Talk:Virginia Tech shooting/Archive 14

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Release of panel results

A proposal -- the release of the Virginia Tech review panel's results may call for some refactoring in the response section. In my view, the student response, university response, and government response sections have some overlap that now needs to be dealt with. It seems to me that the university's initial response, or lack thereof, belongs in the university response section. That the students questioned the university response (now in student response section), in my mind minimizes and misplaces this criticism now that the report has said the same thing. While it makes sense that the panel's results appear in the government response section, perhaps there's a logical way to split what is said there with what is said under university response? Other thoughts? -- Sfmammamia 18:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. I don't think the sections are horrible the way they are but there's always room for improvement, especially when new information becomes available. Do you agree that a section labeled 'Criticism. . .' is likely overkill? Ronnotel 18:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

There was and still is criticism to the way the administration at Virginia Tech improperly handled the incident. I fail to see how a section highlighting how a government institution made mistakes that caused people to be killed could be considered "overkill." I have revised said section to eliminate any POV concerns, as newfound facts originating from government reports generated from initial speculation have proven themselves to be relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.244.119 (talk) 19:03, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Sfmammamia, go ahead and make your changes, I think you'll have some space now. Ronnotel 20:08, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Attempt begun, not perfect, but a start. -- Sfmammamia 20:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see the point in addressing the University's response if we keep deleting out the fact that Va Tech's own actions prior to the event contributed to allowing Cho to rampage unmolested. Not only is Va Tech VP Hincker criticized in the Panel report for having a cumbersome and unwieldy response system, but prior to the Cho attack he also led VA Tech lobbying efforts with the Virginia General Assembly which resulted in defeat of a proposal to allow concealed carry. I must respectfully disagree with Sfmammamia's continued censorship of Hincker's comments ( "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.") about the defeat of the law that would have allowed concealed carry on campus because it fails to highlight one of the most important lessons to be learned from this tragedy.

It is exactly these attitudes from the university leadership which lead to a false and naive sense of security on the part of the Va Tech administration and which lead to the poor responsiveness to the crisis which is criticized by the panel report. Hincker's comments, as the official position of the university, need representation in this article, either in the "background" section of the political section of the article, in the discussion of the panel report, or elsewhere. Deleting Hincker's comments using brevity as a justification omits important information that is crucial to a full understanding of this story. I ask for further editorial input on this. NDM 20:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but there's nothing in the Virginia Tech review panel report that faults the university for its concealed carry policy. In fact, the report comes to the opposite conclusion. Here's recommendation VI-5, from page 76 of the report:

"The Virginia General Assembly should adopt legislation in the 2008 session clearly establishing the right of every institution of higher education in the Commonwealth to regulate the possession of firearms on campus if it so desires. The panel recommends that guns be banned on campus grounds and in buildings unless mandated by law."

And as I noted in my second deletion of Hincker's comments, brevity is not the only reason to keep the quote out. It's my belief that the quote is nothing more than spiteful, hindsight fingerpointing that adds nothing to the article other than "fightin' words" for supporters of concealed carry on campus. -- Sfmammamia 21:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I must disagree with your interpretation of the above. Pointing out failures on the part of government or quasi-governmental officials, or governmental policy, although it may be in "hindsight" is never "spiteful", merely democracy in action. I read the panel report, too, and it seems that they, too, fail to see that proposing more paper bans on firearms on campus offer no more protection than existed at the time of the Cho attack. I guess we fail to learn from the mistakes of the past

"'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' George Santanyana

You are giving government officials a free ride for their past and current mistakes by consigning irrational statements such as Hincker's straight to the Memory Hole. We owe our readers a fuller understanding of such an important issue. Reinstate the quote! NDM 23:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Failures according to whom? Sorry, but your evaluation of the Virginia Tech review panel report (and any other Wikipedia editor's) is irrelevant, because it is original research. As is your characterization of Hincker's statement from 2006 as "irrational." Find a credible source. -- Sfmammamia 01:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I have added this statement back and embedded the following comment in the article, which I reproduce here: This is a significant statement by a government spokesman, properly sourced, expressing the substantive opposition of the university to the proposed law, and the reasons for the opposition - to help make the university community feel safe. This statement is germane to this background and should not be deleted. It is important to understand why and how our government works and suppressing government statements defeats this purpose and defeats the purpose of this encyclopedia. Kevinp2 (talk) 04:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Sfmammamia, how is WP:UNDUE relevant to this quote? If anything, the quote and its usage give weight to the university's point of view. I fail to understand what you are trying to do by suppressing an official statement by a university spokesman (who isn't even named in the article). I have rephrased the paragraph still more, but I fear that you are on some kind of mistaken mission to preserve the reputation of the (unnamed) official in question. This is not Wikipedia's mission. Providing the substantive reasoning of the university in the background is what is needed. Kevinp2 (talk) 04:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

And I deleted it again. There is no consensus for its inclusion here. The university's position in January 2006 has since been validated by the Virginia Tech Review panel. Insistence on elaborating on this past history constitutes undue weight, in my opinion. May I suggest that we discuss and reach consensus before reviving disputed content and attempting to cement it in the article with a comment tag? --Sfmammamia (talk) 04:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

How is the past history undue weight? And saying that the VT review panel "validated" anything at all is itself POV. The panel is an opinion, not some kind of infallible finder of fact. I believe the findings of the Warren Commission, but they don't automatically validate anything about the Kennedy Assassination. I have read through some of the discussion about the inclusion of this quote, and you are by far outnumbered by the people who feel that it should be included. I respectfully suggest that you do not own this article and cannot control which government statements should be suppressed. Perhaps we should suppress the findings of the VT review panel too since they constitute undue weight in favor of the university? Perhaps we should hold a vote on this subject or send it to arbitration. Kevinp2 (talk) 04:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I maintain that the university's historical and current position is already made clear by the paragraph preceding the addition you wish to make. I'll leave it to other editors to discuss further and decide if this needs a vote or arbitration. --Sfmammamia (talk) 05:05, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Other quotes from government officials and others in the article as of today:

"He was well-prepared to continue on," Flaherty testified
"Cho himself was the biggest impediment to stabilizing his mental health" 
"prematurely concluding that their initial lead in the double homicide was a good one,"
Governor Kaine rejected the notion, saying that the school officials had "suffered enough"
"did not take sufficient action to deal with what might happen if the initial lead proved false"
"stir up racial prejudice or confrontation"
gun fatalities were "disturbingly common in the United States"
"America's deep-rooted and sometimes lethal commitment to its own freedoms"
"the right to adhere to and enforce that policy as a common-sense protection of students, staff and faculty as well as guests and visitors"
And finally: In August 2007, the Virginia Tech review panel report recommended that the state's General Assembly adopt legislation 
  "establishing the right of every institution of higher education to regulate the possession of firearms on campus if it so desires"

There is plenty of precedent for using the quote to describe the official position (and the reason therefor) of Virginia Tech University on allowing firearms on its campus. I fail to understand how the quote in question is different from all those listed above. Kevinp2 (talk) 05:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Sfmammamia - I added the quote, unaware if its long history of being added by many different people, and repeatedly removed by you.

The reason that I added the quote is because it shows us that sometimes people make mistakes. In this case, it was a huge mistake.

In my opinion, your repeated removing of the quote is inappropriate. It is clear that there are many people here who believe the quote is an important part of the article.

I aslo think that your removing the quote is exactly like the kind of stuff that was done in George Orwell's book 1984. "Oh, he never said that. It never happened."

I want the quote to be included, and so do many other people. Please stop erasing it.

Grundle2600 (talk) 23:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

You claim that the statement made by the university official at the time that the bill died in committee was "a mistake". That is POV. The university's policy about guns on campus has been consistent -- from before the incident until today. The Virginia Tech panel validated the university's policy decision to prohibit guns on campus, stating in its recommendations "The panel recommends that guns be banned on campus grounds and in buildings unless mandated by law." and called on the state attorney general and the Virginia General Assembly to clarify in law that universities have the right to ban guns. So, to be worth including, the quote needs to serve a valid purpose other than to try to portray the university's position -- either then or now -- as a "mistake". In my opinion, the insertion is meant to serve a specific POV (fightin' words for those who would like campus gun bans eliminated) and serves no other purpose in the article. That people with a certain POV "want" the quote included is not justification for its inclusion. However, I'll leave my comments here and leave it to other editors to decide from here on out. --Sfmammamia (talk) 00:51, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I never used the word "mistake" in the article - I only used it on the talk page. The talk page doesn't have to be NPOV. All I did in the article was quote a public official, and cite the source, and that does not violate NPOV. I am glad that you are leaving it to other editors from now on. I think almost everyone agrees that the quote makes the article better. Grundle2600 (talk) 03:25, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Technically, you are right, you can be as opinionated as you want on the article talk page. But if you are going to gain consensus, it would be helpful to state better reasons for inclusion than "because we (meaning people who support your POV) want it there". --Sfmammamia (talk) 03:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Mental Health Issues

Here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070830/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_gunman

Now quit making this all about gun control. Rooot 21:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

No kidding. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 21:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

The report just came out today. Without a doubt, the article is due some significant work and possibly refactoring to incorporate its findings. I haven't read the report yet, and I've already spent more time than I have today working on the changes we've managed to make so far, so would welcome constructive bold edits by others. I would note, however, that the Virginia Tech review panel devoted a section to gun laws and made 6 key finding recommendations about changing gun laws in the wake of the incident. -- Sfmammamia 23:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I would note that the journalistic findings have little to do with the panel's conclusions on guns. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 22:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I've made major changes to the "Perpetrator" section to reflect the review panel's findings. So far, I note that little has been done to the Seung Hui Cho article in a similar vein, so it may be time to discuss again how to properly summarize in this article and carry detail in that article. -- Sfmammamia 07:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

1. The panel claims it “knows of no case in which a shooter in campus homicides has been shot or scared off by a student or faculty member with a weapon.” The panel ignores the appendix to its own report, which mentions the 2002 incident at Appalachian School of Law in nearby Grundy, Va., where three students (armed) confronted and physically subdued a fellow student who had killed three people. The appendix, like most media reports at the time, doesn’t mention two of the three students who stopped the attack were armed.
2. The report claims people carrying guns pose a high risk of accidental shootings and suicides, or of misbehavior due to bad temper, intoxication, or other abuse. But the panel ignores 20 years of overwhelming data on law-abiding citizens who carry firearms in Right-to-Carry states. Instead, it supports its argument by noting that off-duty police officers are arrested each year for assault.
3. The panel calls for new restrictions on firearm sales, including those at gun shows—though the panel itself describes how Cho received his guns in an over-the-counter transaction at a gun store.
4. The panel discusses the now expired federal limit on magazine capacity. It concludes “that 10-round magazines that were legal [under the 1994-2004 ban] would have not [sic] made much difference in the incident. Even pistols with rapid loaders [sic] could have been about as deadly in this situation.” But just a page later, the panel contradicts itself, concluding that “[h]aving the ammunition in large capacity magazines facilitated [Cho’s] killing spree.” --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 07:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Why do People Insist on Dominating this Article?

Upon reviewing this particular article's edit history, it's become obvious that a small group of people have become hell bent on turning this open-source column into their own personal project. In the course of doing this they are repeatedly deleting contributions submitted by people outside of the clique in a vain attempt to exhibit mastery and ownership of what was intended to be a widespread collaboration.

Never before in my years of online collaboration have I seen such covetous actions committed in a web2 environment.

Upon the release of the Virginia Tech Panel report to the Governor I saw it fitting to include findings of the study as there had yet to be any mention of it in the article. However, my efforts were swiftly marginalized by individuals seeking to maintain their own delusions of grandeur and ownership of the project.

My additions would find themselves only to be swiftly deleted in such a manner that it was obvious that those undoing my contributions would not have even had time to read what I had written. Those deleting my messages gave me no reasons for doing so other than the report than it being “un-encyclopedic” and “potentially POV.”

Upon revisal of the original text to correct ANY possible POV orientation, I had resubmitted my revised contribution. To my surprise, the improved work lasted less than two minutes on the front page. Clearly this had to be some form of editing error caused by multiple persons working on the document simultaneously. Logically, I would resubmit my addition into the article to circumvent what must have obviously been a mistake.

However, on the resubmit I found that it had not been a simple error but another author deleting my addition under the pretenses of the submitted work not being of a “group consensus.” To this I replied that rather than just deleting new findings posted on the Virginia Tech massacre because of conflicts in how it was written, they should collaborate on what I had already started and get the new information published.

