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Cause and intro sections

Cause and intro sections sound like talking about something proven rather than unproved pre-investigation theories. The intro section's second paragraph explicitly states only one side's version before stating any other version. Due to controversial nature of the issue and Wikipedia's neutrality I would suggest to avoid any non-official (Dutch, ICAO) investigation results in the intro section. I would also suggest renaming "Cause" section under "pre-investigation versions" and explicitly state both versions (Russian and Ukranian/Western) as such. I may also think about creating sub-sub-sections "Criticism" for both of the version to point out counter-arguments posted by both sides or removing such counter-arguments from the current text at all, as currently there is a lot of bias towards the Western version. The "cause" section should reappear only when the cause will be officially released by the international investigation group and would probably only state the cause of the crash itself (such as hit by a surface-to-air or air-to-air missile), without pointing out to a particular group to blame. Night Nord (talk) 08:16, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for appeal for objectivity, but I think that might be considered subversive. Montenegroman (talk) 08:24, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, we still do not list alien attack theories either -- very unbalanced (those pesky aliens of course have most to gain by inciting conflict between US and Russia thus paving the way for their invasion). Arnoutf (talk) 09:46, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Each conflict like that one has at least two obvious sides. To maintain neutrality you should present opinions, evidences and claims of all involved sides on basis of equality. Unless I don't know something, aliens are not an "obvious" part of the conflict. Night Nord (talk) 13:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Subversive? I don't think so - essentially all the text will remain the same, just relocated. The only difference would be that one reading the page's header in Google or mobile version won't leave the page with a feeling that cause and party to blame is already (almost) determined. And if anyone is interested in the blame game or digging though tons of fakes and misinformation from both sides - he can still read a corresponding section. We don't want Wikipedia reputation being hurt due to creating incorrect image of the catastrophe in case the "believed" version will be proven wrong. Night Nord (talk) 13:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
I do think that a clearer distinction needs to be made between the official Dutch-led accident investigation team and other government statements assigning cause. Keep in mind that the official accident investigation will try to act in an impartial manner without pre-judging a cause, and thus will look at all possible scenarios. To my knowledge, the Dutch Safety Board has not yet ruled out mechanical failure, for example. While I do think a missile shootdown by rebel forces is likely, we have yet to see any statement from the accident investigators themselves regarding cause. And keep in mind that if they do issue a report blaming it on missile strike, the investigation would be turned over to the local (Ukrainian) police, which is the usual course of action when foul play is suspect. --DigitalRevolution (talk) 14:15, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Can't find fault with that! What are we doing giving consideration to anyone who is not both qualified and authorised to determine the cause of this incident? What's in there now mostly is speculation as to the cause. Montenegroman (talk) 14:28, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
The distinction I'd make in the cause section is between "cause" and "culprit". I think most official statements, including from the Russian side, appear to agree on the missile shootdown as the cause. This in itself appears to have wide agreement from all sides, even if the official accident investigation team, being more conservative, has not yet drawn this conclusion. Where there is disagreement is on who fired that missile, and we can separate out the evidence there into a separate subsection. --DigitalRevolution (talk) 14:43, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
So since the President of the United States is not authorized by the official investigation to give an opinion as to the cause, it stays out of the intro? What is proposed here is to create false balance by ignoring the bulk of the reliable sources, pretending this is more "controversial" than it actually is. And when the "official" (Dutch) investigation comes out blaming the rebels, that will be questioned here because the Netherlands is a charter member of NATO. And there will be more questions raised by the Russians to distract from the conclusions. I'm a little tired of seeing demands for "paralysis by analysis" here...it's akin to climate denialism: if you don't have every answer to every question they can raise, then you don't have "all the facts" and so you should censor yourself. That's not how it should be done. Geogene (talk) 20:47, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
I suppose I should be paying more attention to the article, as not only has that changed but unsourced editorializing has appeared in the causes section: "No authoritative cause by an aviation organization"...."speculation on both sides"...this wasn't suitable for WP so I deleted it. Again, let me advise against editorializing this article, against false balance, and against paralysis through analysis. Sources are reporting on the causes, we repeat that without critique. Geogene (talk) 21:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Sure, but if there is a critique coming from a respected source of the another side we should include that as well. If you'll mix both sides arguments and counter-arguments into the same section the only thing you'll get would be a mess. That's not about "false balance" it's about fairness - if we do include witnesses reports brought by AP we should also include similar reports by RIA (which have been made). If we are citing an US officials reaction on the Russian's Defense Ministry's data we should also include a Russian officials reaction on SBU's released data. And things like that in general. And the header issue is that the only thing could be moved into the header, IMO, is something seen as a fact. Like official investigation results. Otherwise it's just one or another person opinion he'd suddenly made "main idea". I think that header should only say that "investigation is still in progress and so far no one took the responsibility and both sides of the conflict (Ukraine and rebels) put blame on each other". Anything else is just a guess and popularity of that "guess" doesn't make it somewhat more important. Night Nord (talk) 21:27, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
We're not here to be "fair", we're here to cover the subject in a manner consistent with that of the sources we use. I support, and have advocated for, representing Russian views of the subject. That does not mean pretending that they have the same weight as the rest of the world. As far as I can tell, this only seems to be "controversial" inside of Russia. That's only 130 million people, a relatively small population compared to the rest of the world, or even just the US or Europe. If we make it look like that it isn't the case, that there's serious doubt here, then we're actually advocating for the Russian perspective, which isn't NPOV. Geogene (talk) 21:33, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Why would the size of the population matter? The best NPOV of the situation at the moment is not one-sided preference of the claims of one side. CorrectKissinTime (talk) 15:35, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Regarding the deletion by Geogene: OK, it maybe wasn't such a great edit. How about: The official investigation, being carried out by the Dutch Safety Board into the cause of the crash, in accordance with EASA/IACO guidelines, has not yet released its findings. Does that need a citation? Montenegroman (talk) 10:10, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
A simpler one: The cause of the crash has not yet been determined by the official investigation, being carried out by the Dutch_Safety_Board. In replacement for what Stickee deleted as editorializing. I'll try it and see how long it lasts Montenegroman (talk) 12:47, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

As DigitalRevolution argues above there is only one side - the official investigation team that has not yet arrived at a conclusion. There are a number of possible outcomes, a missile hit (which seems most likely) but only after this is concluded it becomes important who fired the missile, who supplied it, who provided support etc. and of course whether it was intentionally aimed at an airliner or it was a mistake. Arnoutf (talk) 14:25, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Agreed Montenegroman (talk) 14:47, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedias NPOV requires dissenting statements to be mentioned, in particular before reliable evidence by official investigations is available. I miss a link to the interview of Canadian OSCE monitor Michael Bociurkiw (http://www.discussionist.com/101439512) and to the statements of the investigative journalist Robert Parry (http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/08/kiev-source-ukraine-accidentally-shot-down-mh17-during-exercises-3004872.html).91.52.47.216 (talk) 19:21, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

  • Somebody slipped in a link against the Dutch Safety board to a BBC article (currently) headlined: Ukraine crisis: Rebel adviser 'admits executions'. Easy mistake to make, I suppose. . . . Montenegroman (talk) 20:17, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

"The cause is under official investigation, being carried out by the Dutch Safety Board.", 2nd para of the lead

The investigation is led by the Dutch Safety Board. There are other parties to it. 62.228.126.211 (talk) 23:29, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

 Done Thank you for the observation. I've changed it to read as 'being led' (correct current tense is either 'led' or 'are leading'). --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:10, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Reminder to new contributors about policy and guidelines

Note that this applies equally to not-so-new contributors.

I haven't checked in on this article for a few days and have found speculative WP:OR 'discussions' regarding what is relevant, which WP:RS are to be 'trusted', as well as a mass of WP:CRYSTALBALL speculation.

I would ask that new contributors familiarise themselves thoroughly with these policies, as well as WP:RECENTISM, WP:NOT#JOURNALISM, and providing policy and guideline based WP:ES (edit summaries). Additionally, making assumptions (known as WP:POV) as to which sources are reliable sources qualifies as WP:CHERRYPICKING. Please make a concerted effort to work within the scope of Wikipedia's WP:RULES. This article is WP:NOTNEWS, and the use of primary sources must be proscribed (i.e., primary sources without substantial secondary source context = original research).

