Talk:Persecution of Uyghurs in China/Archive 4

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I suggest adding a new section, as people start to question the truthfulness of the "Uyghur genocide"

There are now more and more voices suggesting that the "Uyghurs genocide" was nothing but the US government's fake propaganda strategy during Trump's term, mainly advocated by Pompeo. For example, this Youtuber (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oKvulTU8oU) had visited Xinjiang in 2020 and debunked many rumors, and another (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i915eArrego) had explained many suspicious points of the US's Uyghurs genocide claim in details. There are also thousands of videos on Youtube or TikTok showing the normal modern daily life of Uyghurs in Xinjiang that is totally different from what the western media portraited. Not to mention the China government and media have already given tons of evidence that disproved many of the Uyghurs genocide rumors.

I suggest maybe we can add a section about all this. Even if some people will never believe in these explanations/debunking, it is still part of the story and should be mentioned to give everyone a complete picture. WakemanCK (talk) 09:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

YouTube and TikTok videos are not reliable sources. The sources we've identified overwhelmingly conclude that the genocide is real. — Czello 10:14, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Please do not forget to keep WP:WEIGHT in mind when mentioning such viewpoints. Some guy on YouTube is NOT a reliable source. If you have reliable sources to back up your claims, please provide examples of those instead. TucanHolmes (talk) 17:16, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

If there are any reliable sources doing it (there are) then there's no reason they shouldn't be included.PailSimon (talk) 12:17, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

If you have reliable news or other sources providing coverage that there is no current genocide occurring, please provide them. Mikehawk10 (talk) 21:38, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Most countries (as the article itself details) reject the idea of genocide.PailSimon (talk) 22:57, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

It's a genocide, for the longest time the Armenian Genocide was regarded as false, we therefore state so. Countries press agencies are not reliable source, independent non-profits and NGO's are. I really don't understand your denialism. Des Vallee (talk) 23:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I haven't denied anything for a start. Anyway many NGOs haven't called it genocide like Amnesty International. PailSimon (talk) 07:54, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

The first movements to recognise the Armenian Genocide as a genocide came up about 20 years after it happened, and after extensive independent investigations. That speaks to the amount needed to apply this label. Reading through articles, any sort of conclusive evidence regarding Uyghurs speaks to what in Germany would be called Zwangsassimilierung. I.e. the erasure of a cultrue without the extermination of people. Genocide, at least in German, refers to the physical mass-murder of an ethnic or similar group. I would presume a similar distinction to exist in English given that for example Maria Theresia is not being accused of a genocide -- neither in German nor in English -- for trying to erase Romani culture by forcefully "re-educating" people in a quite similar fashion that this article describes the Chinese government's policies in regards to Uyghurs. I do think the article should stay up to document human rights abuses, though that should -- as is normal on Wikipedia -- include context about the accusations, the accusers, and relevant questions regarding the validity (such as Zenz calling his own estimate "speculative", a statement which is not found anywhere on this page), as well as not applying labels that have not found anything close to majority recognition within scholarly debate. See my comment below for a more detailed description of what I think the primary issues with the current state of the article are. Sarrotrkux (talk) 18:02, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Nowadays, it is hard to define "reliable sources". You think mainstream media and "independent non-profits NGO" are reliable sources? Look at those reports about Syria a few years ago, all came from the same source White Helmet, which was later found to be an unreliable source. You think western government are reliable sources? Do you still remember 2003 Iraq's weapons of mass destruction? On the other hand, why do you think Youtubers cannot be reliable sources? They show you real-life local videos that mainstream media do NOT have. Besides factual things, their opinions are also real opinions. You can state clearly that these are opinions from Youtubers. Without these, currently this page is very biased and one-sided. WakemanCK (talk) 03:13, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Also, to those who think it is "overwhelmingly conclude that the genocide is real", sorry, it is NOT. Read this article, from The Economist (https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/01/22/what-is-genocide). "Some human-rights campaigners argue that calling the atrocities in Xinjiang “genocide” will stoke useful outrage and rally the world to oppose them. Others retort that making an accusation the dictionary makes clear is false undermines the credibility of the accuser". WakemanCK (talk) 03:28, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

The source you are citing only questions the accuracy of the label, and does not dispute the reality that atrocities are committed in the region.