Upon returning the next day, I’ve found that the findings from the new Virginia Tech report have yet to be published onto Wikipedia when I had already done all the background work for the “collaborative editors”…Go Figure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.244.119 (talk • contribs) 00:47, September 1, 2007

So in essence what I have found here is an article about an ongoing event that is impossible to update because a small minority of people feel that their additions are the only ones that matter in a web2 environment…

I'm very sorry that you feel this way. However, you ignored multiple requests to discuss your concerns and chose to make major edits to the article without the opportunity for a consensus to form. No one is trying to silence anyone. In fact, I believe that the core issue you described has been added to the text. However, just because any can edit WP doesn't mean those edits will stand. The text you submitted was poorly written, unencyclopedic and obviously biased against the VT administration. This article has been through multiple reviews and been judged to be of high quality. The only way for it to stay that way is through strict editing. Changes that don't conform to WP standards are going to be deleted. And a good thing, too. Next time, I strongly suggest you try discussing changes first. And if things don't go your way, don't take it personally. Here are some other suggestions:

1. sign your comments (use four ~ characters)
2. Assume good faith on the part of your fellow editors
3. Learn the five pillars of Wikipedia.

Ronnotel 22:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Seeing that the text that I introduced into the article was straight out of GOVERNOR'S REPORT, I cannot understand how the text could have been seen as an unfair judgment, as it is completely true. Should we in effect remove references to political scandals in the biographies of American presidents because they appear to be "obviously biased?" If this is the case, then Wikipedia should erase all mention of Marilyn Monroe, Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica Lewinski and the Iraq Invasion from its presidential profiles of Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush.

Last time I checked, as long as information is truthful and proven then it doesn't matter if it's "obviously biased." There is a lot of "obviously biased" information published in Encyclopedias as we speak today.

And as far as being "invited to discuss" the matter, If you mean I was invited to discuss the matter with myself as no one gave any coherent responses to my questions in the posts, then I guess you may possibly be technically correct.

As far as being judged by "multiple reviews" I cannot see how this was possible as my postings in the article never lasted longer than five minutes before they were deleted. So I fail to see how it could have been properly evaluated to be of WP standards when the addition was deleted in less time that it would have taken for a significant group of people to properly analyze and review it.

So when you mention "strict editing", you are completely correct as you have proven yourself capable of swiftly deleting all work added into the article that is not your own.

Now I again bring up the issue of WP standards here. One of the primary advantages of WEB2 data is that it is capable of staying more up to date than a traditionally maintained website. The governor's report was released days ago and yet there is still no mention of its results in the article.

The general conclusion of the administrative analysis of the Governor's report on the Virginia Tech massacre was that if the faculty would have reacted better to the initial murders then they would have likely lessened the death toll in the final massacre.

Now what about this finding is so terribly controversial? Two people were murdered on a school campus, the administration elected to keep the campus open for the rest of the day, then the gunman came back and murdered over ten times as many people.

Everyone knows that the administration screwed up, but why are you so afraid to print the details of a government panel that officially confirms it.

I apologize if my wording appeared as if it could have theoretically been remotely biased. However, I do not see how this has any bearing three days after the fact. You acknowledge that you engage in "strict editing" but all you have yet to accomplish is "strict deleting." If you research the simple definition of an Editor, you will find that it is in the job description not to simply remove content that is less than perfect, but to collaborate with the original work and make it so.

So my question to you is how you can call yourself an editor, when you’re only willing to do half of the required job? I've submitted the material to you with all the proper references and citations, but your beef is with the way in which it is worded. A REAL editor would actually fix the wording, not just cover up the facts.

Either you’re trying to cover something up, or you’re just unhappy with the contribution because you didn't draft it up yourself. Which is it?

Personally, I just think it's amusing that my most recent addition to the article was deleted on a Friday night. The idea of a person so absorbed in being an unpaid Wikipedia watchdog as to volunteer for the entire duration of a Friday night leaves me hanging somewhere in the balance between pity and admiration. For the sake of all that is good in this world, I can only hope that you at least allow yourself the luxury of bathroom breaks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.244.119 (talk • contribs) 19:57, September 2, 2007

Please sign your comments. In addition, it would be most helpful if you could both shorten your comments and cite specific examples. --ElKevbo 00:22, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, 24.13.244.119, I apologize if I condescend, but are you aware that messages have been left for you at your talk page? Ronnotel 00:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The intro includes a sentence beginning with ``Telivision news organization.. which could be replaced with something like ``The VT Review Panel confirmed initial concerns of inaction by the VT administration in failing to adequatly prevent additional deaths by a swift response. 68.175.118.95 09:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Great suggestion -- I took the suggested addition but made it somewhat broader; hopefully this and the other additions that have been made over the last few days will satisfy somewhat the earlier expressed concerns that the lead was imbalanced. -- Sfmammamia 17:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.67.21 (talk) 15:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

"Worst" shooting in "modern" history?

The sentence in the second paragraph, citing the VaTech massacre as the "worst" in "modern" history is imprecise and unhelpful. There are several cited sources, mostly news specials that were produced around the time of the massacre, but this superlative is not unchallenged. See, for exmaple: http://www.counterpunch.org/blank05022007.html "Modern" is simply not a helpful adjective here. There was a more deadly shooting in 1921 – does that simply not count?

I submit that a small qualifying statement, something along the lines of "although this is disputed" should be added citing that article (or a similar document) as its source. 208.178.18.134 17:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, you've provided an interesting link - hadn't seen that one. FWIW, there has been extensive debate on this one issue. The current text represents the best attempt at a compromise position - trying to balance brevity, accuracy and tone. The word modern was originally chosen because, in general, "modern" US history is thought to begin around late industrialization - 1890's or thereabout and until your citation, no reliable sources had been found for incidents after that time. Adding a qualifier in the lede paragraph, as you suggest would lead to wordiness, something to avoid. I'd like to see if we can find a better word to replace modern - how about recent? We can then add your citation as a footnote to provide additional clarification. Ronnotel 17:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I think "recent" does a good job of clarifying it. My only worry was that the media "hype" surrounding the event might skew history (discounting earlier massacres, etc.) Using the term "recent," however, would clearly rule out events from 1921 (and before), so I think that would work. Also, citing the Counter Punch article will give additional info to those who want it. Cheers. 208.178.18.134 19:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The point had been very clear up until "recently" that this incident constituted the most non-combatant fatalities inflicted by a single gunman in "modern" history, regardless of how you account for "modern". Adding a reference to public rioting and such is not nearly as helpful a comparison as understanding the death toll at Luby's Cafeteria, the McDonald's in San Ysidro, and the University of Texas Tower. Can I recommend removing that citation and restoring the thrust of the original sentence? HokieRNB 13:05, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

HokieRNB, the problem I have with the older version is that this definition: "this incident constituted the most non-combatant fatalities inflicted by a single gunman" isn't captured by the word "shooting", which in itself does not indicate the number of gunmen involved. (For example, Columbine is also considered a "shooting" even though it involved more than one attacker.) Therefore, calling the VA Tech the "worst shooting in modern history" is inaccurate, since (as the source I listed shows) there has been at least one other shooting in the 20th century with more fatalities. I found the distinction helpful because it's more accurate. What is the problem? 208.178.18.134 16:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

For me the problem is with the inclusion of a source that muddies the waters when the point was quite clear previously; i.e., that never before had so many people been killed at the hands of a lone gunman. The word "recent" is so vague that one might wonder whether something that happened in the 1990s, 1980s, or even earlier resulted in more fatalities. By stating in the first paragraph a true and concise statement regarding the superlative nature of this incident, it helps set the context. Also, to label the Tulsa Race Riot or the Ludlow massacre as being in the same category as this event is unhelpful. Maybe we could return to the "deadliest school shooting in US history" distinction? HokieRNB 16:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the vague "recent" muddies the water. People might think that Columbine is "not recent". The points that need to be made clear are: (1) This is a lone gunman shooting and a school shooting; (2) Deadliest lone gunman shooting and deadliest school shooting in US history. The shooting distinction is important. Way back when, I made clear that this is not the deadliest school killing or deadliest school disaster. Those are Bath School disaster and New London School explosion. Carcharoth 16:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

If in fact it is the deadliest school shooting in the U.S., then that's a reasonable way to describe it, without the necessity of vague, debatable terms like "modern," or "recent." Though it seems it would be much better if we avoided qualification and simply described what happened:

The Virginia Tech massacre was a school shooting comprising two separate attacks about two hours apart on April 16, 2007, on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. The perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people and wounded many more before committing suicide.

However, I doubt this will fly with the people who insist that this must be the "most" something.

I'm not sure why we need this to be a record setter. Almost anything can be a superlative if you apply enough qualifications... or it can be even more sensational and shocking if you avoid the qualifications and assume that people understand what "worst" means, what "modern" means, or that "shooting" has certain connotations regarding the number of gunmen, "non-military," etc.zadignose 03:40, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Keep it simple and try to avoid the need for the reader to interpret. Rooot 07:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to say, I think there's an element of social responsibility here as well. Glorification of the killer's deeds by specifying--highlighting even--the fact that this slaughter was a record killing will certainly inspire others to outdo him. After all, the perpetrators of these crimes tend to be of the web2-savvy age, right? Media hype (wikipedia not excluded) leads to more of these problems, and I wonder if this concern is enough to override the responsibility to faithfully report the truth. In light of Omaha, and seeing what outright fame and notoriety these killers are getting, I think it's only responsible to temper it SLIGHTLY by de-emphasizing the "achievement". Phenylphenol (talk) 08:22, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Is it encouraging mass murder to state that Adolf Hitler is responsible for the worst mass murder in history?

It is a fact, albeit a sad one, that this was the deadliest shooting at an educational institution in the history of the United States. This is not mere trivia, but an important part of placing the incident in proper context - that there have been other, similar shootings on school and college campuses, and that this is the deadliest among them.

Anyone who thinks that it is an "achievement" to commit such cowardly and despicable acts, is not going to be dissuaded from doing so by the inclusion or exclusion of a line in an Internet encyclopedia. FCYTravis (talk) 08:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Updated suggestions 10/13/07

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Fair use rationale for Image:ChoSh.jpg

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BetacommandBot 05:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Vanalism Bout

There was a bout of vandalism to this page on September 20th, around 0:35 GMT. The page was blanked several times, and also filled with gibberish. The blanks were reverted by bots, who unfortunately only reverted to the gibberish. I was able to track back to the original article. DevOhm ^Talk 00:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Huh, wierd. I thought I did that. Guess you beat me to it. Glad it's back to normal, in any case. vlad§inger ^tlk 01:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, it looks like I wasn't the one to get the revert either. Oh well. It was still well done. DevOhm ^Talk 02:03, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

There was some more today (april 16), probably because its linked to on the front page. Bongwarrior fixed it very quickly it seems, well done matey. Maybe this page needs to be protected? Its good enough to be feautred, after all, maybe editing of it could be limited to the collaborating people who built it. Captain Crush (talk) 09:23, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

article detail

The article on the Columbine High School massacre has very precise details of the shooting, closely following the shooters' actions. Would it be possible for this article to have the same level of detail in the future? Since Wikipedia has a policy against original research, I personally guess that this will depend on how much information is released by the media. --Ixfd64 03:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Um - why wouldn't this kind of detail belong at Virginia Tech massacre timeline? Sorry if I'm mis-interpreting what you're suggesting. Ronnotel 03:53, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, even the Virginia Tech timeline does not have as much detail as the Columbine article. For example, the Columbine article includes dialogue from students and shows the exact number of times each weapon was fired, but the Virginia Tech articles do not. --Ixfd64 16:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't disagree with anything you are proposing. However, I think the most appropriate place to discuss this issue and reach consensus would be Talk:Virginia Tech massacre timeline, not this talk page. Ronnotel 22:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

New proposal

Please see this attempt at a return to sanity for the list of victims related to this article. Please respond on the other article's talk page. HokieRNB 16:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Finally, Results from the Virginia Tech Commission are posted

WOW, the results from the Virginia Tech Commission's Governor's Report have finally been posted in the article, and it only took over a month for it to be added in. HOW AMAZING! Especially seeing that what was posted was an incredibly difficult cut&paste from a Reuters news article.

I guess that after placing the first addition mentioning of it in late August, to only see it deleted within five minutes by people that think they own the article, I finally get to see someone else take the initiative to submit what I had already accomplished over a month ago.

Good job Wikipedia Police.

I'm glad to know that your intent on keeping this article so up to date... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.244.119 (talk • contribs) 17:12, October 12, 2007

Perhaps you should actually check the article history. You brought your complaints to the talk page on August 30th, and information about the panel and/or sourced from the panel began to be added on... August 30th. Now, by my calculations, that's the same day. In fact, information from the panel response was added before you came to the talk page to complain, so your complaint is just as baseless now as it was then. Natalie 21:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Umm, no it wasn't as the panel results that I had added were found no where in the article. My additions from the panel's results were the panel's concensus of the University's response to the initial shooting.

No where in the article did it cite Virginia Tech's inaction to the initial shootings as a factor involved in the student deaths that occurred at the second shooting.

Show me a single line in the August 30th version of the article that stated that if Virginia Tech would have better responded to the incident, lives could have been saved. There was no mention of it.

That is my argument.

Although common sense would suggest that when there is a shooting at a state university the governing body should do something to remain en garde untill a perpetrator is identified or more information is found. Instead, it was just business as usual and a couple dozen people wound up dying as a result.

