Talk:Mass killings under communist regimes

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RFC: Structure of Mass killings under communist regimes

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.

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The options presented are interrelated and selecting among them involves complex policy considerations. Ultimately, the question is how development of the article should proceed, but given the complexity of options, relying on numerical counts alone can be misleading (see Condorcet paradox). Because Wikipedia discussions are note votes, the outcome of this discussion relies on finding a consensus path forward, informed by Wikipedia policies as interpreted by participants in this discussion.

The rough consensus achieved in the discussion is primarily for option B with some notable caveats informed by discussion of other options. In general, participants agree that the article should cover the academic debate on the potential correlation between mass killings and communist regimes as documented in reliable sources. The article should cover the main hypothesis, proposed causes for the correlation, and major challenges to the hypothesis. To maintain a neutral point of view, these topics should be covered in proportion to their prominence in reliable sources. Individual regimes should be mentioned only when used as evidence by specific sources; editors must avoid naming specific governments when sources do not cite them as examples as this constitutes original research via improper synthesis.

The debate on each individual option is summarized below.

Consensus against A Editors generally oppose the idea of an article which only lists individual regimes accused of mass killings. Participants variously point to WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:SYNTH. Participants point out that an article in the style of A would omit discussion of the concept as a whole which is a neutrality issue (specifically due weight). The choice of entries would also pose a problem of improper synthesis as the list would imply a connection between entries without sources necesarily discussing the specific group. Numerically, participants were overwhelmingly against this option, and so there is a rather clear consensus against an article which solely lists communist regimes accused of mass killings.

Rough consensus for B Given the concerns expressed in A, editors generally preferred an article which discussed the wider concept rather than individual regimes. Opposition to B tended to be weak with the main argument being that some mention of particular regimes is necessary context for a reader to understand the academic debate. This argument was contemplated by those in support who reiterated the WP:WEIGHT and WP:SYNTH policies: option B does not prevent citing specific regimes as evidence where sources already do so. Necessary context and information would still be included, but the determination as to what is "necessary" should be determined based on the sources themselves, not by editors selecting examples on their own. As a practical suggestion based on the NPOV policy, these examples should generally be folded into existing prose and mentioned in the context of the arguments that cite them rather than listed as the current article does, though further editing and discussion can clarify exactly how to do this.

Summary of C Unlike A and B, it's hard to distill C into a single sentence. On the one hand, participants note that opposition to A is opposition to A combined with something else. While that seems correct, the proposal is so vague that participants disagree on what C would look like. Some argue that C is essentially the status quo, but there seems to be a rough consensus against maintaining the status quo. The results of A and B suggest that the article needs to be seriously rewritten which contradicts endorsing the status quo, and a number of editors in favor of C explicitly reject endorsing the current article. Instead, the consensus of the discussion around proposal C is generally a reiteration of the outcome of B: the article should discuss the wider correlation hypothesis and criticism, avoid listing regimes, and only mention specific regimes as evidence when reliable sources do so.

Consensus against D Similar to A, there is clear opposition to this idea. Editors generally see this proposal as a WP:POVFORK prohibited by policy.

— Wug·a·po·des​ 03:08, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

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Which of the following approaches should be used as the overall structure for the article on Mass killings under communist regimes? Nug (talk) 22:46, 22 January 2022 (UTC) Robert McClenon (talk) 06:12, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

The four approaches that are being considered are listed below. Please reply as to each approach, indicating whether it is acceptable, with a brief explanation.

A. The article should be reorganized as a summary style article, providing an overview of mass killing events under communist governments, and linking to articles on each of the mass killing events.

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 of B.

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

Instructions to Editors: Please enter your approval or disapproval of each approach in the Survey subsection for that approach, by entering Yes or No with a brief statement. That means that you are requested to enter four statements, one in each lettered Survey. You may reply to the statements by others in the Threaded Discussion section. Note that this RFC, and the article, are subject to Eastern Europe discretionary sanctions for disruptive editing of this RFC or this talk page or article. (You don't need to worry about discretionary sanctions if you observe Wikipedia policies and guidelines.) Robert McClenon (talk) 06:13, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Closer: Please determine what approach is most strongly supported by strength of arguments. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:13, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Survey on A

• Yes - An overview of the major events seems appropriate for wikipedia. Option B, while interesting, it would make the article very lengthy, and may give ground for important major events to be excluded from the article where there is no RS to explain the connection between the event and the government. Deathlibrarian (talk) 07:40, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - Would effectively remove important information from Wikipedia rather than reforming it or adequately presenting it. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 13:28, 19 December 2021 (UTC) This is by far and large the worst option on the list due to how contentious the estimate section is compared to the remainder of the information within the article. This option serves no purpose other than that it will make the SYNTH problem tenfold more apparent, all the while erasing useful information from Wikipedia. Of course, the "Estimates" section could be fixed, but in that case you might as well vote yes for C or D. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 23:18, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• No if discussing all Communist regimes but if limited to its proper scope, it would be an improvement — if we limit it to proper universally recognized mass killings, i.e. to Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot (three Communist leaders), and the only debate about famines is limited to the Holodomor, as I noted in my addendum.
  • It also depends on whether it is to be treated as a single phenomenon or not; most of the events are treated individually, and as noted by The Four Deuces, "[a] list of MKuCR implicitly says they are is a consensus that the events are connected", which is the biggest issue and is the reason why we do not have any other Mass killings under ... regimes article. If we are going to use country experts, we can achieve NPOV but may violate OR/SYNTH because they do not discuss them within such a global or single phenomenon context (e.g. Soviet specialists about the Great Purge); if we are going to use genocide scholars, the grouping may be justified as a generalization but we cannot achieve NPOV because we would have to rely on non-experts when describing the events; hence, while this approach may easily improve issues, I am not sure all NPOV and OR/SYNTH issues would be solved — certainly, it is better than the status quo or C. In conclusion I would prefer that we expand Mass killing and/or create Mass killings in history (akin to Genocides in history), irrespective of regime types, as the simplest way to avoid NPOV and OR/SYNTH issues and still discuss Communist regimes.
  • Notes — I do not know why but I thought the topic also included excess deaths and mortality, which is why I mentioned it; instead, it appears to be exactly what I proposed (e.g. Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot), and may be fine if we highlight both similarities and diversities [Added Davide King (talk) 19:51, 19 December 2021 (UTC)]
  • This is in line from the genocide and mass killing literature I have read. Communism is placed within the context of genocides (basically Cambodia, which is compared to the non-Communist Holocaust and Rwanda) and mass killings in general, and mainly limited to Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes (I do not think chapters about Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, with passing mentions about the obvious facts that people were also killed in other Communist regimes, make this particularly topic, as proposed, stand out on its own — the only reason is due to space, but we should at least attempt to expand Mass killing first rather than assume a priori it will be necessary; as there is literature that summarizes that for us, and that events can simply be linked without wasting space to describe each one by one as we do here, it can be done in short paragraphs). This will also likely solve any content forks issues between Mass killing and this article, as this approach will allow us to remove any inconsistency between the two articles.
  • Another thing to consider is that such scholars focus on universally recognized mass killing events, not excess mortality; it is country experts who focus on the latter, and it is only a minority of scholars (Courtois and Rummel) who mix the too, further adding demographic losses, to create a global Communist death toll. Again, I do not exclude that this topic, as proposed here, is not possible or will not be possible in the future (I would like to see a draft and a list of sources first) but I do not think this is a good choice that would help us fixing the article, it is likely the hardest because I still see many disagreement among us. Davide King (talk) 14:11, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Addendum — another possibility is taking the Communist mass killing(s) name from Valentino but limiting the scope only to mass killings under Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's regimes (e.g. as I discussed in my comment about D). Excess mortality is better discussed in separate articles by each state (e.g. Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin) because having a general article focused on all deaths under Communism would be too close to OR/SYNTH, for (1) country experts do it for each country, and do not engage in a global Communist death toll, and (2) the latter of which has been controversially done by Courtois. As currently worded, A is too close to OR/SYNTH.
  • Either this, or a disambiguation page as another alternative. Davide King (talk) 15:43, 19 December 2021 (UTC) [Edited] Davide King (talk) 19:51, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Neutral --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:06, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

  Besides that, I would like to make an important note to participants. During the preparation of this RfC, there was a disagreement among DRN participants about a description of A and C. I, and DK insisted that it was necessary explain that WP:SS must include all important aspects, and if the source analysis demonstrates that the linkage between Communism and mass killings is seen as important by at least significant minority sources, the discussion of this linkage will be added to A-style article per WP:NPOV. This reservation was removed from the final version, but I (and, I assume, DK too) believe it was implied by default. Therefore, posts made by North8000, @ModernDayTrilobite: and @Cloud200: and some other may be partially a result of misunderstanding of our proposal. I apologise for that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:17, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• No A list of MKuCR implicitly says they are is a consensus that the events are connected, which is POV OR. TFD (talk) 18:19, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes This seems fine. A listing of all qualifying events with short summaries culled from the ledes of their primary pages seems straightforward and useful. There are enough sources tying the events together such that the page itself needs little justification for its existence. 73.152.116.51 (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - Best not to make into a summary. GoodDay (talk) 19:30, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Maybe This one really depends on how strictly we curate entries, which is a debate that I can already see never ending. If we can find a reasonably strict list that actually relies on widely recognized mass killings, this could be good, but I can see it becoming a quagmire very quickly. BSMRD (talk) 20:29, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Preferable to C / current or to D, but not ideal (ie. prefer B). It'd be better than the current version by reducing the directness of the synthesis the list is presented to support, and clear inclusion criteria would certainly reduce the problems it causes somewhat, but it would be a backwards way to solve the underlying dispute in that we'd be omitting any discussion of the underlying controversy that gives the list meaning and context while retaining a list whose meaning is still mostly synthy. --Aquillion (talk) 22:05, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - Since we all accept Valentino’s definition of mass killings as “50,000 killed within five years”, we should also accept Valentino’s topology of mass killings too, where he groups communist governments together because they share the common mass killing scenario of collectivisation and political terror that is unique to them. Valentino groups USSR, PRC and Cambodia together as confirmed mass killers, and adds Bulgaria, East Germany, Romania, North Korea and Vietnam as possible mass killers. So can we stop with this "the grouping is WP:SYNTH", Valentino has published such a grouping. --Nug (talk) 01:01, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, but I don't know how feasible it is. There would have to be an inclusion criteria, and that criteria would have to be defined in prose. There would also probably have to be some definition of terms. However, I think that this would be the most NPOV, and therefore the best, version possible, as there wouldn't be any fiddling with motives and critiques of one scholar verses another. Grouped together, the events would pass WP:NLIST, and that may just be the best way to go. schetm (talk) 01:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• No as it will result in significant loss of well-sourced content mentioned in "B". Cloud200 (talk) 15:02, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• Confused. I am not sure what such option means. According to Wikipedia:Summary style, "Sections of long articles should be spun off into their own articles, leaving summaries in their place." and so on. Yes, sure. But this page is already organized this way. How it should be reorganized? My very best wishes (talk) 05:15, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
• No - Discussion of individual mass killing events, without a discussion of the underlying academic views on their relationship, would constitute WP:SYNTH. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
• No This option as a stand-alone (i.e. not as a part of "D") would eliminate coverage of a possible cause-effect relationship. IMO, the possible cause-effect relationship should be covered somewhere, and such is the main thing that is uniquely covered in this article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:57, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - This would eliminate the core debate of the topic, which is definitely notable. Fieari (talk) 03:59, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
• No, hard to see how this could follow NPOV and NOR. An article like this would implicitly endorse the claim that there's a connection between communism and mass killings, but apparently without explaining the analysis behind that claim or describing opposing views. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:49, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
• No: we need to have sources that analyse a topic as a whole to host an article/list on that topic, something I'm constantly declining drafts at AFC on the basis of. We need to see that there is a shared historical connection between all events considered by mainstream historians to be "mass killings under communist regimes"—non-obvious as there are primitive communisms, communisms that predate Marx and communist regimes across at least four different continents that I'm aware of; and because the mass killings could have completely unrelated causes. Consider what separates this topic from Mass killings in countries beginning with "E" in English. It is that there are sources describing the group as a whole (otherwise we need another AFD). — Bilorv (talk) 21:27, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
• No A 'summary' or 'overview' cannot comply with WP:NPOV, since it would necessarily involve Wikipedia contributors deciding for themselves which events constituted 'mass killing events under communist regimes'. There is a clear disagreement between sources regarding this, and Wikipedia should document the disagreement, not decide the result. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:20, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• No The discussion and debate around the possible relationship between communist states and acts of mass killings is the notable topic here. When lists of mass killings under communist regimes specifically are given, they are usually done so in the context of this discussion. Furthermore, excluding debate over the validity of such groupings would introduce a bias into the article. Vanteloop (talk) 22:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• No Editors more eloquent than myself have outlined why they see this a failing NPOV and NOR, and I agree. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:09, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• No As above, OR and NPOV w/o analysis. fiveby(zero) 13:32, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - list of events without discussion about proposed causes would give an incomplete view about topic.--Staberinde (talk) 16:16, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• No for the same reason as the other no voters above. Levivich 00:37, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
• Yes That’s what encyclopedia articles are supposed to do. Volunteer Marek 02:39, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Survey on B

• Yes Providing a list of killings implies that there is a connection, which is implicit synthesis and contrary to neutrality. TFD (talk) 07:53, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - Would effectively remove important information from Wikipedia rather than reforming it or adequately presenting it. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 13:28, 19 December 2021 (UTC) It will not solve SYNTH issues as that spares the sections "Proposed causes" and "Debates over famines" which are overtly opinionated and up to interpretation. Therefore, once the RfC concludes, editors should have to edit both sections of the article repeatedly until the issue is resolved which admittedly is very unlikely as this article just brings about dispute after dispute about the content therein. The least that could be done and should be done is to add a paragraph that states that they are entirely subjective and the opinions of experts in that field of research. Additionally, particularly since the article is 290 thousand bytes in size, it won't fix the LENGTH problem : They would have to be removed outright and I feel that this would effectively remove information from Wikipedia. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 23:12, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
  • B will still run the issue of synthesis since it still gives opinionated sources weight and will still very much lead to the article being highly controversial. B includes "Proposed causes" and "Debate over famines" which are both highly subjective and up to interpretation. Some will choose to believe what the scholars and specialists say are entirely true, others will be more skeptic - ultimately leading back to the issue that was originally posed by the "Estimates" section. That was why I proposed what tantamounts to D since we could have a fully fact-based article (Example: Adolf Hitler) and a fully theory-based article (Example: Principle of relativity) which would include the estimates, the proposed causes and the debates, mainly my concern was about the proposed causes section originally. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 20:53, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes — this is the best approach to fix the article, and does not necessarily exclude any of the other option. By choosing this topic, we will commit to source analysis to weight scholarly sources and individuate majority, minority, and fringe views. If Courtois and Rummel are majority views, there would be no problem in following their approach.
  • If there is no universal agreement among scholars on the link, other options (e.g. the events themselves, or "providing a list of killings implies that there is a connection, which is implicit synthesis and contrary to neutrality") may violate NPOV and SYNTH. Again, compare the Soviet Union with Cambodia, the former used forceful collectivization of peasantry to accelerate urbanization, while the latter used revolutionary peasants to suppress and destroy urban population. An events-based-and-focused article, by the mere fact of grouping them together, implies that there is a clear connection but that is not there, and scholarly sources also emphasize their differences, and more importantly give each event and country separate causes; it is only a minority of sources, some of it significant, some of it fringe, that gives general causes for mass killings; even genocide scholars, who give generalizations and correlations, do not say communist ideology was the main cause as Courtois and Malia claim — Mann says they were a perversion of both democratic (Rwanda) and socialist ideals (Communism), and Valentino (who writes within the context of mass killings in general) is more concerned about leadership than ideology, and concludes that by removing leaders who engaged in genocides or mass killings, that can stop them from happening, which is based on reality.
  • Valentino's work is Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, not Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide under Communist Regimes. Mann's work is The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, not The Dark Side of Communism: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. I could go on and on, but there is cherry picking in treating Communism as a single or special phenomenon when that is not what scholarly sources do. Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide is about "demonstrat[ing] that it is indeed possible to compare the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina while respecting the specificities of each appalling phenomenon." No emphasis or mention of Communism. We can only discuss the theories and link about the events, not the grouped events themselves as a single, special phenomenon, as is done by Courtois and Malia in The Black Book of Communism. Why Not Kill Them All?: The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder is not Why Not Kill Them All?: The Logic and Prevention of Communist Mass Murders. Both of those sources may be used for this topic but they are clearly misunderstood to imply they discuss Communism as a separate or special new topic on its own; rather, they place it in the proper context of a general topic. In regards to events, they can simply be linked when mentioned or discussed, or through 'See also' links, where they are discussed in context; there is no need to coatrack them here too.
  • [As I wrote here, no information is going to be lost and should not be.] See also proposed topic and non-primary literature. Davide King (talk) 14:41, 19 December 2021 (UTC) [Edited to add] Davide King (talk) 19:44, 21 December 2021 (UTC) I do share Levivich's views here. As I wrote here, I think that this, plus this, is a good structure and how I understand a possible Communist-focused B structure article to be. If we cannot write a NPOV article about it, I do support Levivich's proposal to make it general, rather than narrow focused on Communism, the former actually being the way it is done by majority of scholars. Davide King (talk) 06:02, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
• Neutral--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:07, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes This seems fine. There is a clearly an ongoing debate on the effect communist founding principles had on the actions chosen by the resultant governments. There are enough sources to justify the existence of this page, though I expect it will be a battleground for years. 73.152.116.51 (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - as this could invite disputes over the topic. GoodDay (talk) 19:31, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes This is the actual topic here. Simply listing Communist deaths is something only done by some proponents of the idea that mass killings are inherent to Communism, but that question, whether or not they are inherent, has a much larger body of scholarship and will lead to a much more neutral and informative article. This won't remove any information from WP, all the articles on the individual events are still right there and will be linked when discussed. This version of the article would in fact add information to Wikipedia, as an analysis of this debate does not exist elsewhere on WP. BSMRD (talk) 20:38, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No, an article cannot discuss any debate on the correlations or causes without mentioning the government actions that has led to that debate in the first place. It would be like discussing Causes of World War II without having the article World War II. --Nug (talk) 21:24, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

• In fact I can't think of any source, Valentino, Bellamy, Courtois, Rummel, Mann, anyone, who doesn't use a C like structure combining data in one section with the discussion in another, listing all the episodes of mass killings and then having the discussion about the potential causes. A discussion cannot be had without defining the scope and extent of the data set. --Nug (talk) 20:05, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Also the notion that a B article will somehow magically resolve the endless debates is wishful thinking, given that the discussion of the causes is the very core of these debates, while there is more acceptance over the scope of events which grounds MKuCR to some degree. A B type article without reference to the events would essentially be a distillation of the worse aspects of MKuCR in terms of disputation and debate. --Nug (talk) 20:31, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, with the caveat that individual killings can be mentioned when referenced by specific authors, in the context of describing their views and how they believe they are connected - ie. we can say "author X has thesis and Y says that this and this and this support their thesis", if we have appropriate cites. What we can't do is perform WP:OR to argue their thesis for them - we ought to be reporting notable research that others have done (and any notable debates over that research), not doing our own. --Aquillion (talk) 21:57, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - I can't see a faster way to get this page permalocked again than by going down this route. There are very strong willed individuals with strong POV's on both sides of this issue active in the article/on this talk page, and I'm not sure that those POV's can be set aside to create an NPOV article. I'm also not sure as Option B would even pass the GNG or could avoid being entirely SYNTH. If someone wants to go this route, they should draft Option B first so that the community could see if it is at all encyclopedic - I'm unsure it ever could be. Nonetheless, if Option B is chosen, individual killings/historical events must be at least mentioned to give the reader context. schetm (talk) 01:58, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• No as it will result in significant loss of well-sourced content mentioned in "A". Cloud200 (talk) 15:02, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• No. Should "the article discuss [only] the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept" as suggested in B? Yes, sure, but such discussion is not possible without providing basic facts and data on the subject, as current version of the page does. This is like saying, "hey, let's publish only main conclusions of your research, but without providing any supporting data". This option is ridiculous. My very best wishes (talk) 19:39, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes - This is the best option, in my opinion. There are certain prominent scholars who draw a correlation between Communism and mass killing – enough to make a discussion of the concept notable, even if it is not a majority viewpoint. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes I consider B,C & D to all be fine, and in an ideal world "C" would be best (see my notes there), but if you include being pragmatic, this is the one I most recommend. This would be trickier to write (it would need to refer to mass killings without actually covering them) but much better in the long run because it is the one most likely to avoid the eternal unsolvable debates of which should be covered under killings and what to call them. It sticks to the thing that covered only in this article vs. a summary or condensed version of what is covered in other articles. North8000 (talk) 21:08, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes - I also support option C, as I think including the data under scrutiny is important from the sources, but I do believe more weight of the article should be focused on the meta-discussion of cataloguing these lists. Fieari (talk) 04:02, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes – seems like the best option. I understand this option to mean that specific historical events would be mentioned and explained in context where relevant and discussed by sources, but they would not each have their own section with a standalone summary like they do now. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:49, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes per my rationale under A. — Bilorv (talk) 21:27, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes This is the only option compatible with Wikipedia policy. As has been amply demonstrated through endless discussions over this article, sources disagree over what constitutes 'mass killing', what constitutes 'communist regimes', and whether it is even useful to engage in creating generalising hypotheses around any causative linkage between the two. What the article needs to do, is to discuss the debate as a debate, rather than building itself around one particular perspective - that of the 'generalisers': a few, largely polemical and frequently dated, sources that have presented themselves as 'specialists' in a subject, while ignoring the far larger body of academic work that treats individual events in context, largely refrains from polemic, and questions the validity of the all-encompassing approach taken by the self-appointed 'specialists'. When discussing a particular source, it is of course entirely appropriate to report what they say regarding 'mass killings' as a topic, which events they consider as examples of 'mass killings' and to report any conclusions they arrive at, in regard to casual linkage etc. Report as the opinion of the author. And then report any critiques of their conclusions. Including critiques that question the validity of their entire premises. This is how you write about a debate. As a debate. Not as an article built around one perspective, taking its conclusions as read. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:21, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, 2nd Choice Objections to this option because of feeling it would artificially limit the scope of the article are valid, however with this option there will still be references made to killings commonly cited as examples and used by scholars. So lists of mass killings under communist regimes will be included, just not in 'wikivoice' and attributed, which I think would still be consistent with policy. The article can then properly examine the proposed causes , as well as critiques, reflecting the ongoing academic debate. I also should point out the academic debate is not what is exclusively important here. If there is a widespread belief that these mass killings were the responsibility of communism, and that phenomenon is notable ( I believe it is easy to evidence it is) , a discussion of that and potential reasons would also be in the scope of this article. Vanteloop (talk) 22:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes I find myself strongly in agreement with BSMRD and Aquillion's reasonings above. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:17, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• No, although not disagreeing with BSMRD or Aquillion
  • State facts that may be obvious to you, but are not necessarily obvious to the reader. Some consideration should be given to the reader arriving on this page with a limited knowledge and background. Not at all well done in the current article, but i think the B option might exclude more basic information required by some readers. I see the difficulties, but i think the RfC is forgetting readers need some grounding in A, and that finding the individual articles through links from here might be a burden to understanding for some readers.
  • I don't think the A content is well done in Communism or History of Communism, and seeing the recent edits to Communism i'm wary of what some here consider the B option content to be.
  • I think many of the "revisionist" sources are country specific, will the article end up excluding these sources? (i'd ask for @Paul Siebert:'s input on this) With a natural presentation of those by country, aren't we just back to a country list? Presenting a "revisionist" source we have to say what they are "revising" (tho i hate to put things in those terms). The Gulag numbers revised lower than the earlier "totalitarian sources". Isn't a natural organization of such material by country?
  • A positive of this option might be an increased presentation of the historiography, maybe helpful for such disputed history. But likewise that might at times be country specific.
  • Anyway, NO, but i may be misreading what the B content would actually look like when all is said and done fiveby(zero) 14:50, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - discussion about proposed causes alone doesn't give a comprehensive overview if information about events themselves is excluded.--Staberinde (talk) 16:16, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• No, 1st choice because I don't think the sources are there to justify the scope of mass killings under communist regimes, as opposed to mass killings overall or mass killings under other types of regimes (e.g., totalitarian v. democratic, secular v. religious, but not capitalist v. communist, or communist alone). I would be an unreserved "yes" if the scope was "the study of the connection between mass killings and political ideology", "the connection between systems of government and state violence", but I think the framing of the article as limited to "under communist regimes" is presenting a non-mainstream view as a mainstream view. The theory that mass killings and communism are inherently linked should be covered in a section in articles about communism and mass killings, but not in an article of its own. However, voting "no" on this would lead me to the position of having voted "no" on every option in this RFC, and I am very grateful to the dogged work by Robert and others to try and push towards consensus, so in the interests of picking one from among these four, Yes, 2nd choice because as between the four options, this is the one that is most neutral and the most faithful presentation of the sources. I think there are more sources written about the controversy regarding mass killings and communism than there are about mass killings under communist regimes; there's more historiography than history here. Levivich 00:48, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Survey on C