It does not work like that: You're saying that " 'overwhelmingly [sources] conclude that the genocide is real', sorry, it is NOT. ", but then back up your claims with sources only questioning the word used to describe it. Just because the word might be a misfit doesn't mean the events don't happen. You're questioning the reality of the genocide, whereas the sources only question the label. TucanHolmes (talk) 11:46, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

This discussion is about the label genocide so your comment makes no sense.PailSimon (talk) 14:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

It clearly isn't just that. To cite some examples from the post that started it all: "[...] debunked many rumors [...]", "[...] showing the normal modern daily life of Uyghurs in Xinjiang that is totally different from what the western media portraited.", "[...] these explanations/debunking". Or take a look at the title: "people [who?] start to question the truthfulness of the 'Uyghur genocide'".

Doesn't sound like a discussion about labels to me. TucanHolmes (talk) 10:28, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Hey! If you're looking for guidance on how Wikipedia handles reliable sources, and for some general guidance, please check out WP:RS. It's a document that outlines Wikipedia's reliable source policy, and it's a big help for those that are interested in learning about how Wikipedians handle these sorts of things. Wikipedians happen to have discussed whether or not to consider YouTube as a primary source before. At the time, Wikipedians had achieved a consensus that YouTube is generally unreliable for factual reporting because most videos are anonymous, self-published, and unverifiable. For those reasons, we try not to use YouTube in articles except when linked to a verified account of news organization or other public, verifiable source. Mikehawk10 (talk) 04:48, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Ok, if Youtube is not acceptable, at least consider the article from the Economist I quoted above. As you can see, some people here do not even know that the use of the word "genocide" itself is already controversial. Not to mention there is evidence that the whole thing was a fake propaganda campaign to begin with. Though no western media would dare to comment more than what the Economist had already done, otherwise they will be condemned by the more naive general population as well. Hopefully, just like 2003 Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, years later after seeing millions of Uyghurs living happily in Xinjiang, people will realize they have been fooled by the biggest lie since 2003. WakemanCK (talk) 03:57, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

See my comment above. The Economist only questions the label 'genocide', but in now way questions the human rights violations. So no, there is no evidence that "the whole thing was a fake propaganda campaign [whatever that is supposed to mean] to begin with" (or if there is evidence for such an affair, you have so far failed to provide it). Your talk about the "more naïve general population" also skews a little bit too much towards the muddled waters of conspiracy ramblings for my tastes. TucanHolmes (talk) 09:29, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose The title of this thread demonstrates that this clearly is an attempt push a fringe POV.  // Timothy :: talk  09:43, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I am trying to point out how biased and one-sided this page is. I thought people here cherish neutral point of view.WakemanCK (talk) 04:03, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@WakemanCK: I recommend you read WP:FALSEBALANCE and WP:NOTNEUTRAL. "Neutrality" doesn't mean that all viewpoints are given equal weight, especially when the sources are all fairly conclusive in one direction. — Czello 23:06, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Per Exceptional claims require exceptional sources, we need expert sources. That means actual experts rather than governments, human rights groups or news reports for analysis. Some of these sources however be fine for facts, such as what happened or what was said. There is for example academic consensus that the Armenian genocide was a genocide and documentation of the Turkish government's refusal to acknowledge it. TFD (talk) 04:08, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Naturally, genocide denial is going to both occur and be espoused as an ideology by those responsible for said genocide. This whitewashing attempt reminds me of the time a friend sourced the claim that Trumpcare would significantly reduce medical costs in the US... to Trump making that claim. What beautiful, unimpeachable logic.
  I'm obviously well aware, of course, that the two examples are not even close to comparable in terms of scale, but for the sake of our sanity, I'd prefer not to dwell too much on actual genocide denial. M Imtiaz (talk · contribs) 23:00, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support (kind of): I don't think YouTube is a good source or that there needs to be a new section, but I would say that this article does not match journalist criteria, nevermind encyclopaedic ones, in how it presents sources. I have mainly read about this topic in German and French media, and when those accusations are voiced, it is most often presented in a way that gives information about a) what is accused (which this article does), b) who is the accuser (which this article often leaves out), and c) are there any questions regarding the validity of the accusations (which this articles does not do at all). So I was rather confused when I first saw this Wikipedia article, which makes the same claims that I have read in news articles, but mostly without any such accompanying context about the sources (the articles does b) sometimes, but c) never as far as I can see).

Take a look at the very first sentence of this article as an example: "Since 2014, the Chinese government under the Xi Jinping Administration has pursued a policy which has led to more than one million Muslims (the majority of them Uyghurs) being held in secretive detention camps without any legal process."

This claim about "one million" is accompanied by three sources. Source [2] is the Trump administration, which as basically everyone agreed above, is not a good source since it is a government statement without any accompanying evidence. If it is used as a source, it should be made clear in the article where the claim is coming from. Source [3] is Adrian Zenz. And source [4] appears to be Human Rights Watch, but it is actually just Human Rights Watch referencing Adrian Zenz.

