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Bellingcat is not a reliable source

I know that you ban people here, so i want to come to an agreement first. What should i need to do to so we'll come to an agreement that Bellingcat is not a reliable source and it should be deleted from this article? I understand why you don't like russian sources (however, why press-conferences of an alledged producer of a missile Almaz-Antey are barely mentioned is beyond my understanding, for example), but come on, there should be some balance here, let's delete at least the most ridiculous western sources too in that case. As (hopefully) everyone knows, Bellingcat just flat out doesn't approve comments to their articles that they don't like (yep, my comments too so i'm telling it from my own experience as well as multiple reports on the internet). And multiple people reported that they don't answer to emails either. So they're vehemently against any peer reviews. And Bellingcat does "original research" (or how you call it here?) of obvious fakes without any checking of facts - for example, one of the recent ones https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016/09/22/russian-bomb-remains-recovered-syrian-red-crescent-aid-convoy-attack/ - that's damage from a grenade at most (some cardboard boxes are not damaged, no damage on walls, not even scratches). OFAB 250-270 bomb has 92-94 kg of TNT and it should blow everything that we see on that picture to pieces, including walls and ceiling. For example, 1000 square foot of the roof should be blown up by a medium bomb that exploded within a building [1] and a video of an OFAB 500 explosion (MpUklMePMTQ on youtube, wiki doesn't let a direct link) - bits get blown up to more than 10 stories high, and sparks fly to 5 stories high (compared to a building behind an explosion). And on that Bellingcat photo we see some undamaged cardboard boxes without burn makrs and completely undamaged plastering on walls and ceiling. So here, i'm a better "expert" than Bellingcat because i can see obvious fakes. I don't want to waste more of my time if it's completely impossible to come to an agreement that Bellingcat is not a reliable source that posts fakes and flat out ignores peer reviews. Is it possible at all, and what can i do so to prove it, or it's just flat out impossible? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ellestar (talk • contribs) 07:38, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Bellingcat is a perfectly reasonable source for Bellingcat's claims, so long as they are attributed and not given undue weight, I don't see the problem. Are there specific instances where you think this is not the case? Pincrete (talk) 09:09, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
"Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources
Given that Bellingcat is a source that is known not to do fact-checking and isn't accurate at all (one of the examples above in my previous post), and while theoretically it's third-party, in practice all it's articles related to Russia are strictly anti-Russian. So it can't be considered third-party for articles related to Russia, as Bellingcat obviously shows it's side by their own single-sided articles. Maybe there are some Bellingcat articles that actually argue things in favor of Russia? I'm unaware of it :/ So i'm not sure how it can be considered a reliable source (especially about something concerning Russia), and what it forgot on Wikipedia.
However, Bellingcat got it's own paragraph at the very start of the article, before contents, as if it's one of the most important and reliable sources of information.
Other examples: [2]
"Photograph from Paris Match of the Buk missile launcher in Donetsk, Ukraine, July 17, 2014" seems fake to me, shadow outlined by red is wrong (my screenshot from a new video by Joint Investigation Team, edited with windows paint to show, it's claimed that a photo is from that video). The problem here is that part of the ramp is obviously lit by sunrays, but there is no shadow from that part of a ramp. [3]
Again, this one "Buk on 17 July 2014 in the separatist territory - soot deposits..." https://www.bellingcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/The-lost-digit-BUK-3x2_EN_final-1.pdf
They see some "stains" there, i see that even wheels are wrong (that's their picture with so called improved quality, and my editing by red marker in Windows Paint) http://i64.tinypic.com/vq5l5s.jpg And i can't see a thing on original video anyway, it's too low-quality (that is, "Buk" part is low-quality, trailer is magically high-quality).
But that's an obvious wrongness. Less obvious one is that Bellingcat photos related to MH17 and Buk usually have very low quality. Even smartphones have higher quality cameras than that. So it's impossible to prove that some photo is a fake because there is nothing to look at. Yet, Bellingcat consistently uses such low-quality stuff as a "proof". So, there is no internal quality checking (at best) or intentional scam (at worst). Here people photoshop such pictures with more Buks, Armatas and ICBMs without any problems, just to show how to make that Bellingcat's "proof" [4] Ellestar (talk) 11:35, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
You are asking the wrong questions. Did Bellingcat make these claims? Were these claims widely 'quoted' in RS, such that they have significance simply because they were reported? These are the only questions which concern us. We cannot possibly sit here deciding whether we personally think claims or images are 'true'. If any reliable authority questions specific B'cat claims, we will also report that. Many of the claims on this page (those from various intelligence agencies for example), are from sources who are not wholly 'reliable', in the sense of being ordinarily and reliably honest and open, that is why such claims and those of Bcat are 'attributed'. They made a claim, it was widely reported, we record that, without comment as to whether it was true or not. Pincrete (talk) 18:33, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
I would generally avoid quoting Bellingcat directly, unless it was quoted by other, secondary RS. That's why we need secondary sources. It is their judgement if certain primary sources, such as Bellingcat deserved to be mentioned. This is not our call. We simply tell what secondary RS tell. My very best wishes (talk) 19:29, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
I think that's the longstanding agreement: to only use Bellingcat when reliable sources do. Geogene (talk) 20:07, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
My very best wishes, Geogene firstly, a technical point, the sources for Bellingcat claims in the lead are actually Bellingcat itself (I simply re-used the pre-exisying sources), though I believe all their claims are reported in secondary sources.
Secondly, I wonder whether Bellingcat deserves to be in the lead at all. The approach I took was to summarise everything that was already there plus add anything that I thought was missing, ie I removed NO topics. Do Bellingcat actually warrant being in the lead? Their involvement is 'interesting' but probably not significant, nor the subject of much coverage. Thoughts anyone? Pincrete (talk) 00:15, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
I would say that materials related to Bellingcat provides some important details and therefore should remain in the lede until JIT releases identities of people who they believe are responsible for this and other information. When they release everything, this should be removed from lede, but not earlier. My very best wishes (talk) 03:56, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, I can see both arguments but took this opportunity to put the question 'onto the table'.Pincrete (talk) 12:46, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

JIT Investigation press conference

The JIT has released some findings related to the crash, which I've added to the article. If you want to read a transcript the Dutch ministry has one here, or a video with English translation here. Summary: Buk fired from rebel territory (a 500x600m field 6km south of Snizhne). Buk transported to and from Russia before and after crash respectively. Stickee (talk) 12:42, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Secondary source [5].Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:26, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, I've only used secondary sources in the article itself. Stickee (talk) 13:41, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
So, this is now an official conclusion by international investigation, basically a matter of fact. Perhaps this should be placed more prominently in the beginning of intro. So, according to rebels, "We never had such air defence systems, nor the people who could operate them". Yes, they never had. According to the investigation, the Buk was operated by Russian military team if I understand correctly. My very best wishes (talk) 14:45, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes. I would strongly support greater prominence. Regarding direct personal responsibility, as the BBC source says, the JIT "established the identities of about 100 people "linked to the crash or the transport of the Buk" missile, but they are yet to determine who could be held criminally responsible." Martinevans123 (talk) 14:59, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
The actual Openbaar Ministerie films are also quite interesting as a reference because they provide quite a lot of technical details on how the investigation was actually performed. For example, that the specific missile model was identified by dismantling a number of authentic "Buk" missiles of different models and comparing the remains found in the wrecked plane. Cloud200 (talk) 15:13, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
I am not sure there was a strong conclusion was that it was a Russian operated installation; the conclusion limited itself to stating it was a Russian (owned) installation that after firing the missile was moved back into Russia. It does not exclude (at this stage) that it may have been loaned to other operators during its stay inside Ukraine. Arnoutf (talk) 15:27, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Just another publication [6]... Yes, you are probably right. One should probably look at the actual conclusions by the investigation. Were these conclusions made public, with all detail? My very best wishes (talk) 15:43, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
It is fairly explicit in the NYT that the board stopped short of pinpointing the identity/nationality of the individuals actually operating the missile, other than that, it appears to wholly endorse Russian and seperatist responsibility for the shoot-down and cover-up. Pincrete (talk) 22:38, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

A short summary of this info should be included in the lede.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:41, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

I think a radical re-write of the lead is in order, giving greater prominence to the two Dutch enquiries and pruning and 'time-stamping' early speculations, claims and counter-claims. Although largely chronological at present, the most important conclusions are somewhat 'buried' and timings are not always clear. Pincrete (talk) 22:36, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
Fully agree. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:38, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea. - Ahunt (talk) 23:10, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
I agree.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 00:06, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Hey! I also agree.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:03, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I've sandboxed the article, although I only intend to modify the lead, and have begun to (mentally) formulate a re-write, I'm unlikely to have much time for a few days to do this, but others are welcome to join in/comment. Pincrete (talk) 08:04, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I also agree, I think we should also rewrite the ridiculously bloated cause of crash section, as all speculations and fringe in that section can now be delegated to "speculations" rather then serious analysis. Arnoutf (talk) 17:58, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
As well as being bloated, I think some sections lack either sequential or thematic coherence, probably as a result of 'updates' being inserted without regard for overall coherence. Now seems a good time to try to fix. Pincrete (talk) 19:06, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Cause of crash sub-section

Since all the investigation is trying to establish the 'cause of crash', this seems a very vaguely titled sub-section, but since I cannot work out specifically what it is about, I cannot make any suggestions. Pincrete (talk) 16:06, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Reworking lead

William M. Connolley I have very reluctantly reverted your edit, while most of us agree that the lead needs a major rewrite (see above) for reasons similar to your own, I don't think we can state Dutch findings as objective fact. We can, and do intend to give DSB and JIT greater prominence and to prune/summarise much earlier speculation, and drop the current, mainly chrnological structure, but it still has to be phrased as 'JIT concluded', 'DSB found' etc.

I intended to start work on a rewrite today and have 'sandboxed' the article, however RL intruded, you are very welcome to join in, but I think we need to exercise great care doing this. Pincrete (talk) 16:30, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

I disagree. At some point (and I think now is that point) we can switch over from "X says that this happened" to "this happened"; once there is no longer reasonable doubt. And there is no longer reasonable doubt William M. Connolley (talk) 20:40, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
I strongly disagree, our job is to present the available info in a balanced, accurate form, not reach conclusions about the balance of evidence. However, even if you were right about now being the time to make such a change, the recent JIT conference intentionally avoided saying who fired the missile, not their identity, group or even nationality, as did the DSB. Your edit said as a fact that it was fired by pro-Russian insurgents, JIT did not say that or even imply it. Clearly it is one of JIT's lines of inquiry, and they may say more at a later date, but at the moment, who fired is an assertion from many Western sources and a claimed probability from others. This is one of many reasons why we need to be very careful about our rephrasing. Pincrete (talk) 21:47, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm in agreement with Pincrete. Per WP:NOT#JOURNALISM, it's not up to editors to read between the lines. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:04, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree with edit by William, except that instead of "The plane was shot down by pro-Russian insurgents", it should tell "The plane was shot down by pro-Russian insurgents or by Russian military team" because that is what most recent official and older findings imply.
P.S. Note also that telling "mistakenly" in old/current version is wrong because no one knows the actual intentions. According to one version, the intention was to shot down a Russian passenger plane that "accidently" changed its route during this day (as a causus belli for large-scale invasion into the Ukrainian territory), but the plan was changed and they decided to hit a Ukrainian military plane and mistakenly hit Flight 17. One of the reason for such version is that transporting the single Buk to Donbass was not needed to hit Ukrainian military planes: a lot of them were shot down using other weaponry that rebels already had. (The Buk is only needed to hit high-flying objects like passenger planes, but Ukrainian military planes flew on a much lower altitude). My very best wishes (talk) 23:30, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Quite right about the use of 'mistakenly'. I'd missed that in the reading. No second-guessing intent or lack of intent. The NPOV reading is simply shot down without any of the speculation. Speculative scenarios are editorialising/OR as to who was responsible and OR motives. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:12, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Ditto, right about 'mistakenly'. We cannot say that DSB or JIT 'pointed the finger' at Russian or Russian backed rebels since they did not say it (if I remember correctly), and we cannot turn an inference into a fact. I believe JIT intimated that it had evidence which would 'narrow the field', which they would offer to any criminal/further investigations. Balancing readability with scrupulous accuracy needs great care IMO. Pincrete (talk) 08:52, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
At this stage, what we have is tabloid and headline soundbytes implying that the the culprits have been nailed, but the actual statements by the official bodies do not. Nothing changes until the JIT announces its findings. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:32, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Detail, since it is likely to go from the lead anyhow, but 'mistakenly' actually comes from the US source and so long as that is clear, it isn't editorialising but part of US claim. JIT may not announce for some time, since they have previously indicated a wish to present in a judicial situation. Pincrete (talk) 08:24, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Ah, yes. You're correct. Thinking on it, it may also come across as POV without the 'mistakenly' as it could also imply that it was intentional. Given that you're reworking the article, I'll leave it to your discretion as to whether it should be restored. My gut feeling is that, at this point in time, it should. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Iryna, I'm not sure that 'mistakenly' matters either way in the lead if claimed deeds, rather than intenions, are being reported, but I'll reinsert it in my rework. The sandboxed rewrite is at a stage that your (or other editors') comments/thoughts would be welcome. Pincrete (talk) 22:38, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
@Pincrete: Cheers. I'll read through it ASAP. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:43, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Reworked lead

The lead rewrite is ready for inspection, and if there are no major complaints will be BRD'd into place in the next few days (hopefully more 'D' than 'R'). At present it is 7 shortish paragraphs, but pairs could easily be merged to make 5 or 4. I've left it in that longer form for convenience of discussion. I've actually included more topic areas, but tried to put related info into less detailed paras thematically. If in doubt, I left topics in. I believe I have checked my refs, but any double checking would be welcome.

I'm uncertain whether 'Bellingcat' deserves to be in the lead at all, it is more notable as an example of the role that analysis of social media has played in the investigation than for any specific contribution from them. Apart from the launcher number, all their claims I believe, have also been made by others. Pincrete (talk) 15:26, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Pincrete for the work. A few comments (below) to prevent to many changes
1)The first two opening lines "Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17)[a] was a scheduled international passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on 17 July 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.[2] Contact with the Boeing 777-200ER airliner was lost about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border, and it crashed near Torez in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km (25 mi) from the border." are rather complex.
Perhaps splitting them up would improve readability (albeit making it all somewhat staccato)? e.g. "Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17)[a] was a scheduled international passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It was shot down on 17 July 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.[2] Contact with the Boeing 777-200ER airliner was lost about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border. The plane crashed near Torez in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km (25 mi) from the border."
2) Second section. The phrase "missile type responsible and found" is a bit odd. The missile type was not responsible (as that implies intention) and the JIT concluded rather than "found". I would suggest "missile type causing the crash and concluded"
3) Third section. I find this somewhat problematic. The first line "The DSB and JIT findings confirmed earlier claims by the Ukrainian government and Western intelligence sources as to the missile type and launch area." implies the intelligence services are right (which is the case here) but would suggest the next (so far unproven) claim is also right (implied synthesis-> original research). I would suggest moving this line to the end of the previous section (where it closes the DSB-JIT findings) and rephrase the 3rd section as
4)Consider further reducing sections 3,4,5,6 (initial responses and Bellingcat) (although I can imagine you think that would go too far in this first step). Perhaps something like this might work though
In 2014, Ukraine and US intelligence alleged that Russia had supplied the missile to pro-Russian insurgents, who had mistakenly shot down the aircraft.[9][10][11][12] German intelligence sources in 2014 reported that they believe insurgents had stolen the missile from the Ukrainian military.[13][14][15] Russian government sources initially claimed that the aircraft was being tailed by a Ukrainian military jet at the time of the shootdown[10] and that Ukraine was responsible since the crash had happened in Ukrainian airspace.[16] Several other theories about the crash, denying Russian involvement, have since appeared in Russian media.[17] Immediately after the crash, a post appeared on the VKontakte social media profile attributed to Russian Colonel Igor Girkin, a leader of the Donbass separatist militia, claiming responsibility for shooting down an AN-26 near Torez. Later the same day, the separatists denied involvement, and the post was removed.[18][19][20]. Bwetween 2014 and 2016, UK based investigative collective Bellingcat, based onon examination of photos in social media and other open-source information, made a series of allegations, which arrives at the conclusion that the launcher used to shoot down the aircraft was unit 332 of the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade based in Kursk .[24][25][26][27] [28]"
Last section is fine (no comments). Sorry for not pitching in earlier. Feel free to add it boldly as your version is imho a vast improvement over the current. Again, thanks for the hard work. Cheers Arnoutf (talk) 17:06, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
Most of these suggestions seem excellent, better flow without loss of significant info or neutrality. I would incorporate straightaway, were it not for RL and the need to eat. Thanks. Pincrete (talk) 18:07, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
Arnoutf, 1) I haven't done, since para 1 is largely 'as present', but I'm happy for you or others to do if you/they think it an improvement.
2) is done
3) is not done YET, I was aware of the danger you mention of implying that if some earlier claims are true, others probably also are. For the time being I think I prefer 'topic' paras, but am happy for the change to be made if thought necessary. The advantage of more short paras (as a temp measure?) is that it makes our discussion easier as I've tried to make each para a distinct 'topic area'.
4) is partially done. Pincrete (talk) 17:04, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I've just fixed the ref error. I've made a couple of minor changes/fixes, and I might do some more major shifting soon. Just to clarify with regards to this edit, Girkin was *the* leader of the Donbass People's Militia. There's multiple separatist militias (others include the Luhansk People's Militia), but of the Donbass militia specifically, he was the very top dog (which is even stated on his Wikipedia article). Stickee (talk) 11:04, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I was uncertain about Gurkin, prior lead said 'leader of the separatists', which implied sole political leader.Pincrete (talk) 11:35, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Yeah but it gets a bit wishy-washy, because at times the DPR had no political leader, making him the de facto leader ("The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) defense minister and de facto leader, Igor Strelkov,..." [7]). But whatever, either way works. Stickee (talk) 11:44, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Agree, (about Gurkin), my only point was that we needed to make it clear that he was 'militia/military leader', rather than any other role, ie he was the guy in charge of the troops on the ground. Pincrete (talk) 14:07, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

100 names/put before a court

I've 'beefed up' the JIT text slightly. I was anxious when reworking the lead to not imply that JIT, didn't have suspects and/or that the investigation was closed as far they were concerned. I agree that my original text was a bit flaccid, their announcements were controlled but robust. I think that both the '100 names' and their 'the evidence must stand before a court' are significant. But correct me if I'm wrong (has been known!). ...... btw JIT said the 100 names were connected 'one way or another' to the 'transporting', they don't say 'transporting or use/crash site/crash'. Pincrete (talk) 13:11, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Should this image be added to the article?