• No - The current article is not presented correctly and that is why the article got a hefty amount of criticism. Additionally, I can see the length of the article being a problem as it is fairly difficult to read through. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 13:28, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes - to clarify, this option represents the current status quo with respect to scope, which should include the events, discussion about possible causes of those events, as well as the current reactions in terms of memory politics, etc —-Nug (talk) 14:49, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Further, imagine we have some phenomenon X and several theories that explain it. Can we write an article that discusses only the theories without mentioning the phenomenon X? Obviously not. 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. The phenomenon X here is the mass killings that have occurred under communist governments (option A), and the possible causes/linkages are discussed are in an appropriate section (option B). --Nug (talk) 22:27, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
  • The problem with B is that it has a narrow focus on Communism as a causative factor. Everyone agrees that mass killings did occur under several communist regimes, so as a reader I want to find out which regimes and what the other causative factors or enablers were. Scholarship does exist that looks at common causes and there is also scholarship that looks at country specific causes. Hence a C type article would best fulfill that goal, with a section on common enabling factors and country specific factors under the respective regime sections. --Nug (talk) 02:44, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Note that the Karlsson adopts a C approach to his literature survey "Crimes against humanity under communist regimes”, where he lists all the relevant events (mass kiliings, deportations and forced labour) as well as discussing the analysis around the causes of those events. So clearly combining events and causes is accepted academic practice. --Nug (talk) 22:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• No — as noted by Nug, this is essentially the current version, on which the the latest AfD (2021) ruled that "the Wikipedia editing community has been unable to come to a consensus as to whether 'mass killings under communist regimes' is a suitable encyclopaedic topic." It is not a good approach either to fix the article because it is too close to OR/SYNTH, and a split would be better. We tried this approach for over a decade by now, it is time to change it. We also cannot synthetize those writing within a broad context of genocide/mass killings and totalitarianism (Chirot, Jones, Mann, Valentino), and those discussing 18 cases but still finding only the "Big Three" of engaging in mass killings in the most accepted definition and criteria (Valentino), with those discussing Communism as a whole and with a much broader methodology (Courtois, Rummel), which is controversial.
  • Again, this does not exclude it cannot be written but I do not think that this is the good approach to fix it. B is the best one because if we find scholarly sources saying there is a universal link, and this is a majority view, then the automatic results will be this. The only possibility could be to rely on country experts and specialists for A and genocide scholars and other mainstream scholars for B; however, this is still too close to OR/SYNTH, as A scholars do not write within the context of Communism as a single phenomenon and give different causes or interpretations from B scholars, who write within the context of finding generalizations and correlations, which may be at odds with each other. Nonetheless, this approach would be the easiest way to fix the article in the now but I do not think it is going to fix the greater OR/SYNTH issues later on.
  • Addendum — Even if we may not have given the exact same '!comments', I appreciate and share ModernDayTrilobite, North8000, and Fieari's comments and think all of them gave very good arguments, and I feel myself closer to them than my mere 'Yes' or 'No' difference may say. Thanks to everyone else too for participation and civility.
  • Davide King (talk) 14:58, 19 December 2021 (UTC) [Edited to add] Davide King (talk) 04:51, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
  • See also this as my short summary of the grouping issue based on source analysis and comparison. Davide King (talk) 05:30, 4 January 2022 (UTC) Also note that Nug appear to have changed their mind about Karlsson 2008. Despite being published in 2008, it has only 9 citations (Rummel's high citation numbers has been used as an argument by them and others) most of which obscure or irrelevant, proving that the current article, and C, are not notable. Davide King (talk) 13:00, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Neutral (Actually, a neutrally written A and neutrally written C are the same articles. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:09, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
  • It seems there is a misunderstanding of what people are voting for. The @Nug:@Aquillion: posts are a good example. They both are right, but they focus on different aspects. Nug is right that a discussion of a theory that explains X should include a description of X, provided, but only provided, that this theory is a majority view. In the context of the option C, the opposite question is legitimate: should the theory that describes X be presented in the article about X? The answer is obvious: "Yes, but it must be presented along with all other voewpoints, fairly, proportionally, and without editorial bias. That inevitably makes C and A the two identical options: if we describe mass killings in Communist states, we must discuss all important theories that explain them, as a group and/or as separate events. If the concept that Communism was a primary factor in mass killings is a majority or a significant minority view, this topic will be discussed in the A-type and C-type articles, and it will be discussed at the same level of detailisation. Our policy simply does not allow anything else.
  • Therefore, "A" and "C" is intrinsically the same, and "C" is not necessarily the status quo. It may be the status quo, if our prospective analysis of sources will demonstrate that "Communism as a primary reason of mass killings" is a mainstream view shared by majority of genocide scholars and country experts. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• No for the same reasons I opposed A. Having a list of incidents implies there is consensus that they are connected, which is POV OR. TFD (talk) 18:21, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No I do not think these topics can coexist and produce a useful article. 73.152.116.51 (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes - as that's basically what we've already got. GoodDay (talk) 19:32, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No All this debate and consternation is happening because the status quo is obviously not satisfactory. If we want to improve this article in any way, it needs structural change. BSMRD (talk) 20:17, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No, such an amalgamation (as we have currently) effectively uses the list from A as synthesis to support the arguments presented in B; it's an inherently non-neutral article. --Aquillion (talk) 21:55, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes - this is what we have, and it's fine. Not super (that would be Option A), but fine. The historical events are treated with accuracy and, most helpfully, there are wikilinks to the main articles of each of these events. Theories about those mass killings, their connection to communism/their connection to communist regimes are dealt with, and a coherent, albeit lengthy, article is the result, to the benefit of our readers. schetm (talk) 01:58, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes Cloud200 (talk) 15:02, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment The purpose for including this option is because the community did not reach a consensus to delete the article as it is (nor to keep) in the AfD. Therefore to not include an option to represent the article as it currently is would be controversial and could be seen as a way to 'backdoor' a deletion of the article following the unsuccesful AfD. In this sense Nug, Davide King, and others' interpretation of this option reflecting the current version are correct. Also a reminder to please use the section below for replying to other people's comments, or for multiple paragraphs of statements if possible. Ta Vanteloop (talk) 21:24, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, 1st choice Having waited to read the entirety of the RFC (so far) I share the sentiment that if done well, this is the ideal option. It doesn't limit the article too much nor invite POV forks. This, and option B (see my comments there) are similar. Ideally this article would reflect on the academic disucssion surrounding mass killings under communist regimes, giving a summary of the killings that are commonly used by groups as evidence for this. Vanteloop (talk) 22:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• NoYes I think the meaning of this version is simply not clear. I had to ask the proposer if they mean keeping status quo in this version, and they said "yes" [19] (yes, this is what I would suggest, hence my vote). However, this is hard to say after looking at the text of the RfC, and I am sure that many participants understood this option differently, just as all other A,B, D options. I am not sure this is a valid RfC - as framed. I think that current version of this page is actually pretty good, thanks to many contributors who spent a a lot of time here to improve it. I would say this page probably falls into 30% best pages in WP. My very best wishes (talk) 00:28, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
• No - Although the discussion of the underlying concept makes this option preferable to A, it still retains Option A's OR/SYNTH issues. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, but my #2 choice Ideally, this could make the best article. Coverage of possible correlation, and a short summary of key killings which would support and optimize that coverage. But this is basically the status quo, which under current realities and current wiki policies and guidelines has been an eternal painful unsolvable situation. North8000 (talk) 21:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
• 'Yes - But to be clear, I'm not necessarily voting for "the status quo". I feel that both the data/list and a discussion of the list is important, but I feel that the discussion of the list should take precedence over the list itself... and I don't think that is how the article is currently. Fieari (talk) 04:03, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
• Maybe, but probably not ideal. The current state of the article makes it look like Wikipedia is endorsing the claim that all of these events were killings and that all were due to communism (both controversial in some cases). It would be better to explain individual events as needed to support explanation and analysis of the overall topic, not to give each one its own section. If we do go with this option, I agree with User:Fieari that the focus should be on the discussion rather than the list. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:49, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes. An article that discusses "Mass killings under communist regimes" should be summary style on that topic: it should include a summary of the killings, a summary of the debates regarding proposed causes, a summary of reactions to the killings outside of the academic world, etc. The whole point of WP:Summary Style is that we should be trying to create a summary of the topic that exists. And the topic of mass killings is exactly at the intersection of these sorts of things. I disagree with those above that write that doing this is novel synthesis when there are a plethora of sources that already do so and treat them as unique from other sorts of mass killings. Aside from Rummel and Valentino, who have been discussed to death on this page, these sources include: Bellamy, who distinguishes communist from non-communist mass killings both in scope and in the differences in moral ideologies between Communist and non-Communist states and Wayman & Tago, who open by reviewing differences between the conclusions in Rummel's work and those of (for example) Valentino and then goes on to predict the probability that at least one mass killing event will occur in a communist regime by year. There are also many mainstream Cold War historians, like Miscamble, who write that the reality that every Marxist regime that existed proved to be an experiment in mass murder or even genocide as well as the location for political repression on a vast scale. — Mhawk10 (talk) 22:16, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Maybe, per my rationale under A. So long as sources tie the events together, I don't see the harm in a bit of context for some of the most major mass killings under communist regimes. — Bilorv (talk) 21:27, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
• No This is essentially the status quo, and simply cannot work in a manner compliant with Wikipedia policies. One cannot both properly report on a debate and 'summarise' the conclusions it has arrived at, because the debate is unresolved. The mess we are in now is the consequence of trying to do the impossible. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:22, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes as to the RfC question, No as to this being an endorsement of the current structure. I think the structurally problem is just poor organization and presentation in general, and inclusion or exclusion of a summary-style country list may solve one issue but not solve other issues. fiveby(zero) 14:57, 30 December 2021 (UTC)~
• Yes - the relevant events, modern reactions to those events in form of prosecutions and memorials, and discussion about possible causes of those events, are all important to provide a comprehensive overview of the topic.--Staberinde (talk) 16:16, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - exactly what Aquillion said. Because 'no' to A on essentially OR/SYNTH grounds, 'no' to A+anything else on the same OR/SYNTH grounds (methinks combining A with anything else would be even more SYNTH than A alone). Levivich 00:39, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Survey on D

• Yes - Per proposal. The article, as it, does not give proper weight to the facts while it focuses too much on the opinions of academics. Hence, it is partially the causality for WP:SYNTH, and the article itself, as mentioned earlier, is already very lengthy. However, I should add that I am completely opposed to A and B and would prefer status quo over the previous two options as that information could still be used either separetely (The preferable option) or mutually to teach people about the horrors of auth-left Communism that plagued the Earth for decades and continues to do such in present day. With all due respect, Deathlibertarian you could have picked option D, so that this article is not so lengthy. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 13:24, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
  • I do note that I changed my mind from my original proposal on the prospect of possibly removing entirely a section of the article, I do not think that will do much good in the long run since it can, at any time, be reintroduced accidentally or intentionally. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 13:54, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - When I originally voted for this, I was not aware of an article with my expressed idea above already existing (Thanks @Davide King:), that article is Criticism of communist party rule which is a noncontroversial opinion-focused article that repeats verbatim several paragraphs from Mass killings under communist regimes. I do not know which article plagiarized the other, but one fact I know for sure is that several opinion pieces within MKUCR are very ill-fitted to be here, whereas they belong in that other article as highlighted previously. My new proposal would be to just nuke the estimates section, the proposed causes section and the debate section off MKUCR since they already exist elsewhere, and due to how the other article is much better presented in contrast to this one (MKUCR) which has a heavy focus on facts, therefore, partly the cause for the SYNTH issues within MKUCR with its improper synthesis of textual content + the sources implying something that isn't necessarily true. I am not voting in support of A or B as they still spare those sections and instead will propose a procedural close for status quo, afterward those sections should be removed, and I wish to hear no "but" nor "wait", just nuke them off MKUCR please. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 18:48, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
  • To quote Davide King: No information is actually going to be lost, as we already discuss all the events either indivdiually or by each Communist state as is done by majority of scholarly sources, and the current "Proposed cause" section as well as "Estimates" are already at Criticism of communist party rule, and estimates are further discussed at Democide, which is a more accurate category, since it is very broad. I am gonna ping other people who had similar concerns to mine about information erasure, so to make sure that they are aware that removing information from here will not completely remove said information off Wikipedia since it already exists elsewhere: @Cloud200: @Schetm: @My very best wishes: @X-Editor: MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:06, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    • @MarioSuperstar77: We can absolutely move the "Causes" discussion into that Criticism of communist party rule article. In such case this article could just contain a link or excerpt template. Cloud200 (talk) 09:23, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
      • I definitely agree on that idea, someone else already attempted to scavenge some parts of this section for the other article. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 12:23, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes | No — only if | unless they are general articles and not limited to Communism
  • As I showed in my comments, genocide scholars write general works about genocide and mass killings, they do not limit themselves to Communism or treat it as a special category that represents a separate or new topic. Causes of genocide and/or Causes of mass killing would be more in line with genocide scholarship, majority of which does not necessarily emphasizes regime types or treat them as separate categories, and those who do can easily be discussed in an appropriate section, including one about correlations in general and correlations by regime type or other characteristics that scholarly sources analyze or compare, which should make everyone happy.
  • If there were mainstream academic books fully dedicated to Communist Mass Killings rather than chapters about it, like is done for any other regime type, and most of them limited to Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot (three Communist leaders rather than Communist regimes), establishing this as a separate and new topic, I can accept such possibility. As things stand, I can only propose a separate article about Mass killings under Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot. Davide King (talk) 15:09, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes - The article is a bit long, so splitting it in two as proposed would make reading more comfortable for the reader. I also think it would be counterproductive to remove information about either topic, as both the mass killings and the causes of them are notable topics. The two articles, in my opinion, should be named Mass killings under communist states and Proposed causes of mass killings under communist states. There should also be a third article named Terminology of mass killings under communist states and a fourth article named Estimates of the death toll for mass killings under communist states. The sections "Debate over famines", "Legal status and prosecutions", and "Memorials and museums" should be kept in the Mass killings under communist states article as they relate most to the killings themselves. If the terminology section is too problematic to be split into a separate article as suggested below by Paul Siebert, then the section and its information should be removed entirely, as terminology is the least important factor of Communist mass killings. Any information in the Mass killings under communist states article that cannot be backed up by sources calling them Communist mass killings should be removed, as that would be original research and synthesis. As for the concern that calling these mass killings "communist" is not neutral, calling them communist states would create a distinction between the ideology itself and the execution of the ideology in real life as a form of state. Per WP:COMMONNAME, we would also have no choice but to use the term communist, since it is the most common term used to refer to these mass killings. This is my proposal for dealing with this topic. X-Editor (talk) 16:06, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• I'm honestly not sure what should be done about this article. MarioSuperstar77's proposal sounds interesting, but I'm still not so sure about it, as it wouldn't make sense to have an article discussing these mass killings without also explaining their causes and the debates surrounding them. As for the Criticism of communist party rule article containing better information about the estimates and debate over famines, why can't that information just be added to this article instead of removing the information in this article entirely? X-Editor (talk) 01:47, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
• Neutral --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:09, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No per POVFORK. We would then have one article that implcitly states the events were connected and another that examines whether or not they were. TFD (talk) 18:23, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes The only real solution here, to my mind, is to segregate the "article about the bodies" from the "article about the debate." This isn't because the two topics are disjoint; this is a practical matter as I do not believe editors drawn to the first topic can coexist with editors invested in the second. Perhaps in some decades these two subjects can come together again, but for now we should split the baby and take advantage of the notability of the resultant parts. 73.152.116.51 (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - as we can't deny that Communist regimes were destructive to humans, who dared to oppose them. GoodDay (talk) 19:33, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No This really is just asking to become a WP:POVFORK issue. These articles will inevitably diverge from each other despite theoretically very similar content, which is explicitly not allowed by WP. Keeping it all one article is the best way to avoid these issues. BSMRD (talk) 20:22, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No, too likely to result in a WP:POVFORK. Arguments that tie together individual mass killings should be presented (with appropriate attribution and discussion) in a central article; a laundry-list of mass killings without that key secondary framing is going to turn into editors using their own WP:OR / WP:SYNTH to argue the point of the main article. --Aquillion (talk) 22:00, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
• No, as I'm not sure Option B could stand on its own - see my comments above. schetm (talk) 01:59, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes for the sake of making the article more readable in editorial sense. Cloud200 (talk) 15:02, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
• No, please keep status quo. Spitting factual information/data from conclusions which follow from the data would be ridiculous. My very best wishes (talk) 19:39, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, but B would be preferable. This solution would create one article about the concept of communism/mass-killing linkages, which would be a useful encyclopedic article in line with other articles on historical theories. The other, summary-style, article would likely be problematic under WP:SYNTH or WP:POVFORK; however, splitting it off could be a first step toward the establishment of a more balanced summary article on mass killing events. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes but my #3 choice It includes coverage of the possible correlation which is essential. And the "possible correlation" article is less likely to have the huge unsolvable questions that have kept this article in pain for over a decade. It would be a bit tricky to write the "possible correlation" article without covering the killings themselves, but that is likely to get solved. Those "huge unsolvable questions that have kept this article in pain for over a decade." would likely remain with the "cover the killings" article. Also, without the purpose of supporting the "possible correlation" coverage, the criteria is a bit POV'ish. So this would be my #3 choice of the 4. North8000 (talk) 21:24, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - WP:POVFORK. Let's not do this. Very bad idea. Fieari (talk) 04:04, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
• Probably not – I agree with those above who say it's likely to lead to some kind of POVFORK. Seems like asking for trouble. But I'm open to being convinced if someone has an argument for this being workable. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:49, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
• No per my rationale under A (we can't have an article solely with the scope of A). — Bilorv (talk) 21:27, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
• No. Hell no. Even ignoring my comments on the validity of A above, this is a proposal to create POV forks. Wikipedia doesn't do that. Or shouldn't. Not over a topic as significant as this. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:23, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• No This was option was included for completeness, however I believe that this is not the answer for this article. I agree that the only outcome I can see arising from this is a POV fork. Furthermore, my objection to A would apply to the standalone list as well. Vanteloop (talk) 22:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• No I agree completely with the POV fork concerns outlined above. I think the list has significant potential to also become a source of wp:battleground drama in the future as well, per the whole "how do we define a Communist regime" issue. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - I agree, this would be creating a POVFORK, plus it would be creating an "A" article, so per my "no" to "A". Levivich 00:40, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

As I explained during the DRN discussion, if we stick with NPOV, the options "A" and "C" must be the same, so addition of "C" just dilutes the voices, and "A"/"C" option may not win. Just think: the article of the type "A" tells a story about mass killings in Communist states, and if Communism, according to majority RS, was an important factor, then its discussion must be added to the "type "A"" article. As an example, take a look at the World War II article: it includes such general sections as "Background" or "Aftermath", and, similarly, if we choose SS AND Communism is seen as a significant factor by majority RS, we will inevitably have the section about the role of Communism in the SS (type A) article. It would be against NPOV to do otherwise. Similarly, the "Type "C"" article is a combination of the story of mass killings and their linkage with Communism, which is described "fairly, proportionally, and without editorial bias". Actually, these two options are the same, and that if why I initially proposed to remove "C" as redundant. However, since other DRN participants didn't support removal, I agreed on "C". I am neutral about the outcome of this RfC, and I am pretty comfortable with any result. Happy voting :)

--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:17, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

@X-Editor: "Terminology" section is a pure original research and minority POV-pushing. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:27, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Are anonymous users usually allowed to comment on a RfC? Especially on an article that they cannot edit as it is semi-protected? MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 18:56, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

MarioSuperstar77, WP:RFC says: "All editors (including IP users) are welcome to respond to any RfC." I am also not concerned, since RfCs are not a vote and Robert McClenon has made it clear that the closer has to "determine what approach is most strongly supported by strength of arguments." Davide King (talk) 20:13, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

User:Davide King - The statement that the RFC is not a simple vote is always the policy. I didn't make it as a special rule.

User:MarioSuperstar77 - The closer can decide how much credence to give to any editor including unregistered editors.

Any editor is welcome to invite the unregistered editors to create accounts. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:47, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, I have clarified that RfC is not a vote not per you but per policy. I am fully aware of it, I just wanted it to be clear for IPs and users who did not take part to any RfC before. Davide King (talk) 23:00, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I think that giving extra emphasis on strength of arguments in the close as Robert McClenon did is a good idea and serves many purposes. One of them is that it provides emphasized notice that canvassed votes will not count for much thus discouraging that activity. Also I think that it is fine for the person who has moderated parts of this to suggest extra emphasis on that from the closer. North8000 (talk) 17:32, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@North8000: That is a rare case when I think that strength of arguments doesn't matter. I see several reasons for that.

• First, I have no idea who will analyse strength of arguments, and how deep this analysis will be. I suspect that a uninvolved user will hardly be capable of diving into all details of what was discussed here, and, therefore, the analysis will almost inevitably be superficial.By "will hardly be capable", I mean not intellectual capabilities, but readiness to invest a significant amount of time for analysis of all aspects of this (very complex) issue. It would be unfair to expect that from an uninvolved user.
• Second, this is a rare case when rational arguments do not matter. We pro;posed an RfC that is fully consistent with our policy, and implementation of each of those options will not result in a loss of any information from Wikipedia. Thus:

- If the community chooses "A", it will be a summary style article about all significant facts and opinia on this topic. Therefore, if a subsequent source analysis will demonstrate that Communism was a significant common cause, the section about Communism as a common cause will be added in the "A-style" article. If teh source analysis will show that that issue is a subject of controversy, the section about that controversy will be added to the "A-style" article. We just have to do that, for NPOV leaves us no choice.

- If "B-style" will be implemented, the story about each individual mass killings/mass mortality events still can be found in other article, and that was a main reason for the last AfD: this article (in its present form) tells a different story about the facts and events that are already described in other Wikipedia articles.

-If "C-style" will be selected, the result will be essentially the same as "A": if source analysis demonstrate that Communism is a significant causative factor and is extensively discussed by country experts, then a big section will be added to the article as a part of the rest summary-style narrative. If the source analysis does not confirm that, and Communism is not seen as a significant factor, then that section will be very small. Again, everything depends in the results of the future source analysis (which we have already started). NPOV does not give us much freedom of maneuver in this aspect, and I sincerely don't understand why some people who vote for "C" believe this option reflects the status quo". It doesn't.

-And, if the community votes for "D", no important information will be deleted either: we create two articles, and one of them (the role of Communism as a causative factor) will be a spinoff article of the SS-article in the same sense as Race and crime in the United States is a daughter article of the Crime in the United States article.

• Therefore, all four options comply with our policy, and the choice of one of those options will not remove any significant information from Wikipedia. Therefore, I don't see how any rational argument can be proposed in support or against each of those option. All of that is just a matter of the community's taste, and the most important factor here is the vote count. In that sense, I see absolutely no problem with canvassing: the more votes, the better.

All of that is a reason why I am absolutely neutral in my choice.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:29, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your post. I don't agree with various things there, but feel no need to pursue here. Sincerely,North8000 (talk) 19:01, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@North8000: Frankly, I would be grateful if you explained what you disagree with. I am not sure that will lead to a real dispute, but it would be very useful for me to know your opinion on what I wrote. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:27, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

I think that you are being too optimistic. I also disagree that all options are in line with our policies, and I am not the only one to think so, e.g. TFD's comment that "[a] list of MKuCR implicitly says they are is a consensus that the events are connected, which is POV OR", Aquillion's comment that "such an amalgamation (as we have currently) effectively uses the list from A as synthesis to support the arguments presented in B; it's an inherently non-neutral article", and Aquillion's, BSMRD's, Fieari's, and ModernDayTrilobite's comments about content POV forks. You would be right if there were academic books fully devoted to Communist Mass Killings rather than chapters in works about Genocide and Mass Killing in the 20th Century and in general; as things stand, the only structure in line with sources and full respect of our policies is B and the strength of arguments so far reflect this. Davide King (talk) 19:43, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

If they were not in agreement with policy, I would vetoed the DRN, and this RfC never started. Of course, they are. As I already demonstrated, each of those choices perfectly allow us to write an article that complains with all policies. Therefore, the concrete outcome of this RfC absolutely does not matter: any choice is good.

The main obstacle that prevented improvement of this article was ambiguity of its topic. Different users interpreted it differently, and that almost totally prevented its improvement. After this RfC will lead to come definite outcome, everything will be much easier. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree that is the main obstacle and we are making progress; whether they are not violating them will greately depend on source anslysis. For me A, means discussion of universally recognized mass killings (no famines) under Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot (the Red Terror is also a mass killing event but I have not seen it discussed within this context because it was within the context of the Russian Civil War), and that would be fine by me, yet as you noted once, we already have articles for each event and very little comparative analysis, so what does it add? C (status quo) obviously violates our policies, but as you should know by now and as I wrote in my comment, C in general may also violate NPOV and OR/SYNTH because the only way to write it is to merge country specialists (A) with genocide scholars (B), which may constitute OR/SYNTH because country specialists do no write within the context of Communist mass killings or Communism in general, and may not be SYNTH/OR only if they actually relied on each other but they seem to mostly act in isolation from each other; in this sense, I think AmeteruEditor, Nug, and TFD were right (it is not your fault though, it is the structure that is totally wrong), but you and TFD are obviously right about the article's problems. Without source analysis, D likely violates content POV fork but may be a good means to fix the article in the end. I do not disagree that a NPOV article may be written for each option, without also engaging in OR/SYNTH, but I am very skeptical of it and preliminary source analysis leads me to see B as the only solution and really notable topic, and thus the only option that does not violate our polices and guidelines (e.g. the only option for which an NPOV article can be written about it). Davide King (talk) 21:37, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

I'll add myself to the list of users who also disagree with your post, but I am comforted by the fact you have previously committed to respect the outcome of the RfC. That includes if you misinterpret the stated options , as this is a community consensus that is not required to satisfy one user. Vanteloop (talk) 19:52, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@Fiveby: I am responding to your ping. You write: "I think many of the "revisionist" sources are country specific, will the article end up excluding these sources? (i'd ask for @Paul Siebert:'s input on this)" Actually, not only "revisionist" sources are country-specific. Generally speaking all sources that are relevant to MKuCR can be subdivided on the following categories:

• 1. Country-specific/event-specific sources. Contrary to what you say, not only "revisionist" sources, but majority (or an overwhelming majority) of all sources are country-specific. They explain each event mostly based on its own historical context.
• 2. Books and articles authored by "genocide scholars". These scholars try to identify some commonalities between different events, and most of them group each mass killing according to different criteria: genocides in Asia", "revolutionary vs counterrevolutionary genocides", "politicides", "democide" etc. They are not about Communist mass killings sensu stricto: usually they study either some subset or a bigger set of events, and sometimes the set of events that they study just partially intersect with what this article calls "Communist mass killings": "democide" is broader, "politicide" is in some aspect broader (it covers not only Communist politicide, but not all "MKuCR" events fall under a category of "politicide", "classicide" is a narrow concept that is applicable only to Cambodia, and, to much smaller extent, to USSR and China, etc. These sources (sometimes) make some general conclusion about the role of Communism (or its ideology, or similar factors), but that is, as a rule, not their central point.
• 3. Few sources, such as Courtois introduction to the Black Book, that directly link some "generic Communism" and killing of 100+ people.
• 4. Some sources that directly and openly criticise these views.

It is easy to see that if we include all there categories of sources, we inevitably get an "A-type" narrative that must be dominated by the first type (counrty-specific) sources, simply because they are more numerous, more informative, and contain more factual details and more recent facts. The type 2-4 sources must be moved down, to the very end, and combined in a section devoted to various generalisations and criticism thereof. And, as you can easily see, per our policy, the "A-typ" and "C-type" articles must converge: we cannot have a "summary-style" article (A-type) without a discussion of some commonalities, but the discussion of commonalities and the linkage of Communism (in a "C-type" article) cannot be big (because the majority of sources are the type 1 sources). That means it does not matter if we select "A" or "C": if we observe NPOV, both articles will be essentially the same.