If you are in a position where you are uncertain of whether your additions or removals of information are warranted, use this talk page, following correct protocols. Do not use it as a WP:FORUM. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:54, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

The reminder from this not-so-new contributor is 1) new contributors are welcome and 2) this most important asset you can bring is an open, inquisitive mind.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:35, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Of course new contributors are welcome! Ultimately, as a high traffic, high interest article, new users should also take care not to go WP:OFFTOPIC and should be assisted by not-so-new contributors in understanding Wikipedia's rules in order that they can learn how to contribute effectively. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Investigators finallly reach crash site

Investigators finallly reach the crash site, if only temporarily: [1], [2]. And a claim that there are still 80 bodies at the crash site: [3]] Martinevans123 (talk) 22:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

That's impossible. 274 bodies were already repatriated. There might be 20 max, but not 80! Spaceinvadersaresmokinggrass (talk) 05:20, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
The statement referred to "remains of up to 80 people". It is likely that these include further limbs and parts of bodies previously recovered. Bodies don't fall neatly intact from the sky in such incidents. WWGB (talk) 05:55, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
A bit odd that the headline is "Up to 80 bodies still at MH17 crash site, says Australian minister." And that the reporter opens with "The bodies of 80 victims may still be at the crash site.. " Martinevans123 (talk) 07:25, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Politicians have been known to speak before knowing all the facts. HiLo48 (talk) 07:40, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Quite so. But it's a bit fuzzy. Who knows how many "body parts" there might be. What counts as "a part"? or as "a fragment"? Impossible to say, I would have thought. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:14, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Maybe better to wait till we can say something like "Investigators reached the crash site on . . . where they discovered/recovered etc?" It's not like were competing with CBS and need to get something out regardless. Montenegroman (talk) 12:57, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
The separatists claimed to have recovered something like 275 bodies, the Dutch claim it was something like 200, that's in the article. It's not surprising at all that there are still 80 or so still unaccounted for, because the original number has already been disupted. I wouldn't mind if all references to the current number missing/accounted for were removed until better supported facts are available. Geogene (talk) 18:06, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
[4]: ".. the final shipment of 38 coffins for Amsterdam would bring the total to 227 coffins ... there are a lot of coffins with one body in one coffin, but there are others with only human remains... Some of the coffins held several body bags containing body parts." Martinevans123 (talk) 18:14, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
On Friday 1 August Tony Abbott announced that Dutch and Australian police "had recovered some more remains" at the crash site. The claim has also been reiterated, in the Australian press, that there are "as many as 80 bodies still at the site": [5] Drones and sniffer dogs have been used in the search: [6] Martinevans123 (talk) 21:15, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
I think it would be wiser to source that information to the Dutch and/or Australian police, rather than a politician. Politicians, of all colours, find it very difficult to remain objective in situations like this. HiLo48 (talk) 07:46, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Cause

It currently reads "On 21 July, the Russian Defence Ministry held a press conference and said that just before the crash, a Ukrainian Su-25 ground-attack aircraft approached to within 3 to 5 kilometres (1.9 to 3.1 mi) of the Malaysian airliner. The Ministry also stated that satellite photographs showed that the Ukrainian army moved a Buk SAM battery to the area close to the territory controlled by the rebels on the morning of 17 July, hours before the crash. They said the installation was then moved away again by 18 July.". I think this is somewhat imprecise and partly misses the point. It should read: "On 21 July, the Russian Defence Ministry held a press conference and showed radar images that showed that just before the crash, a Ukrainian Su-25 ground-attack aircraft approached to within 3 to 5 kilometres (1.9 to 3.1 mi) of the Malaysian airliner. The Ministry also released satellite photographs that showed that the Ukrainian army moved a Buk SAM battery to the area close to the territory controlled by the rebels on the morning of 17 July, hours before the crash. They said the installation was then moved away again by 18 July.". For me, the main point in the press conference was that Russian statements were backed up with some evidence. We should be cautious to derive causation from the correlation presented, but we should not neglect the fact that evidence was actually published. --85.176.254.153 (talk) 10:09, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

This is the actual status of evidence shown:
-Russia has shown radar images of a jetfighter approaching the airliner - the translation only says "presumably" a Su-25, so the Su-27 is not ruled out either.
-Russia has said it has no satellite images of a Buk being launched.
-Kerry has said the US has such images, but for some reason, they don't show them. Altho they are showing images allegedly of Russia firing artillery, they can't show the photo of the Buk.
So what do we have? A radar image of a jet fighter. That's it.
General agreement that the plane was damaged by shrapnel. That could be either an air to air missile or a SAM. In fact, it could even be cannon fire from the jet fighter. Even ground based anti aircraft or flak guns can reach 10000m. That could also be a possibility except that the holes in the fuselage appear to be on the sides, not the bottom.
Against the argument that it was a massive missile is the Russian data that the airplane lost airspeed and changed course before it disappeared from the radar.
Thus it could have been hit twice, the first time maybe not a direct hit, maybe a hit by an AA missile or cannon fire. Second time the coup de grace. JPLeonard (talk) 03:13, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
The Guardian reports that 82% of Russians think Ukraine shot down MH17. "46% said they believed a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile was responsible, and 36% said a Ukrainian warplane had shot it down. Only 3% believe the rebels in eastern Ukraine were responsible." http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/mh17-vast-majority-russians-believe-ukraine-downed-plane-poll JPLeonard (talk) 03:56, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
'there is actually no evidence.' - ? - don't forget the day of the shooting down a buk was seen in Donetsk in the morning (paris match) then as it went east it was observed (torez the guardian report - and then later in lugansk, minus missile - headed for Russia - (in the town the Russians and RT their propaganda outlet tried to make out was a different town, and were caught lying - that Russians overwhelmingly believe Russia is in no way to blame is not exactly surprising - how long did it take for Katyn massacre to be acknowledged (oh, 50 years , I just looked at the wp article ) Sayerslle (talk) 12:04, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
JPLeonard: "- Russia has said it has no satellite images of a Buk being launched." Really? How would one go about proving such a claim? Is there any one at all who is suggesting it was shot twice, apart from your good self? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Sayerslle, these video clips purporting to show this or that can't really be considered reliable evidence. The one showing a rocket missing was debunked by the Russ Def Min spox - it was shot in a town controlled by Ukraine, but presented as a different town held by the rebels. There is so much video fakery in the info-war, plus, if the shootdown was a false flag -- rather than a mistake by Ukraine, as some US and Russian sources are proposing - then part of the operation was this charade of Ukraine moving a Buk system into the rebel held zone on July 17 (the convoy would be flying local/resistance colors for obvious reasons) and which Kartopolov asked about.
In Torez, the Buk unit commander stops and comes up to the AP reporters and asks in a stage Russian accent if they have taken photos! Just to make sure the impression has been made, like a cartoon villain. Such "evidence" can be fabricated, disseminated and eagerly consumed. This is part of psychological warfare. But Ukraine has about 27 Buk installations. Buks have been seen here and seen there, but where was the Buk fired from? None of the inspectors can find any trace of it being fired near the crash site.
This was the criticism by the russians that the US is showing only evidence from social media -- clips which wouldn't hold up in a court of law without a chain of custody etc. There was the clip of a Buk being fired on a sunny day, when it was cloudy that day. And so on. As for possible statements by resistance figures that they thought they had shot down a plane, they may have jumped to conclusions or fallen into a trap, somewhat understandably, since they have indeed been shooting down warplanes. Then there is the audio recording released by Ukraine intelligence, allegedly of a rebel and a russian discussing the shootdown, but it had a creation date time stamp from July 16, so it backfired on them and has been cited as evidence of a false flag. So the audio visual social media stuff adds up more to fog of war than clear evidence.
Martinevans, the way to disprove negative evidence is with positive evidence, and this is exactly what Kartopolov asked the US to do, to show their imagery of the Buk launch. Kerry described the US satellite photos in glowing terms to Fox News, and it is a serious matter, to accuse others of mass murder, while withholding the evidence. Few would take such an accusation on faith seriously from, say, Iran, but the US has a very heavy influence on the global media. Even though we know they lied about non-existent WMD in Iraq, they even faked evidence, they lied to the UN, to the US Congress, to the world media. So we should ask them to show their evidence.
In fact, if it were not for Russia Today, I don't think the Kartopolov press conference would have reached the world at all. It got much more attention in the English and Spanish media, where RT has outlets, but zero mention in the French and German newspapers.
As for the idea of two shots, you are right that this is not my original idea. There have been reports that some witnesses heard two shots. Also, by the way, there are reports by eyewitnesses who say they saw the Ukraine fighter shoot down the airliner. One such interview was even on the BBC, but only their Russian language service.
Two commentators - Aleksandr Zhilin, a Russian journalist and Peter Haisenko, a retired Lufthansa pilot - have said the plane was attacked first by the Ukrainian jet fighter, which set the right engine on fire, but the airliner was not destroyed outright. It turned around and lost speed and altitude - following data from the July 21 Russ Def Min press conf. Zhilin thinks it was hit first by an air-air R-60 missile, but Haisenko says the shrapnel damage photos look more like 30 mm cannon. In fact, one OSCE observer told the Wall Street Journal (published July 24) that the damage looked "almost like machine gun fire."
Zhilin's theory is that the plane was supposed to fall in an area where it could help the Ukrainians rescue a beleaguered wing of their army, but it went off course, and if it had survived an emergency landing, then the false flag would have been undeniable, so they shot it down with the Buk. Sorry for such a long answer with which you may find little to agree, but you asked. However, I read that there are precedents for large aircraft sustaining such damage, because they are much larger than jet fighters, whose cannon and missiles are relatively light and intended for combat with other fighters. Who knows, really. Could be interesting to be a fly on the wall where they're going over the black boxes.
The reason I mentioned the poll of 82% of Russians blaming Ukraine, of course, is that this POV is being treated here as fringe, if not beyond -- but it isn't fringe in Russia. And that's 100 million people holding this POV. So by the definition of an encyclopedia, which is to be inclusive, I really think the Russian POV needs to be included. If it's going to be excluded, then could that be an issue of Neutral POV for the article?