To the right is a satellite image provided by the RF purporting to be images of Buks. I'm of the opinion it shouldn't be added to the article. Right now, the images relating to the cause of crash in the article only contain facts concluded by the DSB/JIT or their evidence. Relevant diff: [8] Stickee (talk) 23:16, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Text from the article: "On 21 July 2014, the Russian Ministry of Defence held a press conference and said that while the Boeing 777 was crashing, a Ukrainian Su-25 ground-attack aircraft approached to within 3 to 5 kilometres (1.9 to 3.1 mi) of the Malaysian airliner. The MoD also stated that satellite photographs showed that the Ukrainian army moved a Buk SAM battery to the area close to the territory controlled by the rebels on the morning of 17 July, hours before the crash."
What are you talking about? It is highly relevant image presented at the press-conference which is described in the article (i made text bold for you if you do not see it [9]). The image illustrates their statement that is in the article. This text citation exists in the article more than a year that means that there is a consensus about text and wording in the article. This image does not bring anything not related to this section and fully agrees with the section of the article. Moreover this image is very well sourced that proves its significance. Your edit should be immediately cancelled until clear argumentation.--Александр Мотин (talk) 07:49, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
The image supported a claim, and so long as text and caption are phrased neutrally, which they appear to be at present, I see no objection to inclusion. Image quality is low, but that is a wholly different argument.
The 'cause of crash' sub-section title is both vague and inaccurate, the section is mainly about early speculation and competing claims, rather than official or accepted findings. Pincrete (talk) 08:18, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Tend to agree with Pincrete, but care must be taken to ensure it's not seen as a part of, or outcome from, the official investigation. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:47, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Oh, I just realised these were the images the press described as fake [10]. Probably even less likely that they should be in the article. But in the meantime, I've given a description according to what the RS's say about it (more refs there). Stickee (talk) 10:05, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Oh, really? This is actually different argument and by the way nobody stops you to point that in the article. But that is very weak reason to delete this image because it was presented as official evidence days after the crash.--Александр Мотин (talk) 10:59, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
... "presented as official evidence days after the crash" - yes, presented officilaly by the Russian government. This does not equate to "used as evidence in the offical enquiry", does it? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:13, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
You want the entire article to be the press release by JIT or DSB? --Александр Мотин (talk) 11:24, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't actually recall suggesting that. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:31, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I do not understand why you are arguing with me, while this sourced piece of text in bold above was written by completely different authors over a year ago. You should address all your comments about wording of that piece of text to them but not me. This image just illustrates that piece of text with neutrally phrased caption.--Александр Мотин (talk) 12:19, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Then we can both agree that the words "presented as official evidence days after the crash" should not appear in the article, just as now. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:25, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I will be satisfied with any consensus and neutral wording.--Александр Мотин (talk) 12:33, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Likewise. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:59, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I guess it's no surprise to many that RT should be publishing fake inages. But in my view this actually argues for their inclusion here, with a suitable supporting description. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:12, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't think it adds anything much to our understanding. I suppose we can use it as long as it is made clear that most RS regard it as a fake. --John (talk) 10:31, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I think this image is a bit of a distraction, what is more serious IMO is that in the attached text, two distict theories (Ukrainian air-to-air and Ukrainian operated SAM) and their respective rebuttals are rather 'merged', as though they were one thing. Pincrete (talk) 15:00, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Producer of Buk missile system made their own experiments to prove the theory where the missile was launched from. Their natural experiment (they exploded Buk missille by the Il-86 fuselage on the ground) and subsequent or preceding supercomputer calculation showed them the area where this missile could be launched from (Zaroshchenske). [11][12] As far as I understand they have exclusive competence to claim anything about the missile because they are the only producer of this missile system. That is why this image is important because it represents several statements of different russian instutions about the same possible missile launch site. It would be silly for them to claim seriously after that experiment that the aircraft could be downed by jet fighter. --Александр Мотин (talk) 17:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Check the archives. I'm sure this was discussed already. Multiple times.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:24, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

And frankly, the fact that people are still trying to push these wacky theories two years after they've been thoroughly discredited is ridiculous.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:37, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

So long as the treatment of these theories is neutral, and any RS'd rebuttals included, I don't see a problem. We include wackier theories (the plane was full of corpses?). Pincrete (talk) 19:18, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Sure. Either not include it, or include it but describe it as it is described in sources.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:28, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
And in this case the sources explicitly say the images were faked:
"Forensic report: Russia faked MH17 satellite photos"
"Russian Images of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Were Altered"
"fake images", "false satellite image"
Then so do we.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:33, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Yes, the image was fake. That is what sources tell. There are no any questions or real doubts about it, especially after recent conclusions by the international investigation team. I moved this to a different section. Perhaps we need a separate subsection entitled "Conspiracy theories" (no objections from me), but it also looks good as a part of the coverage by Russian press (e.g. by "Novaya gazeta"). My very best wishes (talk) 20:41, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
That might be a better solution. Although it is a key part of the "narrative" of establishing the true cause? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:05, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I do not think this story has anything to do with establishing the true cause. To the contrary, this is all about the disinformation campaign to hide the true cause. The disinformation campaign was notable and therefore must be included on the page, but I think it should be explicitly described (and possibly entitled in a separate section) as such. Well, this is basically another Korean Air Lines Flight 007 story, except that everything was denied by the perpetrator, very much as in Crimea, Donbass, and Syria. My very best wishes (talk) 22:28, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Very little of 'cause of crash' is actually about cause of crash. That is mainly in DSB and JIT, cause of crash is mainly about earlier speculation (much of which has been endorsed by DSB?JIT, nonetheless it was speculation when made). I agree with Martinevans, that this is part of the narrative, it may itself have been intentional disinformation, nonetheless the attempt (and the boomerang?) are part of the story of how what is known became known. Pincrete (talk) 08:35, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
If someone wants to point that the image is fake better to do it by neutral phrasing. But what was reason to delete the text about press conference of the Russian MoD (21 July 2014)[13]? There is a consensus about it for more than a year that is why there should be discussion about it before deletion.--Александр Мотин (talk) 14:55, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Russian MoD is not media outlet.--Александр Мотин (talk) 19:46, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
By the way there is no competent international institution so far that made expertise of the satellite image. Everyone can say that it is fake, but only competent international institution can make any unbiased competent conclusions. And Russia proposed ICAO to lead the investigation but this idea was refused by other concerned parties (why? ). ICAO could expertise this image within investigation, for example, because they have competent experts but not journalists and bloggers :)--Александр Мотин (talk) 15:08, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
But we had "consensus for more than a year" over the "text about press conference of the Russian MoD" without this image to illustrate it? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:28, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
And what WP rule prohibits to illustrate consensus text? It is just illustration to the consensus text but not separate claim/statement. And its caption is neutrally phrased by the way.--Александр Мотин (talk) 15:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I think it might depend on what the image is alleged to show and on the relative WEIGHT which the addition of such an illustration might add. Do you really think that every factual item in the text of an article should be illustrated with a separate image? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:49, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Then we should talk about all images in the article not only about the one in this context (WP:WEIGHT). --Александр Мотин (talk) 16:13, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm happy with all the other images. What do other editors think? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:18, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
As I said before this article shoul not be a kind of DSB/JIT press release with their images only. This image is well sourced that means it has high notability and does not illustrate irrelevant facts - it illustrates a large piece of the consensus text and now the official version of Russia that missile was launched from that area which is on the image after series of experiments of Almaz-Antey [14] which the only producer of that missile system. If you need sources for that let me know.--Александр Мотин (talk) 16:13, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't feel strongly either way about the image, it isn't very informative and no reader could judge either what it purportedly shows, nor its authenticity but our decision shouldn't be based on its authenticity, rather on whether it aids understanding of what the claims were, which I would say was a little, but not much. Pincrete (talk) 16:43, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
But do not forget the fact that this image is very offensive (not sure that this word correct to describe meaning of "резонансный") to some authors here because a lot of authors here easily provided tons of sources describing this image as fake. That means that this image does not lack notability and shows us that this image is quite recognizable by readers and authors.--Александр Мотин (talk) 16:54, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

nb multiple edit conflict Александр Мотин, I sympathise with you to this extent, 1) I agree that this is not 'Russ media coverage' 2) I think the present caption text is 'using a sledgehammer to crack a nut' and thus doing a disservice to the reader who wishes to read what the Russian claim was, then the rebuttals and then make up their own minds which is more credible.

I have said elsewhere on this page, several times, that I have no idea what the 'cause of crash' section is supposed to be about, it certainly doesn't identify what official bodies have said the cause was, but is much more the ping-pong of two years of claim and counter-claim amounting to a fairly incoherent narrative. I'm not sure how that could be improved, one possibility is a distinct 'Russian theories' section and a separate 'Western theories' section. Pincrete (talk) 16:27, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Western - non Western split is far from trivial. It would be very far fetching to label Malaysia, Ukraine and Indonesia as Western. They were involved as countries in whose air space this happened, and who suffered casualties (like UK, Netherlands, Australia etc). For the non involved countries we might split remaining theories in Russian and US response - as those seem the only important responses of non-involved countries. Arnoutf (talk) 21:01, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Agree. Likewise there's a ton of crappy non-reliable sources in the West which repeat the same conspiracy theories.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:44, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

" It is evidence by Russian instituion. Fake or not it is not the reason to move it her" - ummm, if it is fake, then it is not evidence.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:45, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Please read above my comment regarding "fakeness" of the image. This image is considered as fake just by some media outlets. But not all. Journalists are not military experts of the international institution who are authorized to carry out an assessment of this evidence. Journalists conclusions about fakeness of the satellite image are just value judgments. Putin`s missile"[15] is a good example of what I mean to say here. This cover of The Sun was published just a few hours after the MH17 crash without any investigation and reliable evidence.--Александр Мотин (talk) 21:08, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I think it's wholly inappropriate to compare those sources currently cited as saying the image was fake with The Sun. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:50, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Right, that was an example that reliable source and its journalists made its own comprehensive investigation within few hours. That is why do not poke me (not you personally) with your "own reliable sources". Wording should be neutrally phrased according to WP:WEIGHT and take into account all acceptable sources.--Александр Мотин (talk) 21:53, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
  • The version about Ukrainian Buks hitting the plane is fake not only because that was claimed by sources, but because that was established by the official international investigation team [16]. Including this as disinformation by the Russian ministry of defense and Antey is fine, but including it as a possible alternative version is not. Not after the conclusion by the JIT. My very best wishes (talk) 22:09, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
  • This satellite image does not say that Buks on the satellite image shot down the aircraft. It says that on the aircraft route there were some Buks able to shot down any aircraft within it range. As I said above this satellite image illustrates consensus piece of text in the article.--Александр Мотин (talk) 22:16, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
It's not about image. It is about disinformation version(s) by the Russian Ministry of Defence and manufacturers who fed their desa to journalists including Novaya Gazeta. My very best wishes (talk) 22:24, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
So who says that those Buks on the satellite image shot down the aircraft? WHO? And why are you trying to do original research saying that it is disinformation? Some reliable sources say it is not disinformation. So as WP author you must be unbiased and rely on all acceptable sources and do not do any original research. --Александр Мотин (talk) 22:26, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Who said? That was (and apparently still is) Russian ministry of defense version ([17]). They tell it was launched from a different site under Ukrainian control. This version was now completely disproved by the official conclusion by the JIT. Given that JIT has established it was actually launched from the Buk under Russian and separatist control, this version is obviously wrong and the image is fake (exactly as was also claimed by many others long time ago) and probably belongs to a different section. My very best wishes (talk) 13:10, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
I did not see and have never heard of any direct citations from Russian authorities which say that Buks on the sattelite image shot down MH17. If you heard or read about them please provide them right here. This satellite image just documented (according to their official data) dislocation of two Buks on the aircraft route a few hours before the crash. Check your sources and check primary source please [18]. They did not say that exactly those Buks shot down the aircraft.--Александр Мотин (talk) 13:47, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Do we use bold here? Either all of us or noone.Xx236 (talk) 06:17, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Did you read this? My very best wishes (talk) 13:21, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Do we use all reliable sources here? Either all of them or WP:NOR.--Александр Мотин (talk) 13:56, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
That's exactly what we do here. Do you have any reliable sources in mind? Because all I see is you misrepresenting reliable sources to pretend that they said something different than they actually said, and then turning around and complaining about those reliable sources. (Primary sources can't be used except for non-controversial stuff).Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:21, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Current wording [19] of the caption violates WP:NPOV because some reliable sources are being rejected in favor of another sources with another point of view. As I said above this satellite image and its caption does not claim that exactly those Buks on the image shot down the aircraft because there are no acceptable sources which say that so far. That is why this version of the caption fully complies with WP:NPOV.--Александр Мотин (talk) 15:04, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
That is false. What are these "some reliable sources" which are being rejected? Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:46, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
(and before you go there, RT is NOT considered a reliable source on Wikipedia for anything except non-controversial statements).Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:47, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Provide then the link to the discussion and consensus about RT as an inappropriate and nonreliable source. Then I will not use this source here anymore. Why is it still not blacklisted (WP:BLACKLIST)? --Александр Мотин (talk) 15:52, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
"Blacklisted" and "not reliable" are two different things. Blacklist is for sites which are nothing but spam. "Not reliable", per WP:RS, basically means "no reputation for fact checking and accuracy" (and a couple other conditions. You can go to WP:RSN, type in "RT Network" or similar and find previous discussions. You can also check the archives of this talk page above for discussion of basically the same issue.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:14, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Back to the original question, I do not think anyone objects to including this image. But it must have proper caption. BTW, this user is a regular (see here) and knows the rules (speaking about 3RR below). My very best wishes (talk) 17:45, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
On reflection, maybe it is better to remove this fake image from the article. What does it add? --John (talk) 19:01, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I've no wish to perpetuate the edit warring over the image caption, but I've made a few alterations to the caption text. I hope the edit reasons are clear, however I wish to explain what I think is the most important. All assertions on this article are textually attributed, regardless of the stature of the source, including DSB, JIT, US Int or whoever. I believe that is correct and is done as a service to the reader who may judge for themself whether the source has authority in their eyes. I believe the same should be done for both Russian claims and those claiming 'fake'. We cannot/should not treat official Russian sources as though they are the flat earth society or a blogger in Cardiff, whom we can disregard. We cannot do this IMO, even if the weight of evidence is that nothing but lies is coming from them, because, regardless, their claims are a significant part of the narrative and both claim and source should be included and framed neutrally, followed of course by any significant rebuttals.

I have attributed the 'they were faked' claim to 'Several western sources', if a better wording can be found I'm happy. What I believe is doing a disservice to the reader, is simply presenting the 'faked' claim in WP voice, and/or removing the Russian sources that contradict that claim.Pincrete (talk) 23:53, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

'Several western sources' is terrible. First, this is so according to nearly all current RS (excluding claims by the perpetrator) and conclusion by the JIT (this is not just another source). Second, there is no such thing as "western", "eastern" or "northern" sources. There are good and bad sources. My very best wishes (talk) 01:03, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Furthermore, the "alterations" made in the edit were pretty much reverting back to Александр's version. Stickee (talk) 01:09, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, the picture is either genuine or it's not. My problem with this version [20] is that "he said/she said" gives perfectly equal weight to both sides, which is like giving up and letting facts be negotiable. Further, I think that writing 'they said it's fake' isn't giving the most prevalent POV enough credit. Why does it appear to be faked? We may not have room to go into that--it's a caption in a bloated article--and if that's the case, then the picture should probably just go. Geogene (talk) 01:22, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree and I've removed it. I asked what it added to the article and have not seen a satisfactory response. It's a distraction and we are better off without it --John (talk) 06:02, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
As far as I know, and as far as the most authorative bodies claim, (DSB and JIT) the only almost entirely indisputed facts are that a Buk missile downed the aircraft and was probably fired from a particular field. JIT (who are the police in this manner) have declined to go public far beyond that, they would like a trial/tribunal. We may not like that, but it is the present 'truth'. Do editors here know something JIT doesn't, or has chosen not to say at present? Everything beyond that is in the realms of 'balance of evidence', which is something everybody is entitled to assess for themselves and very few readers are going to think that Russia and the rebels don't have a lot of difficult questions to answer. The opening word 'Faked', was removed by me, since it is simply not in the two refs at the end of that sentence and secondly because I do not believe we should ignore Russian sources, regardless of how we might feel about them. The accused always gets the right to 'have his say'.
However, I am also quite happy for both image and caption to be removed, or to raise an RfC. We don't grant any body on this article the unilateral power to decide 'truth', and when DSB and JIT are denied it, I fail to see why NYTimes (along with Daily Mail, Das Bild and one other) acquire the right to bypass the 'This person/group concluded' format. Pincrete (talk) 09:27, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
@John, thanks. It adds little, and this argument + edit war was part of the reason I wanted to avoid it in the first place. 68 comments here on the talk page, and 40+ edits to the article. Stickee (talk) 12:10, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Agree with above comments - Pincrete's version is really just Aleksandr's version, which means it misrepresents sources. I'm off two minds if the picture should stay or go, but if it stays it needs to have an accurate caption.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:50, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

No strong opinion about inclusion/exclusion this image. I would suggest to actually include it somewhere (probably in a different section), but given the dispute, the removal is not unreasonable. My very best wishes (talk) 15:35, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
I think you should keep the image, which has had an outsized role at certain points in discussion of this event. Pincrete's comments are reasonable and it is certainly possible to write a neutral caption that neither endorses the images, nor simply declares they were "faked." -Darouet (talk) 02:08, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
I'd be inclined to keep it (but I'll be happy to defer to other's opinion on the keep/leave issue) but in a different section and crucially, with an accurate caption. Which means it really does need to say "faked" just like all the sources. That's neutral - following sources.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:13, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
At the risk of repeating myself, (about the sub-section, not the image), part of the reason we are at cross-purposes here is that the 'cause of crash' sub-section isn't mainly about the cause of crash. The most authorative, established facts/near facts/claims are in the DSB and JIT sections. At present, the cause of crash sub-section is mainly the chronology of earlier claims, with some counter-claims, but the sub-section never actually identifies a cause.
Were this section actually about the cause of crash it would be worded something like "the aircraft was downed by a named weapon, striking it, causing the aircraft to blah blah." ..... Continuing with whatever was known about who fired, who supplied, from where, why, and technical info concerning both the crash and investigation. Most of the present section would go later or into a new 'earlier speculation', or somesuch.
Some here have suggested limiting this section to 'vindicated claims'. I think that a very dangerous strategy. US Int (and others) appear to be vindicated as to missile type and launch site, but we cannot say that about their claims of who supplied and fired. Bellingcat and many others also appear to be at least partially vindicated, while Russia appears to have had none of its claims vindicated by DSB or JIT. However, except where DSB or JIT have explicitly endorsed a claim, I think it dangerous waters for us to decide who has so far been proven right or wrong. To the best of my knowledge DSB has explicitly excluded one possibility (air-to-air attack), but has not endorsed any claims.
I don't know how best to proceed, but I think we are going to continue to be at cross-purposes about what should be in/out until we are clear about the subject of the sub-section and its title and the apt place(s) for moved stuff, ie overall structure.Pincrete (talk) 15:25, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
My impression from reading newspaper accounts of the image analyses is that newspapers report the analyses, attributing the analyses to the analysts, and then endorse them to varying degrees. As I mentioned at WP:NPOVN, Der Spiegel reports the findings but does not necessarily endorse them. There is nothing controversial about us also reporting those findings, without going onto an editorial limb and declaring that we know the WP:TRUTH. -Darouet (talk) 18:40, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

After a week only now I can continue editing and I am sure my blocking [21] was a careless attempt to eliminate me from discussion here because after my blocking in several hours some group of editors here who are concerned about "Putins trolls and russian propaganda" [22] made their most double-quick "consensus" [23][24]. This is ridiculous.--Александр Мотин (talk) 18:06, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