Therefore, "B-type" article is not a discussion of events (each of which already has their own articles), but a discussion of attempts to make generalisations, including a discussion of the historical context of these generalisation attempts, their political implications, strengths, weaknesses and criticism of these theories etc. In addition, that partially addresses Staberinde's argument. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul Siebert (talk • contribs) 21:09, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Note that the above user has on multiple occasions misrepresented the arguments of others, and when asked for explanation just ignored the comments . For any uninvolved editors it is worth taking his 'analysis' with a pinch of salt, considering the misrepresentations and refusal to acknowledge them seem to be a theme. Vanteloop (talk) 21:24, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

References

Please, stop doing this, which may be considered a form of badging and a personal attack, especially when Fiveby have not complained about it, and I am interested in their discussion, which may be helpful in improving the article, and better understand both sources and our own understanding of them and the topic. Both Siebert and I have been misinterpreted too by, but we are not going to put a note, it is just disrupting and does not help in solving any genuine misunderstanding there may have been. Their source analysis has been positively reviewed in an academic journal (here you complained that they have not published it, I think getting secondary coverage like this is better, so perhaps it is time you and Nug get your review of Siebert's source analysis published in an equally reliable academic journal?) also did not ignore comments, they have made it clear that they are only going to discuss source selection.12 Please, reply to me on my talk page or on yours, and let us leave space for Fiveby to answer. Davide King (talk) 21:56, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

It is a note that provides context for an uninvolved editor. More recently, this user has been publicly rebuked for their behaviour which could be interpreted as Civil POV pushing. Not by me, but by an uninvolved moderator of the dispute resolution. So I suggest it is time they stick to WP policies. They have also been criticised for acting as if they WP:OWN the page by that same neutral moderator. Part of our role in ensuring that doesn't happen is ensuring arguments are properly vetted. Discussing on user talk pages doesn't accomplish this. If you would like to increase the readability of the talk page I suggest you reduce the verbosity of your comments. Vanteloop (talk) 22:11, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

That is false or a clear oversimplification — it was due to a real misunderstaning (that I thought we all solved?) because Robert McClenon thought that Siebert was vetoing at the DRN, and you too thought the same, but it was a misunderstanding, as the moderator themselves wrote here. I have been less verbose, now drop this. Davide King (talk) 22:32, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

• That was actually not the time Paul Siebert was rebuked by the neutral moderator for his behaviour that I was referring to, but the fact there are enough instances to get confused proves my point. Yes lets drop this and hopefully Paul will now clarify his continued misinterpretation of sources Vanteloop (talk) 22:43, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

C

_{note:these comments were originally left in the main section of the RfC, but were later moved here for clarity Vanteloop (talk) 17:20, 21 December 2021 (UTC)}

This option does NOT present the status quo: the current article does not present all significant point of view fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, and its current structure may create some apparent hierarchy. Therefore, voting for C is not an endorsement of the correct topic/structure. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:17, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

_{Responding to this comment by Nug. Note added by Davide King (talk) 18:57, 21 December 2021 (UTC)}

...and we should accept the main conclusion made by Valentino: that regime type is not an important factor that explains mass killings. You may speculate about the meaning of each of his phrases, but that does not change the fact that the core if his theory is: "leader's personality is the main factor, so removal of few persons from power eliminates a risk of mass killings even without political transformations of the regime." Paul Siebert (talk) 01:18, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Again, you confuse his grouping of the phenomena into a communist type with his conclusions as to the causes of the phenomena. I've told you this multiple times, yet you seem to instantly forget. I'm starting to think this may be some kind WP:NOTGETTINGIT. --Nug (talk) 01:24, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Frankly, I think there is some confusion here: it was me who says that Valentino's grouping does not imply he saw Communism as a significant cause. The current version of this article carefully attenuates this fact. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:24, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

The purpose for including this option is because the community did not reach a consensus to delete the article as it is (nor to keep) in the AfD. Therefore to not include an option to represent the article as it currently is would be controversial and could be seen as a way to 'backdoor' a deletion of the article following the unsuccesful AfD. In this sense Nug, Davide King, and others' interpretation of this option reflecting the current version are correct. Also a reminder to please use the section below for replying to other people's comments, or for multiple paragraphs of statements if possible. Ta Vanteloop (talk) 21:24, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

And that is why I was insisting on clear and detailed explanation of "A-D". You disagreed, and as a result, different people understand each of four options differently. I am afraid after closure of this RfC we may have another RfC to resolve a dispute on how exactly the results of this RfC should be interpreted. Paul Siebert (talk) 21:45, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Please move your reply and my response to the section below, to avoid clutter - and do the same for your other replies in the wrong section. So far you are the only one who has failed to understand the instructions of the RfC not to reply to other's top level comments (and the only one who has misunderstood the meaning of C). Vanteloop (talk) 22:07, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I referred to "C" as essentially the status quo only with respect to scope (which is the core topic of this RFC), not as a statement that the current article has achieved the goal of "C" aspires to be. North8000 (talk) 16:38, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Adding to my comment, regarding whether or no "summary style" represents the status quo regarding scope, I think that the status quo regarding scope definition inevitably includes summary style to some extent. Many of the killings that are a whole article elsewhere (necessarily) have only a much shorter section in this article. North8000 (talk) 18:40, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

B and D

MarioSuperstar77 say B is still synthesis like C but what do they respond from both BSMRD and The Four Deuces that D is a content fork? "[With D,] [w]e would then have one article [A] that implcit[i]ly states the events were connected and another [B] that examines whether or not they were." If they think B is SYNTH, how can they support D, which is essentially A and B as separate articles? What did I miss in their arguments? I invite them to clarify and discuss this. Davide King (talk) 21:56, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I had stated it in several different ways, but apparently I am not able to make myself clear. I checked on the net for something that I'd like to call "Interpreting an opinion as fact" since I am certain that I have not invented this, but the best citation I could find relating to my point is from the philosopher's mag.^<1> Any way, I will attempt to reiterate what I have said above one more time; my idea is to split the article into two articles: one that is based in facts with all the data and statistics fact-checked several times and the other based in theories, hypotheses, and debates. My proposal intends to clearly highlight that one of the articles is fully objective and factual and must be read as such, and the other is fully subjective and the opinion of academics, scholars, researchers and specialists, and therefore, must be read as such, therefore, no synthesis because the reader knows what to expect from both articles. Option B does not fix the synthesis issue that plagues the article, to fix the synthesis issue, first you would have to remove the Proposed causes section which heavily implies that the motives of Communism are always going to cause massive democides. The paragraphs that start in "The concept of mass killing as a phenomenon unique to communist governments-" and "Many commentators on the political right state that the mass killings-" were added to the article solely as a means to add balance to the section, not because of POV mind you, but because the section implies something that none of the sources attested for. If you go to any major article relating to politics on Wikipedia such as Donald Trump, Conservative, Liberal, Adolf Hitler, etc, none of them have any major focus on opinions from experts that can are implied to be true and, therefore, misinterpreted for facts; whereas, this article has multiple. B only removes the estimates which, for all intent and purpose, are one of such implications, "Proposed causes" and "Debates on famines" are the other two, and there are a few paragraphs across the article with similar synthesis. If B or A do pass, I can stipulate that we will continue to hear about this article for weeks on end because as I said multiple times now, this does not fix the synthesis problem from the article. At the very least, there ought to have been an option E that proposes to remove everything that I previously mentioned above and more to make the article fully objective. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 00:06, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I am not sure it still clear what you are saying, and I think you may get a better response from Aquillion, BSMRD, The Four Deuces, Siebert, and other users in this regards, and indeed I may update this comment to give you a better reply and better address your points. For now, let me tell you that you seem to assume B must imply "Proposed causes" and "Debates on famines" as currently written rather than completely changed; B will require significant rewrite, so any issues you may have about SYNTH can be solved and I hope that this is clear (indeed, both sections as currently written are SYNTH but I am not advocating for them, I am advocating for rewrite, which will solve major issues), if you did not take in consideration that B would require significant rewrite. Secondly, the topic will be about theories and narratives, and it will be made clear, so I do not get your point about presenting opinions as facts and vice versa. If I get you right, pretty much any A and B article (e.g. Race and intelligence), which is how I imagine B to be similarly named, is SYNTH to you because you think it presents opinions as facts but that is not the case, and will not be the case for B. To conclude, it appears that your issues are mainly with the article's current structure, and because of this it is hard to check sources, and you are indeed correct "the article is so bloated in size that nobody would bother to properly check the information on the article and simply assumed that the article had no issue." We both want the same thing — a NPOV article without any SYNTH issue; I see B as the only possibility to achieve that, and I am skeptical about D because I am afraid it may give defenders of the current structure yet another excuse to not improve the article because we can simply create a separate article, so we need not to worry about this article. Davide King (talk) 01:52, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Race and intelligence's opinions are presented as being unreliable, yet historically relevant. Again, the presentation is one important thing that makes D a proper option as all the elements that cause synthesis will no longer do so if they are written on the prospect that they are hypotheses, all the while keeping all the information intact. I have read WP:SYNTH page 5 times now because I don't think we're on the same line, so to make sure, we define synthesis as An implication which results into an incorrect conclusion that was never attested by the sources themselves. With this definition in mind, assuming we both agree that this is the correct definition in other words, an article on the subject of "Possible explanation for the democides within Communist regimes" would very clearly highlight that the article is entirely focused on opinionated theories such as Principle of relativity and Obesity paradox rather than hard facts like other pre-existing articles, and that distinction would prevent synthesis as the conclusion is never reached, there is a difference between "This person is probably evil" and "I think this person is probably evil", the former reaches a conclusion thanks to its implication, the latter does not and specifies that the person is thinking about it. Now, one valid concern here is POVFORK and I admit that I did not think about that, though if both articles are monitored frequently that issue should not occur, if it does occur an AfD could be created for the offending article. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 13:20, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Have you looked at my sandbox possibility? Change Race and intelligence's opinions are presented as being unreliable, yet historically relevant to [B]'s opinions are presented as being disputed, yet historically notable, and there should be no issue; there are indeed authors who see a link between race and intelligence, or between Communism and mass killings, that is indeed their conclusions but the article does not, and will not, treat it as a fact or even a mainstream position that is uncontroversial or not disputed; both articles are about notable yet controversial discussions. Again, see Race and crime in the United States. A really SYNTH article is Communism and Jews — that is truly SYNTH and even antisemitic, which is why it has been deleted. B does not even come close to it, and would be perfectly in line with all others and articles we already have discussion correlations and links, whether they are supported or not, whether they are controversial or not, all of which is to be made clear per NPOV and WEIGHT; what matters is whether they are notable and B clearly is — again, look at non-primary literature I proposed at sandbox.

You do not seem to understand SYNTH — it is grouping events without a clear connection (e.g. they happened in Asia, were Communists, their common language is Indo-European, therefore we must have an article about mass killings in Asia or mass killings under Indo-European languages — this is SYNTH), not B. If the issue is you think an article discussing Communist regimes and mass killings, and that this implies all communists support mass killings or something like that — well, I do not know what to tell you because by this standard every options, from A to D, is SYNTH and you should have supported 'Deletion' in the AfD. As for POV forks, the problem is that both articles will be seen as POV forks of each other and thus both should be deleted. Davide King (talk) 14:46, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Your sandbox would definitely improve the article by a margin, but that is assuming that all the offending sources within the article are removed, but from your previous comments I learned that you intended to remove them anyway, so it would be a step toward the right direction. Comparing option B to an article that was deleted ensuing an AfD is not a good look, I trust that you will clean up the article proper once this RfC concludes, regardless of which option passes, but if that is not done well the article will continue to draw ire from other Wikipedians.

You do not seem to understand SYNTH — it is grouping events without a clear connection Here comes what is written on WP:SYNTH Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source.-. I think this is clear and concise to me, so I have to return the favor that I believe that you may not understand WP:SYNTH, although you have been on Wikipedia for much longer than I, so perhaps I am missing something from the page in spite of reading it 6 times now. DublinDilettante actually thinks that this article was synthesis on the premise of it being about Communist mass killings; however, the information can be presented in such a way that only data and facts are present on the article which would void the synthesis. First off, the article should not be called "Mass killings under Communist regimes" which is a clear implication that mass killings would occur majoritarily within Communist regimes and that was what the AfD mainly focused on. Then, it should be void of any opinion piece, regardless of the expertise of the person who writes said opinion, so to make this article not-synthesis, Kotkin, Rummel, etc should be removed entirely, or per my proposal moved into its own article focusing on the theories of what led to Communist mass killings in the first place. I had opposed the AfD because I was afraid that extremists were attempting to whitewash the bloodstains of statist Communism. Additionally, although that was fairly paranoid on my part, I was afraid that would give the green light to Fascists to remove articles critical of Fascism. I genuinely do not understand why you bring up my vote on the AfD as that is completely unrelated to the current RfC. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 16:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Chiming in here, there is no implication in article title that communist regimes are more prone to mass killings, any more than the title War crimes of the United States implies that the USA is more prone to committing war crimes than any other country. --Nug (talk) 02:33, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

No, that is cheating. The "War crimes of the United States" is a quite legitimate title simply because "the US" is a quite concrete single entity. In contrast, there is no consensus among scholars that such an entity as "Communist regimes" or "generic Communism" exists. Many authors discuss, e.g. genocides in Cambodia, China and Indonesia, or discuss Stalin and Hitler. A similar situation is impossible for the US, for, e.g. "War crimes in California and Baja California" is hard to imagine. Paul Siebert (talk) 04:27, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Yet, only Communism is discussed as a separate topic, users make 2+2, do it too. Just like Crimes against humanity under communist regimes is a POV fork of Crimes against humanity because (1) it implies Communism is a special phenomenon (we do it only for it; if the scope is simply to list crimes against humanity under Communist regimes, that can be done for any other regime type and category) and (b) Crimes against humanity only discuss Cambodia and Yugoslavia, not China, North Korea, and other states discussed there. That is why I think Crimes against humanity under communist regimes and Mass killings under communist regimes are also both content POV fork of Crimes against humanity and Mass killing, which are simply NPOV version of the topic; neither of them discuss Communism in a way that warrants a separate article. If you think that a chapter is enough to justifify a new topic, I suggest you to start creating Mass killings under capitalist regimes, Mass killings under fascist regimes, etc. I would not do that myself because it may appear as WP:POINT and I think they are going to have the same problems as this one. If we do not do this for other regime types, you should stop being surprised when users take it for granted that is indeed the implication if we do this only for Communism. Davide King (talk) 04:35, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for your kind words and for engaging with me, it is really interesting, which is why this reply is going longer than usual and I hope to you can forgive me for that. The problem is that it has been a decade that we have tried to cleanup the article, and any major attempt to fix it, including removing stuff or adding stuff, has been reverted and is opposed by those who were for 'Keep' and denied that the article had not even issues in the first place; indeed, my comment in the AfD was for 'Delete' but it essentially was for 'Rewrite' because I saw that, and I still saw it, as the only way to fix issues once and for all. I also did not compare B but a delete article (Jews and Communism), if that is what you think; Jews and Communism was an article that was indeed SYNTH, while B is not, just like Race and intelligence, and like-minded article, are not SYNTH either. Speaking of which, do you understand the difference between causation and correlation? If some authors say there is a causal connection, whereas other say there is not, it should be not "Proposed causes", but "Discussion of possible causal linkage between mass killings and Communism", or "Communist states and mass killing" for short. If B (again, keep in mind the difference between causation and correlation) and SYNTH, then Race and intelligence, Race and crime in the United States, and a majority of article structured as B are SYNTH. If B is SYNTH, so is D, which includes B, and would also be content POV fork; nonetheless, I myself can support D as a means to improve things, but I think that you are being contradictory if you think B is SYNTH, since D entails that A and B are discussed separately rather than together like in C — it appears to be that A is the option that would fit better what you actually put forward, if you think B is still SYNTH, or I persuaded you that is not the case.

I will try to explain this better — if there was agreement among scholars that communism caused mass killings in those states, it is not SYNTH to treat them as a single group; indeed, for A not to be SYNTH, that communism caused mass killings, or was the major cause, and that this represent the mainstream and majority view among scholars, this would have to be true. Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. It means that we cannot combine country-specific sources about mass killings about Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot (e.g. taking one book about mass killings under Stalin, another book about them under Mao, and so on, and us concluding that since they happened under three or more Communist regimes, we can write Mass killings under communist regimes, if that is not what the sources also conclude or make) to imply there is a MKuCR grouping, or that sources that do discuss Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot together to imply it is a MKuCR, which means a much broader discussion, rather than Stalin–Mao–Pol Pot grouping, which is a much more narrow scope and is how I understand A to be. In addition, sources that discuss together Stalin's, Mao's, and Pol Pot's mass killings are a minority, while the overwhelming majority of them discuss them separately and individually, or are country-specific, and thus the former would be a content POV fork of the latter and NPOV violation. NPOV requires that all majority and minority views are discussed but that cannot be done if only a few sources group Stalin–Mao–Pol Pot together, and even then they disagree (Jones discusses Stalin–Mao together and Pol Pot separately).

I agree that there should be a name change, though that mass killings would occur majoritarily within Communist regimes and that was what the AfD mainly focused on is an oversimplification, since the main reason for delete was that while all events indeed happened, majority of sources discuss them individually or by country, and only a minority of them discuss them together — again, there is no Communism Mass Killings scholarly book, only chapters in general works about mass killings, and they are limited to Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, even thought the name may imply they are talking about every nominally Communist regime. I do not know why I brought up your AfD comment, but I think that since you are critical of the article perhaps you should have considered 'Delete' as a bigger possibility than you thought, especially since 'Delete' can also result in reducing the article to a stub or totally rewrite, rather than total removal of information, which seems to be one of the reasons you did not consider it as a serious possibility. In this regards, I suggest you to reconsider this. No information is actually going to be lost, as we already discuss all the events either indivdiually or by each Communist state as is done by majority of scholarly sources, and the current "Proposed cause" section as well as "Estimates" are already at Criticism of communist party rule, and estimates are further discussed at Democide, which is a more accurate category, since it is very broad. Finally, that the AfD was the result of extremists ... attempting to whitewash the bloodstains of statist Communism is part of right-wing misinformation, as has been noted in the closure, since the overwhelming majority of 'Delete' comments had a totally different reasoning. Again, that we are going to remove the Holocaust next is an absurd strawman, as noted by several users.

"We have a lot of books and monographs that provide a neutral and balanced description of WWII as a topic. However, we have virtually no such books about MKuCR: a couple of sources that discuss this topic are highly controversial, and other works do not discuss the topic as a whole, and they focus on subtopics (or more global topics) instead." —Paul Siebert

"WWII is also a single unified topic with no serious (overarching) dispute over what falls under it, or over if and how the things that fall under it are connected. None of this is true here, which means that collecting events, framing them as mass killings, and lumping them together into a single unified topic becomes WP:SYNTHESIS unless the discussion is informed by, structured according to, and attributed to secondary sources, with appropriate text in each case being devoted to underlying academic disputes." —Aquillion

"The reason there is an article on WWII is that there is academic consensus that the various wars were part of a larger war, viz, WWII. There is no consensus that killings in Stalin's Soviet Union, etc., are part of a pattern of MKuCR." —The Four Deuces

This also perfectly applies to World War II, so you have nothing to be afraid of. Compare the Google Scholar results of "the Holocaust" and "World War II with "communist mass killings" and "mass killings under communist regimes". Davide King (talk) 04:35, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

And because of WP:LENGTH, because you can theoretically go for C and fix the synthesis. But, what is the point when the article is so long that it is difficult to read? This makes editing the article take more time, this makes checking the citations and the text take more time, and this is what introduced the synthesis because the article is so bloated in size that nobody would bother to properly check the information on the article and simply assumed that the article had no issue. This is one thing that I am thankful for the AfD as that brought so much attention to the article. Finally, we are now trying to fix it after years! The least that could be done is to make the article shorter. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 00:18, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

This is because Mass killings under communist regimes was created many years before Mass killing, which is the NPOV article. Before rasining any issue about length, we should at least first attempt to expand Mass killing in the first place. Finally, have you considered a Mass killings in history, akin to Genocides in history, as an alternative? I do not understand this obsession for Communism as a separate topic when there is not a non-controversial academic work (apart from The Black Book of Communism and Red Holocaust) that treats it as a single phenomenon, so why should we too? Chirot, Jones, Mann, Valentino, and others all place Communist mass killings within the context of mass killings in general, and this can be easily done at either Mass killing and/or Mass killings in history. Again, this article may be justified only if we first attempted to do this. Davide King (talk) 01:52, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I do not understand this obsession for Communism as a separate topic when there is not a non-controversial academic work (apart from The Black Book of Communism and Red Holocaust) that treats it as a single phenomenon I like when things are properly categorized, it makes it easier to research a certain topic. I should note that I am also supportive of a mass killings under Capitalist regimes article and a mass killings under Fascist regimes article. As for the mass killings article, it should be improved, but not everybody is necessarily enticed to overlook it. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 13:20, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I believe The Four Deuces can explain you this in a simpler way but that is why we have policies about SYNTH; for a grouping, there must be a connection, it is not sufficient that something was nominally capitalist, Communist, or fascist. It is the reason why we only have Mass killings under communist regimes and not for any other regime type; it is SYNTH without majority of scholarly sources making a clear connection, and your proposal is simply a recipe for further OR/SYNTH. Indeed, that was one scholarly criticism of The Black Book of Communism, see below. Why must we give so much weight to such a controversial work and discuss Communism as a separate and single phenomenon, rather than how majority of genocide scholars treat it (e.g. chapters in works about general mass killings book)?

• Dallin, Alexander (Winter 2000). "Review. Reviewed Work: The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression by Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Margolin, Jonathan Murphy, Mark Kramer". Slavic Review. 59 (4). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press: 883. doi:10.2307/2697429. JSTOR 2697429. Whether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss.
• David-Fox, Michael (Winter 2004). "On the Primacy of Ideology. Soviet Revisionists and Holocaust Deniers (In Response to Martin Malia)". Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 5 (1). Bloomington, Indiana: Slavic: 81–105. doi:10.1353/kri.2004.0007. S2CID 159716738. Malia thus counters by coining the category of 'generic Communism,' defined everywhere down to the common denominator of party movements founded by intellectuals. (Pol Pot's study of Marxism in Paris thus comes across as historically more important than the gulf between radical Soviet industrialism and the Khmer Rouge's murderous anti-urbanism.) For an argument so concerned with justifying The Black Book, however, Malia's latest essay is notable for the significant objections he passes by. Notably, he does not mention the literature addressing the statistical-demographic, methodological, or moral dilemmas of coming to an overall communist victim count, especially in terms of the key issue of how to include victims of disease and hunger.

Do you still think this is a good idea? Have you considered my Mass killing expansion and Mass killings in history spinoff (general article about mass killings irrespective of regime type) proposals? Concerns about length are not legitimate if we do not even try first. Davide King (talk) 14:23, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

The only issue from my proposal is POVFORK and that is assuming the article will not be monitored enough to keep it fresh and encyclopedic, therefore, I still do not think my idea is a bad one, only that it would require effort to manage both articles. As for your idea - yeah, it is a decent idea. You could and should expand on that. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 16:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I think you are being too optimistic about it; we discussed this over the last year and nothing has actually been truly changed or improved. I do think that D may be a way to actually incentivize improvement and a means to that end, but I also ask you to seriously consider some of my arguments, and if you think they are wrong, I am missing something, please let me know and rebuke them; in particular, I would like to see you discussing sources and your thoughts about my sources research and analysis; again, if I missed anything or you disagree about something, feel free to tell me.

• (e.g. to actually discuss Communist mass killings together, there must be a correlation; since there is not but some authors have proposed correlations, we cannot discuss them together or separately but only the discussion of correlations put forward)

notes about sources

• (there are no Communist Mass Killings books that would establish it as a separate topic, only "Communist Mass Killings — Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot" chapters within the context of mass killings in general, which is how I propose to have them discussed — cft. Google Scholar results for "communist mass killings" and "mass killings under communist regimes" — do you see the difference?)

and information

• (no information is actually going to be lost ("Terminology" is discussed at Mass killing, "Estimates" are discussed at both Criticism of communist party rule and Democide, "Proposed cause" is discussed at Criticism of communist party rule, all events have their own articles and are discussed in each state's history, "Debate over famines" is also already at Criticism of communist party rule when discussing loss of life, and "Memorials and museums" are discussed at Communist state; we also already have Communist crimes (Polish legal concept), Lustration, and other articles for "Legal status" — I think Criticism of communist party rule is the more appropriate article for that, or did I miss your point?

so nothing is going to be lost, only the SYNTH of it. Davide King (talk) 04:35, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

B and C

Nug say "an article cannot discuss any debate on the correlations or causes without mentioning the government actions that has led to that debate in the first place. It would be like discussing Causes of World War II without having the article World War II." The problem is that there is no academic work fully dedicated to mass killings under Communist regimes,1 or Communist mass killings — they are mostly chapters of works about the general topic and are limited to Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot; indeed, there are a bunch of books about World War II as a whole, there are no academic books about Communist mass killings as a whole (again, they are mainly chapters limited about Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot — Chirot, Jones, Mann, and Valentino, all of which are within the context of mass killings in general). I can accept an article limited to those three Communist leaders, but I do not accept Nug's premise if by A they mean Communism as a single phenomenon and exclude country experts by default, and broad it to include any other Communist regime.

Notes

1. The Black Book of Communism and Red Holocaust (limited to Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho Chi Min, and Pol Pot) appear to be the exceptions, and it is those kind of works that we need, e.g. works fully devoted to Communism as a special phenomenon rather than chapters in books about mass killings in general. The Red Holocaust's "[s]ubsequent chapters make comparisons with Germany and Japan under Hitler and Hirohito, respectively. Although several topics are raised, the book's message can be easily summarized. Totalitarian ideologies have taken different forms in the twentieth century (communism, Nazism, and fascism), but they have all produced similar results: mass terror and crimes against humanity. Some distinction are also made." In light of this, we may have an article focused on totalitarian crimes and mass killings, and discuss their similarities and differences.

Davide King (talk) 21:56, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

• WRT @Nug:'s It would be like discussing Causes of World War II without having the article World War II. We have a lot of books and monographs that provide a neutral and balanced description of WWII as a topic. However, we have virtually no such books about MKuCR: a couple of sources that discuss this topic are highly controversial, and other works do not discuss the topic as a whole, and they focus on subtopics (or more global topics) instead.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:34, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
  • WWII is also a single unified topic with no serious (overarching) dispute over what falls under it, or over if and how the things that fall under it are connected. None of this is true here, which means that collecting events, framing them as mass killings, and lumping them together into a single unified topic becomes WP:SYNTHESIS unless the discussion is informed by, structured according to, and attributed to secondary sources, with appropriate text in each case being devoted to underlying academic disputes. --Aquillion (talk) 23:03, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Except that it isn't WP:SYNTHESIS, otherwise why would some authors be disputing the grouping of events as communist mass killings if that grouping didn't exist in published sources, are they hallucinating? Can we finally stop this "it's WP:SYNTH" bs? --Nug (talk) 00:42, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
      • Ok, by combining Valentino (who considered Stalin's mass killings as "Communist mass killings", but Afghan mass killings as non-Communist) with Courtois, who considered Afghan victims as vicrims of Communism, but didn't use Valentino's term "Communist mass killings", the article is doing no synthesis?
      • Actually, the article is a collection of events that were called as "mass killings"/"genocide"/"politicide" etc by at least one author. If that is not synthesis, then what is? Paul Siebert (talk) 00:59, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
        • Valentino did mention "Communist" as an "additional motive" for the killings in Afghanistan in his typology table on page 83. --Nug (talk) 01:18, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
          • "Communist" is, to some degree, an additional motive in all events that we discuss. But the claim that it was a main motive in all cases is a minority POV, as my analysis of sources demonstrates. Grouping some events together based on some minor trait is a clear and unequivocal POV-pushing.
          • So far, you provided no such analysis, and I have no reason to believe you are expressing a majority POV. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:27, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
            • Again you are trying to conflate Valentino's mass killing types with his mass killing causes. --Nug (talk) 02:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

              Actually, it seems you described your own point of view. In contrast, I am objecting your attempts to conflate grouping with causation, which you do for Valentino, Bellamy and some other authors. Yes, Valentino put some mass killings in Communist states in one group, which called "dispossessive a.k.a. Communist mass killings". However, from that, it does not follow that he saw Communism as a cause. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:00, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

      • Well, if we have authors making the connection, we can rely on those (as I specified in my comments above.) But it isn't enough just to vaguely say they exist; we actually have to cite them, and rely on them, and use them to determine how we structure and discuss the events in question, without relying on any sources that don't make that broad topical connection. Put simply, it's WP:SYNTH / WP:OR to make or imply a connection that the sources we're using don't. Obviously this is a sweeping RFC so it's hard to drill down into the individual examples, but if you're confident that you can write a version that carefully documents and attributes each example in the context of an author connecting it to the concept of mass killings as a specifically Communist thing, then doing so should make a lot of the objections go away and will, basically, be B - a focused, specific article that reflects actual arguments people make. You can't, though, just point to a source that said "this mass killing occurred in this communist regime" because building a list out of that to imply that the commonality is significant, using sources that don't say or discuss things like "this mass-killing happened because Communism", is synthesis and means you're making the argument yourself as an editor - you need to rely on the sources that specifically discuss that commonality. --Aquillion (talk) 03:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Let's put this in perspective for the closer, shall we? One user is relying on their personal reading of Valentino (Nug), while another is relying on academic secondary coverage of Valentino (Siebert); if Nug's reading is correct, surely it would be reflected in academic secondary coverage already? But those sources, in fact, give a more nuanced picture that is closer to what Siebert is summarizing for us, and I do not have no reason to believe Siebert got this one wrong. So please, I ask that everyone rely on secondary coverage rather than cherry picking from Valentino. Again, surely if you are right and what you are citing or quoting from Valentino is due, it has been reported and mentioned in academic secondary coverage of him, and should be easy to provide, don't you think? Davide King (talk) 01:33, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
      • What the heck? Priselac's review of Valentio's book explicitly mentions the three mass killing types: communist, ethnic and counter-guerrilla and takes no issue with it while praising the book as excellent. I don't to see how Paul Siebert's view is "a more nuanced picture", given he seems to not understand the basic difference between case study type and conclusion. --Nug (talk) 02:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
        • And? No one is denying that Valentino outlines such mass killing types; however, as noted by Straus, Communist mass killing is a subtype, not a major type, which means it can be discussed at Mass killing, not as a separate topic. To quote Straus:

          "Valentino identifies two major types, each with three subtypes. The first major type is 'dispossessive mass killing,' which includes (1) 'communist mass killings' in which leaders seek to transform societies according to communist principles; (2) 'ethnic mass killings,' in which leaders forcibly remove an ethnic population; and (3) mass killing as leaders acquire and repopulate land. The second major type of mass killing is 'coercive mass killing,' which includes (1) killing in wars when leaders cannot defeat opponents using conventional means; (2) 'terrorist' mass killing when leaders use violence to force an opposing side to surrender; and (3) killing during the creation of empires when conquering leaders try to defeat resistance and intimidate future resistance."