The second shooting only occurred about 3 hours after the first one. It makes me curious what Virginia Tech's policies are toward shooting on campus. How many people have to be shot in order to justify cancelling classes for the day? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.244.119 (talk • contribs) 20:23, 13 October 2007

Which is exactly what you wrote in the article. This is an encyclopedia, not an op-ed and not a blog - rhetorical questions are not appropriate. Your addition was removed, rightly, because it was clearly an opinion. All sorts of factual information from the panel has been added with no complaints over the last month and a half since the report was issued. Natalie 17:43, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

You make it sound like my addition to the article was VERBATIM to my expressed viewpoint posted in the discussion forumn. Although there was a little room for interpretation to the ORIGINAL version I posted, I had rewritten the text later that day in a way that eliminated potential bias, I find it rediculous that it took a month and a half to insert the same material that I had already completed.

Now, a month and a half after the fact, there is finally information in the article stating the reports findings; that had the Virginia Tech administration responded better to the initial shootings they could have saved lives. That was the finding of the report, theres nothing op-ed about it.

As far as being the only one to complain about the situation, I'm sure the recent bout of lengthy vandalism in this article had nothing to with the voluntarily imposed bureaucracy created by an an annoying few that have nothing better to do with their lives than police Wikipedia on a friday night, lest someone have something to contribute.

Besides, if you really wanted to curb op-ed problems in the article it would be wise to address the ones that are already in the article. The second paragraph of the Politic Response portion of the Gun Politics section is based almost wholly on the opinions of politicians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.244.119 (talk) 03:08, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Tags

Where in this article do we still need cleanup or factual verification. The bad tags should be removed.--Wikiphilia 18:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

recent costume incident

Over the course of development of this article, there has been consensus to keep only the most significant of responses in the article and to keep those summaries highly condensed. In keeping with this direction, I have removed the names of the Penn State students involved in the Halloween costume controversy. The incident seems to me to be a case of recentism, and even two sentences on it in the overall context of this article seems like a lot. Other comments? --Sfmammamia (talk) 03:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I will concur with the recentism bit, unless Drudge, et al. manage to blow this so far out of proportion, relative to the original tragedy, that it actually becomes worth dealing with in the article itself. They haven't gotten it to that point yet. If the names were included, there's a possible WP:BLP issue involved too. --Dynaflow babble 05:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The student names most certainly do not need to be there - they don't need to have that haunting them for the rest of their lives. I don't think the incident is even worth mentioning. I guarantee you there were plenty of people across the country that dressed up as something inappropriate this Halloween ... these kids were just unfortunate enough to have someone notice it on Facebook. It's college and people do stupid stuff - I'm sure they weren't the only ones wearing that sort of costume. --B (talk) 06:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think any of it needs to be mentioned at all. Two stupid kids making ill-advised Halloween costumes hardly qualifies as a "response" to the incident. We've seen this before with this article. Once you open the door for one minor response, an argument can be made for hundreds more. Remember the two-page list of "international responses?" (insert country) offers condolences, (insert country) offers condolences, etc. ad infinitum. I vote to keep it out. Recentism and non-notability. Rooot (talk) 08:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I seem to be in the minority... but I think two things add a little more weight to the notability of the incident:

1. The fact that PSU was specifically noted for its support of VT (in fact, there's a picture of it directly to the left of the section we're discussing).
2. The (rather bizzare) fact that the students quite vehemently refuse to apologize for it. In fact, if you read the article, I didn't even pull out the most offensive quotes. As a side note, this is also why I'm not particularly concerned about this "haunting them for the rest of their lives".

But that's just my reasoning... my life will go on if I'm out-voted. --JerryOrr (talk) 12:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

strong keep. This information is appropriate for inclusion here. It's in a section covering responses (both supportive and now non-supportive) from other universities and it does qualify as a response. It's inclusion provides balance and fuller coverage. Not everyone lit a candle and said a prayer, some people did things like this and these two got some notoriety for it. The people in question are adults not minors, there is no need for concern about their identity. It's received verifiable, referenceable national media coverage (Google news shows 100+ articles on the topic including an AP story which carried even further). I'd like to see more solid reasons for not including this information before it gets removed. The focus here needs to be on whether this content is notable and verifiable. We need not be concerned about how this event will affect these two students, keeping it out of Wikipedia wont protect their identity, it's already out there in the mainstream media and is well archived for anyone to see. --Rtphokie (talk) 13:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:RECENT, WP:UNDUE seem to apply here. That someone may have worn an inappropriate halloween costume is hardly notable. Completely inappropriate for this page. Ronnotel (talk) 13:54, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment WP:UNDUE doesn't apply here because this incident is verifiable and, as others have noted, not isolated. There have been a number of similar incidents invoving high profile tragedies (See Bill_Mahr#Controversies). A single concise paragraph on the incident provides the appropriate weight as well. WP:UNDUE would apply only if an entire section or article were devoted to the topic. WP:RECENT doesn't apply either also because of similar incidents. This isn't the first time it's happened and it's not the last. This particular incident is notable because of the reaction it has prompted. Threats against the students and multiple followup articles in the student newspapers as well as the national media.--Rtphokie (talk) 15:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Giving their names is absolutely unacceptable. Yes, the news has published their names, but that isn't the point. Wikipedia is the first google hit for just about everything and if we publish their names, then every time a potential employer googles them, they would show up on Wikipedia or some Wikipedia-derived source, even though the news stories have long since expired. We need to be extremely careful about publishing the names of people who aren't particularly notable. I don't think it needs to be mentioned at all - it's barely a news item and if not for a local NRV station having a slow news day a month after the fact, nobody would have even heard about it outside of facebook. --B (talk) 15:58, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Consensus seems pretty clear about at least removing the names. The item just above it, about the Emmanuel College professor who was dismissed, also does not include the name, even though his name is mentioned in the news article cited.--Sfmammamia (talk) 17:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Why again are we concerned about future employers googling them? What Wikipedia policy addresses the impact of articles on some little brat's job prospects? Considering the students themselves don't seem to think there was anything wrong with it, I don't see why we should concern ourselves with it. --JerryOrr (talk) 19:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

From WP:BLP: "An important rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is "do no harm". From WP:RECENT: The "ten-year test" is one simple thought experiment which may be helpful: "In ten years will this addition still appear relevant?" --Sfmammamia (talk) 19:20, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how WP:BLP applies here; direct quotes are used, entirely in context, and there is no doubt as to the accuracy and objectivity of the sources. No unfounded rumors are being spread; the facts are clear, and the subjects have publicly acknowledged them. As for WP:RECENT, please keep in mind it is neither a policy nor a guideline; it is an essay, and should be treated as such. Again, if a consensus decides this incident (or particular details) are non-notable, I'll of course abide by that; but let's not throw around WP: links like they are law. --JerryOrr (talk) 02:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The particular bit of advice from the BLP policy that we should really think on here is this: "Editors should take particular care when considering whether inclusion of the names of private, living individuals who are not directly involved in an article's topic adds significant value." We seem to be straying from the actual topic of the article, and are being sucked into the vortex of some sort of speciously-related shaming ritual against two people with (unbelievably) bad taste. We are at something like a tertiary-level remove here from the massacre itself, and while this is now tecnically notable, I have serious doubts as to whether it's all that noteworthy, particularly when set against the content of the rest of this article. --Dynaflow babble 03:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

• Remove reference — I really don't think it's important in the grand scheme of things. You don't gain any extra understanding of the event by mentioning this costume controversy, and it doesn't seem to be more than a flash in the pan. Putting it in there seems to violate the recentism guidelines to me. JKBrooks85 (talk) 18:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• Fully Protected - this page is now fully protected, no one but administrators can make updates. It probably needs to stay this way for a few days until things can simmer down. In the meantime, lets workout this question of the PSU students shall we?--Rtphokie (talk) 21:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I requested unprotection from the admin who protected it, and he has unprotected it. That done, may I suggest that editors who object to the current wording on this item suggest alternates here and allow consensus to develop? --Sfmammamia (talk) 22:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion some of the problem editors seem to have with this material is where it is placed. Does the material concerning the Halloween costumes (along with the mention of the Boston College professor reenacting the shootings) belong in a Controversy section instead? That would have the side benefit of freeing up the response from other universities section for more coverage there. The outpouring of support and many many memorial services held on college campuses around the country and beyond is one of the most noteworthy items from this incident and it's not received much coverage here.--Rtphokie (talk) 02:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Previous discussions about the article's length have focused on keeping the responses section brief and highly condensed, so your assertion that "the outpouring of support and many many memorial services held on college campuses around the country and beyond is one of the most noteworthy items from this incident" is debatable. See here and here. It also came up in the article's previous FAC review, when a reviewer said "The amount of coverage on responses was somewhat excessive." Consequently, I doubt that expansion of the section in this article detailing response from other universities would gain consensus support, but of course others are welcome to comment once again on this idea. Maybe responses are worthy of a sub-article? As far as a "Controversy" section, there are controversies interspersed throughout the article, so in my view it would require a major rewrite to accomplish. The article's structure has been essentially stable for months. My hope is that we can settle this current debate without destabilizing the entire article. --Sfmammamia (talk) 03:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The names absolutely do not belong on this page. I do not see any consensus for adding them back in as was done. As was pointed out, this is WP:RECENTISM and the paragraph as it stands gives WP:UNDUE weight to this. Ronnotel (talk) 03:47, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The response section is still way too long. There is no good reason to add this "controversy." Is every instance of a college student wearing black-face worthy of mentioning in a "response" section on the racism or slavery pages? No. This is another flash-in-the-pan event that no one will care about next week and everyone will have forgotten about in a month. The substance of this article should be limited to the proximate events of the "Virginia Tech Massacre." Unless someone can articulate an argument in favor of the proximity of this costume controversy and the actual Virginia Tech Massacre, there is no reason for its inclusion in this article. Until Prince Harry's costume controversy is mentioned in the holocaust article, I think that historical precedent is on my side on this one. I'm sure everyone agrees that his wearing of a Nazi swastika was more notable than these kids wearing bloody Virginia Tech clothing, yet it was not mentioned in the holocaust article. Keep it out. Rooot (talk) 03:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't belong anywhere - definitely not in the "responses" section, but it should be there at all. I find it interesting that, in response to your post on TechSideLine, the only person who thought that their names should be posted felt that way because he wanted them punished[1]. He is welcome to hold that view and that's fine for a message board, but it's not fine for Wikipedia. Posting the names is an unacceptably bad idea. Talking about the incident at all is an unnecessary waste of space. --B (talk) 03:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your comments. The item has been removed, reflecting what appears to be the consensus at this point that its inclusion was not warranted, for all the reasons stated above. I'm leaving this comment for others who may arrive at the article later and be tempted to add it back in. --Sfmammamia (talk) 20:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Dead link report

• Dead links to be tended to. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Out-and-out broken links have all been fixed, I think. As I have time, I plan to do more ref cleanup as the article undergoes FAC review. Would welcome help with this! --Sfmammamia (talk) 02:33, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Image & layout problems in response section

While I applaud Rooot's recent effort to trim the response section, it has left the section with an awkward layout (at least at 1024X768) and too many images. My candidates for deletion would be the East Carolina University picture and the interior memorial image. Even two images of the campus memorials may be too much -- per WP:LAYOUT, placing images at the same height on both the left and right side of the screen is considered poor layout practice. Other thoughts? --Sfmammamia (talk) 18:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I say remove the flowers memorial image in addition to the two you mentioned above (since technically it has been removed, no?). The flowers image is currently used in the list of victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. The thumbnail image of the (more permanent) Drillfield memorial should also be increased in width to match the image for Government response section. Arsonal (talk) 18:31, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I concur. I applaud Roooooooot's efforts as well (tooooo many o's?) and I agree with removing redundant still images of various memorials. Ronnotel (talk) 19:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for comments, these edits are done. I made further moves for flow and to get rid of the bulleted list in the "Other responses" section. Looks better now, I think. --Sfmammamia (talk) 20:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Relevance of South korea...