And how about Spiegel? It says those images by Russian MoD are not faked - "Expert Criticizes Allegations of Russian MH17 Manipulation" (Der Spiegel) [25]. I mean that if you keep caption like "Faked image...bla-bla-bla" it violates WP:NPOV because some sources say it is not faked. That is why "Faked image" is very non-neutral phrasing.--Александр Мотин (talk) 18:06, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Александр Мотин, you were banned for edit warring. I was one of the few editors here to oppose the 'faked' wording. I did so because I thought the account incomplete. A de facto consensus has emerged here thst the image probably isn't worth the bother of finding a suitable caption. I urge you if you disgree to suggest suitable wording here on talk or to open an RfC about the image and the caption. Characterising the motives or actions of other editors isn't helpful to you. Pincrete (talk) 20:29, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
  • According to Pincrete above this caption was really neutral: Satellite image presented by the Russian Defence Ministry at a press briefing about the MH17 crash. Allegedly taken a few hours before the crash, on the aircraft route, two SAM "Buk-M1" vehicles are marked as well as an armoured vehicle in the area of Zaroshchenske village. Several sources described the image as 'faked'. And now we have Der Spiegel as RS which says this image is not fake [26]. Any objections?--Александр Мотин (talk) 10:18, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Of course there's objections. This talk page section is full of objections. I think dropping the stick may be relevant here. Stickee (talk) 14:11, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree there are objections and my own opinion is that the image adds little to anyone's understanding. The proper place to put both sides of the case is in the text, not the caption. For that reason, if used, I suggest a 'minimalist' caption eg Image presented by the Russian Defence Ministry. Some sources claimed the image had been digitally altered. - ie read the text if you want the full story!Pincrete (talk) 10:58, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
If there are no objections for 2 weeks to your phrasing of the caption I added yours.--Александр Мотин (talk) 13:00, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Александр Мотин, no you didn't, you added a modified version of my suggestion, and then reinserted the Russian description. The whole point of my suggestion was to point people toward the text, rather than get into claims in the caption. I have restored my version minus 'some'. If that meets with other editor's approval, so be it, if it doesn't I don't think the time spent on this image is/has been worth any benefit it might have. Pincrete (talk) 13:24, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
The current version by User:Pincrete is preferred as it is less POV. - Ahunt (talk) 16:26, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
I agree. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:17, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Nothing's changed, there's still no consensus for adding in the first place. As noted many times by people here, it adds little to the article. Stickee (talk) 22:22, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
So these satellite images were reviewed by lots of outlets and you say it adds nothing to the article? It is super weird :) --Александр Мотин (talk) 18:33, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
You think that "lots of outlets" = "encyclopdeic content"? It does add something, it adds unwanted bias. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:12, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
If there is Ukranian version (external audio template with very detailed description) in the article why you say then Russian satellite image adds unwanted bias? This article is about the official version and Ukranian version only?--Александр Мотин (talk) 20:32, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Almaz Antey presentation on YouTube

Is this YouTube video, which lasts 1:31:15, an appropriate addition at External links? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:06, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Sure it is. It is by Almaz-Antey (producer of Buk missile system) regarding MH17 downing. Or you want to say again "it adds nothing to the article"? :)--Александр Мотин (talk) 20:35, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
Did I say that already? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:42, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
Why then this link was deleted from the article "The talk page indicates that there is no consensus to include these"? It seems you are big boss here to find consensus with.--Александр Мотин (talk) 20:47, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
Ah yes, a big boss. Flattered, I'm sure. But why not ask the editor who removed it? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:50, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
Hardly. For one, the simultaneous translation is terrible so I could not view the whole thing. But the BUK-maker is hardly NPOV (and I suspect they are one Russian entity not pushing the SU-25 explanation). Maybe a mention of a secondary source referring to this presentation, if one exists. Lklundin (talk) 21:51, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
@Lklundin. Agreed, not worthy of addition. Although I see there is already some mention of Almaz in the article as it is. Stickee (talk) 21:59, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
As per WP:ELBURDEN "Disputed links should normally be excluded by default unless and until there is a consensus to include them." - Ahunt (talk) 22:07, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
Seems largely like a self published primary source. For that reason alone it should be treated with utmost care. Arnoutf (talk) 18:50, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Sections of International code.

Under several sections of international code, it is illicit/illegal, to fly a civilian passenger aircraft into a hostile zone known to have combat readiness. This is an airtower, flight directive fault.

Did anyone every mention this, or is this another case of willfull ignorance by all and any seeking a political excuse? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.73.101.224 (talk) 21:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Which source mentioned this with regard to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 ? MPS1992 (talk) 21:47, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
The selection of flight route was examined by the DSB in their final report. A summary of their findings is in the article (section "Final report"). Stickee (talk) 23:15, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Immediately after the crash, a post appeared on the VKontakte social media profile attributed to Russian Colonel Igor Girkin

I would like to add a peculiar detail regarding the "social media profile attributed to Russian Colonel Igor Girkin", which was used as the main argument toward his affiliation.

http://www.segodnia.ru/news/140976

The post dates back to 10.06.2014 and it says "У командующего ополчением ДНР Игоря Стрелкова нет аккаунтов в социальных сетях. Об этом "Ридусу" сообщили в его штабе. "На странице "ВКонтакте" публикуются ежедневные сводки от Стрелкова, которые публикует не он лично. Никакого присутствия Стрелкова в соцсетях нет. Все аккаунты являются "фейковыми", - сказал представитель штаба."

Google translate Team militia DNR Igor Strelkov no accounts in social networks. This "Reedus" reported in its headquarters. "On the page" VKontakte "are published daily bulletins of the shooting, which he personally publishes not No Strelkova presence in social networks is not all accounts are .." create fake "- said the representative Staff.

Therefore, Strelkov took off the responsibility for holding that Vk profile a month prior the tragedy.

Cheers! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.237.22.4 (talk) 18:47, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Photos on the website of the Dutch prosecutor's office[202][edit]

Photos on the website of the Dutch prosecutor's office[202][edit] In this photo you can see two (exactly two) sides of Boeing cockpit. You will also see how the fragments went into the cabin, but you just do not see how the fragments came from the cockpit. Perhaps because you should look at this.[203] If the missile was 1 - started from a separatist country 2 - missile struck so that the pieces must pass through both sides (side) car (but it netak, as seen in the photo of the Dutch prosecutor's office), 3 - if the rocket launched from Ukraine, the fragments came away from the cabin, because the rocket hit the other side, because the other side is running (and you can see the whole half of the cabins on the photo of the Dutch prosecutor's office).


https://www.om.nl/mh17-ezine-juni2016/e-zine-en.html


any doubt? why the second cab side retained ???

Do not you think that the attack was from a different area?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b7/Photos_of_the_Dutch_Public_Prosecutor%2C_and_the_geometry_%28the_science%29.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calo yronili (talk • contribs) 12:55, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Not actually clear what you are on about but we dont interpret or do original research, if you have an issue with the article or want to change something then please make it clear what you think needs to be changed or added and provide reliable sources. MilborneOne (talk) 13:24, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

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Image of the BUK discovered

See here. Include to the page? My very best wishes (talk) 12:27, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Hacking incident that arose from this plane shootdown incident

Yesterday I found these articles that reported a hacking incident that arose from this airliner shootdown:

I briefly discussed with User:Martinevans123 and reached a basic consensus to add some skeptical tones into the edit since there's few sources. However, after both edit and my chat with Martinevans was removed altogether by User:Ahunt, a new question popped up. Is it relevant to include this edit as a footnote and put some skeptical tones into it per my consensus with Martinevans?

The only problem here is we found the event way too late.

This is a borderline case since the notability and even relevancy of this cybersecurity event is up for debate. IMO adding skeptical tone into the edit is more better than removing it altogether, at least we can avoid WP:UNDUE or WP:BIAS accusations. 60.54.37.77 (talk) User:Mamasanju 00:01, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I have an idea to add the skeptical tones into the edit per my consensus with Martin to maintain both WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT:
On early 2016 both news outlets VICE Motherboard and news.com.au reported that a teenage hacker calling himself "Cyber Anakin" has hacked into several Russian websites in attempt to "avenge" the airliner shootdown.

This is 60.54.37.77 using a different IP since I'm using school PC right now.
On an unrelated note, just now I remembered my WP account. 113.210.177.40 (talk) User:Mamasanju 02:27, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

On User:Martinevans123 concerns that no mainstream/conventional media has covered the hacking, I googled and found that news.com.au has diffused the news report into some of the newspapers they own:

Keep in mind that news.com.au is actually owned by Australian media giant News Corp Australia, so in this way the news just went into mainstream/conventional media, albeit on a smaller scale and is more like "mirroring". Mamasanju (talk) 05:52, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

The knowledge of the event even spreaded far enough to the editors at Politico and Wired (magazine).
1 2 Mamasanju (talk) 07:06, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Chinese security company Qihoo 360 has picked up the news, an indication that the story has received a widespread attention in 2016: News (Chinese Language)
With such a widespread attention I don't see why we should neglect or refuse to mention this fact even as a footnote.
Mamasanju (talk) 07:12, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree. At some point in the past, the incident had an entire separate section in the article. That is clearly excessive. But a one-sentence mention or a footnote seems appropriate to me.
Incidentally, I think one or two people may be confusing the requirements for notability, which on Wikipedia means being sufficiently well covered by reliable sources to merit an entire separate article, and the much lesser requirements for merely being mentioned in another article. This incident does not need to be independently notable in order to be mentioned in this article. MPS1992 (talk) 09:07, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't think this is really a consequential story in the scheme of things. Google News Search shows the only sources are a handful of publications (around 5 when you count News Corp as a single source under WP:NEWSORG rules). Most events relating to MH17 generate hundreds of articles per event, but this event only generated 5. It just shows that it's trivial in the long run. Stickee (talk) 09:42, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
For example, I'll compare it to a MH17 story that was actually non-trivial. When a story is worthy of inclusion, news agencies report on it. So I'll compare which of the major news agencies reported on the two stories:
Agency MH17 Oxygen mask story Cyber Anakin story
Associated Press Yes[27] No
Agence France-Presse Yes[28] No
Reuters Yes[29] No
Australian Associated Press Yes[30] No
APN News & Media Yes[31] No
Indo-Asian News Service Yes[32] No
Bloomberg News agency Yes[33] No
Asian News International Yes[34] No
BNO News Yes[35] No
United Press International Yes[36] No
Xinhua News Agency Yes[37] No
Evidently not worthy of inclusion. (News Corp could be counted as half an agency, but even with that it's hardly anything in comparison). Stickee (talk) 10:03, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
5? Sounds appropriate for a footnote mention for me, though a separate section is not needed and the tone of the wording has to be adjusted. Per MPS1992, please do note that the criteria to include it as a footnote mention and the criteria to make an standalone article about the hack are two different things, with the former more lenient than the latter, so it'll be unwise to conflate the two together as it'll be like comparing apples to oranges. Mamasanju (talk) 10:15, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
If the edit is about how MH17 was shot down, whether the oxygen masks are on or who fired the missile, then I'll accept Stickee's criteria. But the edit is trying to present the aftereffects from this incident. Mamasanju (talk) 10:19, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
In essential in here we're dealing with the reaction to the tragedy, not how the tragedy happened. If the Cyber Anakin hackings do fit Stickee's criteria, I would not ask for the tone to be adjusted to a more ambigious one (e.g. the addition of the word "reportedly") at the first place. Mamasanju (talk) 10:29, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I just remembered one thing. Data breaches in the magnitude of millions or higher in terms of affected users are considered quite consequential and remarkable in terms of impact in the cyber-security sector. If the breach only affect hundreds, I could accept Stickee's explanation and withdraw my edit proposal. But this hacking incident affected millions. Mamasanju (talk) 10:45, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Here's some case studies that mentioned the hacking event, an indication that the said cybersecurity breach could have lasting significance per WP:PERSISTENCE 1 2 (Chinese) 3 (Czech) 4. Mamasanju (talk) 11:40, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
More case studies 1 2 Mamasanju (talk) 12:16, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
How do we know "this hacking incident affected millions"? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:30, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I forgot to mention that according to the said coverages, computer security researcher Troy Hunt has verified that the breach is legit. He even gave out exact numbers of affected users in his Have I Been Pwned? website. Mamasanju (talk) 12:53, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
According to Troy Hunt's breach notification service 1476783 KM.RU users/accounts were affected while 1535473 NIVAL users/accounts were affected. Mamasanju (talk) 12:59, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
1000000 = 1 million Mamasanju (talk) 13:03, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
After reviewing it all I removed it because I didn't think it was very relevant to this article. Sure some guy attempted a hack and claimed it was in retribution for the shoot down, but the hack was ineffective and he could have claimed it was for Russian support of Assad in Syria, the Russian invasion of Crimea or any other so-called "cause". It didn't further this story at all. The fact that no real mainstream media ran the story shows it just isn't all that notable. In comparison, if one person mounts a protest outside a Russian embassy, in say Lima, Peru, about MH17, are we going to add it to the article, because this was pretty much the same level of incident. - Ahunt (talk) 13:06, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I think I have addressed the issues of mainstream/conventional media on here so I'm not going to repeat it again since this issue is more like an opinion issue. There's a major difference between unauthorized intrusion of databases and simply protesting outside Russian embassy presumably with peaceful means. The former is very illegal in most countries and can get him charged with cybercrime law. This kind of distinction do matter. Wikipedia is not a Super Mario Bros, it is a never ending project. Who knows if KM.RU or Nival made some statements about this in the near future? Who knows if that "Lord Vader" get arrested or even assasinated because of the hack that affected millions? For now I stick through my proposal that a skeptical tone is to be added into the edit before making it live. Mamasanju (talk) 13:16, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I have come out with a much better analogy based on Ahunt's. The Cyber Anakin incident is more similar to a scenario where the person use violent means to protest against a Russian embassy (e.g. window smashing, paint-throwing). On the latter case it might be enough to get included into List of attacks on diplomatic missions. They both are illegal. Mamasanju (talk) 13:26, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I think that is a useful analogy. I also think that if someone threw paint or broke a window at a Russian embassy we wouldn't put it in here, just too minor and not relevant to the actual shoot-down. - Ahunt (talk) 13:38, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
If Cyber Anakin threw paints and broke windows of a Russian embassy instead of leaking out private login informations of millions of internet users and tied his motive to this tragedy I might write this in that parallel universe:
Media outlets (media outlet 1) and (media outlet 2) reported that the Russian embassy was vandalized by a protestor calling himself "Cyber Anakin", allegedly in response to this tragedy.
Mamasanju (talk) 14:07, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
In that "alternate reality" I could have put the edit into International reactions to the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shootdown since the media would obviously reveal the location of that particular Russian embassy that was being vandalized. Mamasanju (talk) 14:12, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Have to agree with User:Ahunt it is not relevant to the incident and should not be included. MilborneOne (talk) 14:14, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I can't see why it is "irrelevant" considering that Cyber Anakin's stated motive is centered around this tragedy. I think I have mentioned how the event fits WP:PERSISTENCE here before. Mamasanju (talk) 14:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
This is not an article about everybody who uses the accident as an excuse to do some sort of action or protest, he was not the only one to blame the accident for his actions they were many more all of which has no relevance to the accident. Did his activities cause or influence the incident, the answer appears to be no. MilborneOne (talk) 14:35, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Lemme get it straight. The MH17 tragedy influenced the hacker to commit the hacking incident, not the other way around. In this sense, the Cyber Anakin early 2016 hackings could be seen as an extension or aftereffects of MH17. I could be inclined to buy your explanation that he was not the only one to blame the tragedy for his hacktivist acts if the numbers of affected users were just hundreds instead of millions. I could have simply said that Some news outlets have reported numerous computer hacking incidents allegedly to "avenge" this tragedy if there are two or more hacktivist incidents that tied their motives to the "avenging" of this plane crash instead of one. Mamasanju (talk) 14:49, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
This hacking incident is between the circle "MH17" and the circle "computer security" in a Venn diagram so I've asked for a comment from a user who is in cybersecurity Wikiproject. Mamasanju (talk) 15:01, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
If you think it is notable as a hacking incident then you are welcome to create a new article but it has no place here unless they hacked the aircraft systems, Air Traffic Control or the Missile Control stuff which doesnt appear to be likely. MilborneOne (talk) 15:11, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Article? I think the entry would be nominated for removal as soon as it was created since it hadn't fulfill all of the five WP:EVENTCRITERIA yet, in fact it had only met one to two. However, I begin pondering to put the edit into the international reactions page after I considered the embassy analogy. The event itself is notable imo, but it's notability can only get it a footnote mention at the very mininum. Mamasanju (talk) 15:25, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I have to agree with User:MilborneOne, it is at best an "after the event" attempt to tie into this shoot-down. It has very little to do with this story to the point where I just don't think it is worth including here. - Ahunt (talk) 15:37, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I have considered the embassy analogy and I'm pondering to put it into International reactions to the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shootdown. Since as you said, it is at best an "after the event" attempt to tie into this shootdown, I remain adamant that a skeptical and ambigious tone should be added into the edit. At least we don't have to throw the water along with the baby. Mamasanju (talk) 15:41, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Although I have put up a draft edit on the international reactions page, imo the hacking incident, especially its motives, is connected to the tragedy whether the link is factual or alleged. This is what makes it relevant to include it in either this page or in the international reactions page, albeit as a footnote. Mamasanju (talk) 15:59, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I would definitely support it going in International reactions to the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shootdown as a short note. - Ahunt (talk) 16:01, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Yep, at least we got a common ground :) Hope that the rest of the participants of this talk are informed of our newfound consensus. Mamasanju (talk) 16:11, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree. Better placed there. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:30, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I agree with those who say that the incident is too insignificant (both the act and coverage) to be included here. I would have no strong feelings about inclusion in 'reactions', even there I believe our coverage should be very brief. Pincrete (talk) 16:33, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Per User:MPS1992 the mention should consist in one sentence, although the ambigious and skeptical tone has to be retained in the edit on the reactions page. Mamasanju (talk) 16:39, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
- Ahunt (talk) 16:42, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Igor Girkin is definitely NOT an organization

Despite attempts to claim to the contrary, personal opinion's of Igor Girkin (per citations given), even when supported on basis of "being notable because kind of outrageus" by an individual editor can not be counted as a statement of an organization. Neither it can be suggested that Girkin's personal opinions would be presented as factual because they are "cited content" as Davey2010 attemts to claim - if there would be any reason to retain these in the article, they should be clearly marked for what they are - i.e. bizarre personal claims by the Russian army (allegedly former) colonel Girkin, which is what the citations support - not statements by any organization. -2A00:1028:83BE:4392:48E7:781C:1917:F90A (talk) 22:05, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