Upon seeing that and having read a bit about Zenz in German media, I tried adding the information that Zenz himself has called his own research "speculative" in an interview with the German FAZ (translation by me): "Although he described his own estimate as 'speculative', the 'one million', a number with symbolic political power, was now out in the world."

The edit got immediately removed. Why is it not important context for a reader of Wikipedia to know that the person upon whom most of the estimates in this article rely on has called his own estimate "speculative"?

A similar lack of transparency exists with the article image for example. According to the image description, the image was taken from "the wechat MP platform account Xinjiang Juridical [sic] Administration", which published a series of images which the Judicial Administration says is a prison for drug rehabilitation. It was then uploaded by user C933103 under the title "Xinjiang Re-education Camp Lop County" (with no source) to Wikipedia and is now being used on the page Uyghur Genocide, implying the inmates in the image are Uyghurs. And did anyone along the way provide any source for changing what the image portrays? Nope. What the image shows was simply being slightly modified each time: It went from 1) being officially published as a prison for people involved in drug crimes, to 2) becoming a picture of "Xinjiang Re-education Camp Lop County" (with no source, unless drug rehabilitation programmes in prisons are generally labelled as such on Wikipedia, which I don't think they are), to 3) being used on this page, implying it is specifically used for Uyghurs. I tried to find any articles in German/French/English that would disprove the claims of the Judicial Administration regarding these images to no avail. Hence I can only presume that the person who uploaded the image and the person who put it in the article have taken some "editorial freedom" in the description/usage of the image.

To summarise: I do see where the complaints about this article are coming from, since it features editorial decisions that are in my opinion not just below the standards of encyclopediae but also most news outlets. Though should they be rectified, I see no reason why there would need to be a new section as of this point in time. I also don't agree to use YouTube videos or the likes as a source. Sarrotrkux (talk) 17:28, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the variety of sources in the lead, you raise a good point about how the article currently stands. That being said, doing a bit of searching in both Western (there are countless througout the article) and Arab (1, 2, 3, 4) english-language media both often refer to the United Nations as the source of the 1 million number. Spanish language media (1, 2, 3) also uses the 1 million number frequently, both in Latin American publications and publications based in Spain. In short, the one million number is well reported, and it is not sourced solely from Zenz; we should avoid making the assumption that Zenz and the United States are the only sources of the number. Additional sources (such as the ones I have included above) should be added to the opening paragraph along these lines, which I plan to do soon.

You make a good point with respect to the wechat link that you have described, though further investigation shows that multiple (activist and reliable media) sources state the image depicts political re-education camps (including Human Rights Watch, Radio Free Asia, and Al Jazeera) or use it to depict the camps (like this NBC affiliate). The image description itself should be edited to incorporate the RS, accordingly, but the image description as its stands appears to be true. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 20:05, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the level-headed discussion! Regarding your first point: Indeed, the number of one million is mentioned by multiple media outlets and is sometimes attributed to the UN. However, that is a bit of a distortion. In the FAZ interview I linked, it even mentions this fairly misleading practice (again translated by me): "[Zenz's "one million" number] put the topic on the front pages of the international media and was eventually taken up by the United Nations. Three months after Zenz's paper was published, the chair of the UN Committee against Racial Discrimination in Geneva announced that there were "believable reports" that one million Muslims were interned in Xinjiang. From then on it was said that "according to UN data" this was so. But the real source is Zenz."

If the UN itself or other credible bodies have conducted their own studies and they all came to the conclusion of >1 million so that there was a scientific consensus, I'd be happy to leave it as it is. It's just that as far as I have seen so far, when any international organisation or NGO that references the number of >1 million, it is either usually in reference to Zenz or referring to "reports" with no further explanation. And I think it would be fair that -- given that even Zenz himself has called the estimate "speculative" (since he's extrapolating based on very few interviews) -- this circumstance should be portrayed transparently.

