Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of casualties of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep, but I strongly recommend that someone rename this article to some other name. Deathphoenix ʕ 15:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of casualties of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan[edit]

Was PROD'd, but seems like an encyclopedic topic so have brought it to AfD JackyR 12:06, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This is a daughter article of United States invasion of Afghanistan. JackyR 12:30, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Could do with individual citations for each incident, and should possibly be moved to Civilian casualties of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. But although it may be uncomfortable reading, this is the sort of article which will be useful to historians in ten years' time. We certainly have articles about the Baedeker raids, the bombing of Cologne, etc. Original PROD ~~cites~~ includes ongoing event and incomplete list as reasons, but WP has templates and caveats to cope with these. JackyR 12:06, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, unverifiable and unmaintainable list (and even if it could be verifiably maintained, Wikipedia is not a memorial). There have been thousands of casualties during the invasion, most of them utterly unverifiable from any reliable source (as nobody but the coalition forces had regularly issued dog tags). If any of the incidents mentioned are notable in their own right, create articles for them. Kirill Lok s h in 12:17, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Kirill. We do indeed have articles about those incidents and battles, but I note that neither have lists of casualties by name. Any utility to future historians of the same is questionable at best; most historians manage just fine to recap battles without listing the fallen by name. Bleh, make that a Keep; serves me right for breaking my rule and answering before I read the article. Plainly this is not a memorial list, but a well-written and comprehensive incident list. My remaining quibble is that the name is misleading. RGTraynor 13:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree with the above - while I won't modify my keep vote below, perhaps a rename to something like List of fatal incidents stemming from the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan would work. Perhaps not. Geez, that's clumsy. I await a better 'rename' suggestion, but agree that the name does confuse. Colon el Tom 14:13, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, WP:NOT a memorial. —Cuivi é nen (talk•contribs), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 @ 13:04 UTC
Keep. WP:NOT doesn't seem relevant here. I'll quote:
"Memorials. It may be sad when people die, but Wikipedia is not the place to honor them. Subjects of encyclopedia articles must have a claim to fame besides being fondly remembered by their friends and relatives."

No Hardly any names are mentioned in this article, so individuals are not being honoured/remembered per se. Being a casualty of this conflict is encyclopedic, in my view. I'll need a more compelling argument than WP:NOT to change my suggestion to a delete. Colon el Tom 13:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Kirill Lokshin does give a more compelling argument above; my apologies for not addressing it. I'll try here. Unverifiability - a plague of modern (and historic) conflict. An external source for each incident (as most involve more than one fatality) is desireable, if not essential, I agree. Pasting {{citation needed}} tags would address this; deletion is not required. Unlistify - IMO, better to retain many would-be stubs under the one heading. Colon el Tom 13:57, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep. This is not a memorial article, but a lst of incidents, and is both noteworthy and durable. True, it needs references (and has already been appropriately tagged), and it may need renaming, but those are points for another discussion. --BrownHairedGirl 14:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep per BHG Guinnog 15:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WP:V. If references are not provided, this should be deleted. We cannot have this hanging around forever unreferenced, which is what tends to happen all too often when people vote to keep an article who have no intention of actually fixing it themselves. — Haeleth Talk 15:17, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as completely unsourced. If anyone wants to create the article anew, suggest that a) it is remade as List of casualty-producing incidents in Afghanistan conflicts since 2001 or somesuch, and b) sources are provided for every claim. Note: this doesn't have to mean coalition-approved sources: Pakistani news organisations, Taliban-sympathising web pages, etc, all would probably count. Vizjim 15:37, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment the source for the whole article appears to be this, listed at the bottom, which in turn lists sources. It should be possible (tho time-consuming) to tag the incidents from here. JackyR 16:11, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Keep. I've changed my vote, as people are now adding sources for article claims. I have asked for citations at specific points in the article, and hope that these continue to be added in. The article is clearly not a memorial, BTW. Vizjim 14:58, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, add {{fact}} tags as appropriate, or take the prior suggestion and go track the citations backwards. 16:22, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