        • "One of Valentino's central arguments is that 'characteristics of society at large, such as pre-existing cleaves, hatred and discrimination between groups and non-democratic forms of government, are of limited utility in distinguishing societies at high risk for mass killing. Valentino's strongest arguments in support of this statement are his comparative studies of regimes that committed mass killing with similar regimes that did not." Did you also miss this from Prisalec? This is literally what Siebert have been saying the whole time. Davide King (talk) 02:11, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
          • No, it can't be discussed in Mass killing because the article would be absolutely huge if it discusses all the types, this communist type is already almost 300kB, so it would have to be split up anyway. You also don't understand the difference between type topology and conclusion, or are you purposely confusing them? And coming back to my original point, it proves that grouping mass killings based on communist type is not WP:SYNTH. --Nug (talk) 03:14, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
            • You ignore that much of the space is occupied by non-free, lengthy quotes, and that even if we have space issues, we can have a Mass killings in history article; you also act as if this article is the be-all and end-all, and cannot be rewritten or restructured to make it much more concise and space-saving. As I said, Valentino's Communist mass killing is not even a major type but a subtype, which makes it undue as a separate topic. Even if you are right, such category must be the mainstream, majority view and not be disputed or controversial; Aquillion gave a good summary and criteria. None of Valentino's scholarly publications emphasize Communism or are publications about Communism. Chapters or passing mentions are not good enough to establish it as a separate topic, and they are placed within the context of mass killings in general, therefore they must be discussed together generally; they can be grouped together as part of the structure but it must be a general article.1 This is what genocide scholars do, and their main concerns are correlations and generalizations, which fits B; they rely on country experts and specialists to summarize the events. Davide King (talk) 04:08, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

              Notes

            • 1. If it is not so clear, by this I mean that the article's grouping will be irrespective of regime type (it will be a general article about mass killing events irrespective of categories) but we can have a section categorized by Communist regimes, if not geographically or other fitting categorizations used to have a well-organized table of contents. What I oppose is having separate articles about the events for each regime type, whether it is capitalist, Communist, fascist, or whatever, when we already discuss them individually. There are simply no sufficient scholarly sources that treat them as separate topics, and it is better to discuss them in short paragraphs together (e.g. no need to say what happened in great details, just mention and link the events themselves, there is no need to provide a coatracked summary there too). Davide King (talk) 04:19, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
              • WP:GNG is the criterion by which we determine if a standalone article is warranted, it states "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material". The fact we have a chapter in Valentino (and in Bellamy and others) meets the requirement. --Nug (talk) 04:39, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
                • I am curious to see Aquillion's response to this, since you did mention at least two sources now and your back-and-forth discussion was interesting and useful, so I hope that you can discuss that further; however, Bellamy and Valentino fit B more than anything, and is fine by me because that is what I support — my issue is how such sources are used to support A or C rather than the more proper B.
                • I do not think that excludes my proposal of general mass killings either; in addition, Bellamy puts Communism within the context of the Cold War, while Valentino puts it within that of mass killings in general and as a subtype of dispossessive mass killings. If there is consistency, then a similar article about capitalism must be created due to Bellamy's chapter about "Capitalist Atrocities" — I do not think A-style articles for both are good, but at least there would be consistency. I also do not think this solves NPOV and WEIGHT issues, and the contradictions between country experts and historians, and genocide scholars and their weight (majority, minority, fringe), which is necessary to have for an NPOV article.
                • Bellamy has the chapter "Totalitarian Mass Killing", so I do not see why we should not go for a general article, with Communist regimes being a section, or a general mass killings article divided into Capitalist, Communist, and Totalitarian as Bellamy does. Indeed, now that I think about it, Bellamy's work is perfect for my proposal of Mass killings in history. It may well be such article's table of content.
                • 2. State Terror in the Long Nineteenth Century
                • 3. Totalitarian Mass Killing
                • 4. Terror Bombing in the Second World War
                • 5. The Cold War Struggle (1): Capitalist Atrocities
                • 6. The Cold War Struggle (2): Communist Atrocities
                • 7. Atrocities and the 'Golden Age' of Humanitarianism
                • 8. Radical Islamism and the War on Terror
                • I fail to see how you can read Bellamy and come to the conclusion that Communism is a single phenomenon and must be discussed as a new topic. Davide King (talk) 05:15, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
                  • The chapter The Cold War Struggle (2): Communist Atrocities also discusses communist mass killings. --Nug (talk) 06:15, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
                    • And? I already acknowledged it when I said the book places it within the context of the Cold War. My issue has never been if we can discuss mass killings that happened under Communist regimes, my issue has always been how to do that and make it encyclopedic, which is what the AfD tried to rule and said there is no consensus among us. If Bellamy and Valentino are perfectly acceptable sources for the topic of mass killings, can you explain why they cannot be used for Mass killings in history (or a general article about mass killings, a spin off of Mass killing that analyzes the concept in greater details, using summary style for each event, etc.)? Why must we cherry pick chapters about Communism only, and ignore all the others? You said a chapter is sufficient to establish a topic, I have at least two full books about mass killings in history, why is not this proposal preferable? You simply cannot assume space or length a priori, so that is not a good rebuttal, find a better one. Davide King (talk) 14:01, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

                    @Nug: I think a symmetry in the Bellamy's book is clearly seen: he groups Cold war perpetrators by camps, and he analyzed atrocities committed by both camps. It should be clear to any good faith logical thinker that Bellamy does not connect Communism with atrocities: he forms two groups of perpetrators, each of which belong to one of opposing camps. Therefore, a proper context here is not Communism, but Cold war.

                    In general, I find your position non-constructive and disruptive. It is absolutely clear to any good faith user that picking one more source and claiming "My source says this" is totally senseless. As I (and admins panel) noted, we need a detailed source analysis. I already proposed to establish the majority viewpoint by collecting a representative sample of sources and analyzing them. I am expecting to see your thoughts on what other users have already posted at WP:DRNMKUCR, as well as your own ideas. If you will not do that in next few days, I will not consider you as a party of the DRN process, and my voluntary obligation not to take any actions against you will not be in effect any more. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:17, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Re Nug's comment: "an article cannot discuss any debate on the correlations or causes without mentioning the government actions that has led to that debate in the first place. It would be like discussing Causes of World War II without having the article World War II."

The reason there is an article on WWII is that there is academic consensus that the various wars were part of a larger war, viz, WWII. There is no consensus that killings in Stalin's Soviet Union, etc., are part of a pattern of MKuCR.

There was a similar discussion about Jewish Bolshevism, aka Jewish Communism. Some editors argued that the article explained one theory connecting Jews and Communism but there should be an article about the facts behind the theory. Therefore, Jews and Communism was created as a fork. At AfD, I argued that although there was literature about Jewish involvement in Communist movements in different times and places, there was none about the topic as a whole. The article was therefore a POVFORK which implied that Jews had a propensity to become Communists or had a "disproportionate" influence on it.

Nug's reasoning is circular because he begins with the assumption that there is a correlation or causal connection. But there is no consensus for that view in reliable sources, just as there is none for Jews and Communism. This could be an example of apophenia, "the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things." Or it could be because the theory precedes the evidence, which is collected to support a predetermined theory.

TFD (talk) 05:13, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Nope, I never said there was a causal connection. Some authors say there is, other say there isn't, that why there is a Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#Proposed_causes section. But then again you said I "voted against capitalizing Communist even though it would remove ambiguity" when you know very well I never did such a thing and that MOS:ISMCAPS was the reason for not capitalizing per the discussion you participated in at Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes/Archive_39#Capitalization_of_"Communist". --Nug (talk) 06:24, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I said "correlation or causal connection." Do you not beleive there is a correlation? TFD (talk) 06:36, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

@Nug: Do you realise that if some authors say there is a causal connection, whereas other say there isn't, the section's title should be not "Proposed causes", but "Discussion of possible causal linkage between mass killings and Communism"?

And, in reality, your description is still desperately incomplete: in reality, some authors see a strong connection between mass killings and Communism, other authors disagree, and another group of authors just ignore this dispute, and prefers to discuss mass killings not in a context of Communism. My preliminary source analysis demonstrates that the last group is an overwhelming majority. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:29, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Okay, by your logic if source analysis reveals that the majority of sources do not discuss the education system in communist countries, we can conclude that the overwhelming majority view is that no education system existed in these countries. That's basically your argument about the "third group" in a nutshell. --Nug (talk) 22:28, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

No. If according to my logic, majority of sources discuss education system in each communist country taken separately, then we can write an article that discuss each country separately, and discuss commonalities in a small section at the very bottom. And that would be pretty much ok, keeping in mind that e.g. Vygotsky's works are discussed in almost all sources not is a context of Mao's China, and not in a context of Marxism. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:35, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

No. Your logic is if we have 10 sources that discuss the education system of a group of communist states, and 40 sources that discuss education system in each communist country separately, then the argument is that commonalities discussed in the 10 sources are a minority viewpoint because the 40 sources that discuss the individual countries make no mention of any commonalities with other communist states. --Nug (talk) 02:45, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

That is not that simple. Let's make a situation even more extreme: we have 5 sources that discuss the education system of a group of communist states, and 500 sources that discuss education system in each communist country separately. However, if majority (or a significant fraction) of those 500 sources cite those 5 sources, we still can speak about some significant commonality or a linkage. If the same were true for mass killings, then the current article (in it's current shape) would be Ok. The problem is that so far my analysis does not confirm that. "Genocide scholars" work in separation from country experts, the latter cite the works of genocide scholars very rarely. And even genocide scholars themselves (e.g. Harff) do not see Communism as an important factor affecting mass killings.

One way of the other, this is becoming fruitless. I propose to switch to a real source analysis at DRNMKUCR and to let this RfC come to some logical end. We have done our part of the job. We could have done that better, but now it is too late. Let's wait for results.

I am expecting to see your posts at DRNMKUCR. Paul Siebert (talk) 04:14, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Okay, list these 500 sources at DRNMKUCR so that we can analyze them. --Nug (talk) 11:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

In the example, we would have an article that compares and contrasts education in communist countries. East Germany for example inherited a well developed education system onto which they imposed their own ideology. Someone reading a brief article does not want to read how East German universities developed in the Middle Ages or how Prussia developed a system that was later imposed on the states of East Germany. If they did, they can go to "Education in Germany" or "Education in East Germany." Basically it would be filled by cut and paste information rather than what the reader wanted to know. TFD (talk) 00:47, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Consider the article Education in the United States. (Education is a state matter in the U.S.) It doesn't have separate sections for each state. It merely points out the commonality and differences between states. TFD (talk) 01:40, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

RFC process discussion

We want to have plenty of time for feedback and discussion. But also to eventually move forward because IMO this is the necessary next step on this article. May I suggest that if input from new folks has slowed down a lot by then to close for closing 2 weeks after it's December 19th inception date which would be January 2nd? Also that once it is "closed for closing" that new comments be firmly excluded and put elsewhere? North8000 (talk) 14:30, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd rather wait until the RFC tag expires, which occurs after a month. GoodDay (talk) 18:02, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Cool. North8000 (talk) 16:34, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

There is no point waiting if no further comments are made, we just keep arguing with each other and create new threads every day. North8000, I say let's have one or more admins close it, and see the results, which hopefully will make follow-up discussions much more clear and focused. Davide King (talk) 02:10, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

My idea was 2 weeks if input from new folks has died down by then. But if people object and say we should go 30 days, then we probably need to to be safe. Regarding the close, I'd be more concerned about getting a very thorough admin than trying to get two or more. Having everyone comment on every idea (to avoid math problems) doing a thorough closing job bigger.North8000 (talk) 20:21, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Looks like zero new posts for 5 days. @GoodDay: and any others who might advocate longer, what do you think about closing at 3 weeks which would be January 10th? The whole article and situation is sort of "frozen" until then. North8000 (talk) 19:01, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Fine with me. GoodDay (talk) 19:18, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't say the article is "frozen". We are currently working on the sections that must be cleaned anyway, independently on the RfC's outcome. The DRN discussion of sources is also hardly affected by the RfC decision. Keeping in mind that this article was a subject of the longest AfD, which was accompanied by an enormous canvassing and comments in a blogosphere, it would be highly desirable to observe our standard procedure. Let's wait for one month, and then ask some uninvolved admin to formally close it. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:48, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Why the repeated insistence on an admin closure? Is there any particular reason this RfC needs admin tools to close, as opposed to being closed by any non-involved wikipedian with experience and understanding of the relevant policies? It's established convention that RfCs with non-admin closures are not any less reliable than those with admin closures, and there's even a dispute process in case there's disagreement (which to my understanding rarely ever happens, even with contentious RfCs, as the more contentious, the more thorough the closure tends to be). Fieari (talk) 07:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• I think the admin closure is absolutely required here because the subject is highly contentious, because this page was previously locked by admins for a long time, and because this RfC was posted by admin who anticipates WP:AE sanctions related to this closure [20]. This is not about tools. This is about authority and experience. On the other hand, the closing does not look very difficult. Clearly, there is no consensus (at best) for A, B and D. As about C - yes, maybe, this is judgement call (I would say no consensus as well). My very best wishes (talk) 16:15, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

For clarification, the RFC opener isn't an admin. I don't understand the meaning of his comment you linked above, that he will take people who !voted C to WP:AE if option C becomes the consensus? --Nug (talk) 20:47, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

My bad, I was misled by Category:Administrators without tools. My very best wishes (talk) 20:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I think admin closure is required, needed, and the norm for things like this. North8000 (talk) 20:58, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

When the RFC tag expires. I'll request a closure. -- GoodDay (talk) 03:35, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

GoodDay, it has expired. Davide King (talk) 13:54, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

With the expiration of the RFC tag, I've requested closure for this RFC. GoodDay (talk) 18:44, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Cool. North8000 (talk) 19:19, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Question

Question. Which of the versions (A,B,C or D) corresponds to keeping "status quo" for the page? And if there is no such option, then this is probably not a valid RfC? I mean that version "none of the above" should always be included. That is what me and many other paricipants probably would vote for. My very best wishes (talk) 02:58, 11 January 2022 (UTC) Thank you for answering my question [21]. I realize this is "C". My very best wishes (talk) 16:05, 11 January 2022 (UTC) It was not my intention to ask such question here. It was misplaced by BSMRD [22]. My very best wishes (talk) 03:14, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The structure described by option C matches the current structure of the page, though it is poorly executed. If you wish to see an article patterned off the current structure that is the option you should vote for. BSMRD (talk) 03:42, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Additionally, despite your insistence, nowhere in WP:RFC does it state that an RFC must have a status quo option in order to be valid. This RfC asks for comment on a variety of possibilities to restructure the article which was found inadequate in the AfD. Your vague declarations of the RfC being "invalid" feel an awful lot like trying to get it shut down on non-existent policy grounds, and I recommend you stop pursuing such a course. BSMRD (talk) 03:56, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I concur with BSMRD. With respect to the question at hand (defined scope), the status quo is "ambiguous / no defined scope", but "C" matches the defacto status quo scope. North8000 (talk) 04:06, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Please, do not make attacks towards BSMRD. They did not misplace anything, it should be common sense not to write something as a response to the RfC's OP as you did here but rather to open a subthread about it as BSMRD correctly did for you here. Davide King (talk) 13:12, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Note to Closer

I have reviewed the bolded !votes and have counted the !votes, and I count as follows:

• A - Yes, 4; No, 16; Neutral, 1; Confused, 1

• B - Yes, 13; No, 9; Neutral, 1;

• C - Yes, 10; No, 10; Neutral, 1; Maybe, 2

• D - Yes, 4; No, 12; Neutral, 1; Yes-No, 1; Probably Not, 1, multiple struck comments

I have not reviewed the supporting statements or tried to assess strength of arguments. I think that it is clear that there is consensus against A, and against D, splitting the article. There appears to be a rough numerical consensus in favor of B. There appears to be no consensus on C, but C appears to be the status quo, and it has been clear for a long time, both before the close of the AFD and from the conclusions of the closers of the AFD, that the status quo is not satisfactory. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:05, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you Robert for tabulating the votes. As a person who was neutral in this RfC, I think that would be helpful for a closer. I invite all participants to comment if they agree with this summary. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:06, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• Agreed. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:08, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
• Disagree - along with this comment threatening WP:AE action if there is a consensus for option C, I don't see Robert's comment as appropriate here. --Nug (talk) 23:36, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: " have not reviewed the supporting statements or tried to assess strength of arguments". Given that the job of any closer is to do exactly that, I suggest you leave the closer(s) to decide what the consensus is, rather than preempting them.

@Everyone else. Arguing about this now is utterly pointless. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:42, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

We're lucky to have Robert McClenon's substantial expert & neutral efforts here. The summary work that they did is straightforward neutral objective (= not subjective) work, and IMO that and the appropriateness of it is further reinforced by their history of assistance at this article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:50, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• Robert's comment: "C appears to be the status quo, and it has been clear for a long time, both before the close of the AFD and from the conclusions of the closers of the AFD, that the status quo is not satisfactory" is clearly not a neutral comment, he should participate along with the rest of us in !voting in the appropriate section. --Nug (talk) 00:21, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• That may have been true before the last AfD but we can no longer act as if it has no issues — there is no longer a consensus to 'keep' the article, therefore their comments are perfectly neutral, reasonable, and in line with what the admin panel ruled in late 2021. Davide King (talk) 00:25, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
• They also did not 'threat' anything, they simply stated the obvious, something that Levivich also discussed as a possibililty to resolve the dispute, and admin's attention was again called at AN; of course, you are free to disagree, but I think there is no issue with their comments. Davide King (talk) 00:33, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• I have changed my vote to help to achieve consensus. This is now C - Yes, 11; No, 9. I should say though this is a very poorly phrased RfC, where different participants have interpreted the meaning of options differently. For example, option B say "The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments...", but the page already does that, so it is not clear what exactly changes have been proposed. Option B does not say "The article should discuss only the concept...", and probably for a good reason: it can not discuss any concept without providing the underlying factual materials for different countries - as the current version of this page does. My very best wishes (talk) 00:49, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

You know what's funny? I was the last person to !vote in this RFC before the RFC tag was removed. When I voted on Jan 7, it had already been quiet since the end of Dec (2nd-to-last votes were Dec 28 or Dec 30). I already thought I might have been voting in a "done" RFC, because to me, the outcome was already clear at that point. This RFC has sat quiet for almost a month, and it's amazing that some editor--who have been editing this page every day during that month--have only now realized that the RFC should be reopened, or their vote changed, or their friend should come vote, etc. What an interesting chronology of events we have here. Levivich 01:04, 23 January 2022 (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.

Consensus sought for removal of fringe source (Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro et al)

Source [93] though being recent, has not a single citation in google scholar, and is the work of a scholar of geography without any notable reputation in this subject or anything connected. In viewing the list of his publications, there is a strong appearance of ideological bias. This inclusion of this source in the article clearly undercuts the other rules we've established regarding sources and is an example of a lopsided application of these rules regarding the viewpoint that the source supports. I suggest we remove this source, since it is clearly a fringe viewpoint, if those established rules are to have validity regarding other sources. AShalhoub (talk) 10:17, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

We just had this closure stating "[t]here is a clear consensus ... an agreement that there is still a lot of work to do here, and the tag should remain on the top of the article for now", and you think this is the problem? We still have Watson, who is true WP:FRINGE for falsely claiming that Nazism and Nazi concentration camps were a form of socialism, that Hitler was a Marxist, and that Marx and Engels invented genocide, and you think this source, which was published by the academic press (unlike Watson and several other sources) is the problem? We discussed it at the RSN, and XOR'easter's comment "[a]n academic journal that serves a particular community and thus embodies its biases does not sound very different from a news website with an editorial slant, as far as WP:BIASEDSOURCES is concerned" is spot on. It is one thing to remove it from "Comparisons to other mass killings", though TFD is right that it is a double standard, and a whole other to remove it outright, even when it represents a mainstream position and a good tertiary source about the death toll at "Estimates." I would have appreciated if you replied back to me here. Davide King (talk) 11:12, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Davide King, one of your arguments seems to be that a "worse" source exists, so this source should be withheld on the basis that it was published in an academic journal. Whataboutism aside, the extensive discussion to this point has established that being published in an academic journal on its own does not clear the threshold for inclusion in this article. If that were true, it would open the door for other sources, with contrasting conclusions, that meet that bare minimum threshold. Further, I can't see how diverting to a discussion about another source regarding a completely different point of the article is doing much but convoluting the discussion and resolution of a discrete issue, which is a acknowledged problem with this talk page. Finally, this issue is best addressed to a larger audience and not resolved between two or three editors, so I think it's better to resolve it here rather than at the link you posted. AShalhoub (talk) 11:30, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Stop this whataboutism fallacy, when I clearly showed that Watson is fringe, was not published by the academic press, and yet it is still in the article and you seem to have no problem with it, while this source is not fringe, was published by the academic press, and you seem to have issues with it, even though a RSN discussion said otherwise. "... the extensive discussion to this point has established that being published in an academic journal on its own does not clear the threshold for inclusion in this article." But apparently news sources and popular press books do clear it? You cannot dismiss that discussion, it was posted at the WP:RSN, and the onus is on you, not on me. This source is currently used like all other sources; a minority view and properly attributed. Davide King (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The problem with your claim that "the other rules we've established regarding sources" is that

(1) we have not actually established it (only Levivich, Siebert, and I have proposed this) and are not following it anyway in the article (we still rely on Courtois and Rummell as core sources, even though Courtois' introduction is extremely controversial and Rummel is outdated and is much better to use through secondary coverage like Harff and others rather than his own works), so why take it on this source, and

(2) Siebert and I have repeatedly proposed a common approach and criteria to sources but no one has been following us.

As I said many times, this article requires a total rewrite, which the RfC's structure results will confirm and help us to achieve this, and I do not think asking removal of single sources is a good way to actually improve the article; for every one bad source removed, there is always another one remaining or that it is not used correctly, and removal of any source that does not reflect this rightist POV just makes the current NPOV issues even worse. To play devil's advocate, this source represents a significant minority view (it is mainly a tertiary source that summarizes the Black Book and the 100 million's controversy, and does not propose any new original research — Le Livre noir du capitalisme already did that) and is properly attributed, in line with the whole article. You should join Siebert and I, and our calls for a rewrite, because only that will remove such bad sources and this source will likely not make the cut, though it is still too soon to dismiss it outright. Davide King (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

If I recall right, the expectations put forth by you and Siebert are that the sources should reflect a majority consensus viewpoint, be written by domain experts, be recent, and not contain ideological bias. Why should these expectations be selectively applied? AShalhoub (talk) 11:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The whole article already fails all this; it has been acknowleged by even its defenders that this article mainly represent minority views. The problem is that Engel-Di Mauro and Ghodsee are also perfectly fine according to the current criteria, so why should we remove them if we are not going to fix the article and rewrite it? We cannot remove them but keep Courtois, Rummel, and Watson because they all represent minority viewpoints, and unlike Courtois and Rummel, Ghodsee and Engel-Di Mauro are not outdated, and unlike Watson, they are not fringe either. Davide King (talk) 12:42, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Whether or not that particular source is included has absolutely no bearing on this source, which is why discussion of that separate issue in this space is whataboutism. If that source is fringe, then of course the same standards should be applied, but this is not the place for that discussion. AShalhoub (talk) 11:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

It is appropriate because you previously questioned Ghodsee; it seems as though you have something against left-wing perspectives by scholars or that have been published in the academic press, especially since your argument is mainly due to WP:BIAS, and WP:FRINGE does not apply to Engel-Di Mauro (a fringe author would not edit an academic-published handbook) or to his article in full. That you opened new threads about both Engel-Di Mauro and Ghodsee but not about Watson and other questionable sources is certainly interesting and is not something you should be so defensive about. Davide King (talk) 12:42, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

IIRC the wikipedia guidelines are to respond to arguments and not make inferences motivations of editors. To be sure, I have my views about the status of this article, but the pressing concern is the lopsided application of rules sources are expected to follow. If your vote is that this source should remain, despite that it has no citations, is written by a non-domain expert, and is ideologically biased, then you should apply those constraints to sources you disagree with as well. If you identify a source from the "other side" that falls under this description (most important to me is the number of citations), I'll be happy to support it's removal. AShalhoub (talk) 13:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough but since when is the number of citations the be-all-end-all of WP:RS? Can you actually cite a Wikipedia policy about having to rely on citation counts? They are more useful for notability, not reliability alone, especially when academic sources such are Karlsson 2008 and Engel-Di Mauro 2021 are mainly tertiary sources. If we followed your criteria, this article should have been deleted long ago because the only source that comes close to the topic is Karlsson 2008, and has only 8 obscure citations. Davide King (talk) 13:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

To counter your likely response that we have Crimes against humanity under communist regimes (CaHuCr), if one actually reads Karlsson 2008, we will see that, despite using crimes against humanity, it is essentially this topic (MKuCR), and not CaHuCr. This discussion may be of interest. Davide King (talk) 13:35, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The real issue with Di-Mauro is not what he said or believes in, it is that he currently fails wp:Notable. The black book of communism itself is extremely fringe, so removing all mentions of it would be a start. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 13:06, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

There was already lengthy dispute about this book which looks to be inconclusive. For me the academic standard is, and has always been, citation count, which is why I think this source should be removed. The black book of communism is a seminal work which is controversial, not fringe, and has already been attributed as such. AShalhoub (talk) 13:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

MarioSuperStar77, notability should not be the be-all-end-all if it is published in an academic journal; many reviewers in academic journals are not notable on their own, that does not mean we cannot use their review published in peer-reviewed academic journals. AShalhoub, citation count is a sign of notability, not necessarily of reliability, and we do not base academic sources on that. Authorship, publishers, and other criteria are just as equally, if not more, important. Davide King (talk) 13:27, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Peer reviewed papers published in academic journals are not "fringe sources." In fact Wikipedia:Fringe theories is not about evaluating sources at all. Furthermore, there is nothing in rs that says the number of citations of a work have any bearing on its reliability. Gibbon's classic The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire has thousands of cites, but is too old to be considered reliable. OTOH, a recently published university textbook on Roman history that summarizes known information to date may have no cites but is considered reliable enough to be used as a university textbook.

