Home • Search • Translate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edit request

I would like to edit this article. Am I allowed to... The situation has worsened by many folds since the last date in this article. Provide a brief summary of the guidel line to follow here. Please let me know. Thanks. -- Natkeeran ( talk) 16:22, 17 February 2009 (UTC) reply

You dont need permission to edit, just edit with WP:RS sources. Taprobanus ( talk) 17:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC) reply

Pottuvil massacre and Madhu School bus bombing

The cited sources indicate that there is doubt about who committed these acts.

This source here indicates that the survivor of the Pottuvil incident positively identified the attackers as LTTE members.

On the Madhu bombing case, the cited article states that there is no consensus as to who was behind the act.

User:HumanFrailty 00:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Change title to "List of Attacks attributed to Sri Lankan Armed Forces"

This is in order to include attakcs attributed to the Special Task Force and the Sri Lankan Police...

There are quite a few attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan Police and I feel that changing the title may be the best way of including them in here. Any other ideas? Thanks.

Thusiyan ( talk) 17:09, 30 June 2010 (UTC) reply


Any responses anyone?

Thusiyan ( talk) 19:43, 4 July 2010 (UTC) reply

Agreed. The Police/STF are under the control of the Ministry of Defence so there is no distinction between defence (sic) and law enforcement in Sri Lanka. But be warned that technically the police aren't one of the Armed Forces and those who want to hide the massacres carried out by the police will use this as an excuse to remove them. Renaming as "List of Attacks attributed to Sri Lankan Government Forces" might prevent this.-- obi2canibe talk contr 20:13, 4 July 2010 (UTC) reply
Yes, what a brutal massacre in 1974. It's amazing how the Sri Lankan police have the ability to electrocute people through wires that they are not controlling. The people who rushed around and broke the wires are not to blame though. BlueLotusLK ( talk) 00:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC) reply


So how can we edit the title so as to include massacres by the STF & Police? 188.223.134.38 ( talk) 22:25, 27 July 2010 (UTC) reply

 Done Page has been renamed.-- obi2canibe talk contr 11:12, 1 August 2010 (UTC) reply

NO, this list is about the Sri Lankan military. The Sri Lankan police and paramilitary groups are separate. BlueLotusLK ( talk) 08:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC) reply

Note: it says [cit]Military of Sri Lanka Military of Sri Lanka · Attacks[/cit] Not Sri Lankan Government Forces. BlueLotusLK ( talk) 08:29, 4 August 2010 (UTC) reply

Please stop your disruptive edits. The title of the article was changed specifically to include attacks attributed to non-military organisations i.e. the police and paramilitary groups. Including attacks attributed to the police and paramilitary groups on List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan military would be wrong. So where do we include these attacks? We could start new articles called List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan police and List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan paramilitary groups, or we could rename List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan military as List of attacks attributed to Sri Lankan government forces, which is what I have done. Isn't this reasonable?-- obi2canibe talk contr 11:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC) reply
  • You might say I'm committing edit genocide, no? BlueLotusLK ( talk) 18:26, 8 August 2010 (UTC) reply

Disputed attacks

Don't include them. BlueLotusLK ( talk) 22:28, 8 August 2010 (UTC) reply

Most of the attacks are disputed i.e. the government hasn't accepted responsibility. That's why the title of the article has "attributed" in it. And I am sure you are aware that in most cases of civilians massacres both sides accuse each other of responsibility. Surely it's better to include disputed attacks in both this and the List of attacks attributed to the LTTE and mark them as disputed rather then exclude them from both lists? Also, the Vanni Van bombing article doesn't say it's disputed. And I calculate that 95 civilians were killed by the Police/Home Guards in the Polonnaruwa massacre, not 87.-- obi2canibe talk contr 18:41, 9 August 2010 (UTC) reply
But most of the attacks have evidence that point towards one party. Certain cases are disputed when there's no one person that the crimes can be attributed to. I think these should be left off. You may be right about the Polonnaruwa Massacre. BlueLotusLK ( talk) 18:53, 9 August 2010 (UTC) reply

Article title

I have moved the page back to the earlier title List of attacks attributed to Sri Lankan government forces to keep neutrality in the title and to keep consistency with related articles such as List of attacks attributed to the LTTE. Since most of these attacks were intended to kill LTTE terrorists who were hiding among the civilians, naming this list as a list of civilian massacres is totally inappropriate. -- Shehanw ( talk) 05:30, 11 October 2014 (UTC) reply

It is totally appropriate to name this list as a list of civilian massacres. This list - as mentioned in the lead - only includes attacks on civilians. Therefore it is not like List of attacks attributed to the LTTE which lists every lethal event involving the LTTE - battles, attacks on military etc.
The victims were civilians - you cannot excuse their killing by saying that terrorists were hiding amongst them. That is the difference between civilised people and uncivilised people. This why your motherland is being investigated for war crimes.-- obi2canibe talk contr 10:46, 11 October 2014 (UTC) reply
This list was originally created by user:Yucatann to include all the attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan Military, not only the attacks those have allegedly killed civilians in the process. There is no necessity to convert / restrict this list to a list of civilian massacres, while related article List of attacks attributed to the LTTE accommodates all the attacks carried out by the LTTE, including many civilian massacres such as village massacres (ethnic cleansing), time bombs (Car, Bus and train bombs), suicide bombings at populated places, massacres of Buddhist monks and Muslims etc.
Victims of the most of LTTE attacks that were carried out during the war, were also civilians. LTTE was a brutal terrorist organization that even killed the little infants who were left in their cradles by their parents/guardians while fleeing for their lives. Civility of the people who carried out these attacks is not a parameter that should be used to decide the title of an article in Wikipedia. -- Shehanw ( talk) 09:22, 14 October 2014 (UTC) reply
Although this article has gone through various name changes it has always only included attacks on civilians. As I have stated before, this article is not meant to mirror List of attacks attributed to the LTTE which contains every lethal event involving the LTTE - battles, attacks on military etc. Therefore the majority of the victims in the List of attacks attributed to the LTTE were non civilians - it includes all events that killed 25,000 military personnel. It would be much better if List of attacks attributed to the LTTE were restricted to those where the victims were civilians and both articles can be re-named to include "civilian" in the title. As for your last comment, for everything heinous the LTTE did, your war heroes did even worse - they raped, tortured and murdered men, women and children. They are savages masquerading as human beings.-- obi2canibe talk contr 11:30, 19 October 2014 (UTC) reply
Moving back. Title is defined by the content of the list and not what other related lists or user's notion of neutrality. Events such as the 1974 Tamil conference incident took place a decade before the LTTE was even formed, and those such as Eastern University massacre or 2006 Trincomalee massacre of NGO workers were no combat-inflicted deaths. Every article under the list mentions of a perpetuated massacre of civilians, distinct from combatants, and hence there is no question of generalizing or neutralizing the title. As Obi2canibe suggests, you may choose to wager in the other article and split them based on the nature of the attack. Regards.-- CuCl2 (chat spy acquaint) 12:09, 19 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Requested move 18 June 2015

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

The result of the move request was: Moved. There seems to be general consensus in favour of the move and there has been no comment from the sole dissenter for two weeks.-- obi2canibe talk contr 16:35, 5 July 2015 (UTC) reply

List of civilian massacres attributed to Sri Lankan government forces → List of civilian attacks attributed to Sri Lankan government forces – This controversial article was previously moved unilaterally and without discussion which has caused much debate over its content. This new name should be all encompassing and account for those disputes. Arguments for the change can also be seen here Blackknight12 ( talk) 12:31, 18 June 2015 (UTC) reply

Request modified to: List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces, subject to less error in interpretation.-- Blackknight12 ( talk) 20:41, 21 June 2015 (UTC) reply

  • Comment: Thank you for that suggestion User:BarrelProof, I too think your modified title is more appropriate. I will modify the request.-- Blackknight12 ( talk) 20:41, 21 June 2015 (UTC) reply
Reply This is a list. Each article mentioned in the list has got reliable sources which label the attacks as massacre. So can we get all the concerned editors to furnish alternative sources that replace massacre with attack, so as to reach a definitely neutral solution. When reliable sources call the events massacre, i don't suppose the stubbornness of a handful editors is a reason to whitewash the term into mere attacks. All those concerned had supported keeping the exact title for this article, and now that they have the lost case there, they are plain obsessed in extracting vengeance here. -- CuCl2 (chat spy acquaint) 15:28, 21 June 2015 (UTC) reply
Copperchloride, focus on the content, not the title. Changing the title in no way diminishes the list. In fact it enhances it. Although sources may have been provided to show that the events were massacres, the term may be perceived as POV by some. Therefore, using a more neutral term only helps the article. Most visitors know they need to read beyond the title. They are not going to mistake the events as anything other than massacres.-- obi2canibe talk contr 18:23, 23 June 2015 (UTC) reply

Oppose and Comment A list's title is determined on the basis of the contents embedded in it. It is evident, while going through the contents of each article covered by the list, that a variety of attacks and tactics had been employed(terror attack, shelling, air craft raids etc). But it is the larger motives behind such brutal violence which qualifies all these attacks to be labelled massacres.

Mass murder of Tamils in the pretext of combating militancy has been deep-rooted in Sri lankan state machinery for decades. These murders cannot be termed plainly as 'attacks', as they were deliberately and summarily executed. Such dilution just to appease the POV of a few defensive wikipedians, amounts to disrespecting what the majority of the sources in the list suggest( Wikipedia:Verifiability). Moreover, its easy to see through the intentions of the usual suspects who is packing a bunch of lies like "controversial article" and "unilaterally and without discussion" without debating on the content(rather than the author). I mean the person could only be paralyzed, because right above the section, lies an extensive debate and justification for the title. If he had any understanding of how to work here, he should have responded to our arguments up there rather than brush it up aside and play innocent(like what he's doing with 'massacre' to 'attacks').-- CuCl2 (chat spy acquaint) 15:14, 21 June 2015 (UTC) reply

  • Comment: I will ignore the personal attack for now, and with the hopes of not entering into a debate with you as they only go around and spiral into nothing, I will only say that what you have said above are broad statements and big generalizations that you and many others make to support the narrative of the g word. Yet you have neither shown any evidence to back up these claims, you seem to know the policy and the intent of the Sri Lankan Government and its armed forces during the civil war. There is a lot of speculation and a lot of original work. And for you some how it is ok for the LTTE to practice these atrocities but when the Sri Lankan government does it you are outraged, do you not see your double standards. The war should be told from both side in a NPOV, hence the reason for name change here.-- Blackknight12 ( talk) 20:41, 21 June 2015 (UTC) reply
Reply Your comment goes on to show exactly what you've been trying to prove all along ( Wikipedia:Revenge). There is no reference to genocide here whatsoever. Please DO keep up with the conversation. This is a list, and not an encyclopedic article, and this list is a collection of various individual articles(the majority) titled massacres all of them backed by Reliable sources. For example this source and this one label several incidents as massacres rather than arbitrary attacks. The term massacre may have no rigid definition, but if there are reliable sources calling these attacks in such a manner, I doubt your grouses hold water unless you can prove these incidents were not massacres. And your accusation of double standards is pathetic, I have already mentioned here a long time ago, that you are welcome to re-engineer the other article if you must, but otherwise refrain from doing the wrong thing here. That list title was reverted because of redundancy, and now that it is gone, you are just plain paranoid about doing the same thing here, unmindful of the differences which are numerous and significant.-- CuCl2 (chat spy acquaint) 18:05, 22 June 2015 (UTC) reply
  • Support Though I agree with User:Copperchloride some extent, we should maintain NPOV on Wikipedia. Lapmaster ( talk) 07:32, 25 June 2015 (UTC) reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 external links on List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{ cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{ nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{ source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 17:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC) reply

Changes to civilian casualties

I had made some changes to the civilian casualties that took in place in 2009, and I had sourced a U.S State department report that proved it. However, my edits were taken down saying that I did not source. Why is that?

Here is the source that used https://sydney.edu.au/arts/peace_conflict/docs/reports/congress_report.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.50.15.44 ( talk) 19:42, 12 March 2017 (UTC) reply

@ 70.50.15.44: I checked the source you provided but it did not match the changes you made. For the Vallipuram Hospital shelling on 22/01/09, you said 41 were killed but the source, on page 17, says that only five were killed. For the Valayanmadam makeshift hospital bombing on 24/04/09, you said 64 were killed but the source, on page 36, says that only four or five were killed. The source did not mention the Suthanthirapuram shelling on 24/01/09.-- Obi2canibe ( talk) 20:35, 12 March 2017 (UTC) reply
Oh I see what you mean. However in the document, it claims that casualties took place in various cities at the same time. For example, "A source in Mattalan reported to HRW that shelling in Thevipuram and Vallipuram killed 36 and injured 84.". How would I present this information on the wikipedia page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.50.15.44 ( talk) 01:17, 13 March 2017 (UTC) reply
@ 70.50.15.44: I have added this as a separate entry, together with several others.-- Obi2canibe ( talk) 19:09, 18 March 2017 (UTC) reply

Many attacks on civilians missing on this page

I checked out the source "Massacres of Tamils 1956 - 2001, and there are plenty of attacks that were documented that are not currently on this page. I added 2 additional incidents, and will try to add in more in my spare time, so I ask if anybody can go on this source and add in the missing information. You can access the source through this link https://www.slideshare.net/guestc07f460b/tamil-massacres-from-1952 Airjordan2k ( talk) 21:25, 16 May 2017 (UTC) Airjordan2k reply

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 9 external links on List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{ source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 09:31, 20 May 2017 (UTC) reply

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 10 external links on List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{ source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 16:13, 28 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Unreliable Source

User:Oz346 I noticed in your recent contributions to this article, you have been using an unreliable source( https://pptsrilanka.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tag_model_indictment.pdf) published by a group called "Tamils against Genocide" to repeatedly add content to this article. This source is unreliable as per the Wikipedia guidelines. I would like to hear your Point of View on this. JohnWiki159 ( talk) 05:41, 11 June 2022 (UTC) reply

Unreliable according to who? It's a published source, which was submitted to the US justice department as a legal document, compiled by the lawyer Bruce Fein, who is also a published author:
https://us.macmillan.com/author/brucefein
So it was written by a recognised and prominent legal professional (legal professionals are forbidden by law from submitting false or unreliable information and are held to high standards). If this is unreliable than all NGOs reports can be called unreliable. What evidence do you have to say it is unreliable just because it was published by 'Tamils against Genocide'. It is not a self published source, nor is the publisher known to give false information.
According to Wikipedia:Reliable sources the published works of reliable authors like Bruce Fein can be used as sources.
Oz346 ( talk) 09:29, 11 June 2022 (UTC) reply
User:Oz346 This document is written with so much bias and extreme hatred against Sinhalese ethnic group and is spreading false information about Sinhalese. This source is full of personal opinions. I will just point out some.
"Sri Lanka’s dominant Sinhalese Buddhist culture celebrates genocide against persons of differing ethnicity or religion, especially Tamil Hindus and Tamil Christians..."
"Sinhalese Buddhists exalt a philosophy of ethnic and religious supremacy over Tamil Hindus evocative of Nazi Germany’s philosophy of Aryan supremacy. A signature Nazi objective was to make Germany racially pure and Judenfrei, or free of Jews. That objective found gruesome culmination in the Holocaust. The corresponding Sinhalese Buddhist objective has been to make Sri Lanka a mono-ethnic and mono-religious state free of Tamils in the Jaffna peninsula or North-East –unless they accepted vassalage with no legal protections. Sinhalese Buddhists are seeking to accomplish their goal of a mono-religious, mono-ethnic state through a Tamil genocide."
With content like these, how can this be considered a reliable source? This is like a compilation of personal opinions. Normal NGOs reports don't contain biased content filled with hatred like these. Furthermore, Bruce Fein has been accused of working closely with the pro-LTTE groups and a supporter of the LTTE. [1] [2] [3] This document hasn't even talked about the crimes of the LTTE. Furthermore, the US justice department dismissed this case. Also Can you provide any reliable secondary sources which talk about the alleged attacks you have added to this article using this source published by 'Tamils against Genocide'? Any Human Rights reports, news articles etc. JohnWiki159 ( talk) 16:00, 6 August 2022 (UTC) reply
Scholars are allowed to have opinions, that does not detract from the factual content of the book. The first paragraph, I think he is referring to the Mahavamsa quote of Tamils being equal to beasts, so that they deserve to be killed (he develops on this point in the following pages). He argues that this celebrates killing of Tamils. The second paragraph is much less controversial, there were Sinhala Buddhist nationalists from the early 20th century who compared themselves to superior Aryans and even made comparisons with SWRD Bandaranaike with Hitler. If you know the definition of genocide from Raphael Lemkin, then what Fein is saying is not as far fetched as you think (genocide does not necessary mean you have to kill every single person of the ethnic group). He even quotes this:
“Sinhalese men in whose veins run Aryan blood must stand united to defy and exterminate our common enemy—the Tamil. These wretched and ungrateful blood suckers who have been and are living on our charity from time immemorial are even scheming to destroy us.”
We are going on a tangent here, but if the Sinhala Only law, anti-Tamil pogroms and Sinhala settlement schemes in the north and east had continued with no resistance, then Sri Lankan Tamils would have been been forcefully submerged and assimilated overtime, and they would not exist as a distinct ethnic group anymore (as they would not be able to maintain their culture and society). That would fit with the Lemkin definition of genocide. Some Sinhala nationalists have publicly expressed this wish to colonise all the Tamil areas and forcefully assimilate the Tamils into the Sinhalese.
Anyway irrespective of those opinions which has no bearing on the list of massacres (i'm not citing Fein for his opinions on Sinhala Buddhist nationalism or genocide), Fein has angrily reacted to those baseless accusations of him being LTTE. He has explicitly said that as an USA citizen it is illegal to be a supporter of the LTTE and that those slanderous attacks are defamatory. So those links you cite are just that, libellous and defamatory.
This book was a legal document accusing the Sri Lankan government of committing genocide, so I don't know what the LTTE crimes has to do with it. That is irrelevant. As I have already said, Fein is a reliable legal scholar and published author with other publications to his name, so he satisfies the criteria. Oz346 ( talk) 16:54, 6 August 2022 (UTC) reply
"Fein reacted angrily to allegations by the pro-Sri Lankan government and anti-LTTE lobby in the US and Sri Lanka that he was a hired gun of the LTTE lobby in the US. "My whole life is a refutation of terrorism. I have had no contact, I receive no money, I do nothing for the Tamil Tigers. If I did, it would be a crime since the LTTE has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US and anyone in the US associated with it in any way could be liable to civil and criminal penalities)."
"All these people are committing defamation," he said. "They are accusing me of committing a crime by supporting terrorism. Everything I do is open. I tell the FBI everything. So, these allegations are preposterous on their face.
Anybody who knows me, gives a crumb of deference to them (these allegations). What they'll be suggesting is that the Department of Justice should have arrested me when I went over and delivered the genocide indictment because I'm helping out terrorists." And, all I can say, I'll put my credibility on the line against them anytime of the day," he added.
Fein, visibly enraged by these accusations and insinuations, said, "Let me also say, what the criticisms also indicate ad hominem is that they're basically saying, 'Yes, we are guilty of everything you say Mr Fein, but you are a hired gun.' OK, fine, you are guilty as can be. Because, this is what I find intriguing. They never, ever want to address the actual substance of the charges, accusations, the truth of what I am saying. So, fine, then you are conceding that you don't have any rebuttal other than to attack my character."
He challenged his critics saying, "If you can attack my character, fine. If you think you are true, go to the FBI and tell them they should be arresting me. And, I'll defend myself there. But, these are very squalid, sordid-based accusations, which, again, if true, I'd be in jail." Oz346 ( talk) 17:02, 6 August 2022 (UTC) reply
wow i just read that indian newspaper you linked. they defamed him as "a long time supporter of the ltte". what a baseless accusation, Indian newspapers have far lower journalistic standards then western ones. if that was in the west, the newspaper would have to pay him thousands in compensation. Oz346 ( talk) 17:34, 6 August 2022 (UTC) reply
User:Oz346 These statements just show how biased the document is:
"Sri Lanka’s dominant Sinhalese Buddhist culture celebrates genocide against persons of differing ethnicity or religion, especially Tamil Hindus and Tamil Christians..."
"Sinhalese Buddhists are seeking to accomplish their goal of a mono-religious, mono-ethnic state through a Tamil genocide..."
Take a look at one of the sub topics of the document:
"ORIGINS OF SINHALESE BUDDHIST GENOCIDE PHILOSOPHY"
These are direct attacks against a particular ethnic group with lots of misinformation. Also, how are you sure that the list of alleged massacres mentioned in the document are factual? Its just a list. These cannot be added as facts to this article. Furthermore, A U.S. official familiar with this document has said, “That political bias makes it [TAG] hard to take seriously”. I will now note down this extract from the International Crisis Group report. [4]

"For example, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a U.S.-based NGO, reportedly raised over $500,000 to retain Bruce Fein, a former U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General, to compile a report charging the Sri Lankan defence secretary and U.S. citizen, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and former army chief and U.S. permanent resident, Sarath Fonseka, with genocide, war crimes and torture. The report, which TAG submitted to the U.S. Justice Department, aimed to initiate a grand jury investigation focused on documenting the alleged crimes of Sri Lankan officials while ignoring evidence of LTTE abuses. The overt political bias of TAG’s project has undermined its credibility rather than promoted accountability. A U.S. official familiar with the report said, “That [political bias] makes it [TAG] hard to take seriously”."

Therefore, we cannot include these alleged massacres taken from this document as facts in this article. JohnWiki159 ( talk) 08:40, 7 August 2022 (UTC) reply

No I disagree vehemently with this assertion. Icg are hardly a completely neutral organisation either, they represent the interests of their donor countries in the west like the US (the USA was known to be pro SL during the war, providing weapons and surveillance for the Sri Lankan Armed forces, so they are hardly a neutral observer in the conflict). I repeat it is completely illogical to mention LTTE crimes when the case is against the Sri Lankan government. Likewise, if there was a case against the LTTE, then to mention Sri Lankan government crimes would be equally illogical.

Regarding Sinhala Buddhist genocide culture, I don't know how that can be construed as a direct attack on an ethnic group. When the Nazis were genociding the Jews there clearly was a genocide culture at the time among many Germans. It's not anti German to state the fact. Likewise when Tamils were facing genocide during black July and at the end of the war in 2009 in the Mullivaikkal massacre when unarmed men, women and children were slaughtered without discrimination (as the army own whistle blowers confirmed), clearly there was a culture of genocide in action. It's the extent which is up for debate.