Thank you. JPLeonard (talk) 08:05, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

JP: could you point me towards a link/ref for the but it had a creation date time stamp from July 16 comment? Thanks, Montenegroman (talk) 09:33, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
That depends on what do you call a ref - a lot of Russian TV channels (Russia TV, 1 TV) are openly claiming it a fake and only a few shady english sites telling the same story (exactly duplicated spectrum parts, messed timestamps and other signs of forgery). There is also rebels (Bezler) confirming authenticity of the intercepted call, but saying that it took place a day before. But I don't think there is any "reliable" source that may tell that it is or it's not a forgery (because it was obviously edited from different parts). So it's not verified to be fake or real. To make such a verification you need raw unedited intercepted calls with full context - from the beginning to the end. As there is no such raw calls in the public - there is no public confirmation of any theory and probably will never be. Night Nord (talk) 13:38, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Mere numbers make a theory not less fringe. There are literally millions of people believing that diseases like HIV/AIDS are divine punishment - still a fringe theory. Arnoutf (talk) 09:48, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
"Some people heard two shots"? Hmmm, well, it is a war-zone? Or are witnesses claiming they actually heard the missile (canon?) being fired by the Ukainian jet (at 15,000ft, or whatever)?? I'd be very interested to see exactly what Zhilin and Haisenko have based that theory on. And yes the US media does have a very heavy impact, doesn't it - CBS News scoops about "unreleased FDR data" for instance? Martinevans123 (talk) 10:22, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
probably just based on wild speculation after seeing some BBC footage with eyewitnesses saying stuff like: And there was another aircraft, a military one, beside it. Everybody saw it. Yes, yes. It was flying under it, because it could be seen. It was proceeding underneath, below the civilian one. There were sounds of an explosion. But they were in the sky. They came from the sky. Then this plane made a sharp turn-around like this. It changed its trajectory and headed in that direction [indicating the direction with her hands]. The YouTube video has been deleted now (explanation here http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/blogs/2014/07/140724_blog_editors_bbc_story_rework.shtml ) though someone might have saved a copy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ8sjMWhl-4 - maybe someone even did a translation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUvK5m2vxro&feature=youtu.be Not that YouTube is a reliable source of course. Montenegroman (talk) 11:16, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
This is a bit rude, but I think it's fair here. Will people just shut the heck up about videos time stamped on 16th July? It's been discussed and debunked so many times, and in many different places both here on wikipedia and elsewhere. The time stamp is coming from Google (it's basically impossible for an ordinary user to retrieve the original video from Youtube, you can only get Google's reencodes). Due to misconfigured servers, Google used to? time stamps the videos wrongly when encoding. You can or could easily prove this yourself by making your own video and uploading it to Youtube and checking out the time stamp. Or just check the video of the millions of other videos uploaded to Youtube, including ones that you are sure were not created earlier (e.g. those showing a timely event). Frankly this is the most basic check which anyone making the claim in a reliable source should have done. And note that this also means that any source which claims the time stamp shows it was created the day before should basically be considered a clearly unreliable source due to their extremely poor level of fact checking. (I suspect there are idiots who uploaded a video to Youtube saying the video is fake or whatever, even tho they just need to check their own video to realise the have no evidence.) Of course, since so many people have discussed it, and even Google have themselves [7] (suggests they're planning to fix it for new videos) there's even less excuse if any reliable source is still making the claim. Nil Einne (talk) 18:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi everybody, thanks for the great feedback.

To Montenegroman, the link I have for the creation timestamp on that audio or video is www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-17/ukraine-releases-youtube-clip-proving-rebels-shot-down-malaysian-flight-mh-17 . FWIW.
About eyewitnesses hearing two explosions that could be from the BBC Russian Service video. Here is a link with a full transcript in English. http://www.globalresearch.ca/deleted-bbc-report-ukrainian-fighter-jet-shot-down-mhi7-donetsk-eyewitnesses/5393631
Thanks Night Nord for supplying that information.
What Zhilin and Haisenko base their theories on: I think the major impulse comes from the Russian Defense Ministry statement. It's hard to find a link that gives all the points the spokesman Kartopolov made (there is a video of his presentation, with him pausing for the interpreter present to give her English translation, which has also been criticized as of poor quality, by vineyardsaker, a Russian blogger living in the US). Last I looked I couldn't find a transcript of that, and I never found the time to listen to the whole thing.
The best summary I found of his remarks is here http://rt.com/news/174496-malaysia-crash-russia-questions/ . An earlier report is here http://rt.com/news/174412-malaysia-plane-russia-ukraine/
Reviewing those RT sources now I don't find an explicit statement that Russian satellites did not detect a Buk launch. I thought there was one, and relied on it to some extent in favoring the air-to-air missile theory. But Kartopolov only seems to imply as much by showing images of Ukrainian Buk systems, and challenging the US to show the launch photo evidence that they've claimed to have.
I'm not advocating we put details about the social media "evidence" in the article. The point I was trying to make was that there is a general impression that we have a lot of evidence implicating the rebels, but in fact the Russian critique is justified in saying the US position so far as we can see is based only on social media.
No question though that social media and psychological warfare are a significant aspect of this, and if there is any article out there that even-handedly recounts what social media evidence has been presented, or even opposing articles with lists for each side, those could be useful references.
At the moment the article almost exclusively presents a view blaming the resistance, which is mainstream in the west, but adhered to by only 3% of the Russian public polled.
This brings us to Arnoutf's point about "30 million Frenchmen can't be wrong." It's good to be reminded the "fringe concept" implicitly assumes that the majority is right, even when it is not. In social sciences the truth can be hard to assess with certainty.
Arnoutf's example is interesting. As regards the science aspect, the entire edifice of preventive medicine is built on the idea that we share some responsibility for our health. The other aspect there is religious belief.
The commonplace example regarding fringe science is that round-earthers were once on the fringe, now flat-earthers are.
Regarding religion, for example, Hinduism is a fringe belief in the United States, but a majority belief in India.
In the MH17 case, in the US it's a fringe belief that Ukraine shot it down, in Russia it's just the reverse.
An encyclopedia which strives for a neutral POV would not expunge an article on Hinduism because it's fringe in the USA, nor delete the Russian POV on MH17 for the same reason.
Accordingly I'd like to ask if there is a consensus that the article should
- continue to include the main evidence posed by the Russian Defense Ministry,
- add the fact that they have asked the US to show its satellite evidence of a Buk launch in a rebel-held area
- add the status of public opinion in Russia on MH17, as was reported in the Guardian
Thanks to all.JPLeonard (talk) 03:34, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Is it just me that finds it slightly bizarre the the Cause section is bigger than the Investigation (into the cause) section at this point in time? How did that happen? Montenegroman (talk) 10:40, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