It would be helpful if the editor who created this section accurately cite policy.

TFD (talk) 14:12, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, this was better concise than I could. Davide King (talk) 14:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Aren't the statements that "peer reviewed papers published in academic journals are not fringe sources", and "Wikipedia:Fringe theories is not about evaluating sources at all" contradictory in terms of being relevant to this removal? I'm confused about what you mean by fringe theories are not about evaluating sources. Wikipedia:Fringe theories says "Reliable sources are needed for any article in Wikipedia. They are needed to demonstrate that an idea is sufficiently notable to merit a dedicated article about it. For a fringe view to be discussed in an article about a mainstream idea, independent reliable sources must discuss the relationship of the two as a serious and substantial matter." obviously this article doesn't have those, because it hasn't been cited anywhere. The page also says, "The notability of a fringe theory must be judged by statements from verifiable and reliable sources, not the proclamations of its adherents. Additionally, the topic must satisfy general notability guidelines: the topic must receive significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." I believe the source fails on this count as well. To avoid running afoul of my own arguments, I will avoid outlining why the inclusion of this topic runs afoul of the arguments made against Rummel and Courtois and avoid an unnecessary sidetrack. Just know that the primary concern for me here is that there is an inconsistency in the constraints applied to various sources, depending on the overall point they're making. AShalhoub (talk) 08:54, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• support ~ cygnis insignis 15:03, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose removal of source per TFD's well reasoned argument above.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  that’s true, from an in-universe pov ~ cygnis insignis 15:44, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Support - Engel-Di Mauro is editor-in-chief of the journal where his paper was published, he is responsible deciding what papers get included in the journal, so effectively his paper is not peer-reviewed. His area of expertise is geography, not genocide studies or even communism. Engel-Di Mauro's paper where he states that "Capitalism's war-related death toll so far exceeds 150 million," citing Wikipedia. "The data are mainly from Wikipedia," the author explains, specifically citing our List of wars by death toll. --Nug (talk) 22:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  If we consider Di Mauro's articles non-peer-reviewed, what can you tell about the articles published by the members of the US Academy of Sciences in PNAS?

  Furthermore, whereas I agree that we cannot use sources that mirror Wikipedia. However, that is not what Di Mauro says. He took some data from Wikipedia (which seems pretty legitimate if they are properly sourced) and concluded that capitalism lead to 150 million war deaths. That statement was not taken from Wikipedia, that is the author's conclusion.

  Therefore, that your argument is not valid.

  The second question is if Di Mauro's opinion deserves attention. In my opinion, there are some problems with that.

  - First, to take data from Wikipedia without criticism is not good: it is a demonstration of author's unfamiliarity with source criticism.

  - Second, by arbitrarily attributing these deaths to capitalism, the author makes a very liberal assumption, which is hardly universally accepted.

  - Third, I am sure this interpretation (that capitalism was responsible for those deaths) will hardly be accepted by professional historians.

  Therefore, I would be very cautious with Di Maurio, and I think, in that aspect you are right.

  However, I propose you to think about the following. Doesn't this guy (Di Mauro) remind you somebody in terms of his approach? I mean: (i) uncritically collect some data about death toll, (ii) arbitrarily attribute them to some political system (iii) make a conclusion that is not accepted by country experts.

  I believe, you remember our previous conversations, and "i - iii" is a portrait of Rummel. Indeed, by his approach, Di Mauro is a leftist twin of Rummel. The only difference is that Rummel lived in a pre-Wikipeida world, so he collected data by himself. But his data are even less reliable than current Wikipedia data (as my comparison of Gulag deaths demonstrates)

  In connection to that, I am wondering why you apply double standard to leftist and rightist sources? Paul Siebert (talk) 00:28, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• It's definitely not WP:FRINGE; it's an article in a Routledge-published academic journal, written by the EiC of that journal. His expertise might be geography but his CV shows expertise in Marxist geography (e.g. in 2019 he was on an American Association of Geographers panel called The Geographer Marx, he teaches "Geographies of Socialism" at SUNY where he's a tenured professor). The paper is reviewed, the acknowledgments reads ... Danny Faber, Mazen Labban, Maarten de Kadt, Judith Watson, Marco Armiero, Leigh Brownhill, Adi Forkasiewicz, and Troy Vettese showered great attentiveness to and provided crucial correctives on this most trying of writing endeavours, a most heart-wrenching and stomach-turning subject matter. Without their generous disposition to debate and openly criticise, this work would have been far from presentable and much murkier on the issues raised. Any remaining errors are solely my responsibility. So it's certainly an WP:RS, it's legit scholarship.
  But, an EiC publishing in his own journal is ... meh... it's reviewed by outsiders but of course it'll be accepted for publication. And citing Wikipedia for statistics is... embarrassing, for lack of a better word. Those are two strikes against the source, and for this reason, while it's an RS, it's by an expert, it's in a legit journal, I don't think it's one of the best sources for us to use, and I think there are better sources out there (sources that don't cite Wikipedia, that aren't by the EiC of the journal where they're published, would be better than this, and there are lots of sources like that). So I think it's OK to include but sparingly, and I think it's pretty sparingly used as it is, so I don't really see a problem with how this source is used in the article, even though it's not the best (but not fringe either). Levivich 00:09, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• WRT "And citing Wikipedia for statistics is... embarrassing" Not really. If we apply Barbara Harff's logic, it is quite ok to use this type data for generalizations of that type. Like genocide scholars, Di Mauro didn't need too precise data, so raw data from Wikipedia are quite acceptable for is purpose. At least, Di Mauro looks not less legitimate than Rummel (although it is not more legitimate either).
• What is more problematic, it is the idea that those deaths can be attributed to capitalism. However, it seems to me Di Mauro is trolling supporters of Rummel's views, and in that sense he is quite correct. IMO, they (Di Mauro and Rummel) are both questionable, and should be treated as such.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:58, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• I already proposed that, and I repeat my proposal.

Let's get rid of all questionable sources from this article Let's leave only those sources that passed a serious peer-reviewing procedure and monographs that were authored by renown experts in the field that specifically discuss this subject (not just mention it in passing). In other words:

• If some source is an op-ed - remove it;
• If some source is published in some peer-reviewed journal with impact-factor below 1 - remove it;
• If some source is a book devoted to some other subject - remove it;
• If the author has an h-index below 4 - remove it;
• If the source is more than 30 years old and was cited less than 10 times - remove it;
• This list may be expanded.

That would immediately resolve a significant part of conflicts. What do you think, Nug? --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:44, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• This is a completely different subject, but #1 - the citation indexes and impact factors are completely irrelevant (some of the most reliable sources, like X-ray crystallography articles, have citation of zero); #2 no, many older publications are classics (should we dismiss books by Hanna Arendt?), #3 no, one should look at the publications at the case to case basis - exactly as explained in WP:Verifiability. My very best wishes (talk) 03:24, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• I agree. The only reason I oppose removal as things stand is that it is no worse than many others sources, some of which even core, we currently use. If we actually rewrote the article by merging Siebert's proposed structure with TFD's and my topic, we would not even need to discuss here and would indeed be relying on the best sources and WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Davide King (talk) 17:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• Support removal. Here is why. I do not know if the publication was "fringe", but the views and the numbers by the author [23] are at least questionable. His numbers ("Capitalist Wars’ Death Tolls") are misleading as s comparison of apples with oranges: the numbers of war victims are compared with numbers of civilian victims of political repressions. Furthermore, he counts the number of victims of Russian Civil War as victims of a "Capitalist war". But very same numbers appears as victims of the Soviet communist regime (Red Terror, etc.) in books by Rummel and others. Same numbers are included to the both sets for comparison. That is misleading at best. Moreover, he counts victims of Nazi during WWII as victims of "capitalism regimes" in general. Is not that a "trivialization" of something? Putting Nazi Germany and typical "capitalist" countries like Britain and USA to the same "box" - is not it a manipulation? My very best wishes (talk) 03:08, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• First, this is not a RfC. Second, does that not remind you of something? They have counted fascists and Nazi collaborators as victims of communism on par with ordinary citizens. As I said many times by now, Engel-Di Mauro is better seen as a way, like Le Livre noir du capitalisme, to show how flawed and fallacius the Communist body-counting is, or to quote Siebert above, "Di Mauro is trolling [not sure if 'trolling' is the right word but you get the point] supporters of Rummel's views, and in that sense he is quite correct." Like TFD said, he is at least better than Rummel in that as a recent source he is aware of recent scholarship and the literature. If we actually totally rewrote the article in line with NPOV and no OR/SYNTH, in full respect of WEIGHT, we would not even be discussing this. Davide King (talk) 17:25, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• The article by Di Mauro does remind me Soviet propaganda. In fact the aricle is classic Whataboutism. No, the Black Book of Communism is very different. This is an excellent and famous book by several academics. Except that the book does not say anything really new and unusual. This is just a big review/compilation based on a large number of other sources. As about Rummel, he simply counts different numbers (not the same as in the Black Book), his numbers are for the democide. Other than that, I think Rummel is a good researcher of the subject. My very best wishes (talk) 19:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• I do agree with MarioSuperstar77 below that it is better to disengage but I do not think that this should go unchallenged any longer.
• That you think an academic article published by the academic press is Soviet propaganda [sic], even though it clearly says "[a]mong the former [of repugnant] are examples like the USSR under the Stalin faction of the Bolsheviks, North Korea under the Kim dynasty, and Albania under Hoxha", makes me question, in good faith, your competence about the topic, especially when you say the Black Book is "excellent" (e.g. your personal view, which totally ignores all its scholarly criticism, which is, ironically, all about this topic, e.g. the introduction and not the individual chapters, especially Werth's, which contradicts Courtois about Marx).
• Rummel has certainly been a good researcher for the democratic peace theory but not for Communism, whose estimates are so outdated and fringe, apart for the Cambodia genocide. But back to the article, it says: "Comparing the deadliness of social systems provides no moral compass and, politically, travels a road to nowhere. Murder is appalling and its systematic prevention must be a rock-solid foundation of any form of socialism." So no, it is not a classic example of whataboutism, and your comments about the Black Book may equally apply to Le Livre noir du capitalisme, Le livre noir du colonialisme: XVIe-XXIe siècle : de l'extermination à la repentance, and Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus: ein Abgesang auf die Marktwirtschaft, also "excellent ... book[s] by several academics." But "I like it"/"I don't like it" is not a good argument. The bottom line is that the article does not say anything particularly new or fringe, and your charge of whataboutism and Soviet propaganda are clearly unfounded and overblown. Davide King (talk) 14:52, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes&diff=prev&oldid=1064890466 Disengage. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:35, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I support this idea as much as I support nuking the proposed causes and estimates section to possibly start over. This article has many issues which would have been swiftly taken care of with this approach. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:38, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

So I'm moving towards the position that "fringe" is less applicable to this source. However, I think it fails verifiability, as in the following link: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Is this article self-published, seeing that the author is the editor of the journal it was published in?

I also think this source fails reliability for two reasons. First, according to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Some_types_of_sources "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses." I don't see this journal as a reputable peer-reviewed source for history or genocide studies. Also the lack of citations raises red flags, as in the following: "Citation counts – One may be able to confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking what scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes or lists such as DOAJ." Second, the journal probably runs afoul of the stipulation from the same link that "Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view. A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journals"

Since many of you drew comparisons to the works by Rummel and Courtois that are still in the article, maybe the most neutral way to go about this is to put this source through the RFC process those sources have gone through. AShalhoub (talk) 13:07, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

The lack of citations is not a good argument for this source at this time — come back in a few more years and let's see it if it still has 0 citations. We also need to clearly distinguish two usages: (i) criticism of the body count and The Black Book of Communism, and (ii) attempt to prove how flawed such an approach is by applying it to capitalism to show that, by using the same standard of Courtois and Rummel, capitalism can be indicted with an equal or even greater number of victims (in this, I disagree with Siebert of him as a "twin Rummell" because he recognized how flawed that approach is but is merely showing the double standard). For i, it is perfectly fine and reliable, for ii it depends but I do not see how it is fringe at that, and it does actually cite its own sources, none of which are fringe. Those works did the same thing for colonialism and capitalism:

• Bordier, Roger; Frémion, Yves; Perrault, Gilles (2001). Le livre noir du capitalisme. Montreuil: Le Temps des cerises. ISBN 978-2-84109-325-0.
• Beaufils, Thomas; Ferro, Marc (2003). Le livre noir du colonialisme: XVIe-XXIe siècle : de l'extermination à la repentance. Paris: R. Laffont. ISBN 978-2-221-09254-5.
• Kurz, Robert (2009). Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus: ein Abgesang auf die Marktwirtschaft. Frankfurt: Eichborn. ISBN 978-3-8218-7316-9.

So TFD is right about the double standard and that this article is summarizing the literature of the Communist body count, while also showing how flawed it is by attempting to do the same capitalism. The thing is that this source was actually already taken at least once at WP:RSN like Courtois and Rummel. You are free to take it again there but I do not think your argument about lack of citations is strong because it is still too recent and the source is clearly fine for i. Davide King (talk) 13:25, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

How it fails verifiability? It is an editorial of an academic journal published by the academic press, so your other claim which applies to predatory journals fails, and there was clearly some fact checking and editorial control by them. Only for WP:BLP are self-published sources not allowed, even if written by an expert per WP:SPS. The only relevant issue is the lack of citations, but that is still too recent too tell, and it does not apply to i, for which it is a tertiary source, but only to ii, which I argue is still supported by the scholarly criticism of the Black Book and the aforementioned books by academics about capitalism and colonialism. Davide King (talk) 13:33, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@AShalhoub:

• First, a peer-reviewed journal is not an SPS.
• Second, I agree that this journal is not a top reliable source for history or genocide studies, as well as many other sources cited in the MKuCR article. I already proposed to remove them, so, maybe, we will return those sources first?
• Third, a "no citation" argument doesn't seem completely sincere, keeping in mind that the article is very recent and the topic is not too popular. The article contains sources that have about 20 citations in 20 years (one citation per year), and this article is just one years old. Let me reiterate: I am not sure we need to keep this source, but I am objecting to applying double standards, so let's remove the sources that we already discussed previously.
• Fourth, WRT " A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs" Again, this might be a good argument if it is applied universally. Are you ready to check other sources using the same approach?
• Sixth, Rummel and Courtois never passed an RfC, they were discussed at RSN, and the conclusion was that they are unreliable for figures. The fact that the figures are still in the article is an indication of a failure to implement community's verdict, so this your argument is simply wrong. In addition, RfCs are not a universal method, and starting an RfC about every source may be considered as forum shopping. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:57, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• Your claims about Rummel and Courtois are untrue, the conclusion on Rummel is that he is reliable with attribution for his theories around Democide and his figures can be used in the context of his theories, see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_329#Rudolph_Rummel. Similarly the conclusion was Courtois is reliable with attribution as well, see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_360#Black_Book_of_Communism --Nug (talk) 17:19, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  No, there is absolutely no contradiction between what you and I say. The real problem is in different understanding of the words "reliable with attribution for his theories". My analysis of sources demonstrates that Rummel's "democide" theory (and Courtois's view too) is not a majority view point, so they definitely should be included into this article, but they should be in the "Controversy" section, along with their criticism. I am not sure if Di Mauro belongs to this article, and if Rummel, Courtois & Co will be moved to the appropriate place, I will probably support removal of Di Mauro (although I am not 100% sure).

  The problem is that, from one hand, you oppose to moving minority (anti-Communist) views into a proper place, and from another hand, you are advocating removal of an anti-capitalist minority view, which is hardly consistent with your adherence to the NPOV policy.

  As I already explained, I am very skeptical to the approach (which, unfortunately, is prevailing in this article) when users make a focus on extreme anti-Comminist and anti-capitalist sources, whereas more balanced sources that reflect the actual scholarly consensus play a subordinated role. I find this approach deeply flawed, and that is why I proposed to perform a comprehensive source analysis (the proposal that you repeatedly reject).

  I have not much hope that this my post will lead to anything productive, because you have an unpleasant habit to disappear every time when you have no counter-arguments (are re-appear again in a different section with essentially the same, debunked, argument). Please, disappoint me: prove that that my expectation is wrong, and my words about you are false. In that case I will gladly apologize. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:54, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

no, RSN was clear with respect to the reliability of Rummel and Courtois. Comparing these two highly notable scholars with a nobody like Engel-Di Mauro is creating a false equivalency. Your proposal of putting Rummel and Courtois into a "Controversy" section breaches MOS:LABEL. You need to demonstrate sources that contradict them are relatively equal in prominence and then describe the opposing views clearly. --Nug (talk) 22:05, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I think the bigger issue are WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. They can certainly be used with attribution, but WP:DUE must always be kept in mind, and I thought that you wanted this article to be about facts; I do not think attributing stuff, when we are citing it to their own works and not to secondary coverage to assess how much weight their views hold in the literature, is a good way to write a good article, and at the very least the structure must be changed to B, if we are going to provide opinions about facts and attribute everything due none of them being majority views. I do not think the onus is on us (you are asking us to prove a negative) but is on you to prove that Courtois and Rummel are the majority view and are uncontroversial, and I believe we have already demonstrated again and again why they are controversial and not a majority view; you really need to decide on whether Karlsson & Schonehals 2008 support the existence of this article or not because it certainly supports Siebert's view about Courtois and Rummel. Also notability does not necessarily affect reliability if it is published in an academic journal by the academic press, and is reviewing the literature about the body count and The Black Book of Communism, for which it is a good source precisely because it is new and aware of shifts, as noted by The Four Deuces. Davide King (talk) 08:57, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

You keep saying "they are controversial and not a majority view", please articulate what the majority view is. --Nug (talk) 10:48, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• Dallin, Alexander (Winter 2000). "Review. Reviewed Work: The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression by Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Margolin, Jonathan Murphy, Mark Kramer". Slavic Review. 59 (4). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press: 883. doi:10.2307/2697429. JSTOR 2697429. Whether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss.
• David-Fox, Michael (Winter 2004). "On the Primacy of Ideology. Soviet Revisionists and Holocaust Deniers (In Response to Martin Malia)". Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 5 (1). Bloomington, Indiana: Slavic: 81–105. doi:10.1353/kri.2004.0007. S2CID 159716738. Malia thus counters by coining the category of 'generic Communism,' defined everywhere down to the common denominator of party movements founded by intellectuals. (Pol Pot's study of Marxism in Paris thus comes across as historically more important than the gulf between radical Soviet industrialism and the Khmer Rouge's murderous anti-urbanism.) For an argument so concerned with justifying The Black Book, however, Malia's latest essay is notable for the significant objections he passes by. Notably, he does not mention the literature addressing the statistical-demographic, methodological, or moral dilemmas of coming to an overall communist victim count, especially in terms of the key issue of how to include victims of disease and hunger.
• Karlsson, Klas-Göran; Schoenhals, Michael (2008). Crimes Against Humanity under Communist Regimes – Research Review (PDF). Forum for Living History. p. 8. ISBN 978-91-977487-2-8. The same is true for the extremely extensive and ideologically biased discussions on the number of victims.

This, plus country experts (Ellman, Wheatcroft) and the two short paragraphs at "Estimates" that we dismiss as criticism are, in fact, the majority view. Ellman has commented on how politicized is even the category of victims of Stalinism and how difficult it is, so imagine doing this for Communism as a whole. Again, the onus should be on you to prove that your views are actually supported by majority of scholars and are not controversial. Prove that Courtois, Rummel, and the like are not controversial and the majority view; it should be very easy to prove if I am wrong. Do you have any equally reliable sources that discount the ones I cited? I am sure Siebert can cite many, many others. Davide King (talk) 12:47, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

One could engage in the same mind reading exercise and question your sincerity regarding Rummel citations. Naive indeed would the individual be who can read this discussion and conclude that you actually believe he should be removed because he's not a domain expert, or because ideological bias is to be avoided in a general sense. Twice the amount of poor content is better than poor content that come to the wrong conclusion, obviously. AShalhoub (talk) 19:01, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Nug, your interpretation of the outcome of RSN discussions is incorrect. There was no consensus about reliability of Courtois and Rummel for facts. "Use with attribution" is a typical approach to op-ed and similar materials, and that makes them different from really reliable sources (for which no attribution is required). "Use with attribution" means the source is reliable for author's opinion. but not reliable for facts. Paul Siebert (talk) 21:32, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

A few lines from two book reviews of BBoC and a single line from Karlsson is hardly expressing a viewpoint "equal in prominence" as required by WP:NPOV. I was expecting a complete paper if not a monograph. In the first book review, the line "Whether all these cases, from Hungary to Afghanistan, have a single essence and thus deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist—is a question the authors scarcely discuss." just means the authors of BBoC don't discuss the question of a single essence sufficiently, the reviewer isn't expressing an opinion on whether lumping them together is valid or not. But what is significant is that is shows that reliable sources do in fact lump these regimes together, the second review confirms it, so thus there is no longer a the question of WP:SYNTH when lumping these regimes together in this article. --Nug (talk) 16:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, you correctly identified the problem: we need some common criteria for prominence. In addition, we need common criteria for reliability, because "prominence" and "reliability" are not the same: thus, David Irving is definitely a prominent author, but that does not make his books reliable.

Can you propose some criteria of reliability and prominence that will allow us to analyse and check all sources used in this article? Paul Siebert (talk) 21:36, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Deborah Lipstadt's book, Denying the Holocaust, and the subsequent libel suit was a very prominent rebuttal of David Irvine. But first can we agree that at a minimum, the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia are generally grouped together in reliable sources that discuss mass killings? Davide King agrees with this, do you? --Nug (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Nug, you are discussing facts. The only source of facts are reliable sources (sorry for tautology). Therefore, by starting to discuss facts before having discussed sources you put a cart before the horse. I propose to put the horse before the cart, and you cannot deny this is an ironclad logic.

Using a purely formal logic, the following list of approached to this issue (MKuCR) can be proposed:

• Communist states are grouped together, AND significant commonalities are noted between them;
• Communist states are grouped together, BUT significant differences between the are noted and extensively discussed;
• Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia are grouped together, AND significant commonalities are noted between them AND other Communist states;
• Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia are grouped together, AND significant commonalities are noted between them AND they are contrasted with other Communist states;
• Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia are grouped together, AND the differences between are noted;
• Communist states are discussed separately from each other, and comparative studies reveal significant differences;

This is not a comprehensive list of approaches, and we don't know so yet which of them is generally accepted by majority of scholarly community. To give an answer, we need to analyze a representative set of sources. This analysis may demonstrate that you are right, or it may show that DR is right, or it may show that you both are wrong, and some other approach is a majority view. We cannot answer this question by bringing one, two or a dozen of sources, because there is absolutely no reason to believe that the source presented by you or by DR express a majority view.

Therefore, if you want to continue to argue about that ad nauseum, feel free to do that. At some point, that behaviour may be sufficient for accusing you of filibustering or stonewalling.

With you, or without you, we are going to perform the analysis of sources and to decide which viewpoint is a majority view. I would prefer if yo you joined this process, but if you decide not to participate, we will survive. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:42, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Irving is an extreme example (I just gave an example of a highly notable but totally unreliable source). I do not claim any of sources we are discussing is directly comparable with Irving.

And, with regard to your question {"can we agree that at a minimum, the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia are generally grouped together in reliable sources that discuss mass killings"), as I explained, in contrast to you guys, I do not consider myself to be sufficiently familiar with this topic to give a definite answer (see Dunning-Krueger effect). In addition, I do not understand what does "reliable sources that discuss mass killings" mean: should we include such authors as Werth, Conquest, Ellman, Getty or Suny into that list, of we speak only about such authors as Rummel, Valentino of Courtois?

Again, I can give a definite answer only if I analyze at least 100-200 sources that I found but had no opportunity to read yet. But I am somewhat skeptical about that activity, because if I will be doing that alone, some POV-pushers may reject my conclusions, which means my work will be a waste of time. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:59, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

After 12 years of dominating of this talk page are you now seriously suggesting that you do not consider yourself to be “sufficiently familiar with this topic”? You have had a large input into current state of the article, it was your suggestion that we needed a section that discussed the connection between communist ideology and mass killings (hence the “Proposed causes” section ) and you said that it was as important as the “Terminology” section.[24]. And yet the existence of these two sections you previously suggested we needed is now presented as the core of this dispute. Davide King on many occasions stated that the sources show that mass killings occurred in the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia, that it is something he does not dispute. Yet you seem somewhat equivocal about this basic point. Back in 2009 you said ”In my opinion, a good lede should start with obvious and non-controversial statements that (i) Excess mortality was common for most Communist regimes during certain periods of their history. (ii) These excess mortality cases were a result of mass murders, mass executions, famines and deportations, etc. (iii) A "mass killings" term is being used by some scholars to describe some of these cases, although this terminology is not commonly accepted.”. You no longer support your own statement? —Nug (talk) 01:01, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I have never disputed that, and I do not think Siebert have disputed that point either; I think the issue is that you have not yet understand the grouping issue, and I do think you misread what Siebert is saying because I do not think they no longer support that statament, and I do not think they are contradicting anything, if that is what you think but I will let them clarify this. It is not whether they happened or not, of course they did, but whether the grouping is done by a majority of sources in the way that you support it, which I do not think they do. It is not sufficient that they happened under a nominally Communist regime, which no one is disputing and is not the issue, but the way it is done, and what weight it holds in relation to other Communist grouping types.

I kindly ask you to carefully re-read Siebert's statements about the grouping:

"[1] Communist states are grouped together, AND significant commonalities are noted between them;
[2] Communist states are grouped together, BUT significant differences between the are noted and extensively discussed;
[3] Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia are grouped together, AND significant commonalities are noted between them AND other Communist states;
[4] Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia are grouped together, AND significant commonalities are noted between them AND they are contrasted with other Communist states;
[5] Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia are grouped together, AND the differences between are noted;
[6] Communist states are discussed separately from each other, and comparative studies reveal significant differences;"

The current version and your favoured structure fail in explaining this and focus too much on generalizations (e.g. the first category, which at first analysis is clearly a minority view and is done by Courtois and Rummel). Chirot, Karlsson, Jones, Mann, Valentino, and others fit much more the other categories, and when scholars disagree, we cannot do the grouping unless it is the majority view and is not controversial, do you better understand our point now? This is why we do need to engage in source comparison between those group types; if you did engage with us on this, you could actually prove whether Siebert and I are wrong.

