Talk:List of fatal crowd crushes

Century breakdowns

The year 2000 was part of the 20th century. I don't have time to work it into the table format right now. --Khajidha (talk) 14:35, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

AHEM! Again, the year 2000 was part of the 20th century. This is unarguable fact based on simple counting and the basic definitions of words. That a large number of people apparently can't count is irrelevant. --Khajidha (talk) 19:37, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Khajidha, I should have checked here before I made that edit. I assumed it was a simple mistake.

I understand your point, but I disagree with classifying it as 20th century. Our purpose is to be clear and understandable. Splitting hairs over such a classification can be distracting to the average reader, regardless of whether it is correct. In cases where being pedantic is at odds with being clear and readable, I think we need to go with clear and readable. All three of my college composition teachers emphasized that principle. It's like using the word "whom". You might use it correctly, but the reader will wonder whom you are trying to impress, or whether you used it correctly. It distracts the reader from the message. I think putting Y2k in the 20th century is an example of that. I won't revert, but I'd like you to consider this. My edit summary was mistaken, but I think it reflects the thinking of most people. That could be arrogant of me, but I think I'm correct.

An alternative might be to break down the more recent years by decades. There are a LOT of incidents in the 20th and 21st centuries - more than two hundred of them actually. I must have data on at least 50 more of them that I have not added yet, and I have sources for a lot more. There are events in every decade of the 20th century. Naming the decade (e.g., 1960 - 1969) will eliminate this whole ordinal confusion altogether (i.e., 20th vs 21st), and I think it will be more intuitive. I think that might make events easier to locate too. Easy to find and less potential for distraction - whaddya think? I hate scrolling through endless lists, looking for dates in the small print. My eyes are too old for that. Dcs002 (talk) 01:21, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Putting the year 2000 in the 21st century is a factual error. Doing so on this article puts us at odds with all reliable sources on this, as well as our own Wikipedia page on the subject. If using something correctly is unclear, the answer is not to use it incorrectly but to use a clear formulation that is also correct. Your suggestion of using decade sections for the more recent events is an example of a clear AND correct formulation. Just remember that any events in 1900 need to be listed in both the 19th century and the 1900-1909 sections. --Khajidha (talk) 17:30, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

In cases like this, it's good to check and follow Wikipedia's own Manual of Style. WP:CENTURY addresses the problem directly. Yes, if you don't want to group 2000 with 1901-1999, avoid "century". NebY (talk) 18:00, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Fixed IAW MOS:CENTURY Holy (talk) 21:48, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh man, MOS:CENTURY and MOS:DECADE are for all intents and purposes contradictory as to where the year "2000" belongs... according to the former, it can be soundly included in "the 20th century", but according to the latter it belongs to "the 2000s" (a decade that pretty clearly belongs to the 21st century)

I tried to reason out a "fix" to the list to comply with MOS:CENTURY, but I'm giving up. 2000 belongs to the 21st century on this article as far as I'm concerned. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:50, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

One table?

Is there a particular reason we don't have all the incidents in a single table? That would allow users to sort the result by whatever they wanted (date, number of casualties, etc.)? Having two tables (disconnected) followed by text is really the worst of all choices. Matt Deres (talk) 16:56, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

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North Korean link needs updating

The North Korean Crush disaster, has a news link: The Korean language link no longer carries the story, but Its on Fox News [ https://www.foxnews.com/story/150000-witness-north-korea-execution-of-factory-boss-whose-crime-was-making-international-phone-calls 150,000 witness North Korean Execution, Six people were crushed to death ] 207.53.252.58 (talk) 04:54, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 21 October 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: page moved. I note that the page has also been at List of human crushes. Hopefully it will now be stable. Andrewa (talk) 06:44, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

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List of human stampedes → List of human stampedes and crushes – More accurate title. The lead sentence of the page declares it is a 'List of human stampedes and crushes', and a large proportion of the incidents mentioned are described as crushes rather than stampedes. An admin move is requested as the chosen title is occupied by a redirect. Moonraker12 (talk) 22:56, 21 October 2019 (UTC)--Relisting. Colin M (talk) 00:19, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

• A possibly useful datum wrt WP:COMMONNAME. I did a rough count of the references section using ctrl+f and found about 74 instances of the word "stampede" and 10 instances of "crush". However, a publication may use one term in the headline and also use the other term in the body (e.g. this article uses "stampede" in the title and a couple times in the body, but also uses "crush" once in the body) Colin M (talk) 00:23, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for that: Although for list pages a better reference would be MOS:LIST; as a stand-alone list page, the title should read 'List of...' followed by the articles subject(s) (eg List of vegetable oils, List of herbs and spices). Common Name would apply to the titles of the articles listed here, rather than the list page itself. As to the article subjects, there are about 170 incidents listed here: 56 are described as stampedes and 30 as crushes, with at least 3 others using both terms (with a lot of the other descriptions reading like crush incidents). If that helps... Moonraker12 (talk) 23:25, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

• Support. A crush is a likely result of a stampede, but can happen, tragically, without a stampede. This article lists both types of events and the title should reflect that.--В²C ☎ 01:17, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Does Anyone Think The Stampedes And Crushes Should Be Separate Articles?