JPLeonard thank you for making the point so clear. At a global scale, it's a fringe belief Ukrainian military shot down the plane. I could not agree more; there seems to be no dispute at global level. The beliefs of individual countries are not a reflection of global beliefs and should therefore indeed be treated as fringe - as on Wikipedia we aim to give a global point of view, rather than a regional version. Arnoutf (talk) 10:58, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
And to come back to social sciences and truth. Yes this is the case, but no social science can provide the cause for explosive decompression/disintegration of a plane. That was the cause of the crash, and there can only be one true cause. The speculation - which is politically influenced may fall under multiple points of view of truth, but speculation is not the cause. For now I set the speculations apart from the non-disputed facts by adding a subheader in the causes section. Arnoutf (talk) 08:12, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
That's a very good edit. Thank you Arnoutf. HiLo48 (talk) 08:15, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Seconded Montenegroman (talk) 09:35, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Attribution for separatist territory launch

This is a continuation of Talk:Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17/Archive_9#WP:FRINGE. If anyone object to my re-titling and restarting this discussion, please restore the original thread and paste my comments to the bottom.

I earlier complained that the claim in the lead that the missile was believed to have been fired from the territory controlled by pro-Russia separatists was unattributed. Note, I had no complaint about the claim a Buk missile was used - I believed this is uncontested and therefore uncontroversial. My complaint is that the Russian Defense Ministry has rejected evidence that the missile was fired from separatist-controlled territory, and that therefore *this* part is controversial and should therefore be attributed. Another editor later added the 'whom' tag to this statement. Sayerslle suggested the following wording, which I have no objection to: 'The aircraft was likely downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile. The Ukraine government believes the missile was fired from territory controlled by pro-Russia separatists - The rebel leadership in Donetsk has denied any responsibility for the downing of Flight 17 and maintained that no rebel units had weapons capable of shooting that high. Moscow has denied any involvement. Accounts of residents, the observations of journalists - have challenged these denials.' I don't know if Sayerslle still approves of his own suggested wording. I believe that as the shoot-down happened over Ukraine, it is natural to focus specifically on the reaction of the Ukraine government alone and that therefore this wording avoids excessive focus on political division.

9kat removed the 'whom' tag, adding the wording "Ukraine and its allies, including the US, believe that the aircraft was downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile fired from territory controlled by pro-Russia separatists." As 9kat says, this is slightly problematic in that it unnecessarily attributes the use of a Buk to Ukraine and its allies, where the use of a Buk is uncontroversial. Ex nihil then reverted this with the comment "To talk about 'Ukraine and it's allies' is a highly political and enormously contention issue many times worse than having the by whom tag." Ex nihil - would you be happy with Sayerslle's proposed wording which attributes the separatist territory claim specifically to the Ukraine government only? If not, can you propose alternative wording which attributes the belief that the missile was fired from separatist-controlled territory to *somebody*? Or do you hold that the belief that the missile was fired from separatist-controlled territory must *not* be attributed in the lead to anyone at all? Thank-you - Crosbie 14:00, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