I also kindly ask you to consider the comparison with genocide of indigenous peoples I made here. There is no Mass Killings under Communist Regimes: A Critical Bibliographic Review or Communist Mass Killings: A Critical Bibliographic Review, which is the reason why that article is not even controversial like this one. It simply has a much clearer and bigger literature about the topic as a grouping and as a whole than MKuCR does not even come close to it. Of course, there are plenty of country-specific works but this article is about Communism in general, and you have refused to rewrite the article according to each country-specific literature, and I can kind of agree with you on this but completely disagree on the conclusion one should take from this, e.g. that an NPOV article cannot be written without them, and if we cannot have a NPOV article, it should be deleted and only recreated in the future when such issues would no longer be present.

Anyway, if you are up for some compromise, I would propose to remove the sections about all other states other than Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia, and only leave the short paragraph at "Other states", would that be fine? I still think the article would have issues (we would need Karlsson 2008 to represent the majority view about the grouping in regards to USSR, PRC, and DK), and we are going to disagree about this, but it would be an improvement in refocusing the topic away from the global Communist death toll towards universally-recognized Communist mass killings. Davide King (talk) 15:17, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@Nug:,

• First, I am frequently seeing your references to someone's overall contribution to this talk page. In most cases, the context of these references implies that you are implicitly accusing other users of bludgeoning. That may be considered as a personal attack, and I respectfully request you to refrain from this type arguments in future, otherwise I may stop assuming your good faith. Deal?
• Second, you may be surprised to read that, but, although I (as well as all other users) do have some POV, it is not something immutable and rock stable. It is gradually changing when I find some new sources, or when my opponents present some convincing arguments. Obviously, my position significantly changes since 2009, and there are several reasons for that.

- I compared this article with "daughter articles", and I realized that they tell totally different facts, provide different interpretations and present different figures, which means this article is a huge POV-fork. My 2009 proposal cannot resolve this problem.

- I started to systematically look for sources, and I found that there is a lot of country-specific sources, that are of much better quality, they contain much more trustworthy figures, and they provide much more insightful and nuanced interpretations of the described events than the sources used in this article do.

- I realized that, during 12 years, the article's supporters failed to identify fresh and high quality sources on the topic that support the main article's concept, and many sources this article currently uses do not support the article's statements, or directly contradict to them.

All of that are my recent observations, and each of those three arguments, taken separately, are sufficient to reconsider my 2009 POV.

With regard to my current point of view, I will discuss it with you after I get your answer to my invitation to join the analysis of sources that I am going to start soon (as admin's panel recommended). Paul Siebert (talk) 18:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

"I realized that, during 12 years, the article's supporters failed to identify fresh and high quality sources on the topic that support the main article's concept, and many sources this article currently uses do not support the article's statements, or directly contradict to them." There are plenty of fresh, high-quality sources such as this one or this one that discuss current genocide under communist regimes, which as I gather was the original title of this page. It's clear recent research is important to you, so perhaps it would make sense to revert the article back to that title. Otherwise, it seems far more likely that the passage of time is only going to yield a favorable ideological shift, and scant new evidence regarding 80 year old massacres. The question is, is that what we want the article to reflect? I don't think an encyclopepic article only which is informative regarding the biases of whatever time period it was written in will have much credibility. AShalhoub (talk) 15:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The Uyghur genocide does not involve mass killings while few if any of the mass killings under Communist regimes met the definiton of genocide. Also, we need sources about the topic MKuCR, not just isolated examples. TFD (talk) 16:20, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

A few lines from two book reviews of BBoC and a single line from Karlsson is hardly expressing a viewpoint "equal in prominence" as required by WP:NPOV. I was expecting a complete paper if not a monograph. Again, I think you are being unfair because the onus should not be on me but on you to prove that I am wrong. They do clearly show that Courtois and Malia are controversial or do not represent a majority viewpoint, and that the grouping is not as easy as you would like it to be; grouping Communist regimes just because they were nominally Communist, and ignoring their background and differences, is not a good way to do a grouping, which applies to the MKuCR article.

Perhaps this answer your point: there are no complete paper or monograph, though Siebert may find them, because this "generic Communist" grouping is such a mainority and controversial viewpoint that does not warrant them. Finally, you did not provide any new sources in return to prove me wrong, and David-Fox was actually chosen to write for The Cambridge History of Communism, so they are clearly mainstream and not fringe. Dallin did question the "generic Communist" grouping, or else what do you think deserve to be lumped together—just because they are labeled Marxist or communist? Again, as for reliable sources do in fact lump these regimes together, neither of Siebert or I have ever disputed that some sources have done the grouping, the issue is what weight they hold in the literature; they are clearly a minority view, and since they are controversial, we cannot do the grouping as fact, which is what this article does, implicitly or explicitily. The SYNTH issue is merging Courtois and Rummel (Category 1) from all the other scholars (Mann, Valentino, and the like) who do the grouping in a different category and context (Category 2–6). Davide King (talk) 15:28, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

You say "I think you are being unfair because the onus should not be on me but on you to prove that I am wrong", no the onus isn't on me to prove your assertion wrong, it is on you to prove your assertion is right. You assert there is some majority view not expressed in the article, WP:PROVEIT. --Nug (talk) 23:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

That, however, would surely also equally apply to you, for I am not the only one making assertions, you are doing the same and saying the article has no significant issue and that Tombs' views are proof of this. It is not just that some majority views are not expressed in the article, it is that they are dismissed as criticism, or where the views of country experts like Getty, Fitzpatrick, Wheatcroft, and others are misused as if they are writing within the context of MKuCR when they are writing mainly within that of the Soviet Union, and not as part of a Communist death toll. Can you tell me to which group source of category (1–6) do Chirot, Courtois, Harff, Mann, Rummel, Valentino, and the like belong? Do you think that it does not matter that they are different group types of sources, as long as they are grouping nominally Communist regimes, even if in very different ways and disagree about which specific country include or not (e.g. Courtois and Rummel do it for Communism as a whole, many others only for Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, or highlight differences or compare them to non-Communist regimes, and 18-cases study), is fine? Davide King (talk) 01:50, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• Based on the discussions and votes above, there seems to be a rough consensus to remove.My very best wishes (talk) 01:26, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that was also the consensus at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Peer-reviewed_sources_that_use_Wikipedia_as_a_source_of_raw_data: "the Engel-Di Mauro paper would not be reliable for a statement like 'Capitalism caused X million deaths'". --Nug (talk) 01:46, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

The discussion at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability (which I note involved less participants than this one) revolved around the citation of the source for one specific statement. It wasn't a discussion concerning the reliability of the source as a whole. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:29, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not seeing a consensus to remove here, no, neither by nose count nor strength of arguments. First, it's important to note that the basic premise here is false - Mauro does have relevant expertise (he's has a certificate in Russian, Central, and East European Studies and has published extensively on the topic in peer-reviewed journals.) Furthermore, a number of people in the discussion above referred to the black book itself as fringe, which means that if we reference it at all then per WP:PARITY we can and must cite sources of similar weight refuting it; and a peer-reviewed publication by Engel-Di Mauro, an academic who has published extensively on the history of communism and who does have relevant expertise, seems to easily meet that bar. I am not sure why people are referring to him as a "geographer" as if that is his sole expertise; as mentioned, his expertise also includes Russian, Central, and East European Studies and particularly the interaction between ideologies and the environment, which makes him as specific of a subject-matter expert as we're likely to fond on the numerous famines that the Black Book uses to reach that 100 million total - ie. he is a better expert on the attribution of those famines than anyone writing for the Black Book itself. --Aquillion (talk) 07:08, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

He was replaced by a much better source discussing the same topic, so where's the problem? MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 14:21, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't get this renewed interest in Engel-Di Mauro either. There are a ton load of better sources available. Maybe the reason Engel-Di Mauro keeps getting brought up is that he may an editor here, so I guess there could be a COIN issue as well, I don't know. Sure Engel-Di Mauro holds a certificate in "Russian, Central, and East European Studies", but he also has a certificate in Hungarian language, that doesn't make him an expert on the Hungarian language. Some of topics that were available in Russian, Central, and East European Studies have nothing to do with communism or even political science (which has its own school at Rutgers). To say the Engel-Di Mauro is an "expert" in the Soviet famines is laughable. --Nug (talk) 21:57, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

As noted by TFD, it is because it is a recent enough source that can summarize changes in the literature. Did you really just accuse one of us of being Engel-Di Mauro in incognito? That you think it is 'laughable' is your own opinion but I will take Aquillion's opinion; they have analyzed and argued based on rationalism and evidence, which I do not think your post debunked, though I will let Aquillion respond. Davide King (talk) 22:10, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Or even an admiring current/former student of his, who can really know as there are dozens of editors, but stranger things have happened in the past. Another problem is that Engel-Di Mauro is Editor-in-Chief at the journal that published his paper, and according Francis&Taylor publication policy, a journal's editor has the ultimate responsibility on which articles get published, so effectively Engel-Di Mauro has self-published his opinion. --Nug (talk) 22:25, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Or, you know, it could just be that Aquillion is right and the source is fine? Please, stop that self-publishing stuff; it was co-written and fact checked by others. Trust me, if you think it is me, I am not, and I do not think Siebert, or anyone else is: it is just your little conspiracy theory. Please, drop the stick. Davide King (talk) 22:43, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I have here in my hand a list of 205 editors—a list of names that were made known as being current/former students of Engle-Di Mauro and who nevertheless are still working and shaping prose in the MKUCR article. Levivich 22:45, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Ha, ha, a list of Engle-Di Mauroists, I guess you want us to check for reds under our beds too. Seriously though, Davide King is flat out wrong if he thinks the article was co-written, it is clearly cited to Engel-Di Mauro as saed (2021). --Nug (talk) 01:56, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I meant more to say that there was some form of editorial control or/fact checking and was reviewed with acknowledgments (hence et al., though I agree my 'co-written' wording was not the best one but I can be forgiven after you went out of your way to imply there must be Engel-Di Mauro's students here or even Engel-Di Mauro himself! In fact, I had no idea who he was until I found the paper through Google Scholar and added it at The Black Book of Communism), as noted by Levivich here. The thing is that you do not appear to consider it reliable at all, while Levivich does whilst pointing out some reasonable critical analysis with which even I can perfectly agree with. Davide King (talk) 02:28, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

In addition, the contentious part has been removed and has not been re-added, so Nug where is the issue? Perhaps Aquillion thought that it was removed in toto (it was, but I re-added it for non-contentious claims), or they think the removed part should be re-added too — perhaps they may argue that per parity and weight, if we cite the Black Book, that paper is a good counter-example for capitalism because it used the same standards adopted for the Black Book, and that the added better references just makes it less fringe. Davide King (talk) 15:33, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

RFC implementation

I suggest starting by identifying the best sources for the scope of the article: the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept. We already have a good list going on the source page, time to filter it by the scope. Once we've identified the top sources, let's look at how they structure their coverage to see what our table of contents should be like. Levivich 17:13, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Good point, if it is going to be implemented, then it needs to be implemented correctly. The result of the RfC still leaves sources up to be used incorrectly which is center point of the WP:SYNTH issue here. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 17:22, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Recommending a good gradual evolutionary way implement the RFC result

The "Proposed causes and enabling factors" section somewhat covers much of the scope of what was decided. (although it doesn't cover simple correlation study and maybe some other areas) One way to gradually implement the decision would be to start expanding this section, and where sources utilize instances of killings when covering the topic of "B", incorporate those instances into that section, as those sources did. And if sources study/cover other things under "B" that don't fall under this heading (such as study of simple correlation) make new sections for those. Then as these grow, they eventually become the whole article, gradually phasing out the "simply listing of instances" sections. North8000 (talk) 17:37, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

That's not a bad approach: to sort of expand that subsection and more or less cannibalize the other sections as we go, until that section grows into the full article. The problem I have is that the current section isn't very good: it's a string of "he said/she said", like "Scholar A says '...'. Scholar B believes '...'. Scholar C writes '...'." This isn't NPOV, and it's not useful for the reader. We need to identify what the mainstream view(s) is/are, and what the significant minority view(s) is/are, and present it accordingly, not just string together what everybody says, as if it's all on equal footing. Still, our best sources no doubt include at least some of the sources already cited in that section, so it's a good place to start. Levivich 17:49, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• First of all, we should not let this AfD to go to archive: it will have a deep and long lasting effect on the article's scope and structure. Unfortunately, it seems we cannot add it to the "Article milestone" table (there is no such a parameter as RfC), so I propose either to add a "do not archive" label, or to add the permanent link to FAQ.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:16, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

  I extended the DoNotArchive time till Feb 2023. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:21, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

There are two things I believe we can quickly implement: (1) remove information about mass killings that are not part of the discussion of the topic and (2) re-write the lead based on the study that Nug presented explaining that this is a little studied subject. TFD (talk) 18:42, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• I suggest the "debates" (option B) still should be organized by the country because the countries (and events there) were so much different. For example, current version in the Soviet Famine section say: "While there is still a debate among scholars on whether the Holodomor was a genocide ..." (the whole second paragraph is "debate"), so that should stay on the page. First paragraph? It should also stay because one needs to say a few words about the famine prior to describing the debate. My very best wishes (talk) 19:36, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I've removed the "Other States" section as it was a simple list of mass killings at odds with the format chosen by the RfC. If any of the content was worth saving, it needs to be folded into the larger debate regardless. BSMRD (talk) 19:39, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I added back the first paragraph that is more about general discussion. Thanks for thanking me! X-Editor (talk) 20:06, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

The title of this section is my recommendation. And I'd recommend recognizing that there will be multiple opinions and angles on this amongst sources. So I'd just find a handful of reasonably good looking sources and put / keep them in...but then I'm always the one looking for (good) shortcuts. Either way you folks are moving into the "big work" phase. I don't plan to get in as deep as you main editors are (thanks for your work!), I've been mostly been just jumping in where I though I might be useful on navigating the process here and structural questions. So / since I don't plan to watch this closely at the moment; please ping me if you think I might be of help. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:22, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Best sources

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

I think the two best sources for that scope that I've seen so far are:

• Kuromiya, Hiroaki (2017). "Communism, Violence and Terror". In Pons, Silvio; Smith, Stephen A. (eds.). The Cambridge History of Communism: World Revolution and Socialism in One Country 1917–1941. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. pp. 279–303. doi:10.1017/9781316137024. ISBN 978-1-107-09284-6.
• Strauss, Julia (2014). "Communist Revolution and Political Terror". In Smith, S. A. (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199602056.013.020. ISBN 978-0-199-60205-6.

Both discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept. (For example, both discuss BBoC directly.) Are there any others that are as recent (last 10 yrs?), as reliable/mainstream (Cambridge, Oxford), and as on-topic (discussing directly "the concept of a correlation...including proposed causes and critiques..."), or close to it? By the way, in searching for sources, I think no modern scholarship about this topic would not discuss BBoC (in the same way any modern discussion of race/intelligence will discuss The Bell Curve, whether positively or negatively or whatever), so I find looking for scholarship that cites BBoC to be a useful way to search for modern scholarship about this topic. Levivich 21:58, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I have no access to this book yet, and I am not sure I need to. First, this volume discusses the period 1917-1941, when only one Communist country existed, so it can hardly shed any light on some general correlations. Second, one review on this book ( Main, Steven J. Europe-Asia studies, 2019-08-09, Vol.71 (7), p.1251-1252) says:

"In this reviewer’s opinion, despite the length of the work, it could have included a number of other chapters, at least one dealing with the overall ‘experience’ of communism in the first half of the twentieth century: can any general lessons be teased out of the history of the practice of an ideology which, as outlined early on in the book, enveloped a huge section of the world’s population?"

From that, I conclude that book hardly contains generalizations that may serve as a core of our article.

WRT Strauss, that book is also too narrow. Obviously, just a small fraction of deaths discussed in our article relate to terror: majority of them were a result of war, famine and disease. Therefore, Strauss, as well as Mann, Harff, and other authors can hardly serve as a good starting point. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:30, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

In addition, from the abstract of the article by Strauiss, I conclude she belongs to what Karlsson calls "postrevisionnist" school, which is a synthesis of "totalitarian" and "revisionist" schools, and which essentially rejects the main idea of the former (that communist mass killings were one-way, hierarchical processes in which a despotic leadership exercised violence on a defenceless and passive population). Paul Siebert (talk) 23:03, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree Kuromiya focuses a lot on the USSR and probably isn't one of the best sources on which to base the rewrite for this reason. I don't really agree about Strauss, though. She isn't talking about terrorism, she's talking about political terror (same term Kuromiya and many others use), which is more than (not less than) mass killing, and also includes mass imprisonment, displacement, torture, etc. She covers USSR, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and several other Communist states. She talks about the historiography directly, along the familiar dichotomy of "lumpers" (those who include "excess deaths" e.g. starvation, in which she includes BBoC) and "splitters" (those who do not, in which she incudes Kuromiya). She directly addresses how increased access to archives has changed the scholarship over the past 25 years. So, I think Strauss 2014 is directly on point, not too narrow at all. Anyway, that's one. :-) I have a longer list, see below. Levivich 01:53, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• In connection to that, I have a question. Karlsson (the source that is cited in this article) provides a good summary of sources on Communist crimes, and he separates them on three major schools of thought, which he places in a chronological order. The first school ("Totalitarian") is an old Cold war era school, which emphacised totalitarianism as a major factor. The second school is a "Revisionist" school (this word implies no negative connotation, for, per Suny, every new school of though emerges as a result of revision of previous knowledge) emphasise local factors and leaders personalities. The last school (most modern one) is "Postrevisionist", which proposes more nuanced approach. Clearly, the current version of the article emphasizes the old ("totalitarian") school, which is by ad large considered obsolete.

I think Karlsson's analysis may be a good starting point, because, per the RfC decision, we must write the article not about the events (mass killings and mass mortality in Communist states), but about generalization attempts, in other words, about different schools of thought. In that sense, Karlsson is a very good starting point.

I see two problems with Karlsson. First, he is mostly focused on the USSR, so I am not sure how his generalizations are applicable to Communism in general. Second, he is not widely cited. Can anybody find similar source that is more broadly cited and that discusses Communism studies in general (but in the same vein)? Paul Siebert (talk) 22:47, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• My another question is to @Davide King: I recall I posted a reference to some article where "genocide scholars" were discussed as a separate school of thought. The author said that this school of thought is working in separation from mainstream historians. It seems you quoted this article, do you have a link to it (or at least a reference)? this article would we a good source for making a claim about relative weight of different schools of thought.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:50, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• Are you referring to Verdeja 2012? If so, I found this source thanks to you and I paraphrased it like this:

  "Despite growth in recent decades, it remains a minority school of thought that developed in parallel, rather than in conversation, with the work on other areas of political violence, and mainstream political scientists rarely engage with the most recent work on comparative genocide studies. Such separation is complex but at least in part stems from its humanities roots and reliance on methodological approaches that did not convince mainstream political science; in addition, genocide studies is explicitly committed to humanitarian activism and praxis as a process, whereas the earlier generations of scholars who studied genocide did not find much interest among mainstream political science journals or book publishers, and decided to establish their own journals and organizations."

  Is this correct and what were you referring to? Davide King (talk) 23:27, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, thank you. In other words, we have a number of sources that discuss correlations between mass killings and Communism (most of them are "genocide scholars"), and we have a source saying that these authors is a minority school that work in isolation from mainstream historians.

  That is sufficient for making a non-WP:SYNTH statement that will be in accordance with NPOV. Paul Siebert (talk) 00:14, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it is, because the text doesn't mention Communism or Communist mass killings. WP:SYN says, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source." It doesn't provide an exception if we use good reasoning or make conclusions about what is implicitly stated. It's not just a technicality. Why should Wikipedia articles make observations that are not explicitly mentioned in any reliable sources? TFD (talk) 11:18, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed they are, Levivich, and I explicitily referred to them MKURSA (you may find this, which includes some relevant quotes and passages useful), though I also do agree with Siebert's analysis that they do not make generalization, and is precisely why I believe TFD is correct that we should focus on the narrative, which was correctly summarized by Siebert: "The idea is clear: that Communism killed 100+ million. And it did so because it was Communism. This idea is advocated by Rummel (who concluded that based on his statistical analysis of his own data), by Courtois (who ascribed those victims to Communism because ... because he decided to do so), and by several politicians, political journalists and writers. It is this idea which must be a subject of analysis in this article." This seems very clear to what The Four Deuces is referring to by victims of Communism, so the main disagreement seems to be about the name, which should be overcome later on. That is why I remain convinced that Levivich is also correct that the current scope (North8000's) may not notable enough because it is not limited to communism and we should broad it to genocide/mass killings and ideology in general1 but I could be wrong, and it will depend on how it is structured and which sources we are going to use. As things stand, I remain convinced that Siebert's summary, plus TFD's understanding of the topic, is the way to go, and I hope that you guys can put your issues about the name and work on the structure. Davide King (talk) 23:37, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

No opinion on anything, here, but I could access both sources presented in this section via WP:TWL: Cambridge, Oxford. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:25, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Jo-Jo Eumerus! Unfortunately, I can only access to the latter and not the former, for which I get an Online Computer Library Center logo error saying: "We are sorry, but your account does not have access to this resource. If you think you have reached this screen in error or have questions about the resource you were trying to reach, please contact your library." What does that mean and do you know why this appears? Davide King (talk) 18:21, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

I believe one has to apply to get the Cambridge resource. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:41, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

OK, here is a longer list, pulled from WP:MKUCRSA, recent talk page archives, and my own research. I believe each of these meets the following criteria: (1) scholarship, (2) from the last 20 years, (3) about Communism or Communist Parties and mass killing or mass murder or similar:

Contains historiography

1. Neumayer 2020: Neumayer, Laure (2020). "Bridges Across the Atlantic? Intertwined Anti-Communist Mobilisations in Europe and the United States after the Cold War". Revue d'études comparatives Est-Ouest (2–3). Presses Universitaires de France: 151–183. Retrieved 7 December 2021 – via CAIRN.
2. Radonić 2020: Radonić, Ljiljana (2020). The Holocaust/Genocide Template in Eastern Europe (E-book ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 9781000712124. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
3. Neumayer 2019: Neumayer, Laure (2019). The Criminalisation of Communism in the European Political Space after the Cold War (E-book ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 9781351141741.
4. Jones 2017: Jones, Adam (2017). Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (3rd ed.). Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-53386-3.
5. Neumayer 2017: Neumayer, Laure (November 2017). "Advocating for the Cause of the 'Victims of Communism' in the European Political Space: Memory Entrepreneurs in Interstitial Fields". Nationalities Papers. 45 (6). Cambridge University Press: 992–1012. doi:10.1080/00905992.2017.1364230. ISSN 0090-5992.
6. Graziosi 2016: Graziosi, Andrea; Sysyn, Frank E. (2016). Communism and Hunger: The Ukrainian, Chinese, Kazakh, and Soviet Famines in Comparative Perspective. University of Alberta Press. ISBN 978-1-894-86547-0.
7. Shafir 2016: Shafir, Michael (Summer 2016). "Ideology, Memory and Religion in Post-Communist East Central Europe: A Comparative Study Focused on Post-Holocaust". Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies. 15 (44). Universitatea Babes-Bolyai: 52–110. Retrieved 7 December 2021 – via JSRI.
8. Ghodsee 2014: Ghodsee, Kristen (Fall 2014). "A Tale of 'Two Totalitarianisms': The Crisis of Capitalism and the Historical Memory of Communism" (PDF). History of the Present. 4 (2). Duke University Press: 115–142. doi:10.5406/historypresent.4.2.0115. JSTOR 10.5406/historypresent.4.2.0115. Retrieved 7 December 2021 – via Scholars at Harvard.
9. Strauss 2014: Strauss, Julia (2014). "Communist Revolution and Political Terror". In Smith, S. A. (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199602056.013.020. ISBN 978-0-199-60205-6.
10. Owens, Su & Snow 2013: Owens, Peter B.; Yang Su; David A. Snow (2013). "Social Scientific Inquiry Into Genocide and Mass Killing: From Unitary Outcome to Complex Processes". Annual Review of Sociology. 39: 69–84.
11. Wayman & Tago 2010: Wayman, Frank W.; Atsushi Tago (2010). "Explaining the Onset of Mass Killing, 1949–87". Journal of Peace Research. 47 (1): 3–13.
12. Karlsson 2008: Karlsson, Klas-Göran; Schoenhals, Michael (2008). Crimes against Humanity under Communist Regimes (PDF). Forum for Living History.
13. Sémelin 2007: Hoffmann, Jacques Semelin Introduction by Stanley (2007). Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-51237-4.

Does not contain historiography

(or does not contain recent historiography)

1. Saucier & Akers 2018: Saucier, Gerard; Akers, Laura (2018-06-01). "Democidal Thinking: Patterns in the Mindset Behind Organized Mass Killing". Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal. 12 (1). doi:10.5038/1911-9933.12.1.1546. ISSN 1911-0359.
2. Bellamy 2012: Bellamy, Alex J. (2012). "Massacres and Morality: Mass Killing in an Age of Civilian Immunity". Human Rights Quarterly. 34 (4): 927–958. doi:10.1353/hrq.2012.0066. ISSN 1085-794X.
3. Chirot & McCauley 2006: Chirot, Daniel; McCauley, Clark (2006). Why Not Kill Them All?: The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-3485-3.
4. Mann 2005: Mann, Michael (2005). The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing.
5. Valentino 2004: Valentino, Benjamin A. (2004). Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century.
6. Harff 2003: Harff, Barbara (2003). "No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder since 1955". The American Political Science Review. 97 (1): 57–73.
7. Horowitz 2002: Horowitz, Irving Louis (2002). Taking Lives: Genocide and State Power (5th, revised ed.).

Discussion (sources)

Please feel free to correct any mistakes in the citations directly (and thank you). Additions? Subtractions? Levivich 01:07, 25 January 2022 (UTC) Update: List refactored per Paul's comment below to split sources containing historiography from those that don't (and to correct a few citation errors I noticed). Levivich 17:00, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Levivich: I have a question. Did you read those sources, or you just selected them based on their title? What criteria did you use for source selection?

In my opinion, at the first step, we need some "metasources", which provide an overview of all important viewpoints. Remember, the new article's topic is not a discussion of the events: the article is supposed to discuss some very concrete points of view, concretely the views that discuss a linkage (or lack thereof) between Communism and mass killings.

In my opinion, two sources from this list meet this criterion: Karlsson and Strauss. Other sources are either too broad, or they propose some specific theories, which means we can return to them later, when an agreement will be achieved about the overall structure of the article.

In connection to that, I invite everybody to check me and to verify that I haven't overlooked other "metasources" in this list.

Below, I start the list, and you guys are welcome to continue it. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:11, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert: Definitely not selected based on the title :-) But some of these are full-length books, so I haven't read every page of everything. I've at least skimmed each of these and read some parts, enough to see what they had to say about mass killings and Communist regimes. The criteria for selection is at the top: scholarship from last 20 years talking (in some depth) about mass killings and Communist regimes.