No one claims that his opinions are "factual". What "clear marking" could you propose that would not contravene WP:BIAS? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:13, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
Besides not giving his claims in the section "Reactions#Organizations" in the first place? Dunno - perhaps to clearly state that that's just "something Girkin [had] said"? Not giving his claims priority before statements before reaction of EU or ICAO & other respectable international bodies? Move his claims to the section where it would be completely clear that he was in charge of the most suspect perpetrator party? Gee - I'm somewhat dumbfounded - IMO it would be so much more easier to contravene wp:BIAS if personal statements by the leader of one of the suspected parties' would not be given undue prominence in the first place, as I attempted before.-2A00:1028:83BE:4392:48E7:781C:1917:F90A (talk) 22:31, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
Well then - can I either remove his claims for good or at least move them into more appropriately worded section such as "Claims by primary suspect" (or whatever). Citing statement of someone who is a primary suspect (along with current Russian leader Vladimir Putin) for being responsible for the terrorist attack against the flight MH17 in section "Reactions#Organizations" is something very close to quote Osama bin Laden in article on September 11 attacks - in principle it can be possible, but it would be much more reasonable if his statements would be clearly marked for what they are, i.e. statements by leader of the chief suspect party, not among "Reactions of organizations" - that section is clearly meant for "reactions of uninvolved parties"/"reactions of international bodies".-2A00:1028:83BE:4392:34F0:9BF3:1901:D7F7 (talk) 21:19, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
When the head of an organisation says something, that generally means they are speaking on behalf of that organisation. Stickee (talk) 21:25, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
a) 'When the "head of an organisation" says something on behalf of that organisation', it would be really helpful if it would be referenced as such. Not in the citations given, which are sadly dependent on/or derived from the Russian propaganda.
b) If the organization he's the head of is one of the suspected parties (whether it's Al-Qaeda or "Donbass People's Militia") it should be clearly marked as such. Again definitely not in the article, which sadly still gives prominence to the Russian terrorists' leader Girkin/Strelkov among sections reactions of uninvolved organizations such as EU or ICAO.
I'm all for the proper clarification - which can hardly be reconcilled with statements of the chief suspect party's leader sadly quoted among "[Reactions] of organizations", chiefly because Martinevans123 found their outrageousness somewhat "funny".-2A00:1028:83BE:4392:34F0:9BF3:1901:D7F7 (talk) 21:58, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Funny? No, disgusting actually. But still a fact. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:26, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Actually, if I'd have to quote your very words: "'notable and worth including because of their outrageousness'". Not even a merest mention of 'disgusting'. :o) No offense meant.
And still failed to address for what actual reason the Girkin/Strelkov's (etc.) statemenents should be included in the section MH17#Organizations - which is not, as far as I understand, meant to be one to present suspected terrorists' organizations leaders statements. What I strongly object to is their inclusion in the section devoted to "[Reactions of] organizations" - and that in precedence to EU, ICAO & other uninvolved international bodies, just because colonel Strelkov's statements outrageousness somewhat appeal to someone's "taste for the bizarre".
Facts should be quoted as facts, Strelkov statements should be quoted for what they are - i.e. declarations/statements, with appropriate clarification what they're and who he is/what he represents. It's a referenced fact 'he said so'/'claimed so'/'stated it', but it should be very wrong if his claims would be cited as referencing to facts.
I'm OK if Girkin's conspiracy claims would be moved to section clearly marked as "Reactions of suspected parties" (or something similar), but I can not understand why someone attemtpts to support terrorist's statements as "facts", even if they're published & disseminated by media of the current Russian régime.
Facts should be quoted as facts, Strelkov statements should be quoted for what they are - i.e. his declarations/statements, with appropriate clarification what they're and who he is. It's a referenced fact that 'he said so'/'claimed so'/'stated it', but it should be clearly very wrong if his claims would be cited as referencing to facts.-2A00:1028:83BE:4392:34F0:9BF3:1901:D7F7 (talk) 23:05, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Are you the same editor as the original poster? Anonymous IP editors are of course very welcome to edit and it's clear you are editing in good faith here and making valid points. And it's great to see contributions from the Czech Republic. But it might be less confusing for all, and more advantageous for you, to register an account? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:24, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes I am. Sorry for slightly different IPs - it can be confusing, but I can't help it. I don't feel inclined to register, unless it's necessary. Although seeing the edit history, with other edits from similar IP range (I haven't been able to access Wikipedia since July 15) I should perhaps reconsider my position. Anyway - I still believe that Strelkov/Girkin's claims should be described for what they're, not included among "Ractions of organizations" - perhaps it'd be better to move them into a new, separate section, named perhaps "Claims of suspected parties" or "Conspiracy theories" (given the ridiculousness and outrageousness of his claims) - or such. -2A00:1028:83BE:4392:E427:946D:6F76:74C3 (talk) 19:28, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Recent changes by "Иван Гордиенко"

Edit with a summary "add a graph with statistics" by user Иван Гордиенко seems to be quite unexplained, unreferenced, and its description "Information waves about Malaysia Airlines Flight 17" [sic] seems to be quite inadequate in relation to its information value - e.g. exactly where and when these information waves (whatever they're meant to be) were presumed to be existing.-2A00:1028:83BE:4392:B474:CCEC:70EB:59C (talk) 20:57, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I tend to agree. It's all rather odd and baffling. I've removed it until we have some kind of explanation here. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:02, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
"Odd and baffling"is quite in line with the current régime of Russia - expecting a rational clarifications by its minions seems to be quite superfluous. "Иван Гордиенко" appears to me just adding babblings about "information wave [about]" to various articles, without any real hope that his editions would be ever taken seriously.-2A00:1028:83BE:4392:B474:CCEC:70EB:59C (talk) 21:41, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Bellingcat reliable for BLP issues?

Regarding this edit [38] by Cloud200, is Bellingcat a good enough source to name specific individuals (as opposed to military units) as being responsible for this war crime? In times past we've agreed to use a secondary source alongside Bellingcat. I'm concerned about a possible WP:BLPPRIMARY issue in the edit as it current exists. I should probably remove it while we see where consensus is. Geogene (talk) 23:11, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Here's Moscow Times and Radio Poland, for starters? Secondary reports are only hours old, as yet. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:22, 8 December 2017 (UTC) p.s. and if you think there's any remote chance of a "war crimes indictment" I think you may be sadly disappointed. I'm sure it wasn't "Blue Dolphin" who would have pressed the launch trigger. Or been anywhere near it.
Also [39]. Volunteer Marek  23:34, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Okay, that's solved. Geogene (talk) 23:40, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Iran Air 655

This should be prominently mentioned in the "See Also" Section, if not in body of the article as it is the one incident that has had the most obvious parallels. The geopolitical consequences of this incident were discussed in considerable detail by many different commentators and definitely passes the threshold for notability and relevance.[40] [41] [42] 150.251.3.1 (talk) 22:06, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi. We don't include in the see also because it would be filled with every shootdown incident (KAL007, IRAN655 etc). Stickee (talk) 22:23, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
@150.251.3.1: AFAIK there were also discussed, compared and contrasted (and referenced) parallels with KAL 007, El AL 402 and Pan Am 103, and perhaps other airliner shootdowns/incidents. So the question here is which of them and why should be mentioned in the "See also" section - and so far the agreed answer (as far as I can check in the talk archives) was that linking the List of aircraft accidents and incidents resulting in at least 50 fatalities was the least flame-baiting solution.
Directly to the point, including the specific mention of the "Iran Air 655" only in the "See also" section can be seem as an instance of WP:UNDUE.-ז62 (talk) 22:29, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Agree with Stickee and ז62, although I did find that "Hidden Hypocrisy" article by Samarth Gupta in the Harvard Political Review particularly good and I hope there might be an opportunity to use it somewhere. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:33, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Vladyslav Voloshyn

Vladyslav Voloshyn, the pilot that Russia alleges shot down MH17, committed suicide yesterday (BBC News). Not sure whether yet another Russian denial needs adding or not, so am opening for discussion and consensus. Mjroots (talk) 11:38, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

The article doesn't make it clear that his death is related to MH17 and in fact indicates depression as the cause. - Ahunt (talk) 12:23, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Completely normal in the case to clean the evidence. Similar to Jack Ruby case. So claims now are more objective. --PetarM (talk) 16:59, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Voloshyn is currently not named in the article, I believe the relevant sentence is this one: "On 21 July 2014, the Russian Ministry of Defence held a press conference and said that while the Boeing 777 was crashing, a Ukrainian Su-25 ground-attack aircraft approached to within 3 to 5 kilometres (1.9 to 3.1 mi) of the Malaysian airliner." I assume the following wsj.com source, dated 22 July, supports this claim, but I many sources: [Vladyslav Voloshyn can't see the whole article. When was Voloshyn named as the culprit? Should he now be named in the article? The suicide is reported in many sources, besides BBC: Kyivpost, Newsweek, New York Post, The Daily Telegraph. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:21, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Voloshyn is currently not even named in the article so, in my opinion, including his 'suicide' in the article now would give - in one way or other - undue weight to Russian propagandist/conspirational claims (moreover - the Russian official/semi-official propaganda presented several mutually contradictory versions, not just this one). If the identity of pilot falsely accused by Russia (and it's pretty clear that Russian version is just fake news, unsupported by evidence) was not important previously, it hardly becomes important when he dies for unrelated reasons - unless there are some new facts/evidence.
On an unrelated note, it seems to me that a lot of people blamed by Russian administration for something "kill themselves" lately, but that's neither here nor there.-ז62 (talk) 17:15, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree, including this gives too much weight to the Russian attempts to blame the shoot down on Ukraine. There is nothing linking this death to MH17. - Ahunt (talk) 17:41, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
The depression may have been caused by the accusations, but that in itself does not make his death relevant to the MH17 article (although it would make MH17 relevant to the Vladyslav Voloshyn if it is ever created). So fully agree that this has no place here. Arnoutf (talk) 18:14, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Comparison to other accidents

I saw the "Accident Trivia" section on the old talk page. I respect everyone's opinion. But I feel that comparing this to other accidents IS important for various reasons: 1. Other articles do list the death toll and compare them to other aviation accidents, while this one doesn't list any except for MH370. 2. In a no survivors crash, the word "all" is usually typed up in parenthesis next to the # of fatalities, whic is to prevent confusion. I don't know why, but some poeple feel that the "all" is unnecessary, but I think with out it, it would be confusing, so therefore, it is necessary! Also I typed this into the article multiple times, but people kept removing it (no offense to them by the way):

"The 298 death toll also makes MH17 the deadliest accident in the history of Malaysia Airlines, the deadliest aviation accident to occur in Ukraine, the deadliest aviation accident involving the Boeing 777, and (as of March 2018) the deadliest aviation accident of the 21st century."

So what do you think. do you agree or disagree? Be honest!Tigerdude9 (talk) 22:25, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

No objection. But I realise some editors see it as a waste of effort. Perhaps it's best left to the List of Accidents (and other?) tables? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:32, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
No, I disagree with addition of further trivia, as have other editors. There is already a trivia sentence in the lead: "The crash is the deadliest airliner shootdown, seventh-deadliest aviation disaster, and was Malaysia Airlines' second aircraft loss during 2014 after the disappearance of Flight 370 on 8 March.[5]". As for the "(all)" - there is already "survivors = 0" in the infobox. It is redundant to double it up. Stickee (talk) 22:56, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Ok, you are right. the long part about MH17 being the deadliest of the 21st century is too much and should either: not be there at all and have the trivia remain the same, edited to be ample, or just put the whole thing on the bottom. of the top page. To be honest I think I'm just going to with the first option.

However, if I do make another edit about death tolls (which I probably won't), would the following be considered ample? "The crash is also the deadliest accident involving the Boeing 777." I noticed that for an article on the deadliest accident involving a certain type of aircraft the article usually says it is the deadliest involving said type of aircraft. But as I said earlier, I'm not trying to bloat up the trivia or cause further confusion. Thank you.Tigerdude9 (talk) 16:12, 3 April 2018 (UTC)


Here's an opinionated mini-essay about what I would consider to be trivia, and what I wouldn't. What is trivia: Generally, trivia are factoids that may be true but whose truth value have no discernable consequence in the real world. One way to create trivia is the misuse of categorization to create a potentially unlimited number of meaningless comparisons. I don't consider it trivia to mention that Malaysia Airlines lost two airliners in 2014, because there were real-world (financial) consequences of that fact for the airline, and because it's likely that some readers may get these events confused. So for those reasons I wouldn't consider that factoid to be trivia, it's actually kind of useful because I consider these two MH accidents to be a natural category. I would consider "deadliest accident in an even-numbered year" to be trivia because it would be based on an artificial category. "Deadliest accident ever", if it were true, would be a natural category and therefore more likely to have meaning.
In practice, not all trivia is bad, but much of it is. Ultimately whether an item of trivia should be mentioned or not depends on whether sources are discussing it, and how much depth of coverage it gets. Usually, they don't tend to cover lists of deadliest accidents much. There are lots of sources talking about this incident, few if any are worried about where this ranks in terms of 777 accidents, so there's no strong reason to mention this. Yes, there are online databases for enthusiasts, where you can find this information if you seek it out. Those sites are potentially usable as sources, especially if you have a list article that is designed to rank things. But since few other sources care about these comparisons, it should generally be left out of the main article. "Deadliest Accident Ever" is something that sources will probably discuss widely, so that would be included. How widespread a factoid is being discussed in reliable sources is the most important thing in determining whether a factoid should be included in a Wikipedia article, the term for this principle is "Weight". In theory, this means that the decision about what is "important" or not is made by sources and not Wikipedia editors.
It's my personal opinion that an ideal article would cover everything that has sufficient weight, and no more. I believe that not all information is equally useful, and that useful facts are actually made less useful when they're buried in irrelevant ones--even if all the facts are verifiable and known to be true. Not everyone necessarily sees it that way. In practice, when using the Weight criterion, different editors disagree about what has Weight and what doesn't, and how much Weight things seem to have, and this often gives rise to debates until some kind of agreement (consensus) is reached between a majority of editors. The harder it was to get consensus on something, the less friendly and welcoming established editors will usually be towards anyone that tries to change it! Also the editors that wrote one article may have had nothing to do with another article, so expect some variation between articles. This subject matter has a lot of geopolitical overtones, so there may be less overlap between this particular group of editors and the ones that might be editing an article about some crash caused by pilot error than you might expect.
I don't know why so many crash articles have "(all)" mentioned when it isn't necessary for encyclopedic prose. A plausible hypothesis is that the editors who write aviation articles may be more likely than others to be culturally/habitually attuned to the importance of redundancy in mission critical checklists. I don't see how that would confuse anyone, but if this weren't a Wikipedia article and actual lives were depending on all the numbers tallying, then I would feel differently about it. Geogene (talk) 20:16, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
Keep in mind that MH17 was not an accident, it was shot down, so any comparisons to aviation accidents is not really relevant. Also we have a consensus to not write "all" and "survivors = 0", as it is redundant. - Ahunt (talk) 20:57, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
I concur, although I'm not convinced it was actually fully intended to shoot down a passenger airliner. We don't tend to compare civil disasters with wartime ones. In the UK maritime world RMS Titanic and RMS Lusitania are not really usefully compared, are they? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:08, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Capitalization

Is "Russian Government" a proper noun as a whole? Or is "Russian" an adjective and "government" a noun? It matters for capitalization. The article is presently at variance with itself. Heptor (talk) 23:37, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Googling site:en.wikipedia.org "russian government" reveals that most don't capitalise the word "government". Stickee (talk) 07:43, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Since Russian is derived from the proper noun Russia, I'd think it will always have a capital letter. In British English you'll often find Government with a capital g. But Wikipedia likes to have special rules on capitalisation. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:51, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
I googled a bit more. It seems like in many cases the word "Government" is capitalized when the writer is within the jurisdiction of that government. In other words, when the writer feels like it's his or her own Government it feels more natural to write it with a capital G, but when it's somebody else's government, the proper adjective[43] is often used to clarify which government the writer has in mind. Based on that I'd argue that Wikipedia should never capitalize the G for any government, since Wikipedia aims to be WP:Global. Heptor (talk) 00:31, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Intercepts

Regarding the two (currently last) sentences in the lead: "In late July 2014, communications intercepts were made public in which, it is claimed, separatists are heard discussing an aircraft that they had downed.[21][22][23][24] A video from the crash site, recorded by the rebels and obtained by the News Corp Australia, shows the first rebel soldiers to arrive at the crash site. At first they assumed that the downed aircraft was a Ukrainian military jet, and were dismayed when they started to realise that it was a civilian airliner. [25]". I suspect that the intercepts and the video of the crash published by the rebels are the same. Heptor (talk) 09:55, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

They're different. Follow the links and you can listen to the intercept and watch the video. Stickee (talk) 07:42, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! Heptor (talk) 00:32, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Investigators state that missile was owned by a Russian brigade.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44235402?__twitter_impression=true A more experienced user should probably integrate this information into the page.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nat7y (talk • contribs)

This has since been done, both in the lead and in the body (under JIT findings). Geogene (talk) 23:03, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

British ISC report

The last paragraph in this section should be cut down to the relevant information contained and moved elsewhere. It has nothing to do with any kind of investigation. Instead, it is a collection of statements yet unproven. Maybe some people find it interesting what MI6 wants the world to believe, but how is any of this relevant to the MH17 incident?

'On 20 December 2017, the British Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament published a 122-page report covering a substantial range or subjects, notably a section entitled "Russian objectives and activity against UK and allied interests". This section made clear the stance of Britain on the subject of Russia and its involvement in the MH17 event, stating that there is categoric evidence to support the claim that Russian military forces supplied and recovered the Buk missile launcher. This was the first report to outrightly accuse Russia of orchestrating the attack, although it does not state whether or not MH17 was the intended target. The report quotes MI6 as stating: "Russia conducts information warfare on a massive scale... An early example of this was a hugely intensive, multichannel propaganda effort to persuade the world that Russia bore no responsibility for the shooting down of [Malaysian Airlines flight] MH-17 (an outright falsehood: we know beyond any reasonable doubt that the Russian military supplied and subsequently recovered the missile launcher)".'

I have not read this report but it seems unbelievable to me that it would "accuse Russia of orchestrating the attack". This sentence, apparently not a verbatim quote, insinuates without supporting evidence that there WAS an ATTACK (instead of an accident, for instance) and that the crash was planned beforehand (orchestrated) instead of having occurred during some other and more likely kind of hostilities, say the attempt at shooting down fighter planes. Such assumptions might have a place in an encyclopedia article about MI6 conspiracy theories, but not in an article dealing with the facts about the crash, least of all under the heading "investigation". In addition, if there actually were "categoric evidence" to support their claims, it should be provided, and this alone would have a place here, not the unsupported claims of an intelligence service not directly involved in the investigation.

Even less fitting is the part with the yammering about Russia's alleged "information warfare" (the fact that their media didn't chime in with Western propaganda). Did they need to investigate this? Why, and who cares?

I am going to remove this paragraph now and if somebody reinstates it, as they undoubtedly will, please explain why and what it has to do with any kind of "Investigation", thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.97.170.7 (talk) 16:32, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Agree it doesnt appear to be relevant to the investigation or accident. MilborneOne (talk) 16:36, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
If you objection is that it is not part of the investigation that is fine, I have changed the heading so that it stands alone as a relevant report. - Ahunt (talk) 16:41, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
I looked into the sources now and, somehow, I am not surprised. But I am. The only section in this ISC report dealing with Russia and the MH17 incident is on page 52, under #142 and it's just 98 words long. That's it. That's the entire basis for the paragraph cited above. The other source, a well-known propaganda outfit, merely points out this short text on page 52 of the ISC report and adds nothing to it, not anything substantial worth mentioning other than more opinion. So, let's quickly recount what the source does NOT say (as I already thought):
1. that "there is categoric evidence to support the claim that Russian military forces supplied and recovered the Buk missile launcher". No, this is the only statement about their evidence: "Written evidence – SIS, 30 August 2016." That is all. How does this "categorically" prove Russian involvement?
2. "This was the first report to outrightly accuse Russia of orchestrating the attack." False, the report nowhere alleges that Russia has "orchestrated" a damn thing with respect to MH17, let alone an "attack". I am going to delete this part and if you disagree, show me in detail where the report says any such thing.
3. What the report really states is that MI6 believe they "know beyond any reasonable doubt that the Russian military supplied and subsequently recovered the missile launcher". Okay, but this is what half the world believes and all Western media tried us to convince of daily for months. That's not news, that's not information. It would be, if they actually had cited evidence, but, guess what, they didn't. The Dutch should be miffed that they are expected to run around collecting witness statements when the Brits already know everything "beyond any reasonable doubt"!
Here is the passage in the report this entire "British ISC report" section is in reference to:
142. SIS informed us that “all three Russian intelligence services are tasked with carrying out ‘information operations’ [which] goes beyond promulgating the Russian perspective and includes the creating and propagation of forgeries and falsehoods”. One obvious area is Ukraine, where: Russia conducts information warfare on a massive scale... An early example of this was a hugely intensive, multi-channel propaganda effort to persuade the world that Russia bore no responsibility for the shooting down of [Malaysian Airlines flight] MH-17 (an outright falsehood: we know beyond any reasonable doubt that the Russian military supplied and subsequently recovered the missile launcher).164
164 Written evidence – SIS, 30 August 2016.