Regarding the image: Yes, I have seen it be used on BBC this way too. But the image was published by an official Chinese WeChat channel and not the BBC, and it was published among other images of the facility, including this one, in which you can read on the jumpers of the prisoners something like "Compulsory detoxification [???]". I have not been learning Mandarin for long and I cannot recognise the last character, but the first part of it seems in line with what the claimed purpose is. Plus, China is indeed extremely harsh on drug abuse and does have prisons specifically for convicts involved in drug crimes. If those images are to be used in another way, in my opinion there needs to be some evidence that the facility is not used as a prison for drug criminals. The images were not taken by the BBC or any other news outlet, and there has not been any article with evidence or an argument of why it should not be such a prison. In light of this, I do find it rather questionable that Wikipedia editors would act as an arbiter for which description is correct in cases like these, since none of the articles even mention what the source of the image is, what its original description is, and why it should be wrong. Sarrotrkux (talk) 23:02, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Just to lay out my understanding of the reporting on that "one million" number, there was a 2018 UN report that stated that estimates of the Uyghurs in camps ranged between "tens of thousands" to "upwards of one million" Muslims, and I think the analysis that you've put above is fair regarding the 2018 statement. A Reuters news story from 2018 reflects exactly what you're saying, writing that the "[a] United Nations human rights panel said on Friday that it had received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uighurs in China are held in what resembles a 'massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.'"

It looks like the UN's position has evolved since then. There was another report, namely A/75/385 that was released later, in October of 2020. The language of the report indicates that has since firmed up on the number and states on page 6 that "China has sought to justify its coercive detention of over a million Muslim Uighurs, Kazakhs and other predominately Muslim ethnic minorities in state run 're-education' camps as part of 'de-extremism regulations.'" The language it uses in the sentence I've quoted is unequivocal about stating the number, which is notable. Other sentences in the same paragraph use "hedging" statements, like prefacing claims regarding forced labor and political indoctrination with "reportedly" and saying that "reports... assert" that forced sterilization has occurred. This provides for contrast, and this sort of word choice makes me think that Al Jazeera was reporting responsibly when it published in January 2021 that "[t]he United Nations says at least one million Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained in Xinjiang".

Regarding the image, Radio Free Asia seems to be doing a lot of the investigative reporting, which I think would bring up problems if it were the only source saying what it is saying. But, RFA is not the only source saying that this is an image of a "re-education" or "internment" camp, and I don't think that we should go with the official government Chinese WeChat channel over reliable, independent sources like Al-Jazeera.

There's also a bit of a mess with different reliable sources assigning the copyright of the image to different organizations (Radio France Internationale appears to claim that Reuters owns the copyright on the image, for example, but I don't see why Reuters would own the image any more than the Chinese government). The original source image seems to be correct in handling the copyright, but you do bring up some good points regarding how we should be cautious in handling these things.

I admittedly cannot read Chinese, so I can't speak to the meaning of the characters on the uniforms in the photo you've linked. But, it looks like generally reliable sources are supportive of the caption that is currently present. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:59, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment There are reliable news sources (that is, "reliable" by established Wikipedia standards) reporting that China officially denies that atrocities occurred. For example, this BBC News story (already cited on the page) includes a quote of the Chinese official line that the camps are "vocational education and training centres". China's official denial probably is notable enough to include somewhere, although not in too much detail unless its weight can also be established by reliable sources. A1415 (talk) 23:13, 3 February 2021 (UTC) (update: done by this editor)

I would suggest (oddly enough, since we're talking about a state here), that Mandy Rice-Davies partly applies. As you said, it shouldn't be too detailed. TucanHolmes (talk) 19:37, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Including random photos of a uyghur child and grandmother relating to Marriage incentives makes no sense

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

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Initial discussion

The placement of these images under the "Marriage incentives" subheading have nothing to do with marriage or wedding traditions. Is the child or grandmother getting married? If not these images don't belong here and should be removed. (Stop undoing removal)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Stonksboi (talk • contribs) 21:29, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I would agree.PailSimon (talk) 21:54, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Keep the pictures but move the pic of the kid down under "Children's names” or somewhere else. The use of that image long predates the existence of any of those sections by the way, see December 2019: [1]. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:02, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware the individuals in said pictures have no relevance to the subject of the article, they haven't been victimized or anything so their inclusion is strange.PailSimon (talk) 23:08, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Including pictures for background is a common practice, nothing strange about it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:35, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: What background information do these pictures provide exactly? PailSimon (talk) 08:51, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

No it's not, these images have nothing remotely to do with the article unless you're trying to say these are images of people who were genocided. PailSimon is correct, their inclusion is strange and doesn't make sense. These images are also from 2005, way before the so called "genocide" even started. Stonksboi (talk) 00:39, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Hey HorseEyeBack is Mikehawk10 your socketpuppet account? Stonksboi (talk) 00:49, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

They are not nor am I a sock. If we’re all sharing are you a sockpuppet or do you have any? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:35, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with HorseEyeBack: these images are good on the page just because they represent people from the oppressed ethnic group. My very best wishes (talk) 01:22, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree, too, and that's why I've reverted the edit removing them. Per MOS:PERTINENCE: "[images] are often an important illustrative aid to understanding. When possible, find better images and improve captions instead of simply removing poor or inappropriate ones, especially on pages with few visuals." TucanHolmes (talk) 10:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