I agree with starting with the sources that cover the historiography of the topic. I've refactored the above list to split historiographical sources from non-historiographical sources. I may have missed some historiography in the non-historiographical list, or editors might disagree with my classifications anyway, so I encourage others to review/comment on the list/organization. Levivich 17:05, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• Karlsson. He outlines three schools of thought: "totalitarian" (mostly Cold war era sources), "revisionist", and "postrevisionist" (I am not going to summarise them, you can read this source by yourself).
• Strauss divides all authors onto "lumpers" and "splitters", and it seems the former are closer to what Karlsson describes as a "totalitarian" school, whereas "splitters" are revisionists/postrevisionists. You can get an access to this source via WP:TWL (thank you Jo-Jo Eumerus for a good advice; I encourage everybody who haven't used this resource yet to do so, registration is easy). I am leaving no signature, just add more "metasources" right below this line.

@Levivich:, the list is a good, Just a few comments, I think some of the more recent sources tend to be focused on Europe and more concerned with issues of Memory politics, which is kind of a derivative of the mass killings that occurred, but that said, if they contain a good general overview of the historiography, all well and good. Also, in regard to recent sources, maybe 2019 and 2020 may be a bit too recent. Academic journals publish original research, so we don't really know the degree of acceptance or impact this research has within the field until atleast a few years has passed. --Nug (talk) 18:09, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree, some of these have a broader geographical scope than others (and that may be another way to filter down the list). No doubt that we usually cannot determine the impact of very recent scholarship (unless like it wins a prize, or something), and should be cautious about how much weight we give to new theories in very recent scholarship. However, I don't think it's as much of a problem for recent historiography, for example, a recent literature review would be better than an older one, unless the historiography is also something novel, like a new way of categorizing historians, or something like that. As always, it depends on the specific content that a particular source is being used for, but your point about recentism is well taken. Levivich 19:18, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I think, to make our prospective discussion well organised and productive, we should do the following.

• First, we must agree on some common criteria for source selection;
• Second, we should select sources on some concrete topic;
• Third, each participant must explicitly support every intermediate conclusion/agreement.

That will help us to avoid incessant and repetitive disputes about each source. It will also make discussion more focused, so a new random source presented by some participant will not drive a discussion in a wrong direction. Finally, if we all explicitly endorse every intermediate conclusion/decision, that will help prevent raising of same argument again (which happens too frequently on this talk page).

Concretely, with regard to recentism and the publication time in general, I think we should follow our guidelines. In addition, I propose the following criteria:

• If some source is older than some threshold age, it should be used only for information of the previous state of knowledge, unless some evidences are presented that fact and opinia from that source are still considered valid. An example: Rummel for Chinese Cultural Revolution should be considered as a historical source, because Walder wrote that Rummel reviewed the data available before 1991, and made estimates. Walder analyzed a broader set of more recent data, and provided more accurate numbers. Clearly, similar to what we do in GULAG, we should use more recent and better sources for facts, and, if necessary (but only if it is really necessary), we should use older sources for additional information about the history of our knowledge of the topic.
• With regard to some threshold age, I propose to use some concrete events that changed our knowledge of the topic. One of those events is "archival revolution" of early 1990s, which made enormous amount of historical documents, books, etc available. I mean not only Russia, but also other post-Soviet states. Thus, some information avout Vietnam became available after documents from Hungarian embassy became available. Another example is Kuromiya, who obtained a lot of valuable information from declassified Ukrainian archives. Therefore, for most post-Soviet states, it would be correct to consider "Cold war era" sources as outdated.
• WRT very recent sources, I propose to accept the sources that are published in top rank journals (OUP, Harvard, etc) and/or authored by renown experts in the field. If we consider the articles authored by Kuromiya or Strauss in 2014 reliable, there is absolutely no reason to reject the articles by those authors if they were published in 2021 in some OPU journal. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:05, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

At least using Harward, etc would guarantee that the source has its information thoroughly verified by peer-review. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 21:47, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I sort of agree about your three steps but I also think we're past them.

1. Common criteria for source selection is decided for us already by the global consensus of WP:RS, including WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:RSAGE, etc. etc. We don't need to re-debate these issues: we're going to prefer recent scholarship over older scholarship where available. There's no question that for something like, say, how many people were killed by the Chinese Communist Party 1966-1971, Walder 2015 supersedes earlier sources like Rummel 1991. That's already a matter of global consensus documented at WP:RS.
2. The RFC decided the topic: "concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments". So, for example, it seems to me neither Walder 2015, nor Rummel 1991, are about that topic.
3. I don't think that "each participant must explicitly support every intermediate conclusion/agreement" is something that can be required or is necessarily desirable. What happens if someone doesn't support something? We already have global consensus about this that already settles the matter: WP:CONSENSUS says consensus is not unanimity, so not everyone has to support everything. But I don't think that's what you meant, anyway? I think what you mean is that when consensus has been reached on intermediary items, it shouldn't be revisited repeatedly. I agree with this, but it's also a matter of global consensus that is already documented at the WP:CCC part of WP:CONSENSUS ("proposing to change a recently established consensus can be disruptive").

So I think we know what the source criteria is and what the topic is, and frankly we all know how the consensus process works (notwithstanding that everyone can point to times in the past where they've felt that process wasn't followed, we all know how it should work). I think the 12 sources on the historiography list all meet the source criteria and are on-topic--though I recognize it may take some time for other editors to review it and so there may be additions/subtractions yet to come, and that list may change. But I think if we have a workable set of sources to begin with, we start taking a look at how the historiography sources organize the historiography. (Which, I think, is chronologically, with generally four periods: 19th c. [pre-Communist regimes], early 20th c. [up to 1945], late 20th c. [up to 1989], and post-Cold War [1990-present].) Buuut... if you or others think there's something we should discuss about the source criteria or topic, I don't want to steamroll ahead. Levivich 22:05, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Noting that Karlsson mentions the three schools of totalitarianism, revisionism and post-revisionism, does anyone have access to this 2020 chapter Totalitarianism and revisionism in the book Debates on Stalinism where it is argued "the chapter shows how different authors of these different approaches to the study of Stalinism both learned from each other and forgot or misrecognized this process of learning by declaring themselves new and superior to the previous generation of scholars." Seems to me from the recent discussions on this page that we may have fallen into a similar mindset in deprecating particular schools. --Nug (talk) 00:42, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

• While a few sources above are fine (""Communism, Violence and Terror" or "Crimes against Humanity under Communist Regimes"), most of them are not on the subject of this page, but about Holocaust or genocides in general, anticommunism, "left and right", whatever. They are not good sources for this. Some other sources, such as "Handbooks", are tertiary, they are not the best sources. My very best wishes (talk) 03:46, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

  I believe each one talks about "mass killing". Don't judge them by their frickin' titles, folks. :-P Levivich 03:51, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, of course, each source talks about "mass killings", but most of them are not specifically about such killings by communist regimes. If a source does not specifically discuss the question of mass killings by communist regimes (and preferrably in general, rather than for a single specific country), it should not be used.My very best wishes (talk) 16:28, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh yeah, like which one have you read and you say doesn't cover mass killings by communist regimes?? Levivich 16:34, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Taking a random source available online, such as [25], yes, it tells about something related to the subject of this page (as framed in the RfC), such Double genocide theory, but that is another page. What is the hypothesis out there about Mass killings under communist regimes (as the RfC requires)? I am at loss. Apparently, author has a concern about the rise of ring-wing movements in Europe. Yes, this is a reasonable concern, but it is not really about the actual Mass killings under communist regimes, and certainly there is no hypothesis. My very best wishes (talk) 16:57, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

For this work, the hypothesis is double genocide theory. On pages 136-137, the author says double genocide theory is A hypothesis that was deemed a dangerous fringe view in Germany in the 1980s, and was continuously challenged by scholars throughout the 1990s, has gained increasing traction in the United States and may end up influencing American foreign policy. This work talks about both the hypothesis, and challenges to the hypothesis. Levivich 17:21, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this authot calls double genocide theory a hypothesis, but this is another subject for another page we already have. Any serious discussion of the "correlation" (as RfC closing say) in the source? I am not sure. Author does not seem to dispute that such correlation exists, but she says so little of substance and in so uncertain terms about it, even that is difficult to summarize. Not a good source on this subject.My very best wishes (talk) 18:08, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Double genocide theory is one of the hypotheses about the correlation between mass killings and communist governments. Specifically, the theory (or an "aggressive version of it", as our Wikipedia article describes it) is that the correlation between mass killings and communist governments is Jews. This theory (or this more aggressive version of it) is, of course, discredited (but you wouldn't know that from reading our Wikipedia article about it...) Levivich 18:21, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh no, the "theory" (or rather an antisemitic canard) that "that the correlation between mass killings and communist governments is Jews" is known as Jewish Bolshevism, and that is yet another subject. My very best wishes (talk) 18:26, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh no, Jewish Bolshevism is the theory that Jews are responsible for the Russian revolution. Double genocide theory is similar, but slightly different, in that it's about Jews being responsible for, or complicit in, genocide committed by the USSR. These are two different but related things. Levivich 19:18, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I am not sure how much content about Jews should be mentioned on this page. "Red holocaust" is just a slogan, and hardly such a notable one. It should be mentioned only briefly. Of course Jews were one of ethnic minorities persecuted under Communist regimes, particular in the USSR, as was mentioned by Hanna Arendt and others. That included execution of the chairman of Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Night of the Murdered Poets, Doctor's Plot, etc., so potentially something for inclusion. My very best wishes (talk) 19:43, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

No, that's not the complete picture, double genocide theory is in essence about group A justifying counter-genociding group B because group B was complicit in genociding group A. Specifically it arose from some Lithuanians seeking to diminish or excuse their complicity in the Holocaust by claiming Jews were complicit in the killings of Lithuanians. That view isn't that prevalent outside Lithuania, and maybe Romania. --Nug (talk) 19:34, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

It's true, double genocide theory is a collection of theories. Levivich 19:40, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Looks like Neumayer 2020, Radonić 2020, Neumayer 2019, Neumayer 2017, Shafir 2016 and Ghodsee 2014 are more focused on the memory politics surrounding mass killings, which is a different topic to what the remaining sources are discussing, which is the mass killings. Just like Armenian genocide denial (not suggesting these authors are denying anything) is memory politics topic compared to Armenian genocide. --Nug (talk) 04:40, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Stretching the example out, would the research someone who is writing an article about Armenian Genocide denial does about the Armenian Genocide be suitable for the article Armenian genocide? Genuine question, I don't think it's necessarily fair to dismiss a source in its entirety because it is overall about a slightly adjusted topic. Someone writing a book about Armenian genocide denial is going to have to do research regarding the Armenian genocide in order to establish a baseline on what is being denied and what actually happened, would it not be fair to say that what they say about the Armenian genocide could be used as a supporting source at Armenian genocide even if overall the source is about Armenian genocide denial? BSMRD (talk) 05:40, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

In general, participants agree that the article should cover the academic debate on the potential correlation between mass killings and communist regimes as documented in reliable sources. The article should cover the main hypothesis, proposed causes for the correlation, and major challenges to the hypothesis. Memory politics is a part of the academic debate on the potential correlation between mass killings and communist regimes and a part of the main hypothesis or challenges to the hypothesis. It's not surprising that the sources that cover historiography (the body of historical work on a subject) also cover memory politics (the politics of history), especially when the subject is mass killings and Communist regimes, which is the intersection of two extremely contentious topics in history. The RfC determined that the topic is the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, and not just "mass killings and communist governments". This article is about a concept. Paul was right that historiography is the place to start, and it's not surprising that the best RS about the concept (aka the best historiographical sources) consider memory politics to be a relevant part of this concept. Levivich 06:09, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

What's so contentious, let alone "extremely contentious", about "Communist state" or "mass killing", when we have articles on both? And as far as a correlating factor between the two, Valentino defined it as a combination of agricultural collectivisation and political terror, something that is relatively unique to communist regimes. I don't think anyone disputes that. It is hard to imagine all this academic debate would exist at all if that intersection was just a hoax. As far as I can tell, a large part of the political debate is related to the comparison of communist and nazi mass killings and who killed more, not about the intersection between communist regimes and mass killings. --Nug (talk) 09:03, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Read the sources I listed, they explain it. Alternatively, read this article in a month or two, it'll explain it, too. Levivich 14:18, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

As closing of the RfC say, "The article should cover the main hypothesis, proposed causes for the correlation...". Do the source X formulates any kind of a hypothesis [about Mass killings under communist regimes]? What is that hypothesis, exactly? I do not see it in most of the RS above. If they do, the hypothesis must be explicitly cited from the source. My very best wishes (talk) 16:33, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

This is very simple. Just cite the hypothesis from the RS, and it should be on the subject of the page. My very best wishes (talk) 17:04, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Not sure why you posted the same point twice, but I answered above. Levivich 17:22, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "The signatories to this Declaration proclaimed that the 'millions of victims of Communism and their families are entitled to enjoy justice, sympathy, understanding and recognition for their sufferings in the same way as the victims of Nazism have been morally and politically recognized' and that there should be 'an all-European understanding ... that many crimes committed in the name of Communism should be assessed as crimes against humanity ... in the same way Nazi crimes were assessed by the Nuremberg Tribunal.'" This is the victims of Communism narrative, and why the scholarly sources about the Holocaust and memory politics are so important. Please, actually read or re-read this and this by TFD. Davide King (talk) 17:24, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

That's another topic, like Holodomor in modern politics compared to Holodomor. --Nug (talk) 17:53, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

• As another suggestion, one can simply do Google books search. Here is it: [26]. All these books (two first pages of the search) are good and precisely on the subject. Let's use them. Google scholar [27] is also great, but produces a lot of false-positives. My very best wishes (talk) 18:29, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

  Not sure "communism death toll" is the best search string for this subject. I looked through the first two pages of results at gbooks and didn't find anything on this topic by academic publishers from the last 20 years on this list. However, the list did include Coronavirus – Communist and Marxist Uprising, which exposes the reality that China's real disease is NOT Covid-19 but indeed "COMMUNISM." Levivich 04:23, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

I found this on the fifth page of the gbook results: Graziosi 2016: Graziosi, Andrea; Sysyn, Frank E. (2016). Communism and Hunger: The Ukrainian, Chinese, Kazakh, and Soviet Famines in Comparative Perspective. University of Alberta Press. ISBN 978-1-894-86547-0.. From the first page of the introduction: "In fact, with the exception of the 1943 Bengal famine with its approximately two million victims, all of the other major famines of the twentieth century are directly connected to socialist “experiments”: in 1921 and 1922 in Russia and Ukraine (1 million–1.5 million deaths); in 1931, 1932, and 1933 in the USSR (6.5 million–7.5 million deaths, of which 4 million were in Ukraine and 1.3 million–1.5 million in Kazakhstan); in 1946 and 1947 in the USSR (1 million–1.5 million deaths); from 1958 to 1962 in China (30 million–45 million deaths); from 1983 to 1985 in Ethiopia (0.5 million–1.0 million deaths); and from 1994 to 1998 in North Korea (estimates vary from a few hundred thousand to more than 2 million deaths)." --Nug (talk) 05:25, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Which chapter(s) describe famines as mass killings (or similar)? Levivich 05:44, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

I don’t have access so I can’t check. I found another book Genocide published in 2014 by William Rubinstein where he writes: "The central example of the Holocaust demonstrates that it is, classically, an ethnic or religious minority which is slaughtered in a genocide. Yet probably most (Rubinstein’s emphasis) victims of deliberate mass murder by totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century were not members of an ethnic minority but those perceived as belonging to an allegedly dangerous political or social class group of those defined, by their killers, as belonging to such a group. Most of the millions who perished at the hands of Stalin, Mao tse-tung, Pol Pot and the other Communist dictators died because the party’s leaders believed they belonged to a dangerous or subversive social class or political grouping.". It has a chapter "Genocide in the Age of Totalitarianism, 1914 - 79", but again I don't have access to it either. --Nug (talk) 06:14, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oh yes, the comparison of different types of genocides is a legitimate content (not anything FRINGE). It appears in many RS and belongs to this page as far as genocides by communist governments are included in such comparisons. There could be a debate if something (like Holodomor) was a genocide. Such debates also belong to this page per the RfC outcome. My very best wishes (talk) 01:43, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

• There is absolutely no reason to dismiss any books older than X years per WP:Verifiability. Yes, the book on coronavirus and another by David Satter are not on the subject, but all other 8 books on the first page of the Google search are all valid books by academics: Paul Kengor(2020), Norman Naimark(2011), BBoC(1999) by a group of academic researchers, Jon Halliday(2011), Robert Conquest(2008), Rudolph Rummel (2017), etc. Excluding their views would be a gross violation of WP:NPOV. My very best wishes (talk) 01:25, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I found a 2017 book by Norman Naimark published by Oxford University Press called Genocide: A World History. It has a chapter titled "Communist Genocides", so I think that would be an excellent source. --Nug (talk) 09:36, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

We're not going to debate WP:RSAGE. Conquest 2008 is a reprint of Conquest 1990; Rummel 2017 is a reprint of Rummel 1997; those are too old to be one of the best sources for this article, and in any event, 1990s scholarship is discussed in detail by subsequent scholarship in the 21st century; there are better sources to cite for Rummel's views than Rummel's 1990s books. Similarly, BBoC is something the article discusses in the prose. It's not so much a source for this article as part of the topic of this article; there are over a dozen academic sources from the past 20 years that discuss BBoC, many on the list above, and more cited in our Wikipedia article already. BBoC isn't a source the article relies on, it's something the article talks about. Kengor 2020 is not by an academic publisher, it's by a "traditional Catholic publisher" (TAN Books), not one of the best works for this article, per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Halliday 2011 is only about one communist regime (Mao) and thus, like works that focus just on the Soviet Union, not one of the best sources for this article (this is a point discussed ad nauseum on this page, including in this thread). I've seen Naimark's work discussed by several of the sources (the ones I contend are the "best"). Naimark's written a lot about genocide; 2011 seems to be about Armenia, but 2017 (originally published in 2016) is obviously global in scope. I haven't looked at it but I will. It seems similar to Jones 2017: recent scholarship, academic publisher, and while a slightly narrower scope ("genocide" instead of "mass killing"), I found Jones 2017 to nevertheless have on-topic info, and so I'd expect Naimark 2016 would, too. Levivich 17:20, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Anti-Communism and Anti-Communism

User:North8000 wrote (in a closed discussion): "First, (if it is the case with anybody) don't let any anti or pro communism real world quests influence your efforts here, drop any metric or goal on whether the page makes communism look good or bad." TFD wrote: "I don't think any of the editors have been pro-Communist". I agree. But, in my opinion, some editors have been arguing that communist regimes have committed atrocities, while no one is saying that communist regimes have not committed atrocities. It is a waste of time to argue in general against communism, because point B should be the focus. The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:44, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

RFC: New title name for the article

MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 14:35, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

As many may have noticed from comments here, on the AfD about the article, and wherever; this article's title has been heavily subject to demands to be changed to something else that is more appropriate.

Mostly, this was suggested for the following reasons:

1. For those uninitiated, the article opens with "Mass killings under communist regimes occurred throughout the 20th century." which is itself very controversial. However, this cannot be altered due to MOS:FIRST which dictates that unless the name of the article cannot reasonably appear on the lead paragraph, the title must be what comes first before everything else.
2. It introduces synthesis into the article due to it implying that all the subjective and opinionated sources are objective, factual and extensively researched by experts, although the article features very few tertiary sources. It led to the article being almost entirely re-written to feature "he says, she says" to highlight who said what, so that any reader may research the credentials of those cited on the article.

Due to the reasons provided above, I voluntarily opened a RfC to rectify this issue.

The new name for the article

Any person may add their own choice to the list:

• Option A – "Mass killings under communist regimes" (status quo)
• Option B – "Deaths under communist regimes" (proposed by MarioSuperstar77)
• Option C – Remove the word "Regimes" from the title (proposed by MarioSuperstar77)
• Option D – "Excess mortality under communist regimes" (proposed by Paul Siebert)
• Option E – "Democides within communist regimes" (proposed by MarioSuperstar77)
• Option F – "Debates about the democides within communist regimes" (proposed by MarioSuperstar77)
• Option G – Remove the word "Communist" from the title (proposed by 82.11.45.175)
• Option H – "Communism and mass killing(s)" (proposed by Davide King and Paul Siebert)
• Option I - Replace "Under" with "By" (proposed by Mhawk10) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarioSuperstar77 (talk • contribs) 19:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option J – "Communist state(s) and mass killing(s)" (proposed by Davide King)
• Option K – "Victims of Communism" (proposed by The Four Deuces)
• Option L - "Mass killings and Communism" (proposed by The Four Deuces)

Discussion (title)

I think you may be misinterpreting MOS:FIRST, which is only a guideline anyway. As for changing the title, it definitely needs doing, though I'm not sure an RfC is really the best approach for now - we may need a better idea of how the revised article is going to be structured before arriving at one. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:45, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

All of these titles are even worse than the current one. H is a grammatical failure, G "Mass killings under regimes" is a worthless title even synthier than this, F is rendered redundant by E which is effectively the same as A except picking a different word to describe events. B is hopelessly broad and just invites all sorts of bad faith death counting and C does nothing except slightly broadening the scope to include mass deaths prior to communists taking power. Finally, none of these titles solve the issue of introduc[ing] synthesis into the article due to it implying that all the subjective and opinionated sources are objective, factual and extensively researched by experts, although the article features very few tertiary sources.. (As an aside, even if any of these options offered anything, there are far too many of them, and if you intend to add more it will only be even worse. Only one can be chose, and having this many option practically guarantees a 'No Consensus' close with how split the vote would be.) BSMRD (talk) 17:06, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

There a joke that goes "I've had this axe for 20 years.....though I've replaced both the head and handle. So the AFD result was "not delete" and the RFC said to replace the head. Changing the title is replacing the handle. You need to be careful that any choices aren't in essence a deletion. North8000 (talk) 17:26, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Originally, that is a ship of Theseus apory.

Frankly speaking, I find this RfC counterproductive. First, most of the options are incompatible with the outcome of the recent RfC.

Second, by starting another RfC we just postpone the work on the article. Is our goal to preserve this (extremely POVish) version as long as we can? Paul Siebert (talk) 18:28, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

What stops you from fixing the article? I waited 3 days since the last RfC to create mine, there were no edit for a full day and thought that nobody actually wanted to edit the article. I am not the one to blame for this, I had pushed for a name change since the AfD and promised on a previous diff earlier this week that I would make this RfC once the other one concludes. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:29, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I am afraid my edits will be immediately reverted, so I would prefer to achieve a consensus on the talk page first. And the best starting point would be to do source analysis, as I proposed months ago, and Levivich did that again few days ago. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:36, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I would not present the RfC unless it was down to two or three choices. But if we agree on one, then there is no reason for an RfC. TFD (talk) 18:27, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

But if we agree on one, then there is no reason for an RfC. Except that nobody can ever agree on anything here. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:29, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I have to agree with AndyTheGrump and BSMRD. Since the topic is about correlation, I find it absurd that much better and simpler titles like Communism and mass killing, or more accurately Communist state and mass killing, which are in line with how like-minded articles are titled (those are probably the best titles for what Fiveby and North8000 are referring to), are not even listed. Of course, Victims of Communism remains the best title in The Four Deuces' and mine's view because it is the common name per Neumayer et al. (as Levivich included those sources), and it is how Courtois and Rummel understand it (this is in line with Paul Siebert's summary), and if we write a good article and make it clear that the scope is anti-communism and is not a scholarly discourse or consensus, it will be the least of the problems. We need some more work before changing the name.

In short, the issue is only going to come if we actually were to use Courtois and Rummel as secondary sources, when they are the primary ones for the topic, and tried to prove their thesis rather than explain and describe it; if we use the best secondary sources and make clear what is the context, and treat it as a theory proposed by Courtois, Rummel, and a few authors, including all the mainstream and relevant critcism, I think there should be no issue. Davide King (talk) 18:22, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I think that sounds reasonable. Indeed, if the article is discussing the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept, the current title is somewhat misleading, for it implies that the article's topic is a discussion of mass killings themselves.

I propose to remove options A-G as obsolete, and replace them with "Communism and mass killing".

IMO, the question should be:

"Keeping in mind the outcome of the recent RfC, do you think the article title "Communism and mass killing" is more adequate for the article that discusses the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept?"