Person of interest in the ongoing investigation, Ivannikov GRU agent (article)

Just putting article of interest here

russian gru commander orion identified 78.147.39.247 (talk) 18:12, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Moving responsibility to the lede

An IP editor and Galassi recently copied the statement that "The governments of the Netherlands and Australia hold Russia responsible for 'its part in the downing of flight'.[6]" into the first paragraph in the lead. That seems a bit excessive. The lede is alredy very much filled with discussion about responsibility, and it is quite obvious that those governments hold the Russia partly responsible for what happened. This particular statement they are trying to insert is mentioned in Section "Findings of the Joint Investigation Team", with somewhat different wording. Heptor (talk) 13:58, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

But the governments are not JIT. This is most important information to date. May by it will be better to reduce other parts of lead.--Nicoljaus (talk) 18:19, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
It's significant information. Geogene (talk) 19:16, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
Ah, sorry, I didn't realize it was news. How about [44]? There, I placed this new sentence into the second paragraph, where the movement of the Buk system is discussed. I also removed the sentence "The JIT say they have established the identities of approximately 100 people, witnesses or suspects [...]". I think this is too much of a technical detail, almost taking attention away from the main results instead of supporting them. So I suggest replacing it with the newly added sentence. Heptor (talk) 22:03, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
Forgive me, but I do not see the point in the proposed revision. The reaction of governments should stand apart from the current results of the investigation, and the number of people associated with the case is also significant.--Nicoljaus (talk) 07:30, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
The reactions of governments are almost always politically driven, rather than based on fact. The Australian Prime Minister at the time declared Russia had done it within hours of it happening, based on no evidence at all. Such "facts" count for very little. HiLo48 (talk) 07:33, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
The reaction of governments is an important fact, we state it. But the desire to remove it somewhere far away because this "just politics" does not look very good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicoljaus (talk • contribs) 07:52, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
It looks fine to me, and I gave my reasons. Do you have any? HiLo48 (talk) 07:54, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
I do not think so and I've explained my reasons either. The decision of governments is based on the results of an official investigation not "politically driven".--Nicoljaus (talk) 08:03, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
@Nicoljaus: I thought the reason why they hold Russia responsible was that Russia supplied the Buk system to the rebels? The second paragraph deals with how this system was transported to the rebel-controlled territory etc, so I thought it would be natural to have this sentence in the second paragraph.
@HiLo48: There has definitely been a lot of politics in the aftermath of this tragedy, but I don't think you will be able to support your position with reliable sources. This statement by the governments of Netherlands and Australia is notable, so it has to be included. Another thing, is the statement by the Australian Prime Minister that you mention in the article already? Maybe it should be. Heptor (talk) 08:48, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
What is really the point in reporting politicians saying totally predictable, political things? HiLo48 (talk) 11:02, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Because that's one of the main things that Wikipedia does now. But yes, I also wish it was less sensationalist. Heptor (talk) 11:46, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Comment: All I've got to say is that I'm somewhat losing last of my good faith towards a self-appointed "copy-editor" who so demonstrably fails to comprehend rather basic and plain English. No offense meant, I still assume Heptor means basically well - but still fails completely.--ז62 (talk) 23:44, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Re Comment: I think the above is mostly an off-topic personal attack, and I will not dignify it with a response. Thanks, Heptor (talk) 00:17, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

@Heptor: Please refrain from such clearly unsubstantiated claims of personal attacks. Also - please do read this. Thank you.--ז62 (talk) 00:20, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

The formal statement of holding another state responsible is a legal step where a state is officially accused of breach of international agreements. The formal, legal approach makes this a rather extreme statement. This opens up the possibility of all kind of formal cases brought against the state of Russia to all kinds of institutional courts. This is substantially more important than any non-formal statement about responsibility before. Arnoutf (talk) 18:40, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree, completely--Nicoljaus (talk) 21:30, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
I think I'll say that this argument is probably a bit too speculative. When and if this statement eventually leads to a conviction of the Russian state for a war crime this will definitely be worthy of a mention in the lede of an encyclopedia article. For now it's just a statement. But I realize that I'm in the minority. What about my proposal to move this sentence to the second paragraph? Heptor (talk) 21:45, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
There is an infinitesimally small chance of this "blame" leading to any serious action against Russia, and the politicians involved know that. So do we. It is pure politics, and by highlighting it, we are helping the politicians play their game. I would much rather we stuck to known facts than what politicians say to score points, mostly with their own electorates. HiLo48 (talk) 22:24, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
These objections have no basis in policy. Geogene (talk) 04:39, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Nor does sticking that political tripe in the lead. HiLo48 (talk) 04:46, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm fairly certain that that would fall under WP:WEIGHT, WP:LEAD. Geogene (talk) 06:12, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
WP:WEIGHT is about representing views in a truly balanced way. I don't think that covers my concerns at all. HiLo48 (talk) 06:26, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Let's keep it to facts. I would not want to push this formal declaration of responsibility into the lead, however politically and legally these statements by the Dutch and Australian governments are in my view not less important than the informal bickering and accusations between Russia and Ukraine. The latter now occupies two full paragraphs of the lead, while the suggestion is that this formal accusation would only receive one sentence.

To some extent I think this is indicative of the state of the article as a whole, where more attention is paid to unfounded media aggression than to the actual downing of the flight. I am not sure we can solve this here - but with the new JIT report the article may need to go through a long overdue overhaul. Arnoutf (talk) 06:28, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

And I think that Ukraine's position could be de-emphasized. But pretty much every reliable source finds that Russia bears responsibility for the shootdown and the information warfare that followed. That's fundamental to the situation, and should be fairly prominent in the lead. Geogene (talk) 06:37, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Politicians are NOT reliable sources. And are you saying all Russian sources are unreliable? HiLo48 (talk) 06:40, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Whether politicians are reliable or not depends on the secondary sourcing. The overwhelming majority of what has been written about this incident in reliable sources is about "politicians" in some form or another, so your suggestions are against policy. And yes, the majority of Russian sources are unreliable. Geogene (talk) 06:47, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Wow, it's becoming hard to not see your position as one of non-neutral POV. HiLo48 (talk) 07:12, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't care; because I see no evidence that you understand the relevant policies. Geogene (talk) 07:15, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Please show me the policy the says the vote seeking declarations of western politicians are more useful contributions to this article than all Russian sources. HiLo48 (talk) 07:17, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
You refuse even to comprehend my argument. You just go on talking regardless. Geogene (talk) 07:20, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Please read WP:NPA. I am not the topic. HiLo48 (talk) 07:22, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
No, I believe that you are the one who should read WP:NPA. After all, you accused me of having a POV (that you don't like). Anyway, you have derailed this discussion with your non-productive banter. Geogene (talk) 07:24, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
You do have a POV I don't like. I can live with that. But don't apply it to the article. HiLo48 (talk) 07:33, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Removing "German intelligence" from the lead

Now we have in the lead such a statement: "Also in 2014, German intelligence sources reported that they believed insurgents had stolen the missile from the Ukrainian military." I have studied this case and believe that such an assertion should not be in the lead. Indeed there was a secret report of the BND to the parliamentary commission, and then someone unknown told "Spiegel", and then an unknown author of "Spiegel", as he could, retold it in the article. Double broken phone. Officially, BND didn't opened this information and there are no other sources that could confirm the correctness of the article in the "Spiegel". Summarizing - this case was of great interest in 2014, but now we should remove it from the lead. It's just another unconfirmed news report.--Nicoljaus (talk) 14:55, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Last paragraph

I think the last paragraph [Ed: in the lead] should be moved to the "Aftermath" section. The lead is definitely longer than four well-formed paragraphs. Also, as written, the lead seems to go out of its way to mention the word "Russia" as many times as possible, so it kindof reads like propaganda. There were a few other propagandist devices that I cleaned up recently, essentially using guilt-by-association: [45], [46]. I'm very concerned that it stayed in the articles for so long. Heptor (talk) 10:35, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

I removed most of the excessive use of "Russia"[47], so it doesn't look too bad now in that sense. Still too long though. Heptor (talk) 11:57, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
I now moved the paragraph to the "Aftermath" section as "discussed" above. We should be extra careful about giving descriptions like this undue weight, since it vaguely insinuates guilt. As per above, a Wikipedia article shouldn't read like propaganda for either side. Heptor (talk) 10:26, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Comment: These changes were surely "proposed", but not actually "discussed", as far I was able to find. (Personally I've noticed some changes made earlier, but haven't really noticed all what was going on in the article in the last few days.) As for the what's due and what's undue, it can work both ways: move of the Malaysian UNSC proposal (vetoed by Russia) from intro to "Aftermath": it seemed to me to be a pretty notable event in the context of the whole incident, so moving it into the section "Aftermath", without prior establishing general consensus, and under pretense of copy-editing, seems to me to be a rather large change. And attempts to remove allegedly "excessive" use of words "Russia/Russian" can also be seen in another way - Russian connection was usually pretty well supported by sources quoted (as I skimmed the changes), and it usually served to make more clear what forces were meant in the given context - so their removal can be also seen as an attempt to tone down the Russian involvement, which could be a case of wp:FALSEBALANCE. Not that I'm going to revert the changes, but I'd not going to oppose anyone who would like to review them in greater detail.-ז62 (talk) 20:15, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi ז62. Thank you for your comment. I wrote "discussed" in quotations marks somewhat ironically since I didn't get any responses to my post. I don't mind to re-open the topic, which of course deserves a thorough debate. That being said, I think the lead is reasonably balanced as it stands now: the Russian involvement is mentioned and thoroughly discussed, it's just that the word "Russia" isn't mentioned twice in every sentence as you can find in some Ukrainian sources, e.g. the public announcement by Yatsenyuk that is quoted in the article. Copy-editing is a valid supplementary argument, not a pretense: the lead was (still is) too long by Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section. My concern about the content is that that paragraph, when out of context, seems to insinuate that the Russian government may have blocked the investigation of the incident. This is at best an oversimplification: the DPR allowed observers unrestricted access to the crash site and also collaborated with the investigation in other manners. So this paragraph, when standing by itself and given a lot of weight, seems to create a one-sided impression of the situation to a less than fully diligent reader, thus violating WP:NPOV. Heptor (talk) 03:23, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

It's not about your opinion of balance, it's about whether the article's balance matches that of reliable sources. Stickee (talk) 10:44, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
@Heptor:
"Russia" and "Russian" served to identify clearly what side/forces etc. were meant (for the same purpose as "Ukraine" and "Ukrainian" are used there), in a quite complicated structure of sentences, depicting quite convoluted sequence of events, with involvement of forces of Ukraine, Russia and "pro-Russian-though-officially-not-supported insurgents" - not to assign any sort of blame on Russia as you for some reason imagined, in an undoubtedly well intentioned, but not quite so well thought through attempt at the article improvement.
What I mean - one-sided removal of words "Russia"/"Russian" do not improve readability of the intro, and their retaining would do not compromise balance of the intro in any way, as they serve merely to clarify/clearly identify what side/forces were meant, as supported by references.
Your mention of Ukrainian sources does not seem to be related to the copyediting of the English Wikipedia at all. Can you please clarify why you mentioned them?
'My concern about the content is that that paragraph, when out of context, seems to insinuate that the Russian government may have blocked the investigation of the incident.
No, it clearly states that the Russian government vetoed the 2015 proposal to prosecute those deemed responsible. Your concerns about possible misinterpretation seem to be a bit overreaacting and what disturbs me is your barely hidden intent to protect Russian government against even such a far-fetched possibility you somehow imagined.
You should also perhaps re-consider if the word re-open [the topic] is really appropriate here, as so far it hasn't been closed, and it would be pointless to think othwerwise.--ז62 (talk) 14:56, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Hello ז62. I agree that this topic needs to be debated I did not mean to imply that the issue was closed. The MH17 shoot-down happened in a war zone; the organizations connected to the crash put a great effort to avoid blame and shift it to others. At the risk of assuming a POV not everyone will agree with, I think there is plenty of blame to go around, and plenty of ways to present it. This would include at least the following parties:
  • The DPR separatists. One can frame their actions as wilful targeting of civilians, as negligent use of advanced weaponry, or as an accident despite reasonable efforts under difficult conditions.
  • Russian government. They provided the weapon that was used; some will also dispute that DPR is a separate entity from the Russian government.
  • Ukrainian government. They directed civilian airliners into a war zone when there was very little practical need to do it; this can be viewed as an error perhaps by some official in the air traffic control, or it can be as wilful and malicious attempt to protect the Ukrainian Air Force by mixing it with the civilian traffic.
  • Malaysian airlines. They flew an airliner into a zone of (aerial) combat, when there was little practical need to do so.
If you may pardon the apparent grandiloquence of the following, I am of course concerned about protecting the Russian government from undue blame as much as I am concerned about protecting everyone else. Blame distribution is not always about manipulating the facts as it is also about manipulating attention, and a large amount of effort is spent (off-Wikipedia at least) into obscuring what happened. This means that we who edit Wikipedia need to make an effort to state the matters plainly and avoid insinuating guilt, and make sure that the article don't present a false impression even when read superficially by a visitor without specialist knowledge. Heptor (talk) 16:30, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Shame that the Russian government doesn't share your wish not to create a 'false impression' isn't it. Keep up the good work seeking not to expose the Russian government to undue blame, it seems hard to believe that Putin, Lavrov et al aren't being as honest as possible. Ha, ha. 78.147.39.247 (talk) 14:55, 24 May 2018 (UTC)a short history of mh 17 on wikipedia and elsewhere [48]
@Heptor:
I did not mean to imply that the issue was closed
Then perhaps you should check a dictionary. It would also possibly help you with any legitimate copyediting work you'd attempt to undertake, on this article or elsewhere.
I would not comment at great length on all you wrote above (as it would be straying from the original issue - i.e. your excessive removal of the words "Russia/Russian" while claiming only copyediting concerns - to the events themselves), but my original point remains - you seem to be rather disturbingly concerned with protecting the Russian government ("and any other", except that you only removed mentions of "Russia/Russian" you didn't like/deemed "excessive").
Blame distribution is not always about manipulating the facts as it is also about manipulating attention, and a large amount of effort is spent (off-Wikipedia at least) into obscuring what happened.
Exactly my point - except that your excessive removals of words "Russia/Russian" can be easily interpreted in this, as these mostly served there to identify what side/forces were meant, not your imagined attempts to assign some undue blame. I would not say your edits were trying to obscure what happened, as I assume you meant quite well, but I can't see why you think they improved the article.
This means that we who edit Wikipedia need to make an effort to state the matters plainly and avoid insinuating guilt, and make sure that the article don't present a false impression even when read superficially by a visitor without specialist knowledge.
Well, for some reasons you're still avoiding some of the questions I've raised above. I mean, you can not seriously think that even the most superficially reading can mistake the 2015 UNSC resolution proposal for 2014 investigation - as you seem to believe? Please also read what Stickee wrote above. --ז62 (talk) 20:06, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
@78.147.39.247
I assume your good faith, but I think you're not really helping here as much as you'd perhaps believe. (You should perhaps also consider registering.)-ז62 (talk) 20:36, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
@62 - not trying to help at all, it was just like an exasperated comment. Is that o.k.? 21:35, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
I certainly understand your position (and what could possibly lead it, given the whole history of attempts of the Russian government to distance itself from the event, at least verbally), yet not still completely appreciating overall effect of your contributions on the discussion here.-ז62 (talk) 21:51, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
What is your objection exactly? The word "Russia/Russian" is currently the fourth most frequently used word in the lead, right after the, that, and in (when "Russia" and "Russian" are counted together as one word). For comparison, "Ukraine/Ukrainian" is the eighth most frequent word (similarly counted), and the word "aircraft" comes in eleventh. So "Russia/Russian" is not exactly under-utilized, maybe still a bit on the heavy side. Heptor (talk) 21:27, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Russia was heavily involved. According to very RS. 78.147.39.247 (talk) 21:35, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Yes, as is duly mentioned. However, the Donetsk People's republic was at least as involved, and they are only mentioned once. This seems rather artificial. We could for example replace "pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory" in the second paragraph with "DPR-controlled territory". Heptor (talk) 21:48, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Ultimately it all depends on what the sources say, not what is - according to your subjective opinion - "balanced". "Donetsk People's Republic" is an entity mentioned (due to its rather uncertain/internationally not widely recognised status) only sparsely by reliable sources given in the intro, so it's completely OK to mention the name only when given by sources.
We could for example replace "pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory" in the second paragraph with "DPR-controlled territory".
This would give unsubstantianted undue weight to the existence of the DPR as an actually existing entity. Please also read what I wrote on false balance, at least.-ז62 (talk) 22:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
@Heptor: If you have any difficulties to find what my objection was, I'd recommend you to read what I wrote above. I surely do not object to use of words "Ukraine/Ukrainian" or "aircraft" (neither do I share your - so far unexplained - fears that the correct identification of sides/parties/forces would somehow lead to somewhat assign an "undue blame" on anyone - to the contrary, it could constitute a wp:FALSEBALANCE of kind. The problem here is not "excessive/not-excessive use of word Russia/Russian", the problem here is whether the forces/sides - as given by RS - are identified clearly in the text). Also you still haven't addressed the issue with the 2015 UNSCR proposal only you seem to believe to be prone to misidentification/misattributtion.-ז62 (talk) 21:49, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
@78.147.39.247: Yes, that's what everyone knows, and only Heptor seem to be thinking that mentioning/or not mentioning these reliably sourced facts would somehow change the situation as a whole.-ז62 (talk) 21:49, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Russia/Russian is mentioned 15 times. How is that too little? Heptor (talk) 21:51, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Why are you writing that I object to correct identification of all parties? When did I say that you were objecting to use of word "Ukraine/Ukrainan"? Is the problem suddenly not the excessive/not-excessive use of "Russia/Russian"? Are you trying to say that "Donetsk People's Republic" is not a clear identification of one of the involved parties? Heptor (talk) 22:06, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Russia/Russian is mentioned 15 times. How is that too little?
You're the only one here thinking alone lines "X/Y" mentioned "too much/too little". Please read what I actually objected to, your fight against straw makes you lose last of your credibility.
Why are you writing that I object to correct identification of all parties?
Because since beginning you were consistenly arguing along lines of removing [allegedly] "excessive use of word Russia" without responding to objections based on the rather obvious referenced facts, that the sources given just identified forces/sides as such.
When did I say that you were objecting to use of word "Ukraine/Ukrainan"?
You hadn't, as this is something I've only mentioned offhand to illustrate possible problems of your approach to what your consider "neutrality".-ז62 (talk) 22:28, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Because since beginning you were consistenly arguing along lines of removing [allegedly] "excessive use of word Russia" without responding to objections based on the rather obvious referenced fact, that the sourcesgiven identified forces/sides as such.
Can you please point out to which of my recent edits you believe impeded the correct identification of the involved organizations? Heptor (talk) 22:29, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
[which of Heptor's recent edits] impeded the correct identification of the involved organizations
Have you meant your removals in the intro or your proposals/recent edits in the discussion? Because in the discussion you started here (removing "excessive" use of Russia) and , so far, finished there (suggesting to use "Donetsk People's Republic" as "correct"). You started with pretensions at copy-editing, yet your attempts are somewhat unbalanced, so as to say.--ז62 (talk) 22:38, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

:::::Do you object to any actual edits or edit suggestions that I have made? Heptor (talk) 22:43, 24 May 2018 (UTC) Retracted