What understanding is provided by the pictures in question?PailSimon (talk) 10:26, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Since the section talks about family policies, it is helpful to show images of people subjected to such policies. This article is about an ethnic group, so showing members of that ethnic groups help people visualise the topic (it helped me, for one). And that's what I'm saying: I agree with you that simply taking a random picture of a Uyghur woman/child is not very illustrative for the purposes of this section, but instead of just discarding those pictures, we should try to find better alternatives (more connected to the topic) to replace them. TucanHolmes (talk) 10:35, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I would agree better pictures should be provided but that does not justify their present inclusion. Either better pictures should be provided or there should be no pictures at all.PailSimon (talk) 12:31, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

That is not what MOS:PERTINENCE recommends. Keep them until we have better ones. TucanHolmes (talk) 13:07, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I am not sure how MOS:PERTINANCE recommends irrelevant images with no relevance to a topic.PailSimon (talk) 13:11, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

They are relevant to the subject, although arguably not precisely on the subject. Do we have better/more relevant images? If so, they can be used. If not, I do not see any problem with keeping what we have. My very best wishes (talk) 17:53, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

This is not in line with other Wikipedia pages. For example, if you go to a page about the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, do you see pictures of random Muslims? No. If you go to the page about Francoist concentration camps, do you see any pictures of ordinary Spaniards? No. If you go to the page about the Indian removal, do you see any pictures of random Native Americans? No. And the list goes on and on. Pages like these either feature actual victims (with the picture showing visual relevance to the topic at hand, not just random images) or specific persons significant to what the page is about. Wikipedia articles do not include pictures solely based on a shared ethnicity. In fact, pages about ethnicities in general typically do not feature lead pictures specifically to avoid what you are doing here, namely implying that "this is how ethnicity X looks like". There have been long discussions about this already, and the consensus is to not use individuals as a representation for an entire ethnicity. This is also not helped by the fact that the images chosen here -- a young girl and an old lady -- seem like an attempt to elicit an emotional response rather than contributing anything directly relevant to the article. Sarrotrkux (talk) 22:05, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, if the images "elicit an emotional response" on the subject of the page as you say (and I agree), then they arguably belong to the page. An idea that WP pages (or any other information) should not elicit an emotional response would be wrong. To the contrary, the pages should be interesting, informative and elicit an emotional response. My very best wishes (talk) 17:05, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

WP pages may elicit emotional responses, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopediae do not attempt to elicit emotions, that is not their goal. And since the consensus on Wikipedia is to not include images of individuals whose sole purpose is to imply "This is how ethnicity X looks like", random images of Uyghurs simply have no place here. You specifically said, I quote: "these images are good on the page just because they represent people from the oppressed ethnic group". Again, that goes against the consensus to not add images for the purpose of "this is how ethnicity X looks like". Ethnic groups exhibit a vast variety of physical features and there are no rules for determining whether a person is of a specific ethnic group by their looks, and as such images used for ethnic generalisations are inherently exclusive and unscientific. Sarrotrkux (talk) 19:24, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Given that this page is about a genocide I think its a long shot and more than a little bit disrespectful to say that those images specifically are whats going to elicit an emotional response from this page... Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:22, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

You can think whatever you will of it, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Unless you can prove that these images contribute anything to the article other than an attempt to generalise an ethnicity by its looks, the images have no place here. It's as simple as that. Sarrotrkux (talk) 19:24, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Again, I partially agree. But that's why we should be trying to find better alternatives instead of just discarding them. TucanHolmes (talk) 09:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

No, attempted ethnic generalisations by supposed physical traits are not tolerated on Wikipedia. Sarrotrkux (talk) 19:24, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

What? Nobody is doing that, it says Uyghur in the metadata of both images. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:55, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Again, images of random Uyghurs that serve no purpose other than implying that "this is how an Uyghur looks like" do not serve any informational purpose. This is why you do not see any images of completely random Italians on the page about Italians for example. MOS:PERTINENCE is about fostering a greater understanding of the topic at hand. How does knowing about the looks of a single Uyghur child or a single older Uyghur woman foster any understanding about a political policy? It doesn't. It doesn't even foster understanding of an ethnic group unless you believe in ethnic generalisations. Sarrotrkux (talk) 20:32, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

But if thats your argument then why not include the random picture of a man in traditional dress? Your argument is inherently about the fact that these are pictures of women, don’t now pretend that your argument is about the whole ethnic group. BTW this isn't a page about a political policy. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:39, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

