Talk:1987 Eastern Province massacres

"Every" Tamil village

@Oz346: so I read the sources you mentioned and I'm not sure if we should say 'every' Tamil village. I understand where you're coming from, but saying 'every' is a very specific charge that I don't think we should say unless it's explicitly mentioned in the source. My compromise is that we can phrase it with something like this: "there was widespread destruction of Tamil villages in the Trincomalee District..." SinhalaLion (talk) 03:51, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Stop trying to replace the article with that of 1985 massacres

@Oz346: Stop trying to turn the page into an article on 1985 Trincomalee massacres. The extensive details of that is not relevant in this article which is about 1987 massacres of Sinhalese. A basic summary on those and the link to the article stops the article being replaced by the seperate incident. - UmdP 08:55, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

I disagree completely with your argument that this is WP:UNDUE. The background section is a detailed synopsis of the build up to the articles main event, starting from the pre civil war phase (colonisation schemes) and even including mention of several events outside the Trincomalee district, such as LTTE massacres of Sinhalese civilians in the Amparai district (which is not even in the Trincomalee district!).

The mention of the COMPLETE destruction of Trincomalee town in 1985 is no way irrelevant. You seem to be motivated in removing or downplaying the atrocities committed against Tamil civilians, to present a distorted narrative. Wikipedia is not a Sri Lankan propaganda site, and needs to be objective.

You have already done something similar on the Nagadipa vihara page, removing all mention of anti-Tamil violence in 1958 that led to retaliatory violence in Jaffna. I will be getting third party involvement to mediate this dispute, as I do not forsee any agreement with you. Oz346 (talk) 11:30, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your assessment of my motives. Actually I linked it to the relevant article to direct readers to that. Also you are ignoring the source saying "Virtually, the entire town was wiped" not "COMPLETE". Thank you. - UmdP 12:18, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

User UMDP has also removed the note which strongly suggests that the Sri Lankan Army destroyed almost all Tamil villages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1987_Eastern_Province_massacres&type=revision&diff=1024635641&oldid=1024635291

What else motive other than to downplay the scale of destruction could justify removing this note?

UMDP has also downplayed atrocities against Tamil civilians on this page, removing references to Tamil people and the anti-Tamil pogrom in 1958:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1009479994

This is one of the reasons why I request an neutral 3rd party to intervene in this dispute. Oz346 (talk) 16:08, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Your complex analysis and research on my motives do not refute that excessive details of the 1985 Trincomalee massacres being added to the 1987 Eastern Province massacres goes beyond the relevance of content which bloats the background section and content related to the 1985 massacres putting undue weight on the 1985 massacres within the article about 1987 massacres. The same goes for repeating information on 1985 masscres further increasing the bloating. This leads to the scope of the article being shifted from the 1987 masscres into the 1985 masscres eventhough 1985 masscres already has its own article. Thus its simpler to summerize it and add link to the 1985 masscres instead of entirely removing it either and I already did it. Thank you --UmdP 16:57, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Disagree completely with the assertion that the prior details were excessive (the version was fine before you purged the key historical events and sanitised them to downplay the scale of atrocities against Tamil civilians in the background section). The overall article was clearly primarily focused on the 1987 crimes against Sinhalese, a simple counting of the paragraphs show this. What you did was not a simple summary, but a downplay of the key historical events in the background section. This is biased and not fitting of an encyclopaedia.Oz346 (talk) 17:10, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Do you have a source that implies the specific incidents of the 1985 masscres resulted in this 1987 massacre? §The atrocities on Tamils are present in greater detail in its own article and putting a link to the relevant article maintains the scope of the article without "sanitizing" anything. Unless you are implying that a atrocity on Sinhalese needs a list of previous atrocities on Tamils in great detail to be encyclopaedic there is no bias. --UmdP 17:19, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

A 'background' section on deteriorating interethnic relations in the eastern province, and in particular Trincomalee district (where most of the violence happened) that does not mention such major events in its true details is a joke. The destruction of almost every Tamil settlement in Trincomalee District and Trincomalee Town is a major event. It should be mentioned, not hidden or downplayed. You have hidden the exact details.Oz346 (talk) 19:05, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

It is included in its "true details" in its own page. You fail to explain the relevance of specific details of the 1985 masscres for the 1987 massacres. You are again insisting on exceeding the scope of the article when there is already a seperate article for the topic without providing sources to establish the relevancy of specific incidents during the 1985 massacres to 1987 massacres. --UmdP 19:19, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

"You are again insisting on exceeding the scope of the article".