Why is it important to state what South Koreas action was? Just because the person happened to be South Korean? He was provoked by the racist americans, and so they should be apologising for turning a South Korean into a monster instead. I don't see why nationality pays a big deal in this scenario anyway (apart from the fact that it is ALWAYS and ONLY americans that do these shootings) —Preceding unsigned comment added by DrTheKay (talk • contribs) 04:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Tell that to the victims of Marc Lépine, Robert Steinhäuser, Yan Yanming, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, Allen Xiang, Kimveer Gill, et al. In any case, you hit the nail on the head as to why the South Korean reaction was important: Cho was a South Korean citizen (albeit with permanent-resident status in the US), and that fact caused the whole thing to be a much more deeply-felt, notably Big Deal in South Korea than in most other places outside the US. The SK response is notable and it's germane to that section of the article, therefore it merits a subsection. --Dynaflow babble 06:08, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The South Korea section used to have a part contrasting the lack of reprisals against Koreans in the US to the reprisals against US military personnel by South Koreans after the US military personnel had committed a violent crime. If the reference to warnings about reprisals is included, then so should the statement that no such reprisals happened. User:Ryanluck

If so, it should also be noted that Cho was simply a SK citizen, not an employed member of the armed forces representing his country officially. Jetekus (talk) 22:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Front page request

I have requested that this article be front paged on April 16th, the one year anniversary of the tragic event. There's no guaranty, of course, but it would seem a fitting tribute. Ronnotel (talk) 00:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

As a friend of several of the victims and a Virginia Tech alum, I would like to register my opposition. Don't take it the wrong way; I'm not suggesting that you've done a bad job with the article. It's absolutely terrifying for many of us that the shooter gets several pages of text while the victims mostly don't have pages. Yes, the consensus seems to be that it improves the quality of the encyclopedia to have his information and not so much for the victims, and I'm prepared to accept that consensus. However, this emphasis on the shooter may be perceived as recognition of sorts--which is exactly what he wanted, and exactly what will motivate more people to try to repeat it--particularly if the article is linked as a 'tribute.' I think a more fitting tribute would be the list of victims. If, instead, you mean that you think it would be appropriate to link the article on April 16th, I grudgingly will agree with you. Just be careful what you call it. And--most of all--thank you for thinking of us. It's hard that people have forgotten so quickly what was essentially our September 11th. --aciel (talk) 19:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on the topic, but I believe that only content that has been through the 'Featured Article' process is eligible for the front page. There is a process for creating 'Featured Lists'. Perhaps we could try to get List of victims of the Virginia Tech massacre to featured status by April 16th. If so, and if the Today's Feature Article process is willing to front page a list, I would happily support that course of action. Ronnotel (talk) 19:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

As a creator, frequent editor, and staunch defender of the List of victims of the Virginia Tech massacre, I would not support the effort to get it featured status. From its outset, I believed that the list of victims was a sub-article of the main article detailing the massacre -- a place to collect information that, while encyclopedic, was too much "in the weeds" for the main article. However, it became way too cumbersome, even disturbing at times, chronicling numbers and positions of gunshot wounds and other gruesome details that were totally unnecessary. I fear that calling undue attention to it at this time would actually detract from its quality right now as a simple list of victims. I strongly support, however, the effort to get this article (the main article) featured on the front page on the first anniversary. HokieRNB (talk) 20:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the list article were brought up to featured list status, I don't think featured lists are eligible for the front page, so it's moot. This article (Virginia Tech massacre) should be the featured article on April 16. I understand Aciel's concern about not wanting to make it a memorial to the shooter ... but that's just an issue of making sure that the featured article blurb is well-written. --B (talk) 07:27, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I would respectfully request, then, that you not refer to the shooter by name in the blurb. Make it about the victims, not about the person who wanted to become famous by it. --aciel (talk) 01:19, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Mention of the Permanent Memorial

I notice that the article makes no mention of the permanent memorial to the victims of the shooting nor does the List of victims of the Virginia Tech massacre although the latter does have a photo of the temporary memorial created in the immediate wake of the shooting. As the report of the Commission that was established after the shooting is mentioned it makes sense that the establishment of the permanent memorial to the victims should be mentioned. I didn't just add it since I do think it would mandate creation of a new section that would include all the "long-term results" of the shooting: the report of the Governor's Commission, the memorial, and Virginia Tech's closing for commemoration on the 1st anniversary of the shooting. Wiikiwiiki (talk) 22:28, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

There's a section -- campus memorial -- that mentions plans for the permanent memorial. If those plans have progressed, it would be helpful to be bold, find a source and update that section. Creating a new "long-term results" section would require a lot of restructuring, which I'm not sure is the best way to approach it since this article already has featured article status. --Sfmammamia (talk) 22:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

At one time

At one time this was a fairly accurate account of 4-16-2007. I was surprised to see how it has been changed. I am not going to correct what has been written. This article certainly should not be referenced.

Springmorning (talk) 03:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Springmorning, if you are truly interested in improving the article, please feel free to make bold edits and/or specific suggestions here about how it could be improved. The article has already reached featured article status, but there are many of us who are actively interested in continuing to improve the article. --Sfmammamia (talk) 20:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

http://www.vtreviewpanel.org/report/index.html Virginia Tech Review Panel Mass Shootings at Virginia Tech April 16, 2007 Report of the Review Panel Presented to Governor Kaine Commonwealth of Virginia August 2007

pages 90-92 from the report and compare to what has been written below in Wikipedia

"Norris Hall shootings About two hours after the initial shootings, Cho entered Norris Hall, which houses the Engineering Science and Mechanics program among others, and chained the three main entrance doors shut. He placed a note on at least one of the chained doors, claiming that attempts to open the door would cause a bomb to explode. Shortly before the shooting began, a faculty member found the note and took it to the building's third floor, so as to notify the school's administration. Concurrently, however, Cho had gone to the second floor and began shooting students and faculty; the bomb threat was never called in.[2][13]

I've read through this particular section of the review panel report (which is already cited frequently throughout the article, by the way) and the details in the paragraph above seem to adhere pretty closely to it. If you feel there's some crucial detail left out, please point it out or add it. --Sfmammamia (talk) 17:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Aerial photo showing location of Norris and West Ambler Johnston HallsCho's first attack after entering Norris occurred at an elementary German class, in room 207, taught by instructor Jamie Bishop. Erin Sheehan, an eyewitness and survivor of Norris 207, told reporters that the shooter "peeked in twice" earlier in the lesson and that "it was strange that someone at this point in the semester would be lost, looking for a class".[14] Shortly thereafter, Cho entered the class, shooting Bishop without warning, and then commenced shooting students. Sheehan said that only four students in the German class were able to leave the room on their own, two of them injured. The rest were more severely wounded or dead. Following the Norris 207 shooting, Cho moved on to other classrooms, reloading and shooting students and professors in Norris 204, 206, and 211, as well as in the hallway."

Thanks for pointing this out. The review panel report presented a very different sequence than earlier media reports, so I've taken the review panel report as more definitive and changed the sequence. --Sfmammamia (talk) 17:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Since the Report is public domain and this article is being given featured article status, it should be more at a higher level of accuracy. I just point out the above as one instance. Read the report that I above referenced at the web site I posted. Springmorning (talk) 15:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

If there are other specific discrepancies you are aware of, please point us to them. Thanks! --Sfmammamia (talk) 17:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

edit: "West Ambler Johnston shootings" was a resident advisor in West Ambler Johnston Hall. from http://www.vt.edu/remember/biographies/ryan_christopher_clark.html "and a male resident assistant, Ryan C. Clark" from Wikipedia Springmorning (talk) 03:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

edit- "Hokie Spirit monies distributed In October, the university moved to the next stage of a long and difficult healing process by distributing the monies from the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund to those most profoundly affected by the tragedy of April 16. Spontaneous donations to the university began almost immediately after the shootings on April 16, and by late summer, nearly 21,000 groups, companies, or individuals had contributed. "People sent this money to Virginia Tech and have entrusted to us to do what is right and appropriate," noted Tech President Charles W. Steger.

Checks totaling more than $8.5 million were distributed according to the protocols developed in conjunction with Kenneth Feinberg, administrator of the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. There were 79 eligible claimants; all applied and will be receiving funds or the equivalent educational tuition. Those disbursements are as follows: $208,000 to each of 32 families; $104,000 to each of 5 individuals; $46,000 to each of 8 individuals; and $11,500 to each of 34 individuals. Some will receive the disbursements over time in the form of free tuition. About $860,000 remains in designated funds created in the early days of the tragedy by the Virginia Tech Foundation, which established memorial funds in the names of the 32 victims. Contributions so designated were deposited in those funds and undesignated monies were deposited in the memorial fund and ultimately included in the distributions." from http://www.vtmagazine.vt.edu/winter08/news.html Also some families established scholarships or fellowships at VT with money from the HSMF.

from Wikipedia- This is inaccurate. Shortly following the events of April 16, the Virginia Tech Foundation, in conjunction with Hokies United, formed the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund (HSMF) to help remember and honor the victims. The fund is used to cover expenses including, but not limited to: assistance to victims and their families, grief counseling, memorials, communications expenses, and comfort expenses.[61] In early June 2007, the Virginia Tech Foundation announced that US$3.2 million was moved from the HSMF into 32 separate named endowment funds, each created in honor of a victim lost in the shooting. This transfer brought each fund to the level of full endowment, allowing them to operate in perpetuity. The naming and determination of how each fund will be directed is being developed with the victims' families. By early June, donations to the HSMF had reached approximately $7 million.[62] In July 2007, Kenneth R. Feinberg, who served as 'Special Master of the federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, was named to administer the fund's distributions.[63] Springmorning (talk) 00:35, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

VT Thanks You project

On November 17, 2007 there was a pretty cool event on the VT campus where something like 6000 people lined up on the drillfield to spell out the message "VT Thanks You." The event was coordinated by a faculty member in Geography (Peter Sforza) who organized getting everyone lined up on the drillfield, and arranged to have aerial photography collected, and timing the message with an image acquisition by the Ikonos satellite. Maybe it would be worth adding to the VT massacre article (see Event web page and VT recap of the event).Pradtke (talk) 04:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

TFA Proposed Blurb

I'm moving the proposed front page blurb from Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Long range requests to here so it can get more attention. Aciel has proposed that the blurb strike all mention of Cho by name. Does that fit stylistically? While I'm sensitive to Aciel's motivation, I'm concerned about the text failing under as per WP:POINT. Ronnotel (talk) 04:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The Virginia Tech massacre was a school shooting comprised of two separate incidents about two hours apart on April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Tech. The shooter killed thirty-two people and wounded twenty-three others before committing suicide, making it the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. The perpetrator had been court ordered to seek treatment at the University's Cook Counseling Center seventeen months earlier, but the order was neither obeyed nor enforced. Additionally, the University's administration had failed to heed warnings from the shooters' professors on numerous occasions. The incident sparked intense debate in the U.S. and globally about gun violence, gun laws, gaps in the U.S. system for treating mental health issues, the perpetrator's state of mind, the responsibility of college administrators, privacy laws, journalism ethics, and other issues. The incident prompted immediate changes in Virginia law that had allowed the shooter, an individual adjudicated as mentally unsound, to purchase handguns. It also led to passage--with support from both the National Rifle Association and the Brady Campaign--of the first major federal gun control measure in more than thirteen years, a law that strengthened the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, on January 5, 2008.
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Overall, I think the blurb is excellent, but would suggest a couple changes. "Court-ordered" should be hyphenated. I think the fourth sentence, "Additionally, the University's administration had failed to heed warnings from the shooters' professors on numerous occasions." could bear some improvement. I think the point is that university administrators AND professors failed to communicate with each other and connect the dots on warning signs in Cho's behavior on numerous occasions leading up to the incident. One could argue that the bigger failure by the university -- the lapses in security precautions after the first incident -- is not mentioned here. With regard to inclusion or exclusion of Cho's name from the blurb, I looked at precedent, and in the case of the today's featured article blurb on Columbine, the shooter's names were mentioned. Journalistically, I see no reason to leave it out, but I don't feel strongly about it. --Sfmammamia (talk) 22:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

If the shooter's name gets mentioned, it'd be nice if the victims' names were also included. Unfortunately, I didn't think there'd be room. In any case, thank you for the criticism. I'll try to work on it some more in a bit. --aciel (talk) 01:38, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

While I think it is good to be sensitive to some people's POV on the matter, I think it is important to not remove critical information from the blurb. Since the perpetrator had been already labeled as dangerous by several authorities prior to the incident, his story is much more critical to the development of this article than one who had just randomly been set off. Cho was intimately involved with Virginia Tech, thus he should be mentioned. On top of that, there is an entire article dedicated to Cho. It feels to me that the current blurb is awkward as it is obvious that the name is being intentionally omitted. Don't dance around his name and pretend he doesn't matter to the event. Rooot (talk) 16:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Then don't pretend that the people killed don't matter, either. And certainly don't pretend for a second that our actions, in writing articles in this encyclopedia, won't influence other people to do exactly what he did. They'll do it again, for the fame, for the publicity, even for the notoriety. This is exactly what he wanted, his name in newspapers and encyclopedias. Furthermore, everyone knows his name, and anyone who's followed the story closely is, frankly, sick of hearing the name over and over again. It doesn't add anything to include it. You say he was intimately involved, and I think that's made clear by referring to him as "the shooter." Why not talk about some of the victims? Liviu Librescu, for example, a Holocaust survivor. Or Jamie Bishop. Or maybe what wonderful people Maxine Turner and Reema Samaha and Leslie Sherman and Stack Clark and Brian Bluhm and all the others were. How about the survivors?

Additionally, please refrain from using "Virginia Tech" alone to refer to the shooting. It is not an event; it is a place, a university, and people work and make their homes there. It's extremely insulting to all of us for the name of our home to be used interchangeably with a day out of nightmares. We are not Armageddon; we are not September 11th; we are not Perestroyka. We are Virginia Tech, not an event. You don't refer to the University of Texas shooting as simply "University of Texas," do you?