I repeat it's a published source by a reliable published author and legal scholar. It cannot just be censored because some people don't like the truth it exposes. His opinions on Sinhala Buddhist 'genocide culture' are irrelevant to the list of massacres. As far as I know there are no other reliable sources disputing these massacres. In fact I can find evidence from other reliable sources corroborating many of these massacres, including the 'Massacre of Tamils' book and other Tamil media sources like Tamil Times. Oz346 ( talk) 09:01, 7 August 2022 (UTC) reply

This is not about censoring. This is about the reliability of the facts presented in the source. It is obvious that this report published by the group called "Tamils against genocide" is biased. Also, a US official familiar with this document has clearly said "That [political bias] makes it [TAG] hard to take seriously". Your views on ICG and US are your personal opinions. This Wikipedia article itself have several references to a US state department report. ICG and US have reported human rights violations done by both sides. You are saying "As far as I know there are no other reliable sources disputing these massacres". Can you provide any reliable independent secondary sources which talk about the alleged massacres you have added using this document? Also, the 'Massacre of Tamils' book is published by a group called ' North East Secretariat on Human Rights' which was set up by the LTTE. Jo Becker of Human Rights Watch and Rory Mungoven, the UN's Senior Advisor on Human Rights in Sri Lanka has stated that the organization's members lacked proficiency in human rights. International human rights groups have also seen the NESOHR organization as a tool to offset criticism of LTTE human rights abuses. We need other secondary reliable sources to check whether content in that is also factual. Anyway, can you provide reliable secondary sources for each of the attacks you have added to this article from that document published by 'Tamils Against Genocide'? JohnWiki159 ( talk) 11:43, 7 August 2022 (UTC) reply
Well the only reliable sources that mention all these massacres are this document, the 'Massacre of Tamils' book and the Tamil newspapers/websites like Tamil Times or Tamilnet (the latter which has been defined as a reliable source by wikipedia consensus, but with the qualification that it must be described as pro-rebel). Tamil Times has been critical of the LTTE so it can hardly be called as pro-rebel. Unfortunately, western human rights groups and media have neither the inclination or access to cover all the attacks by government forces on Tamil civilians.
"This is about the reliability of the facts presented in the source."
Not really, it is clear that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces has murdered tens of thousands of Tamil civilians, and that there are countless sources that indicate this. There is no valid reason to doubt these killings. Of course there is a lot of denial and censorship in Sri Lanka itself, but that is another story. There is really no genuine reason to doubt Bruce Fein's list. Bruce Fein also fits the Wikipedia criteria as a reliable source, its irrelevant that the publisher is 'Tamils Against Genocide'.
Bruce Fein as a published legal scholar fits the criteria for reliable author and source. Unless you have any evidence that Bruce Fein is a liar and has made illegal false claim of events (which is a criminal offence in US law), then he should be given the benefit of the doubt, like how we give all other similar published sources. Regarding bias, I dont think there is any sufficient evidence that Fein has biasedly made up false information. Even if we argue that the publisher is biased, that does not qualify the book for exclusion, see wikipedia policies:
"Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered"
"Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject."
And my next Q to you, why are so concerned with a 'list of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan government forces', and for the removal of these attacks from this source? It is well known that government forces have killed tens of thousands of Tamil and Sinhala civilians during the civil war and JVP insurrections, and even killed a few Sinhala civilians during the recent protests. Why do you want this source and these attacks removed? Oz346 ( talk) 12:46, 7 August 2022 (UTC) reply
The publisher is very much relevant. It was Tamils Against Genocide who hired Bruce Fein to publish this document. A US official familiar with this document has also clearly said "That [political bias] makes it [TAG] hard to take seriously". Furthermore, International Crisis Group says that the TAG lacks credibility. Wikipedia doesn't depend only on primary sources. Reliable secondary sources are needed to verify the content in primary source. I am only questioning about the questionable sources used in this article. Both the government forces and LTTE have committed crimes. That is not an excuse for one to add anything they like to a Wikipedia article using any source. Content in the source must be verified with other reliable sources specially when dealing with biased sources and also controversial topics. You still didn't provide other reliable secondary sources for each of the attacks you added to this article. Also I believe if using this source, there must be some indication to highlight the biased nature of the source. Or else it should not be included at all. JohnWiki159 ( talk) 18:44, 21 August 2022 (UTC) reply
Firstly, its a secondary source, not a primary source, please learn the difference. Its classified as a published reliable source from a reliable scholarly author with a history of scholarly publications as I have already mentioned. I am not "adding anything I like". You talk as if I'm using some random blog or self published website. Its not a controversial topic at all (If you can find reliable sources disputing these killings, then it becomes controversial). It does not become controversial, just because people do not like the contents. In regards to providing other corroborating sources, I'm very busy at the moment, but will add them when time permits. I don't think there is sufficient evidence to accuse Bruce Fein of bias in his work, there is no evidence that he has distorted any factual information in his past scholarly or legal work, or indeed in this publication. The existing citation clearly demonstrates who authored the book, and who published it. US officials are not ethical or moral gods free of bias, or free of self serving foreign policy motives, nor is the ICG, which is a NATO allied NGO, and itself has been accused of serious biases. Oz346 ( talk) 22:48, 21 August 2022 (UTC) reply
If you think the ICG is some balanced and neutral group, then I suggest you research the slimy role its long standing former president Gareth Evans has had in making business deals with Indonesia when East Timorese were being tortured and massacred, which he helped to downplay (watch the 'Death of a Nation: the timor conspiracy'). Likewise, US officials biases are well known, even a cursory glance at various wikileaks will show they have their own interests, they are not some icons for neutrality and justice. Oz346 ( talk) 22:59, 21 August 2022 (UTC) reply
Likewise, ICG demanded NATO to attack the Serbian army during the Kosovo conflict:
https://reliefweb.int/report/albania/atrocities-kosovo-must-be-stopped-icg-briefing
Now as a Sinhalese Sri Lankan, I think you will understand the significance of this. The Kosovo-Serbia situation is very similar to the Tamil Eelam-Sri Lanka situation. Bear in mind that Kosovo Albanian separatist militants also committed war crimes just like the Tamil LTTE militants. But the ICG demanded NATO to take military action against Serbian forces (in contrast to Sri Lanka, where they were against the separatists in that conflict).
/info/en/?search=NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia#Criticism_of_the_campaign
If you think that NATO/USA were doing this purely out of the goodness of their hearts, and for the lives of Kosovo Albanians, and not for other selfish geopolitical interests, then maybe one day we will find those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Oz346 ( talk) 23:25, 21 August 2022 (UTC) reply

Sorry to butt in, but I agree with @ Oz346: here, and I'm someone who quite frequently disagrees with him/her. Most literature on Sri Lanka is partisan and biased, especially sources from the island itself. Foreigners may be closer to neutral, but even assuming they strive to be so, they too have to rely on local sources which have biases. As Oz said, we're not using the TAG document for its two cents on the Sinhala Buddhist genocide culture (which to me is hyperbolic and outright false in some cases), or even on anti-Tamil violence before Black July ("no atrocity perpetrated by Sinhalese Buddhists against Tamils has ever been punished, save for one exception" — seriously?). However, I need to ask Oz: the TAG sources seem to aggregate killings over time in some cases, e.g., Jaffna islets killings span a year. Don't we risk conflation or double counting with the individual massacres in the same area in the same time? SinhalaLion ( talk) 00:49, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

@ SinhalaLion The problem here is that TAG is the only source used here to talk about these alleged attacks added to this article. No other secondary reliable sources have been provided for these content added from the report. Independent sources such as Human Rights Watch reports, Amnesty reports, new paper articles etc were used wherever possible when writing and editing articles revolving around the Sri lankan civil war. When using sources which are biased towards one party, the in-text attribution was used to highlight were it was taken from to maintain the Neutral Point of View. If using this source, I believe that same procedure should also be used in this article List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces to maintain the NPOV. JohnWiki159 ( talk) 03:53, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

"Jaffna islets killings span a year. Don't we risk conflation or double counting with the individual massacres in the same area in the same time?"

There are no further massacres documented in this list or in Bruce Fein's which overlap with these killings. The next killings listed in the islets takes place after this period in September. If any double counting happens they can be removed or merged into one entry. Oz346 ( talk) 01:02, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

Ok I misread the year, I've removed one mass killings from islets which potentially could have been double counted. Oz346 ( talk) 01:16, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

"new paper articles" many Sinhalese run newspaper articles have been used as references without their overall biased nature being overtly mentioned. Many of these newspapers have a history of outright lying or censorship (In the 80s when Tamil civilians were massacred, some of these newspapers would say 'terrorists' have been killed.) If you had just read them you would think the Sri Lankan Army in reality did do a humanitarian mission for Tamil civilians in the 26 year war lol. In contrast, Bruce Fein has not been shown to have poor fact checking or evidence of lying when it comes to the massacre list. There is no valid reason to denigrate the use of this source in this particular instance. Oz346 ( talk) 07:22, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

For example, there is a difference between Bruce Fein a recognised legal scholar who has other reliable publications to his name, and say TamilNet which is explicitly pro-LTTE and where attribution is necessary. All the slander that Fein is pro-LTTE are just that, baseless slander. Oz346 ( talk) 07:59, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

Adding the discussion link of reliable source noticeboard: /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_382#Reliability_of_Tamils_Against_Genocide Oz346 ( talk) 03:56, 1 May 2023 (UTC) reply
A third party on the noticeboard commented:
"no other reason to flat-out distrust the advocacy org or, more importantly, the person they hired to write their report, it seems like an RS to add items to a list whose criteria only seem to be "attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces"."
Most parties to the discussion on both this page and the noticeboard have not deemed it an unreliable source and I too share the same view. There's no good reason to exclude it from being used as citation. Petextrodon ( talk) 10:27, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply
Non-RS: The website clearly fails WP:VERIFY since does not meet WP:OR, WP:NPOV and WP:N. This has not been WP:PR and listed as a WP:RS in Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources. Cossde ( talk) 13:54, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply
Discussion has not confirmed TAG as a Wikipedia:Reliable sources . Cossde ( talk) 13:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply
I think we have reached an impasse. It would be better to involve neutral third party to mediate. Petextrodon ( talk) 15:59, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply
I see that Oz346 has already taken this matter to the RS noticeboard and neutral third party editors have shared their opinion that TAG and in particular the Bruce Fein's indictment can not be considered as a RS. WP:BURDEN clearly states that "burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material", hence before any TAG content can be used, TAG needs to be confirmed to be a WP:RS. Therefore, all contested content cited to TAG needs to be removed from this page. Cossde ( talk) 13:23, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
A qualification could be added to the TAG cited rows, similar to how Tamilnet is used as a source on Wikipedia, such as "according to the pro-Tamil organisation TAG..." Oz346 ( talk) 13:51, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
in addition to this, I can find other alternative reliable sources to corroborate each of the contested TAG cited rows. Oz346 ( talk) 14:00, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
Given the highly controversial nature of the content. Nothing short of WP:RS confirming each of the entries can be accepted. WP:BURDEN is clear on this. TAG refences needs to be removed and with it content cited by it. Cossde ( talk) 14:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
Majority of the incidents have been collated from external published sources mentioned in the document. I suggest @ Oz346 replace the existing citations with those sources. Petextrodon ( talk) 15:48, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
pastor killing was not just claimed by the LTTE. Respected Journalist DBS jeyaraj and Asian Human rights commission and christian charities also point to army involvement. Oz346 ( talk) 16:17, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
I dont see any of the citations here as WP:RS. Cossde ( talk) 01:37, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply
News reports are usually regarded as RS:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070206151000/http://transcurrents.com/tamiliana/archives/270
DBS Jeyaraj is a well known news journalist who writes for major Sri Lankan and Indian newspapers.
AHRC is also a recognised human rights group. Finally, Tarzie Vittachi again is a recognised news journalist, and his book is a published source. On wdae grounds are these not RS? Oz346 ( talk) 02:11, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply
on *what grounds are these not RS? Oz346 ( talk) 02:12, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply
Links shared are not RS, some are not working. How do we know if these are authentic? Its not from a reputed media organization. Has AHRC been confirmed as a RS in Wikipedia? Cossde ( talk) 07:17, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), whose director Basil Fernando has worked with the UN, is credible enough to be cited by a reputable news agency as Reuters, so yes it's very much reliable and hasn't been deemed unreliable. Petextrodon ( talk) 01:52, 5 May 2023 (UTC) reply
You didn't sign your last reply hence I reply here instead.
According to who that we should not cite a human rights organization which has been cited by reputable news agencies unless it’s been verified as a reliable source on Wikipedia? I checked the reliable sources noticeboard and haven’t found any entry for it. If you feel it’s unreliable, you’re welcome to take it up there. Until then I see no issue with the source. "established organization" according to who? What’s the definition? It’s a registered organization based in Hong Kong. Petextrodon ( talk) 11:49, 5 May 2023 (UTC) reply
to add to this, there is no Wikipedia policy saying that every single likely reliable source needs to go through a Wikipedia reliable source peer review or notice board discussion. Such a ludicrous rule would mean that Wikipedia would be saddled with unending bureaucracy where every obvious reliable source would need to be vetted on a discussion board before it could be used. Oz346 ( talk) 11:54, 5 May 2023 (UTC) reply
and how is AHRC, a human rights organisation based in Hong kong a primary source for SL based human rights violations? User Cossde needs to reread what a primary source is, and reread the WP policies he himself has been incorrectly citing:
"Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved" Oz346 ( talk) 12:00, 5 May 2023 (UTC) reply
It is very much reliable according to who? hasn't been deemed unreliable according to who? I am not questioning the credibility of AHRC, only the fact has it been cleared for use as RS in Wikipedia? AHRC from a Wikipedia prospective can be considered WP:SELFSOURCE and/or WP:PRIMARY at time, it is not an established organization such as Amnesty Intercalation, hence needs to be peer reviewed and accepted as an RS in Wikipedia. Thereafter it can be used.04:33, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Rajapaksa enjoys immunity: U.S. court". The Hindu. 1 March 2012.
  2. ^ "Tamil expats sue Rajapaksa in US". The New Indian Express.
  3. ^ "US court dismisses case against President Rajapaksa - Indian Express". archive.indianexpress.com.
  4. ^ "THE SRI LANKAN TAMIL DIASPORA AFTER THE LTTE" (PDF).

The list should not contain individual killings and assassinations.

Oz346 The list should not contain individual killings and assassinations. And it would be better if the list is broken down since it's very difficult to read. ~~~~ @ Amrithsvar ( talk) 18:07, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Please familiarise yourself with the definition of Assassination. Individual killings of non-prominent individuals does not satisfy the definition of assassination.
In the past you have tried to remove reliably cited content about atrocities committed against Tamils, which other users have called out as 'whitewashing' anti-Tamil violence, and have been warned of disruptive editing including the use of sock puppets:
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=1958_anti-Tamil_pogrom&diff=prev&oldid=1002481745
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_attacks_on_civilians_attributed_to_Sri_Lankan_government_forces&diff=prev&oldid=1002480091
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Sexual_violence_against_Tamils_in_Sri_Lanka&diff=1002486284&oldid=999520001
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk%3ASexual_violence_against_Tamils_in_Sri_Lanka&diff=1002489917&oldid=1002486485
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1058#YaSiRu11_%E2%80%93_POV-pushing_and_other_problems
Now you want to remove individual killings of Tamil civilians. This is not justified by wikipedia policies.
Secondly, how is it difficult to read? All you have added is section breaks. It makes no difference to the readability of the grids in the table which are well ordered, clear and very easy to read. This has been the status quo for years and there is no convincing reason for it to be changed. Oz346 ( talk) 19:44, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Oz346

1. • How do you define if someone is prominent or not? Many of the individuals on the list are named. Doesn't that mean they are prominent?
• Even if they are not prominent shouldn't this article be about "attacks on civilians"? It is good if you create a separate page for individual killings since this page is already cluttered.
• Many of the sources are very dubious, Many of the individual killings do not have sources that prove a strong connection between the Sri Lankan government forces and the murder. And Most come from only a single source that is not considered a reliable source. And a lot of secondary sources also come from the LTTE or its related organizations. I think only the incidents that can be proved using reliable secondary sources should remain.
2. I have no idea about the edits you have mentioned. That user is not me. Don't accuse people without any evidence, just because usernames are similar.
3. The article should be split according to WP:SIZESPLIT. The article is very large and cluttered. Nevertheless, The list is very hard to scroll and read. How about creating a separate article for each decade?

Amrithsvar ( talk) 20:43, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

1a. Names just means their identities have been established, that's not the same as being a well known public figure, which the word assassination is used for e.g. assassination of JFK
1b. Attack on civilians, means attacks on all civilians. It is plural only because there are many different cases. It does not exclude attacks on single civilians. You can't name this article 'list of attacks on a civilian', that would be pointless and illogical.
1c. If you are referring to Tamilnet, this has been discussed numerous times on Wikipedia's reliable source notice board and has been confirmed as a reliable source that can be used with the qualification 'according to the pro-rebel Tamilnet'.
2. A simple sock puppet investigation can confirm whether two accounts with the same name Amritsvar (which is not a common name in SL) and who both delete content of anti Tamil violence from this same page are the same person. If any more disruptive behaviour arises that would be the next logical step.
3.WP:SIZESPLIT mainly applies to large reams of text and prose, a table is not a typical article, all the text is already segmented into rows making it easier to read. And your argument about scrolling does not really make sense, as you still need to scroll even with your proposed section breaks. Oz346 ( talk) 21:29, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply
  1. Has it been established that whether TamilNet can be used for verify incidents that took place? Because since TamilNet is not considered to be RS, It should be more explicitly displayed that the only source for this is the TamilNet. For example, Colouring the rows of incidents that can only be verified via TamilNet
  2. There are a lot of individual killings which TamilNet does not specify anything about the Sri Lankan government forces having a connection with the murders. eg: Murder of Rasanayagam Jegan, Disappearance of Johnson, Disappearance of Antony Sureshkumar. These should be verified by other sources. And many of the others are just suspicions and there are no verifiable way of establishing a connection between SL forces and the particular incident.
  3. You can go ahead and do the investigation.
  4. I think WP:SIZESPLIT applies to this list too. According to WP:SPINOUT, "Very large articles should be split into logically separate articles. Long stand-alone list articles are split into subsequent pages alphabetically, numerically, or subtopically. Also consider splitting and transcluding the split parts". Since there is a very logical and easy way to split the article into decades, why not do that? I did not propose a section break, I proposed breaking article into several articles by the decade.
Amrithsvar ( talk) 22:09, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply
1. As long as the phrase "according to pro-rebel Tamilnet" is used it can be cited, that is the Wikipedia consensus.
2. I have answered below.
3. Only if further disruptive behaviour occurs
4. It not so large or difficult to read. It is better to have all the content in this one table. WP:SPLITLIST Oz346 ( talk) 01:58, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
  1. I have answered below.
  2. I have answered below.
  3. I have no comment.
  4. It is large by Wikipedia's own definition. It is twice the size mentioned in WP:SIZESPLIT. It should be split according many of Wikipedia policies. But it seems like you are not willing to accept that. You are not even giving any reasons why you think as such too. Even WP:SPLITLIST mentions, "Regardless, a list or table should be kept as short as is feasible for its purpose and scope. Too much statistical data is against policy." and not break a table only when "If there is no "natural" way to split or reduce a long list or table", but there is a very natural and logical way to split the table by the decades. It should be only natural that we follow that.
Amrithsvar ( talk) 05:19, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Wikipedia:Article size#Size guideline and WP:SIZESPLIT refers to prose. This is not prose (prose is large amounts of continuous writing, by definition a table will always have small prose size for each section, as it's divided into small rows). So what you have cited does not apply to this case. Oz346 ( talk) 08:08, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
There is no hard rule that says that WP:SIZESPLIT refers only to prose and that it excludes tables. Both WP:SIZESPLIT and Wikipedia:Article size#Size guideline also refer to tables. There is only a rule of thumb regarding size. But this table is clearly too large and not easily readable, This article suffers from all the three problems mentioned in WP:SIZESPLIT,
  • Reader issues, such as attention span, readability, organization, information saturation, etc.
  • Maintenance, such as articles becoming time-consuming to maintain when they are very long
  • Technical issues, such as limitations of mobile browsers
It makes sense to break up the table when looking at similar tables like List of attacks attributed to the LTTE. The table is hard to sort through and very cluttered. It will help a lot if the table is broken down following other examples. Amrithsvar ( talk) 08:33, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346 What is your consensus on this problem? If you don't want to split the article at least make it sortable by death toll. I still think that the article should be split because of the facts I've mentioned. Amrithsvar ( talk) 20:48, 20 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I dont think it needs to be split. What do you mean by sortable? do you mean the death toll sorting not working? Oz346 ( talk) 23:19, 20 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It is sortable. But the sort is incorrect. It does not sort correctly according to the number of victims. Amrithsvar ( talk) 05:50, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
The problem is some of the death tolls lack the exact precise number, and are given figures like 30+ to reflect the minimal deaths. Unless whole numbers are given to every figure (which is not always possible) then the sorting application will not work properly. So it is not feasible. Oz346 ( talk) 15:10, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I understand. But since the table is very large, for convenience it must be either sortable or spilt. We have to choose one. Amrithsvar ( talk) 13:46, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346 I changed the outlook of the table by removing the Province and District columns since a Location column is already there. And added another column for Damages etc. Amrithsvar ( talk) 06:13, 23 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Reliability of Sources