I certainly did - please do carefully read my comments again, if you've failed to notice so far. It's quite unconvenient if you're somewhat unable to focus properly on what's discussed here. Also it's not entirely convincing when someone who attempts copyediting an article fails at basic reading comprehension. --ז62 (talk) 22:54, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
You write a lot, not all of it relevant to the discussion. Great many accusations, discussion of irrelevant semantics, condescending offers of assistance. Just a point to the case, you wrote your comment above three minutes after I retracted the post it was responding to. Why? Heptor (talk) 23:03, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Well, chiefly because any earlier response was impossible, due to numerous edit conflicts, your "retraction" nothwistanding. (Not to mention that you actually still do not seem to be really understanding what my objections were aimed at.)--ז62 (talk) 00:07, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
You are hardly one who'd be able to judge it all neutrally, are you? I just repeatedly pointed that your attempts to "remove excessive use of words Russia/Russian", and other changes you made under (initial) pretensions at copyediting/improving neutrality, are not actually improving the readability of article and seem to be rather suspicious. I'm sorry you failed to address these points and instead moved onto further defence of the Russian government and its allies. (I'm not a copyeditor myself, but I'd certainly not dismiss any discussion on semantics as irrelevant).--ז62 (talk) 23:36, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
So you object to my suggestion to replace the "pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory" in the second paragraph with "DPR-controlled territory". Anything else? Heptor (talk) 22:51, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Please do read rather carefully what I wrote here - my objections are more aimed against your persistent unreferenced attempts to push the terminology you personally prefer - for the sake of "neutrality" (as you subjectively see it) - instead of using correct descriptions as referenced by the sources given. I also quite of resent your attempts to dodge questions you've found inconvenient to deal with. --ז62 (talk) 23:00, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
When you write comments like you hadn't, as this is something I've only mentioned offhand to illustrate possible problems of your approach to what your consider "neutrality", I really don't know how to respond to that so I don't. Heptor (talk) 23:06, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
I write comments as I do, and I believe it's clearly not my problem if you've failed to fully comprehend them. Certainly I can not understand why you've gained some of your incorrect impressions. If I had not assumed your good faith, it would perhaps can be seem as what is sometimes called "begging the question", on your part. --ז62 (talk) 23:30, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Are you trying to say that "Donetsk People's Republic" is not a clear identification of one of the involved parties?
I certainly didn't - if identified as such by the sources given, then why not? My point, from the very beginning I got involved in this section, is that the sides/forces should be clearly and inambiguously identified - as given by the reliable neutral sources - not as you'd personally fancy it, and certainly not in accord with your rather openly stated agenda to "not mention Russia excessively".--ז62 (talk) 23:46, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
ז62 I don't understand why you have such trouble with my -- yes, openly and plainly stated -- goal not to use the word "Russia/Russian" excessively. Obviously there were attempts by the Russian government to manipulate the facts, and we should be careful to keep this out of the article. But neither should we base this article exclusively on the Ukrainian narrative. You wrote that "[Using the phrase 'DPR-controlled territory'] would give unsubstantianted undue weight to the existence of the DPR as an actually existing entity". I can't agree with that. Existence of DPR as an actual existing entity is well supported by reliable sources. It's a somewhat weird that the article tries to avoid mentioning them.
You seem to be skeptical that I am mixing arguments based on writing style with arguments based on content. But those two are related. Forcing the English language to serve a prearranged narrative usually involves bending and twisting it into shapes it doesn't want to be in. In addition to the content issue, the excessive use of the the words "Russia/Russian" is meager writing. Using synonymous expressions for "pro-Russian separatist-controlled" would be a stylistic improvement. It would increase the variety of the language, and in addition "DPR-controlled" is both shorter and more precise.
The same applies to the UN draft resolution that you think should be in the lead. The content argument is that the Russian veto is given too much weight, and the stylistic argument is that the lead is already too long as it is. Heptor (talk) 10:33, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
The sources I've seen don't refer to any "Donetsk Peoples Republic". They refer to "pro-Russian separatists" [49] and "Russian-backed rebels" [50]. The Donetsk Peoples Republic is a geopolitical euphemism promulgated by the Kremlin, and to call them that in Wikipedia's voice is POV. If the term must be used, it should be prefaced with "self-proclaimed". Geogene (talk) 16:57, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
OK.. May I ask you to please see the following sources that refer "Donetsk Peoples Republic":
  • Kuzio, Taras (2015). "Competing Nationalisms, Euromaidan, and the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict". Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism. 15 (1): 157–169. doi:10.1111/sena.12137. ISSN 1473-8481.
  • Pettersson, Therése; Wallensteen, Peter (2015). "Armed conflicts, 1946–2014". Journal of Peace Research. 52 (4): 536–550. doi:10.1177/0022343315595927. ISSN 0022-3433.
  • Laruelle, Marlene (2015). "The three colors of Novorossiya, or the Russian nationalist mythmaking of the Ukrainian crisis". Post-Soviet Affairs. 32 (1): 55–74. doi:10.1080/1060586X.2015.1023004. ISSN 1060-586X.
  • Stebelsky, Ihor (2018). "A tale of two regions: geopolitics, identities, narratives, and conflict in Kharkiv and the Donbas". Eurasian Geography and Economics: 1–23. doi:10.1080/15387216.2018.1428904. ISSN 1538-7216.
These are all journals with at least some academic merit, I did not even bother checking the mass media sources. Heptor (talk) 21:18, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
The vast majority of sources that cover MH17 don't. Therefore, this article shouldn't. Geogene (talk) 23:20, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
I found the sources above with a Google Scholar search for "Donetsk People Republic". Some sources use "self-proclaimed", others don't. Those who don't seem to be in a small majority. A Google Scholar search for "Donetsk, War" since 2018, revealed similar results. Here is another source:
  • Clem, Ralph S. (2018). "Clearing the Fog of War: public versus official sources and geopolitical storylines in the Russia-Ukraine conflict". Eurasian Geography and Economics: 1–21. doi:10.1080/15387216.2018.1424006. ISSN 1538-7216.
Heptor (talk) 23:54, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
This source uses "self-described autnomous republic"[51]. Which I think makes much more sense than "self-proclaimed", since about every single independent nation on this planet proclaimed their own independence. It wasn't the King who wrote the declaration of independence, right? Heptor (talk) 00:07, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
Although a few people use the term, it is both politically loaded and uncommon. Stebelsky's paper you listed above calls Toal (2017), Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and the Contest Over Ukraine and the Caucasus "an excellent account and interpretation of these events". Toal is searchable in Google Books, "Donetsk Peoples Republic" occurs in it twice, once on page 257 and once on page 265. And "pro-Russian separatists" is both more useful to a reader who is unfamiliar with the Donbass War, and frankly it's a more accurate description of reality. Geogene (talk) 00:11, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
It's uncommon in that book perhaps, but Google returns about an equal number of results: Pro-Russian separatists, 296 000 results; "Donetsk People's republic" 223 000 results; "Luhansk People's republic" 50 200 results. I included "Lugansk People's Republic" since the term "Pro-Russian separatists" includes that entity, and possibly also other pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine and elsewhere. So, again, no good reason for Wikipedia to consistently use "Pro-Russian separatists" over the other terms. Heptor (talk) 08:03, 26 May 2018 (UTC)


@Heptor:
I don't understand why you have such trouble with my -- yes, openly and plainly stated -- goal not to use the word "Russia/Russian" excessively.
Then you should perhaps read what I wrote earlier and perhaps attempt to address it, instead of continuing your WP:IDHT.
But neither should we base this article exclusively on the Ukrainian narrative.
Are you now attempting to claim that someone does?
Existence of DPR as an actual existing entity is well supported by reliable sources
That was certainly not my point, and I'd really prefer to not straying from copy-editing to a discussion about your opinions on the "existence of DPR as an actual entity" - that's something that should not be dealt with copyediting of the lede, at least as the term copyediting is usually understood.
You seem to be skeptical that I am mixing arguments based on writing style with arguments based on content.
You've finally noticed? Perhaps we're moving on... Please also read wp:ES - as you initially attempted to claim that you were just copy-editing.
In addition to the content issue, the excessive use of the the words "Russia/Russian" is meager writing.
a) You're the only who claim that their use was (for some unstated reason) "excessive".
b) What exactly you mean by "meager writing"? I do not speak Russian, so I have only a rather vague idea what you've meant. Can you clarify it, please?
The same applies to the UN draft resolution that you think should be in the lead.
More precisely speaking - so far you're the only one who think it should not be in the lead, while giving rather unconvincing arguments for your position .-ז62 (talk) 20:31, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
ז62 I'm sorry but a lot of what you write has little relevance for the discussion.
  • Yes, I claim that the word "Russia" was in some cases used gratuitously in the previous versions of the article, and that the article could be further improved by replacing one instance of "Pro-Russian Insurgents" with "DPR".
  • I did not claim that I was just copy-editing, but yes, most of my edits were also attempts at improving the presentation of the article.
  • There are two issues with how the UN resolution was presented. 1) It was one-sided, only presenting the information that could be used to blame Russia. In case you didn't notice I already fixed it [52] by also presenting the resolution that Russia proposed in response, but 2) the lede is still too long.
  • The diff you mentioned [53]. Yes, the words "Russia" and "Russian" served to identify clearly what side/forces etc. were meant, and in most cases they still do. Other words may also be used to identify some of the forces involved. Are you saying there are places where there is a confusion about the identity of the forces? Where?
  • I'm glad that you are showing an interest to learn Russian. But which one of the two words in "meager writing" did you have trouble with? They're both in the (English) dictionary, although "meager" is a non-universal spelling. Heptor (talk) 23:04, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
@Heptor:
I'm sorry but a lot of what you write has little relevance for the discussion.

Perhaps you should ask for some further explanation/translation someone who has less trouble to understand English than you have? I have kind of similar opinion on what you wrote, but it's chiefly because your attempts to stray from copyediting to your personal opinions supporting the "real existence of DPR" etc. I'm also sorry, if it could help you.

Yes, I claim that the word "Russia" was in some cases used gratuitously in the previous versions of the article, and that the article could be further improved by replacing one instance of "Pro-Russian Insurgents" with "DPR".

I do not dispute that you claim so, but I'm still objecting to your failure to give any rationale for doing so, and your rather transparent attempts to dodge the objections I gave above.

I did not claim that I was just copy-editing

You did, repeatedly haven't given any other explanation (when giving any edit summary at all, which was not always the case), and at least you hadn't actually stated your now openly professed pro-Russian intentions, so please do not make yourself even more ridiculous.

There are two issues with how the UN resolution was presented

They're? - Surely you claim there were, but you still haven't supported your claims by any source. Please note the difference.

Are you saying there are places where there is a confusion about the identity of the forces?

Please - try to finally read what I actually wrote, instead of such another your attempt to stray away from the discussion.

I'm glad that you are showing an interest to learn Russian.

I was? Where? That's perhaps one of the things which really bother me with your limited understanding of English.

But which one of the two words in "meager writing" did you have trouble with? They're both in the (English) dictionary, although "meager" is a non-universal spelling.

I have no problem with your spelling. If I had, I'd certainly told you so. (And I'm quite familiar with words "meager" and "writing", although you've perhaps somehow failed to notice.) I asked you - and very clearly - what you've actually meant by the expression "meager writing", so please do not attempt to stray from answering my question again. I mean - I'd somewhat expect that someone who's ambitious to be an copyeditor would not have so much trouble to understand rather basic English? -ז62 (talk) 23:41, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

@Heptor:

Why I've taken some trouble to ask you earlier was because "meager writing" - vague and rather incomprehensible as it's - was actually your first argument which bore - possibly - some actual relation to the problem of copyediting (instead of your rather openly admitted attempts "not to mention words Russia/Russian" excessively, because it would assign an undue blame"), so I was really interested in some further explanation on your part. If you chose to stay silent on the topic further, it's surely your choice.-ז62 (talk) 19:14, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Infobox summary

The current summary is: "Airliner shootdown by Buk missile from Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade."

This seems a bit confusing because it implies the Russian brigade fired the missile, while most of the article seems to indicate the missile was supplied by Russia but fired by pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists. Is there a better wording for this? 2601:644:1:B7CB:4C40:316C:B9AD:938A (talk) 16:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Well, I've chenged to: "Airliner shootdown by a missile fired from the Buk system provided by Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade"--Nicoljaus (talk) 19:15, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
I think that is an improvement. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:31, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks!--Nicoljaus (talk) 19:55, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
'Investigators had asked Russian authorities for information about the 53rd brigade but had been ignored, said Westerbeke. If specific Russian military personnel or commanders are indicted, Russia is almost certain to refuse their extradition.' 78.147.67.138 (talk) 20:12, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Russia did it, says the Infobox

Well, the article doesn't explicitly say that. It says the JIT concluded that. But the Infobox now explicitly says the Russians did it. I don't believe that's appropriate.

I know the anti-Russia gang here will again gang up and win this (it has already begun with one of the regular suspects), as they have ever since this incident happened, but I have now said my piece. HiLo48 (talk) 09:44, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I've tried better wording, which explains it better in regards to reliable sources. Can't be too wordy though, since it's the infobox. Stickee (talk) 11:56, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Infoboxes are disaster areas at the best of times. My preference is to omit any attempt at detail. That's what the article text is for. HiLo48 (talk) 11:58, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
JIT concluded that the missile was owned by a Russian army unit; so yes it was shot down by a Russian owned missile (which was the text you reverted). Whether Russian military actually pushed the button is not yet proven and was not stated. Your version (transported from Russia is way to weak) - it would be like stating that the 1945 atomic bomb on Hiroshima was caused by a nuclear bomb transported from the Mariana Islands). (talk)You can whine about us being anti-Russia but all your recent comments suggest that you are extremely non-neutrally pro-Russia. Arnoutf (talk) 13:14, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
All the time I was growing up we were told we should hate Russia because they were evil communists. They're not now, but apparently we still must hate them. My country has forts all around the coastline that were built in the 1800s, "to keep the Russians out". They never came, so I guess the forts worked. I sit back and think a lot about fear politics, and its impact. HiLo48 (talk) 00:52, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
The above includes a lot of speculations that venture beyond JIT's conclusions. We don't know who operated the SAM at the time of the shooting. If it was the local rebel forces, then one could justifiably describe it as a rebel-owned missile, supplied by Russia. The rebels probably also have less training, so they would be more likely to make the mistake that they made. At any rate, including this in the one-sentence summary in the infobox is a blatant over-simplification. I can see that many editors here want to point fingers to Russia. This is not justified, the airplane should not have been there. Heptor (talk) 18:43, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
The USA (and other nations) sell weaponry all over the world. We don't usually blame the manufacturer when a weapon is pointed in the wrong direction by the purchaser. HiLo48 (talk) 00:52, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

The current wording, Airliner shootdown by Buk missile from Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade. is consistent with sourcing, and therefore policy. Geogene (talk) 04:20, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually, it's not, because it is inevitably abbreviated to fit the Infobox, leaving out some details. If we could fit all necessary detail an an Infobox, we wouldn't need the text part of articles. HiLo48 (talk) 04:26, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
We could add that it was shot over an area of armed conflict at least. That's an essential piece of context. Heptor (talk) 07:20, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
If Russia had given or sold it to the rebels they should have provided evidence to JIT of that transaction. Since Russia did not provide that evidence, JIT can safely assume it was still missile from a Russian army unit (as the infobox now claims). Arnoutf (talk) 07:27, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
When Russia decided to share some hand-me-down Buks with their mercenary allies, they should have informed aviation authorities beforehand, so that NOTAMs could be issued over Eastern Ukraine all the way up to 30,000 ft. There is no justification to sugarcoat Russia's responsibility in the article, because sources are focusing on Russia's responsibility. The why were there still civilian targets in Russia's illegal new missile range is a fringe argument. Geogene (talk) 15:03, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
It's a moot point Geogene. Two planes were shot down over Eastern Ukraine while flying well above the range of man-portable SAMs before the MH17 disaster. So the Ukrainian authorities knew very well that such weapons were deployed. Heptor (talk) 21:05, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Russia rejects any charges brought by the commission involving Ukraine, and which are not based on any real evidence. The so-called messages from Ukrainian social networks are another rubbish made by the SBU. Photos do not have a binding to the place and time. Finally, the number of the Buk rocket belongs to the series, which was produced in 1986. In Russia, all missiles 1986 release were to be liquidated no later than 2011. 2.132.80.11 (talk) 20:42, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Ukraine's responsibility

The final report of the Dutch Safety Boards is quite direct in stating that Ukrainian authorities bear much of the responsibility for the loss of MH17, mainly because they knew that high-altitude anti-aircraft weapons were deployed, and should have closed their airspace earlier. Link to the report: https://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/uploads/phase-docs/1006/debcd724fe7breport-mh17-crash.pdf?s=678D995FE7E3080B6256880A456CED959FE4ECBC

Here is a few quotes from the report:

  • p. 209: "When implementing the above measures, the Ukrainian authorities took insufficient notice of the possibility of a civil aeroplane at cruising altitude being fired upon. This was also the case, when, according to the Ukrainian authorities, the shooting- down of an Antonov An-26 on 14 July 2014 and that of a Sukhoi Su-25 on 16 July 2014 occurred while these aeroplanes were flying at altitudes beyond the effective range of MANPADS"
  • p. 207: "the Dutch Safety Board considers this risk assessment to be incomplete because it does take threats to military aircraft into account, but does not account for the consequences to civil aviation of potential errors or slips."
  • p 199: "In order to give an indication of the financial consequences of the closure of the Dnipropetrovsk FIR after 17 July 2014, the Dutch Safety Board estimated the revenues per day using EUROCONTROL’s statement of the number of international flights that had flown through the Dnipropetrovsk FIR between May and July 2014. To do so, the Dutch Safety Board counted the number of flights per aircraft type on two random days, 1 April and 15 June 2014, and then calculated the route charges. The estimated charges amounted to approximately € 176,000 on 1 April 2014 and approximately € 248,000 on 15 June 2014."