You seem to think that including his name is important because he was the domino that fell (well, pushed itself down) and knocked over all of the others. You seem to view this as "neutral" or "encyclopedic." It may be the second, but it's not the first. It reflects an obsession with violence in our culture. There were many dominos behind him, many which fell wrong and caused his to fall the way it did; talk about some of them. Talk about how state law in Virginia forbade his gun purchase, but was still permitted by loopholes in implementation. Talk about how University officials flat-out ignored warnings from teachers. Talk about how the incident actually got the NRA and Brady to work together to change laws--some, not enough, but still something. Talk about the controversy over privacy and security. Hell, you could even talk about the shooter's family (who are really not like what the majority of people tend to think at all). Or about the devastation it's caused in so many of us who knew the victims, how much it's destroyed our lives because these were truly good people who were killed with so much talent and so much promise.

There are other stories to tell besides the shooter's. --aciel (talk) 22:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Here, here (hear, hear?). I would even go so far as to say perhaps there are more important things than being "encyclopedic", or that there are different ways to be "encyclopedic". Remember when that Danish paper published the cartoons of Mohammed? And most major American newspapers chose not to show them? That's not because they were failing to tell the news, or because we don't have freedom of speech--it's because exercising your right to free speech gives you the right to NOT say something offensive, and that was also delivering the news. Likewise, this encyclopedia can be encyclopedic without advertising the name of a psychopath seeking notoriety.171.65.2.53 (talk) 23:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

How exactly is the shooter's name critical information? He's only well-known *because* of the shooting, which makes his identity unimportant to the article, beyond the fact that he was the shooter, which is implied. Furthermore, I reject the notion that journalism or encyclopedic articles can truly be "neutral." I don't think there's such a thing. I think they should strive, of course, to be factual. But one of the greatest problems facing journalism today is the idea that "presenting both sides equally" or "simply telling the truth" is the same thing as responsible reporting. The amount of knowledge that exists is tremendous; a lot of reporting is about deciding what knowledge to present.

Personally, I think there is a strong case to be made for the fact that encyclopedic style has a strong, unavoidably non-neutral influence on culture. That said, I think there's also a strong argument to make that, as aciel has suggested, shootings such as this feed on the notoriety that their perpetrators know they will gain, and that it's therefore societally irresponsible to reward that behavior. What would be the loss, really, if we largely agreed to deny mass shooters of their identity, simply referring to them as "the shooter?" A killer by any other name would smell as evil. I can see no real purpose in perpetrating the fame by perpetrating the name (no Johnny Cochranism intended). Reserve information on the shooter for its proper place--his own article, perhaps, giving only the information relevant to the shooting. But let's not encourage future acts like this by participating in glorifying the shooter.

I think we would all agree that it would be inappropriate, disrespectful, and unnecessary to describe the most brutal and violent details and accounts of the shooting. Why should this matter be any different? It's not out of our hands to define what "encyclopedic" means, and I think denying the shooter his glory can fit well inside that without at all compromising the article. --Ario (talk) 00:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I cannot understand your logic here. You are saying that the shooting would have happened regardless of the existence of the shooter? My argument is that BUT FOR Cho, the shooting would not have happened. The sine qua non causation and proximate causation are indisputable. Further, I disagree that we should care what is "responsible" in terms of relaying the factual events that transpired. WP:SOAP, WP:NOT#MEMORIAL, WP:NPOV and most importantly, WP:CENSOR Rooot (talk) 17:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

We're not trying to change the VT massacre page at all. If you're going to cite WP:NOT#MEMORIAL at us, then consider being against this becoming a TFA at all on 4/16, because--though subtly so--that makes it something of a memorial.

It's a little inappropriate for you to suggest that VT alums and students should inherently be non-neutral. You can survive the Holocaust and go on to become an expert on it. I see where you're coming from, but also keep in mind that the people who live through it are experts on the topic.

The TFA blurb seeks to compress the most interesting information in the article into a short space, yes? I would argue that since everyone already knows the name of the shooter--and because he's got his own page anyway--there are far more novel and interesting perspectives to take than that which is in every single newspaper article you read about school shootings. Here, I'll quote one: "Last April, a 23-year-old student and loner named Cho Seung-Hui took out his rage at Virginia Tech in the town of Blacksburg." 1 Another: "The murders came less than a year after twisted South Korean Seung-Hui Cho shot dead 32 students and professors at Virginia Tech University in the nation's worst college shooting." 2. I could list more, too. Almost every single one-paragraph summary (note: two lines in a newspaper) mentioned Cho Seung-Hui by name and the number thirty-two or thirty-three (depending on the count). I've read ten of those in the past day alone. Forget for a moment that you think I'm being non-neutral and look at this bit of information for what it is: redundant and cliche. We're an encyclopedia, not a newspaper; and the fact that the newspapers are summarizing it thusly tells us that probably we shouldn't, or no one will care to read it anyway. It's a TFA, which means it's supposed to be an attention-getter, right? How about we get people's attention by providing a novel perspective? It's not censorship to look at it from a different angle, as long as we don't distort the facts (which is not anyone's intention). --aciel (talk) 18:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Did you even bother reading my comment or did you just latch on to the WP:NOT#MEMORIAL cite and decide to stop reading there? Like I said, the most important policy on Wikipedia is WP:CENSOR. It doesn't matter what you deem appropriate or not. By definition that is censorship, especially when coupled with WP:NPOV, WP:SOAP, and WP:NOT#MEMORIAL. Your 22:35, 13 February 2008 post is exactly what I am talking about. Rooot (talk) 17:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I do, however, agree with you that this article should not be TFA on April 16 for the very reason that it violates WP:NOT#MEMORIAL. Rooot (talk) 17:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Re:Sfmammamia: I don't think precedent matters much in this case; in fact, I think it's the existence of such precedent that some feel is reason to change it. See my comment above. --Ario (talk) 00:08, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I would be supportive of getting the article for Liviu Librescu to featured status. That's a commendable effort that is in keeping with the spirit of remembering this anniversary in a constructive way. HokieRNB (talk) 23:09, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Strongly support. I doubt you'll get any objections from any Virginia Tech student or alum. What's more is that it tends to emphasize the role played by a heroic and good person rather than someone whose goal was notoriety. One could argue that the shooter did what he did basically (and this is an over-simplification, I'll admit) to get his own Wikipedia article. Librescu did what he did without hope of any reward. I'd also support featuring the article for Kevin Granata featured status; he was another hero that day.

Additionally, it may be impossible for us to agree on the wording for the Virginia Tech shooting featured article (e.g., whether or not the shooter is mentioned by name). I understand Ronnotel's concern about WP:POINT, but I'm also not doing this to prove a point; I'm doing it because I think including his name puts people at risk. I believe there is probably precedent somewhere, but I haven't the energy to find it. It does come to mind, though, that for a brief time the room where Stack and Emily were murdered was listed on Wikipedia, and ultimately taken down.

In any case, switching the featured article subject to Liviu Librescu would nicely skirt any disagreements, and would be an excellent tribute. --aciel (talk) 03:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

No offense, but any objection by a Virginia Tech student or alum is irrelevant. See my above comment. WP:SOAP, WP:NOT#MEMORIAL, WP:NPOV and most importantly, WP:CENSOR Rooot (talk) 17:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Does that mean that any objection by a human being is irrelevant? Ario (talk) 03:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Reading comprehension and an understanding of Wikipedia policy are essential for a discussion on Wikipedia. The fact that the objections are coming because these people are Virginia Tech alums or students is precisely what makes them irrelevant. Rooot (talk) 17:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I also feel strongly that naming the shooter would be incredibly harmful. That is exactly the kind of impact he wanted, and it sends a terrible message to other would-be shooters that their names will not be left out either. Murder should not be rewarded. I would MUCH rather see the names of the victims included in this blurb. State the facts, by all means, but YOU decide what is relevant, and Cho's name is not. The lives he took definitely ARE worth noting. Kira speaks (talk) 11:04, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Getting an article to featured article status is not a matter of voting to put it on the Wikipedia home page. Improving any article to the standard can be a lot of work. The article on Liviu Librescu is already very good, in my opinion, and I will nominate it shortly for featured article status, let's see how it does in that review process. If it can reach featured article status in time (and if you all who are participating in this discussion are willing to put in the time and effort helping to improve the article that quickly), then we have a shot at implementing the suggestion. That being said, however, those of you who feel so strongly about not mentioning the shooter's name must be aware that the article on Liviu Librescu ALSO mentions the shooter's name. Even if the home page blurb omits the name, it's still a part of the encyclopedia, as it should be in my opinion. Mention in Wikipedia is not decided on the basis of reward (or shaming!). It's decided on the basis of notability. --Sfmammamia (talk) 16:40, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

FAC for Liviu Librescu is underway here, and the first suggestions for improvement have already appeared. Have at it, folks! --Sfmammamia (talk) 17:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

FYI to those who were advocating it, the article on Liviu Librescu has failed its first feature article review. I've put in some time on the suggested improvements to the article that came out of that review process, but other comments are beyond my expertise. Those of you who would like to see it featured can still work to improve it and try again. --Sfmammamia (talk) 00:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Response

This section seems to be full of stuff which isn't particularly notable, and it makes up a good portion of the article; obviously the discussion on gun law, ect. needs to stay but a lot of the responses (candlelight vigil, ect.) seems extraneous, non-notable, and just to take up space. Titanium Dragon (talk) 20:26, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

This didn't come up during feature article review, so it seems the opinion of a single editor. I see no reason to open it back up for a lot of editing and rewriting at this stage, but perhaps others have comments? --Sfmammamia (talk) 20:40, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Titanium Dragon, and have held this position since the beginning of the article. I further believe that the gun control section is way too long and belongs in a different article. If you recall, I did mention these things during the featured article review. Rooot (talk) 17:32, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Rooot, I thought we addressed your primary concerns about the response section during featured article review. You made some edits, and I followed it up with some further edits, but I see that you also stated " also still think that the gun politics debate belongs on a different page." So it looks like you and Titanium Dragon have different ideas about what should stay and what should go. --Sfmammamia (talk) 17:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think the Student Response, South Korean Response, Media Response, and "Gun Politics Debate" sections can go. I especially don't like the Media Response section considering that it already has its own separate article. The student response section perhaps should be integrated into other sections because by itself it isn't giving much novel information. I really don't understand why there is so much attention being given to the "anticipated backlash against Koreans." Basically it is saying, "A few people expected something bad to happen, but it didn't happen. Here is an entire page devoted to this non-event."

Like I have been saying, I think the factual descriptions of the event are pretty good, but the response section just got way out of hand. It certainly has improved since before the last FAC review, but that doesn't make it perfect. Rooot (talk) 15:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I gave it a shot on the media response section by removing the section and placing the link to the media response article at the very top of the response section. I think it looks much better. Rooot (talk) 15:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Citations

Footnote 89 is broken. I will start checking others. Rooot (talk) 15:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Here are some more:

25

36

59

60

78

81

92

95

104

120

Rooot (talk) 15:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I fixed a bunch of these, but chose to delete a couple that were one of two or three references piled onto the same fact. Hence, the footnoote numbers are now different. There may be one or two in this list that could still use updating or replacement. --Sfmammamia (talk) 18:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

1st Anniversary

Well,

What do you people think?

88.105.6.0 (talk) 15:46, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

For those in the BST timezone like in the U.K. who wish to hold a silence at the same time as the fellow Americans; (24-hour style)

• 11:15
• 13:41
• 13:51

I am re-syncing my all of my atomic clocks for these moments.

88.105.10.162 (talk) 23:22, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Why no reporting of prior bomb threats?

There were two bomb threats on nearby Torgersen Hall prior to the shootings. One of them was on the Friday 4/13 before the shooting, which was on Monday 4/16. As someone who was evacuated from that building on Friday, I have always been dumbfounded by the complete failure of the media to tie these two events together. The person who made the bomb threat was never discovered. Rumors circulated that writings in Cho's room indicated he had made the threats as a way to test police reactions. A week or two later it was reported parenthetically in some of the papers that the bomb threats weren't related to Cho, but no reasons were ever given for why this was supposed to be the case.

After the Friday bomb threat we were evacuated to Burress Hall to be debriefed by law enforcement. They showed us the bomb threat note and asked us if we noticed anything on it that might be helpful for law enforcement. A Chinese women who worked in the building said she thought the hand-writing looked like something an Asian person would write. Someone asked the obvious question of whether the investigators had checked to see if any exams were being held in the building on the day of the bomb threats, as that would be a good place to start looking for suspects. Their response seemed to suggest that they had not pursued this line of inquiry, and perhaps even thought it irrelevant. Cho had a class in Torgersen.

The issues brought up about problems in the university's handling of Cho before the event seem irrelevant to me. It is a difficult line to walk knowing how best to respect the rights of the mentally ill and protect the safety of the student body. For me, the real issue is what would have happened had the police and administration reacted more effectively in investigating the bomb threats. Hind sight is 20/20, but what if the investigators had checked if anyone who was taking classes in Torgersen had had disciplinary action taken against them for threatening behavior, questioned these students, and checked the handwriting of the Asian student named Cho?