Many of the sources for this article seems to have problems with verifiability. With the user Oz346 adding new information from sources that have not been verified as reliable. Sources like TamilNet and Tamils against Genocide are questionable sources. It does not seem that these sources have not been deemed reliable enough to conform a incident taking place, especially when they are the only source available. Amrithsvar ( talk) 23:16, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Tamilnet is per rebel RS and can be used as a can be used with the qualification 'according to the pro-rebel Tamilnet as prior discussions. Pharaoh of the Wizards ( talk) 23:36, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Does that work for verifying and establishing that an incident took place? Shouldn't that need to be a RS ? If TamilNet can be used for that, shouldn't it be more obvious that the only source for a particular incident is TamilNet. For example, highlighting the row. And lot of the incidents from TamilNet does not explicitly mention Sri Lankan armed forces relating to the attacks. How come these were decided to related the Sri Lankan armed forces?. Eg: (Disappearance and murders of Ilankovan Kandeepan....., Vavuniya disappearances and murders and it seems like a lot more.) Amrithsvar ( talk) 23:59, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I have removed the rows which do not explicitly mention the govt forces, they were rows which initially were referenced by TAG which did explicitly mention govt culpability (but now TAG has not been deemed a reliable source to solely reference a row at present). There are other sources which do blame the govt forces for these killings, but I will have to dig them up later to corroborate. For example, I have added a corroborating reference for Rasanayagam Jagan from UTHR. Also http://www.tchr.net/press_rel_urg_act_app_tchr-2007.htm? Oz346 ( talk) 01:54, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Tamilnet is classed as a reliable source, but one which needs qualification:
Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 64#Tamilnet (http://www.tamilnet.com) Oz346 ( talk) 02:11, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
The reliability of TamilNet is not as clear as you mention, especially when conforming whether an incident taking place. If the only source is TamilNet for a particular attack it should explicitly display that the information comes from a single source. It is not clear in this table since what exactly "according to TamilNet" means is not clear at first. My suggestion is, The rows should be colored or explicitly displayed that "according to TamilNet" means that an incident taking place. And What about the reliability of many of other sources? What about "Tamils Against Genocide"? It seems like a very unreliable source since it seems to be connected with TGTE and the LTTE. Amrithsvar ( talk) 05:12, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It is clear, it is in the reference column. Reference column clearly means the source of the row. Anyone reading the row and in particular the important columns on death toll and perpetrator will see it. Colouring is not appropriate, as there is actually no evidence that Tamilnet has any poor fact checking: /info/en/?search=TamilNet#Criticism_and_Counter-Criticism
Like other news websites it has it's biases, but it was run by professional journalists. Blueing it is excessive.
I have made it even more clear now, by explicitly changing the 'refs' column to 'references claiming attack'. That's incredibly clear now.
As for TAG, it's not used alone to cite any row, the main source is still tamilnet (besides there is no evidence it is tgte/LTTE related, that is a baseless accusation). Oz346 ( talk) 07:59, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Is it? It is somewhat ambiguous to me it could also mean that the death toll or the some other information is "according to the TamilNet". It should be more specific that the information does not come from a reliable source. As I've mentioned before highlighting rows would suffice according the consensus by the SLR project. Also when looking at previous discussions about TamilNet, It is not even clear whether it has been established that TamilNet can be used for verification of incidents like in this table, since It was not deemed a RS by SLR project. TamilNet is clearly a questionable source.
TAG is used to establish a connection between the government forces and the particular attacks mentioned in TamilNet in a lot of incidents. If TAG is not a RS can it be used as such?. Fein Bruce and the TAG has been accused of being funded by the LTTE by several sources [1] [2] [3].
And shouldn't this list only specific attack that have been confirmed? Or the name should changed to "List of alleged attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces", since many of the attacks are not verifiable.
And what of the source named Tamil Times. It has not been deemed a reliable source. And many of the Tamil Times sources are not even available to verify. It also seems Tamil Times is a biased and unreliable source. [4] Amrithsvar ( talk) 09:18, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
using the Army website as if it is reliable source to make libelous and slanderous claims against TAG, is like asking the accused criminal murderer and rapist for his opinion on the accuser. It cannot be take as a reliable source at all for this. I have already addressed these slanderous claims in an older discussion above in this discussion board, check it out. In any case, to save this pointless argument I will remove all TAG references when I get to a computer, I'm currently on a phone.
The column title clearly says 'reference claiming ATTACK" not just isolated death toll. It is really not ambiguous.
We are going around in circles with Tamilnet, it HAS been classed as a reliable sources that needs attribution.
'alleged' suggests no basis for the report, which is not the case, if that's the case we should also add the alleged to the list of attacks attributed to ltte. What criteria determines whether a reported attack should be described as alleged or not. Sinhala run Sri Lankan newspapers are notorious for their bias and censoring of crimes against Tamils but it does not mean they should be censored off Wikipedia or smeared with 'alleged'.
Tamil Times can be found online the whole set, and the weblink you cite contradicts your claim of it being unreliable itself, I quote:
"The Tamil Times which reflected independence throughout its existence was systematically targeted and pressurised to abandon publication. But the paper is still going on despite the LTTE onslaught." Oz346 ( talk) 09:47, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
we wouldnt use alleged to described biased sources like 'the island'. unless there is clear evidence of poor fact checking not expected of a news site and standard journalism (which tamilnet does not have, in fact it has reliable sources describing it as being very good at fact checking, irrespective of its bias), then using alleged for only tamilnet is just slanderous and an attempt to smear. Oz346 ( talk) 09:53, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
in addition, majority of Tamilnet reports are also independently corroborated by Tamil Times, so I will add them when time permits. you need to provide more evidence that these reports are fabricated, otherwise it's an inappropriate attempt to smear a Wikipedia recognised reliable source and professional news site. Oz346 ( talk) 10:01, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
To further add, Tamil Times is actually less biased then most mainstream Sinhala run Sri Lankan news papers and sites, because unlike those, Tamil Times mentions the attacks committed by all sides of the conflict, whereas the Sri Lankan national papers have a policy of censoring crimes against Tamils. Oz346 ( talk) 10:13, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
There are several sources for that not just the army website. As I said before TamilNet only seem to have been regarded as reliable sources when writing about or describing something. There is no mention of it being used a the only source to verify a incident taking place as fact. This should be discussed further.
You are breaking WP:NPOV. There is no relevance to other sources. I am questioning the verifiability of sources in this table. If only a questionable source like (TamilNet, Tamil Times) mention the incident it is fair to regard it as alleged. Unless a secondary reliable source confirms it.
The source I mentioned is from 2007 and it does not seem to help to establish Tamil Times as a unreliable source as I thought. But it simply mentions that it was targeted. Being targeted by the LTTE doesn't make it a reliable source.
Can you point me to the website of Tamil Times? None of the citations can be found on the internet.
The Island is a well established news paper. It is seen as a reliable source. however TamilNet and Tamil Times is not. The reliability of TamilNet has been questioned multiple times. TamilNet regard as a pro-LTTE the BBC too.
You can't add questionable sources and say to me to disprove them. All the incidents without any reliable evidence should be removed unless there is evidence to prove it otherwise. That is how wikipedia work not like you explains. TamilNet is not " Wikipedia recognised reliable source". It has only been used as a Qualified Source in the SLR project for describing things.
The bias of other sources have no relevance to this conversation. This is not a contest of "who is the most biased". Amrithsvar ( talk) 10:15, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Well we have reached an impasse. Tamil Times is uploaded on the noolaham website. As far as I am concerned they are both reliable sources manned by professional journalists, and importantly the only reliable English medium sources which were able to circumvent the brutal and deadly Sri Lankan government's censorship which even resulted in the murders of many of their journalists and their senior editor:
/info/en/?search=TamilNet#Threats_and_murders
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/31/medi-j31.html
Only by sending their news reports internationally were they able to avoid the racist censorship of the Sri Lankan government. It seems that censorship process continues even now. Oz346 ( talk) 10:24, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
TamilNet has long been accepted as a RS provided you add a qualifier. It can be used as long as the references to government culprits are explicit. I don't see why Tamil Times should be excluded? It has not been deemed unreliable but apparently in its early days it had pro-rebel sympathies, like most Tamils in general did in the aftermath of the Black July. Editorial bias in favour of either side is unavoidable in Sri Lanka. Notable national newspapers that have been deemed RS have a pro-government bias. Petextrodon ( talk) 11:11, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
TamilNet has been accepted as a Pro-rebal QS. Which mean it only tell one side of the story and hence always be used with explicit attribution. Therefore, Amrithsvar has a point that claims that are exclusively attributed to pro-rebal sources need to be differentiate from the ones that have been attributed other RS. Tamil Times has not been established as a RS and therefore should not be used at all, until such time it has been established as a RS or QS. Cossde ( talk) 16:18, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
well Tamilnet has already been explicitly attributed and differentiated. And you have done the same for Tamil Times for the early 80s which I have accepted (although for consistency the Sri Lankan newspapers like The Island should be called pro govt by the same standard). However, this claim that Tamil Times a published news magazine of over 25 years comprised of professional journalists and an editorial board needs to be vetted by a formal process before use, I disagree with (Same argument we had regarding the use of the un report). Oz346 ( talk) 16:45, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
As I've said before since there is a problem with TamilNet's reliability and it is not clear enough about that in the list. The Island is a reputable source that hasn't been questioned. All sources are biased but sources like Tamil Nation and TamilNet has a verifiability problem, those sources should be corroborated with additional sources when making factual statement. Just having professional journalists doesn't make it automatically a reliable source. UN report is a reputable source which is quite different from magazines that have been accused of being biased by institutions like the BBC. The ideal solution would be that rows with only TamilNet to back the incident taking place should be highlighted. And incidents that have only have Tamil Times as its only source should be deleted unless there is secondary evidence to back it up because as Cossde mentioned it hasn't been regarded as RS in this particular scenario. Amrithsvar ( talk) 17:07, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Cossde is making his own rule up. There is no Wikipedia policy saying that all sources need to go through a formal process, especially when they already fit the criteria for a reliable source (well published news magazine with editorial board and a maxim that facts are sacred). Besides, Tamil Times is no where near as controversial as Tamilnet, and if Tamilnet has been deemed suitable for use, than Tamil Times is also clearly suitable. We have even explicitly attributed Tamil Times even though it has not been deemed a questionable reliable source. Oz346 ( talk) 17:11, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
And all this talk of bias, every source on Sri Lankan conflict has bias, just as most news sources do (even BBC has bias towards the British government). But bias is not a reason to exclude a source from being reliable and citable. Oz346 ( talk) 17:14, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Regarding Sinhalese run 'national' news agencies in the south being greatly biased in their war reporting:
https://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=24
Newspapers like the Island which had a policy of censoring every atrocity committed against Tamils in the warzone are questionable as well. They are certainly not as trustworthy as other reliable sources like the BBC. Oz346 ( talk) 17:33, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
'The Island' (along with the sun newspaper) have been noted by scholars for lying and falsely claiming that massacres of Tamil civilians were killing of Tamil terrorists in the 1980s:
https://edepot.wur.nl/138278
p.165-166
It has a poor record of fact checking. They have also been described as a pro-government and pro-Sinhala nationalist newspaper by scholarly secondary sources:
https://books.google.com/books/about/To_End_a_Civil_War.html?id=UYqMCwAAQBAJ#v=onepage&q=Pro%20government%20the%20island%20newspaper%20sri%20lanka&f=false
https://books.google.com/books/about/Embattled_Media.html?id=pxlBDwAAQBAJ#v=onepage&q=Pro%20government%20the%20island%20newspaper%20sri%20lanka&f=false
It is more unreliable than Tamilnet which has never stooped to such low level of racist distortion, yet it is farcically allowed to be referenced with no attribution as a so called 'reliable source'. Oz346 ( talk) 08:00, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"Tamil Times has not been established as a RS and therefore should not be used at all, until such time it has been established as a RS or QS."
Last time you said the same about an obviously RS Asian Human Rights Commission. Once again, I suggest you refrain from making up your own arbitrary rules. The burden of proof is on you to show why a magazine with its own ISSN, which was notable enough to be cited in reliably published books and covered by national Sri Lankan newspapers is not a RS enough for you? -- Petextrodon ( talk) 19:03, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Now its you who is making your own rules and Oz346 who is making his/her own claims to define what is RS. Clearly both of you are wrong. As Pharaoh of the Wizards mentioned Tamilnet was qualified as a QS for the use in Sri Lankan Civil War related topics way back during the war. This list contains the sources that have been qualified as RS, QS and Non-RS since this very same disscussion was there back then. That's why Pharaoh of the Wizards said there is no need to question or qualify Tamilnet since it has already been done so and I agree. That said Tamil Times and the Asian Human Rights Commission needs to be qualified to be used in Sri Lankan Civil War topics given the highly controversial and sensitive nature of these topics. These accusations that are leveled against the Sri Lankan Government are very serious. Finally as per WP:BURDEN The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Cossde ( talk) 01:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
WP:BURDEN says this:
"All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution."
This has been done, it does not mean you need to put every reliable source under a formal discussion. Oz346 ( talk) 07:56, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Tamil Times is a not a reliable source. It has been noted to be biased and unreliable by multiple sources. And since it's reliability is questioned by several wikipedians it's only natural that's incident that used Tamil Times as a primary source is backed by secondary sources. If a source is questioned by a wikipedian, it must be verified by secondary sources. Amrithsvar ( talk) 09:19, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Tamil Times has NOT been noted to be 'unreliable' by multiple sources. You are not a 'source'. In fact, there is compelling evidence that you are the same Amrithsvarya who was already noted by others to be white washing and censoring any mentions of anti Tamil atrocities from this page and others in the past (see previous discussion above on this notice board). Hardly a neutral observer, let alone a neutral 'source'. And Tamil Times is not a primary source, it's a news magazine. Oz346 ( talk) 09:38, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It's ironic you use the government-owned Daily News to question the reliability of Tamil Times. The same Daily News whose editorials openly backed the government's military offensive which resulted in widespread human rights violations against Tamil civilians. The Hindu despite its openly pro-GoSL editorial policy for which its editor was awarded Sri Lanka Rathna is still allowed to be cited on Sri Lankan conflict, even without the qualifier "pro-government". -- Petextrodon ( talk) 12:51, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Daily News has been accepted as a RS by Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources and The Hindu (where did that come from?) is considered as a RS by the virtue of its a mainstream newspaper. Cossde ( talk) 13:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
And the same Daily News approved Tamil Times as having "reflected independence throughout its existence".
Yes, they are accepted doesn't mean their editorial policies aren't pro-government. The Hindu editor N. Ram is well-known for his pro-government policy and was awarded Sri Lanka Rathna by the government. - Petextrodon ( talk) 15:43, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
If Tamil Times is not a reliable source, could you explain why academics, including Sinhalese ones, have cited it in their books? Go to google books and search "Tamil Times". -- Petextrodon ( talk) 12:53, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
So are you saying that Tamil Times, which is known to have pro-rebal bias can be considered an RS since its cited by third parties? Cossde ( talk) 13:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
From where did you get the idea that Tamil Times was pro-rebel? I think you got it from its Wikipedia page which states: "In its early years the magazine supported Sri Lankan Tamil militantism but following the takeover by Kandiah (publisher) and Rajanayagam (editor) in December 1987 the magazine took a moderate editorial stance."
However, the cited sources don't say that at all. They say just the opposite! -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:00, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
But you're also disputing its reliability, therefore you also have burden to demonstrate why it is not reliable. You have yet to show the Wikipedia rule which says we should not cite a published newsmagazine that's been cited by scholars and journalists unless it's been deemed RS by a noticeboard.-- Petextrodon ( talk) 12:30, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
If you want to use Tamil Times as a sources back very serious allegations you will need to get it approved like the Tamilnet was in Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources. Cossde ( talk) 13:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
You first need to provide reliable evidence that Tamil Times was pro-rebel as you alleged because other reliable sources say just the opposite. It's a notable published newsmagazine. It meets all the criteria of a RS. Since you and the other user are the ones disputing its reliability against mainstream acceptance of it by journalists and scholars, you need to substantiate your fringe stance.
The independent Sri Lanka Guardian reported:
"The articles published came from various sources and were reflective of the various shades of opinion of different political divides. The Tamil Times was subscribed to and widely read by thousands of people from different countries including Sri Lanka, India, USA, UK, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and the African countries. The contents of this publication were such that even the High Commissions from some of these countries subscribed to it."
I could cite more such sources confirming its reliability. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:37, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I am not sure if Sri Lanka Guardian is a RS. The Tamil Times page it self claims that is had been pro-rebel part in early stages. Oh and I just realized you compared it's circulation which this source claims thousands to the Daily News and the The Hind which has a slightly larger circulation of what was it? Oh yes 88,000 and 1,415,792. That's a clear difference between mainstream and fringe for your information. Cossde ( talk) 05:51, 15 June 2023 (UTC) reply
and you conveniently ignored what the pro-government Daily News stated which I had replied to you twice:
"The Tamil Times which reflected independence throughout its existence was systematically targeted and pressurised to abandon publication. But the paper is still going on despite the LTTE onslaught."
I could cite more if that's not enough. Now, you need to demonstrate your share of burden since you're the one who alleged that it was pro-rebel. Please provide reliable sources that states Tamil Times had a pro-rebel editorial policy. Until then I will have to remove your unverified allegation. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:59, 15 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I think that was premature, since you have failed to establish the Tamil Times as a RS or a Pro-rebel QS like how the Tamilnet has been done. Furthermore, regarding my unverified allegation, it is well known that Tamil Times founder, first MD and editor Thamotheram was a known pro-rebel, who had been recognized as such by pro-rebel such as [5], [6] and Thamotheram was known to have openly advocated and lobbied for the LTTE, even writing against its ban in the UK [7] that is why Tamil Times had been known for its pro-rebel status in its early year. After all Thamotheram virtually ran it from its own house in those days. Sorry I missed your comments on the Daily News article. Its seems inconsistent since it also states that Thamotheram founding the International Tamil Foundation which is sympathetic towards the LTTE. Therefore I am reverting your changes. Cossde ( talk) 01:59, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No, it is not inconsistent. The existence of short-lived diversity among editors in its early days doesn't warrant tarring the entire magazine for most of its history as having had a biased editorial policy in favour of one side. it's common for different contributors to any newspaper to have different perspectives. The anti-militancy perspective existed from the very beginning and it eventually took over for most of the newsmagazine's history. An affiliate of the UTHR(J), who is critical of militant Tamil nationalism, endorsed the Tamil Times by writing the following for The Island:
"In a few years, developments in Sri Lanka created a divergence of perspectives within the editorial group, where some supported militant Tamil nationalism unequivocally. Raja and others were perturbed by the intolerant nationalism, militarism, Tamil-on-Tamil violence and the crushing of dissent within the Tamil polity. Raja found the LTTE’s claim to be the sole representative of the Tamils abhorrent. By around 1987, the disagreement was settled in Raja’s favour, and he continued as the editor until January 2006. As Raja’s editorials became increasingly critical of armed violent actors, he was subjected to threats and intimidations. For a period, the Tamil Times was the only one of its kind, offering critical support to the Tamils in their quest for justice and democratic rights. It was read with interest for Raja’s editorials but not just by Tamils but also by various representatives of governments, members of the human rights fraternity, journalists and academics. The magazine was supported by subscriptions entirely and from across the globe."
Therefore, since I've provided more reliable sources endorsing Tamil Times as independent and you have yet to provide any RS on its editorial policy as a whole being described as pro-rebel, I will again remove unverified allegations. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:05, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
What do you mean by "No, it is not inconsistent."? Its clear that it is you who are inconsistant. Oz346 just calimed that The Island is an unreliable source, yet you use it to claim Tamil Times a reliable source. What is the consistancy in that?
These are very serious accusations. Accusations which technically speaking even Tamilnet has not been qualified to present as a WP:QS per its in Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources. Tamil Times has not been confirmed as a WP:RS in a WP:RSN. There is no concensus in this fourm for the use of Tamil Times as a RS. Therefore you need to get Tamil Times cleared by a RSN as a RS before using it here such a controvical matter. Once you get it you may use this source in this page. Cossde ( talk) 15:35, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I said *It is more unreliable than Tamilnet* yet it is regarded as a RS, so by the same token Tamil Times is certainly a RS if the island is deemed one. Reliability lies on a spectrum. Oz346 ( talk) 17:17, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Why do you bring the user Oz346 into a reply to my comment? I don't always have to agree with other users on everything. I can only speak for myself.
If Tamil Times is reliable enough to be cited by scholars and journalists and be endorsed by critics of militant Tamil nationalism, why would it require further vetting on Wikipedia? Could you cite a Wikipedia guideline which states every notable published source needs to be cleared by a RSN as a RS before using it? It would be appropriate when widespread controversy exists about a source's reliability, not when there's widespread approval of it from other reliable sources. You and the other user are the only ones disputing its reliability, on several occasions based on fabricated claims not supported by cited sources.
That WikiProject is now defunct and its list is not set in stone but can be revised since the criteria to qualify certain sources as "pro-rebel" isn’t consistently applied to the other side (pro-government). -- Petextrodon ( talk) 18:40, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Reliability of a source is well defined in WP:RS, I don't believe that Tamil Times is an RS based on that criteria. However you Petextrodon and you Oz346 think its an RS based on inconsistent and contradicting rational. Amrithsvar feels its not. Hence Tamil Times is challenged as a RS here. Therefore it is best cleared out in a WP:RSN. I am open to hear alternative suggestions. Cossde ( talk) 10:13, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Can you please explain what criteria of a RS Tamil Times lacks? otherwise this assertion will be baseless. Merely saying its not a RS, is not enough.
Secondly, the pro-government 'The Island' and 'Daily News' are both regarded as RS, and both have overt bias towards the government. Yet you have no issue with their use as reliable sources. Please explain this discrepancy. Oz346 ( talk) 11:07, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
And if Tamilnet is a qualified source, that can be used with attribution on Wikipedia. What makes Tamil Times less reliable than Tamilnet in your eyes that it cannot be used at all? Oz346 ( talk) 11:09, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
/info/en/?search=Template:Unreliable_source%3F
This is the correct template to use to question if something is RS, not the NPOV template. Oz346 ( talk) 11:19, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
NPOV template was used with a reason. Majority of these claims have been given with a single source that is clearly pro-rebel or anti- government. Tamilnet has been deemed a WP:QS that can be used to cite content related to it and not that is accusing the government. Tamil Times will also fall into the same category due to its Pro-Tamil and anti- government rhetoric. Cossde ( talk) 14:12, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
And your baseless accusation of anti government, please provide a reliable source for that regarding Tamil Times, there are more RS indicating the opposite, that Tamil Times was more critical of the Tigers, especially after 1987. Oz346 ( talk) 14:36, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Tamilnet has been deemed a QUALIFIED SOURCE, not a questionable source. you are confusing the two. Qualified sources are a class of reliable sources which need explicit attribution. Oz346 ( talk) 14:37, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Yes a Qualified sources, which means "These fulfill WP:RS, but only tell one side of the story (see also WP:NPOV#bias). They can therefore always be used with explicit attribution." Cossde ( talk) 14:42, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
According to Gordon Weiss book 'The Cage' a RS secondary source:
"In a country that proven incapable of investigating the crimes of its own law enforcement and military officers, it is unlikely that the true scope of the government-sanctioned killing of Tamil civilians by a plethora of security forces will ever be known. In contrast Tigers atrocities against Sinhalese were carefully counted, scrutinised and repeatedly decried by the government."
The government had a policy of censorship where no reports of attacks due to govt forces was to be reported, hence the paucity of sources apart from Tamil Times and Tamilnet in the English medium which escaped censorship by publishing abroad. So there is a perfectly reasonable reason why many of these attacks have only one source. Thats not a reason to censor and whitewash. Oz346 ( talk) 14:33, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Regarding rampant Media censorship by government of Sri Lanka:
https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1082&context=apme
"In July1983, the first Tamil Tiger attack on the Sri Lankan military was followed by days of island-wide anti-Tamil ethnic violence. President Jayewardene’s handling of the crisis was heavily criticised by Jaffna based Sinhala journalist and editor of The Saturday Review, Gamini Navaratne. In retaliation, the Jayewardene government banned The Review with immediate effect. Although the ban was later lifted, Navaratne was required to present all of his copy to the government censor before publication (Senadhira, 1996)." Oz346 ( talk) 14:40, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Are you accusing me a of censor and whitewash? Cossde ( talk) 14:44, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Not you specifically, but anyone who has been trying to cover up these crimes and remove them from the public domain including on Wikipedia with no valid reason. You have not wholesale deleted any of these details to fit that criteria, but the other user who first raised issues on this source has been engaging in this behaviour in the past as can been seen from his editing history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=1958_anti-Tamil_pogrom&diff=prev&oldid=1002481745
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_attacks_on_civilians_attributed_to_Sri_Lankan_government_forces&diff=prev&oldid=1002480091
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Sexual_violence_against_Tamils_in_Sri_Lanka&diff=1002486284&oldid=999520001
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk%3ASexual_violence_against_Tamils_in_Sri_Lanka&diff=1002489917&oldid=1002486485
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1058#YaSiRu11_%E2%80%93_POV-pushing_and_other_problems Oz346 ( talk) 15:03, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That's not clear answer, are you accusing me a of censor and whitewash? Cossde ( talk) 15:08, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
NO. Oz346 ( talk) 15:11, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"I don't believe that Tamil Times is an RS based on that criteria."
Please go ahead and list all the criteria that Tamil Times doesn't meet. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:27, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Given that it was published in the owner/editors own house doesn't really make the Tamil Times a mainstream publication. Cossde ( talk) 14:09, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I dont see anything on the RS wikipedia page which says that excludes a source from being reliable. They were a small organisation true consisting of volunteers, but that does not preclude reliability. Oz346 ( talk) 14:28, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Given that its a small organisation consisting of volunteers, there is no reliability that is there in a mainstream publication. Cossde ( talk) 14:39, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
define 'mainstream'.
Do you mean like "The island" and "The Sun" of Sri Lanka which actively lie and have described massacres of Tamils civilians as killings of terrorists?
Actually, the size of a organisation is not directly correlated with its reliability as can be seen from the above. Oz346 ( talk) 14:42, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Refer WP:SOURCE, relaiablity depands on mainstream publications. The Island is a mainstream newspaper in Sri Lanka, not a owner operated operation. Cossde ( talk) 14:46, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I have and it says this which Tamil Times fulfils:
"Base articles on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Source material must have been published, the definition of which for the purposes of Wikipedia is made available to the public in some form."
On the first issue of Tamil Times, it states explicitly:
"Although we appear under the title TAMIL TIMES, we are determined to ensure that news, views and informa- tion that we publish are of general interest to all Sri Lankans be they Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and Bur- ghers. While we will not hesitate to comment on political questions we are resolved to remain unaffiliated to any political party.
While we would endeavour to give as wide a coverage as possible to news and information, we are determined to make the TAMIL TIMES the standard bearer for the defence of democracy and human rights and a forum for serious discussion of political, social, economic and cultural matters concer- ning our mother country and host countries.
We are dedicated to the much cherished maxim: 'Facts are sacred, comment is free'. Oz346 ( talk) 14:51, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Seems you haven't. Any publication is by default not considered reliable. Especially one that's published in the owners house. Its contents are clearly WP:NPOV. Cossde ( talk) 15:03, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
'The Island' is a racist paper with a proven history of lying and covering up of massacres of innocent Tamil civilians (as proven by reliable secondary sources) by claiming the victims were terrorists. But the fact you have no issue with that and what it means for its RELIABILITY speaks volumes. Oz346 ( talk) 14:54, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Are you calling one of the leading English dailies in Sri Lanka a racist paper ? Cossde ( talk) 15:04, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Yes 100% its a racist disgusting paper. If this happened in the developed world (falsely calling civilian massacre victims as terrorists), the editors of the paper would be in jail for libel. Oz346 ( talk) 15:06, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That's a very serious accusation. Cossde ( talk) 15:11, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Not as serious as claiming 100s of massacred civilians were terrorists as 'the Island' have done. Oz346 ( talk) 15:15, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
How can you say that? Besides are we talking about the Island here or Tamil Times. Cossde ( talk) 15:18, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I dispute the reliability of state-affiliated Sri Lankan newspapers. They should at least be used with a "pro-government" tag if we are to be consistent. I think the now defunct WikiProject list should be re-opened and revised. Oz346 has already made a request. Let's wait and see. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:56, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I don't understand what you and Oz346 are doing here. This whole discussion is on the verifiability of the sources used in this article. Tamil Times is questioned here as a WP:RS, you simply need to do a WP:RSN and get it qualified. However you are bringing sources that are not part of this discussion and wants to get them revised. What is the objective of all that? Cossde ( talk) 16:24, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Consistent application of criteria to avoid one-sided bias. Also you were the one who brought up the WikiProject list. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:27, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That was to confirm what Pharaoh of the Wizards said on the status of Tamil Net as a Pro-rebel RS. You and Oz346 is bring in every possible source in to this discussion without validating Tamil Times as a RS. Cossde ( talk) 16:31, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It has been validated repeatedly with citations to multiple reliable sources. You refusing to accept the mainstream consensus and refusing to meet your share of burden is your own problem. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:33, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
If you are pushing this owner operated home made magazine as a RS, its your baby not mine. Cossde ( talk) 16:42, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
In contrast to Tamil Times, UTHR(J) was published by the exiled Rajan Hoole from the underground, without any official headquarter. Yet that didn't prevent UTHR(J) from being accepted as a RS. Should we not revise the status of UTHR(J) going by your own standard?
As for Tamil Times, here's yet another reliable source, a Sri Lankan newspaper, confirming its reliability:
"The Tamil Times under the enlightened editorship of Rajanayagam was committed to the fundamental journalistic principle – ‘facts are sacred and opinions are free’."
Your perspective is in the fringe, going against the mainstream consensus of other reliable sources, so yes you definitely have a bigger burden to fulfil. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:50, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Then you would have no problem taking it to WP:RSN. Cossde ( talk) 16:55, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It's better to be approved by the WikiProject list once and for all since editors seem to bring that up frequently. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 17:01, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
WP:RSN is good enough. Cossde ( talk) 17:08, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I prefer that the same moderator who vetted Sri Lankan newspapers should use the same criteria to judge Tamil Times. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 17:18, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"Given that its a small organisation consisting of volunteers, there is no reliability that is there in a mainstream publication."
That applies to the UTHR(J) as well (in fact, a lot more), which was primarily associated with one editor, Rajan Hoole, yet it's accepted as a reliable source. This seems arbitrary. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:39, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Can we please stay in on point here, we are talking about Tamil Times here? Cossde ( talk) 16:19, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Yes, but if the criteria were to be applied consistently, then the status of Sri Lankan national newspapers with government affiliations or pro-government editorials should likewise be revised or vetted. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:24, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That is not the point here. Cossde ( talk) 16:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
We need to be consistent. Why should different standards apply to different sides? That nullifies Wikipedia policy of neutrality. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:29, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That is beyond this topic. Can we please stick to this one. Cossde ( talk) 16:32, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Amrithsvar : "It also seems Tamil Times is a biased and unreliable source."
Read your own sources before citing them to support your arguments. The pro-government Daily News says just the opposite of what you're saying:
"The Tamil Times which reflected independence throughout its existence was systematically targeted and pressurised to abandon publication. But the paper is still going on despite the LTTE onslaught." -- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:38, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Yes. After reading though the discussion. I now believe that Time Times is a reliable source. Amrithsvar ( talk) 20:46, 20 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I disagree, Tamil Times needs RSN to confirm as a RS and at best could it be considered a Qualified Source like the TamilNet and therefore should not be used as the sole reference. Therefore, Tamil Times and TamilNet should not be used as the sole reference in accusations against the government to maintain WP:WEIGHT. Look at the Civilian casualties in the Second Intifada. Cossde ( talk) 03:42, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Furthermore, why does Petextrodon and Oz346 keep reverting and removing my NPOV tag on this page. There is an active dissuasion going on here and no conclusion reached. If we it is removed I will have to report it. Cossde ( talk) 03:44, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Read the reason given for the revert. You have yet to give a single good reason on why Tamil Times' neutrality is disputed. You jumped from one thing to another and keep changing the goalpost. First it was pro-rebel allegation, and then it was about a house being used as an office. It's not clear what we are arguing here. That's your burden. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:28, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
What have been unclear about? My stance remain unchanged. I say that Tamil Times' neutrality is questionable under C. J. T. Thamotheram and that Tamil Times does not meet RS standards since its not a mainstream magazine. Its neither a volunteer organization recognized by established international organizations as one nor does it have the platform to be considered a mainstream magazine. Per WP:BURDEN, "burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material". Therefore appreciate you not passing your burden. Cossde ( talk) 14:46, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"I say that Tamil Times' neutrality is questionable under C. J. T. Thamotheram"
Please provide reliable sources disputing Tamil Times neutrality on that basis. We've provided enough reliable sources affirming its reliability and independence.
"and that Tamil Times does not meet RS standards since its not a mainstream magazine"
Please define what you mean by "mainstream"?
You're now the ONLY person disputing its reliability against mainstream RS publications and the opinions of all other concerned users here, including Sinhalese ones, who deem it a RS. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:58, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I have no issue being the minority here. TT is not a mainstream magazine and therefore until such time its proven to be one by RSN I am not convinced. Cossde ( talk) 14:10, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Fringe views based on original research of an editor aren't equal to mainstream views backed by multiple reliable sources. You should know this since you had cited a wiki guideline on this yesterday on another discussion. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:22, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
There a perfectly reasonable reason why many of these attacks only have one source as I have already proven beyond doubt earlier in this discussion. There was a brutal crackdown on local press who reported crimes committed by the government as part of the government's policy of media censorship. Many journalists have in fact been assassinated for attempting to report on these crimes including the chief editor of Tamilnet. As the existing reliable sources confirm, both Tamil Times and Tamilnet were based internationally to circumvent this censorship. Besides it is already well known from other established reliable sources that the government forces have been responsible for countless attacks on civilians. Attacks on civilians with impunity by the government is not an exceptional claim in the body of established RS literature. Oz346 ( talk) 07:09, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
For example, the Saturday Review based in Jaffna which has a Sinhala editor was unable to report on these crimes in the 80s due to the government policy of censorship. Only Tamil Times could publish this information. The Sri Lankan government was so worried about this, that it created a competitor Sri Lankan Times to counter Tamil Times. Oz346 ( talk) 07:22, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Technically what you say is WP:OR. Besides censorship didn't apply for international organizations that latter documented the HR violations on both sides. Cossde ( talk) 08:49, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Chandrika government provided more space than the previous and subsequent governments but even under her rule there was press censorship on military matters. Not every single massacre of Tamil civilians in little-known villages of the north-east was reported by these international NGOs. They needed government approval to visit these conflict zones which wasn't always granted, whereas Tamil Times (and TamilNet) had local correspondents on the ground. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:23, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
there are many cases of international journalists being deported in the 1980s for reporting on these government war crimes, so the claim there was no restrictions or censorship of international journalists is false. Oz346 ( talk) 14:08, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
If what Petextrodon and Oz346, claim is correct. How did Tamil Times get its information? Cossde ( talk) 14:18, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
From local journalists. It is not easy for international journalists to avoid the government's radar, whereas local journalists can retain their anonymity more easily, and pass on their reports discretely. Whereas international journalists stand out from the general population and are almost always being watched. Oz346 ( talk) 15:06, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Therefore, you mean from sources that lack independence or data that lacks confirmation from Wikipedia:Independent sources? Forget about WP:NPOV does this qualify as a WP:Secondary source? Cossde ( talk) 16:13, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
They have journalists working for them. This is how news agencies work. News agencies are a recognised category of reliable sources on wikipedia. For example, an example of a local journalist is Mylvaganam Nimalrajan who was killed by pro-government forces, he used to report for Tamilnet: TamilNet#Threats and murders. Oz346 ( talk) 16:24, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde Your discussion seems very unhelpful for the betterment of this article. I think there are enough evidence to consider that Tamil Times is a good enough source. Just having the credibility from UTHR is enough to consider it a reliable source. Amrithsvar ( talk) 13:39, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I disagree, as I see it Tamil Times has not been established correctly as a RS. Newspapers and magazines can be used as RS in Wikipedia per WP:RS if these are mainstream publications. There has been no mention about the circulation (number) of this magazine. Even if we can take it as a RS, its clearly is a bias RS given the fact its initial set of directors had been force to leave Sri Lanka and one can say has an axe to grind. The TamilNet has been cleared as a QS, however it has been used in this list as a single source, which is incorrect since it has been confirmed to be bias. Therefore, such citations need to be back by another. All the references of RS that have cited TT seems to have done so as a primary source and in fact the Noolaham Foundation that digitized the TT editions states It provides valuable documentation and analysis of the Tamil struggle and Sri Lankan and International politics during this crucial period. Cossde ( talk) 14:07, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
A source being biased doesn't mean it can't be used. Biased sourced can be a RS. Just put it in the same category as TamilNet then, as a QS that requires a explicit mention like 'according to Tamil Times'. Amrithsvar ( talk) 14:24, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
What does that have to do with TT? Cossde ( talk) 14:08, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Valayanmadam bombing