There is no hurry, we are not a news service, we are an encyclopaedia. The world out there will determine where the missile came from, then we quote it, it's not our job to do the research. If we cannot find a source, then leave the 'by whom' tag on or delete the statement. Actually, it is rather hard to find a source, or rather, there are hundreds of vague or polemical ones. Maybe there is a good source right now, otherwise, there will be soon. If we have something like "Ukraine and its allies, including the US...." that in itself needs sources, including that we are all allies with Ukraine. Right now we can find quotes from Russian sources to say Ukraine shot it down, from Ukrainian sources saying it was shot down from Russian territory and others indicating it was shot down from pro-Russia separatists from Ukrainian soil. All three probably need to be quoted. Personally, I believe the latter, but nobody can say, expect the guys who fired it, and they are not talking. Ex nihil (talk) 15:16, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
I'd go one further and say delete the entire second paragraph. It's just speculation as to the cause - derived mostly from the cause section which is mostly speculation from people who are neither authorised or qualified to carry out an aircraft crash investigation. Montenegroman (talk) 15:33, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
'User:My very best wishes' has gone ahead and removed the 'believed', making the claim the missile was launched from separatist controlled territory a straightforward statement of fact. User:My very best wishes - are you prepared to accept *any* attribution for this claim in the lead? - Crosbie 15:59, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
I add that 'User:My very best wishes' removed the word 'believed' with the comment "indeed, misleading wording; this is simply something claimed by nearly all WP:RS right now, excluding fringe/conspiracy theories". I provide the following description of the views Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov from RIA Novosti: "The United States has not yet provided any documented evidence to prove that the rocket that brought down the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was launched from militia-controlled territory, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Thursday.". US Claims of Flight MH17 Downing by Militia Remain Unfounded – Russia’s Defense Ministry. The Russian government does not accept as fact that the missile from launched from separatist controlled territory. RIA Novosti is a reliable source for the views of the Russian government. The views of the Russian government are not a WP:FRINGE source, because the views of the Russian government are prominent with regards to the destruction on MH17. - Crosbie 16:11, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
I reverted this before reading the talk page, but agree; stating that as fact is incorrect until there are results from an investigation or whatever. RSes simply report that it was shot down, and that it was probably a Buk missile fired by rebels. I restored the version with "by whom", which I think is fine until we figure out better wording. How about we drop the first sentence, and change the second to read:
Just how wide is the widely in widely held explanation in reference to the launched from territory controlled by pro-Russia separatists bit? Montenegroman (talk) 16:54, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I propose this version instead, replacing the first two sentences of the paragraph entirely:
Is this neutral enough towards the Russians? (The proposed version starting with "The aircraft was likely downed" has the same problem as right now.) That explanation is more widely held than the others, so listing it first attributed to Ukraine seems fair to me. Are you suggesting the Russians need to be given more weight earlier in the paragraph, if it's to remain? (Edit further: Maybe condense/drop the witnesses/journalists bit.) 9kat (talk) 17:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
9kat - your proposed wording fully addresses the concern I raised about lack of attribution for the separatist-territory launch. Other editors have raised objections about attributing the Buk claim in the lead on the basis this is uncontroversial. Perhaps your proposed wording is sufficiently lacking in political implication such that this will no longer be a problem. Otherwise, we could split the claim, and attribute only the separatist launch part to the Ukrainian officials, if that seemed appropriate to you. I myself object to neither. - Crosbie 17:44, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
If it's considered necessary say what the Ukrainians said and what the Russians said then I can can see that where you've got to on this seems reasonable. To me, what it boils down to is this: The Ukrainians claim the rebels did it and the Russians claim the Ukrainians did it. The rebels don't appear to have a Press Officer so I'm not sure exactly where they stand on this but they probably agree with the Russian view. Both sides are making these statements for political purposes and one is either mistaken or lying. Neither sources are qualified or authorised to evaluate the cause of an aircraft crash. So are either of their claims of any importance anyway? Would it not be better to explain the process of how the actual cause of an air crash is determined legally and technically? It certainly isn't done by evaluating media sources or political statements. UPDATE: Just noticed that Ex Nihil had addressed this. Montenegroman (talk) 17:59, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
It became even worse. Now there are "Outside of Russia" has a citation towards "most of Russians believe Ukraine is to blame" article, while there still no evidence that majority of people "outside of Russia" believe otherwise (it might be so naturally, but still no citation). Plus, if you do mention view outside of Russia you need to point out Russian view at the same level too. And the rest of the paragraph sounds like "Everyone believes that it was rebels to blame. Ukraine said so, US said so, witnesses said so and Russians just dismissed that without any counter-argument" which is, obliviously, a dangerously wrong image of what's really happening in that blame game. My opinion - there could be no right wording to justify presenting one opinion in the header over another. Any attempt to do so will result in a whole "Cause" section being moved and somehow packed into the intro section, making it even less understandable. The paragraph should state that the official UN approved and ICAO-baked investigation is still in progress and that both sides of the conflict put blame on each other. And both sides are "rebels" and "Ukrainians". Neither US or Russian officials have made a direct accusation - only hints and assumptions explicitly stated as such. Night Nord (talk) 21:36, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Although I agree in principle it's probably more accurate to say something more like: the official investigation, in accordance with EASA/IACO guidelines, ... If the UN have any input I'd be surprised and strictly speaking it's EASA that set the guidelines in this part of the world and authorise who is qualified to carry them out. Having said that, EASA do so iaw ICAO guidelines. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:295:0035:0050:EN:PDF Not just a good idea - it's the law Montenegroman (talk) 08:57, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Night Nord, this seems to be quite a direct accusation by US Sec of State John Kerry: "We know to a certainty that the separatists have gained proficiency in using sophisticated surface-to-air missiles and that they have shot down some 12 aircraft in the last months, including two transport planes. We know to a certainty that we saw the launch from this area of what we deem to be an SA-11 because of the altitude – 33,000 feet – and because of the trajectory. We have the trajectory recorded. We know that it occurred at the very moment that this aircraft disappeared from the radar screen. We know that very shortly thereafter, separatists were bragging in the social media about having shot down a transport plane." (Kerry has not supplied evidence to support his claims.)
Crosbie, I wouldn't agree that it's "uncontested" that the airliner was shot down by a Buk. The Guardian poll showed 36% of the Russian public believe it was a Ukrainian jet fighter. It's curious that the shrapnel damage is concentrated at the cockpit, suggesting cannon fire aimed at killing the pilots, rather than a fragmentation warhead. The airliner is 242 ft or 74 meters long and the shrapnel or cannon fire damage seen is concentrated in this one patch by the nose only about 4 feet wide. Frag weapons are supposed to explode before they hit the target and spray shrapnel over a wide area. Plus, the only images that have been shown so far are the radar images of the jet fighter by Russia. No Buk launch image by either US or Russia - why ? Plus, eyewitnesses say they saw the jet fighter shoot it down. JPLeonard (talk) 04:01, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
WP:OR, WP:FRINGE, etc. We don't have time for this inanity. Russian propaganda is not welcome on Wikipedia. -Kudzu1 (talk) 04:29, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
I agree. Someone unilaterally changed into to something like this: "The US and Ukraine say...". This is terrible. Countries does say anything (and there are plenty of opinions within these countries). One should refer to sources, not countries, excluding fringe views. And international newspapers (for example) are not "US" or "Ukraine". My very best wishes (talk) 13:59, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
'User:My very best wishes' - Officials *do* make claims, and governments *do* make claims. Would you accept any of the attributions proposed in this thread, such as 'Ukrainian officials'? Can you propose an alternative attribution? Do you object to *any* attribution in the lead for the claim that the missile was launched from separatist controlled territory? - Crosbie 14:49, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
I said that countries do not make claims. As about this particular claim (plane has been shot down by Buk), it should not be attributed to to claims by governments, by to claims in publications, including opinions by experts. There was a lot of direct evidence, such as hits by shrapnel on all photos of plain remains - as described in independent publications, rather than in claims by officials. My very best wishes (talk) 15:07, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
I am *not* talking about the claim that the aircraft was shot down by a Buk. I am talking about the claim that the Buk was launched from separatist controlled territory. Would you accept any of the attributions proposed in this thread for the claim that the Buk was launched from separatist controlled territory? Will you accept attribution in the lead for the claim that the Buk was launched from separatist controlled territory to 'Ukrainian officials'? Can you propose an alternative attribution for the claim that the Buk was launched from separatist controlled territory? Do you object to *any* attribution in the lead for the claim that the Buk was launched from separatist controlled territory? - Crosbie 15:15, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Further up this thread, 9kat proposed the following wording: "Ukrainian officials said the aircraft was hit by a Buk surface-to-air missile, launched from territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists, at an altitude of 33,000 ft (10,000 m)." As I noted above, as well as attributing the separatist territory claim to Ukrainian officials, it also attributes the Buk claim to them. The need for this is a separate discussion - personally, I see no need to attribute the Buk claim. Therefore, in the interests of dealing with one thing at a time, I propose the following wording " The plane is believed to have been downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile at an altitude of 33,000 ft (10,000 m). Ukrainian officials said the missile was launched from territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists." - Crosbie 15:37, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
'User talk:My very best wishes' - are you proposing that we attribute the claim in the lead that the missile was launched from separatist controlled territory to the New York Times? Do you believe we should attribute the claim in the lead that the missile was launched from separatist controlled territory to someone else? Do you object to *any* attribution in the lead for the claim that the Buk was launched from separatist controlled territory? - Crosbie 16:16, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Since the NYT is presumptively a RS, inserting attribution would merely reflect an editor's doubts as opposed to the doubts in RS unless there is some reason to believe that the NYT story is questionable, such as doubts about the NYT statement in another RS.--Brian Dell (talk) 18:39, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
There is no need to attribute this claim to NYT because this is something described in a lot of other publications. In responss to this comment, no this is not view by NYT, as would be, for example, an editorial. This is simply a map with the point of launch provided by NYT (and by many other RS). My very best wishes (talk) 23:16, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
'User talk:My very best wishes' - Do you object to *any* attribution in the lead for the claim that the Buk was launched from separatist controlled territory? - Crosbie 10:01, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I cannot believe this. Why all the fuss, when the wording was very neutral in tone and wording? I had already modified the wording DAYS AGO to make it more NPOV. Prior it was stated in the aritcle "shot down by pro-Russia separatists". I didn't like it, as it was too for-sure, and reflected a POV attitude, in wording. So I, myself, edited the sentence to "it is believed to be..." etc. Why is even THAT a problem? Gabby Merger (talk) 23:22, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Because "believed to be" is weasel wording that actually says nothing. We might as well actually say nothing where there is actually no certainty. We CAN wait for an official report. See Wikipedia:There is no deadline. HiLo48 (talk) 07:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Who is claiming that there is any certainty? What you really mean here is that there isn't any probability either, right? What makes you think we're going to get "certainty" later? If by "official report" you mean the Dutch with the black box, their main finding (brought down by shrapnel) has already been leaked to CBS News. What other breakthrough findings do you expect them to report?--Brian Dell (talk) 16:44, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

One possible catch with attributing the separatist territory launch claim to Ukraine is that I cannot immediately find a statement anywhere attributing that claim to the Ukrainian government. I can find the US claim, "We assess that Flight MH17 was likely downed by a SA-11 surface-to-air missile from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine. " [9]. I can also find the British claim 'Britain accused Russia on Saturday of making false claims about the Malaysian airliner that crashed in eastern Ukraine and said it was "highly likely" it was brought down by a Russian-supplied missile fired from a Russian-backed separatist area.' [10]. I think we can infer that the Ukrainian government believes the missile was launched from separatist-controlled territory, but the article requires a referenced attribution for this belief. If no source for the Ukrainian government's views can be found, this belief should be attributed to a source for which references exists, for example the US government, or US and British governments. - Crosbie 11:19, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me, but maybe should be UK rather than British? Montenegroman (talk) 11:55, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Then again, the article says Britain accused.. so maybe we have to go with that even though Britain hasn't existed for many years. Montenegroman (talk) 12:05, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Here's another US statement, from deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, Ben Rhodes,: "Again, what we assessed and what we have seen in our intelligence is there was an SA-11 system that was the likely missile that brought down the plane, and that the geographic space from where that missile was shot is controlled by the Russian-backed separatists." [11]. If we were to attribute the claim based on this statement, I suggest "The plane is believed to have been downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile. According to United States officials, the missile which brought down the plane was likely fired from territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists" - Crosbie 12:08, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