It has been difficult for me to deal with this issue (though nothing remotely like what some folks have had to endure). I think the police behaved heroically during the shootings. Raising the issue of their possible mistakes or oversights, or those of the administration is taboo here, so I've learned to keep quiet about my concerns. Still, I can't help wondering, "What if?" and am frustrated by the fact that the press and state review panel haven't explored these events sufficiently or, if they have, that they haven't shared what they learned effectively with the public. I wish someone could answer my questions!

24.127.47.61 (talk) 03:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)A Concerned Hokie

Students ran the vigil; there was no administrative support

Hokie United, a group composed mostly of VT student, planned and executed the vigil, including getting candles and cups donated, preparing said candles and cups and coordinating all the equipment. This belongs under the student response section, not the university response section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hogdahlt (talk • contribs) 06:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Five, four, three,. . .

Article will be on the front page in a few short hours. Now would be a good time for any last minute nits to be picked. Ronnotel (talk) 17:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I checked almost half of the refs and, where needed, added name attributes, cite tags, author names etc., a typical job no one wants to do. Surprisingly, I found a dead link (source 6, the APA letter), but fortunately there was a wayback copy of it. I wish I could check some more, but I got to get some sleep now. I'll be back tommorow to fight the vandals. Cheers, Face 22:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I just want to state for the record that I'm in favor of semi-protecting all TFAs, since – for example – the TFA for Balzac was a huge mess. I'll be watching this one in the hopes that it won't be so bad. – Scartol • Tok 00:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Well that was fun. Thanks everyone who pitched in on vandal patrol. Ronnotel (talk) 00:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Verginia Tech Template

Why is this article not included on the Virginia Tech Template? That seems like a pretty important omission.

Neelix (talk) 01:59, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

This event also isn't mentioned in the history section of the school's article. If it were mentioned there, then it probably wouldn't need to be listed on the school's template. Cla68 (talk) 03:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The article was in the template until it was recently reformatted, which deleted a section on related articles. But it's fine that you added it back in. There was no formal decision to leave it out. Remember (talk) 14:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The omission from the template was my mistake. In my reformatting zeal, I missed the small, one-article subheading at the end of the former template's coding which contained the link. --Dynaflow babble 22:36, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Featured Article

Has anyone else brought up the idea that MAYBE it might be a bad idea to list this as a featured article? I wonder how many other mentally disturbed people like that man might think "Wow, I might even get a featured article out of doing something like this!" Isn't NOT reporting massively in depth (or many week reporting) what the media generally has decided to do in MOST school shootings since Columbine? The uber massive media saturation of Columbine potentially caused copycats (hell.. columbine is practically a VERB in many threatening letters and diaries of unbalanced kids). I remember seeing a Time magazine or something like that with several pages dedicated to floor plans and timelines in the weeks after that event..
Just a thought. Cs302b (talk) 03:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

So we should be quiet and pretend it never happened. Just like slavery, genocide and the Holocaust. All we're doing is making people want to be on Wikipedia and be on the news so we should burn all the books that mention these bad things so they never get these ideas. 128.227.104.129 (talk) 03:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Slavery, Genocide, and the Halocaust all weren't done by one single person who could do that horror on a day's notice. Report on shootings, yes. Have an article dedicated to the event, yes. Throw on extra featured content, no. Is there a myspace page dedicated to it yet? How about a made for TV movie? Cs302b (talk) 03:53, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

As the WP:FAC and WP:TFA nominator (although the lion's share of the work was done by many excellent editors, far too numerous to name), I can assure you that the intention of placing the article on the front page was to serve the public good. I believe the only way we can prevent another tragedy like this is by educating ourselves about what went wrong. This article does an outstanding job of doing exactly that. This article describes how a mom intervened when she saw troubling signs in her son and may have prevented a similar situation. I have no idea if she consulted this article or not, but I like to think that if she had she might have found some useful information. Ronnotel (talk) 04:06, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Thats unlikely AJUK ^Talk!! 19:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Cs302b - the ancient greeks tried what you propose over 2000 years ago. It doesn't work. Raul654 (talk) 04:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that that mother heard news of the shooting and thought "My son might be of that type" and reported it. I doubt she decided to look up the shooting on Wikipedia then based her decision to report her son on it. The article doesn't talk in depth about mental health issues or even much about what went wrong.. It talks about some psychologist resigning and some miscommunication.. Hardly an article that anyone would read and suddenly become enlightened on the subject of mental illness or warning signs of school shootings. The article is a good article that covers its topic well. Nothing more, nothing less. How does this article REALLY prevent another school shooting? Featuring it is an example of what this kid was going for. Same for the airing of his tapes sent to NBC.. He wanted EXPOSURE to instill FEAR. Featuring this article at best only further adds to that culture of fear and at worst reminds one lone madman that a shooting that was several months ago won't be forgotten by our media.. He'll get annual memorial services reminding people of what he did and wikipedia pages (maybe even featured)... and FAME.
On a side note.. Raul, what's this about the ancient Greeks? I think you're stretching whatever point you're trying to make a bit far. Cs302b (talk) 04:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Since when is it Wikipedia's responsibility to prevent shootings? 128.227.104.129 (talk) 04:36, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Society at large would not benefit if we were to publish bomb-making directions and tips on where and how to place them to cause the greatest number of casualties. It is not our job to prevent people from making bombs. Where is the wiki-how page dedicated to mass casualties by homemade weapons? (I'm not insinuating that the Virginia Tech article is a how to.. I'm just replying to the above comment in an exaggeration to prove his point does not apply all the time and so therefore should be looked at more in depth rather than simply being accepted as fact) Cs302b (talk) 04:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

So because we don't have step by step instructions on how to perform mass murder, we are against it and must prevent others from imitating it? 128.227.104.129 (talk) 04:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I can think of no greater pursuit on Wikipedia than to create the most accurate, informative, and unbiased articles possible on topics such as these. As Rononotel pointed out above, education is the most important weapon in combating the depravity that too often beleaguers us. There's no stretch to Raul's point; the real stretch is actually believing that by eschewing the issue we can be more secure in our lives. That route entails complacency, and to argue that we shouldn't make this article prominent because it's giving him "what [he] was going for" is to completely oversimplify both his motivation and the circumstances of the tragedy. I have nothing but gratitude for those that worked to make this a fine demonstration of informativeness. Nufy8 (talk) 04:52, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

It is a good article. I already said that. It should not be censored by not being made whatsoever. I just think that yearly massively public remembrances of something that one single person can pull off in a couple hours time should be reconsidered as there is no doubt (evidenced by his video) that he wanted to have massive public exposure.Cs302b (talk) 05:00, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Extending this logic of complacent or passive inducement, we shouldn't feature articles about countries because it might make cause exoduses, foods because it would cause obesity, or actors because it would make people watch movies. Wikipedia articles — like movies, music, games, and other alleged depraved scourges of modern culture — don't cause people to commit crimes. Encyclopedias educate people. Educated people resist ignorance and hate. Ignorance and hate beget injustice and violence. Madcoverboy (talk) 05:06, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Obesity, chronic movie watching (is that a major issue in the U.S.?), and exoduses are all completely off topic.. And Movies, Music, Games and those other depraved scourges of modern culture are only barely closer to the topic. I'm talking about mass media's commemorative yearly remembrances of something that ONE SINGLE PERSON can do in a short period of time with little effort.Cs302b (talk) 05:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

This is mostly to your previous comments, particularly the first one, not really this one, but Wikipedia is not censored. Hello32020 (talk) 10:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

There seem to be this underlying assumption that the media and merely 'mentioning' this sort of thing would CAUSE these incidents to happen. Research at most shows a correlation of aggressive media and aggressive people, but no definite answers on if it actually CAUSES it. Did the aggressive person like watching aggressive shows (thus choose to watch them more often) or did watching these shows make the person aggressive? Could it be these disturbed individuals were actively searching for these articles or they come across this article and that helped them decide to do it? No one can tell. Correlation is not causation. Objectively, there is no definite answer. Just my two cents. Do you know? (talk) 06:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Virginia Tech has indeed been a focal point for discussing journalism ethics. While there are some instances where journalists self-censor, this isn't one of them. (if we instead drew the line at "normal article okay, but featured bad", under that sort of thinking, suddenly a large number of small details would have to be considered for culling) --Underpants (talk) 13:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Section on one year anniversary

Do you think we should add a couple of sentences somewhere regarding the various activities today designed to mourn the one-year anniversary of the event? There are various news articles covering these events today. Remember (talk) 14:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Given the velocity of edits, helpful and otherwise, it may be best to wait a day or so. The articles will still be there but go ahead if you want. Ronnotel (talk) 14:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Rename to Virginia Tech Tragedy

This may be a small point to some, but as a member of the Virginia Tech community it makes a big difference to me. I'd like to have the article renamed Virginia Tech Tragedy and have the word 'massacre' replaced by 'tragedy' throughout the majority of the article. It is a matter of semantics, i'll admit, however it changes the emphasis significantly. Massacre places remembrance and emphasis on the act and the attacker. Tragedy places it on the victims and the promises they held before the event occurred. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wings06j (talk • contribs) 15:16, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

It's difficult to tell from this talk page, but the article title has been discussed numerous times over the last year, with no consensus to change it. Virginia Tech massacre is still far more common by the Google test. We can have the discussion all over again, but in my opinion, the outcome is unlikely to change. --Sfmammamia (talk) 16:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, and please see WP:NOT#MEMORIAL. The article needs to maintain a balance between sensitivity and objectivity, which I believe it does as well as humanly possible. Your points are well taken, but I don't believe the suggested move would garner consensus. Ronnotel (talk) 16:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, a "tragedy" is a POV-laden term of judgment -- it assesses rather than describes the events. A "massacre" is what literally happened; a "tragedy," although I'm sure every reasonable person views it as such, is a subjective interpretation of the moral weight of the event. It isn't a neutral term. Dylan (talk) 18:31, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I see what your saying and I probably should have researched the discussions some before posting the request. I was trying to find the VT memorial webcast (the link on the VT page was being blocked where i'm at) and I stumbled upon this in the process so it wasn't exactly the best timing either. Wings06j (talk)Wings06J —Preceding comment was added at 01:07, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Yankees game

The New York Yankees played a spring training exhibition game at Virginia Tech in March 2008 to support the university's recovery from the massacre. This game should be mentioned in passing in the article. Source: Newsday article. 71.174.111.205 (talk) 15:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The current text has a single sentence: "Sporting teams and leagues at both the college and professional levels, as well as sports figures from football, baseball, hockey, soccer, and NASCAR racing, paid their respects and joined fundraising efforts to honor the victims." which seems about right. Adding a description of the Yankee's game, while laudable, would seem like undue weight, wouldn't it? Perhaps we could modify that sentence with something like "and other" after fundraising. Ronnotel (talk) 15:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

This was a very kind act by the New York Yankees baseball club, so I think this should get a section to itself, and include all of the player stats to the game. (142.162.88.132 (talk) 17:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC))

Not needed, imo. --70.109.223.188 (talk) 18:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

It did receive fairly substantial coverage (200 google news hits in the last month), so it might be worth mentioning by name. They actually came to the campus and played an exhibition game, as well as donated $1 million to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. It seems like one of the more "substantial" among the "other responses". HokieRNB (talk) 18:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Ronnotel on this one. D.M.N. (talk) 18:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with it either way. Consensus wins. HokieRNB (talk) 18:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Resistance?

That title sounds way too much like this was some kind of surgical miliatary strike in which a group of ragtag people formed a band of rebels in response. This was a school shooting, not a miliatary strike, surely we can think of a less biased word, can't we? Resistance just doesn't sound right. DarthKiley (talk) 18:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Resistance sounds perfect to me. What word would you propose to replace it?--Ryudo (talk) 18:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think resistance sounds right either though not sure what would be better. 'Actions by staff and students' just doesn't cut it and the selfless acts of some involved couldn't be described as just resistance. Rutger43 (talk) 06:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I still fail to see whats wrong with the word resistance, because thats exactly what it was, teachers/students "resisting" a bad situation. Nonetheless, for the sake of compromise....."opposition"?--Ryudo (talk) 07:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Some of the credited resisters reportedly saved many lives, their actions should not be downgraded at all--68.116.156.71 (talk) 02:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Last part of the lead

"The Virginia Tech Review Panel, a state-appointed body assigned to review the incident, criticized Virginia Tech administrators for failing to take action that might have reduced the number of casualties. The panel's report also reviewed gun laws and pointed out gaps in mental health care as well as misinterpretations of privacy laws that left Cho's deteriorating condition in college untreated."