@ Petextrodon, am I reading this wrong? or does the cited U.S. Department of State 2009 Report to Congress on Incidents During the Recent Conflict in Sri Lanka states and I quote '' "February 19 – An organization’s source in Valayanmadam reported that SLAF aerial attacks killed more than 100 LTTE forcibly recruited children." '', why is that considered [[WP:NOR]]. What is wrong in including whats in the source here? Cossde ( talk) 13:35, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply

because the cited source doesn't explicitly mention these children were killed while engaging in combat. To assume that is original research on your part. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:20, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde sign your reply as i can't reply to unsigned one. so i will reply here instead.
You wrote: "An organization’s source in Valayanmadam reported that SLAF aerial attacks killed more than 100 LTTE forcibly recruited children." - Yes or No ?"
Yes, but what is your purpose for adding they were forcibly recruited, other than to imply that they were child soldiers killed in combat? -- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:30, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That is your assumption, and it might be from the fact that you knew that the LTTE used child soldiers. Therefore you were quick to assume that this was my intention. When it was not at all. Mine was to simply state what the source said, that these were children held by force by the LTTE. Therefore I don't see anything wrong in including whats in the source itself. Cossde ( talk) 16:06, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Now that you did mentioned it, there is a link in the soruce itself that states. "For many years there have been reports that the LTTE forcibly recruited children into its cadres." Cossde ( talk) 16:06, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
ok but that general fact is not directly about Valayanmadam bombing. Also, I did NOT suggest you to add "Link to child soldiers of the LTTE" as you accused me of having done so in the latest edit. You should not be reverting while you are engaged in a talk discussion. The latest edit is even worse as you make explicit connection to use of child soldiers although the cited link doesn't say they were used during this particular incident. -- Petextrodon

( talk) 16:14, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood you when you said "ok". Let me revert that. Cossde ( talk) 05:42, 15 June 2023 (UTC) reply
But this is not an article for that background detail which serves no useful purpose, but a table. - Petextrodon ( talk) 16:12, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Other rows have much more details in this column. Why are you so concerned about adding more details here? Cossde ( talk) 16:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Those details have direct relevance to the attacks, unlike your background info. What is the point of adding that detail then, if not to imply something? Readers would assume these were child soldiers engaged in combat since the LTTE is well-known for using child soldiers. Detail should help to clarify and not confuse or mislead. - Petextrodon ( talk) 16:49, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
On the contrary, the details you mentation having direct relevance include facts such as the victims were women, children, little children, etc.. This information is same and it is exactly what is mentioned in the source, word to word. It would be unfortunate that readers would assume these were child soldiers engaged in combat since the LTTE is well-known for using child soldiers. However this is what the source says. Quoting the source word to word does not violate WP:OR nor WP:NPOV. Cossde ( talk) 05:42, 15 June 2023 (UTC) reply
They just specify the victims, not their past or present affiliation with the LTTE which is open to misunderstanding. Petextrodon ( talk) 15:02, 15 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Exactly that's my point too. The source clearly specify the victims and that has been included word to word here. Do you think the source is wrong? Cossde ( talk) 01:33, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No, their gender and age are not comparable to the their affiliation with the LTTE. Yes they might have been abducted by the LTTE but we don't know what their role with LTTE was at the time of their deaths. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:40, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No, I am afraid its not up to you to decide what can be and what can not be included. If additional content such as age and gender had been added before then there is not reason to prevent adding circumstances, especially if its mentioned in the source. Cossde ( talk) 10:05, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Actually, we are allowed to decide by discussion what detail is appropriate and what isn't, otherwise, without certain limits, we can go on adding all sort of details indefinitely. Age and gender are physical attributes, which are more stable than association to an organization that forcibly abducted you in middle of a war where circumstances change very quickly. Since we have no information on whether these children were still under LTTE custody and what role they were serving when they died, the detail you added isn't helpful but biases the reader into thinking they were serving as child soldiers. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:22, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I don't agree, if you go through the list lot more details than age and gender have been included. I don't see you too concerned about it. However, I see that you are very sensitive to the fact that this detail was included here, even when the source clearly states that. To remove this detail would deny the reader this key information. Cossde ( talk) 14:05, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"if you go through the list lot more details than age and gender have been included"
yes, details like the targets of the attacks such as properties, hence have direct relevance.
"To remove this detail would deny the reader this key information."
Why is it a key information? is it directly related to the circumstances of their killings? -- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:47, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Yes, exactly. The source confirms that incident killed "100+ LTTE forcibly recruited children" that directly relates to the circumstances of their killings. Cossde ( talk) 16:40, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
But were they under LTTE custody at the time of their killings? What role did they serve? We don't know. To imply this link without explicit statements in the cited source would be original research. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:43, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No that's where you are wrong, the source indicates that the LTTE had been forcibly recruited children in that area just before this incident. Therefore its clear that they were what the source claimed to be " forcibly recruited children". Cossde ( talk) 16:46, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No, the timeframe is not explicit in that short statement. Some time could have passed between when they were recruited and when they were killed. They could have been killed outside the capacity of a LTTE role. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:59, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That is not what the source says. It explicitly says "100+ LTTE forcibly recruited children". Cossde ( talk) 17:02, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It's open to interpretation without additional information. They might not have served an LTTE role at this stage. There were several incidents of forcibly recruited children fleeing from the LTTE, only to be harmed by the SL military. We simply don't know the context of this particular bombing. When you add that detail, readers will assume the children died as child soldiers in combat. It's not comparable to details about age or gender or property destruction. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 17:16, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It did when the LTTE forcibly recruited children. Cossde ( talk) 17:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
what do you mean by "it did"? -- Petextrodon ( talk) 17:31, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
The source states that the 100+ killed were LTTE forcibly recruited children. So it means that at the time of death they were children who had been forcibly recruited by the LTTE. Cossde ( talk) 17:48, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"So it means that at the time of death they were children who had been forcibly recruited by the LTTE"
It just says they had been forcibly recruited, but doesn't specify their exact role at the time of their killings. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 22:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That's not in question here. The sources says that at the time of death these were 100+ forcibly recruited children. Cossde ( talk) 03:49, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It matters in this context because adding it misleads readers into assuming they were child soldiers at the time of their death. It's better avoided for the sake of clarification. This is not an article, but a list. Details in brackets should help clarify, not confuse. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:33, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
There is no confusion here, the source clearly states that 100+ LTTE forcibly recruited children were killed in the attack. The source is clear and there is no reason to avoid that information. Cossde ( talk) 14:16, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No, given the well-known fact that LTTE used child soldiers, it misleads readers into thinking these children served that role at the time of their deaths. Therefore, should be avoided. - Petextrodon ( talk) 16:30, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
What was exact circumstance that these children died in? If it was combat scenario, they would not count as civilians. but again one can argue that they are since they were forcibly recruited by the LTTE. Is there any further sources that explains more about the exact incident? Amrithsvar ( talk) 13:45, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
The same source indicates that the LTTE had been forcibly recruited children in that area. At that time, the LTTE was desperately short of carders and had been forcing civilians in to their ranks. I am fine to keep this as the source indicates "100+ LTTE forcibly recruited children", that clear enough. Cossde ( talk) 13:52, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
But this incident is listed under civilian killings section on that U.S. state department report. Had they engaged in combat at the time of their deaths, they would not have been listed as such. These children could have died under many different circumstances where the fact that LTTE had forcibly recruited them some time in the past (days? weeks? month?) would have had no direct relevance to their deaths. That's why I'm suggesting without additional background information this detail should be avoided as it doesn't help to clarify but does just the opposite. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:20, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
What you say doesn't make sense at all. I didn't say anything about children been engaging in combat! Does the citied source state "February 19 – An organization’s source in Valayanmadam reported that SLAF aerial attacks killed more than 100 LTTE forcibly recruited children." - Yes or No ? 15:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC) Singed Cossde ( talk) 16:06, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Request for multiple citations

@ Petextrodon, can you please let me know why my tag for additional citations have been reverted by you with a rude comment "ne source is fine, especially for little known old attacks which didn't always receive international coverage or were censored by southern press" is this your policy or that of Wikipedia? Cossde ( talk) 12:38, 10 October 2023 (UTC) reply

There is no Wikipedia policy saying that you need more than one reliable source. Stop your repeated disruptive edits along these lines. Oz346 ( talk) 12:48, 10 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346, can you please tell me what is disruptive about my edits? In this case I am asking for additional sources since I don't feel that cited source can be considered as a WP:RS. Cossde ( talk) 13:06, 10 October 2023 (UTC) reply
Tamil sources were the only ones covering these less known local incidents. Sinhala-owned press had a pro-state policy and whitewashed the murders of Tamil civilians by describing them as terrorists and the Sinhala government prevented foreign press from entering Tamil areas. Both these statements are backed by Rajan Hoole in his book "The Arrogance of Power", coincidentally on the same page dealing with the 1985 Muttur massacre for which you added that tag. I have no problem adding the citation but then to be consistent every major Sinhala-owned newspaper should have their status revised and be treated the same. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 19:55, 10 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon, can you please explain how NESOHR can be used as a reliable source in this context given that NESOHR has been described by Amnesty International as "In 2004 the LTTE established the NESOHR to monitor the human rights situation in the north and east. However this body has limited autonomy, and capacity and security constraints restrict its access to the east." in its report [8] ? Cossde ( talk) 01:03, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
The book cited here was published toward the end of 2009 by an Indian publisher. Authors (primarily N. Malathy, a New Zealand citizen) were not LTTE members and could not be regarded as having lacked autonomy after the defeat of the LTTE. The source for its content came primarily from the Statistical Centre for North East, a project that had the involvement of the Jaffna University staff. The issue seems to be that this group retained the name NESOHR and not something else? --- Petextrodon ( talk) 02:59, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon, are you referring to Massacres of Tamils (1956-2008). Chennai: NESOHR/Manitham Publications. 2009 ? Cossde ( talk) 03:37, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
Massacres of Tamils (1956-2008) has been published under the name of NESOHR by the Indian publisher Manitham Publications. N. Malathy, who is a netrualized New Zealand citizen was a member of NESOHR, while it operated under the LTTE. Cleary it cannot be used here as a WP:RS and needs to be removed. Cossde ( talk) 11:03, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
No I disagree that it needs to be removed wholesale, I think explicit attribution can be used for it in this case. By that token, all the state aligned Sinhala owned national newspapers which have already been shown to lie and whitewash government massacres of Tamil civilians by falsely claiming that they were terrorists, also needs to be removed from all Sri Lankan Civil War pages. They have already been proven to be dodgy sources in regards to fact checking. Unlike NESOHR which has not lied like the Sinhala owned newspapers, and actually interviews the victims of such massacres. Oz346 ( talk) 11:18, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346, is that you own opinion or a fact? Cossde ( talk) 12:58, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
It's a FACT. Oz346 ( talk) 13:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346, please prove it. Cossde ( talk) 13:11, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
i will prove it in due time, but first I will post NESOHR's book in the Sri Lanka Reconciliation source discussion board to ascertain it's status as a source, and to settle this never ending argument. Oz346 ( talk) 17:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
yes, it was published after the destruction of the LTTE. so how does the 2006 statement about limited autonomy apply to a post-war book published in a foreign country? --- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:30, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon, goes to show unreliability of the content. For example it doesn't contain details of crimes committed by the LTTE against Tamils. Cossde ( talk) 14:36, 14 October 2023 (UTC) reply
N. Malathy a New Zealand citizen has done a Ph D from the University of Canterbury is a human rights activist. She did human rights work in the then LTTE controlled Vanni.She was not a member of NESHOR and LTTE.She has written another book as well A Fleeting Moment in My Country. Pharaoh of the Wizards ( talk) 12:51, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Pharaoh of the Wizards, that's strange, in her book A Fleeting Moment in My Country, Malathy states that she was the first Secretary of the North East Secretariat on Human Rights, working full time in NESHOR for an year from March 2005 and thereafter she left NESHOR to be involved in the LTTE Peace Secretariat, returning to work in the NESHOR after its chairperson Fr Karunaradnam was killed and worked till the NESHOR stopped functioning in 2009. Cossde ( talk) 13:12, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
  • Sorry my mistake and thanks for pointing it out.She was not a member of the LTTE but did work with NESHOR while doing human rights work in Vanni. Pharaoh of the Wizards ( talk) 13:48, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply

NESOHR

NESOHR has not been listed as a QS in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources, hence it can not be treated as such in this page. The the discussion on NESOHR was inconclusive and Sebastian WP:DISENGAGE without listing NESOHR as a QS. I have left a message on Sebastian talk page and if he doesn't respond in 72 hours, NESOHR cited content will have to go. Cossde ( talk) 14:26, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply

No, that's not how it works around here. It can't "go" without discussion and consensus building. Unlike Chandraprema, N. Malathty was not a member of an organization that was party to the conflict (suggesting otherwise without evidence can be slander which isn't allowed on Wikipedia) nor was she accused of human rights violations. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:49, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply
Malathty held a leadership possition in the LTTE Peace Directorate. Per WP:BURDEN, it is the responcibility of the editor who is introducing content to prove WP:RS. You may take this to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Cossde ( talk) 15:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply
The discussion was conclusive. He clearly deemed it a QS, as did the other Sinhala editor. Only you failed to respect the decision of the neutral arbiter. You are not an admin to make your own 72 hour rule up. Oz346 ( talk) 14:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply
Then why is it not on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources list? Cossde ( talk) 15:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply
Its the same time Petextrodon gave me. Cossde ( talk) 15:06, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply

Adding single sourced content

I tagged highly controversial content has been added on the 26 March 2024, with a single sources used. Per WP:CHALLENGE, editor who added it needs to prove that these are WP:RS. Cossde ( talk) 13:24, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply

It's not highly controversial content. Sri Lankan Armed Forces are well known to mass rape, murder and torture. There are countless RS indicating this. You have been constantly trying to remove mentions of SLAF war crimes from multiple pages for well over a decade. This fits WP:NAT editing.
If it is controversial as you claim, can you provide sources saying the contrary? You can not, because these particular incidents are not controversial. There are no reliable sources providing contradictory accounts for these events.
Just because the truth hurts and a fact is not to an editor's liking, does not mean it should be removed. Oz346 ( talk) 14:18, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply
Per WP:CHALLENGE editor who adds content has "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material". Hence cited sources need to be proved by the editor who adds content as WP:RS. I don't see you doing that here. Cossde ( talk) 14:43, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde No, I disagree. One RS is enough.--- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346, please clearly indicate what RS has been used. I can not find any for the recently added content. Cossde ( talk) 14:50, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde Are you contesting the reliability of award-winning Uthayan newspaper? Or the government-appointed commission, another publication of which you used extensively in 1977 Anti-Tamil pogrom? --- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:54, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply
Uthayan is a clear RS.
It is much more reliable than many of the Sinhala owned national newspapers that Cossde cites. For example, 'The Island' (along with the sun newspaper) have been noted by scholars for lying and falsely claiming that massacres of Tamil civilians were killing of Tamil terrorists in the 1980s:
https://edepot.wur.nl/138278
p.165-166
They have a poor record of fact checking. They have also been described as a pro-government and pro-Sinhala nationalist newspaper by scholarly secondary sources:
https://books.google.com/books/about/To_End_a_Civil_War.html?id=UYqMCwAAQBAJ#v=onepage&q=Pro%20government%20the%20island%20newspaper%20sri%20lanka&f=false
https://books.google.com/books/about/Embattled_Media.html?id=pxlBDwAAQBAJ#v=onepage&q=Pro%20government%20the%20island%20newspaper%20sri%20lanka&f=false
Yet these sources are used without attribution. The Uthayan on the other hand has none of these criticisms. Instead it has received international awards: https://rsf.org/en/press-freedom-prize-goes-uzbek-journalist-and-sri-lankan-daily Oz346 ( talk) 23:36, 7 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Uthayan has not been established as an RS in WP. Please proceed in doing so before claiming it as such. Also you didn't share where the government reports have been accepted in WP as RS. 03:23, 8 April 2024 (UTC) Cossde ( talk) 03:23, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
1. In spite of its questionable fact checking, 'The Island' has been cited throughout wikipedia without attribution, and is regarded as a RS on the Wikipedia SL reconciliation project.
2. You have cited multiple Sri Lankan newspapers without attribution, none of which "have been established as an RS in WP" (to quote your exact words) such as The Morning. This is inconsistent and suggestive of double standards.
3. You have not provided any sources indicating that the particular events Uthayan is being cited for are controversial. Just saying "controversial, controversial" without providing contradictory accounts from other sources demonstrating this, is nothing more than a claim without evidence. Oz346 ( talk) 06:07, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
The accusation of killing of civilians by the state is highly controversial. Per WP:CHALLENGE editor who adds content has "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material". Since you have added such controversial, please prove here that Uthayan has been established as an RS in WP. Cossde ( talk) 06:59, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Again you repeat claims with no evidence. Just because you say it's controversial, does not make it controversial. I repeat one final time, the Sri Lankan armed forces are well known for mass rapes, massacres and torture of civilians. and this is supported by countless RS. It is not controversial at all. It is the scholarly consensus. The only people who deny this are the Sinhalese dominated government and its sympathisers. Not reliable scholarly sources. Oz346 ( talk) 07:02, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Once again you are beating around the bush without backing up the content you are supporting by proving that the Uthayan and the government reports used here have been accepted in WP as RS. Cossde ( talk) 13:40, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Cite the wiki rule which states an award-winning registered newspaper can't be regarded as a RS unless it goes through WP:RSN? This has long been your tactic to be disruptive but you never managed to cite a wiki rule. As for the government-appointed commission, Sansoni report hasn't gone through WP:RSN either yet you used it as justification for adding an entire background section to 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom. Could you explain this blatant double standard in how you use sources? --- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:53, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Again you are talking of content out of this article. WP:CHALLENGE is clear, the burden of to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Hence the content in question has been cited by Uthayan and government reports. Please prove here that these have been accepted in WP as RS. Cossde ( talk) 15:42, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Again, cite the wiki rule which states an award-winning registered newspaper can't be regarded as a RS unless it goes through WP:RSN. You also need to explain your blatant double standard in how you use sources. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 20:01, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
WP:CHALLENGE. Cossde ( talk) 06:32, 9 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Please quote the part which states or implies an award-winning registered newspaper can't be regarded as a RS unless it goes through WP:RSN. You also need to explain your blatant double standard in how you use sources otherwise I will have to report you for nationalist editing since this isn't your first time doing this. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 18:50, 9 April 2024 (UTC) reply
WP:CHALLENGE : The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material.
WP:EXCEPTIONAL : 1) Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources. 2) Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest.
" award-winning registered newspaper" is your personal opinion. I am asking you where in WP Uthayan and Government reports you have used to cite WP:CONTROVERSY have been established as WP:RS. If you feel that this is WP:NAT, by all means report me as you are free to do so. I am happy to defend my actions in such forum. Cossde ( talk) 00:54, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply
On what basis do you question the reliability of a major Sri Lankan newspaper? Award-winning isn't my personal opinion but a fact. A cursory look at its wiki page will tell you that. Once again, cite the Wiki rule which state a source must go through RSN before it can be considered RS. You still have not explained why you cited Sansoni report commissioned by the same government without questioning its reliability. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 08:25, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon, WP:EXCEPTIONAL states that 1) Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources. 2) Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest. Your edits are been challenged and you refuse to acknowledge WP:CHALLENGE clear terms of burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Please show me where in WP has Uthayan and the government reports you are citing have been established as RS. Cossde ( talk) 12:56, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply
its not an exceptional claim. Sri Lankan Army have raped, massacred and tortured thousands. You know this very well yourself. There are umpteenth reliable sources indicating this. There's nothing exceptional about the Sri Lankan Armed forces killing civilians. This list is testament to this itself. Your claim does not fit WP:EXCEPTIONAL at all, which describes exceptional claims as things which are "surprising". There nothing surprising about the Sri Lankan Army raping and killing. They killed tens of thousands of civilians (Both Tamil and Sinhala) during the civil war and both JVP insurrections. Tell me what is exceptional about this Oz346 ( talk) 15:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346, I would think the killing of a citizen by the state or an accusation of such is an exceptional claim. It is evident from what you say here that you are very passionate about what you belive in, however thats no reason to turn WP into a battleground. Cossde ( talk) 02:24, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde On what basis do you question the reliability of a major Sri Lankan newspaper that has won awards? You can't question a source's reliability without a sound basis either. You have a habit of questioning the reliability of all sources, including established ones, when they criticize the Sri Lankan government and its armed forces which looks like nationalist editing. You still have not explained why you cited Sansoni report commissioned by the same government without questioning its reliability. Please explain to us your blatant double standards in how you use sources. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 21:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon, I am confused, are you citing the Sansoni commission report here or another report? I am simply asking you where in WP has the your sources been established as WP:RS, why are you refusing to acknoeldge WP:CHALLENGE and WP:EXCEPTIONAL? This can be considered WP:BATTLEGROUND. Cossde ( talk) 02:24, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde, I'm also confused. How can Sri Lankan government appointed commission become reliable when you cite it but questionable when I cite it? I'm simply asking you to cite the wiki rule which states every major newspaper must be declared as RS by RSN in order for it to be considered RS. What makes you question its reliability, you must have a reasonable basis? We've already demonstrated it's an award-winning respected mainstream publication. Do you dispute that? --- Petextrodon ( talk) 04:04, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde Why did you remove cited content? The dispute was about additional citation yet you removed the whole content without discussion! --- Petextrodon ( talk) 04:19, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon you triggered this by adding new content. I have not cited any report in this article. Your are the one that introduced new and controversial content and is refusing the prove the reliability of sources you have cited. I am mealy asking to abide by WP:CHALLENGE and WP:EXCEPTIONAL, which you are refusing and as I see it seem to be engaged in WP:BATTLE. Cossde ( talk) 04:25, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon you have yet again began adding controversial content with WP:PRIMARY and WP:TRIVIALMENTIONS. Per WP:CONTROVERSY and WP:CONTROVERSIALFACTS, content needs to be precise and needs to be careful with attribution. Therefore per WP:EXCEPTIONAL please use multiple high-quality sources. Cossde ( talk) 05:03, 29 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Have you learnt nothing from this topic being classed under contentious topics? Many of the sources you have removed have already been vetted by the Sri Lanka reconciliation project as fit to be cited. You have not provided any evidence that the said events are controversial. It is not exceptional that the Sri Lankan Army rapes and murders, and there are countless reliable sources that indicate this. Trying to remove all reliably sourced mentions of Sri Lankan Army war crimes is blatant WP:NAT editing. Oz346 ( talk) 10:22, 29 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde, but you also removed the content that had two sources, UTHR and Routledge scholarly publication. Did you even bother to read before you vandalized my RS sourced content? This is getting ridiculous and borders on censorship. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 10:46, 29 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I will not engaged in disscussions with editors who have failed to engage in WP:CIVIL. I have WP:CHALLENGE editors to prove sources they have used to add content as WP:RS, it is their burden to do so. Cossde ( talk) 13:02, 28 March 2024 (UTC) Please get consensus before removing sourced content. Tame Rhino ( talk) 10:27, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:List_of_attacks_on_civilians_attributed_to_Sri_Lankan_government_forces&oldid=1221342321"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edit request

I would like to edit this article. Am I allowed to... The situation has worsened by many folds since the last date in this article. Provide a brief summary of the guidel line to follow here. Please let me know. Thanks. -- Natkeeran ( talk) 16:22, 17 February 2009 (UTC) reply

You dont need permission to edit, just edit with WP:RS sources. Taprobanus ( talk) 17:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC) reply

Pottuvil massacre and Madhu School bus bombing

The cited sources indicate that there is doubt about who committed these acts.