According to US sources

Problem is, it's not just "US sources", but much of the Western media who think the rebels fired that missile. Spaceinvadersaresmokinggrass (talk) 01:51, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The attribution should be dropped in favour of just "likely shot down by a Buk surface-to-air missile fired from rebel territory". Unfortunately, however, there is probably more than one editor who believes that stating the cause of the crash as unknown would be more neutral and accurate. In my view, stating the cause as unknown would in fact be neither neutral (since in a mutual finger-pointing scenario, it biases the article in favour of the party who has weaker evidence supporting its finger-pointing) nor accurate (since the totality of reliable sources support a "likely" conclusion here, it is a false binary for WIkipedia to have to choose between "unknown" and some definitive explanation that isn't hedged with "likely"). Having "according to US sources..." as the infobox "cause" is a fudge whereby one side is given exclusivity to air its view. Probably better than "unknown" but a compromise that's hard to defend.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:01, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Dellboy, welcome back, I've missed you so much! I agree with you that unknown isn't so good. It kind of implies that after all investigative channels have been exhausted the answer is we just don't know. Perhaps better something like that the cause of the crash is not yet known? Montenegroman (talk) 09:47, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you should say 'unknown'. Say nothing. That is neutral. By the way the sources used are rather out of date, the day after the incident,and you could say that anyone pronouncing on causes at such an early stage may not be completely reliable. The body of the article is the place to expound on theories. The current version is better than previous because it makes bias plain. Sceptic1954 (talk) 07:48, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Korean Air Lines Flight 007 and Korean Air Lines Flight 902 just say Summary: Airliner shootdown in the infobox. That is accurate and undisputed also for MH17. CorrectKissinTime (talk) 10:57, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

That may be a good solution at the moment, especially since official investigation results aren't out yet. Even though I suspect that Buk was involved, we can simply put "shootdown" in the infobox. Brandmeistertalk 11:03, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Per WP rules what matters is not official investigation, but what majority of WP:RS tell.My very best wishes (talk) 14:18, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Please provide links to the WP rules you are referring to. CorrectKissinTime (talk) 14:28, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
By what feat of twisted logic, using any rules - even dealt out at random - did you reach the conclusion that what matters is not official investigation? Are they not the absolute most reliable source of any? Montenegroman (talk) 14:36, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
WP:NPOV and WP:RS. This is reference work. What matters is information provided by sources. And no, official investigations can be fabricated per sources. For example, that one. My very best wishes (talk) 14:57, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them. and Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts. in WP:NPOV are exactly the opposite of your hilarious claim Per WP rules what matters is what majority of WP:RS tell. CorrectKissinTime (talk) 15:16, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
And what the majority of RS repeats can also be completely fabricated. Everyone still remembers the blatant lies of the US government regarding Iraq and weapons of mass destruction that were repeated in virtually all Western media. CorrectKissinTime (talk) 15:22, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

"what matters is what majority of WP:RS" indicate is not "hilarious", it's the ground rule. I don't see in either WP:NPOV and WP:RS any reference to "official investigations". What I do see in WP:NPOV is "Neutrality requires that each article... fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint..." WP:NPOV also links to False balance, an article which starts off with "False balance... is a real or perceived media bias, where journalists present an issue as being more balanced between opposing viewpoints than the evidence actually supports."--Brian Dell (talk) 15:46, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

The sources used are simply conveying what various people claim or believe. If we want to give the claims and beliefs of editors we can. Obama or Putin are in themselves neither RS or otherwise, Media am report them reliably or otherwise. Surely we are here to report the different claims and beliefs giving prominence to those which are more widespread. Seeing that according to the BBC source the US government are not 100% categorical about the cause of the destruction we shouldn't be worried about trying to decide what happened but simply reporting claims and beliefs.16
38, 2 August 2014 (UTC)apologies for un intended boldSceptic1954 (talk) 16:51, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
It's bolded because there is a semicolon mixed in with the colons used to tab. At issue here is not what's "100% categorical". At issue here is what is "likely". By the way, @Montenegroman, the edit summary that accompanies your reversion seems to suggest an unfamiliarity with Wikipedia:Don't revert due solely to "no consensus". I'll ask @CorrectKissinTime to take a look at that as well.--Brian Dell (talk) 17:20, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out - suppose I should have edited it out instead? Montenegroman (talk) 17:26, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
As it suggests there, you're supposed to "explain why you personally disagree with the edit".--Brian Dell (talk) 17:42, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
It's taking a lot on ourselves to judge what is 'likely' or not, and is an open invitation to project our biases into the article. BLPs are written conservatively, why not this article too? If readers wish to form opinions on what is likely or otherwise they are free to do so from the material we present.Sceptic1954 (talk) 17:36, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Then present the material instead of calling for its removal. It's already "conservative" to say "likely" instead of "almost certainly". If you were to water it down further to suggest entirely inconclusive, that wouldn't be being conservative, that'd be radical: taking the sources and diluting them because in your out-of-consensus opinion (what's in-consensus is what's in WP:RS) you don't think they are reliable.--Brian Dell (talk) 18:04, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
I was not asking My very best wishes to first get consensus, I was asking My very best wishes to discuss first if (s)he disagrees with the consensus that was just reached here. CorrectKissinTime (talk) 17:46, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
(S)he had already contributed to this thread (and related ones), so it's not true that there was not an interest in any discussion. Ensuring that the article is not "more balanced between opposing viewpoints than the evidence actually supports" is not "an open invitation to project our biases", as Sceptic1954 (mis-)characterizes it. It's the opposite, an invitation, or more correctly a policy-based call, to REMOVE our biases by ensuring that the article indicates what is "likely" when the sources indicate that instead of misrepresenting the sources as being more inconclusive than they are. That's there's enormous uncertainty here is a Kremlin contention: "their aim is not to persuade but to cast enough doubt to make the truth a matter of opinion. In a world of liars, might not the West be lying, too?"--Brian Dell (talk) 17:56, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Please stop telling something that is contradicted by the facts. (S)he had not at all contributed to this thread before her/his edit which was not in line with the previous consensus here and at the same time replacing this consensus in the article with his/her preferred version. CorrectKissinTime (talk) 18:08, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
I suggest you recheck your "facts". Your edit summary "please discuss that first" was timestamped 08:22. (S)he contributed to this thread at 08:18. The "Attribution_for_separatist_territory_launch" thread is also closely related.--Brian Dell (talk) 18:17, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Indeed: "Attribution_for_separatist_territory_launch" thread is also closely related. Would it not be better to resolve that issue before incorporating it into the infobox? Montenegroman (talk) 18:32, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
You are omitting the only relevant fact: And (s)he did all that after my edit at 08:17. CorrectKissinTime (talk) 21:54, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
I know this is going full circle, but I actually didn't mind the first version that started According to US sources - it saved me having to read to the end of the sentence Montenegroman (talk) 18:12, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
We anyway have a full paragraph describing the incident in more detail in the introduction section that is directly besides the infobox. And even more detailed information in the article below. We haven't copied that part of the introduction section of the article in the infobox of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 and Korean Air Lines Flight 902, and I do not see why that would make sense here. CorrectKissinTime (talk) 18:19, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Tell that to the people who claim international RS like RT would be Russian sources - a network that broadcasts in 4 different languages contents created by people like Larry King is clearly more international than a monolingual newspaper. CorrectKissinTime (talk) 15:33, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
RT is international in its reach but quite thoroughly "Russian" in terms of how reliable it is and reliability is what's of interest to us. "Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of the channel who prefers it to be called simply RT, makes it clear that her journalists promote the Russian view." For an example of the B.S. RT will put out, see this RT clip about Bezler. Maybe RT can explain how this "imposter" managed to reappear and take charge (again?) to the point that he was in a position to threaten to execute a Guardian journo.--Brian Dell (talk) 16:05, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
You are doing WP:OR. Same as My very best wishes claiming the monolingual NYT was not a US source. CorrectKissinTime (talk) 17:32, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
"You are doing WP:OR" is what typically gets trotted out when someone's sources are exposed on a Talk page for the unreliable sources that they are. Allow me ask that you read what you just linked to there, particularly the line "This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages."--Brian Dell (talk) 18:53, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Media Section

What happened to the media section? I can appreciate the inclusion of a section for Russian media coverage, but not at the expense of what was a well sourced section on Western media coverage. Perhaps both could be included as subsections of one section? CSJJ104 (talk) 23:09, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

"...RT initially said that the plane was shot down by Ukraine in a failed attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin..." — link leads to a Polish website (not RT), which is not granted any proof/reference to this statement. Is this correct source? --217.66.152.65 (talk) 21:32, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Irrelevant Buk reference