Could someone close to the article possibly source it. The rest of the lead is sourced, so I think it's best to have that little section sourced. Apart from that, the article is deservedly an FA! D.M.N. (talk) 18:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Done --Sfmammamia (talk) 20:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

4/16/08 → featured

Is it just a coincidence that the article was featured on the anniversary of the shootings, or was it planned to be like this? -- Ketchup Krew ^{Heinz 57!} 19:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

It was requested. Ronnotel (talk) 19:43, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggest slight grammatical changes

The second paragraph concludes with mention of a stalking incident and the third paragraph begins with "The incident received...". I suggest starting the third paragraph with "The shooting incident received..." so that the third and fourth paragraphs don't imply that international criticism over a stalking incident led Virginia to relax some law, thereby enabling Cho to buy guns. Or start it with "The stalking incident received..." if that's the way it really happened. "The incident received..." is ambiguous here, given that you were just discussing a different incident.

As a matter of style, I wouldn't start the fourth paragraph with the exact same words as the previous paragraph. Indeed, I'd start the third and fourth paragraphs with "The massacre received..." and the "The shooting prompted..." (respectively); using "incident" tends to reduce this terrible tragedy to something minor and sterile. Not trying to promote any gun agenda here but I know I'd hate to see my son's or daughter's death referred to as an "incident".

Pbyhistorian (talk) 21:31, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Please be bold and fix it! :) Ronnotel (talk) 21:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I have been in the past, with minor fixes to other articles, but this one appeared to have been a battleground; hence the suggestion rather than action. Thanks to the bold one who acted for me!

Pbyhistorian (talk) 22:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

I would suggest to the wikipedists Wiki-en in editions of the same article to inter-wikis, because of course it would be a excellent idea. Some wikipedist agree? Bruno Leonard (talk) 22:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Citing Report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel

This could do with page numbers for easy verifiability, maybe? And the note in the ref needs to be removed, as it only applies to one cite. Putting "and wounded seventeen" in the lead seems preferable to "many more", leaving the "caused injury to six others as they tried to flee" as an addendum to that, or as a note.

• 1a. pp. 25–28
• b. p. 126
• c. p. 5. ["murdered 32 and injured 17 students and faculty"] Cho caused injury to six others as they tried to flee. (p. 92)
• d. p. 5
• e. Report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel
• f. p. 77
• g. p. 89
• h. p. 89
• i. p. 90 ["Advanced Hydrology" should be capitalized]
• j. p. 91
• k. p. 98
• l. p. 92
• m. Report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel
• n. p. 33 "He was diagnosed as having [severe] 'social anxiety disorder.'"
• o. pp. 34–37
• p. p. 53
• q. p. 79. p. 81 [This should read "may have erred". Under the heading "Premature Conclusion?" the report reads "At this point the police may have made an error in reaching a premature conclusion that their initial lead was a good one, or at least in conveying that impression to the Virginia Tech administration." (p. 79)]
• r. p. 82–84, p. 87 [Check grammar. Does one make an alert?]
• s. p. 79
• t. p. 71
• u. p. 71
• v. p. 76 [doesn't explicitly mention Code of Virginia, may be a better cite]
• w. p. 76

86.44.28.245 (talk) 10:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Feature Article Status

I'd like it if this article were never featured again. It too tempting a target for vandals as it is, featuring it makes it worse. The backwards policy that forbids protecting featured articles made a lot of work for a lot of people yesterday keeping trash out of this article.--Rtphokie (talk) 11:39, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a wiki. 86.44.28.245 (talk) 12:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Plus, per policy articles are only ever on the front page once (in the absence of exceptional circumstances). I can't foresee any reason why this article would ever be front paged again except, possibly, if it were a significant anniversary - i.e. 10-year. Ronnotel (talk) 12:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec) The article won't be featured again—articles only go on the Main Page once. I have to agree with you that the article should have been protected; I don't think it got more vandalism than usual, but IMHO it is completely pointless to have dozens of people relentlessly fighting vandalism for 24 hours and then go "phew, off the Main Page, now we can protect it"; at least two separate requests at RFPP were denied with a boilerplate "not while it's on the Main Page" message. I am quickly starting to disagree with WP:NOPRO. Actually, NOPRO specifically notes "potentially distressing content is being repeatedly placed onto the article" as an exception. I don't think enough folks are reading it. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 12:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank You

		The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		I just wanted to publicly thank Sfmammamia, Ronnotel, AlexiusHoratius, Onorem, Dynaflow, Dysepsion, Fvasconcellos, NawlinWiki, and Paul Erik for your efforts yesterday to keep this article free of vandalism. HokieRNB (talk) 13:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

'Massacre'

I have changed this to 'episode' to rid this article of the patent POV. Does this really need to be constantly reverted to 'massacre' without any justification. Wikipedia is not here to offer judgement, but to give details and facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Static sprinter (talk • contribs)

The reasons the change was reverted are viewable in the page history. The article title has been discussed over and over again, and the consensus has stabilized (for the time being) at "Virginia Tech massacre." It's possible that this may not be the optimal title, but it is the result of more than a year of back-and-forth that you should look into before revert-warring over it. Here's a decent starting place: Talk:Virginia Tech massacre/Archive 13#Change the name?. --Dynaflow babble 22:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

More: Talk:Virginia Tech massacre/Archive 13#This "massacre" was a Tradgedy, Talk:Virginia Tech massacre/Archive 13#Virginia Tech Shooting, Talk:Virginia Tech massacre/Archive 13#A new proposal. These are just from the most recent of the 13 archives. --Dynaflow babble 22:05, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

My apologies, I didn't realise that there had already been discussion on this, though I still feel it is too POV. Static sprinter (talk) 22:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Static sprinter, you could try doing an RfC on this issue. Cambrasa 22:22, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Static sprinter: We appreciate the WP:BOLD editing, and if you want to pursue this further, an RfC would be a good idea. Be aware, however, that this kind of thing may pull in the possibility of stylistic changes in the titles of many others amongst Wikipedia's "massacres". --Dynaflow babble 22:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

It could, but it really depends on what happens. Thing is, I think massacre is NOT the name we want for an article, any more than we want "conspriacy theory" as the name of an article. However, at times it would simply not be NPOV of us to give it any other name, because that IS the name of the subject. This subject is known both as "Virginia Tech shooting" and "Virginia Tech massacre", and as such, we should prefer the more neutral name. However, the Boston massacre simply isn't known as anything else (at least, not popularly) and as such its name is justified, much as "9/11 conspiracy theories" is the only possible name for that article as that is what they are and are known as collectively. Titanium Dragon (talk) 00:48, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Should the title be 'massacre'? (RfC)

There you go. I'll let people decide; I don't want to edit contrary to the general consensus. --Static sprinter (talk) 22:35, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

• Keep as "massacre" - Grabbing the definition from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/massacre, the primary definition of "massacre" is the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings [or animals]. That is what occurred at Virginia Tech last April, and I see no problems with the use of "massacre" as a descriptive term, with reference to WP:NPOV. We should also err towards reflecting common usage, per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events): "If there is a particular common name for the event, it should be used even if it implies a controversial point of view." Using the "Google Test" to track the great memetic horse race over the name of this event, I'm seeing 493,000 hits on "Virginia Tech massacre," 365,000 for "Virginia Tech shootings," and only 103 for "Virginia Tech episode." --Dynaflow babble 00:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • [CAVEAT:] This article, as acknowledged by outside media, served as an important, large-scale clearing house for information concerning the massacre in the hours and days after the story broke, and thus this article may be unique, vis-a-vis Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events), in that it actually played a significant role in how the event came to be seen -- and named -- outside Wikipedia. That, in turn, may have reinforced the article's titling here. --Dynaflow babble 01:15, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep This event precisely fits the definition of the word massacre - i.e., the indiscriminate slaughter of those with limited ability to resist. As discussed zillions of times before, there is nothing inherently POV about the term massacre - it just so happens that it's a word that gets used on occasion by POV-pushers. That's not the case here so the claim of POV is unsubstantiated. Ronnotel (talk) 01:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
• Change to "shootings" Forget POV, that was the wrong term to use - it just seemed a bit extreme. However, using the google test, 'Virginia Tech Shootings' springs up 1,720,000 results: far more than with the name massacre. --Static sprinter (talk) 09:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Apparently I was wrong. It's actually fewer with quotation marks. Nonetheless, is the test not slightly circular, given that a good proportion of sites probably take wikipedia as their authority? Still, let's see what people think. --Static sprinter (talk) 12:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been running a comparison between number of hits in a Google news search off and on over the past year between the terms "Virginia Tech shootings" and "Virginia Tech massacre" to see if there has been a shift towards one term or the other. In my opinion, the two terms have been in rough parity over that period. I would like to note that there are a number of sources where one would expect the editorial process to be relatively immune from contamination by this article - e.g. the New York Times, CNN, Time, etc. that have all used the term "massacre", not just in reporting, but in commentary as well. Of particular interest is that it is not uncommon for an article to alternate between the terms - indicating that the terms may be somewhat interchangeable. In any case, I don't see a significant shift in usage away from the term Virginia Tech massacre that would warrant a rename at this point. If that were to change, then I am certainly open to it. Ronnotel (talk) 15:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

• Keep as massacre - the only other possible term is shootings, which is not specific enough. There have been other shootings related to Virginia Tech, but only one massacre (unless you count the Draper's Meadow massacre, which predates the university). As has been noted, the two words are used roughly the same amount (if not massacre slightly more) to describe the event:
  • web results for "Virginia Tech shootings" -wikipedia - 325,000
  • web results for "Virginia Tech massacre" -wikipedia - 423,000
  • news results for "Virginia Tech shootings" -wikipedia - 1,465
  • news results for "Virginia Tech massacre" -wikipedia - 1,341 HokieRNB (talk) 13:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep as massacre. I see no reason to change it at this time. --Sfmammamia (talk) 16:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep This has been debated since the very beginning of the article. I think that massacre has become the consensus term. On a different note, as I was perusing the ancient history of this article I found this quote that I believe is on point: ""Virginia Tech" is a POV term. I don't think the native Americans called this place Virginia. In fact, everything in the world is POV. Everything. Nutmegger 19:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)" Rooot (talk) 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
• Change to shootings. There wasn't a "consensus"; way back in the day someone arbitrarily changed the title, it got changed back and forth, then got locked at massacre by chance. Then people claimed prior consensus, such as Rooot's argument, and shut us down despite such locks EXPLICITLY not being an endorsement of the current title. I'm sorry, but there's no good reason to use the word "massacre" when "shooting" is just as common, and massacre is a far, far more loaded term than "shooting". If massacre was far more common as the term, then I'd be fine with it, but as-is, there isn't really a demonstrable preference for one over the other, and we should, as an encyclopedia, go with the more neutral, less loaded word. I'm tired of this article being used as a memorial. Titanium Dragon (talk) 00:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with parts of Titanium Dragon's portrayal. The title didn't get "locked at massacre by chance." That portrayal seems to completely ignore the lengthy and voluminous discussion that has occurred numerous times on this topic. You may disagree with the views of those of us who have stated that we believe massacre to be the correct term to use in this context, but I don't recall anyone "shutting you down" in these discussions. You simply haven't convinced us of your view, and the Google test still supports "Virginia Tech massacre" as the most common phrase. --Sfmammamia (talk) 01:10, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Google is not the ultimate arbiter of titles of articles; you should know that. It is but one way to determine what names are in common use. Frankly, I think it shows that the two are very close in usage. And yes, it did get locked at massacre by chance; I was around when this article was created. There was a discussion but no consensus was reached, and its name got locked because it needed to stop being moved around while it was being edited once per minute for a week and a half. Some later argued that consensus was reached, but it wasn't and the discussion was cut short. There is no reason to claim on the basis of past conensus, especially consensus which was questionable at best at the time and which is long in the past, to influence our decisions today. People calm down and become less emotionally invested, and people who were emotionally invested gradually drift away.