This source here indicates that the survivor of the Pottuvil incident positively identified the attackers as LTTE members.

On the Madhu bombing case, the cited article states that there is no consensus as to who was behind the act.

User:HumanFrailty 00:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC) reply

Change title to "List of Attacks attributed to Sri Lankan Armed Forces"

This is in order to include attakcs attributed to the Special Task Force and the Sri Lankan Police...

There are quite a few attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan Police and I feel that changing the title may be the best way of including them in here. Any other ideas? Thanks.

Thusiyan ( talk) 17:09, 30 June 2010 (UTC) reply


Any responses anyone?

Thusiyan ( talk) 19:43, 4 July 2010 (UTC) reply

Agreed. The Police/STF are under the control of the Ministry of Defence so there is no distinction between defence (sic) and law enforcement in Sri Lanka. But be warned that technically the police aren't one of the Armed Forces and those who want to hide the massacres carried out by the police will use this as an excuse to remove them. Renaming as "List of Attacks attributed to Sri Lankan Government Forces" might prevent this.-- obi2canibe talk contr 20:13, 4 July 2010 (UTC) reply
Yes, what a brutal massacre in 1974. It's amazing how the Sri Lankan police have the ability to electrocute people through wires that they are not controlling. The people who rushed around and broke the wires are not to blame though. BlueLotusLK ( talk) 00:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC) reply


So how can we edit the title so as to include massacres by the STF & Police? 188.223.134.38 ( talk) 22:25, 27 July 2010 (UTC) reply

 Done Page has been renamed.-- obi2canibe talk contr 11:12, 1 August 2010 (UTC) reply

NO, this list is about the Sri Lankan military. The Sri Lankan police and paramilitary groups are separate. BlueLotusLK ( talk) 08:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC) reply

Note: it says [cit]Military of Sri Lanka Military of Sri Lanka · Attacks[/cit] Not Sri Lankan Government Forces. BlueLotusLK ( talk) 08:29, 4 August 2010 (UTC) reply

Please stop your disruptive edits. The title of the article was changed specifically to include attacks attributed to non-military organisations i.e. the police and paramilitary groups. Including attacks attributed to the police and paramilitary groups on List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan military would be wrong. So where do we include these attacks? We could start new articles called List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan police and List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan paramilitary groups, or we could rename List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan military as List of attacks attributed to Sri Lankan government forces, which is what I have done. Isn't this reasonable?-- obi2canibe talk contr 11:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC) reply
  • You might say I'm committing edit genocide, no? BlueLotusLK ( talk) 18:26, 8 August 2010 (UTC) reply

Disputed attacks

Don't include them. BlueLotusLK ( talk) 22:28, 8 August 2010 (UTC) reply

Most of the attacks are disputed i.e. the government hasn't accepted responsibility. That's why the title of the article has "attributed" in it. And I am sure you are aware that in most cases of civilians massacres both sides accuse each other of responsibility. Surely it's better to include disputed attacks in both this and the List of attacks attributed to the LTTE and mark them as disputed rather then exclude them from both lists? Also, the Vanni Van bombing article doesn't say it's disputed. And I calculate that 95 civilians were killed by the Police/Home Guards in the Polonnaruwa massacre, not 87.-- obi2canibe talk contr 18:41, 9 August 2010 (UTC) reply
But most of the attacks have evidence that point towards one party. Certain cases are disputed when there's no one person that the crimes can be attributed to. I think these should be left off. You may be right about the Polonnaruwa Massacre. BlueLotusLK ( talk) 18:53, 9 August 2010 (UTC) reply

Article title

I have moved the page back to the earlier title List of attacks attributed to Sri Lankan government forces to keep neutrality in the title and to keep consistency with related articles such as List of attacks attributed to the LTTE. Since most of these attacks were intended to kill LTTE terrorists who were hiding among the civilians, naming this list as a list of civilian massacres is totally inappropriate. -- Shehanw ( talk) 05:30, 11 October 2014 (UTC) reply

It is totally appropriate to name this list as a list of civilian massacres. This list - as mentioned in the lead - only includes attacks on civilians. Therefore it is not like List of attacks attributed to the LTTE which lists every lethal event involving the LTTE - battles, attacks on military etc.
The victims were civilians - you cannot excuse their killing by saying that terrorists were hiding amongst them. That is the difference between civilised people and uncivilised people. This why your motherland is being investigated for war crimes.-- obi2canibe talk contr 10:46, 11 October 2014 (UTC) reply
This list was originally created by user:Yucatann to include all the attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan Military, not only the attacks those have allegedly killed civilians in the process. There is no necessity to convert / restrict this list to a list of civilian massacres, while related article List of attacks attributed to the LTTE accommodates all the attacks carried out by the LTTE, including many civilian massacres such as village massacres (ethnic cleansing), time bombs (Car, Bus and train bombs), suicide bombings at populated places, massacres of Buddhist monks and Muslims etc.
Victims of the most of LTTE attacks that were carried out during the war, were also civilians. LTTE was a brutal terrorist organization that even killed the little infants who were left in their cradles by their parents/guardians while fleeing for their lives. Civility of the people who carried out these attacks is not a parameter that should be used to decide the title of an article in Wikipedia. -- Shehanw ( talk) 09:22, 14 October 2014 (UTC) reply
Although this article has gone through various name changes it has always only included attacks on civilians. As I have stated before, this article is not meant to mirror List of attacks attributed to the LTTE which contains every lethal event involving the LTTE - battles, attacks on military etc. Therefore the majority of the victims in the List of attacks attributed to the LTTE were non civilians - it includes all events that killed 25,000 military personnel. It would be much better if List of attacks attributed to the LTTE were restricted to those where the victims were civilians and both articles can be re-named to include "civilian" in the title. As for your last comment, for everything heinous the LTTE did, your war heroes did even worse - they raped, tortured and murdered men, women and children. They are savages masquerading as human beings.-- obi2canibe talk contr 11:30, 19 October 2014 (UTC) reply
Moving back. Title is defined by the content of the list and not what other related lists or user's notion of neutrality. Events such as the 1974 Tamil conference incident took place a decade before the LTTE was even formed, and those such as Eastern University massacre or 2006 Trincomalee massacre of NGO workers were no combat-inflicted deaths. Every article under the list mentions of a perpetuated massacre of civilians, distinct from combatants, and hence there is no question of generalizing or neutralizing the title. As Obi2canibe suggests, you may choose to wager in the other article and split them based on the nature of the attack. Regards.-- CuCl2 (chat spy acquaint) 12:09, 19 October 2014 (UTC) reply

Requested move 18 June 2015

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

The result of the move request was: Moved. There seems to be general consensus in favour of the move and there has been no comment from the sole dissenter for two weeks.-- obi2canibe talk contr 16:35, 5 July 2015 (UTC) reply

List of civilian massacres attributed to Sri Lankan government forces → List of civilian attacks attributed to Sri Lankan government forces – This controversial article was previously moved unilaterally and without discussion which has caused much debate over its content. This new name should be all encompassing and account for those disputes. Arguments for the change can also be seen here Blackknight12 ( talk) 12:31, 18 June 2015 (UTC) reply

Request modified to: List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces, subject to less error in interpretation.-- Blackknight12 ( talk) 20:41, 21 June 2015 (UTC) reply

  • Comment: Thank you for that suggestion User:BarrelProof, I too think your modified title is more appropriate. I will modify the request.-- Blackknight12 ( talk) 20:41, 21 June 2015 (UTC) reply
Reply This is a list. Each article mentioned in the list has got reliable sources which label the attacks as massacre. So can we get all the concerned editors to furnish alternative sources that replace massacre with attack, so as to reach a definitely neutral solution. When reliable sources call the events massacre, i don't suppose the stubbornness of a handful editors is a reason to whitewash the term into mere attacks. All those concerned had supported keeping the exact title for this article, and now that they have the lost case there, they are plain obsessed in extracting vengeance here. -- CuCl2 (chat spy acquaint) 15:28, 21 June 2015 (UTC) reply
Copperchloride, focus on the content, not the title. Changing the title in no way diminishes the list. In fact it enhances it. Although sources may have been provided to show that the events were massacres, the term may be perceived as POV by some. Therefore, using a more neutral term only helps the article. Most visitors know they need to read beyond the title. They are not going to mistake the events as anything other than massacres.-- obi2canibe talk contr 18:23, 23 June 2015 (UTC) reply

Oppose and Comment A list's title is determined on the basis of the contents embedded in it. It is evident, while going through the contents of each article covered by the list, that a variety of attacks and tactics had been employed(terror attack, shelling, air craft raids etc). But it is the larger motives behind such brutal violence which qualifies all these attacks to be labelled massacres.

Mass murder of Tamils in the pretext of combating militancy has been deep-rooted in Sri lankan state machinery for decades. These murders cannot be termed plainly as 'attacks', as they were deliberately and summarily executed. Such dilution just to appease the POV of a few defensive wikipedians, amounts to disrespecting what the majority of the sources in the list suggest( Wikipedia:Verifiability). Moreover, its easy to see through the intentions of the usual suspects who is packing a bunch of lies like "controversial article" and "unilaterally and without discussion" without debating on the content(rather than the author). I mean the person could only be paralyzed, because right above the section, lies an extensive debate and justification for the title. If he had any understanding of how to work here, he should have responded to our arguments up there rather than brush it up aside and play innocent(like what he's doing with 'massacre' to 'attacks').-- CuCl2 (chat spy acquaint) 15:14, 21 June 2015 (UTC) reply

  • Comment: I will ignore the personal attack for now, and with the hopes of not entering into a debate with you as they only go around and spiral into nothing, I will only say that what you have said above are broad statements and big generalizations that you and many others make to support the narrative of the g word. Yet you have neither shown any evidence to back up these claims, you seem to know the policy and the intent of the Sri Lankan Government and its armed forces during the civil war. There is a lot of speculation and a lot of original work. And for you some how it is ok for the LTTE to practice these atrocities but when the Sri Lankan government does it you are outraged, do you not see your double standards. The war should be told from both side in a NPOV, hence the reason for name change here.-- Blackknight12 ( talk) 20:41, 21 June 2015 (UTC) reply
Reply Your comment goes on to show exactly what you've been trying to prove all along ( Wikipedia:Revenge). There is no reference to genocide here whatsoever. Please DO keep up with the conversation. This is a list, and not an encyclopedic article, and this list is a collection of various individual articles(the majority) titled massacres all of them backed by Reliable sources. For example this source and this one label several incidents as massacres rather than arbitrary attacks. The term massacre may have no rigid definition, but if there are reliable sources calling these attacks in such a manner, I doubt your grouses hold water unless you can prove these incidents were not massacres. And your accusation of double standards is pathetic, I have already mentioned here a long time ago, that you are welcome to re-engineer the other article if you must, but otherwise refrain from doing the wrong thing here. That list title was reverted because of redundancy, and now that it is gone, you are just plain paranoid about doing the same thing here, unmindful of the differences which are numerous and significant.-- CuCl2 (chat spy acquaint) 18:05, 22 June 2015 (UTC) reply
  • Support Though I agree with User:Copperchloride some extent, we should maintain NPOV on Wikipedia. Lapmaster ( talk) 07:32, 25 June 2015 (UTC) reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 external links on List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{ cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{ nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{ source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 17:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC) reply

Changes to civilian casualties

I had made some changes to the civilian casualties that took in place in 2009, and I had sourced a U.S State department report that proved it. However, my edits were taken down saying that I did not source. Why is that?

Here is the source that used https://sydney.edu.au/arts/peace_conflict/docs/reports/congress_report.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.50.15.44 ( talk) 19:42, 12 March 2017 (UTC) reply

@ 70.50.15.44: I checked the source you provided but it did not match the changes you made. For the Vallipuram Hospital shelling on 22/01/09, you said 41 were killed but the source, on page 17, says that only five were killed. For the Valayanmadam makeshift hospital bombing on 24/04/09, you said 64 were killed but the source, on page 36, says that only four or five were killed. The source did not mention the Suthanthirapuram shelling on 24/01/09.-- Obi2canibe ( talk) 20:35, 12 March 2017 (UTC) reply
Oh I see what you mean. However in the document, it claims that casualties took place in various cities at the same time. For example, "A source in Mattalan reported to HRW that shelling in Thevipuram and Vallipuram killed 36 and injured 84.". How would I present this information on the wikipedia page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.50.15.44 ( talk) 01:17, 13 March 2017 (UTC) reply
@ 70.50.15.44: I have added this as a separate entry, together with several others.-- Obi2canibe ( talk) 19:09, 18 March 2017 (UTC) reply

Many attacks on civilians missing on this page

I checked out the source "Massacres of Tamils 1956 - 2001, and there are plenty of attacks that were documented that are not currently on this page. I added 2 additional incidents, and will try to add in more in my spare time, so I ask if anybody can go on this source and add in the missing information. You can access the source through this link https://www.slideshare.net/guestc07f460b/tamil-massacres-from-1952 Airjordan2k ( talk) 21:25, 16 May 2017 (UTC) Airjordan2k reply

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 9 external links on List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{ source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 09:31, 20 May 2017 (UTC) reply

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 10 external links on List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{ source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 16:13, 28 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Unreliable Source

User:Oz346 I noticed in your recent contributions to this article, you have been using an unreliable source( https://pptsrilanka.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tag_model_indictment.pdf) published by a group called "Tamils against Genocide" to repeatedly add content to this article. This source is unreliable as per the Wikipedia guidelines. I would like to hear your Point of View on this. JohnWiki159 ( talk) 05:41, 11 June 2022 (UTC) reply

Unreliable according to who? It's a published source, which was submitted to the US justice department as a legal document, compiled by the lawyer Bruce Fein, who is also a published author:
https://us.macmillan.com/author/brucefein
So it was written by a recognised and prominent legal professional (legal professionals are forbidden by law from submitting false or unreliable information and are held to high standards). If this is unreliable than all NGOs reports can be called unreliable. What evidence do you have to say it is unreliable just because it was published by 'Tamils against Genocide'. It is not a self published source, nor is the publisher known to give false information.
According to Wikipedia:Reliable sources the published works of reliable authors like Bruce Fein can be used as sources.
Oz346 ( talk) 09:29, 11 June 2022 (UTC) reply
User:Oz346 This document is written with so much bias and extreme hatred against Sinhalese ethnic group and is spreading false information about Sinhalese. This source is full of personal opinions. I will just point out some.
"Sri Lanka’s dominant Sinhalese Buddhist culture celebrates genocide against persons of differing ethnicity or religion, especially Tamil Hindus and Tamil Christians..."
"Sinhalese Buddhists exalt a philosophy of ethnic and religious supremacy over Tamil Hindus evocative of Nazi Germany’s philosophy of Aryan supremacy. A signature Nazi objective was to make Germany racially pure and Judenfrei, or free of Jews. That objective found gruesome culmination in the Holocaust. The corresponding Sinhalese Buddhist objective has been to make Sri Lanka a mono-ethnic and mono-religious state free of Tamils in the Jaffna peninsula or North-East –unless they accepted vassalage with no legal protections. Sinhalese Buddhists are seeking to accomplish their goal of a mono-religious, mono-ethnic state through a Tamil genocide."
With content like these, how can this be considered a reliable source? This is like a compilation of personal opinions. Normal NGOs reports don't contain biased content filled with hatred like these. Furthermore, Bruce Fein has been accused of working closely with the pro-LTTE groups and a supporter of the LTTE. [1] [2] [3] This document hasn't even talked about the crimes of the LTTE. Furthermore, the US justice department dismissed this case. Also Can you provide any reliable secondary sources which talk about the alleged attacks you have added to this article using this source published by 'Tamils against Genocide'? Any Human Rights reports, news articles etc. JohnWiki159 ( talk) 16:00, 6 August 2022 (UTC) reply
Scholars are allowed to have opinions, that does not detract from the factual content of the book. The first paragraph, I think he is referring to the Mahavamsa quote of Tamils being equal to beasts, so that they deserve to be killed (he develops on this point in the following pages). He argues that this celebrates killing of Tamils. The second paragraph is much less controversial, there were Sinhala Buddhist nationalists from the early 20th century who compared themselves to superior Aryans and even made comparisons with SWRD Bandaranaike with Hitler. If you know the definition of genocide from Raphael Lemkin, then what Fein is saying is not as far fetched as you think (genocide does not necessary mean you have to kill every single person of the ethnic group). He even quotes this:
“Sinhalese men in whose veins run Aryan blood must stand united to defy and exterminate our common enemy—the Tamil. These wretched and ungrateful blood suckers who have been and are living on our charity from time immemorial are even scheming to destroy us.”
We are going on a tangent here, but if the Sinhala Only law, anti-Tamil pogroms and Sinhala settlement schemes in the north and east had continued with no resistance, then Sri Lankan Tamils would have been been forcefully submerged and assimilated overtime, and they would not exist as a distinct ethnic group anymore (as they would not be able to maintain their culture and society). That would fit with the Lemkin definition of genocide. Some Sinhala nationalists have publicly expressed this wish to colonise all the Tamil areas and forcefully assimilate the Tamils into the Sinhalese.
Anyway irrespective of those opinions which has no bearing on the list of massacres (i'm not citing Fein for his opinions on Sinhala Buddhist nationalism or genocide), Fein has angrily reacted to those baseless accusations of him being LTTE. He has explicitly said that as an USA citizen it is illegal to be a supporter of the LTTE and that those slanderous attacks are defamatory. So those links you cite are just that, libellous and defamatory.
This book was a legal document accusing the Sri Lankan government of committing genocide, so I don't know what the LTTE crimes has to do with it. That is irrelevant. As I have already said, Fein is a reliable legal scholar and published author with other publications to his name, so he satisfies the criteria. Oz346 ( talk) 16:54, 6 August 2022 (UTC) reply
"Fein reacted angrily to allegations by the pro-Sri Lankan government and anti-LTTE lobby in the US and Sri Lanka that he was a hired gun of the LTTE lobby in the US. "My whole life is a refutation of terrorism. I have had no contact, I receive no money, I do nothing for the Tamil Tigers. If I did, it would be a crime since the LTTE has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US and anyone in the US associated with it in any way could be liable to civil and criminal penalities)."
"All these people are committing defamation," he said. "They are accusing me of committing a crime by supporting terrorism. Everything I do is open. I tell the FBI everything. So, these allegations are preposterous on their face.
Anybody who knows me, gives a crumb of deference to them (these allegations). What they'll be suggesting is that the Department of Justice should have arrested me when I went over and delivered the genocide indictment because I'm helping out terrorists." And, all I can say, I'll put my credibility on the line against them anytime of the day," he added.
Fein, visibly enraged by these accusations and insinuations, said, "Let me also say, what the criticisms also indicate ad hominem is that they're basically saying, 'Yes, we are guilty of everything you say Mr Fein, but you are a hired gun.' OK, fine, you are guilty as can be. Because, this is what I find intriguing. They never, ever want to address the actual substance of the charges, accusations, the truth of what I am saying. So, fine, then you are conceding that you don't have any rebuttal other than to attack my character."
He challenged his critics saying, "If you can attack my character, fine. If you think you are true, go to the FBI and tell them they should be arresting me. And, I'll defend myself there. But, these are very squalid, sordid-based accusations, which, again, if true, I'd be in jail." Oz346 ( talk) 17:02, 6 August 2022 (UTC) reply
wow i just read that indian newspaper you linked. they defamed him as "a long time supporter of the ltte". what a baseless accusation, Indian newspapers have far lower journalistic standards then western ones. if that was in the west, the newspaper would have to pay him thousands in compensation. Oz346 ( talk) 17:34, 6 August 2022 (UTC) reply
User:Oz346 These statements just show how biased the document is:
"Sri Lanka’s dominant Sinhalese Buddhist culture celebrates genocide against persons of differing ethnicity or religion, especially Tamil Hindus and Tamil Christians..."
"Sinhalese Buddhists are seeking to accomplish their goal of a mono-religious, mono-ethnic state through a Tamil genocide..."
Take a look at one of the sub topics of the document:
"ORIGINS OF SINHALESE BUDDHIST GENOCIDE PHILOSOPHY"
These are direct attacks against a particular ethnic group with lots of misinformation. Also, how are you sure that the list of alleged massacres mentioned in the document are factual? Its just a list. These cannot be added as facts to this article. Furthermore, A U.S. official familiar with this document has said, “That political bias makes it [TAG] hard to take seriously”. I will now note down this extract from the International Crisis Group report. [4]

"For example, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a U.S.-based NGO, reportedly raised over $500,000 to retain Bruce Fein, a former U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General, to compile a report charging the Sri Lankan defence secretary and U.S. citizen, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and former army chief and U.S. permanent resident, Sarath Fonseka, with genocide, war crimes and torture. The report, which TAG submitted to the U.S. Justice Department, aimed to initiate a grand jury investigation focused on documenting the alleged crimes of Sri Lankan officials while ignoring evidence of LTTE abuses. The overt political bias of TAG’s project has undermined its credibility rather than promoted accountability. A U.S. official familiar with the report said, “That [political bias] makes it [TAG] hard to take seriously”."

Therefore, we cannot include these alleged massacres taken from this document as facts in this article. JohnWiki159 ( talk) 08:40, 7 August 2022 (UTC) reply

No I disagree vehemently with this assertion. Icg are hardly a completely neutral organisation either, they represent the interests of their donor countries in the west like the US (the USA was known to be pro SL during the war, providing weapons and surveillance for the Sri Lankan Armed forces, so they are hardly a neutral observer in the conflict). I repeat it is completely illogical to mention LTTE crimes when the case is against the Sri Lankan government. Likewise, if there was a case against the LTTE, then to mention Sri Lankan government crimes would be equally illogical.

Regarding Sinhala Buddhist genocide culture, I don't know how that can be construed as a direct attack on an ethnic group. When the Nazis were genociding the Jews there clearly was a genocide culture at the time among many Germans. It's not anti German to state the fact. Likewise when Tamils were facing genocide during black July and at the end of the war in 2009 in the Mullivaikkal massacre when unarmed men, women and children were slaughtered without discrimination (as the army own whistle blowers confirmed), clearly there was a culture of genocide in action. It's the extent which is up for debate.

I repeat it's a published source by a reliable published author and legal scholar. It cannot just be censored because some people don't like the truth it exposes. His opinions on Sinhala Buddhist 'genocide culture' are irrelevant to the list of massacres. As far as I know there are no other reliable sources disputing these massacres. In fact I can find evidence from other reliable sources corroborating many of these massacres, including the 'Massacre of Tamils' book and other Tamil media sources like Tamil Times. Oz346 ( talk) 09:01, 7 August 2022 (UTC) reply

This is not about censoring. This is about the reliability of the facts presented in the source. It is obvious that this report published by the group called "Tamils against genocide" is biased. Also, a US official familiar with this document has clearly said "That [political bias] makes it [TAG] hard to take seriously". Your views on ICG and US are your personal opinions. This Wikipedia article itself have several references to a US state department report. ICG and US have reported human rights violations done by both sides. You are saying "As far as I know there are no other reliable sources disputing these massacres". Can you provide any reliable independent secondary sources which talk about the alleged massacres you have added using this document? Also, the 'Massacre of Tamils' book is published by a group called ' North East Secretariat on Human Rights' which was set up by the LTTE. Jo Becker of Human Rights Watch and Rory Mungoven, the UN's Senior Advisor on Human Rights in Sri Lanka has stated that the organization's members lacked proficiency in human rights. International human rights groups have also seen the NESOHR organization as a tool to offset criticism of LTTE human rights abuses. We need other secondary reliable sources to check whether content in that is also factual. Anyway, can you provide reliable secondary sources for each of the attacks you have added to this article from that document published by 'Tamils Against Genocide'? JohnWiki159 ( talk) 11:43, 7 August 2022 (UTC) reply
Well the only reliable sources that mention all these massacres are this document, the 'Massacre of Tamils' book and the Tamil newspapers/websites like Tamil Times or Tamilnet (the latter which has been defined as a reliable source by wikipedia consensus, but with the qualification that it must be described as pro-rebel). Tamil Times has been critical of the LTTE so it can hardly be called as pro-rebel. Unfortunately, western human rights groups and media have neither the inclination or access to cover all the attacks by government forces on Tamil civilians.
"This is about the reliability of the facts presented in the source."
Not really, it is clear that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces has murdered tens of thousands of Tamil civilians, and that there are countless sources that indicate this. There is no valid reason to doubt these killings. Of course there is a lot of denial and censorship in Sri Lanka itself, but that is another story. There is really no genuine reason to doubt Bruce Fein's list. Bruce Fein also fits the Wikipedia criteria as a reliable source, its irrelevant that the publisher is 'Tamils Against Genocide'.
Bruce Fein as a published legal scholar fits the criteria for reliable author and source. Unless you have any evidence that Bruce Fein is a liar and has made illegal false claim of events (which is a criminal offence in US law), then he should be given the benefit of the doubt, like how we give all other similar published sources. Regarding bias, I dont think there is any sufficient evidence that Fein has biasedly made up false information. Even if we argue that the publisher is biased, that does not qualify the book for exclusion, see wikipedia policies:
"Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered"
"Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject."
And my next Q to you, why are so concerned with a 'list of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan government forces', and for the removal of these attacks from this source? It is well known that government forces have killed tens of thousands of Tamil and Sinhala civilians during the civil war and JVP insurrections, and even killed a few Sinhala civilians during the recent protests. Why do you want this source and these attacks removed? Oz346 ( talk) 12:46, 7 August 2022 (UTC) reply
The publisher is very much relevant. It was Tamils Against Genocide who hired Bruce Fein to publish this document. A US official familiar with this document has also clearly said "That [political bias] makes it [TAG] hard to take seriously". Furthermore, International Crisis Group says that the TAG lacks credibility. Wikipedia doesn't depend only on primary sources. Reliable secondary sources are needed to verify the content in primary source. I am only questioning about the questionable sources used in this article. Both the government forces and LTTE have committed crimes. That is not an excuse for one to add anything they like to a Wikipedia article using any source. Content in the source must be verified with other reliable sources specially when dealing with biased sources and also controversial topics. You still didn't provide other reliable secondary sources for each of the attacks you added to this article. Also I believe if using this source, there must be some indication to highlight the biased nature of the source. Or else it should not be included at all. JohnWiki159 ( talk) 18:44, 21 August 2022 (UTC) reply
Firstly, its a secondary source, not a primary source, please learn the difference. Its classified as a published reliable source from a reliable scholarly author with a history of scholarly publications as I have already mentioned. I am not "adding anything I like". You talk as if I'm using some random blog or self published website. Its not a controversial topic at all (If you can find reliable sources disputing these killings, then it becomes controversial). It does not become controversial, just because people do not like the contents. In regards to providing other corroborating sources, I'm very busy at the moment, but will add them when time permits. I don't think there is sufficient evidence to accuse Bruce Fein of bias in his work, there is no evidence that he has distorted any factual information in his past scholarly or legal work, or indeed in this publication. The existing citation clearly demonstrates who authored the book, and who published it. US officials are not ethical or moral gods free of bias, or free of self serving foreign policy motives, nor is the ICG, which is a NATO allied NGO, and itself has been accused of serious biases. Oz346 ( talk) 22:48, 21 August 2022 (UTC) reply
If you think the ICG is some balanced and neutral group, then I suggest you research the slimy role its long standing former president Gareth Evans has had in making business deals with Indonesia when East Timorese were being tortured and massacred, which he helped to downplay (watch the 'Death of a Nation: the timor conspiracy'). Likewise, US officials biases are well known, even a cursory glance at various wikileaks will show they have their own interests, they are not some icons for neutrality and justice. Oz346 ( talk) 22:59, 21 August 2022 (UTC) reply
Likewise, ICG demanded NATO to attack the Serbian army during the Kosovo conflict:
https://reliefweb.int/report/albania/atrocities-kosovo-must-be-stopped-icg-briefing
Now as a Sinhalese Sri Lankan, I think you will understand the significance of this. The Kosovo-Serbia situation is very similar to the Tamil Eelam-Sri Lanka situation. Bear in mind that Kosovo Albanian separatist militants also committed war crimes just like the Tamil LTTE militants. But the ICG demanded NATO to take military action against Serbian forces (in contrast to Sri Lanka, where they were against the separatists in that conflict).
/info/en/?search=NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia#Criticism_of_the_campaign
If you think that NATO/USA were doing this purely out of the goodness of their hearts, and for the lives of Kosovo Albanians, and not for other selfish geopolitical interests, then maybe one day we will find those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Oz346 ( talk) 23:25, 21 August 2022 (UTC) reply

