rd sentence of WP:CRYSTAL: "It is appropriate to report discussion and arguments about the prospects for success of future proposals and projects or whether some development will occur, if discussion is properly referenced." It would also be a really good way of educating members of a public too often steeped in denialism; see this nauseating report. Thoughts? --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 03:20, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Events that have not happened would seem to be outside the scope of this article.--Wikimedes (talk) 04:28, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
Whether they are or not is up to us, as editors. Something that experts say is going to happen, and the only question how much and exactly how soon -- and that is unprecedented in recorded (and perhaps unrecorded) history -- might be worth a few choice words. Climate change is a big, big, big deal, and at some point -- assuming WP lasts long enough -- it will appear on this list. Why not mention that expert consensus is that it's going to? If doing that educates readers (maybe even to the degree that it decreases the extent of the disaster), how is that a bad thing? --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 05:52, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
May be we can include some section like "Future/Predicted anthropogenic disasters" which would include events like climate change, asteroid impact, etc. provided RS exist. --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 07:04, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
In spite of Middle 8's quote, it does seem to fall afoul of WP:Crystal. But, since we are considering including hypothetical situations, what do reliable sources estimate the number of future deaths due to AGW to be?
Off the top of my head, I can think of several other possible events that would be included in a list of hypotheticals: release of a weaponized pathogen (probably several estimates), any number of nuclear reactor accidents, nuclear terrorism events by strength and type of device as well as location, a full scale nuclear war (killing everyone), limited nuclear exchanges, potential casualties from likely wars (Russian involvement in Ukraine springs immediately to mind, but there are probably dozens of other potential conflicts that some military expert has predicted casualties for). I suppose it depends on what reliable sources can be found.--Wikimedes (talk) 08:58, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
If included, such events will be numerous and will have a very big difference in lower/higher estimates. We can add a sentence in the lead, "Future events like climate change, asteroid impacts, etc. are expected to cause widespread destruction". --Fauzan✆ talk✉ mail 12:52, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
@Wikimedes: Agree, it depends entirely on RS, which is what makes the difference between running afoul of WP:CRYSTAL or not. The climate change genie is already out of the bottle, so it's no longer a hypothetical in that sense; its consequences are widely expected to be bad, the only questions cited among RS being how bad and how soon. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 23:10, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Iraq, Afghanistan

How convenient for wikipedia to leave out the millions killed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and Afghanistan. Also couldn't help but notice that Mao, and Polpot were blamed for the Chinese, and Camdodia reforms, yet there is absolutely 0 mention of western responsibility in the Viet Nam, and Korean war, both started by the west. — Preceding unsigned comment added by G4534534534 (talk • contribs) 10:09, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

You may wish to take another gander at the article. Afterwards, if you're feelings especially ambitious, you may also want to read some of the actually reliable sources mentioned in the article concerns the statistics on those supposedly missing entries. Good luck and make sure to take breaks as needed. GraniteSand (talk) 21:44, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Holocaust

Why, considering the Holocaust is adding to the WW2 figures, is the holocaust a seperate event? Uhlan talk 07:47, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

It's often treated by reliable sources as a separate event, distinct from the overall war effort. Somewhat incongruously, it's also often clumped in with overall WWII death toll figures. Considering these circumstnaces I think it is appropriate to include an individual entry and a notation when Holocaust figures are included in larger entries for the war in general. GraniteSand (talk) 08:31, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
It seems likely that the Holocaust would have occurred regardless of the progress of WWII, so I agree it shoukd be a separate event. But that does make it questionable whether it shoud be part of the WWII total.D A Patriarche, BSc (talk) (talk) 20:37, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
Given that the Holocaust is the most famous example of genocide, and is in fact the event for which the word was coined, the Holocaust should be kept as a separate entry. As long as a number of reliable sources include the Holocaust in the total WWII death toll, the table should too, and the current note explaining the situation should be sufficient.
On a technical note, the vast majority of Nazi killings occurred after the invasion of Poland, especially after Operation Barbarossa, and the vast majority of these occurred in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe, so the death toll of the Holocaust would likely have been much lower without WWII.--Wikimedes (talk) 06:03, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
In strict terms, historical events should be grouped according to time, geographical context and by those who are responsible for them, ideally by all three simultaneously. So if the events grouped by the term 'Holocaust' happened at the same time, in the same geographical context and were perpetrated by the same people, then there is no logical reason to treat them as a separate events from WWII. In fact, the term 'Holocaust' was coined specifically to single out the Nazi massacres against people of Jew affiliation, either religious or ethnic, leaving out other groups that were also targeted such as Gypsies. So this term obviously has a political bias toward the point of view of an specific group of people and in no way qualifies as a serious historiographical distinction. The unnecessary duplicity of casualties, requiring a special note to explain it, should be an obvious indicator of this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.201.38.38 (talk)

Black Death?

The lede of the anthropogenic hazard article says "Anthropogenic hazards or human-made hazards can result in the form of a human-made disaster. In this case, anthropogenic means threats having an element of human intent, negligence, or error; or involving a failure of a human-made system" (emphasis added)

Given that the Black Death appears to have been spread by merchant shipping, and killed almost half of Europe and about 15% of humanity extant at the time, it might warrant a mention here. Thoughts?

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 17:21, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Death toll from Anthropogenic Global Warming?

By using the term "anthropogenic disasters" we must include anthropogenic global warming. The anthropogenic global warming disaster will progressively worsen, so we might as well include it now.

The WHO is counting. And other NGOs and groups are scrambling for good data.