My argument is about the whole ethnic group, don't pretend that you know me. I don't care if you would choose pictures of two men instead (although then I would at least be less suspicious that they were chosen to elicit an emotional response, which still wouldn't solve the issue of generalisation), I care about generalising an ethnic group based on two pictures. Go look at the consensus here for example. The consensus is that not even entire galleries of images should be used to "represent" an ethnic group. What makes you think two images should be? Sarrotrkux (talk) 23:11, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Keep for now per TucanHolmes and Horse Eye's Back. Mikehawk10 (talk) 17:59, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

There is no consensus here. 3 users are for removal, 2 are for keeping it. Sarrotrkux (talk) 19:29, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sarrotrkux: I don’t think that count is accurate. Per my comment above, I am in favor of keeping the images in place, at least for now. This, plus TucanHolmes and Horse Eye's Back makes three in favor of keeping it, at least until we can find better images. It also appears that My very best wishes is leaning towards keeping the images for now, if we cannot find better replacements.

I agree that there is currently no consensus, but it’s currently 4 in favor of keeping them in some way (unless we can find better images) and 3 in opposition. Mikehawk10 (talk) 19:41, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, I missed TucanHolmes in my count, but 3:3 is just as little of a consensus as 2:3 is. But the consensus on this topic in previous, larger discussions has as far as I can see been to not use images of individuals for ethnic generalisations. Sarrotrkux (talk) 20:19, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

I have filed a dispute resolution request as I believe ethnic generalisations are a serious issue that should not be left for such a limited amount of users to decide; especially since consensus on other pages about this topic seems to have already been reached (namely that images should not serve the purpose of generalisation), yet any edit to remove the images with that purpose seems to be going to be reverted by Horse Eye's Back. Sarrotrkux (talk) 20:19, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

What are you basing that on? I was not the user who reverted the images back onto the page. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:42, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Apologies, I misread revision 1003193934. Sarrotrkux (talk) 23:22, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

On a related note, the Uyghurs page has the photo of a Uyghur man that is included in this article (but doesn't appear to have been challenged) as well as the photo of the young Uyghur girl. The picture of the adult woman is also used on Hijab by country. I'm not exactly sure where the issue is with using these photos per se, especially given their use throughout Wikipedia for the apparent purpose of intentionally providing visual representations of people from the Uyghur ethnic group. Mikehawk10 (talk) 21:13, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

I consider the image of the man a generalisation too. My opinion on this discussion includes all images that are used as a meaningless generalisation. The article about Hijabs you linked is specifically about Muslim clothing, hence the image of Muslims wearing those clothes is appropriate in that article. Such relevance does not exist in this article here. For example, go to the page about Christians, and you will also not find such images, since it is not about specific Christian clothing and including pictures of random Christians would be a generalisation of "how Christians look like" as well. Sarrotrkux (talk) 23:22, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

All images that are meaningless are meaningless, tautologically. I think the central point of contention among editors is which images (if any) those images are. Many of us have taken the angle that they are pertinent to the topic of the article. Nazi crimes against the Polish nation has a photo of a bunch of Polish clergy in the section that is associated with crimes against the clergy (even though the image is not of crimes). Genocide of Yazidis by ISIL has images of school-age children in a section on sex slavery. The Holocaust page has a photo of random Hungarian Jews, the Rohingya genocide page has a photography collection of the Rohingya contained therein, and the War in Darfur page has images of assorted Darfur men and Janjaweed tribespeople. Each of the images serves a purpose, and it's to provide a visual aid to see the subject that the text is depicting. I believe that is what is going on here as well, and they should stay as they are pertinent towards that end. Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:34, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

These images do not belong, clearly, the individuals in the photographs have no idea their images would be used to portray a "genocide" when these were taken in 2005. Clearly they should be removed. lol Mikehawk10 you tried to ban me Stonksboi (talk) 08:43, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I don’t think the Hungarian Jews depicted on the page for The Holocaust anticipated that their figure would be used in a Wikipedia article on genocide either, but they are appropriate there. Same thing for the pictures on the War in Darfur page. I don’t believe the knowledge of the individual that they would later be used on a page describing genocide is relevant to established inclusion criteria. Mikehawk10 (talk) 14:30, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Keep Oranjelo100 (talk) 13:24, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

RfC on image inclusion

 Note: The above subsection contains discussion on the topic of this RfC. Please read the subsection before commenting below.

Question: Are each of the three contested images that are currently in the article (1, 2, 3) appropriate for inclusion therein?

• Option 1: The images are currently appropriate for inclusion in the article.
• Option 2: The images are not currently appropriate for inclusion in the article.