Sorry to butt in, but I agree with @ Oz346: here, and I'm someone who quite frequently disagrees with him/her. Most literature on Sri Lanka is partisan and biased, especially sources from the island itself. Foreigners may be closer to neutral, but even assuming they strive to be so, they too have to rely on local sources which have biases. As Oz said, we're not using the TAG document for its two cents on the Sinhala Buddhist genocide culture (which to me is hyperbolic and outright false in some cases), or even on anti-Tamil violence before Black July ("no atrocity perpetrated by Sinhalese Buddhists against Tamils has ever been punished, save for one exception" — seriously?). However, I need to ask Oz: the TAG sources seem to aggregate killings over time in some cases, e.g., Jaffna islets killings span a year. Don't we risk conflation or double counting with the individual massacres in the same area in the same time? SinhalaLion ( talk) 00:49, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

@ SinhalaLion The problem here is that TAG is the only source used here to talk about these alleged attacks added to this article. No other secondary reliable sources have been provided for these content added from the report. Independent sources such as Human Rights Watch reports, Amnesty reports, new paper articles etc were used wherever possible when writing and editing articles revolving around the Sri lankan civil war. When using sources which are biased towards one party, the in-text attribution was used to highlight were it was taken from to maintain the Neutral Point of View. If using this source, I believe that same procedure should also be used in this article List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces to maintain the NPOV. JohnWiki159 ( talk) 03:53, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

"Jaffna islets killings span a year. Don't we risk conflation or double counting with the individual massacres in the same area in the same time?"

There are no further massacres documented in this list or in Bruce Fein's which overlap with these killings. The next killings listed in the islets takes place after this period in September. If any double counting happens they can be removed or merged into one entry. Oz346 ( talk) 01:02, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

Ok I misread the year, I've removed one mass killings from islets which potentially could have been double counted. Oz346 ( talk) 01:16, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

"new paper articles" many Sinhalese run newspaper articles have been used as references without their overall biased nature being overtly mentioned. Many of these newspapers have a history of outright lying or censorship (In the 80s when Tamil civilians were massacred, some of these newspapers would say 'terrorists' have been killed.) If you had just read them you would think the Sri Lankan Army in reality did do a humanitarian mission for Tamil civilians in the 26 year war lol. In contrast, Bruce Fein has not been shown to have poor fact checking or evidence of lying when it comes to the massacre list. There is no valid reason to denigrate the use of this source in this particular instance. Oz346 ( talk) 07:22, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

For example, there is a difference between Bruce Fein a recognised legal scholar who has other reliable publications to his name, and say TamilNet which is explicitly pro-LTTE and where attribution is necessary. All the slander that Fein is pro-LTTE are just that, baseless slander. Oz346 ( talk) 07:59, 22 August 2022 (UTC) reply

Adding the discussion link of reliable source noticeboard: /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_382#Reliability_of_Tamils_Against_Genocide Oz346 ( talk) 03:56, 1 May 2023 (UTC) reply
A third party on the noticeboard commented:
"no other reason to flat-out distrust the advocacy org or, more importantly, the person they hired to write their report, it seems like an RS to add items to a list whose criteria only seem to be "attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces"."
Most parties to the discussion on both this page and the noticeboard have not deemed it an unreliable source and I too share the same view. There's no good reason to exclude it from being used as citation. Petextrodon ( talk) 10:27, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply
Non-RS: The website clearly fails WP:VERIFY since does not meet WP:OR, WP:NPOV and WP:N. This has not been WP:PR and listed as a WP:RS in Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources. Cossde ( talk) 13:54, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply
Discussion has not confirmed TAG as a Wikipedia:Reliable sources . Cossde ( talk) 13:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply
I think we have reached an impasse. It would be better to involve neutral third party to mediate. Petextrodon ( talk) 15:59, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply
I see that Oz346 has already taken this matter to the RS noticeboard and neutral third party editors have shared their opinion that TAG and in particular the Bruce Fein's indictment can not be considered as a RS. WP:BURDEN clearly states that "burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material", hence before any TAG content can be used, TAG needs to be confirmed to be a WP:RS. Therefore, all contested content cited to TAG needs to be removed from this page. Cossde ( talk) 13:23, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
A qualification could be added to the TAG cited rows, similar to how Tamilnet is used as a source on Wikipedia, such as "according to the pro-Tamil organisation TAG..." Oz346 ( talk) 13:51, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
in addition to this, I can find other alternative reliable sources to corroborate each of the contested TAG cited rows. Oz346 ( talk) 14:00, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
Given the highly controversial nature of the content. Nothing short of WP:RS confirming each of the entries can be accepted. WP:BURDEN is clear on this. TAG refences needs to be removed and with it content cited by it. Cossde ( talk) 14:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
Majority of the incidents have been collated from external published sources mentioned in the document. I suggest @ Oz346 replace the existing citations with those sources. Petextrodon ( talk) 15:48, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
pastor killing was not just claimed by the LTTE. Respected Journalist DBS jeyaraj and Asian Human rights commission and christian charities also point to army involvement. Oz346 ( talk) 16:17, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply
I dont see any of the citations here as WP:RS. Cossde ( talk) 01:37, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply
News reports are usually regarded as RS:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070206151000/http://transcurrents.com/tamiliana/archives/270
DBS Jeyaraj is a well known news journalist who writes for major Sri Lankan and Indian newspapers.
AHRC is also a recognised human rights group. Finally, Tarzie Vittachi again is a recognised news journalist, and his book is a published source. On wdae grounds are these not RS? Oz346 ( talk) 02:11, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply
on *what grounds are these not RS? Oz346 ( talk) 02:12, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply
Links shared are not RS, some are not working. How do we know if these are authentic? Its not from a reputed media organization. Has AHRC been confirmed as a RS in Wikipedia? Cossde ( talk) 07:17, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), whose director Basil Fernando has worked with the UN, is credible enough to be cited by a reputable news agency as Reuters, so yes it's very much reliable and hasn't been deemed unreliable. Petextrodon ( talk) 01:52, 5 May 2023 (UTC) reply
You didn't sign your last reply hence I reply here instead.
According to who that we should not cite a human rights organization which has been cited by reputable news agencies unless it’s been verified as a reliable source on Wikipedia? I checked the reliable sources noticeboard and haven’t found any entry for it. If you feel it’s unreliable, you’re welcome to take it up there. Until then I see no issue with the source. "established organization" according to who? What’s the definition? It’s a registered organization based in Hong Kong. Petextrodon ( talk) 11:49, 5 May 2023 (UTC) reply
to add to this, there is no Wikipedia policy saying that every single likely reliable source needs to go through a Wikipedia reliable source peer review or notice board discussion. Such a ludicrous rule would mean that Wikipedia would be saddled with unending bureaucracy where every obvious reliable source would need to be vetted on a discussion board before it could be used. Oz346 ( talk) 11:54, 5 May 2023 (UTC) reply
and how is AHRC, a human rights organisation based in Hong kong a primary source for SL based human rights violations? User Cossde needs to reread what a primary source is, and reread the WP policies he himself has been incorrectly citing:
"Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved" Oz346 ( talk) 12:00, 5 May 2023 (UTC) reply
It is very much reliable according to who? hasn't been deemed unreliable according to who? I am not questioning the credibility of AHRC, only the fact has it been cleared for use as RS in Wikipedia? AHRC from a Wikipedia prospective can be considered WP:SELFSOURCE and/or WP:PRIMARY at time, it is not an established organization such as Amnesty Intercalation, hence needs to be peer reviewed and accepted as an RS in Wikipedia. Thereafter it can be used.04:33, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Rajapaksa enjoys immunity: U.S. court". The Hindu. 1 March 2012.
  2. ^ "Tamil expats sue Rajapaksa in US". The New Indian Express.
  3. ^ "US court dismisses case against President Rajapaksa - Indian Express". archive.indianexpress.com.
  4. ^ "THE SRI LANKAN TAMIL DIASPORA AFTER THE LTTE" (PDF).

The list should not contain individual killings and assassinations.

Oz346 The list should not contain individual killings and assassinations. And it would be better if the list is broken down since it's very difficult to read. ~~~~ @ Amrithsvar ( talk) 18:07, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Please familiarise yourself with the definition of Assassination. Individual killings of non-prominent individuals does not satisfy the definition of assassination.
In the past you have tried to remove reliably cited content about atrocities committed against Tamils, which other users have called out as 'whitewashing' anti-Tamil violence, and have been warned of disruptive editing including the use of sock puppets:
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=1958_anti-Tamil_pogrom&diff=prev&oldid=1002481745
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_attacks_on_civilians_attributed_to_Sri_Lankan_government_forces&diff=prev&oldid=1002480091
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Sexual_violence_against_Tamils_in_Sri_Lanka&diff=1002486284&oldid=999520001
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk%3ASexual_violence_against_Tamils_in_Sri_Lanka&diff=1002489917&oldid=1002486485
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1058#YaSiRu11_%E2%80%93_POV-pushing_and_other_problems
Now you want to remove individual killings of Tamil civilians. This is not justified by wikipedia policies.
Secondly, how is it difficult to read? All you have added is section breaks. It makes no difference to the readability of the grids in the table which are well ordered, clear and very easy to read. This has been the status quo for years and there is no convincing reason for it to be changed. Oz346 ( talk) 19:44, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Oz346

1. • How do you define if someone is prominent or not? Many of the individuals on the list are named. Doesn't that mean they are prominent?
• Even if they are not prominent shouldn't this article be about "attacks on civilians"? It is good if you create a separate page for individual killings since this page is already cluttered.
• Many of the sources are very dubious, Many of the individual killings do not have sources that prove a strong connection between the Sri Lankan government forces and the murder. And Most come from only a single source that is not considered a reliable source. And a lot of secondary sources also come from the LTTE or its related organizations. I think only the incidents that can be proved using reliable secondary sources should remain.
2. I have no idea about the edits you have mentioned. That user is not me. Don't accuse people without any evidence, just because usernames are similar.
3. The article should be split according to WP:SIZESPLIT. The article is very large and cluttered. Nevertheless, The list is very hard to scroll and read. How about creating a separate article for each decade?

Amrithsvar ( talk) 20:43, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

1a. Names just means their identities have been established, that's not the same as being a well known public figure, which the word assassination is used for e.g. assassination of JFK
1b. Attack on civilians, means attacks on all civilians. It is plural only because there are many different cases. It does not exclude attacks on single civilians. You can't name this article 'list of attacks on a civilian', that would be pointless and illogical.
1c. If you are referring to Tamilnet, this has been discussed numerous times on Wikipedia's reliable source notice board and has been confirmed as a reliable source that can be used with the qualification 'according to the pro-rebel Tamilnet'.
2. A simple sock puppet investigation can confirm whether two accounts with the same name Amritsvar (which is not a common name in SL) and who both delete content of anti Tamil violence from this same page are the same person. If any more disruptive behaviour arises that would be the next logical step.
3.WP:SIZESPLIT mainly applies to large reams of text and prose, a table is not a typical article, all the text is already segmented into rows making it easier to read. And your argument about scrolling does not really make sense, as you still need to scroll even with your proposed section breaks. Oz346 ( talk) 21:29, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply
  1. Has it been established that whether TamilNet can be used for verify incidents that took place? Because since TamilNet is not considered to be RS, It should be more explicitly displayed that the only source for this is the TamilNet. For example, Colouring the rows of incidents that can only be verified via TamilNet
  2. There are a lot of individual killings which TamilNet does not specify anything about the Sri Lankan government forces having a connection with the murders. eg: Murder of Rasanayagam Jegan, Disappearance of Johnson, Disappearance of Antony Sureshkumar. These should be verified by other sources. And many of the others are just suspicions and there are no verifiable way of establishing a connection between SL forces and the particular incident.
  3. You can go ahead and do the investigation.
  4. I think WP:SIZESPLIT applies to this list too. According to WP:SPINOUT, "Very large articles should be split into logically separate articles. Long stand-alone list articles are split into subsequent pages alphabetically, numerically, or subtopically. Also consider splitting and transcluding the split parts". Since there is a very logical and easy way to split the article into decades, why not do that? I did not propose a section break, I proposed breaking article into several articles by the decade.
Amrithsvar ( talk) 22:09, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply
1. As long as the phrase "according to pro-rebel Tamilnet" is used it can be cited, that is the Wikipedia consensus.
2. I have answered below.
3. Only if further disruptive behaviour occurs
4. It not so large or difficult to read. It is better to have all the content in this one table. WP:SPLITLIST Oz346 ( talk) 01:58, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
  1. I have answered below.
  2. I have answered below.
  3. I have no comment.
  4. It is large by Wikipedia's own definition. It is twice the size mentioned in WP:SIZESPLIT. It should be split according many of Wikipedia policies. But it seems like you are not willing to accept that. You are not even giving any reasons why you think as such too. Even WP:SPLITLIST mentions, "Regardless, a list or table should be kept as short as is feasible for its purpose and scope. Too much statistical data is against policy." and not break a table only when "If there is no "natural" way to split or reduce a long list or table", but there is a very natural and logical way to split the table by the decades. It should be only natural that we follow that.
Amrithsvar ( talk) 05:19, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Wikipedia:Article size#Size guideline and WP:SIZESPLIT refers to prose. This is not prose (prose is large amounts of continuous writing, by definition a table will always have small prose size for each section, as it's divided into small rows). So what you have cited does not apply to this case. Oz346 ( talk) 08:08, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
There is no hard rule that says that WP:SIZESPLIT refers only to prose and that it excludes tables. Both WP:SIZESPLIT and Wikipedia:Article size#Size guideline also refer to tables. There is only a rule of thumb regarding size. But this table is clearly too large and not easily readable, This article suffers from all the three problems mentioned in WP:SIZESPLIT,
  • Reader issues, such as attention span, readability, organization, information saturation, etc.
  • Maintenance, such as articles becoming time-consuming to maintain when they are very long
  • Technical issues, such as limitations of mobile browsers
It makes sense to break up the table when looking at similar tables like List of attacks attributed to the LTTE. The table is hard to sort through and very cluttered. It will help a lot if the table is broken down following other examples. Amrithsvar ( talk) 08:33, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346 What is your consensus on this problem? If you don't want to split the article at least make it sortable by death toll. I still think that the article should be split because of the facts I've mentioned. Amrithsvar ( talk) 20:48, 20 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I dont think it needs to be split. What do you mean by sortable? do you mean the death toll sorting not working? Oz346 ( talk) 23:19, 20 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It is sortable. But the sort is incorrect. It does not sort correctly according to the number of victims. Amrithsvar ( talk) 05:50, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
The problem is some of the death tolls lack the exact precise number, and are given figures like 30+ to reflect the minimal deaths. Unless whole numbers are given to every figure (which is not always possible) then the sorting application will not work properly. So it is not feasible. Oz346 ( talk) 15:10, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I understand. But since the table is very large, for convenience it must be either sortable or spilt. We have to choose one. Amrithsvar ( talk) 13:46, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346 I changed the outlook of the table by removing the Province and District columns since a Location column is already there. And added another column for Damages etc. Amrithsvar ( talk) 06:13, 23 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Reliability of Sources