The lead currently state, "The plane is believed to have been downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile fired from the territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists.". I am involved in a NPOV dispute about this statement above. However, the statement is factually accurate. Gabby Merger re-added the following reference for this statement, Pro-Russian Separatists Shoot Down Two Fighter Jets, Says Ukraine, with the comment "restored ref...". The claim does not necessarily require referencing, since it is in the lead, and as I say, the claim is factually accurate. The problem is, this reference does not support the claim. The article is about the shoot-down of two fighter jets, not MH17. If Gabby Merger can specify a passage from the article which supports the claim, he or she should do so. Otherwise, this reference should be removed. - Crosbie 12:21, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Agree the claim is factually correct. Agree a better ref needs to be used (or also that no ref is needed). How about this article from The Guardian, which says "The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 is believed to have been shot down on July 17 by a surface-to-air missile fired by pro-Russian separatists...". There'd be more articles out there that say something similar too. Stickee (talk) 12:38, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm sure this is already referenced in the main article (though I confess I haven't meticulously checked). So if we agree that it's not actually needed and it doesn't even refer to the claim/statement, shouldn't we just delete it? (just the reference not the claim). Montenegroman (talk) 13:16, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Okay, I've gone and deleted the ref for that sentence. Stickee (talk) 13:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Thank-you Stickee. By the way, when I say that the claim is factually accurate, I mean it is trivially factually accurate. Any claim 'that is believed' its trivially accurate as long as *someone* believes it. The claim still requires attribution. I note this in response to your edit comment, "Discussion in "Irrelevant Buk reference" concludes statement is correct ". [12]. - Crosbie 14:30, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

correct, I thought that the other statement was in the ref also. It wasn't. And therefore should have been removed. My mistake. Though I do believe that A ref still should be at the end of that sentence, in that second paragraph, to bolster it up. This article (sorry to say) needs all the references and support that it can get. It's controversial and problematic. So at least some good ref for the end of that statement, IMO, is arguably warranted or at least advisable. Regards. Gabby Merger (talk) 20:40, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Crosbiesmith, "believed" needs to be attributed whether to Ukraine, USA, UK or defense experts... Otherwise it sounds like it is universally believed by all countries when that's not the case. starship.paint ~ regal 00:11, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
What about The Guardian, or The Washington Post, who both themselves report that "it is believed" to have been shot down from separatist territory? The RS's are reporting that it is believed in general, so the article should too. Stickee (talk) 00:18, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
As Stickee said.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Furthermore, the MOS says you don't require attribution in the lead "where the article body ... supplies attribution", which it certainly does. Most sources saying X means we can say "it is believed X". Stickee (talk) 00:40, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Reading the cause section, I see only attribution in the text to 1. US and Ukrainian officials and 2. Defense analyst + Ballistic expert. How does that equate to "in general"? starship.paint ~ regal 02:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
I've now added 4 more sources of claims to the article: the British Foreign Office, WaPost, Guardian and SMH. Also, the article already had something from The Telegraph. Stickee (talk) 04:08, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Number of Children will probably get reduced at some point

I was going to tack this to end of discussion paragraph, but it was archived before I got to post.

Checking listed ages of passengers in articles or using other sources like pictures or memorial notices, the best number of children I can work out that was on the plane is 61 or 62.

This number is for persons under 18 and include the 3 originally unlisted infants

As for persons aged 18 or 19 there was additional 9 passengers. I guess in time there will be an official notification of passenger ages StuB63 (talk) 03:29, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately that sounds a little bit like you're using primary sources for the 61 figure. If some secondary sources (eg newspapers) say 61 we could possibly use that. The current ref for the 80 figure is from news.com.au quoting an Australian official. Stickee (talk) 04:15, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't expect the article to change on number of children until there is a secondary source, but I was just posting a realistic expected final number. What can confuse the number of children listed is that there was adult age children travelling with their parents. Even if the age of the person was listed, I tried to verify by a 2nd source even if it was only a picture. Or if no age given look for facts that could determine if adult or younger. I have noticed a few articles are now reporting 85 children, so suspect news agencies have no official numbers. The initial listing of 80 children was made by Jeffrey D. Feltman on the 18th when he was briefing the UN council. StuB63 (talk) 05:46, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

@StuB63: Without reliable sources, your figures are WP:OR and WP:CRYSTALBALL. Please bear in mind that WP:CALC is used for entirely different purposes. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:32, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
@StuB63: When you say "include the 3 originally unlisted infants" - where were they "unlisted"? Are they now inluded in the total of passengers? Did they have their own passports or were they travelling on a parent's passport? Is there any legal requirement for airlines to know the ages of all theit passengers? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:15, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

@Martinevans123: the original passenger manifest supplied by Malaysia Airlines did not include the 3 infants as it was the seat allocation log. It is unknown if the infants were travelling on their mother's passport or had their own, but when the revised passenger manifest was released it included the names of the 3 infants so Malaysian Airlines must of had some documentation for them. StuB63 (talk) 09:29, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. So they are included in the total of 298, even if we do not know their nationality. I guess the question about legal requirements is a more general one that may be only marginally relevant here. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:35, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

@Martinevans123: it appears that infants require their own passport and cannot travel on their mother's passport anymore. On information collected by the airline, flights leaving the EU are required to collect the following information

Passengers' gender
Passport details - nationality, number, and date of expiry
Date and place of birth
Redress number, (if previously given to the passenger by the US authorities).
All available payment/billing information.

StuB63 (talk) 11:17, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks for that info, StuB63 . What does "redress number" mean? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:11, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
See [13] Nil Einne (talk) 12:20, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Nil Einne. Why would that apply to a Malaysian Airlines flight leaving Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:28, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
No idea. It may be the OP is mistaken. For example [14] mentions the redress number and country of residence is only required if travelling to the US. This says something similar [15]. Nil Einne (talk) 13:14, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Ok. Well, thanks for the background. I can't see the article changing any because of this detail. But at least we know that the airline should have known the exact age of all passengers when it took off. Supposedly, then, it should still have these details. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:44, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Chinese name of pilot Eugene Choo Jin Leong (in case his name is ever mentioned in the article)

The Pan Am Flight 103 article mentions the names of the flight crew. If it is ever the case that the MH17 article mentions its flight crew, please note the Chinese name of the Malaysian Chinese first officer:

The Mandarin pinyin should be included with the name in Chinese characters. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:18, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

As English wikipedia we would have no need to show names in other languages for people that are not the article subject. MilborneOne (talk) 13:21, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
That is not true. Editors involved with China/Chinese related articles and people know that it's impossible to find information on people in Chinese if you don't know how to write their name in their native language. Academic papers on China and several mainstream English papers such as the Taipei Times frequently include Chinese spellings of people names and other names (to tell the readers how the names are written in Chinese). Therefore those spellings/names must be included, even if they aren't the main subject. Even in cases where the main subject isn't China/the Chinese world the Chinese characters are still included: In the case of the Boston bombings I got the Chinese name of the Chinese victim included in that one. The same goes for Japanese and many other languages. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:24, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
I would have to disagree this is English-language wikipedia not a finding aid and use of native languages adds no value to the English Reader. If the subject is notable and has its own article then native language is fine in the introduction and infobox, but filling up the body of the article with unredable text in my opinion adds nothing. MilborneOne (talk) 13:30, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
The English reader who is interested in knowing more about the Malaysian Chinese community's coverage of MH17 and/or of the copilot (Malaysia has various Chinese newspapers as the Chinese community is influential there: the Chinese Wikipedia may be viewed in Malaysia/Singapore mode for this reason) would find the Chinese name of the copilot useful. Without the name, somebody will not know how the name is written in Chinese. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:41, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
By that logic, every Ukrainian or Russian person named in the article should also be written in Cyrillic script because someone might want to look it up in a different language. WWGB (talk) 14:17, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
No, not really. Reverse-transliterating Ukrainian and Russian is fairly simple; for Chinese, it's often impossible. 62.228.126.211 (talk) 14:45, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
That's not the logic, WWGB. Unless the person with a Chinese name is famous enough that the reader knows from other sources how the English name is rendered in Chinese, Chinese names given in English cannot be translated back to Chinese because information was lost in rendering in English. There's ambiguity. You don't have enough information unless the Chinese characters are also given, and so it is that English newspapers of Asian origin (which understand the problem) typically give the English name of a Chinese person followed with his or her name in Chinese characters in brackets. Read an English newspaper from Russia and you don't see names also given in Cyrillic because it's not the same problem. If someone's last name is "Dai" it could be "戴" or it could be "代“. If it's in the prose of the article it is an added service to also give the name in Chinese characters since it's only going to be two or three Chinese characters anyway. It's not a matter of providing an information service to someone who is limited in English, it's a matter of providing a service to someone who is fully fluent in English, even native tongue English like myself, but who would like to be able to identify who is being referred to in all source contexts.--Brian Dell (talk) 15:15, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
We are not an asian newspaper or as you said an "added service" and providing reverse translation service is not a role for an English encyclopedic, if the subject is notable with a linked article then information can be found in the related article. As I have already said filling the body of the article with random unreadable characters does not provide any help to the reader in English. MilborneOne (talk) 16:25, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Milborne, we are a worldwide publication which means we incorporate the practices of international English-language publications. If the Taipei Times and the various academic publications on China believe it is important to show Chinese names, then Wikipedia must accept the importance and include them. The China-related editors understand why it's a bad thing to withhold Chinese names from people interested in China and the Chinese world. Also, they are not "unreadable" characters. People recognize shapes and start to see patterns. Anybody can punch them int a dictionary like http://mdbg.net and get the Mandarin and Cantonese tones. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:40, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
We will have to agree to disagree my view remains is it is visual clutter that is not wanted or understand or seen as important by most English readers of this encyclopedia. If they are that worried about chinese characters then they can read the appropriate language wikipedia. So I will just leave my objection to the use in this article on record and leave it at that, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 16:54, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