--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:45, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I forgot they were even mentioned on this talk page in the first place, if they were. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:20, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• The problem with the proposed title "Communism and mass killing" is that it excludes other causes of mass killing beyond communism, and that is already violating the spirit of "The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept." --Nug (talk) 21:31, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• I do not think that is a problem because the focus will be the theories, not the events, so where is the issue and how it is violating that? Indeed, it may appear that you are the one violating that spirit by wanting to move it beyond communism when the summary of the topic is clear, or are you proposing a general article of mass killings and their causes? Because Communist mass killings are just one prominent case, and they would be a subsection of such an article. Either way, I do not see how the title itself excludes them; in fact, we may use such sources to contrast them with Courtois' and Rummel's overgeneralizations about communism as the primary cause, so thanks(?) Davide King (talk) 22:23, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• The RFC option was "The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept.", not "The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communism, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept." The causes of communist government mass killings could well include reasons not related to communism. I can't believe there is already an apparent shifting of the goal posts so soon after the RFC. --Nug (talk) 01:38, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I guess I was cautioning against doing anything that would be seen as a "back door deletion". Even if the title isn't perfect / could be improved, it's the one that went through AFD, and the RFC defines the scope, why not just proceed with those for now? North8000 (talk) 18:40, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I see no problem with proceeding with the old title, although DK's proposal sounds really good. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:47, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I also think that DK's idea might be an improvement. But my comment was from a process side. Avoiding starting a third giant debate at this moment. North8000 (talk) 19:13, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough Paul Siebert (talk) 19:33, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

The AFD closed with no consensus, so I don't feel it's reasonable to cite its outcome to determine anything about the article's future. Your argument would make sense if it had closed as keep, but a no-consensus outcome doesn't carry any particular force beyond the fact that we couldn't agree on what to do with the article at that particular point in time. --Aquillion (talk) 03:46, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

...The concept of genocide is ambiguous in scope. Sometimes it is taken to include murderous suppression of political opposition and sometimes not (as in the 1948 United Nations Convention, based on Lemke’s well-known compromise to resolve an impasse in the convention). Some have remedied this gap by conducting studies of genocide plus politicide.[8]

Here, we adopt Rummel’s broader term (democide), to be clear that political suppression is not artificially excluded. By this definition, democide is “the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, or mass murder.”[9] In our view, Rummel’s definition is too extensive in taking the murder by government of a single individual (e.g., an assassination) to be democide; it would be better to restrict the term to systematic killing of large numbers of noncombatant (civilian) individuals. This definition does not require the stated purpose of eliminating an entire group. Our slightly adjusted definition of democide ends up similar in scope to Valentino’s preferred terminology referencing “mass killing;”[10] a difference is that Valentino used 50,000 deaths as a minimum threshold, whereas to take better account of democide against smallscale societies (with, in fact, often fewer than 50,000 lives to lose) we employed a lower threshold.
— Saucier & Akers 2018, p. 81

That's just one source. These labels mean different things, and the differences matter. Without collecting what sources say on the subject, asking editors "what do you think the title should be?" is nothing more than conducting an WP:OR survey. Levivich 19:10, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Keep that comment to yourself please, the RfC was not open yet, there is no survey, only a discussion at the moment to solidify how the RfC must be run. There was no consensus for which new title would make a good title before I made this section, hence multiple choices that I collected throughout the discussion of this article. The only consensus, particularly from participants in the AfD is that the current title is bad and needs changing. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:20, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

But none of the options are tied to any sources. It's a bit of a tell that your list of options identifies the editor who proposed each option, but not the source(s) that support it. Sorry, but that's a sign of OR, not RS :-) Levivich 19:27, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

OR and RS are for sources and paragraphs within an article. We can always attempt to find which sources use which terminology the most. If any comment should be made on the article's title, it should be made in the context of a title, not the body of text as you did, for example WP:CRITERIA could be used to determine which title is ideal. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:37, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

For comparison, here's an example of a source analysis table to determine an article title: Talk:Syrian Kurdistan/Archive 4#"Syrian Kurdistan". That's what it took to convince editors in that debate what the title of that article should be. The reason that no one agrees about anything here is because we have many editors just sort of talking to each other, but relatively few tables of quotes from RSes that show what RSes are saying about this, that, or the other thing. At some point soon, we'll go through the list of sources and say what each one says about the topic: what terms they use, what countries they talk about, what are the leading scholars/works in the field, etc. Levivich 19:53, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that style will work here. First of all, we must summarize each source, because separate quotes taken out of context may be misleading. Example: this article cites Mann's "classicide", however, if you read Mann, you see that (i) Mann did not apply this term to Communist states in general: he spoke mostly about Cambodia, and about few events of much smaller scale in China and USSR; (ii) Mann considered "classicide" a result of perversion of socialist democracy. In other words, by taking a correct quote from Mann and by ignoring the overall context, an absolutely distorted and biased text was created. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:13, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

As an example, take a look at Table 2. This style is not perfect, but it may be a good starting point. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:15, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I find myself agreeing with Levivich, we should base the article name on the sources as far as possible. There are many sources that discusses Mann's definition of classicide, so I don't think there is any chance of misinterpretation. --Nug (talk) 21:27, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I will be closing this RfC immediately and moving this article in order to change its name if you folks can come to an agreement regarding the title right now, right there. Otherwise, I will continue as planned, and may invoke uninvolved editors to close the RfC. I had previously stated "nobody can ever agree on anything here", prove me wrong. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 21:47, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

We don't normally use WP:RFC for discussing page moves, WP:RM is used instead. --Nug (talk) 22:06, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with N8k about avoiding starting a third giant debate at this moment. Levivich 22:11, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

User:MarioSuperstar77 - I see a contradiction here between the categorization at the beginning as a draft RFC, and the statement that you will be closing the RFC if the editors can come to agreement on the title. I will also ask rhetorically why anyone thinks that we will come to agreement on a title by informal discussion. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:33, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with Nug's claim that an article about "Communism and mass killings" would not mention mass killings carried out by Communist states that had no connection with Communist ideology. For one thing, the scholars that Nug cites say that all these killings were a result of ideology, that they were planned in the "lost literature" of Marx and Engels. But even if they were not, a reasonable article would report any opinions that certain mass killings, such as those in Afghanistan, were not ideologically motivated. TFD (talk) 15:09, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I also disagree on why 'Communism and mass killing(s)', or 'Communist state and mass killing(s)', would somehow preclude that per TFD's well-reasoned explanation above. I also ask them to refrain from making accusations.123 None of us are shifting the goal posts, I think you are creating a huge issue where there is none. Davide King (talk) 15:26, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

The consensus of the community per the RfC is that the scope of the article should be "the wider concept rather than individual regimes." It should "cover the academic debate on the potential correlation between mass killings and communist regimes as documented in reliable sources." Whether or not any of us agree with that, we are bound to follow that. We are of course free to change the title with consensus (and any editor can challenge a move} if we find a title that better reflects the topic of the article. In fact the article was previously moved from "Communist genocide" after the first AfD. TFD (talk) 18:41, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I have considered adding title proposals from the AfD which occured throughout the page. For example, this proposal by Dream Focus which is similar to 'A' As someone there brought up, you can rename this mass deaths under communists regimes since they didn't kill people directly sometimes. However, due to the pushback of adding too many options, which I can understand would make the RfC more obtuse to judge, implement adequately and might result into no consensus, I decided not to. As for the pre-existing options, I wondered if it would be constructive to have preliminary votes to remove the titles that are unpopular, except perhaps for A per my understanding that RfCs have a requirement for a status quo choice. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 22:51, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

It's probably a bit early to start voting on a possible candidates when we haven't really explored the universe of potential names yet. One possible name could be "Extirpation of reactionary peoples on the path to shining communist utopia", but somehow I don't think it would get any support ;o)). --Nug (talk) 01:01, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

• Most of the suggested titles are potentially valid titles/subjects for WP pages. But most of them are simply not about Mass killings under communist regimes, but rather something else (like excess mortality, death statistics, victims for whatever reason, Communism, etc.). For example, Communism and "communist regimes" are very different things. This is not renaming, but creating new and potentially valid pages on various other subjects. They probably could be created right now and would not be POV/content forks of this page. My very best wishes (talk) 02:21, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

10 options? I doubt you'll be able to a consensus for any one of them. Just too many. BTW - Where's "Option I"? GoodDay (talk) 05:54, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Maybe Mass killings of anti-communists, since we have already have Mass killings of communists? --Nug (talk) 18:34, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

There are three issues:

• It is Anti-communist mass killings, not Mass killings of communists, so it should be Communist mass killings
• Many victims of Communists were, in fact, communists themselves and other leftists, or not anti-communist
• It seems a more suited name, despite all its aforementioned flaws, for A and C (e.g. the events themselves) rather than B (e.g. theories about them and their correlations)

Victims of Communism is the correct name, we disagree of our understanding of this. My understanding is supported by Ghodsee, Neumayer, et al. Yours, I do not know, I guess the Prague Declaration. Davide King (talk) 18:41, 27 January 2022 (UTC) [Edited to add] Davide King (talk) 18:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

That's a different topic again, maybe Historiography of Anti-Communist Literature, this is a good source published by New Direction, a think tank patronized by Margaret Thatcher. --Nug (talk) 19:07, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

That's not an RS because it isn't independent, it's a right-wing political advocacy group. Levivich 19:12, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

My issue with "Victims of Communism" as a title is that it's a term of art and thus WP:JARGON. This term is used in the scholarship without doubt, and means something specific to those scholars, but to an average reader, unfamiliar with this topic area, they will think it means Communism is a crime or a natural disaster or some other bad thing, similar to victims of murder, victims of a hurricane, victims of poverty, etc. The term "Victims of Communism" is probably notable in its own right as a term, but I'm not sure it's the best title for an article about the concept of a correlation between MK and CR. Levivich 19:15, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you here. It is also a bit vague and broader in scope, as conceivably most people living under a communist regime could be considered a "victim". --Nug (talk) 19:21, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

No, that is exactly the really notable topic that is in line with NPOV and B. What you and MVBW do not seem to understand is that the topic itself is anti-communist (per Neumayer et al., not Davide King), and is the same topic, not different topics. TFD's "victims of Communism" and Paul Siebert's summary of "generic Communism" (Courtois and Rummel) are, in fact, the same topic. I do not know or understand what you are trying to prove by linking a book published by a right-wing think thank. This is not the first time either, as you previously linked me to a book published by the far-right WorldNetDaily Books.

Levivich, indeed that is how TFD and I understand the topic because we have actually read the scholarly literature. I do not disagree with you but

• POV titles are acceptable if they are its common name as in this case, and I fail to see how the current name is any less POVish, it is not notable even.
• That is why I prefer 'Communism(s) (state) and mass killing(s)' et similia as title for the rewrite. I do think that if we can actually write a good article about it that explains and describes it, 'Victims of Communism' would still be best name because that is how it is used in the scholarly literature and the topic is about this scholarly literature and discourse, and the fact many users are not aware is just one more reason to do it so that they understand this. However, when we still disagree about what the topic actually is and some users are completely unaware of such literature, the name change is certainly not my biggest priority right now. Davide King (talk) 19:37, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

• Just as a note, isn't the proper way to retitle a page by just opening a move request? Why open an RfC when there's a specific process to move the name of a page? — Mhawk10 (talk) 05:22, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

  Agree on this. I've found myself back into this page after a few weeks out of curiosity and saw an RfC about user conduct followed by an pseudo-RfC on a page move. While I don't plan on participating in the discussions (this topic area is somewhat outside my comfort zone), I'd at least expect making other editors have to discuss wiki procedure so often is derailing work on the article somewhat. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 12:55, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Mhawk10: does the response by @Please ping me!: answer the question? ~ cygnis insignis 13:32, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

  Cygnis insignis my username is not "Please ping me!" :P A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 13:35, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

  :oops, sorries to @Asterism: ~ cygnis insignis 13:45, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

  What I mean, and probably should've just said explicitly, was that contributors in this discussion should be able to go about their business without RfCs for quite a bit. The most negative of editors have left this thread and the most contentious issue was resolved in the RfC closed by Wugapodes. RfCs are not only a bit heavy-handed but also not the solution to all problems one may see in this article. If one just wants to gauge the opinions on a possible future move request one does not need to be overly formal about it. Everyone remaining here is in good faith and from my impression based on the names are plenty experienced. Editors discussing the ins and outs of wiki bureaucracy every thread is unnecessary and somewhat unhelpful because of the distraction it causes, in my opinion, although not necessary hurtful or disruptive. As editors we have a tendency after very contentious discussions or long, month-long disputes to try and (if you'll allow the metaphor) make the nest pristine, even if it is unnecessary for the birds to hatch. At this point, I think the storm has passed and we can be a bit less formal in my opinion. Of course, those are just my two cents. Note, I'm not commenting on whether discussing the title or not is a good idea, as that is beyond the scope of my comment above. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 13:53, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

  My point is that there's an already set way to propose an article title be changed. A person can directly propose it, the community can debate it, and then a resolution can be found based on consensus achieved. An extended discussion on how to set up an RfC on this is misguided, especially since RfCs are not for moving pages (see WP:RFCNOT). — Mhawk10 (talk) 03:44, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  I think the amount of options on display show the need for some discussion to narrow it down prior to an RM, which will be a mess without a clear destination in mind. An RfC may not be the best way to get that discussion though. BSMRD (talk) 03:56, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 31 January 2022

Mass killings under communist regimes → Mass killings by communist regimes – I think the proposed title is more succinct than the current title without substantially changing the title's meaning. — Mhawk10 (talk) 04:00, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

 Comment: Have you even read BSMRD's comment here, whcih specifically warned with good reasons not to have yet another RfC? The proposed change is not a good one either because it implies the structure is A or C rather than B, for which we should follow examples like Race and crime in the United States or Race and intelligence, hence we should really debate whether it should be Communism and mass killing, or Communist state and mass killing, and whether it should be plural or which should go first; I think it should not because the examples are also singular. Davide King (talk) 08:10, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

P.S. The title must be changed precisely because we must "substantially [change] the title's meaning", as the topic and structure should be the debates and theories around them, not the events and mass killings themselves. Davide King (talk) 08:17, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

To be completely fair, it is possible he was already typing up the RM before I made my comment, considering the closeness of the time stamps. I do have to ask why Mhawk10 decided on this title in particular, when nothing in particular seems to suggest it over any of the other proposals above. As Asilvering said, 3 letters isn't really worth an RM. BSMRD (talk) 14:51, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I've previously quoted the lede of Race and crime in the United States, "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. Crime rates vary significantly between racial groups." There is a cascade of concerns arising from at least one licensed premise, it's only an example of what not to do. ~ cygnis insignis 19:40, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

The proposed change is exactly the same number of words. It is three letters shorter than the current title. That's worth an RM on a highly contested article? Come on. -- asilvering (talk) 08:29, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you think that the proposed title is worse than the current title? The reason this is a requested move rather than me just boldly doing it is because the article content is so hotly disputed by some editors that any move is likely to be contested. If you don’t like changing “under” to “by” (I think the change in title renders it more natural in addition to being more concise), then make an feel free to make an argument as to why the proposed title is not better than the current title. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

No, I'm not getting drawn into that. You proposed the move: it's on you to show that the destination is better. Your reasoning given was that the title is more succinct; given that we're talking about three letters and zero words shorter, I don't think that holds any weight whatsoever. I am willing to assume you did this earnestly and in good faith, having (correctly) observed that unilaterally making this move would be controversial; but I think trying to continue this RM and spin it out into a full discussion would be nothing short of vexatious. -- asilvering (talk) 18:24, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Very simply, my argument is that the title is both more natural and that the title is more concise (albeit marginally). — Mhawk10 (talk) 15:55, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Bad idea to have an RFC here now. And IF there were to be an RFC, given the history and activity here, any RFC should be the result of a group effort. North8000 (talk) 13:05, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

It makes no sense to propose a move while editors are deciding on what the name should be. I don't think that changing "under" to "by" makes the title substantially more succinct. TFD (talk) 17:29, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

If only there were an ordinary process for gathering community input on a proposed change for the name of an article… In any case, I don’t really see how changing this in the intermittent would be anything but a small improvement over what is currently there. If you think that the change makes the article title less natural and less concise, feel free to argue on substantial grounds. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Dear user @Mhawk10:, I want to very personally thank you for examplifying why I used the RFC template instead of the RM template. Because the subject of the article is very contentious, any suggestion to rename the article to something else will either result in: "No consensus" because everyone wants the article to be given a different name, hence my previous point "Nobody can agree on anything here" is to be taken into account once again; Or, as shown here, the result is "oppose" due to everyone thinking the new name is bad/not good enough. @A. C. Santacruz: @Nug: @Levivich: Read my comment carefully, and think about what your suggestion caused. We need to agree on a name before WP:RM should be ever considered, if it should be considered at all. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 18:22, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

"My" suggestion (and others') was not to do this. Levivich 18:56, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Nug and the user above who made that move request did. Reading the context of the discussion, Santacruz agreed to it too, and it seemed you did so too since you replied right after Nug. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:26, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

@MarioSuperstar77: Was the option to not remove a chunk of article [28] considered before you went ahead and did that? ~ cygnis insignis 19:55, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think anything prevents us from having a RM with multiple options, although we might need to tweak or fiddle with the templating. But I also think the question of whether it is an RFC or an RM is a bit silly to get caught up on. --Aquillion (talk) 03:41, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

• No to this specific suggestion; several of the names suggested above seem superior and there's no reason to think they wouldn't get a stronger consensus behind them if we put them all forwards at once. And I somewhat object to an up / down RM on one specific name when so many names are under consideration; there's nothing that I can see that would make this option better than the ones above, so why should it be given particular consideration? --Aquillion (talk) 03:44, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Recent removal

This edit is an important step towards implementation of the RfC result. Indeed, the article's scope is

"... potential correlation between mass killings and communist regimes as documented in reliable sources. The article should cover the main hypothesis, proposed causes for the correlation, and major challenges to the hypothesis"

Obviously, the discussion of this topic includes a discussion of those views that see no correlation and (or) criticise the claim that such correlation exists. Clearly, a separate section that discuss some common terminology creates an apparent hierarchy, because it implies that the schools that see a correlation is by default a majority school. That is not necessarily the case (at least, no evidences has been presented so far that that is the case). Let me re-iterate it: specific terminology for Communist mass killings is used mostly by those authors who sees a link between Communism and mass killings. Those authors who do not see it, as a rule, use no specific terminology that needs to be explained in this article. Therefore, any discussion of a common terminology must be linked to the discussion of the views of the authors that see some significant correlation. For example (that is not an actual wording, that is just an idea):

"Rudolph Rummel collected a database of all human life loss that were a result of actions taken by Communist authorities, including the acts of commission or acts of omission. He found a significant correlation between totalitarianism (and Communism) and what he called "democide". He estimated the scale of "Communist democide" to be as high as XXX milliuon"

Therefore, I request all users to respect the results of the last RfC and not to restore this section. Some of its content will be re-added later into the article what its new structure will be created. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:36, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

No, the Terminology sections goes right to the heart of the historiography and "the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments" per B, so it should be kept pending the sources review. --Nug (talk) 20:42, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

The process of source review is too sluggish. Per your request, I decided to make a pause and to minimize my participation in the talk page discussion, and what we get? Actually, there is no progress in a discussion, and it creates an impression that some participants are engaged in a pro forma activity to preserve the article in its current state. Let's remove this section (which has obvious problems), start a real and productive discussion, and then re-add its content into a rewritten article. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:56, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

The agreement above concerning the implementation was to proceed incrementally, there is no consensus for deletion of the article which you are effectively doing. --Nug (talk) 21:20, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I am not deleting the article. I removed one part, and I clearly explained that a significant part of the content should be added back. I even explained how it should be done. The problem is that the article is not ready for the re-addition of this content. Instead of throwing baseless accusations, you should better accelerate a discussion of a new structure of the article. For example, I explained how the information about terminology should be reorganized. Do you have any comment on that? Any counter-arguments, criticism? Paul Siebert (talk) 21:35, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

If you selectively deleted or replaced sentences rather than entire sections your claim "I am not deleting the article" would be more convincing. Please revert your disruptive edit since other editors were planning to edit this terminology section. --Nug (talk) 23:50, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

No problem. I asked that user, let's see what he says. Paul Siebert (talk) 00:48, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

What, exactly, is the point of the terminology section? Only a minority of these terms are used further into the article, so it's not to help the reader there. They aren't shared between authors, so it doesn't help someone trying to do their own research. The paragraph preceding this list rejects correlation between authors, so it's not really "going into the heart of the historiography". Unless editors can give a compelling reason for the inclusion of this list of related (in their opinion) terms, there is no reason for it to stay. BSMRD (talk) 21:07, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes. In addition, when we discuss correlations, there is one more consideration. Some authors do see correlations between Communism and mass killings, but they see correlation between just some categories of them. Thus, killing of "class enemies" is linked to Communism by many authors, but counter-guerilla mass killings is not.

Second, as soon as correlations are discussed, we should talk about negative correlations too. Thus, Mann claims that Communists were efficient in suppressing some ethnic mass killings (for example, in Yugoslavia or USSR). Paul Siebert (talk) 21:15, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

@BSMRD: If we are discussing the "the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments" then of course the paragraph rejecting correlation, i.e. "negative correlation" between authors is relevant. --Nug (talk) 21:18, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you understand the difference between "rejecting correlation" and "negative correlation"? Paul Siebert (talk) 21:36, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

That's irrelevant. Positive, negative or in User:BSMRD's terms "rejecting correlation", it is still a part of the historiography. --Nug (talk) 23:50, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Both the terminology section (which is important for the historiography), as well as the structure that discusses the killings by Cambodia, USSR, and China (which are discussed in sources as being linked to their governing ideologies) seems better kept in the article itself as-was. — Mhawk10 (talk) 14:27, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

It is not hard to imagine that terminology for each event needs explanation, I don't blink twice at that within the context of articles on those topics, however, a contentionious part of the page is what is claimed to be pov forking via the juxtaposition of two broad terms, that is, a fallacious correlation. ~ cygnis insignis 15:32, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Be careful next time when reverting over multiple editors, you could inadvertedly revert a positive addition to the article. My very best wishes did that and I had to scold them. In your case you first reverted over Paul Siebert, Davide King, both of whom you contested, so that is fair, but one person that got caught in the crossfire was Greyhound1982 whom thankfully was a vandal and not a good-faith editor. Next time, consider undoing edits one by one, I do not think it affects the 1RR rule. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 15:49, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

This series of difs modified the changes to the lead that I had challenged and removed tags at the top of the page noting content was disputed. Reverting over their edits was on purpose, though I didn't feel a need to explain it given that I thought it was plainly obvious. — Mhawk10 (talk) 15:54, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Oh well, because it happened once with an experienced editor, I thought about warning you. If that was fully intended, then good job. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 15:59, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Unless articles about MkUCR routinely mention provide a glossary of terms, it violates weight to include it. Also, it is implicit synthesis since we cannot know if the sources use the same definitions. For example, Karlsson says "genocide is the killing of a category of people," while in Uyghur genocide, it doesn't necessarily mean killing at all. The best way to handle WP:JARGON is to define terms when they arise. For example, in Paul Siebert's example of Rummel, we should mention that Rummel uses the term and provide his definition. TFD (talk) 19:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with restoring older version by Mhawk10. For example, this removal [29] goes explicitly against the conclusion of the RfC. It was to include the academic debate on the subject. But the edit removes such debates. Perhaps this could be rephrased or reorganized, but not removed. Same with most other removals. My very best wishes (talk) 20:49, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• The section says, "Classicide – sociologist Michael Mann has proposed classicide to mean the "intended mass killing of entire social classes." Classicide is considered "premeditated mass killing" narrower than genocide in that it targets a part of a population defined by its social status, but broader than politicide in that the group is targeted without regard to their political activity." Wouldn't it make more sense to move this information to the discussion about Mann's analysis? TFD (talk) 22:00, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Many of those terms have variable meanings including in how sources use them. Probably not a good idea to try to nail down an article-wide definition. Better to say how the particular source is using them when putting material in from that source. North8000 (talk) 21:31, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• Debates start from defining the subject, and different researchers define it differently: Classicide, Democide, Politicide, simply "mass killing", etc. So yes, making such section from the beginning makes a lot of sense. My very best wishes (talk) 22:59, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• So if there was only one definition, there would be no debate? TFD (talk) 23:11, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Sure there would be debate. But this is the case when there is a debate about what exactly needs to be debated. Same with other subjects. For example, one must define what is time (fortunately there is one accepted operational definition in physics), etc. My very best wishes (talk)

• Authors often discuss the terms other authors use, and it is mostly around scope: mass killing of classes, mass killing of political groups, mass killing of ethnic groups, etc, and the threshold of killings to be considered "mass killings", 1 for Rummel, 1000 for Tago&Wayman, 50,000 for Valentino, etc. Nothing really controversial about that. --Nug (talk) 23:58, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't think a terminology section is attempting to nail down an article wide definition, it is just summarising the various definitions authors use in one place. It's not necessary to find a source that summarizes the information. As long as what's in the article is an accurate, neutral summary, and each of the statements is verified by an appropriate source, then the summary is also verified by the same sources. Summary is not forbidden by any Wikipedia policy, and mere juxtaposition of statements isn't SYNTH either. See WP:SYNTHNOTJUXTAPOSITION. --Nug (talk) 22:51, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

First, that creates an apparent hierarchy, second, it is an unneeded back and forth discussion. Both are strongly discouraged by our policy. Please, stop this type argumentation, you are literally proposing us to violate our policy. Paul Siebert (talk) 03:17, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Ok. Who in the world came up with this "correlation" terminology? Is this based on sources or is this original research by someone here? Correlation has a pretty specific meaning. What you guys are talking about here is simply "relationship". Obviously there is a correlation between communist regimes and mass killings (hard to think of one that didn't do it). The question at the heart of the discussion is whether there is *causation* - were the mass killings caused by the communist ideology of the communist regimes or was there something else that did it. Until we start using words correctly a lot of this discussion is simply irrelevant. Volunteer Marek 00:55, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Oh yes. The suggestion about "correlation" is mostly WP:OR. This is like asking: do we have a correlation between Nazi Germany and Holocaust? Well, that was not a correlation, but an official policy of extermination devised by Nazi based on their ideology. Same with Red Terror, etc. My very best wishes (talk) 01:05, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, Marek. You are right, "correlation" has a very specific meaning, and I raised exactly the same argument during the process of preparation of this RfC. In my 17th statement, I proposed this version of "B": The article should discuss the concept that links mass killings with Communism as a primary causative factor, including critiques of the concept. I argued that the word "correlation" gives an undue weight to Rummel, Harff and few other authors. Unfortunately, due to a joint opposition of Nug and Vanteloop, this proposal was not accepted, and that is why we have the word "correlation".

With regard to you second point, yes, the word "correlation" is based on sources. Specifically, several authors did factor analysis of global genocide databases, and some of them (mostly Rummel, Harff and few others) found some correlations between Communism and mass killings. Rudolph Rummel was the one who pioneered this type studies, and application of factor analysis to social sciences is his major scientific contribution (and that is why he is broadly cited).

One way or the another, we had the RfC, and the outcome of this RfC is pretty clear: the article does not discuss the events (mass killings), it discusses the concepts that link mass killings to Communism, as well as the criticism of those ideas. I agree that "B" was poorly formulated, but that is not my fault: you should thank Nug and Vanteloop for that. However, we must respect the outcome of this RfC, and one important consequence of this RfF is that the article must be significantly modified, which include removal of a significant part of its content followed by its partial re-addition after a new structure will be created. In connection to that, I find the action of those who reverts significant recent changes highly disruptive: it looks like some users who voted against "B" are trying to filibuster and block any attempt to implement the RfC decision. If that will continue, that may be a reason to request for severe sanctions per DS. Paul Siebert (talk) 02:48, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the RfC consensus was actually entails the literal statistical meaning of correlation. I don't really see all that many arguments in it regarding linear statistical relationships between a the variable "communism" and a variable "mass killing" (Is this frequency? Total killed? Total killed per capita? Raw quantity of mass killings? It's not very well defined.). If anything, the consensus is for the relationship between communism and mass killings, rather than the strict correlation of communism in a particular controlled statistical linear model with some variable of mass killings. If we're limiting this to a limited set of quantitative analyses, we're ultimately going to wind up violating WP:NPOV by excluding the scholars who talk about a qualitative relationship between communism and mass killings and any scholar who talks about a quantitative non-linear relationship between communism and mass killings. I can ask the closer for clarification on this point, since I imagine that several editors would like definite clarity, so here's a ping to Wugapodes. — Mhawk10 (talk) 03:20, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

You almost literally repeated my arguments. As I said, I opposed to the word "correlation" (for the reason that I am not going to explain again). In my responce to Marek, I just explained to him that the word "correlation" is a pretty legitimate term in this context, and it was not an invention of some user.

With regard to the rest, I am not going to repeat myself, just read the arguments that I already presented in this section. There is nothing in my arguments that you refuted, and there is nothing is your arguments that justifies your revert. Consider self-reverting, or at least explain your position properly. In your responce, keep in mind that:

• This article is NOT discussing mass killings (the events) anymore, it discusses the claim that those mass killings (or some part of them) were linked to Communism.
• This article does NOT present a linkage between Communist and mass killings as a fact: it is just an opinion of some fraction of authors, the opinion that some author support other authors reject, and majority of authors ignores.
• There is no single school or single theory that links mass killings with Communism: different authors see different linkage between different versions of Communism and different categories or subcategories of mass killings. Therefore, and attempts of generalization can be made only if they are supported by ironclad evidences and sources.Paul Siebert (talk) 03:29, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

• You are arguing for an option discuss the concepts that link mass killings to Communism, as well as the criticism of those ideas that was never offered in the RFC. What was selected was The article should discuss the concept of a correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques of the concept, I don't see how you can discuss a correlation without mentioning the events, and nowhere does the RFC closer mention anything about events, let alone prohibit the mention of them. The RFC closer does state that "option B does not prevent citing specific regimes as evidence where sources already do so." Certainly option B could have been worded better as "concept of a correlation" makes no sense: The article should discuss the correlation between mass killings and communist governments, including proposed causes and critiques--Nug (talk) 04:42, 2 February 2022 (UTC)