Talk:Casualty (person)

Wounded to Killed Ratio

I was recently watching a documentary about the Iraq War, and it stated that the American Militaries Casualty figures were approximately 7 to 1 wounded to killed ratio (not 3 to 1 like in the article).

Perhaps this is something to do with modern warfare, perhaps less are dieing because of better protection and/or medical care, or perhaps it is something to do with the particular conditions of that war.

If you look up the official casualty figures you will see this is confirmed, Deaths is 2500, and Wounded is 18500, that's more than 7 to 1.

Perhaps the article should have something about this apparent increase in the ratio.

--Hibernian 17:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Good point about Iraq, but it is not the "battle" that the article focuses on. (Most Iraq casualties come from car bombs, hence the heavy use of body armor.) Rjensen 01:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this should be stressed in the article, as it is currently not clearly stated. As for the wounded-to-killed ratio, might some troops have been wounded more than once ?

breversa 14:06, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Question

In military usage, casualties usually means all persons lost to active military service, which comprises those killed in action, killed by disease, disabled by physical injuries, disabled by psychological trauma, captured, deserted, and missing, but does not include injuries which do not prevent a person from fighting.

Does this include also POW? --Do you know me? I can't tell you to shut up...so just SCREEEAAMM!!! _{You can still shut up if you want to, just don't blame me} 00:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. "captured" links to prisoner of war. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

application to that article about warfare

most of the population will think that ratio is substancial. but by rule of thumb the say goes, if i asked you how many guys have you slept with, but dont look into this so much, by nature you would as an woman will say back to me that you only been with 3 men in your time> but to me i will relate that as you have been with 9 people. understand the diffrence? and the gov. knows this as an reverse mind fuck. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.246.153.248 (talk • contribs) 04:33, 27 August 2009

Image for non-fatal casualty

Perhaps add image illustrating casualties, in the military sense, that are non-fatal: e.g. that one soldier from "Johnny Got His Gun", something like that. Karl gregory jones (talk) 02:22, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

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"Civilian casualties in the Korea war, 1940s or 50s"

The caption for this picture is misleading, vague, and possibly inaccurate. It looks like a single civilian casualty being mourned, unless the people sitting in the picture are heavily wounded, or dead and being propped up for a 'prop'aganda photo or something. I have no idea. The uncertainty in the date (wider than the Korean War itself) doesn't help things either. This caption is startlingly bad.

Octaazacubane (talk) 06:50, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 28 March 2019

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

The result of the move request was: No consensus for the proposed move, or for changing the disambiguator to (military) at this time. (non-admin closure) Iffy★Chat -- 08:36, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

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• Casualty (person) → Casualty
• Casualty → Casualty (disambiguation)

– This is the root meaning of related topics listed on the disambiguation, and is the most likely use of the term. I feel like editors and readers would be WP:ASTONISHed that there is disambiguation used. -- Netoholic @ 02:10, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

• Strong oppose Casualty in the UK means a department in a hospital. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:44, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

  Right, its a "casualty department" - i.e. the department where a casualty would go. Calling the department just "casualty" is colloguialism. In America they do the same thing, like in the sentence "He was admitted to emergency during his heart attack". That doesn't mean "emergency department" gets to override the primary status of the word "emergency", just as the UK use doesn't get to override the primary meaning of "casualty". In this case, adding a disambiguator to the basic word is a worse outcome than the minor confusion in the UK with the hospital department. After all, we can address this by linking to casualty department in both a hatnote and the article text, even the lead if you like. -- Netoholic @ 13:08, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

  But why not leave well alone? There's no benefit to American readers in obstructing non-American readers. And the primary if anything is the UK TV series Casualty (TV series) gets 4x more pageviews than Casualty (person) In ictu oculi (talk) 15:33, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

  Because it results in a really awkward disambiguation... and as you said, "this is exactly why we have two criteria WP:PRIMARYTOPIC to prevent trivial entertainment products from usurping real life real things". I get the objection, and we can mitigate it, but the current arrangement is just not good. -- Netoholic @ 18:43, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

What's awkward about (person)? That's exactly what the 20%-view article is a (person). If it isn't a (person) then Casualty (military) would do. It is by the way a terrible article. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:51, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

BTW don't get me wrong, I stand by "this is exactly why we have two criteria WP:PRIMARYTOPIC to prevent trivial entertainment products from usurping real life real things" but I'm not arguing that the 70% views TV show be primary, there is WP:NOPRIMARY since no article passes both criteria. If the problem is (person) then propose a better dab please. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:01, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

• Support mainly due to the awkward disambiguation "(person)" which has made me question if I'm on the right article before. Would also support Casualty (military). – Þjarkur (talk) 20:30, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Would support Casualty (military) In ictu oculi (talk) 07:59, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

• Support. This one seems pretty obvious and the argument against is weak (and made by someone who does not believe primary topics exist, ever). Using military as a disambiguator would be a non starter for me, because the term can and is used in contexts other than the military. Calidum 17:46, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
  • "...The term can and is used in contexts other than the military." True, but including all meanings would make the article a glorified WP:DICDEF. Limiting it to military casualties while retaining the current disclaimer in the intro ("In civilian usage, a casualty is a person who...is usually used to describe...") will give it more encyclopedic heft. —  AjaxSmack  21:32, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose proposal per WP:NOTDICT and lack of evidence ("I feel like") or policy rationale ("root meaning"?) for a move. Casualty (TV series), which gets the most pageviews, is an important encyclopedic topic as well. I'm fine with casualty (military), military casualty or whatever others like. —  AjaxSmack  21:32, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

  Yet another case of you absolutely misunderstanding what WP:NOTDICT actually means and incorrectly citing it in a move discussion. We don't simply ignore how words and concepts are related to each other, and page views are a hint at a primary topic, not the sole justification, especially when a commercial or entertainment product uses a more broad/common concept as a title. Apple, Inc. is not primary over apple, for example, because we can easily understand that it was named for a more basic, root concept which rightly warrants its own Wikipedia entry. Casualty (TV series) is named for casualty department, which is in turn named for the root concept of a casualty. All related topics derive from that root concept, and that points to the long-term significance of that root concept per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. -- Netoholic @ 11:43, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:NOTDICT and AjaxSmack. Dohn joe (talk) 02:12, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support since the discriminator is really awkward and none of the arguments against are particularly convincing. Casualty department has no claim to be primary topic since it already has a discriminator, is a redirect, is exclusive to british english and is derived from the primary meaning of casualty. I don't understand the WP:NOTDICT argument (may change my mind if someone explains it to me) and Casualty (TV series) does not have long term significance. I get that the main argument for the move is just "discriminator too awkward" which is quite subjective, but I absolutley think it's a valid argument and should take priority if there are no other candidates. Trialpears (talk) 16:35, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

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