Well this is what we consistently disagree on. I believe it is well within scope, you do not. It's up to a 3rd party to intervene, this conversation will go nowhere.Oz346 (talk) 19:33, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

The issues are not limited to being out of scope either. There is also bloating caused by redundant repetition of the information on 1985 Trincomalee massacres by repeating "in 1985" and seperately expanding attacks on urban and rural regions. Excessively using words to bloat it puts extra undue weight on that instead of the topic of the article. As it already has low relevancy it should have been well summarized. I have no issue with 3rd party mediation and would welcome it. Thanks --UmdP 20:40, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Third Opinion

If I understand correctly, the Eastern Province was the scene of at least two groups of massacres, one in 1985 and one in 1987. This article is about the 1987 massacres. There should be a link to the 1985 article, but not a detailed description of it. If you still disagree, you may go to DRN to request assistance in formulating a Request for Comments. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:31, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon the exact dispute was regarding whether to have this sentence in the 'background section' of the article:

“In September 1985, the entire Tamil population of Trincomalee town was displaced to forests and refugee camps in an attack that wiped out the town, including the destruction of 12 temples and a mosque.”

Not whether to have no mention of 1985 atrocities at all. Please check the revert history closely. In fact, the last version and edits of this page are by the editor who I was having the initial dispute with. This is his preferred version for the article, not mine.

I have already mentioned the reasons in our earlier discussion above of why I think the details of the 1985 events should be included.

After you third opinion, I refrained from editing this page further, and accepted the version pushed by the editor I was arguing with.

As for removing all mention of the 1985 events from the background section of this article, I definitely disagree with that. So request for comments can be a further step, if you are not happy with the current version pushed by the editor I had the dispute with. Thanks for taking the time to mediate.Oz346 (talk) 21:18, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@User:Robert McClenon I have no interest in further removal of content about 1985 incidents from this page as I believe due weight has been restored. @User:Oz346 appears to have added the detailed content on the 1985 incident that was present in this article to the article about the 1985 riots. So I believe there is no reason to continue with the dispute any further as we have appeared to have reached a consensus. --UmdP 02:33, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Follow-Up to Closed WP:ANI Thread

@Valereee, Firefangledfeathers, Hugo999, RoySmith, and Blackknight12: - This dispute has already been to Third Opinion once. The reporting party at WP:ANI apparently didn't like the answer that I gave at Third Opinion. There were two sets of massacres, in 1985 and in 1987. This article is about the 1987 massacres, and the question is whether to insert a complete description of what happened in 1985 in this article, when it is also already in the 1985 article. As is too often the case, it is being described as "removing sourced content" when it is really restoring due weight to one topic for each article. I personally think that the dispute was closed too quickly at WP:ANI, because it isn't a content dispute any more if the filing party won't accept dispute resolution, but we are back here. At this point, the only remaining content dispute resolution approach is Request for Comments. Either that, or a topic-ban. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:28, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon, thank you! I hadn't realized it had already been at 3O. @JayBeeEll, maybe revert the close so that possible behavior issues can be discussed? —valereee (talk) 18:36, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, is there more discussion at a different page? Where was the earlier third opinion? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 18:38, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm thinking maybe @Robert McClenon means the discussion at Dispute Resolution Noticeboard? —valereee (talk) 19:07, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Valereee - No, although User:Nightenbelle did actually resolve that dispute, over the lede, with the same editors. I meant that I had already offered my Third Opinion on this page, just above here, about 24 hours ago. In my opinion, since we already have an article on the 1985 atrocities, we don't need to rediscuss them in discussing the 1987 atrocities. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:46, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Either take out the mention of the 1985 massacres, or use an RFC. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:46, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Valereee: Sure thing. --JBL (talk) 18:42, 24 May 2021 (UTC)