—Mikehawk10 (talk) 23:14, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Survey

Option 1. I believe that the images are pertinent to the topic of the article, and that they provide useful information to the reader by serving as a visual aid. Per my comments in the above subsection,

Nazi crimes against the Polish nation has a photo of a bunch of Polish clergy in the section that is associated with crimes against the clergy (even though the image is not of crimes). Genocide of Yazidis by ISIL has images of school-age children in a section on sex slavery. The Holocaust page has a photo of random Hungarian Jews, the Rohingya genocide page has a photography collection of the Rohingya contained therein, and the War in Darfur page has images of assorted Darfur men and Janjaweed tribespeople.

On each of the pages noted above, the images provide a visual aid, allowing the user to see the subject that the text is depicting. I believe that is what is going on here as well, and, if better images cannot be found, then the current ones should be kept pursuant to MOS:PERTINENCE, which makes note that editors should, "[w]hen possible, find better images and improve captions instead of simply removing poor or inappropriate ones, especially on pages with few visuals." —Mikehawk10 (talk) 23:14, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Just noting here, as I have below, that "a photo of random Hungarian Jews" is a pretty gross misrepresentation of the infobox image in our The Holocaust article. The Rohingya and Yazidi articles, similarly, do not contain any image use comparable to what we are discussing here. Either Mikehawk10 just assumed these articles provide a precedent for these images, without actually checking, or he checked, saw that these articles did not provide such a precedent, and decided to misrepresent the situation regardless. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:48, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@Mikehawk10: Would you mind explaining how you think this image is a photo of a bunch of Polish clergy in the section that is associated with crimes against the clergy (even though the image is not of crimes)? Or how you think it is appropriate to describe an image of "Hungarian Jews arriving at Auschwitz II in German-occupied Poland" as a photo of random Hungarian Jews [with no direct connection to the Holocaust]? Virtually everything in your above comment appears to be a misrepresentation of the contents of other articles, but per WP:AGF I can't assume this was deliberate misrepresentation until you either own up to it or actively deny it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:41, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The file of the old market appears to show a bunch of priests with their hands up in the old market, but it doesn't actually appear to show any sort of crime being committed. If you think it does, would you please elaborate on what crime is being committed? Additionally, I don't quite know where you're getting the second point from. This image, which is in the article, shows Hungarian Jews in 1944 in the city of Budapest, not Hungarian Jews arriving at Auschwitz II. Per WP:AGF, I will assume you didn't scroll down to the section that contains the image (and that you instead assumed I was talking about the photo in the opening section). I am, however, quite a bit disappointed in the sloppily constructed accusation here that I'd somehow categorize a photo of Hungarian Jews going to a Nazi death camp as an image of "random" people, especially after framing my comments as either peddling disinformation or being posted "without actually checking" the articles that I cited. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:48, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the description of the images refers to the people all with their hands raised as "hostages" and it says it was taken in September 1939 in Bydgoszcz (shortly after it was occupied by the Wehrmacht) -- are you disputing the image description? Anyway, I assumed you were talking about the lead image because it is the most prominent; I had noticed the image you are now referring to, but it, too, shows Jews apparently being marched somewhere, flanked by soldiers with guns. Our The Holocaust article does not include random photos of members of various European Jewish communities years or decades before the start of WWII, as your comparison implies. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:03, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Option 1. Visual information is very important for the readers to have a grasp of the characteristics of the actual peoples who are being persecuted. This is especially important given the heaviness of the topic and the susceptibility of it being "abstracted", "politicized", or "ideologized". Normchou ^💬 23:48, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1, with the caveat that there is always room for improvement. These are not the best imaginable images, but they are better than no images and I share the OP’s reading of MOS:PERTINENCE as it applies here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:54, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1, per my reasoning in the initial discussion. If there are better, more pertinent alternatives for the images in question, they should be replaced immediately. TucanHolmes (talk) 10:29, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Option 2: For me, adding images of random Uyghurs is akin to going to the page about Francoist concentration camps and adding images of random homosexuals "to show what they look like". In my opinion, it is simply inappropriate and does not contribute anything informative. My argument is mostly grounded in the consensus that was reached in the RfC about including galleries of people in pages about ethnicities or other large human populations, in which the consensus was not to do that. See here and MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES. In my view, if an entire gallery of images is not fit to appropriately represent an ethnic group, then three images aren't either. They serve a solely decorative purpose and are in my opinion highly problematic as they imply to readers that "this is how Uyghurs look like", which is an inherently exclusive and unscientific suggestion. Sarrotrkux (talk) 02:18, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• Keep only if context-specific (mostly option 2). Such images seem perfectly reasonable in the Background section (where currently one is), but their use in a "Marriage incentives" section seems questionable. These photos are of real people, possibly living, and are presented here as examples of marriage incentives despite there being apparently no connection. The comparative examples above are good examples. The Polish clergy picture is quite clearly relevant, they are hostages. The Yazidi image is in a treatment sub-section, and shows the receiving of aid. The Rohingya genocide images are direct depictions of a topic mentioned in the text. War in Darfur uses dated images within a Timeline. (I cannot figure out which image is being referred to in the Holocaust article.) None of these take photos of random living people and insert them somewhere that deals specifically with a sensitive topic. CMD (talk) 02:32, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