Many of the sources for this article seems to have problems with verifiability. With the user Oz346 adding new information from sources that have not been verified as reliable. Sources like TamilNet and Tamils against Genocide are questionable sources. It does not seem that these sources have not been deemed reliable enough to conform a incident taking place, especially when they are the only source available. Amrithsvar ( talk) 23:16, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Tamilnet is per rebel RS and can be used as a can be used with the qualification 'according to the pro-rebel Tamilnet as prior discussions. Pharaoh of the Wizards ( talk) 23:36, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Does that work for verifying and establishing that an incident took place? Shouldn't that need to be a RS ? If TamilNet can be used for that, shouldn't it be more obvious that the only source for a particular incident is TamilNet. For example, highlighting the row. And lot of the incidents from TamilNet does not explicitly mention Sri Lankan armed forces relating to the attacks. How come these were decided to related the Sri Lankan armed forces?. Eg: (Disappearance and murders of Ilankovan Kandeepan....., Vavuniya disappearances and murders and it seems like a lot more.) Amrithsvar ( talk) 23:59, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I have removed the rows which do not explicitly mention the govt forces, they were rows which initially were referenced by TAG which did explicitly mention govt culpability (but now TAG has not been deemed a reliable source to solely reference a row at present). There are other sources which do blame the govt forces for these killings, but I will have to dig them up later to corroborate. For example, I have added a corroborating reference for Rasanayagam Jagan from UTHR. Also http://www.tchr.net/press_rel_urg_act_app_tchr-2007.htm? Oz346 ( talk) 01:54, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Tamilnet is classed as a reliable source, but one which needs qualification:
Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 64#Tamilnet (http://www.tamilnet.com) Oz346 ( talk) 02:11, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
The reliability of TamilNet is not as clear as you mention, especially when conforming whether an incident taking place. If the only source is TamilNet for a particular attack it should explicitly display that the information comes from a single source. It is not clear in this table since what exactly "according to TamilNet" means is not clear at first. My suggestion is, The rows should be colored or explicitly displayed that "according to TamilNet" means that an incident taking place. And What about the reliability of many of other sources? What about "Tamils Against Genocide"? It seems like a very unreliable source since it seems to be connected with TGTE and the LTTE. Amrithsvar ( talk) 05:12, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It is clear, it is in the reference column. Reference column clearly means the source of the row. Anyone reading the row and in particular the important columns on death toll and perpetrator will see it. Colouring is not appropriate, as there is actually no evidence that Tamilnet has any poor fact checking: /info/en/?search=TamilNet#Criticism_and_Counter-Criticism
Like other news websites it has it's biases, but it was run by professional journalists. Blueing it is excessive.
I have made it even more clear now, by explicitly changing the 'refs' column to 'references claiming attack'. That's incredibly clear now.
As for TAG, it's not used alone to cite any row, the main source is still tamilnet (besides there is no evidence it is tgte/LTTE related, that is a baseless accusation). Oz346 ( talk) 07:59, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Is it? It is somewhat ambiguous to me it could also mean that the death toll or the some other information is "according to the TamilNet". It should be more specific that the information does not come from a reliable source. As I've mentioned before highlighting rows would suffice according the consensus by the SLR project. Also when looking at previous discussions about TamilNet, It is not even clear whether it has been established that TamilNet can be used for verification of incidents like in this table, since It was not deemed a RS by SLR project. TamilNet is clearly a questionable source.
TAG is used to establish a connection between the government forces and the particular attacks mentioned in TamilNet in a lot of incidents. If TAG is not a RS can it be used as such?. Fein Bruce and the TAG has been accused of being funded by the LTTE by several sources [1] [2] [3].
And shouldn't this list only specific attack that have been confirmed? Or the name should changed to "List of alleged attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces", since many of the attacks are not verifiable.
And what of the source named Tamil Times. It has not been deemed a reliable source. And many of the Tamil Times sources are not even available to verify. It also seems Tamil Times is a biased and unreliable source. [4] Amrithsvar ( talk) 09:18, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
using the Army website as if it is reliable source to make libelous and slanderous claims against TAG, is like asking the accused criminal murderer and rapist for his opinion on the accuser. It cannot be take as a reliable source at all for this. I have already addressed these slanderous claims in an older discussion above in this discussion board, check it out. In any case, to save this pointless argument I will remove all TAG references when I get to a computer, I'm currently on a phone.
The column title clearly says 'reference claiming ATTACK" not just isolated death toll. It is really not ambiguous.
We are going around in circles with Tamilnet, it HAS been classed as a reliable sources that needs attribution.
'alleged' suggests no basis for the report, which is not the case, if that's the case we should also add the alleged to the list of attacks attributed to ltte. What criteria determines whether a reported attack should be described as alleged or not. Sinhala run Sri Lankan newspapers are notorious for their bias and censoring of crimes against Tamils but it does not mean they should be censored off Wikipedia or smeared with 'alleged'.
Tamil Times can be found online the whole set, and the weblink you cite contradicts your claim of it being unreliable itself, I quote:
"The Tamil Times which reflected independence throughout its existence was systematically targeted and pressurised to abandon publication. But the paper is still going on despite the LTTE onslaught." Oz346 ( talk) 09:47, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
we wouldnt use alleged to described biased sources like 'the island'. unless there is clear evidence of poor fact checking not expected of a news site and standard journalism (which tamilnet does not have, in fact it has reliable sources describing it as being very good at fact checking, irrespective of its bias), then using alleged for only tamilnet is just slanderous and an attempt to smear. Oz346 ( talk) 09:53, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
in addition, majority of Tamilnet reports are also independently corroborated by Tamil Times, so I will add them when time permits. you need to provide more evidence that these reports are fabricated, otherwise it's an inappropriate attempt to smear a Wikipedia recognised reliable source and professional news site. Oz346 ( talk) 10:01, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
To further add, Tamil Times is actually less biased then most mainstream Sinhala run Sri Lankan news papers and sites, because unlike those, Tamil Times mentions the attacks committed by all sides of the conflict, whereas the Sri Lankan national papers have a policy of censoring crimes against Tamils. Oz346 ( talk) 10:13, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
There are several sources for that not just the army website. As I said before TamilNet only seem to have been regarded as reliable sources when writing about or describing something. There is no mention of it being used a the only source to verify a incident taking place as fact. This should be discussed further.
You are breaking WP:NPOV. There is no relevance to other sources. I am questioning the verifiability of sources in this table. If only a questionable source like (TamilNet, Tamil Times) mention the incident it is fair to regard it as alleged. Unless a secondary reliable source confirms it.
The source I mentioned is from 2007 and it does not seem to help to establish Tamil Times as a unreliable source as I thought. But it simply mentions that it was targeted. Being targeted by the LTTE doesn't make it a reliable source.
Can you point me to the website of Tamil Times? None of the citations can be found on the internet.
The Island is a well established news paper. It is seen as a reliable source. however TamilNet and Tamil Times is not. The reliability of TamilNet has been questioned multiple times. TamilNet regard as a pro-LTTE the BBC too.
You can't add questionable sources and say to me to disprove them. All the incidents without any reliable evidence should be removed unless there is evidence to prove it otherwise. That is how wikipedia work not like you explains. TamilNet is not " Wikipedia recognised reliable source". It has only been used as a Qualified Source in the SLR project for describing things.
The bias of other sources have no relevance to this conversation. This is not a contest of "who is the most biased". Amrithsvar ( talk) 10:15, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Well we have reached an impasse. Tamil Times is uploaded on the noolaham website. As far as I am concerned they are both reliable sources manned by professional journalists, and importantly the only reliable English medium sources which were able to circumvent the brutal and deadly Sri Lankan government's censorship which even resulted in the murders of many of their journalists and their senior editor:
/info/en/?search=TamilNet#Threats_and_murders
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/31/medi-j31.html
Only by sending their news reports internationally were they able to avoid the racist censorship of the Sri Lankan government. It seems that censorship process continues even now. Oz346 ( talk) 10:24, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
TamilNet has long been accepted as a RS provided you add a qualifier. It can be used as long as the references to government culprits are explicit. I don't see why Tamil Times should be excluded? It has not been deemed unreliable but apparently in its early days it had pro-rebel sympathies, like most Tamils in general did in the aftermath of the Black July. Editorial bias in favour of either side is unavoidable in Sri Lanka. Notable national newspapers that have been deemed RS have a pro-government bias. Petextrodon ( talk) 11:11, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
TamilNet has been accepted as a Pro-rebal QS. Which mean it only tell one side of the story and hence always be used with explicit attribution. Therefore, Amrithsvar has a point that claims that are exclusively attributed to pro-rebal sources need to be differentiate from the ones that have been attributed other RS. Tamil Times has not been established as a RS and therefore should not be used at all, until such time it has been established as a RS or QS. Cossde ( talk) 16:18, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
well Tamilnet has already been explicitly attributed and differentiated. And you have done the same for Tamil Times for the early 80s which I have accepted (although for consistency the Sri Lankan newspapers like The Island should be called pro govt by the same standard). However, this claim that Tamil Times a published news magazine of over 25 years comprised of professional journalists and an editorial board needs to be vetted by a formal process before use, I disagree with (Same argument we had regarding the use of the un report). Oz346 ( talk) 16:45, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
As I've said before since there is a problem with TamilNet's reliability and it is not clear enough about that in the list. The Island is a reputable source that hasn't been questioned. All sources are biased but sources like Tamil Nation and TamilNet has a verifiability problem, those sources should be corroborated with additional sources when making factual statement. Just having professional journalists doesn't make it automatically a reliable source. UN report is a reputable source which is quite different from magazines that have been accused of being biased by institutions like the BBC. The ideal solution would be that rows with only TamilNet to back the incident taking place should be highlighted. And incidents that have only have Tamil Times as its only source should be deleted unless there is secondary evidence to back it up because as Cossde mentioned it hasn't been regarded as RS in this particular scenario. Amrithsvar ( talk) 17:07, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Cossde is making his own rule up. There is no Wikipedia policy saying that all sources need to go through a formal process, especially when they already fit the criteria for a reliable source (well published news magazine with editorial board and a maxim that facts are sacred). Besides, Tamil Times is no where near as controversial as Tamilnet, and if Tamilnet has been deemed suitable for use, than Tamil Times is also clearly suitable. We have even explicitly attributed Tamil Times even though it has not been deemed a questionable reliable source. Oz346 ( talk) 17:11, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
And all this talk of bias, every source on Sri Lankan conflict has bias, just as most news sources do (even BBC has bias towards the British government). But bias is not a reason to exclude a source from being reliable and citable. Oz346 ( talk) 17:14, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Regarding Sinhalese run 'national' news agencies in the south being greatly biased in their war reporting:
https://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=24
Newspapers like the Island which had a policy of censoring every atrocity committed against Tamils in the warzone are questionable as well. They are certainly not as trustworthy as other reliable sources like the BBC. Oz346 ( talk) 17:33, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
'The Island' (along with the sun newspaper) have been noted by scholars for lying and falsely claiming that massacres of Tamil civilians were killing of Tamil terrorists in the 1980s:
https://edepot.wur.nl/138278
p.165-166
It has a poor record of fact checking. They have also been described as a pro-government and pro-Sinhala nationalist newspaper by scholarly secondary sources:
https://books.google.com/books/about/To_End_a_Civil_War.html?id=UYqMCwAAQBAJ#v=onepage&q=Pro%20government%20the%20island%20newspaper%20sri%20lanka&f=false
https://books.google.com/books/about/Embattled_Media.html?id=pxlBDwAAQBAJ#v=onepage&q=Pro%20government%20the%20island%20newspaper%20sri%20lanka&f=false
It is more unreliable than Tamilnet which has never stooped to such low level of racist distortion, yet it is farcically allowed to be referenced with no attribution as a so called 'reliable source'. Oz346 ( talk) 08:00, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"Tamil Times has not been established as a RS and therefore should not be used at all, until such time it has been established as a RS or QS."
Last time you said the same about an obviously RS Asian Human Rights Commission. Once again, I suggest you refrain from making up your own arbitrary rules. The burden of proof is on you to show why a magazine with its own ISSN, which was notable enough to be cited in reliably published books and covered by national Sri Lankan newspapers is not a RS enough for you? -- Petextrodon ( talk) 19:03, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Now its you who is making your own rules and Oz346 who is making his/her own claims to define what is RS. Clearly both of you are wrong. As Pharaoh of the Wizards mentioned Tamilnet was qualified as a QS for the use in Sri Lankan Civil War related topics way back during the war. This list contains the sources that have been qualified as RS, QS and Non-RS since this very same disscussion was there back then. That's why Pharaoh of the Wizards said there is no need to question or qualify Tamilnet since it has already been done so and I agree. That said Tamil Times and the Asian Human Rights Commission needs to be qualified to be used in Sri Lankan Civil War topics given the highly controversial and sensitive nature of these topics. These accusations that are leveled against the Sri Lankan Government are very serious. Finally as per WP:BURDEN The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Cossde ( talk) 01:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
WP:BURDEN says this:
"All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution."
This has been done, it does not mean you need to put every reliable source under a formal discussion. Oz346 ( talk) 07:56, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Tamil Times is a not a reliable source. It has been noted to be biased and unreliable by multiple sources. And since it's reliability is questioned by several wikipedians it's only natural that's incident that used Tamil Times as a primary source is backed by secondary sources. If a source is questioned by a wikipedian, it must be verified by secondary sources. Amrithsvar ( talk) 09:19, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Tamil Times has NOT been noted to be 'unreliable' by multiple sources. You are not a 'source'. In fact, there is compelling evidence that you are the same Amrithsvarya who was already noted by others to be white washing and censoring any mentions of anti Tamil atrocities from this page and others in the past (see previous discussion above on this notice board). Hardly a neutral observer, let alone a neutral 'source'. And Tamil Times is not a primary source, it's a news magazine. Oz346 ( talk) 09:38, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It's ironic you use the government-owned Daily News to question the reliability of Tamil Times. The same Daily News whose editorials openly backed the government's military offensive which resulted in widespread human rights violations against Tamil civilians. The Hindu despite its openly pro-GoSL editorial policy for which its editor was awarded Sri Lanka Rathna is still allowed to be cited on Sri Lankan conflict, even without the qualifier "pro-government". -- Petextrodon ( talk) 12:51, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Daily News has been accepted as a RS by Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources and The Hindu (where did that come from?) is considered as a RS by the virtue of its a mainstream newspaper. Cossde ( talk) 13:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
And the same Daily News approved Tamil Times as having "reflected independence throughout its existence".
Yes, they are accepted doesn't mean their editorial policies aren't pro-government. The Hindu editor N. Ram is well-known for his pro-government policy and was awarded Sri Lanka Rathna by the government. - Petextrodon ( talk) 15:43, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
If Tamil Times is not a reliable source, could you explain why academics, including Sinhalese ones, have cited it in their books? Go to google books and search "Tamil Times". -- Petextrodon ( talk) 12:53, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
So are you saying that Tamil Times, which is known to have pro-rebal bias can be considered an RS since its cited by third parties? Cossde ( talk) 13:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
From where did you get the idea that Tamil Times was pro-rebel? I think you got it from its Wikipedia page which states: "In its early years the magazine supported Sri Lankan Tamil militantism but following the takeover by Kandiah (publisher) and Rajanayagam (editor) in December 1987 the magazine took a moderate editorial stance."
However, the cited sources don't say that at all. They say just the opposite! -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:00, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
But you're also disputing its reliability, therefore you also have burden to demonstrate why it is not reliable. You have yet to show the Wikipedia rule which says we should not cite a published newsmagazine that's been cited by scholars and journalists unless it's been deemed RS by a noticeboard.-- Petextrodon ( talk) 12:30, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
If you want to use Tamil Times as a sources back very serious allegations you will need to get it approved like the Tamilnet was in Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources. Cossde ( talk) 13:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
You first need to provide reliable evidence that Tamil Times was pro-rebel as you alleged because other reliable sources say just the opposite. It's a notable published newsmagazine. It meets all the criteria of a RS. Since you and the other user are the ones disputing its reliability against mainstream acceptance of it by journalists and scholars, you need to substantiate your fringe stance.
The independent Sri Lanka Guardian reported:
"The articles published came from various sources and were reflective of the various shades of opinion of different political divides. The Tamil Times was subscribed to and widely read by thousands of people from different countries including Sri Lanka, India, USA, UK, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and the African countries. The contents of this publication were such that even the High Commissions from some of these countries subscribed to it."
I could cite more such sources confirming its reliability. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:37, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I am not sure if Sri Lanka Guardian is a RS. The Tamil Times page it self claims that is had been pro-rebel part in early stages. Oh and I just realized you compared it's circulation which this source claims thousands to the Daily News and the The Hind which has a slightly larger circulation of what was it? Oh yes 88,000 and 1,415,792. That's a clear difference between mainstream and fringe for your information. Cossde ( talk) 05:51, 15 June 2023 (UTC) reply
and you conveniently ignored what the pro-government Daily News stated which I had replied to you twice:
"The Tamil Times which reflected independence throughout its existence was systematically targeted and pressurised to abandon publication. But the paper is still going on despite the LTTE onslaught."
I could cite more if that's not enough. Now, you need to demonstrate your share of burden since you're the one who alleged that it was pro-rebel. Please provide reliable sources that states Tamil Times had a pro-rebel editorial policy. Until then I will have to remove your unverified allegation. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:59, 15 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I think that was premature, since you have failed to establish the Tamil Times as a RS or a Pro-rebel QS like how the Tamilnet has been done. Furthermore, regarding my unverified allegation, it is well known that Tamil Times founder, first MD and editor Thamotheram was a known pro-rebel, who had been recognized as such by pro-rebel such as [5], [6] and Thamotheram was known to have openly advocated and lobbied for the LTTE, even writing against its ban in the UK [7] that is why Tamil Times had been known for its pro-rebel status in its early year. After all Thamotheram virtually ran it from its own house in those days. Sorry I missed your comments on the Daily News article. Its seems inconsistent since it also states that Thamotheram founding the International Tamil Foundation which is sympathetic towards the LTTE. Therefore I am reverting your changes. Cossde ( talk) 01:59, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No, it is not inconsistent. The existence of short-lived diversity among editors in its early days doesn't warrant tarring the entire magazine for most of its history as having had a biased editorial policy in favour of one side. it's common for different contributors to any newspaper to have different perspectives. The anti-militancy perspective existed from the very beginning and it eventually took over for most of the newsmagazine's history. An affiliate of the UTHR(J), who is critical of militant Tamil nationalism, endorsed the Tamil Times by writing the following for The Island:
"In a few years, developments in Sri Lanka created a divergence of perspectives within the editorial group, where some supported militant Tamil nationalism unequivocally. Raja and others were perturbed by the intolerant nationalism, militarism, Tamil-on-Tamil violence and the crushing of dissent within the Tamil polity. Raja found the LTTE’s claim to be the sole representative of the Tamils abhorrent. By around 1987, the disagreement was settled in Raja’s favour, and he continued as the editor until January 2006. As Raja’s editorials became increasingly critical of armed violent actors, he was subjected to threats and intimidations. For a period, the Tamil Times was the only one of its kind, offering critical support to the Tamils in their quest for justice and democratic rights. It was read with interest for Raja’s editorials but not just by Tamils but also by various representatives of governments, members of the human rights fraternity, journalists and academics. The magazine was supported by subscriptions entirely and from across the globe."
Therefore, since I've provided more reliable sources endorsing Tamil Times as independent and you have yet to provide any RS on its editorial policy as a whole being described as pro-rebel, I will again remove unverified allegations. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:05, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
What do you mean by "No, it is not inconsistent."? Its clear that it is you who are inconsistant. Oz346 just calimed that The Island is an unreliable source, yet you use it to claim Tamil Times a reliable source. What is the consistancy in that?
These are very serious accusations. Accusations which technically speaking even Tamilnet has not been qualified to present as a WP:QS per its in Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources. Tamil Times has not been confirmed as a WP:RS in a WP:RSN. There is no concensus in this fourm for the use of Tamil Times as a RS. Therefore you need to get Tamil Times cleared by a RSN as a RS before using it here such a controvical matter. Once you get it you may use this source in this page. Cossde ( talk) 15:35, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I said *It is more unreliable than Tamilnet* yet it is regarded as a RS, so by the same token Tamil Times is certainly a RS if the island is deemed one. Reliability lies on a spectrum. Oz346 ( talk) 17:17, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Why do you bring the user Oz346 into a reply to my comment? I don't always have to agree with other users on everything. I can only speak for myself.
If Tamil Times is reliable enough to be cited by scholars and journalists and be endorsed by critics of militant Tamil nationalism, why would it require further vetting on Wikipedia? Could you cite a Wikipedia guideline which states every notable published source needs to be cleared by a RSN as a RS before using it? It would be appropriate when widespread controversy exists about a source's reliability, not when there's widespread approval of it from other reliable sources. You and the other user are the only ones disputing its reliability, on several occasions based on fabricated claims not supported by cited sources.
That WikiProject is now defunct and its list is not set in stone but can be revised since the criteria to qualify certain sources as "pro-rebel" isn’t consistently applied to the other side (pro-government). -- Petextrodon ( talk) 18:40, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Reliability of a source is well defined in WP:RS, I don't believe that Tamil Times is an RS based on that criteria. However you Petextrodon and you Oz346 think its an RS based on inconsistent and contradicting rational. Amrithsvar feels its not. Hence Tamil Times is challenged as a RS here. Therefore it is best cleared out in a WP:RSN. I am open to hear alternative suggestions. Cossde ( talk) 10:13, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Can you please explain what criteria of a RS Tamil Times lacks? otherwise this assertion will be baseless. Merely saying its not a RS, is not enough.
Secondly, the pro-government 'The Island' and 'Daily News' are both regarded as RS, and both have overt bias towards the government. Yet you have no issue with their use as reliable sources. Please explain this discrepancy. Oz346 ( talk) 11:07, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
And if Tamilnet is a qualified source, that can be used with attribution on Wikipedia. What makes Tamil Times less reliable than Tamilnet in your eyes that it cannot be used at all? Oz346 ( talk) 11:09, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
/info/en/?search=Template:Unreliable_source%3F
This is the correct template to use to question if something is RS, not the NPOV template. Oz346 ( talk) 11:19, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
NPOV template was used with a reason. Majority of these claims have been given with a single source that is clearly pro-rebel or anti- government. Tamilnet has been deemed a WP:QS that can be used to cite content related to it and not that is accusing the government. Tamil Times will also fall into the same category due to its Pro-Tamil and anti- government rhetoric. Cossde ( talk) 14:12, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
And your baseless accusation of anti government, please provide a reliable source for that regarding Tamil Times, there are more RS indicating the opposite, that Tamil Times was more critical of the Tigers, especially after 1987. Oz346 ( talk) 14:36, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Tamilnet has been deemed a QUALIFIED SOURCE, not a questionable source. you are confusing the two. Qualified sources are a class of reliable sources which need explicit attribution. Oz346 ( talk) 14:37, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Yes a Qualified sources, which means "These fulfill WP:RS, but only tell one side of the story (see also WP:NPOV#bias). They can therefore always be used with explicit attribution." Cossde ( talk) 14:42, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
According to Gordon Weiss book 'The Cage' a RS secondary source:
"In a country that proven incapable of investigating the crimes of its own law enforcement and military officers, it is unlikely that the true scope of the government-sanctioned killing of Tamil civilians by a plethora of security forces will ever be known. In contrast Tigers atrocities against Sinhalese were carefully counted, scrutinised and repeatedly decried by the government."
The government had a policy of censorship where no reports of attacks due to govt forces was to be reported, hence the paucity of sources apart from Tamil Times and Tamilnet in the English medium which escaped censorship by publishing abroad. So there is a perfectly reasonable reason why many of these attacks have only one source. Thats not a reason to censor and whitewash. Oz346 ( talk) 14:33, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Regarding rampant Media censorship by government of Sri Lanka:
https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1082&context=apme
"In July1983, the first Tamil Tiger attack on the Sri Lankan military was followed by days of island-wide anti-Tamil ethnic violence. President Jayewardene’s handling of the crisis was heavily criticised by Jaffna based Sinhala journalist and editor of The Saturday Review, Gamini Navaratne. In retaliation, the Jayewardene government banned The Review with immediate effect. Although the ban was later lifted, Navaratne was required to present all of his copy to the government censor before publication (Senadhira, 1996)." Oz346 ( talk) 14:40, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Are you accusing me a of censor and whitewash? Cossde ( talk) 14:44, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Not you specifically, but anyone who has been trying to cover up these crimes and remove them from the public domain including on Wikipedia with no valid reason. You have not wholesale deleted any of these details to fit that criteria, but the other user who first raised issues on this source has been engaging in this behaviour in the past as can been seen from his editing history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=1958_anti-Tamil_pogrom&diff=prev&oldid=1002481745
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_attacks_on_civilians_attributed_to_Sri_Lankan_government_forces&diff=prev&oldid=1002480091
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Sexual_violence_against_Tamils_in_Sri_Lanka&diff=1002486284&oldid=999520001
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk%3ASexual_violence_against_Tamils_in_Sri_Lanka&diff=1002489917&oldid=1002486485
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1058#YaSiRu11_%E2%80%93_POV-pushing_and_other_problems Oz346 ( talk) 15:03, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That's not clear answer, are you accusing me a of censor and whitewash? Cossde ( talk) 15:08, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
NO. Oz346 ( talk) 15:11, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"I don't believe that Tamil Times is an RS based on that criteria."
Please go ahead and list all the criteria that Tamil Times doesn't meet. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:27, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Given that it was published in the owner/editors own house doesn't really make the Tamil Times a mainstream publication. Cossde ( talk) 14:09, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I dont see anything on the RS wikipedia page which says that excludes a source from being reliable. They were a small organisation true consisting of volunteers, but that does not preclude reliability. Oz346 ( talk) 14:28, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Given that its a small organisation consisting of volunteers, there is no reliability that is there in a mainstream publication. Cossde ( talk) 14:39, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
define 'mainstream'.
Do you mean like "The island" and "The Sun" of Sri Lanka which actively lie and have described massacres of Tamils civilians as killings of terrorists?
Actually, the size of a organisation is not directly correlated with its reliability as can be seen from the above. Oz346 ( talk) 14:42, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Refer WP:SOURCE, relaiablity depands on mainstream publications. The Island is a mainstream newspaper in Sri Lanka, not a owner operated operation. Cossde ( talk) 14:46, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I have and it says this which Tamil Times fulfils:
"Base articles on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Source material must have been published, the definition of which for the purposes of Wikipedia is made available to the public in some form."
On the first issue of Tamil Times, it states explicitly:
"Although we appear under the title TAMIL TIMES, we are determined to ensure that news, views and informa- tion that we publish are of general interest to all Sri Lankans be they Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and Bur- ghers. While we will not hesitate to comment on political questions we are resolved to remain unaffiliated to any political party.
While we would endeavour to give as wide a coverage as possible to news and information, we are determined to make the TAMIL TIMES the standard bearer for the defence of democracy and human rights and a forum for serious discussion of political, social, economic and cultural matters concer- ning our mother country and host countries.
We are dedicated to the much cherished maxim: 'Facts are sacred, comment is free'. Oz346 ( talk) 14:51, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Seems you haven't. Any publication is by default not considered reliable. Especially one that's published in the owners house. Its contents are clearly WP:NPOV. Cossde ( talk) 15:03, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
'The Island' is a racist paper with a proven history of lying and covering up of massacres of innocent Tamil civilians (as proven by reliable secondary sources) by claiming the victims were terrorists. But the fact you have no issue with that and what it means for its RELIABILITY speaks volumes. Oz346 ( talk) 14:54, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Are you calling one of the leading English dailies in Sri Lanka a racist paper ? Cossde ( talk) 15:04, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Yes 100% its a racist disgusting paper. If this happened in the developed world (falsely calling civilian massacre victims as terrorists), the editors of the paper would be in jail for libel. Oz346 ( talk) 15:06, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That's a very serious accusation. Cossde ( talk) 15:11, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Not as serious as claiming 100s of massacred civilians were terrorists as 'the Island' have done. Oz346 ( talk) 15:15, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
How can you say that? Besides are we talking about the Island here or Tamil Times. Cossde ( talk) 15:18, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I dispute the reliability of state-affiliated Sri Lankan newspapers. They should at least be used with a "pro-government" tag if we are to be consistent. I think the now defunct WikiProject list should be re-opened and revised. Oz346 has already made a request. Let's wait and see. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:56, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I don't understand what you and Oz346 are doing here. This whole discussion is on the verifiability of the sources used in this article. Tamil Times is questioned here as a WP:RS, you simply need to do a WP:RSN and get it qualified. However you are bringing sources that are not part of this discussion and wants to get them revised. What is the objective of all that? Cossde ( talk) 16:24, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Consistent application of criteria to avoid one-sided bias. Also you were the one who brought up the WikiProject list. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:27, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That was to confirm what Pharaoh of the Wizards said on the status of Tamil Net as a Pro-rebel RS. You and Oz346 is bring in every possible source in to this discussion without validating Tamil Times as a RS. Cossde ( talk) 16:31, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It has been validated repeatedly with citations to multiple reliable sources. You refusing to accept the mainstream consensus and refusing to meet your share of burden is your own problem. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:33, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
If you are pushing this owner operated home made magazine as a RS, its your baby not mine. Cossde ( talk) 16:42, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
In contrast to Tamil Times, UTHR(J) was published by the exiled Rajan Hoole from the underground, without any official headquarter. Yet that didn't prevent UTHR(J) from being accepted as a RS. Should we not revise the status of UTHR(J) going by your own standard?
As for Tamil Times, here's yet another reliable source, a Sri Lankan newspaper, confirming its reliability:
"The Tamil Times under the enlightened editorship of Rajanayagam was committed to the fundamental journalistic principle – ‘facts are sacred and opinions are free’."
Your perspective is in the fringe, going against the mainstream consensus of other reliable sources, so yes you definitely have a bigger burden to fulfil. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:50, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Then you would have no problem taking it to WP:RSN. Cossde ( talk) 16:55, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It's better to be approved by the WikiProject list once and for all since editors seem to bring that up frequently. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 17:01, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
WP:RSN is good enough. Cossde ( talk) 17:08, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I prefer that the same moderator who vetted Sri Lankan newspapers should use the same criteria to judge Tamil Times. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 17:18, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"Given that its a small organisation consisting of volunteers, there is no reliability that is there in a mainstream publication."
That applies to the UTHR(J) as well (in fact, a lot more), which was primarily associated with one editor, Rajan Hoole, yet it's accepted as a reliable source. This seems arbitrary. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:39, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Can we please stay in on point here, we are talking about Tamil Times here? Cossde ( talk) 16:19, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Yes, but if the criteria were to be applied consistently, then the status of Sri Lankan national newspapers with government affiliations or pro-government editorials should likewise be revised or vetted. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:24, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That is not the point here. Cossde ( talk) 16:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
We need to be consistent. Why should different standards apply to different sides? That nullifies Wikipedia policy of neutrality. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:29, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That is beyond this topic. Can we please stick to this one. Cossde ( talk) 16:32, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Amrithsvar : "It also seems Tamil Times is a biased and unreliable source."
Read your own sources before citing them to support your arguments. The pro-government Daily News says just the opposite of what you're saying:
"The Tamil Times which reflected independence throughout its existence was systematically targeted and pressurised to abandon publication. But the paper is still going on despite the LTTE onslaught." -- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:38, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Yes. After reading though the discussion. I now believe that Time Times is a reliable source. Amrithsvar ( talk) 20:46, 20 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I disagree, Tamil Times needs RSN to confirm as a RS and at best could it be considered a Qualified Source like the TamilNet and therefore should not be used as the sole reference. Therefore, Tamil Times and TamilNet should not be used as the sole reference in accusations against the government to maintain WP:WEIGHT. Look at the Civilian casualties in the Second Intifada. Cossde ( talk) 03:42, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Furthermore, why does Petextrodon and Oz346 keep reverting and removing my NPOV tag on this page. There is an active dissuasion going on here and no conclusion reached. If we it is removed I will have to report it. Cossde ( talk) 03:44, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Read the reason given for the revert. You have yet to give a single good reason on why Tamil Times' neutrality is disputed. You jumped from one thing to another and keep changing the goalpost. First it was pro-rebel allegation, and then it was about a house being used as an office. It's not clear what we are arguing here. That's your burden. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:28, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
What have been unclear about? My stance remain unchanged. I say that Tamil Times' neutrality is questionable under C. J. T. Thamotheram and that Tamil Times does not meet RS standards since its not a mainstream magazine. Its neither a volunteer organization recognized by established international organizations as one nor does it have the platform to be considered a mainstream magazine. Per WP:BURDEN, "burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material". Therefore appreciate you not passing your burden. Cossde ( talk) 14:46, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"I say that Tamil Times' neutrality is questionable under C. J. T. Thamotheram"
Please provide reliable sources disputing Tamil Times neutrality on that basis. We've provided enough reliable sources affirming its reliability and independence.
"and that Tamil Times does not meet RS standards since its not a mainstream magazine"
Please define what you mean by "mainstream"?
You're now the ONLY person disputing its reliability against mainstream RS publications and the opinions of all other concerned users here, including Sinhalese ones, who deem it a RS. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:58, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I have no issue being the minority here. TT is not a mainstream magazine and therefore until such time its proven to be one by RSN I am not convinced. Cossde ( talk) 14:10, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Fringe views based on original research of an editor aren't equal to mainstream views backed by multiple reliable sources. You should know this since you had cited a wiki guideline on this yesterday on another discussion. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:22, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
There a perfectly reasonable reason why many of these attacks only have one source as I have already proven beyond doubt earlier in this discussion. There was a brutal crackdown on local press who reported crimes committed by the government as part of the government's policy of media censorship. Many journalists have in fact been assassinated for attempting to report on these crimes including the chief editor of Tamilnet. As the existing reliable sources confirm, both Tamil Times and Tamilnet were based internationally to circumvent this censorship. Besides it is already well known from other established reliable sources that the government forces have been responsible for countless attacks on civilians. Attacks on civilians with impunity by the government is not an exceptional claim in the body of established RS literature. Oz346 ( talk) 07:09, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
For example, the Saturday Review based in Jaffna which has a Sinhala editor was unable to report on these crimes in the 80s due to the government policy of censorship. Only Tamil Times could publish this information. The Sri Lankan government was so worried about this, that it created a competitor Sri Lankan Times to counter Tamil Times. Oz346 ( talk) 07:22, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Technically what you say is WP:OR. Besides censorship didn't apply for international organizations that latter documented the HR violations on both sides. Cossde ( talk) 08:49, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Chandrika government provided more space than the previous and subsequent governments but even under her rule there was press censorship on military matters. Not every single massacre of Tamil civilians in little-known villages of the north-east was reported by these international NGOs. They needed government approval to visit these conflict zones which wasn't always granted, whereas Tamil Times (and TamilNet) had local correspondents on the ground. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:23, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
there are many cases of international journalists being deported in the 1980s for reporting on these government war crimes, so the claim there was no restrictions or censorship of international journalists is false. Oz346 ( talk) 14:08, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
If what Petextrodon and Oz346, claim is correct. How did Tamil Times get its information? Cossde ( talk) 14:18, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
From local journalists. It is not easy for international journalists to avoid the government's radar, whereas local journalists can retain their anonymity more easily, and pass on their reports discretely. Whereas international journalists stand out from the general population and are almost always being watched. Oz346 ( talk) 15:06, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Therefore, you mean from sources that lack independence or data that lacks confirmation from Wikipedia:Independent sources? Forget about WP:NPOV does this qualify as a WP:Secondary source? Cossde ( talk) 16:13, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
They have journalists working for them. This is how news agencies work. News agencies are a recognised category of reliable sources on wikipedia. For example, an example of a local journalist is Mylvaganam Nimalrajan who was killed by pro-government forces, he used to report for Tamilnet: TamilNet#Threats and murders. Oz346 ( talk) 16:24, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde Your discussion seems very unhelpful for the betterment of this article. I think there are enough evidence to consider that Tamil Times is a good enough source. Just having the credibility from UTHR is enough to consider it a reliable source. Amrithsvar ( talk) 13:39, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I disagree, as I see it Tamil Times has not been established correctly as a RS. Newspapers and magazines can be used as RS in Wikipedia per WP:RS if these are mainstream publications. There has been no mention about the circulation (number) of this magazine. Even if we can take it as a RS, its clearly is a bias RS given the fact its initial set of directors had been force to leave Sri Lanka and one can say has an axe to grind. The TamilNet has been cleared as a QS, however it has been used in this list as a single source, which is incorrect since it has been confirmed to be bias. Therefore, such citations need to be back by another. All the references of RS that have cited TT seems to have done so as a primary source and in fact the Noolaham Foundation that digitized the TT editions states It provides valuable documentation and analysis of the Tamil struggle and Sri Lankan and International politics during this crucial period. Cossde ( talk) 14:07, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
A source being biased doesn't mean it can't be used. Biased sourced can be a RS. Just put it in the same category as TamilNet then, as a QS that requires a explicit mention like 'according to Tamil Times'. Amrithsvar ( talk) 14:24, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
What does that have to do with TT? Cossde ( talk) 14:08, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Valayanmadam bombing