I tried to expand the article to reflect this,[54] but I got promptly reverted,[55][56] and, for good measure, I also got templated on my talk page.[57] I don't see any good-faith arguments not to include this in the article, but Ahunt, Volunteer Marek please feel free to state your case. Heptor (talk) 20:54, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Why do you have a conflict of interest here? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't have a conflict of interest. I don't receive, and I have never received any form of compensation for editing Wikipedia. I tried to tell it to Ahunt, but he simply deleted my message from his talk page[58]. So there is that too. 21:09, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
A conflict of interest can involve more than just paid editing, it can also involve a history of biased editing in support of a cause, that shows that the editor has a connection to the subject. You don't have to be paid to edit Wikipedia, to be in a conflict of interest. In this case your editing history speaks for itself. - Ahunt (talk) 21:37, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Ahunt, please consider that disagreeing with your views is not, ipso facto, a conflict of interest. Heptor (talk) 21:45, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
If you check my editing history on this article you will see that I have no POV that I am pushing here, whereas your history shows that you clearly do. Trying to obscure your COI here by couching it as a content dispute is disingenuous and doesn't hold water. You have now been called out by several editors for POV-pushing and COI. - Ahunt (talk) 13:04, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Ahunt, having a disagreement with another editor is not a conflict of interest. It sounds like you think you WP:OWN the article but this is contrary to Wikipedia's rules, no one person gets to decide that their views are the truth and someone else's are POV. Instead of resorting to accusations and personal attacks, please assume good faith and try to focus on how we can improve the content of the article per Wikipedia's policies. That's why we have the talk page! :) 2601:644:1:B7CB:497D:AEB6:D07F:431E (talk) 16:14, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Slightly off-topic (but MI6 monitored) section
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Come on now, admit it. Have you ever been to Salisbury? Know anything about door-knobs? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:49, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Enlighten me about Salisbury :) Heptor (talk) 21:53, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Ah, shucks. Obviously you haven't. Just forget I ever mentioned knobs. Sorry to disturb you. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:59, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Aaaah, clever[59]. But Martinevans123, why would you assume that a Russian spy would do something about the anti-Russian bias on WP? Putin has other means to inform his own peons, and he is probably quite happy if his people perceive that the West is against them. Heptor (talk) 22:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Ah, so you admit you know Vladimir! We're just all relieved you didn't cover yourself in pigs' blood and pretend to get yourself murdered. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:06, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
You should be more concerned that I might take the easy way out of this discussion. It's surprisingly popular [60], [61]everyone is doing it. Heptor (talk) 22:18, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for those very interesting links, especially that last from European Psychiatry. Perhaps a new article, is called for. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:28, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
We do have Suicide in Ukraine. But it needs to be updated, it currently states that Ukraine is ranked 13th in the World. Heptor (talk) 23:12, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

On topic: Your quotes do indeed show that Ukraine shared some of the responsibility by not closing their airspace, and while mentioned (just look for the word airspace in the article) I would agree to slightly stronger wording on that topic. However, these quotes do not support your interpretation "much of the responsibility", so don't overdo. Arnoutf (talk) 07:26, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the revision history, it was actually Arnoutf and I who wrote the text in that section in the first place [62] [63]. I made sure that the text accurately reflected the DSB report and the responsibility it lay on Malaysia Airlines and Ukraine for the airspace selection. I think it's fairly accurate and in-depth enough as-is. Furthermore, it's a bit out of context. For example, the report elaborates, "such states rarely close their airspace or provide aeronautical information with specific information or warnings about the conflict.", acknowledging that you can't rely on a country closing it's airspace. For that reason, they later recommended that the ICAO "amend relevant Standards so that risk assessments [conducted by airlines] shall also cover threats to civil aviation in the airspace at cruising level" (pg 265). I already inserted a summary of that recommendation in the section back in 2015. Stickee (talk) 07:35, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
The present version of the article severely understates how far the DSB went in criticizing the Ukrainian management of their airspace. The DSB report includes statements like "In the international system of responsibilities, the sovereign state bears sole responsibility for the safety of the airspace" (p. 262). DSB goes far in suggesting that the Ukrainian authorities neglected safety for the sake of maintaining the cash flow, ref their thorough analysis of the cash flow in Section 6.4.2. As to Stickee's comment about the context – the report states that in the other conflicts that were examined there were no clear indications of medium or long-range surface-to-air missiles being present. It is almost rhetorical to state that the Ukrainian authorities knew that Russia possesses medium and long-range surface-to-air missiles, and that they knew that these weapons were deployed against their air force. The risk of operating civilian traffic in areas where such weapons are operational is nothing if not obvious. It was a very chilling act of negligence, which is clearly reflected in the report. I don't understand how you can look at this through your fingers.
I believe that the report could be represented in the article more faithfully. I'll start by including some of the conclusions, if you have specific criticisms to the material I add please state it here. Thanks, Heptor (talk) 18:02, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Well, I finally got around to updating the article. I understand that some people here disagree with this, but the update seems to be solidly supported by the contents of the report. Another update, the article was focusing on the fact that many airlines were still flying over the Eastern Ukraine, and didn't mention that many were also avoiding it. I added this, with reference to an article in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/airlines-avoid-ukraine-airspace-mh17. Heptor (talk) 20:03, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
I don't believe that was a faithful summary of the DSB report. For starters, your edit here replaced a direct quote from the final report, from a sentence from some Guardian article. It's amazing how you listed the airlines that weren't flying in the area (which wasn't in the report!), but failed to listed the airlines that were, completely ignore what the DSB said. It's quite telling. Stickee (talk) 12:48, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
About your starters, it's a well-know fact that several airlines avoided the Eastern Ukrainian airspace, it's not just "some Guardian article" as you stated it. There is no reason for this information not to be in the article. Again, DSB clearly states that Ukraine was responsible for the safety of its airspace for as long as it chose to keep it open. This is completely ignored in the article. Heptor (talk) 17:15, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
I actually didn't notice that you didn't revert the info I added about the airlines that were avoiding the eastern Ukrainian airspace. Great, we are making progress. Heptor (talk) 19:50, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
I've restored the prev. text, giving edit reasons. Reading this section, it seems pure WP:OR to go from recommendations as to how airlines/Ukraine could have been/should in future be more prudent, to placing responsibility on either for the outcome. Not only OR, but rather offensive OR. A recommendation to improve procedures for avoiding areas of conflict/reporting risks does not equate to making either MA or Ukraine responsible. Pincrete (talk) 17:50, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Comment on the neutrality of the article

This discussion is closed per WP:NOTFORUM. The comments here are personal opinion-based, as opposed to based on an objective assessment of sources, which is how neutrality is determined, and that is what makes them inappropriate, particularly for a page under discretionary sanctions. This is administrative policy enforcement and any further edit warring over this section or any further attempts to de-archive will result in a block or a ban from this page. Swarm ♠ 01:27, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

about this article, let me say this. I read the talk page since the beginnings and while i would be inclined to believe to the 'ufficial version' about the shooting down of the 777, some things seems clear to me. One of them, it's the blatalantly attitude of some editors to put always in the 'unreliable' source anything was not responded to the US agenda, i.e. russian press, as example. Some editors seemed to be highly biased and devoted months to rebut anything was not in the line with US attidute toward Russia and the 'ucranian crisis' (actually a coup plus a democide war against russophones in the east, but ehy, we cannot 'draw conclusion on this issue because wikipedia is not a tribunal' and Odessa massacre was a 'skirmish'). Incidentally, it's likely that Russia was really involved with the MH17 downing, but, BUT... the attitude of western politicians against Russia and russophones was clear since the beginning, and english wikipedia followed the 'reliable sources' who based their articles on US agenda (just remember Udo Ulfkotte to understand 'how' the western press is reliable). This is really not well suited for the 'neutral' wikipedia: sort the RS (alway western) by unreliable sources (Russian) just like wikipedia did in other famous political crisis (see Irak). But this is what reckelessy wikipedia 'truth holders' did since july 2014, well before any reliable evidence about the responsability of MH17 downing. Another point quite clear, is, that the whole story was heavily in advantage of ucrainian 'democratic' Poroshenko. They displaced the previous government with a shameless coup, then started the war against russians, and this with the active support of USA (see McKain and Nuland in Kiev). Despite the criminal attitude of the new ucrainian president (use of heavy artillery over cities, as example), thousands dead and brutal attitude toward russophones, the western press/politics and well shadowed, by wikipedia (atleast english), has got a good game aginst Putin, just like they did in 2008 with Georgia-Russia war (for months Georgian screamed that they were 'attacked' by russians), attacking Russia while shielding the crimes perpretated by Kiev, and even showing an absolute ridicule condemning the Crimea annession (forgetting how 'democratic' was the Montenegro indipendence, but hey, they were our friends!) So really, this article, realistic or not, was biased since the beginning by attitudes that cannot be accepted in a 'neutral' encyclopedia. In the meanwhile, Poroshkenko swift used politically the new 'unbiased' report made by his friends in Europe, to attack Russia: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko promised in a Facebook post (in Ukrainian) that he would "spare no effort to ensure that the actions of the Russian Federation as a state which supports terrorism get an appropriate assessment" that is the precise problem identified by many wiki users since 2014, even if trated as 'fakes' 'russian sockpuppets' and 'fringe theoryst' by the 'knowledgeable' US/english users. Really a shame. --62.11.0.22 (talk) 19:22, 16 August 2018 (UTC) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28357880

I'd agree with you that "it's likely that Russia was really involved with the MH17 downing". Unlike you, I don't think that's just "incidental". Martinevans123 (talk) 14:14, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

-- hatted Jytdog (talk) 15:29, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Unhatted. Don't dismiss criticism, this is grossly inappropriate for Wikipedia. I don't necessarily approve what IP62 says, but I will indeed defend to the death wikiblock his right to say it. Yes, per Evelyn Beatrice Hall. Heptor (talk) 11:26, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

I reported removal and/or "hatting" of comments to the Admin noticeboard. Comments from three editors disputing the neutrality of the article [64][65][66] have been thus far suppressed . Heptor (talk) 16:27, 18 August 2018 (UTC)


Our IP editor is quite correct about the bias of this article. It still contains the claims from Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, that he made obviously without any knowledge, within mere hours of the event. He did this for purely political reasons. It seems his words are in the article for purely political reasons. His party has since sacked him as Prime Minister because of his lack of credibility in Australia. But a lot of editors here still love him. HiLo48 (talk) 23:02, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Unhatted to show that the claimed consensus on this article is challenged by several editors. HiLo48 (talk) 23:38, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

About the press conference of 17 September

There is no change to content under discussion. This talk page is a not a forum for discussing the news, opinions, or feelings Jytdog (talk) 21:44, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

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

The only interesting information is serial numbers. JIT requested this information in May, but received no reply. Interestingly, the team did not claim that the serial numbers refer to the same rocket that hit the MH-17. But the belonging of the launcher to the 53rd rocket brigade was stated quite definitely. Thus, the position of the Team has not changed, the conclusions remain the same.--Nicoljaus (talk) 07:31, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

I think the only context it can be added under is continued disinformation of the Russian government (following the Spanish air controller, the Ukrainian fighter jet etc), but we need good non-partisan sources making this claim.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:35, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Suggesting it's "disinformation of the Russian government" is obviously speculation, and would seem to be a demonstration of a non-neutral POV. "...we need good non-partisan sources making this claim". Good luck with that. I haven't seen any non-partisan sources yet making any of the claims about this incident. You would first have to find a source that was not already involved in the propaganda war with Russia at the time. All so far have definitely been partisan. HiLo48 (talk) 08:18, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Did you try looking at Al Jazeera or smth like this? Japanese sources? Even Chinese sources? --Ymblanter (talk) 08:26, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Btw it is of course up to you to accuse me in anti-Russian POV (same way as Ukrainian POV pushers accuse me in pro-Russian POV when I make edits they do not like and block them per NOTTHERE), but I would like still to see any media which are not directly or indirectly paid by the Russian government and take these ridiculuous claims seriously.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:30, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
The loss of 193 of one's fellow nationals can colour one's views somewhat? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:28, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
I personally knew one of the passengers. I don't trust any of the reports and claims about the incident. That's my neutral position on this. Blaming someone for ideological reasons will never bring that person back. Sadly, my own country's government did just that right from the start. HiLo48 (talk) 08:31, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
It's not a matter of trust for me. More one of which scenario is best supported by the evidence. All of the victims deserve the truth, however hard that might be to find/. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Suggesting it's "disinformation of the Russian government" is obviously speculation - nope, it's just experience. It is impossible to write an article when at each press-conference the main suspect offers a new, completely irrefutable version of the events.--Nicoljaus (talk) 08:39, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
the main suspect. Look here. The military knocks down the airliner and despite the obvious evidence of their guilt, they deny all it. Even after their country had paid compensation for the victims' families. And then there was not even a war...
So the main suspect was to be the Ukrainian side. But, for some reason they are members of JIT. And we must believe their tales of a Russian missile system that crossed the border presumably for the sole purpose of knocking down a Malaysian airliner and immediately left the country after that. 2.132.232.144 (talk) 15:25, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
It is no surprise that the current main suspect is denying everything just like Ukraine did back then. The JIT also never claimed that the sole purpose was to shoot down a Malaysian airliner, which would be a ridiculous claim of course. This was a tragic accident due to the careless handling of one or more parties who are logically being held accountable. Thayts ••• 19:17, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Wholly agree. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:46, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
What an extraordinary collection of original research! On any other topic, it simply would not be seen as acceptable in Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 22:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
You're a little too excited. Something went wrong?--Nicoljaus (talk) 22:05, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
main suspect is denying everything just like Ukraine did back then - this is just my words.--Nicoljaus (talk) 22:09, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
a tragic accident due to the careless handling of one or more parties. Well, let's look at the Ukrainian army. Unprofessional soldiers and officers who commit crimes against civilians, drink and kill their colleagues? Checked out. Buk systems in service? Checked out. The habit of denying their crimes despite full evidence? Checked out. In fact, there is only one factor in favor of the Ukrainian (if it can be called so): the absolute desire of the transatlantic elites to declare the Russian side guilty regardless of the facts. 37.151.19.210 (talk) 06:03, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I said nothing about who those parties are. Ukraine might as well have had some part in it, but I don't know so I'm not throwing unfounded or irrelevant arguments around to support my own view on the matter (whatever view that is). But if there is one thing I'd want to say, then that is that Russia also has a habit of denying their crimes. Thayts ••• 07:01, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
"Russia also has a habit of denying their crimes." Unhelpful and unacceptable POV. HiLo48 (talk) 08:32, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Not a POV, just putting some weight in the balance. Thayts ••• 08:57, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Now that's PURE POV. HiLo48 (talk) 10:45, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Eh? So it's ok to say the Ukrainians have a history of denying their crimes. But saying the same about the Russians is "unacceptable POV?" Martinevans123 (talk) 11:02, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I have already said, I don't trust the statements from any country on this matter. If someone insists on highlighting the past sins of just one party, we have a bias problem. Can you name a country that has never told a lie at an official level? HiLo48 (talk) 22:01, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Is this a starter for ten, or can we go straight to the picture round? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:12, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
"Russia also has a habit of denying their crimes. Name two. 37.151.19.210 (talk) 11:15, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

"You're a little too excited." I am not the topic. HiLo48 (talk) 23:09, 18 September 2018 (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.

Buk or SA-11?

I think the actual Russian name is preferable to the US DoD one for a Russian weapon system. --John (talk) 06:13, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps there can be used "SA-11", since it definitely was not SA-17.--Nicoljaus (talk) 07:43, 19 September 2018 (UTC)--Nicoljaus (talk) 09:16, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I think I'd still rather use the original Russian descriptor for the version of missile it was, rather than the American one. --John (talk) 09:55, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I see that SA-11 redirects to Buk missile system anyway. I agree that use of an American name seems a bit out of place here. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:59, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
"BUK" is a family of systems. The USA classifies them into two groups (SA-11 and SA-17), according to the type of missile used. In this case, the BUK-M1-2 can use both the old 9M38M1 and the newer 9M317. So if the term SA-11 is mentioned in the sources (and it is mentioned there, for example), then it should be in the article, because the source definitely does not mean any kind of "BUK", but only one that corresponds to SA-11 according to the USA classification.--Nicoljaus (talk) 10:30, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
That's a very fair point. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:35, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Not really. And it's "Buk", not "BUK". --John (talk) 15:22, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, it's the Russian word for "Beech", not an acronym or a brand name of any kind. The Cyrillic would use lower case just like the Latin. see ru:Бук (зенитный ракетный комплекс) Martinevans123 (talk) 21:52, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
As for me, in the sentence "An unnamed American intelligence official stated that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 may have been shot down in error by pro-Russian separatists, citing evidence that separatists launched an SA-11 surface-to-air missile that blew up the Malaysian airliner", the term "SA-11" should remain, see the ref: [67]--Nicoljaus (talk) 10:58, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, there are SA-11 in all refs. So, I will return previous version. Any objections?--Nicoljaus (talk) 12:03, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I still object. We should not use an American term for a Russian missile system. --John (talk) 14:28, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, you will have to accept this, as long as the quoted sources use the American term.--Nicoljaus (talk) 14:52, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
No, I won't. Wikipedia doesn't work like this. If it is important to specify which model of Buk was used, we should quote the actual model number, not what another country's government calls it. Is it important? I think there are other, more serious problems with the article; it has suffered from accretion of cruft over the years. --John (talk) 15:21, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
When we retell the sources, we should not think up for them the exact "actual model number". And we should not hide the model, which they accurately named, for some reason.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicoljaus (talk • contribs) 15:42, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Some observations/ questions before we get into a full-scale edit war.... The word "Buk" is used in the article 83 times, including in the infobox? Isn't some consideration of consistency called for? Are those American sources the only ones that can be found in support? Are there other pertinent sources that use "Buk" instead? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:24, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I believe I am correct when I say that Ukraine does possess Buks, but it does not possess SA-11s. As Ukraine is the subject of Russian counter-theories, their not possessing the relevant model is not a small detail to be ignored as though 'all Buks are the same in the dark'. Pincrete (talk) 15:36, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I believe I am correct when I say that Ukraine does possess Buks, but it does not possess SA-11s - As far as I know, this is not true. SA-11 is an older version, it is available both in Ukraine and in Russia. Only Russia has SA-17. But Buk-M1-2 from 53 brigade suitable for the term SA-11, as it used the old missile.--Nicoljaus (talk) 15:46, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I do not require to insert the SA-11 anywhere, only where the sources are cited, which named it so. Otherwise, we will distort what was said in the source.--Nicoljaus (talk) 15:38, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
You don't see this as a source of potential confusion for the reader? So these two terms are not synonymous and it will introduce "distortion"? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:42, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
The missile has been referred to as an 'SA-11' on the article (where relevant) since at least 2016 - so the onus is on those who wish to change to 'Buk' to make their case. I believe the model is key evidential information and should be referred to where necessary/sourced. Clarification should be provided if needed. But I oppose strongly a change to 'Buk' at the expense of full, accurate information. Pincrete (talk) 15:50, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
As I say, there will be a way to reach a solution. It will probably not consist of reverting. --John (talk) 16:11, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Our current Wikipedia articles treat these two terms as synonymous, which is why we have a direct re-direct from SA-11 to Buk missile system? There are other model types, as differentiated in the "Buk missile system" article, but the one we call simply "Buk" = "SA-11". Do you agree or disagree? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:13, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Buk is what the vast majority of sources use so should we.Andrewgprout (talk) 17:59, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Where sources use the more specific term (SA-11), I believe we should also. If any clarification is needed as a result, we can provide. Where/why in the text does anyone think there is presently confusion? Pincrete (talk) 19:18, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I strongly disagree. There is confusion because we currently use two names for one weapon system. One name would be better. And yes, we can clarify where necessary. But not by using another country's codenames. --John (talk) 19:47, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Why is SA-11 "more specific"? Isn't it just more US-fiendly? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:14, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Because it means Buk with the older missile 9M38M1, which was actually used against MH17.--Nicoljaus (talk) 20:53, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, short history of conflict:

"SA-11" was in the article since July 2014: a damage pattern indicative of a SA-11. So, what we have:
1. Change in the consensus version: [68] - the revert to consensus: [69]
2. Start of the edit war, re-introduction of non-consensus changes: [70] and the righteous revert: [71]
3. Third addition of non-consensus changes: [72] and the righteous revert: [73]
4. Finally, Andrewgprout have made the fourth (!!!) entering of non-consensus changes and the third revert for this one day: [74].