This is interesting... I found a later article from Sina and it uses a different set of characters for Eugene Choo's Chinese first name:

"顿涅茨克战火未停 MH17遇难者家属受阻 " (Archive). Sina. July 22, 2014.
  • 朱仁良: Zhū Rénliáng
As a Malaysian Chinese he should have a definitive Chinese name, and if so it should be established. I wonder if Malaysian Chinese sources will clarify the matter. The article is dated several days after the first. I wonder if this is a correction? This discussion is important also because if the Chinese Wikipedia wants to use content about Eugene Choo it will have to use the correct Chinese name for him.
WhisperToMe (talk) 14:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I tried Google searching "朱仁隆 Eugene Choo Jin Leong" and "朱仁良 Eugene Choo Jin Leong" - it seems like more Chinese sources use "朱仁隆" but I'll look around and see... WhisperToMe (talk) 14:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
This Malaysian paper uses 朱仁隆 [16] but never 朱仁良. This one used 朱仁良 once [17] but 朱仁隆 lots of times [18]. Besides that one result, I only find one more instance of 朱仁良 on a Malaysian site [19]. Frankly I trust Malaysian papers slightly more than other random Chinese ones so I would disregard 朱仁良 unless there's some good evidence (like one of the sources saying it came from an interview). They're more likely to have been in a position to ask someone and may also have a bit more experience guessing what his name may be.
While it's correct that he would almost have an official name in Chinese, actual appearance of that name is limited. It doesn't generally appear in the birth certificate, MyKad or passport. (Actually I'm pretty sure it can't appear in the passport or MyKad. I suspect it can't even be stored in the chip of the MyKad.) The name is asked for during birth registration and possibly during the initial MyKad application so it is stored somewhere in official records (confirmed by [20]), but it's not something that you generally come across. There's a good chance his employers (i.e. Malaysian Airlines) never asked for it either. In fact, since he had an English given name, there's a good chance he rarely used his Chinese given name among friends. So probably asking his family would have been the best bet for any media wanting to get it right, but they may not have necessarily wanted to talk to the media.
Nil Einne (talk) 13:06, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for the detailed explanation! Based on your analysis I think it will be best to use 朱仁隆 if Eugene Choo is to be mentioned in the article. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:17, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Criminal Investigation

DigitalRevolution raised a good point in a previous section: And keep in mind that if they do issue a report blaming it on missile strike, the investigation would be turned over to the local (Ukrainian) police, which is the usual course of action when foul play is suspect. Now although I'm not trying to prejudge the results of the cause enquiry, I would have thought there would be a statement by now from someone in the Ukrainian legal system (Police/Prosecutors maybe?). Even if it was onlty to the effect that no crime has been reported yet so we can't comment or we are still collecting evidence. Montenegroman (talk) 12:08, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

@Montenegroman: Please read WP:OR and WP:NOT#JOURNALISM. Articles are not developed according to WP:POV conjecture such as "I would have thought there would be a statement by now from someone in the Ukrainian legal system (Police/Prosecutors maybe?)." Please restrict your discussion to WP:NPOV based on WP:RS, not your own speculation. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:28, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
OK, fair points. Not a real clever post. In my defence, I was not trying to get anything into the article along the lines of No news yet on any criminal investigation. I'll also hold my hands up and admit that it was a bit of a fishing trip. I was kind of hoping that someone would come back with Oh yes there is, see .......... That didn't happen so, yes, dumb post it was. Anyway, where I was heading with this was: if this becomes something under criminal investigation (especially with reporting restrictions) how does that effect the way the article is written? I certainly don't want to be party to handing a get-out-of jail-free card to whoever did this (however minor my role might be). I know that is is a what-if question but I'd like to know beforehand. After all, it's highly likely there will be criminal investigation at some point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Montenegroman (talk • contribs)
Have you Googled "MH17 + crime scene" lately? Plenty of WP:RS already decided I think? But surely an international crime and so would be dealt with by International Court of Justice? Martinevans123 (talk) 10:06, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll give it a try. http://www.don.gp.gov.ua/ua/index.html was where my enquiries led as they appear to enforce the law there. But I agree that it's unlikely to be under their remit for long Montenegroman (talk) 10:19, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Although I see that Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 was dealt with by Italy's "top criminal court". And that after Iran Air Flight 655 the United States "did not admit legal liability". Martinevans123 (talk) 10:23, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Googling "MH17 + crime scene" works better. With >100k results (just under News) I haven't had time to go through them all yet, but the UN appears to be on the case: The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, meanwhile, said at a news conference in Geneva that the shooting down of MH-17 and the deaths of all 298 people on board were being investigated for possible war-crime charges. from http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80926610/ Montenegroman (talk) 13:41, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I think it might be fair to add that with that ref in support. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:44, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
THE HAGUE: Ukraine and 11 countries that lost citizens in downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 agreed Monday to set up a joint team of prosecutors to examine possible criminal charges, a statement said. This will add to several other probes under way to determine what caused the crash, who is liable, and to identify the victims' remains. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-07-28/news/52139264_1_mh17-victims-malaysia-airlines-crash-ukraine Montenegroman (talk) 13:54, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
If anyone believes this is worth putting in the article then please feel free to do so. It looks to me like it might need new (sub)section and I'd probably make a mess of it. My experience of page-layout comes from QuarkExpress and this Wikipedia markup is way too weird for me to grasp. Old dog, new tricks. Though I'd be happy to act as a kind of unpaid-intern on this. Montenegroman (talk) 15:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
How very obliging of you. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:43, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
There's not much that can be said at this point asides from the fact that a criminal investigation may be launched depending on evidence from the accident investigation. To quote the Dutch Safety board press release:
If the investigation shows evidence of any criminal or terrorist activities, the information will subsequently be submitted to the relevant authorities in accordance with applicable regulations. The Dutch Safety Board's investigation will focus on ascertaining facts, rather than apportioning blame.
and as mentioned above you could also mention the joint international criminal probe being set up. We can't really speculate further on a criminal investigation until one proceeds forward. --DigitalRevolution (talk) 18:07, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Live cargo

Why is this unmentionable in the article? two dogs and around fifty birds were in the cargo, pics of the birds have appeared on TV as well, I had added this in with cargo manifest which is now offline, and it was called useless, how many other crashes were carrying animals onboard? I only know of TWA 800 which had a consignment of pet turtles, I think this info needs to be included somewhere. inspector (talk) 23:01, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Please explain the relevance to this article per WP:NOTEVERYTHING. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:14, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
The media has made a point of mentioning it. I know MH released the cargo manifest. Maybe a media source will state why MH did this, and the info about the live pets can be included in the details about that the manifest contained. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
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