"Climate-change disasters kill around 300,000 people a year..." [1] LONDON — Climate-change disasters kill around 300,000 people a year and cause about $125 billion in economic losses, mainly from agriculture, a think-tank led by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan reported Friday.

Climate Change Analysis Predicts Increased Fatalities from Heat Waves "From 1987 to 2005, Chicago experienced 14 heat waves lasting an average of 9.2 days, which resulted in an estimated 53 excess deaths per year. In the future, the researchers calculated that excess mortality attributable to heat waves to range from 166 to 2,217 per year. According to the researchers, the projections of excess deaths could not be explained by projected increases in city population alone. The exact change due to global warming in annual mortality projections, however, is sensitive to the choice of climate model used in analysis." [2]

Also other links. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/climate-change-deaths_n_1915365.html http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/killer-heat/files/killer-summer-heat-report.pdf http://mic.com/articles/21419/climate-change-kills-5-million-people-every-year http://www.parncutt.org/model.html Rpauli (talk) 04:21, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Since global warming is a progressively worsening condition, it may be time to assemble data and track some of the effects

One difference is that items on this article has listed disasters that are essentially point sources. Wars and famine are local. Even a regional calamity is a small subset of a global devastation. This is to suggest that it may be time for a stand alone entry "Current estimate of death toll from anthropogenic global warming" This will, of course, have plenty of room for argumentation - for instance, when changing climate permits the incursion of the malaria mosquito to the Northern US or Canada and many deaths result, that may be labeled an indirect cause of death. Whereas a heatwave will most certainly be direct. But both are caused by anthropogenic global warming.

Article Signs of "anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) are all around us now, evident to anyone willing to see them." http://truth-out.org/news/item/28864-species-extinctions-human-chronic-disease-on-the-rise-as-climate-disruption-mounts "A recent survey of members of the American Thoracic Society, which represents 15,000 physicians and medical professionals involved in respiratory and critical care medicine, found that they are already seeing dramatic health effects in their patients that they believe are linked to ACD. An overwhelming 89 percent of the health-care professionals agreed that ACD is occurring, 65 percent of them said ACD was relevant to patient care, and 77 percent said they have already seen an increase in chronic diseases related to air pollution."

"A report published in the National Academy of Sciences by a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher warned that ACD might give you intestinal worms: Rising sea levels around coastal river deltas could lead to increased prevalence of flukes that can cause infections and internal organ inflammation if ingested by humans."

"Another recent report, this one from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, listed seven ways ACD can kill you, from deadly bug bites, to respiratory and asthma problems, to lack of water."

"Furthermore, the World Health Organization already estimates that ACD will cause at least an additional 250,000 deaths per year around the globe between 2030 and 2050." 


— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rpauli (talk • contribs) 20:30, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
While I agree in principle to an entry on deaths that have been caused by anthropogenic global warming, we need a (or preferably a few) reliable source(s) that actually estimate a death toll. Of the links above, I believe only this one provides an estimate. However, this source is self-contradictory and does not appear reliable. The headline reads "Climate Change Kills 5 Million People Every Year", but the article states that climate change was estimated to kill 1.01 million people in one specific year (2010) with the remaining deaths due to other aspects of fossil fuel use such as pollution and occupational hazards. (Whether there should be an entry on deaths due to pollution is an interesting question.) I'm not familiar with DARA and whether it is considered a reliable source in Wikipedia. Perhaps the original DARA report would be a source for establishing a lower estimate of 1.05 million?--Wikimedes (talk) 04:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Israel / Palestine conflict notably missing

Deaths on both sides - one side has a historic figure that is higher than some other tolls quoted here - 2 million is no small number- i think it should be added if we can agree a reliable source - UN figures ? or these

The Occupied Palestinian avoidable deaths since 1950 are estimated from UN Population Division data (2002 revision) at 677,000 and for all of Palestine at 0.677 million x 5.7 million (all Palestinians still within Palestine)/4.1 million (Occupied Palestinians) = 940,000. However we must also include Palestinians outside Palestine and forbidden to return (roughly 2 times those within Palestine) and thus the estimate of post-1950 Palestinian avoidable deaths from imposed deprivation = 0.94 million x 2 = 1.88 million = 1.9 million. 77.86.111.244 (talk) 22:30, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

<https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/>

Probably because the idea of a Palestinian genocide is a farce, a blood libel chanted every time there is a war/operation and Arabs sleeping next to missiles get killed. For starters more Jews have been killed by Arab terror than vice versa. Secondly, the genocide is not going very well as the population hasn't experienced any stunted growth. Further the only actual genocide like event was Black September in which the Jordanians did anything of significance. So stop whining and stop reading stupid webpages. Saxophonemn (talk) 08:33, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Afghanistan

There are two entries in the list for Afghanistan (War in Afghanistan and Soviet war in Afghanistan). Since there is significant overlap here, one of them should be removed. Looking at the respective articles, it appears the Soviet War is a much more distinct and clearly defined entity, and also the source of greater casualties than the rest of the time period covered in the War in Afghanistan article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.190.133.187 (talk) 06:26, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Seriously ! Again the Muslims appear on the top of the list..

We have reached a consensus that the sources provided are non reliable. And these distortions of history are obvious ! Stop spamming and re-adding the "Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent" to the list. As if the Muslims at that time (1000-1525 AD as mentioned) had Atomic/Nuclear BOMBS to cause such ridiculously high death number ! Even more than the WW2, should we even present sources for these high numbers to be proven wrong. It is obviously not reliable. Please remove the "Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent" from the top of the list.

Ya, they had a lot of these.

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