They're 2 different things. A crush is people dying of being packed too close together, and a stampede is dying from falling in a running crowd. I feel like Wikipedia should be organized, so different things shouldn't be lumped together just because they involve crowds. I came here because I wanted to see what the worst stampede was, and it was inconvenient because the stampedes were inflated by this other thing I didn't care about. Likewise, someone who came here because they were interested in crushes would have their experience cluttered with this other thing that's not what they wanted to find out. I would like to see an article that's just stampedes and an article that's just crushes.

I also think having separate tables for century is inconvenient because then efforts by the user to sort them are broken up. If I want to see what the worst incidents are, I have to click that for every table and then compare them instead of just being able to click once. And it's redundant because the tables are organized chronologically by default, and they have a button that organizes them by date.--Reversalmushroom (talk) 23:26, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Given the scientific consensus reported at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/03/hajj-crush-how-crowd-disasters-happen-and-how-they-can-be-avoided , you would struggle to find many cases of genuine stampedes and death by trampling as the crowd runs on freely. It just doesn't happen, most people are not that callous.

As for layout, opinions differ but it seems to me that most readers would prefer a structure. Few want to do what you describe and it is hardly a great imposition given how few lists there are. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:19, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Manila attack was not a crush?

I may be wrong but I'm almost certain that the deaths from the Manila casino Attack were from smoke inhalation. 2601:80:C87E:44C0:6234:8287:33C:A218 (talk) 10:45, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Dubious sourcing on the 80 AD temple crush

I was a little surprised to see the number of "10,000 dead" repeated verbatim from the records of Flavius Josephus, given the lack of corroboration and extreme death toll compared to all other historical crushes. If we believe Tacitus that there were 600,000 people in Jerusalem at its fall (Historical Jewish population comparisons) this would mean that 1/60th of the city's population died in a few hours. However, I don't know how to cast doubt on a source using wikipedia-approved tagging. Cosmcbun (talk) 23:16, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Well the tag to use is {{dubious}} but, given that it is properly cited, I doubt that your tag would be allowed to stand. Your assessment is credible but unfortunately it qualifies as WP:original research. What you need to do is find wp:reliable sources that say that Josephus was exaggerating wildly. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:12, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Cosmcbun. Wikipedia is currently making the maximally sensationalistic claim that this was the "deadliest human crush of all time", based on a single very dubious source (not by an expert in crowd estimation, no description of the techniques used to estimate... and non-experts are famously very bad at crowd estimation). No intention to "exaggerate" is required to make a very inaccurate estimate, merely a lack of expertise at a specialist skill, and casual use of round numbers. The burden of evidence is on the extraordinary claim. DKEdwards (talk) 18:14, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

So do I. Unfortunately it was F Josephus who made the extraordinary claim, not a wikipedia editor, so WP:ONUS doesn't apply to the original claim. The onus is on us as editors to find sources that say he had too much lead in his wine. But on second thoughts, however, I will add the dubious tag. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:31, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to weigh in here - I don't think the "dubious" tag is needed any longer. The language used in describing Josephus' claim is sufficiently vague - an "estimated" 10,000 deaths, and "alleged" to have occurred. Nobody is reading that and concluding that Wikipedia is stating this happened as indisputable fact. Also, that claim is cited in the body to two sources - one reviewing Josephus' work, and one with Josephus' actual work translated into English. That's about as good as sourcing gets for historical events like this. It should be understood by all that our knowledge of ancient historical events is typically limited to what is documented in primary sources from the time, no matter how extraordinary the material of those sources seems to us today. And if that's not understood by someone reading this page, then it would be a great opportunity for them to learn that. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 10:52, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Sloppy use of the word "stampede" irrespective of actual events

Wikipedia is not a tabloid, so we don't have to use sensational headlines. I have corrected multiple instances where the word "stampede" was given in WP:wikivoice, presumably because that was the word used in the strapline of the source. In very few cases indeed could it be said that there was a true stampede (because people at the back were being burned to death). Almost all were crowd crushes due to too many people being in too little space. The scientific consensus is given clearly in this article in The Guardian (cited in the article). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:07, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to change article name to "List of fatal crowd crushes"

The current name is both technically inaccurate (according to expert opinion) and insulting to those who died in the events described. Multiple reliable sources say that stampedes almost never happen and the word is used by headline writers because it is short and nowadays makes good click-bait. Wikipedia does not have to descend to that level. It may be that there are a few real stampedes in there but I suggest that it is wp:UNDUE to include them in the title. I propose to change the name to List of fatal crowd crushes. Any objections or improvements? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:58, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

An alternative that would match the main article is List of crowd collapses and crushes, though I can't see that "collapses" adds anything (except to leave the door open to bridge collapses being added again). I'm not keen on this idea. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:53, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

As there has been no response and silence signifies assent, I will go ahead with the move. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:11, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

In accordance with this change (which I agree was necessary), I removed the non-fatal listings; there were 11. I'll keep them on my user page just in case there was any reason they were actually necessary/needed. Peppyluscious (talk) 08:52, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Trimming the list: Should we introduce criteria for "notability"?