@ Petextrodon, am I reading this wrong? or does the cited U.S. Department of State 2009 Report to Congress on Incidents During the Recent Conflict in Sri Lanka states and I quote '' "February 19 – An organization’s source in Valayanmadam reported that SLAF aerial attacks killed more than 100 LTTE forcibly recruited children." '', why is that considered [[WP:NOR]]. What is wrong in including whats in the source here? Cossde ( talk) 13:35, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply

because the cited source doesn't explicitly mention these children were killed while engaging in combat. To assume that is original research on your part. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:20, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde sign your reply as i can't reply to unsigned one. so i will reply here instead.
You wrote: "An organization’s source in Valayanmadam reported that SLAF aerial attacks killed more than 100 LTTE forcibly recruited children." - Yes or No ?"
Yes, but what is your purpose for adding they were forcibly recruited, other than to imply that they were child soldiers killed in combat? -- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:30, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That is your assumption, and it might be from the fact that you knew that the LTTE used child soldiers. Therefore you were quick to assume that this was my intention. When it was not at all. Mine was to simply state what the source said, that these were children held by force by the LTTE. Therefore I don't see anything wrong in including whats in the source itself. Cossde ( talk) 16:06, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Now that you did mentioned it, there is a link in the soruce itself that states. "For many years there have been reports that the LTTE forcibly recruited children into its cadres." Cossde ( talk) 16:06, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
ok but that general fact is not directly about Valayanmadam bombing. Also, I did NOT suggest you to add "Link to child soldiers of the LTTE" as you accused me of having done so in the latest edit. You should not be reverting while you are engaged in a talk discussion. The latest edit is even worse as you make explicit connection to use of child soldiers although the cited link doesn't say they were used during this particular incident. -- Petextrodon

( talk) 16:14, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood you when you said "ok". Let me revert that. Cossde ( talk) 05:42, 15 June 2023 (UTC) reply
But this is not an article for that background detail which serves no useful purpose, but a table. - Petextrodon ( talk) 16:12, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Other rows have much more details in this column. Why are you so concerned about adding more details here? Cossde ( talk) 16:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Those details have direct relevance to the attacks, unlike your background info. What is the point of adding that detail then, if not to imply something? Readers would assume these were child soldiers engaged in combat since the LTTE is well-known for using child soldiers. Detail should help to clarify and not confuse or mislead. - Petextrodon ( talk) 16:49, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply
On the contrary, the details you mentation having direct relevance include facts such as the victims were women, children, little children, etc.. This information is same and it is exactly what is mentioned in the source, word to word. It would be unfortunate that readers would assume these were child soldiers engaged in combat since the LTTE is well-known for using child soldiers. However this is what the source says. Quoting the source word to word does not violate WP:OR nor WP:NPOV. Cossde ( talk) 05:42, 15 June 2023 (UTC) reply
They just specify the victims, not their past or present affiliation with the LTTE which is open to misunderstanding. Petextrodon ( talk) 15:02, 15 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Exactly that's my point too. The source clearly specify the victims and that has been included word to word here. Do you think the source is wrong? Cossde ( talk) 01:33, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No, their gender and age are not comparable to the their affiliation with the LTTE. Yes they might have been abducted by the LTTE but we don't know what their role with LTTE was at the time of their deaths. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:40, 16 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No, I am afraid its not up to you to decide what can be and what can not be included. If additional content such as age and gender had been added before then there is not reason to prevent adding circumstances, especially if its mentioned in the source. Cossde ( talk) 10:05, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Actually, we are allowed to decide by discussion what detail is appropriate and what isn't, otherwise, without certain limits, we can go on adding all sort of details indefinitely. Age and gender are physical attributes, which are more stable than association to an organization that forcibly abducted you in middle of a war where circumstances change very quickly. Since we have no information on whether these children were still under LTTE custody and what role they were serving when they died, the detail you added isn't helpful but biases the reader into thinking they were serving as child soldiers. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:22, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
I don't agree, if you go through the list lot more details than age and gender have been included. I don't see you too concerned about it. However, I see that you are very sensitive to the fact that this detail was included here, even when the source clearly states that. To remove this detail would deny the reader this key information. Cossde ( talk) 14:05, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"if you go through the list lot more details than age and gender have been included"
yes, details like the targets of the attacks such as properties, hence have direct relevance.
"To remove this detail would deny the reader this key information."
Why is it a key information? is it directly related to the circumstances of their killings? -- Petextrodon ( talk) 15:47, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Yes, exactly. The source confirms that incident killed "100+ LTTE forcibly recruited children" that directly relates to the circumstances of their killings. Cossde ( talk) 16:40, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
But were they under LTTE custody at the time of their killings? What role did they serve? We don't know. To imply this link without explicit statements in the cited source would be original research. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:43, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No that's where you are wrong, the source indicates that the LTTE had been forcibly recruited children in that area just before this incident. Therefore its clear that they were what the source claimed to be " forcibly recruited children". Cossde ( talk) 16:46, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No, the timeframe is not explicit in that short statement. Some time could have passed between when they were recruited and when they were killed. They could have been killed outside the capacity of a LTTE role. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:59, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That is not what the source says. It explicitly says "100+ LTTE forcibly recruited children". Cossde ( talk) 17:02, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It's open to interpretation without additional information. They might not have served an LTTE role at this stage. There were several incidents of forcibly recruited children fleeing from the LTTE, only to be harmed by the SL military. We simply don't know the context of this particular bombing. When you add that detail, readers will assume the children died as child soldiers in combat. It's not comparable to details about age or gender or property destruction. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 17:16, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It did when the LTTE forcibly recruited children. Cossde ( talk) 17:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
what do you mean by "it did"? -- Petextrodon ( talk) 17:31, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
The source states that the 100+ killed were LTTE forcibly recruited children. So it means that at the time of death they were children who had been forcibly recruited by the LTTE. Cossde ( talk) 17:48, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
"So it means that at the time of death they were children who had been forcibly recruited by the LTTE"
It just says they had been forcibly recruited, but doesn't specify their exact role at the time of their killings. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 22:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC) reply
That's not in question here. The sources says that at the time of death these were 100+ forcibly recruited children. Cossde ( talk) 03:49, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
It matters in this context because adding it misleads readers into assuming they were child soldiers at the time of their death. It's better avoided for the sake of clarification. This is not an article, but a list. Details in brackets should help clarify, not confuse. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 13:33, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
There is no confusion here, the source clearly states that 100+ LTTE forcibly recruited children were killed in the attack. The source is clear and there is no reason to avoid that information. Cossde ( talk) 14:16, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
No, given the well-known fact that LTTE used child soldiers, it misleads readers into thinking these children served that role at the time of their deaths. Therefore, should be avoided. - Petextrodon ( talk) 16:30, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply
What was exact circumstance that these children died in? If it was combat scenario, they would not count as civilians. but again one can argue that they are since they were forcibly recruited by the LTTE. Is there any further sources that explains more about the exact incident? Amrithsvar ( talk) 13:45, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
The same source indicates that the LTTE had been forcibly recruited children in that area. At that time, the LTTE was desperately short of carders and had been forcing civilians in to their ranks. I am fine to keep this as the source indicates "100+ LTTE forcibly recruited children", that clear enough. Cossde ( talk) 13:52, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
But this incident is listed under civilian killings section on that U.S. state department report. Had they engaged in combat at the time of their deaths, they would not have been listed as such. These children could have died under many different circumstances where the fact that LTTE had forcibly recruited them some time in the past (days? weeks? month?) would have had no direct relevance to their deaths. That's why I'm suggesting without additional background information this detail should be avoided as it doesn't help to clarify but does just the opposite. -- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:20, 22 June 2023 (UTC) reply
What you say doesn't make sense at all. I didn't say anything about children been engaging in combat! Does the citied source state "February 19 – An organization’s source in Valayanmadam reported that SLAF aerial attacks killed more than 100 LTTE forcibly recruited children." - Yes or No ? 15:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC) Singed Cossde ( talk) 16:06, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Request for multiple citations

@ Petextrodon, can you please let me know why my tag for additional citations have been reverted by you with a rude comment "ne source is fine, especially for little known old attacks which didn't always receive international coverage or were censored by southern press" is this your policy or that of Wikipedia? Cossde ( talk) 12:38, 10 October 2023 (UTC) reply

There is no Wikipedia policy saying that you need more than one reliable source. Stop your repeated disruptive edits along these lines. Oz346 ( talk) 12:48, 10 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346, can you please tell me what is disruptive about my edits? In this case I am asking for additional sources since I don't feel that cited source can be considered as a WP:RS. Cossde ( talk) 13:06, 10 October 2023 (UTC) reply
Tamil sources were the only ones covering these less known local incidents. Sinhala-owned press had a pro-state policy and whitewashed the murders of Tamil civilians by describing them as terrorists and the Sinhala government prevented foreign press from entering Tamil areas. Both these statements are backed by Rajan Hoole in his book "The Arrogance of Power", coincidentally on the same page dealing with the 1985 Muttur massacre for which you added that tag. I have no problem adding the citation but then to be consistent every major Sinhala-owned newspaper should have their status revised and be treated the same. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 19:55, 10 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon, can you please explain how NESOHR can be used as a reliable source in this context given that NESOHR has been described by Amnesty International as "In 2004 the LTTE established the NESOHR to monitor the human rights situation in the north and east. However this body has limited autonomy, and capacity and security constraints restrict its access to the east." in its report [8] ? Cossde ( talk) 01:03, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
The book cited here was published toward the end of 2009 by an Indian publisher. Authors (primarily N. Malathy, a New Zealand citizen) were not LTTE members and could not be regarded as having lacked autonomy after the defeat of the LTTE. The source for its content came primarily from the Statistical Centre for North East, a project that had the involvement of the Jaffna University staff. The issue seems to be that this group retained the name NESOHR and not something else? --- Petextrodon ( talk) 02:59, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon, are you referring to Massacres of Tamils (1956-2008). Chennai: NESOHR/Manitham Publications. 2009 ? Cossde ( talk) 03:37, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
Massacres of Tamils (1956-2008) has been published under the name of NESOHR by the Indian publisher Manitham Publications. N. Malathy, who is a netrualized New Zealand citizen was a member of NESOHR, while it operated under the LTTE. Cleary it cannot be used here as a WP:RS and needs to be removed. Cossde ( talk) 11:03, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
No I disagree that it needs to be removed wholesale, I think explicit attribution can be used for it in this case. By that token, all the state aligned Sinhala owned national newspapers which have already been shown to lie and whitewash government massacres of Tamil civilians by falsely claiming that they were terrorists, also needs to be removed from all Sri Lankan Civil War pages. They have already been proven to be dodgy sources in regards to fact checking. Unlike NESOHR which has not lied like the Sinhala owned newspapers, and actually interviews the victims of such massacres. Oz346 ( talk) 11:18, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346, is that you own opinion or a fact? Cossde ( talk) 12:58, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
It's a FACT. Oz346 ( talk) 13:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346, please prove it. Cossde ( talk) 13:11, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
i will prove it in due time, but first I will post NESOHR's book in the Sri Lanka Reconciliation source discussion board to ascertain it's status as a source, and to settle this never ending argument. Oz346 ( talk) 17:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
yes, it was published after the destruction of the LTTE. so how does the 2006 statement about limited autonomy apply to a post-war book published in a foreign country? --- Petextrodon ( talk) 16:30, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon, goes to show unreliability of the content. For example it doesn't contain details of crimes committed by the LTTE against Tamils. Cossde ( talk) 14:36, 14 October 2023 (UTC) reply
N. Malathy a New Zealand citizen has done a Ph D from the University of Canterbury is a human rights activist. She did human rights work in the then LTTE controlled Vanni.She was not a member of NESHOR and LTTE.She has written another book as well A Fleeting Moment in My Country. Pharaoh of the Wizards ( talk) 12:51, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Pharaoh of the Wizards, that's strange, in her book A Fleeting Moment in My Country, Malathy states that she was the first Secretary of the North East Secretariat on Human Rights, working full time in NESHOR for an year from March 2005 and thereafter she left NESHOR to be involved in the LTTE Peace Secretariat, returning to work in the NESHOR after its chairperson Fr Karunaradnam was killed and worked till the NESHOR stopped functioning in 2009. Cossde ( talk) 13:12, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply
  • Sorry my mistake and thanks for pointing it out.She was not a member of the LTTE but did work with NESHOR while doing human rights work in Vanni. Pharaoh of the Wizards ( talk) 13:48, 11 October 2023 (UTC) reply

NESOHR

NESOHR has not been listed as a QS in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources, hence it can not be treated as such in this page. The the discussion on NESOHR was inconclusive and Sebastian WP:DISENGAGE without listing NESOHR as a QS. I have left a message on Sebastian talk page and if he doesn't respond in 72 hours, NESOHR cited content will have to go. Cossde ( talk) 14:26, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply

No, that's not how it works around here. It can't "go" without discussion and consensus building. Unlike Chandraprema, N. Malathty was not a member of an organization that was party to the conflict (suggesting otherwise without evidence can be slander which isn't allowed on Wikipedia) nor was she accused of human rights violations. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:49, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply
Malathty held a leadership possition in the LTTE Peace Directorate. Per WP:BURDEN, it is the responcibility of the editor who is introducing content to prove WP:RS. You may take this to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Cossde ( talk) 15:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply
The discussion was conclusive. He clearly deemed it a QS, as did the other Sinhala editor. Only you failed to respect the decision of the neutral arbiter. You are not an admin to make your own 72 hour rule up. Oz346 ( talk) 14:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply
Then why is it not on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/Sources list? Cossde ( talk) 15:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply
Its the same time Petextrodon gave me. Cossde ( talk) 15:06, 22 February 2024 (UTC) reply

Adding single sourced content

I tagged highly controversial content has been added on the 26 March 2024, with a single sources used. Per WP:CHALLENGE, editor who added it needs to prove that these are WP:RS. Cossde ( talk) 13:24, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply

It's not highly controversial content. Sri Lankan Armed Forces are well known to mass rape, murder and torture. There are countless RS indicating this. You have been constantly trying to remove mentions of SLAF war crimes from multiple pages for well over a decade. This fits WP:NAT editing.
If it is controversial as you claim, can you provide sources saying the contrary? You can not, because these particular incidents are not controversial. There are no reliable sources providing contradictory accounts for these events.
Just because the truth hurts and a fact is not to an editor's liking, does not mean it should be removed. Oz346 ( talk) 14:18, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply
Per WP:CHALLENGE editor who adds content has "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material". Hence cited sources need to be proved by the editor who adds content as WP:RS. I don't see you doing that here. Cossde ( talk) 14:43, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde No, I disagree. One RS is enough.--- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346, please clearly indicate what RS has been used. I can not find any for the recently added content. Cossde ( talk) 14:50, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde Are you contesting the reliability of award-winning Uthayan newspaper? Or the government-appointed commission, another publication of which you used extensively in 1977 Anti-Tamil pogrom? --- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:54, 27 March 2024 (UTC) reply
Uthayan is a clear RS.
It is much more reliable than many of the Sinhala owned national newspapers that Cossde cites. For example, 'The Island' (along with the sun newspaper) have been noted by scholars for lying and falsely claiming that massacres of Tamil civilians were killing of Tamil terrorists in the 1980s:
https://edepot.wur.nl/138278
p.165-166
They have a poor record of fact checking. They have also been described as a pro-government and pro-Sinhala nationalist newspaper by scholarly secondary sources:
https://books.google.com/books/about/To_End_a_Civil_War.html?id=UYqMCwAAQBAJ#v=onepage&q=Pro%20government%20the%20island%20newspaper%20sri%20lanka&f=false
https://books.google.com/books/about/Embattled_Media.html?id=pxlBDwAAQBAJ#v=onepage&q=Pro%20government%20the%20island%20newspaper%20sri%20lanka&f=false
Yet these sources are used without attribution. The Uthayan on the other hand has none of these criticisms. Instead it has received international awards: https://rsf.org/en/press-freedom-prize-goes-uzbek-journalist-and-sri-lankan-daily Oz346 ( talk) 23:36, 7 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Uthayan has not been established as an RS in WP. Please proceed in doing so before claiming it as such. Also you didn't share where the government reports have been accepted in WP as RS. 03:23, 8 April 2024 (UTC) Cossde ( talk) 03:23, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
1. In spite of its questionable fact checking, 'The Island' has been cited throughout wikipedia without attribution, and is regarded as a RS on the Wikipedia SL reconciliation project.
2. You have cited multiple Sri Lankan newspapers without attribution, none of which "have been established as an RS in WP" (to quote your exact words) such as The Morning. This is inconsistent and suggestive of double standards.
3. You have not provided any sources indicating that the particular events Uthayan is being cited for are controversial. Just saying "controversial, controversial" without providing contradictory accounts from other sources demonstrating this, is nothing more than a claim without evidence. Oz346 ( talk) 06:07, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
The accusation of killing of civilians by the state is highly controversial. Per WP:CHALLENGE editor who adds content has "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material". Since you have added such controversial, please prove here that Uthayan has been established as an RS in WP. Cossde ( talk) 06:59, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Again you repeat claims with no evidence. Just because you say it's controversial, does not make it controversial. I repeat one final time, the Sri Lankan armed forces are well known for mass rapes, massacres and torture of civilians. and this is supported by countless RS. It is not controversial at all. It is the scholarly consensus. The only people who deny this are the Sinhalese dominated government and its sympathisers. Not reliable scholarly sources. Oz346 ( talk) 07:02, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Once again you are beating around the bush without backing up the content you are supporting by proving that the Uthayan and the government reports used here have been accepted in WP as RS. Cossde ( talk) 13:40, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Cite the wiki rule which states an award-winning registered newspaper can't be regarded as a RS unless it goes through WP:RSN? This has long been your tactic to be disruptive but you never managed to cite a wiki rule. As for the government-appointed commission, Sansoni report hasn't gone through WP:RSN either yet you used it as justification for adding an entire background section to 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom. Could you explain this blatant double standard in how you use sources? --- Petextrodon ( talk) 14:53, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Again you are talking of content out of this article. WP:CHALLENGE is clear, the burden of to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Hence the content in question has been cited by Uthayan and government reports. Please prove here that these have been accepted in WP as RS. Cossde ( talk) 15:42, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Again, cite the wiki rule which states an award-winning registered newspaper can't be regarded as a RS unless it goes through WP:RSN. You also need to explain your blatant double standard in how you use sources. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 20:01, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply
WP:CHALLENGE. Cossde ( talk) 06:32, 9 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Please quote the part which states or implies an award-winning registered newspaper can't be regarded as a RS unless it goes through WP:RSN. You also need to explain your blatant double standard in how you use sources otherwise I will have to report you for nationalist editing since this isn't your first time doing this. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 18:50, 9 April 2024 (UTC) reply
WP:CHALLENGE : The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material.
WP:EXCEPTIONAL : 1) Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources. 2) Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest.
" award-winning registered newspaper" is your personal opinion. I am asking you where in WP Uthayan and Government reports you have used to cite WP:CONTROVERSY have been established as WP:RS. If you feel that this is WP:NAT, by all means report me as you are free to do so. I am happy to defend my actions in such forum. Cossde ( talk) 00:54, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply
On what basis do you question the reliability of a major Sri Lankan newspaper? Award-winning isn't my personal opinion but a fact. A cursory look at its wiki page will tell you that. Once again, cite the Wiki rule which state a source must go through RSN before it can be considered RS. You still have not explained why you cited Sansoni report commissioned by the same government without questioning its reliability. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 08:25, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon, WP:EXCEPTIONAL states that 1) Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources. 2) Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest. Your edits are been challenged and you refuse to acknowledge WP:CHALLENGE clear terms of burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Please show me where in WP has Uthayan and the government reports you are citing have been established as RS. Cossde ( talk) 12:56, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply
its not an exceptional claim. Sri Lankan Army have raped, massacred and tortured thousands. You know this very well yourself. There are umpteenth reliable sources indicating this. There's nothing exceptional about the Sri Lankan Armed forces killing civilians. This list is testament to this itself. Your claim does not fit WP:EXCEPTIONAL at all, which describes exceptional claims as things which are "surprising". There nothing surprising about the Sri Lankan Army raping and killing. They killed tens of thousands of civilians (Both Tamil and Sinhala) during the civil war and both JVP insurrections. Tell me what is exceptional about this Oz346 ( talk) 15:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Oz346, I would think the killing of a citizen by the state or an accusation of such is an exceptional claim. It is evident from what you say here that you are very passionate about what you belive in, however thats no reason to turn WP into a battleground. Cossde ( talk) 02:24, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde On what basis do you question the reliability of a major Sri Lankan newspaper that has won awards? You can't question a source's reliability without a sound basis either. You have a habit of questioning the reliability of all sources, including established ones, when they criticize the Sri Lankan government and its armed forces which looks like nationalist editing. You still have not explained why you cited Sansoni report commissioned by the same government without questioning its reliability. Please explain to us your blatant double standards in how you use sources. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 21:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon, I am confused, are you citing the Sansoni commission report here or another report? I am simply asking you where in WP has the your sources been established as WP:RS, why are you refusing to acknoeldge WP:CHALLENGE and WP:EXCEPTIONAL? This can be considered WP:BATTLEGROUND. Cossde ( talk) 02:24, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde, I'm also confused. How can Sri Lankan government appointed commission become reliable when you cite it but questionable when I cite it? I'm simply asking you to cite the wiki rule which states every major newspaper must be declared as RS by RSN in order for it to be considered RS. What makes you question its reliability, you must have a reasonable basis? We've already demonstrated it's an award-winning respected mainstream publication. Do you dispute that? --- Petextrodon ( talk) 04:04, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde Why did you remove cited content? The dispute was about additional citation yet you removed the whole content without discussion! --- Petextrodon ( talk) 04:19, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon you triggered this by adding new content. I have not cited any report in this article. Your are the one that introduced new and controversial content and is refusing the prove the reliability of sources you have cited. I am mealy asking to abide by WP:CHALLENGE and WP:EXCEPTIONAL, which you are refusing and as I see it seem to be engaged in WP:BATTLE. Cossde ( talk) 04:25, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Petextrodon you have yet again began adding controversial content with WP:PRIMARY and WP:TRIVIALMENTIONS. Per WP:CONTROVERSY and WP:CONTROVERSIALFACTS, content needs to be precise and needs to be careful with attribution. Therefore per WP:EXCEPTIONAL please use multiple high-quality sources. Cossde ( talk) 05:03, 29 April 2024 (UTC) reply
Have you learnt nothing from this topic being classed under contentious topics? Many of the sources you have removed have already been vetted by the Sri Lanka reconciliation project as fit to be cited. You have not provided any evidence that the said events are controversial. It is not exceptional that the Sri Lankan Army rapes and murders, and there are countless reliable sources that indicate this. Trying to remove all reliably sourced mentions of Sri Lankan Army war crimes is blatant WP:NAT editing. Oz346 ( talk) 10:22, 29 April 2024 (UTC) reply
@ Cossde, but you also removed the content that had two sources, UTHR and Routledge scholarly publication. Did you even bother to read before you vandalized my RS sourced content? This is getting ridiculous and borders on censorship. --- Petextrodon ( talk) 10:46, 29 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I will not engaged in disscussions with editors who have failed to engage in WP:CIVIL. I have WP:CHALLENGE editors to prove sources they have used to add content as WP:RS, it is their burden to do so. Cossde ( talk) 13:02, 28 March 2024 (UTC) Please get consensus before removing sourced content. Tame Rhino ( talk) 10:27, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:List_of_attacks_on_civilians_attributed_to_Sri_Lankan_government_forces&oldid=1221342321"

Videos

Youtube | Vimeo | Bing

Websites

Google | Yahoo | Bing

Encyclopedia

Google | Yahoo | Bing

Facebook




Top Of Page

Home • Search • Translate

© CSE