- Comment: Haeleth, I take your point, but this article was tagged {{sources}} only five days before it was nominated for deletion, and I can see no attempt to notify the relevant editors about problems (CJK or Harro5) until User:JackyR gave a timely headsup on the AFD. I started to write that if we don't see changes (or at least a response from the editors) before the vote closes, I may be tempted to change my vote … but now I see JackyR's latest comment which seems to suggest possible copyvio. Jacky, where do you think it stands on copyright? --BrownHairedGirl 16:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment Sorry, my comment was misleading: it doesn't seem to be copy vio. The article apperas to be heavily based on information (but not text) in the Marc Herold website, with the exception of the military deaths at the end which should anyway be moved to Coalition Casualties in Afghanistan. So it could be tidied up until Herold's website is the sole secondary source (which I guess is why the individual incidents were not originally tagged). However, his website is itself a synthesis of news reports, with footnotes each incident. So tho tedious, if should be poss to slog through and tie each incident (sometimes each part of an incident) to a source. Then leave an overall link to Herold: the news reports are "as the story emerged", while Herold ties things together afterwards. I'm only sounding so confident because I've just had a brief go at exactly this, and have so far found Herold's stuff checks out. But I'm not a position to do the lot, if only because some newspapers may need subscriptions. JackyR 16:54, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment — I'm concerned that this article may be of too tactical a nature to be encyclopedic. Imagine having a page covering every casualty that occured during World War II or the Iran-Iraq War. This type of content is only feasible for a small-scale conflict. — RJH 16:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Kirill. Pavel Vozenilek 19:54, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. It sucks that a bunch of people are dead, but as many have stated already, Wikipedia is not a memorial. -- stubblyh ea d | ^T/_c 19:57, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep per BrownHairedGirl. 1652186 19:59, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. As a veteran myself, I deeply mourn these deaths. But Wikipedia is not a memorial nor is it WikiNews. We should not attempt to chronicle every firefight or bombing in the campaign. The only really encyclopedic content I see is the "Total casualties" section at the bottom but that's already in the parent article. Rossami (talk) 23:54, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete As aforementioned, Wikipedia isn't a memorial, and there is no way this article can be completed anyway (lack of evidence, sources...)
Delete, not a memorial, plus this article is highly biased, where is the list of all of the dead Americans? User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:01, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I'm not sure I follow - US casualties are included in the article. Colonel Tom 02:13, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Where's Pat Tillman? User:Zoe|^(talk) 03:00, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- (after edit conflict)Comment And in a sister article at Coalition Casualties in Afghanistan. JackyR 03:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment as I understand the history, this article is a badly named spin-off from United States invasion of Afghanistan, covering civilian deaths (ie not military forces from any side). Because of the lousy naming, some military names have been added here, tho the coalition article is actually their natural home. Hence the proposed renaming. JackyR 03:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep (Khanada 04:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC))[reply]
Keep But change article name Myciconia 05:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC) [reply]
Keep it doesn't display the name of every casuality, so it is not a memorial. Grue 09:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- Comment I find that strange logic - 'it is not (and likely can't be) complete, therefore it should stay' - sounds like you meant to say 'delete'...Bridesmill 17:50, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, Wikipedia is not a memorial. POV magnet. Stifle (talk) 12:00, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I would sincerely appreciate it if an editor could explain exactly why this meets WP:NOT a memorial. I've tried to show above why I think it does not fall under this stricture, and no doubt I could do so more effectively, but I would really appreciate a more detailed response than 'fails WP:NOT' or 'Wikipedia is not a memorial'. I realise that it can be difficult to deduce intentions from plaintext in a page like this, so I assure all; this is not a snarky dig, this is a genuine request for explanation. Thanks. Colonel Tom 13:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment I'm curious myself; this is an incident list, not a list of victims by name, something the most casual glance of the article readily reveals. RGTraynor 14:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep. per JackyR. Needs proper citations, but shouldn't be all that difficult to go through newspaper archives and find them. This is definitely not a "memorial". --Aude (talk | contribs) 15:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Create new aritlce for NPOV balance against this one, call it List of casualties under the soviet union, the taliban, and sadam housaein, 'course that list would be too long and would be in violate of page size requirements--Burg Hambler 22:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. What an excellent offer! Soviet war in Afghanistan could certainly do with such a daughter article. Currently it just states: "International condemnation arose due to the alleged killings of civilians". I look forward to seeing the article! JackyR 15:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as per Stifle. Impossible to maintain accurately (several canadians missing already) what is the point? POV magnet. What about List of casualties of DDay List of casualties of Battle of Vimy.....Bridesmill 22:48, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - if this is a list of incidents, rather than Casualties, beside the name problem, all it is then is an absolutely classical POV Fork from the US Invasion article. No vote change Bridesmill
Comment: After thinking about this quite a bit more, I still think that it is not appropriate for Wikipedia, but it may be appropriate for Wikibooks. I could support a transwiki if someone wanted to move it over. Rossami (talk) 14:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- That works for me. Transwiki per above. — RJH 19:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, first, wikipedia is not a memorial, second I have very serious concerns on accuracy.--Aldux 21:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete besides anything else, I suspect the POV. Runcorn 21:07, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.