If there are two similarly commonly-used names, and one is slanted and the other isn't, we should prefer the one which is more neutral. Titanium Dragon (talk) 02:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The discussion may have been cut short in the days immediately following the event, but it came up again and continued, on and off, throughout the summer. Anyone who wasn't involved or can't remember that need only to look at talk archive 13, where by my count, there's nearly 10,000 words of discussion on this topic in two separate threads. The discussion died out with no consensus to change the article title. The same arguments expressed then hold today, in my view. --Sfmammamia (talk) 16:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

• Change to shootings per Sfmammamia. There was no concensus in the change to massacre. The event is most commonly referred to in the news as "shootings". It's referred to on campus as "shootings" far more often than massacre. Massacre is a word that some in the media are using more as an effort to sensationalize than to accurately describe the event. Perhaps it is dictionary correct but I think we we should go with what is in most common usage. 'Virginia Tech massacre' would be a reasonable redirect though to ensure that it's easily found.--Rtphokie (talk) 01:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Can you please cite some evidence supporting your assertions that "The event is most commonly referred to in the news as 'shootings'?" It seems to be contrary to information presented above. It's also confusing that you cite Sfmammamia as agreeing with your stance when his or her comment above seems to be the opposite of yours. --ElKevbo (talk) 02:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure he meant me, and just got confused because Sfamammamia's post looked like part of mine, so he just scanned to the bottom of the whole passage and used his name rather than mine. And it isn't really contrary to what is above; Google is not the arbiter of titles, but it shows the two are about equal, and the reach of different media sources is different - if, for instance, CNN and the like use "shooting", then "the media" in the form of the large media companies is arguable. Titanium Dragon (talk) 01:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Moreover, according to a search TODAY, it is 1471 hits for "virginia tech shootings" and 1128 for "virginia tech massacre". "Virginia Tech shooting" recieves an additional 245 hits (all of these are -wikipedia, though it doesn't significantly alter the results). Thus, he is CORRECT in stating that the media more commonly refers to the event as the "Virginia Tech shootings" than the "Virginia Tech massacre". Therefore, any argument based on media preference for massacre over shooting is wrong. Titanium Dragon (talk) 01:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

• Change to shootings. The definition of massacre that was offered by Dynaflow at the top of this section was "unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings [or animals]." While this incident would meet these criteria in my opinion, there could be arguments made over the term "indiscriminate," what constitutes a "large number," and even whether the shootings were "unnecessary" though I'm pretty sure the shooter was the only one who thought otherwise on that point. However, this event was unquestionably and unambiguously a shooting. I defy anyone to posit any but the most implausible of scenarios whereby this would not be considered a shooting. The conflicting evidence presented by Titanium Dragon and HokieRNB shows that, whoever has the correct numbers, both terms are used frequently and interchangeably so, in the absence of a clear "standard name," I strongly favour renaming to shootings as it would be unassailably accurate where massacre will likely always attract questions like this one. OlenWhitaker • ^{talk to me} or _don't • ♣ ♥ ♠ ♦ 22:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

  I disagree with your analysis of the term indiscriminate. Nothing I have read on this topic indicates that the assailant discriminated in his choice of victims in any way for the killings in Norris Hall. He apparently shot anyone and everyone he possibly could. And certainly the term massacre has been used for incidents with far fewer victims - the St. Valentine's Day Massacre springs to mind. Ronnotel (talk) 15:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

• Change—"massacre" is very POV against the shooter. "justice" would be POV for the shooter. "shooting" is not POV. Zginder 2008-05-05T14:27Z (UTC)
• Keep Current title is fine. Most news services still use this title. No reason to change as massacre is not a POV word, but an accurately descriptive one. Wrad (talk) 14:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
• Change to shootings. Know that game One of these things is not like the other? Well, this is that game. Look at List_of_events_named_massacres. Which one of those events is not like the other? "Massacres" are usually done on behalf of institutions, political associations, or armies rather than being perpetrated by individuals. At Wikipedia's list, there are three modern school shootings (notice school massacres redirects to school shootings. In fact, the only truly organized massacre in the list of "school massacres" would be the Beslan school hostage crisis) that probably should be switched over to shootings or killings. Massacre carries political connotations. This event had no political connotations. It was a random act of violence. Suggest changing the Columbine and Dunblane article titles as well, or at least remove them from the list. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:29, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep "Massacre" in this case serves as a far more precise word to describe what went on. As for whether or not it's a loaded word, I can't see why anyone would take offense to it. And the event does fit "massacre" quite well if we are to put any faith whatsoever in the wiktionary. Who usually engages in massacring others is another matter altogether. TerminusEst (talk) 19:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep NPOV does not mean we have to title every crime something not pejorative to the perpetrator--otherwise, we should rename murder and rape while we're at it. Jclemens (talk) 19:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
• Change to shootings. Dlabtot (talk) 21:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Can you please offer some rationale for your opinion? This is not a vote. --ElKevbo (talk) 21:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• Change I am convinced by ScienceApologist's arguments. Further, the current (admittedly, limited and flawed) Google numbers, particularly the News searches, support the assertion that "shootings" is more commonly used than "massacre." --ElKevbo (talk) 21:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep - There was a pretty big deal about this when it happened, alot of pages moves and at the time the consensus was to keep it at massacre. I am ok with this and see no need to change it. I find it hard to state the the word massacre is POV, when most definitions define it as, "to kill unnecessarily and indiscriminately, esp. a large number of persons." I believe this incident clearly meets the criteria of the definition. Chrislk02 ^{Chris Kreider} 14:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep (again) - furthermore, per WP:NAME, the title should be "what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity". No one seems to have addressed the ambiguity that would be introduced by using shootings given that the word itself is non-specific as to whether the shootings resulted in any casualties. Notice that the guideline is not "what the greatest number of media outlets call it". I think there is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of English speakers who would recognize "Virginia Tech shootings" as referring to this event would also recognize "Virginia Tech massacre" as referring the same event. However, I'm not fully convinced that the converse could be said, especially in 1, 10, or 100 years. HokieRNB 16:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

• Keep I would have to agree with Hokie above. Massacre accurately describes the situation and is at least equally understandable to english speakers. Massacre is only being called a POV term because it implies more then "shooting", namely that the shootings killed several people without significant regard for who they were in particular. I hardly find choosing the word that most accurately describes the situation to be POV. Chris M. (talk) 17:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment There seems to be a serious disagreement about whether there was ever consensus or not. Just to be clear, the absence of a consensus to change does not imply there was ever a consensus for the current title. In the absence of a consensus, we generally don't change/don't move. However when something has been changed without consensys disregarding policy, resulting in moves wars and eventually ended up on the alternative title, particularly when page protections were involved and there were multiple discussions afterwards without consensus and the page remained at a title different from the original one, it's usually not clear what the 'default' should be and this is perhaps one of the most difficult parts of wikipedia policy. 23:24, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• There seem to be a lot of people commenting here who were previously involved in editing this page; is this correct? Anyway, as an uninvolved editor, I have to say that "massacre" is precise, accurate, and a perfectly neutral description of what happened. I find "shootings" inferior. Powers ^T 14:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

  I just stumbled across this through RFC and haven't edited this page before but it seems clear that it should be massacre. Chris M. (talk) 21:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

list of victims

I have read the deletion discussion for the list of victims, and while merge with the main article was proposed and discussed there, I did not see it closed with consensus to merge the list here. I see that this has been done as a bold edit. I propose we reformat this as sidebars, as was done in the Columbine High School massacre article. Other thoughts? --Sfmammamia (talk) 15:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's see if the deletion decision is overturned first, and then if not, I would agree that the information should not be placed in the main flow of the article. HokieRNB (talk) 16:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't realize an overturn discussion was ongoing. Given that, I'm going to revert the addition here, as it was never discussed as a merge and is now being used to justify arguments in the deletion discussion. --Sfmammamia (talk) 16:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

sounds about right. Ronnotel (talk) 17:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why the list is important in the first place; the entire point is that it is nothing but a memorial, and is inappropriate in an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a memorial, being killed by a terrorist doesn't MAKE you notable, and a list of the names of the dead is meaningless to the general populace, adds NO value to the article, and the only possible purpose is a memorial. If someone notable died, then it should be noted inline in the article; otherwise, there is no reason to mention them by name at all, generally. Titanium Dragon (talk) 00:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I see that the overturn discussion was closed with the decision to uphold deletion of the separate article listing the victims. Hence, I've reformatted the lists within this article to mimic the sidebox format used for similar content on the Columbine High School massacre article. I also deleted the Virginia Tech massacre infobox, because it was difficult to find a place in the flow where it would not create a gap at 1024 X 768. Admittedly, the layout isn't perfect, as the Norris Hall list is longer than the flow of text next to it, but perhaps others can improve on this. I think it's an improvement not to have the lists of victims in the main body of the article. --Sfmammamia (talk) 00:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

RFC: Victim lists

Wikipedia:Victim Lists is an attempt by me to get community consensus on the inappropriateness of victim lists on Wikipedia. Titanium Dragon (talk) 22:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

CNNU/Collegiate Times: Seller of gun used in massacre speaks at Va. Tech

This newly posted news item might need inclusion (http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/25/vatech.guns/index.html). If someone who is more familiar with the article could review and consider... 76.24.44.173 (talk) 13:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Talk about unrelated. Want to also talk about the South Korean ambassador speaking at graduation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.127.54.119 (talk) 23:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

relationship of timing to other massacres

Per this edit by Gregchance324, does this warrant any mention in the article? The Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999 the Waco siege culminated on April 19, 1993, and the Oklahoma City bombing occurred on April 19, 1995. Were there any reliable sources that drew any connection between these dates and that of the Virginia Tech massacre? HokieRNB (talk) 13:09, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:MEMORIAL and the list of victims

I like how the list has been integrated into this article and I think it merits inclusion here. However, there are entire articles for some of the specific victims that I do not believe merit inclusion in the encyclopedia as their notability is based entirely on the fact that they were victims of this event. Now that over a year has passed since the event, I would like these articles to be revisited in reference to the notability guidelines by objective eyes. Rooot (talk) 22:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

These are the articles that I am talking about:

• Kevin Granata
• G. V. Loganathan
• Jamie Bishop
• Jocelyne Couture-Nowak
• Liviu Librescu

- Rooot (talk) 23:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

While I can't speak for the others, Librescu was repeatedly shown to be notable per WP:PROF at the time, completely independent of his connection to the event. Rdfox 76 (talk) 00:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Rooot, all of those have undergone AfDs and all ended as keep, including your nomination for Jocelyne Couture-Nowak which was mostly derided as a WP:POINT nomination.--Oakshade (talk) 19:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Two things: 1. The entire point of this is that yes, they all did undergo AfDs, but most of them were within weeks of the event. Thus, it is time to revisit them all with objective, not emotional, eyes. 2. The Couture-Nowak article has survived several AfDs. However, that does not mean that it should not be looked at again. Further, your assertion that my nomination was "mostly derided as a WP:POINT" is ludicrous. If you bothered to actually read the AfD you would see that 4/12 of the comments mentioned that. You have a history of exaggeration as can be seen through most of your prior posts. 4 out of 12 would never be considered "mostly" anything by any reasonable person. Rooot (talk) 07:22, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there were 11 voters in your AfD with 10 voting to "Keep" and 1 voting to "Delete." Three of the "Keep" voters mention WP:POINT by name and six more describe all the previous AfDs attempts with comments such as "The repeated practice of trying to delete an article after multiple previous AfDs ended with a clear result of Keep spits in the face of consensus" and "Speedy keep as borderline disruptive forum-shopping." --Oakshade (talk) 20:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

And now you resort to lying. Good work. Back to reality, though: go troll somewhere else. Rooot (talk) 03:59, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

According to the AfD, those stats are completely accurate. Sorry you feel the need to make a false claim and personal attack (a true trolling action), but it's on record now for all to see. Regarding that reality you write of, it's been almost two months since your original post here and it appears you have failed to build any support for your multiple article deletion agenda. --Oakshade (talk) 04:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Multiple article deletion agenda? This isn't some infantile game where anyone is keeping score. It doesn't matter to me personally whether these articles are deleted or not, nor does it matter if a single person agrees with me. The entire purpose of a discussion page is to have an open discussion. Trying to peg me as someone who cares whether anyone agrees with me enough to respond on THIS article, is a worthless attempt at trolling by yourself. You have consistently misrepresented the facts whenever you have engaged in conversation with me and it only detracts from your already lacking credibility. You are right about one thing though: the record is there for all to see. They will see how you repeatedly lie, misrepresent, and edit your own posts when you have been called out on it over and over and over and over. From this point on, I consider this conversation a complete waste of time with a worthless troll and I will not be engaging with you from here on out. Rooot (talk) 07:10, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

The only response I can give to this kind of personal attack and language is to request an apology on your talk page. We hope this was just a momentary lapse in judgment. --Oakshade (talk) 19:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Illegally purchased guns

I don't know why people don't understand that Cho Illegally purchased his guns. He LIED on his ATF form 4473s. The NCIS did not have the information from Virginia to catch his lie. Virginia only changed the law to improve reporting to the NCIS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.62.190.108 (talk) 04:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Big legal settlement today

Here's the link 216.153.214.89 (talk) 04:27, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Settlement

On June 17, 2008, PA Circuit Court Judge Theodore J. Markow approved the $ 11 million amicable settlement with the 24 (of the 32) victims' families to avoid legal battle. However, of the other 8 victims, 2 families chose not to file claims, while 2 remain unresolved. The settlement also covered 18 people injured, who will receive health care needs covered for life The compromise permitted families to be updated on campus security improvements.edition.cnn.com, Virginia Tech families win $11 million settlement from state Families and surviving victims received payments on October, 2007 ($11,500 to $208,000 from the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund).ap.google.com, Judge OKs $11M settlement in Va Tech shootings--Florentino floro (talk) 10:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Removed Content?

I noticed on the Virginia Tech page that there isn't any mention at all to the massacre. Did someone remove it as vandalism, or was there some discussion I missed?

L337*P4wn 03:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

It was removed without discussion a few days ago. It's back now. --Onorem♠Dil 03:49, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks!

L337*P4wn 04:33, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Mention of Prof. Kenneth Westhues study of the shooting and his criticism of the Massengill Report was added to the opening section a few weeks back -- and promptly removed without comment. Heinrich66 (talk) 20:00, 26 July 2008 (UTC)Heinrich66