This article opens with the statement "This is a list of notable crowd collapses and crushes", but appears to have a problem defining what "notable" means in this context. The list is currently suffering from WP:RECENTISM, where nearly all recent crushes are being included, even those with few fatalities. This seems imbalanced compared to records of historical crushes, where seemingly only the worst events were recorded. In my opinion, this isn't sustainable for the future of the article.

To put some numbers to it, already ~50% of the list is from 2012-2022. Also, the median number of deaths of listed crushes pre-2000 is 67; the median of post-2000 crushes is 13.

I believe either this article should aim to be a comprehensive list of crushes, or we should set some criteria to make it more a list of notable crushes. The criteria for "notability" would of course be arbitrary and subject to consensus. Maybe a simple minimum of casualties - 10 or more, perhaps. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:57, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

It used to be even worse! I introduced the "fatal" criterion but clearly it is not strict enough. I suggest setting a threshold of "ten"? The only other alternative that I can think of is to split it by [sub]continent?--𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:03, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

After looking over the list some, I think a minimum of 5 deaths seems fine, for now. This list isn't nearly as long as some on this site (yet). Also, it's hard to determine what is notable by the WP:10YEARS test - likely very few of these events will be "notable" in 10 years time, in terms of receiving historical analysis, or sparking new regulations on large events, or moving the needle on public opinion and knowledge regarding crowds, etc. But, typesetting space on Wikipedia is pretty cheap, so *shrug*.

I'll probably trim the list a bit when I have time. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 11:16, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Quotation removal

Is the quotation really needed? I see no point of it, so I think it should be removed. 185.77.218.10 (talk) 17:19, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

It is needed because (a) the media continues extensively to use the pejorative term "stampede", irrespective of the actual events and (b) visitors who search Wikipedia for the term "stampede" are redirected here: according to the Wikipedia:principle of least surprise, they should be given reason why they have arrived at an article called "crowd crush". So it provides an important context-setting service for the material that follows. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:40, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

What to do about "stampede" categories

I have opened a discussion at Talk:Crowd collapses and crushes#Stampede categories: rename, replace, something else?. Editors and readers of this article are invited to contribute. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:42, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

London 1983

New Year's 1983 in Trafalgar Square. I was there. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/01/01/A-stampede-following-New-Years-Eve-celebrations-Saturday-killed/1470410245200/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.73.21.251 (talk) 22:57, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Per consensus above, minimum deaths have to be 5 for notability. Borgenland (talk) 00:04, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Al-Rashid humanitarian aid incident

per WP: BRD, I reverted a bold addition of the Al-Rashid humanitarian aid incident to the table, as I think it is premature. We should discuss first.

• We don't know how many were killed by gunfire and how many were trampled.
• The status of the incident is still unclear – was it a crush due to overcrowding and inadequate marshalling (the topic of this article) or was it a real stampede of people fleeing for their lives?

We may never really know the answers to these questions but we must not in Wikivoice leap to the judgement that it was just another case of too much shoving at the back. IMO, we need to wait for RSs. WP: Wikipedia is not a newspaper. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:33, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey homie. I agree WP: Wikipedia is not a newspaper. Obviously, there is disagreement as to what specific proportion of the victims died by crowd crush and being run over by aid trucks vs died by gunfire, as well as to the specific order of these events. That said, while reliable sources might differ on the aforementioned topics, I contend that they are fairly consistent in indicating that a crowd crush did, in fact, occur. Tdmurlock (talk) 19:41, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

No, I don't believe that we can even say that. Yes, it is probably true that a starving crowd rushed to get to the aid trucks first because the amount of food coming in is vastly less than is needed. Imminent famine is widely reported. But we don't know what happened next.

• Were people crushed against the trucks by the press from behind?
• Did the IDF soldiers start firing as soon as they saw the crowd surge forward?
• Did the trucks really run over people in the dark?

There are too many open questions for us to call it as a classical crowd crush. We have to wait for the RSs to pronounce. If we put in the list as a crowd crush, we are rushing to judgement and we must not do that. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:44, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Tbilisi crowd crush date

I have done some research and have been unable to find the year of (or anything about) the crush; should it be omitted if it is unverifiable? Alexeyperlov 13:00, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

@Alexeyperlov:. Yes. Six weeks is long enough for a response. Please delete. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:37, 25 July 2024 (UTC)