I can not imagine what it was for.--Nicoljaus (talk) 21:04, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Maybe the edit summaries could help you? Is the Buk missile system article to be believed or not? SA-11 can be used to describe both the 9М38 and the 9М38M1. If it was the latter, then all references to "Buk" should really be to "Buk-M1". Martinevans123 (talk) 21:13, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Both the 9М38 and the 9М38M1 but not newer 9M317. I said this in my first (sorry-second) edit in this topic.--Nicoljaus (talk) 21:24, 19 September 2018 (UTC)9М38--Nicoljaus (talk) 21:26, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I think we can all discount "9M317". I think we're all agreed there. I think even Ivor Girkin would agree, if we could ask him. But that doesn't really address the problem that, if we agree with both your preferred designation and the WP article on the Buk missile system, "Buk" is wrong? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:30, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Look at the articles that are cited with the use of the term SA-11. They also use this term, not other. WP article explains the difference between SA-11 and SA-17 in the first three paragraphs of the preamble.--Nicoljaus (talk) 21:40, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Eh? Who wants to put "SA-17" exactly? I thought we were discussing the merits of "Buk" vs "SA-11"?Martinevans123 (talk) 21:42, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Who wants to put "SA-17" exactly? Nobody, as far as I know. And your question is very strange. We discuss, that "Buk" include "SA-17" but when the source uses "SA-11", it obviously excludes "SA-17".--Nicoljaus (talk) 22:29, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
And could all meat-puppets either own up or please leave the room before we continue the discussion? Thanks so much. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:24, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, may be I was incorrectly using "meatpuppet" instead Wikipedia:Canvassing. But now i see the third user have joined the edit warring. What about to stop the POV-pushing by such a way? I know, i know - Rules for Fools, and 12 years of adminship, and so on....--Nicoljaus (talk) 22:34, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Oooo, how very mysterious. But you can always still pitch your tent over at AN/I, if you really feel the need. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:41, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, nothing but empty trolling.--Nicoljaus (talk) 22:48, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Perhaps you could open a sub-thread here for AN/I actionable offences? Or else just get back to "Buk vs SA-11"?? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:52, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Fairly simple question? I understood SA-11 to be a broad model type designation, is this correct? The impression from the above discussion is that all SA-11s are Buks, but not all Buks are SA-11s (some are SA-17s for example). Is my understanding correct?

Would it satisfy honour all round if we referred to a 'Buk' whenever that generic term is used by the source and 'SA-11 (Buk)' - or somesuch - whenever SA-11 is used. My objections (or at least cautiousness) is twofold, firstly avoiding using a more generic term (Buk) than necessary, secondly using terminology other than that used by the sources. Pincrete (talk) 21:30, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

If we are to believe Buk missile system, "SA-11" refers only 9K37 or 9K37M. If we are to believe Nicoljaus, the actual system being discussed here is the latter and so all instances of "Buk" should really be "Buk-M1" (unless perhaps the original source was using "Buk" in a deliberately general sense). My personal reservation is that the reader may see "SA-11" and think it's a totally different missile system. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:40, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, as I see from the open source, SA-11 cover Buk-M1 and Buk-M1-2, but only if the later is equipped with the 9М38M1 missile. The new, much better missile type 9M317 has the designation SA-17 and it also can be used by Buk-M1-2. The later version of Buk - Buk-M2, - can use only 9M317. So, if any expert knew the type of missile used, he could say this is SA-11 or SA-17 type, even if he didn't know the exact type of the system (Buk-M1 or Buk-M1-2, or Buk-M2).
I agree, 'SA-11 (Buk)' is a good choice. And 'Buk (SA-11)' is a good variant too.--Nicoljaus (talk) 07:57, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
That's a pretty clear explanation. Nicoljaus makes the useful distinction between the system (launcher) and the actual missile. So use will depend on the context. It might be useful to see what that "open source" is, since someone might want to re-visit the table in the "Comparison" sub-section, at Buk missile system, to check that it is still accurate? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:39, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
It might be useful to see what that "open source" is Well, this book, for example. It classifies Buk-M1-2 as 'SA-11 Gadfly", and then says that the new missile SA-11 Grizzly allowed Buk-M1-2 to engage medium-range ballistic missiles. USA DoD reporting names are often used for whole complex, unlike NATO designations.--Nicoljaus (talk) 11:42, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
Note: Annex X of the original Dutch Safety Board report says: ".... boundary and impact angles of damage, number and density of hits, size of penetrations and bowtie fragments found in the wreckage, is consistent with the damage caused by the 9N314M warhead used in the 9M38 and 9M38M1 BUK surface-to-air missile.” [75] Martinevans123 (talk) 13:53, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
The article is pretty clear. The first instance of the term "SA-11" is this: "... then the missile was fired from a mobile Soviet-designed Buk missile system (NATO reporting name: SA-11 "Gadfly")" Provided we can expect the reader can actually remember this, I don't see a huge problem. Apart from the explanatory one, and the two instances in dispute, there are only two others. Are those considered problematic too? For the two in dispute, certainly the sources use SA-11. However, The New York Times mistakenly seems to think SA-11 applies only to the missile. Likewise the The Sydney Morning Herald seems to assume that "SA-11" is just the missile or warhead: "A Royal United Services Institute analyst, Justin Bronk, also said it indicated the plane was taken out by an SA-11 missile fired from a Buk-M1." I think we've all agreed that SA-11 is properly used to refer to the entire system plus missile. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:53, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
I think we've all agreed that SA-11 is properly used to refer to the entire system plus missile I'm not sure. SA-11 designates the type of missile too. But it is often used to denote the whole complex. Justin Bronk believed that the missile was of the type SA-11 and even undertaked to specify the type of the complex more accurately, i.e. not just SA-11, but Buk-M1.--Nicoljaus (talk) 15:51, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
So perhaps it can be "properly used" to refer to either the missile or the launcher/system. I see that Jane's refers to it as "9K37 Buk" and describes it as a "Self-propelled Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) system." Martinevans123 (talk) 15:58, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
As far as I can see, for both options. In the NYT article, defense analyst with IHS Jane’s definitely talks about the missile.--Nicoljaus (talk) 07:57, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Unless used widely by reliable sources (which I cant see) I am not sure why an unofficial American term is needed in the article, the United States is not involved so why use the term. MilborneOne (talk) 16:07, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Because the term 'SA-11' is more specific than 'Buk' (SA-11 covers a broad family of, but not all, Buks) and because certain sources specifically use the term, rather than 'Buk' - clarification, to my mind is the proper route when 'SA-11' is used - rather than modifying what the source says. The US (and other states) are involved to the extent that they predicted early on what the weapon used probably was (predictions which largely coincide with the DSB final report). Pincrete (talk) 19:40, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Sorry but the term SA-11 has nothing to do with the people who make or use the weapon its just a code made up by a third-party. Do any of the official sources from the manufacturer or users call it the SA-11, we shouldnt use made up terms that were invented by the Americans as in some instances they didnt know what they were really called. MilborneOne (talk) 19:59, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
The people who make and use the weapon have been very silent and evasive on this matter - we aren't going to get much info from them! Western sources (which are the vast majority) sometimes use the term 'SA-11', sometimes the more generic 'Buk'. People like the DSB have used the even more specific model numbers and warhead numbers. If we use western sources, do we report the actual term they used, (clarifying if there is any confusion), or do we 'pretend' they used a more generic Russian term? Pincrete (talk) 21:37, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
The evidence supports a very specific variety of Buk. The counter-argument seems to be based on what is used in sources, some of which may be American, and which use the term SA-11 for good reasons of familiarity. There might also be chronological reasons why "SA-11" was used at that particular time e.g. not enough official analysis had been published at that time? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:46, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
I generally prefer to use the term used most commonly by reliable sources. The DSB mostly uses Buk ("The weapon used was a 9N314M-model warhead carried on the 9M38-series of missiles, as installed on the Buk surface-to-air missile system."), as does the JIT ("The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) is convinced of having obtained irrefutable evidence to establish that on 17 July 2014, flight MH-17 was shot down by a BUK missile from the 9M38-series."). In all their press conferences they refer to it as "Buk" or "BUK" too. Additionally, pretty much all news sites refer to it as "Buk" as well. Stickee (talk) 00:04, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
The DSB mostly uses Buk - DSB determined the type of missile only in July 2015. In the article, we retell the sources since July 2014. And there it is SA-11, which can be Buk, Buk-M1 or Buk-M1-2.--Nicoljaus (talk) 07:42, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Several false conspiracy theories...

Hi, I have removed the following sentence from the lead:

Several false conspiracy theories about the crash have since appeared in Russian media, including that the aircraft was being followed by a Ukrainian military jet.[1][2]

Calling these "false conspiracy theories" is just editorializing, it's enough to state that these are "alternate theories" and clearly attribute them to a source to make it clear these claims are not endorsed by Wikipedia. However, I fail to see why this needs to be in the lead in the first place. The surrounding sentences make it clear that Russia denied responsibility, so I'm not sure why Russian media treatment of the incident was significant. 2601:644:1:B7CB:497D:AEB6:D07F:431E (talk) 16:36, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Calling conspiracy theories with no connection to reality "alternate theories" goes against WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:38, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Neither source states these theories are "conspiracy theories" or false. In fact, at the time these claims were put forward the now-accepted version of events was not established. The Washington Post source mentions a claim by Russian military about the aircraft being in the vicinity of a Ukrainian military jet. The New York only only uses "conspiracy theory" in scare quotes in a headline. The actual article states as follows:

Russia laid out two detailed theories on what took down MH17. Unsurprisingly, they both contradict Western accusations that separatists accidentally took down a civilian jet with a Russia-supplied weapon. Instead, Russian air force chief Lt. Gen. Igor Makushev suggested that the plane was shot out of the sky by the Ukrainians, using either missile systems or a fighter plane.

So this clearly violates WP:SYN in my opinion. Furthermore, it's not necessary to editorialize like this, it's sufficient to let the facts speak for themselves: Russian military said X, the JIT said Y, citing evidence Z.
I think maybe the difficulty arises from the fact that there are two pieces to this sentence. First, there is an implied claim that "Russian media published 'false conspiracy theories' which other sources disagree with." Second, there is the claim itself. I have edited to keep the latter part, which is well-supported by the sources, while removing the first part as pointless editorializing. 2601:644:1:B7CB:497D:AEB6:D07F:431E (talk) 16:53, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
I see my changes keep getting reverted by the POV owners of the article, sad. Anyway, for posterity, here's my proposed version (combining this claim with the previous sentence):

The Russian defense ministry stated that it had never deployed anti-aircraft missile systems in Ukraine, and suggested the aircraft may have been shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet or missile system.

Maybe we can reach a consensus here in talk, then fix the article.2601:644:1:B7CB:497D:AEB6:D07F:431E (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:56, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
I don't think you need to remove the internal link. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:58, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
It's in the TOC. Is the purpose of the sentence just to shoehorn in an editorial comment about Russian media bias? 2601:644:1:B7CB:497D:AEB6:D07F:431E (talk) 17:06, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes, all section headings are in the TOC. The link just helps the reader. I disagree, it's not there "just to shoehorn in an editorial comment". The wording could be adjusted. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:10, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Then what is it there for? 2601:644:1:B7CB:19B8:4095:CF3:361A (talk) 02:56, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Please don't call other editors "you morons" as you did here. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:00, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Indeed, that was uncivil. I find it slightly amusing that the owners of the article are so eager to push their POV they don't even pay attention to the content of the minor edits and just revert everything to the established version. But I digress. 2601:644:1:B7CB:497D:AEB6:D07F:431E (talk) 17:06, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
I've made a grand total of three edits to this article, my reversion of your edit being the third. Yeah, clearly I'm just guilty of WP:OWN and you're not just failing to assume good faith. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:11, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Please don't accuse other editors as "owners of the article". The article has been achieved through collaborative consensus-building. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:13, 1 June 2018 (UTC):
Re "The article has been achieved through collaborative consensus-building", well this was unfortunately a statement of grandeur with limited basis in reality. Not much consensus was involved in the building of the article, not lately at least. Although I can't support 2601:644:1:B7CB:497D:AEB6:D07F:431E's view either. It's quite obvious that many of the theories that were put forward in the Russian media were a bunch of patent nonsense, and they should be clearly labeled as such on Wikipedia. Heptor (talk) 18:16, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
That's very dismissive and is also quite uncharitable to the very many editors who have helped to write this article over the past four years. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:23, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
@Martinevans123: I do apologize if it came off like that. Wasn't much consensus here lately though. Heptor (talk) 18:32, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
The word "conspiracy" isn't necessary though. The false theories that were put forward were not all "conspiracy theories". Could "bogus" be the right adjective to properly deride them in the lead? Heptor (talk) 18:21, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
I agree "bogus" might be better. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:25, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Why not just report the claims as claims like reliable sources are doing? Why do we need to qualify? Seems like providing clear attribution is enough to distance us from the source. By analogy, in an article about a convicted murderer there might be a sentence like "X denied the charges and suggested that Y had shot himself accidentally." Given that X was convicted, this claim is presumably false, but it's not necessary to say "X falsely denied the charges and suggested a conspiracy theory that Y had shot himself accidentally." 2601:644:1:B7CB:497D:AEB6:D07F:431E (talk) 18:40, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
I apologize if I am late to the party, but which RS's are we talking about? Are those theories commonly referred to as "false/bogus [conspiracy]" theories, areor are they usually stated verbatim? Heptor (talk) 18:44, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
See my preceding comments and the reflist below. The two cited sources both simply state that Russian officials have put forth these claims, and then discuss why the claims are unlikely to be true. One article uses the term "conspiracy theory" in scare quotes in a headline, the other does not use the term at all. 2601:644:1:B7CB:497D:AEB6:D07F:431E (talk) 18:46, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Sources call these conspiracy theories [76], [77], [78], [79], [80], [81], [82], [83], [84], [85]. So should the article. Geogene (talk) 18:56, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, that does seem very clear. Clearer than I had imagined. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:56, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
These two media articles also bear on this overall discussion: Popular Science and The Economist. - Ahunt (talk) 20:00, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
It seems so. But 2601:644:1:B7CB:497D:AEB6:D07F:431E is correct in that this description is not supported by the sources that are presently in the article. Heptor (talk) 20:19, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Great, I've updated the article with some of those refs. The New York Magazine ref was already there. Stickee (talk) 22:47, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! Heptor (talk) 23:22, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
...then why did you re-revert and delete the phrase? Several other high profile Wikipedia articles use that term, including Sean Hannity, George Soros, Prisons of the Reign of Terror, Lou Dobbs, Lucian Wintrich, The Washington Times, National Review, Jack Kingston, Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories and more. Stickee (talk) 23:27, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
I tried to discuss this a few posts above. Many of these theories are not conspiracy theories in the sense that they don't involve any conspiracy. They may be accurately described as false, bogus or spurious however. Heptor (talk) 23:32, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Common parlance has evolved, and they rarely do involve actual conspiracies. Bottom line is, we describe things how the reliable sources are describing them. We're required by the core content policies to do so. Stickee (talk) 23:37, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
The source you added only calls them "conspiracy theories" in the headline. Otherwise these theories are called "red herrings, conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios". The word "spurious" I think provides a good summary. Heptor (talk) 23:39, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Then what about "spurious conspiracy theories"? It keeps the c-word used by all the sources. Stickee (talk) 00:18, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Excuse me, but some participants in the discussion call conspiracy theories anything that does not correspond to the official version of the investigation, do not they? And Ukraine is a member of this commission of inquiry. So why does someone think that the Ukrainian side will give evidence against itself?
The word "conspiracy" is used for drama, it does not carry additional meaning. Heptor (talk) 11:33, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

"Evidence" of the official version in the case of the crash of MH17 are divided into three types. The first are the statements of US officials that they allegedly have some satellite images proving the guilt of the pro-Russian rebels. The commission of inquiry, however, does not have these pictures. The second are data from Ukrainian social networks and radio intercepts of rebel talks provided by the SBU. Unfortunately, the SBU is notorious for its tendency to create rough fakes. The images they provide are not tied to the place and time and Ukrainian social networks are full of photographs of Russian soldiers that were made in Russia sometimes a few years before the events in the Donbass and declared as evidence of "Russian invasion." The third are the so-called "Bellingscat" analysis. They have two fundamental drawbacks: they are basically amateurish and their authors drive their reasoning to pre-prepared conclusions. As for the investigation of the wreckage of the airliner and the bodies of the deceased, they, in fact, were not conducted. Suffice it to say that the Dutch representatives did not even consider it necessary to collect all the debris.145.255.171.209 (talk) 17:18, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

These are potentially valid concerns, but they need to be supported by sources to be considered. 145.255.171.209, can you provide independent or official sources that support your analysis? In general, if there are independent sources we may need to change the statement in Wikipedia's voice, and if there are official Russian sources we need to faithfully present their objections. Heptor (talk) 11:27, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Indeed we need reliable mainstream secondary sources here; before we can add something like that. Arnoutf (talk) 16:19, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Hartmann, Margaret (22 July 2014), "Russia's 'Conspiracy Theory': MH17 Shot Down by Ukrainian Fighter Jet or Missile", New York, retrieved 20 September 2014
  2. ^ Greg Miller (22 July 2014), U.S. discloses intelligence on downing of Malaysian jet The Washington Post
OK. A quick search in Google led to this Ukrainian nationalist site (obviously not the RS) and this video in YouTube. According to the announcement, this Ukrainian military column met an eyewitness in the area of the town of Soledar in the north of the Donetsk region in early March 2014, a few months before the start of hostilities (note the date of uploading the video). At 37 seconds, you can see a rocket launcher "Buk" with a number 312. The rocket launcher with this airborne number appears in Ukrainian social networks as "arrived from the Kursk anti-aircraft missile brigade." And there is this official video of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. In this broadcast, published a day before the tragedy with MH17, you can see (at 4:48) deployed in the Donbass Ukrainian air defense systems with... yes, "Buk". But, obviously, the investigative commission with the participation of Ukraine decided that the Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles, which there were reliably, are not so interesting to look for, how to invent anabasis of the Russian one. 37.151.19.210 (talk) 08:08, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Adding more unreliable sources (as you do above) is not helping in any way. We already know there is a lot of disinformation on the topic and that is why we should work from content from reliable mainstream secondary sources. Arnoutf (talk) 09:38, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

'false' conspiracy theories ?

User:Ahunt, I'm not going to edit-war about this but adding 'false' to 'conspiracy theories' seems to be 'over-egging the pudding'. A conspiracy theory is by definition a theory for which there is little or no credible evidence and which is dismissed by serious authorities. These theories have technically, never been proven 'false' (which you generally can't do anyhow with a conspiracy theory, since it is based on an act of faith rather than balanced rational evaluation of all the available evidence) - simply dismissed as not remotely credible.

I'm posting here to test others' reactions. In case it needs saying, I give no credence whatsoever to the Russian theories and am only concerned with clear neutral phrasing. Pincrete (talk) 18:03, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

In general I would agree with you but Conspiracy theory does point out several conspiracy theories that turned out to be true, like PRISM (surveillance program) (you know "The government is spying on everyone" conspiracy theory?). So given that, I really don't think that emphasizing that this one is false is really 'over-egging the pudding'. - Ahunt (talk) 18:11, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Didn't PRISM cease to be a conspiracy theory the day the story was vindicated? Much as a convicted criminal ceases to be 'guilty', the day his conviction is overturned. Anyhow let's see what others think. Pincrete (talk) 18:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
My objection is that those inclined toward conspiracy theorism (but not yet actual conspiracy theorists) may read the absence of "false" as the possibility that those conspiracy theories could be true.
I'm not talking the nuts with the tinfoil hats, but that one uncle everyone has on Facebook who watches too much History channel. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:31, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
I'll just add that I agree with OP here. Even "Conspiracy theory" is like saying "wrong thinking". Adding false is just the editors in power here wanting to tell the reader what is right or wrong, without letting him/her make up his own mind. I'll just add the User:Ahunt deleted my relevant questions here on the talk-page, and seems to take a role on censorship. But, relax, I want stay around here engaging in any edit-wars. After all, it's just an Wikipediapage :) Geirsole (talk) 17:00, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Removing your talk page post was not censorship, it was because it ran afoul of our Wikipedia policy WP:NOTFORUM. This talk page is strictly for discussion regarding improving the article, not a forum to put forward your personal theories. - Ahunt (talk) 17:50, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Geirsole, you don't agrre with me, since I am clear that the various 'Russian' theories have been treated as having zero credibility by all recognised investigative authorities and RS. My only reason for raising the termoinology was what appears to me to be the near-tautology of 'false' conspiracy theories. Pincrete (talk) 16:09, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Well, I did agree with that. So, what's the problem? Gsoler (talk) 08:26, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
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