Talk:Columbine High School massacre

Cafeteria Bombs

How did the cafeteria bombs fail to detonate? Zachbarbo (talk) January 14, 2022

Level of Detail About the Shooting

Is it necessary to include so much detail of the shooting, particularly the conversations between the perpetrators and victims, such as in the Library Massacre section? Some of those exchanges graphically illustrate the power the shooters held over the victims in a way that is likely to serve as inspiration for future mass shooters. They could particularly resonate with youth who are considered to be “unpopular” and perceive themselves to be at a power deficit compared with the “popular” kids at school, as they may envy the Columbine shooters’ ability to, in that moment, turn the tables on those “popular” kids who to that point may have ignored or scorned them. When editing these kind of pages, I think it is important to keep in mind that future school shooters are very likely to visit them for information and inspiration. --Djpowell2 (talk) 00:51, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Your concerns are noted, but Wikipedia is not censored. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:47, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I kind of understand where you are coming from, but there is a flip-side in that it gives insight into why school shooters do what they do, which can be useful and beneficial in identifying causal factors and prevention methods. If only there was some way to prevent schools shootings other than not studying them. I can't think of anything at all...hmmm...What could we possibly do? Welp, we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas, it seems...DN (talk) 03:54, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

In response to DN, while those details may indeed give some additional insight into why school shooters do what they do, I don’t think that academics who study this issue use Wikipedia as their source. But I guarantee that disgruntled teenagers do. I agree that the powers that be could be doing more to prevent school shootings, but just because someone else is not doing everything they could to help the situation, does that mean we should then go ahead and do things to make the situation even worse? Djpowell2 (talk) 01:47, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Making a suggestion about what to include in a particular article does not equal “censorship”. If it did, these Talk pages would not exist. Besides, there is the note from Dec 2021 at the top of the article saying it “may be too long” and suggesting that it be condensed. I think this would be a great way to begin condensing it. Do pages about genocides give a narrative of the taunts the perpetrators said to their victims before killing them? Removing or limiting sensationalist, tabloid-like details (that contribute to making the article too long anyway) is not an abdication of our responsibility to the truth, and if not doing so increases (at all) the chances of more dead children, then why not do it? Djpowell2 (talk) 01:44, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Copyright issue with infobox image - that still from the High School's security camera video...

This issue was also discussed at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions, see the now-archived discussion at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions/Archive/2022/April#A still taken from some security camera footage - copyright issue?...

I was trying to run down the copyright status of the still from the school security video that is presently in the infobox.

• In a 2015 CNN article - https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/27/health/u-s-most-mass-shootings/index.html - I found the following photo credit for this image, in the 16 of 21 photo: Kevin Moloney/Getty Images, so it would seem that the rationales at File:Columbine Shooting Security Camera.jpg could possibly be inappropriate and/or incorrect:

Purpose of use - The cafeteria footage of the shooting has become an iconic image associated with the event; it shows the two students with guns, in the mass chaos of the cafeteria in the minutes after their initial shootings and before they committed suicide. The image aids in identifying the students, the nature of the incident as it occurred within the school, and the scene is highly associated with the shooting incident.

This image has a legal copyright that belongs to Getty Images. Regardless of the concept that "the scene is highly associated with the shooting incident" its legal status is, at best, murky.

• The image is also used by NBC News at https://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/amp/columbine-remembered-30220645 with origination being "This still image is from a videotape released by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department." and credit for the still being given as "(AP Photo/Jefferson County Sheriff's Department)"
• Complete info for still images from the library security video can be found at Getty Images: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/columbine-high-school-shooters-eric-harris-and-dylan-news-photo/3016165?adppopup=true with the following proviso: (Photo courtesy of Jefferson County Sheriff's Department via Getty Images).

I am not sure that the various templates in use at the Wikipedia File page - "Non-free fair use", "Non-free historic image", and "Non-free video screenshot" - are applicable for this article or in its infobox. It is clear that the rights for any still images from the security cameras in the school library reside with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department via Getty Images...so then, can Wikipedia use any of these images in any articles associated with the Columbine massacre? I don't think so but maybe I'm wrong...I realize that this issue is fraught with controversy, others will most probably disagree, so let's have a discussion here or on the talk page for the File and reach a consensus according to Wikipedia policy. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 22:58, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

The video game section

Does it really matter what games they were into and whether you think that video games make kids violent that is an opinion and this is for facts not opinions.