  • On the MOS argument, the reference to MOS:PERTINENCE misses "However, not every article needs images", and this is a case where WP:BLPIMAGE completely overrules MOS, as these images are arguably "used out of context to present a person in a false...light". CMD (talk) 11:44, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
• Keep for now - simply as best available images that are at least remotely relevant to the subject. Replace by better images as soon as they will be available. This is all work in progress. My very best wishes (talk) 05:15, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Mostly option 2, per User:Chipmunkdavis. Seems like a BLP violation, and in any case inappropriate, to use images of random living people and imply that they're victims of a genocide. The one in the background section is probably fine, and maybe one of the others could be moved to that section, but I don't think it's appropriate to use them in the "Marriage incentives" section. (The one of Mihrigul Tursun seems fine as currently used). —Granger (talk · contribs) 07:19, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1. If there is evidence from RSs, as there is, that an entire group is the subject of genocide, then it seems to me reasonable to include images of any members of that group. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:41, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Mostly option 2 for any such images outside of the Background section, per Mx. Granger and Chipmunkdavis. Having no images is better than having irrelevant images that do not reflect the contents of the article. NoNews! 11:53, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1. I just tried removing all the said images and previewed the article and I found that these images are indeed creating an impact on the perception of the issue being discussed in the article. In other words, the images serve as an aid in visualizing the actual situation there, how it impacts people of all ages (from children to elderly adults), and so forth. I feel including these images only adds to the credibility of the facts that this article presents. Rasnaboy (talk) 11:55, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• Option 2. China has a minimum age for marriage that's in the 20s and these mixed marriages are being presented as being promoted to make mixed babies, so not only are this old woman and girl most likely not in these marriages, they likely don't look like anyone in those marriages. The argument of "we need to see what the women in these marriages look like" is dead in the water. I would say given the sensitive nature of these marriages it's inappropriate to put random people's faces in there. A page on "Rape in Country X" would not include random portraits of identifiable women just because women are the more likely to be raped, that would be an atrocious abuse of people's privacy. Unknown Temptation (talk) 14:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Also, unless it's been changed in the meantime, that image of Polish clergy shows them gathered with their hands up, and the image data says they're hostages. The date is also within days of the Nazi inavsion. It's clearly related to Nazi crimes against Polish clergy and not a picture of what Polish priests look like. Unknown Temptation (talk) 14:42, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2. Here we make allegations that China is forcing minorities into marriage with ethnic Han Chinese (inserts random image of child and grandmother that have nothing to do with it). Yup, pretty absurd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stonksboi (talk • contribs) 15:15, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1.5: keep but move them around: I'm mostly convinced by Rasnaboy here. Trying to imagine the article without the images, it strikes me as much drier and frankly less informative. This convinces me that the images really do serve an actual purpose in the article. I would not be opposed to replacing them with different images if better images can be found, but the current images strike me as significantly better than no images.

However, I feel the image of the woman would probably be better under the "clothing" section, as she's wearing a headscarf which is one of the clothing items that the Chinese government discourages, and the image of the child would be better under the "children's names" section. Where they currently are, under "marriage incentives", I agree feels odd. As Unknown Temptation pointed out, neither of these people is directly affected by that particular aspect of the genocide, whereas the woman would be affected by the suppression of traditional clothing and the child would be affected by the policy on children's names. Loki (talk) 17:59, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Even though I am mostly for removal, I agree that the image of the woman could fit under the "clothing" section. Perhaps that is a compromise we could settle on. Though I find it difficult to put the image of the girl in the "names" section considering you cannot "see" a name, nor do we know the name of her. Especially since I consider images of children problematic unless specifically needed. Sarrotrkux (talk) 18:37, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• Option 2 Adding them may mislead the readers into thinking that they specifically are the victims of the government. Félix An (talk) 02:09, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 Inappropriate to use such images. There is also the issue of using more Western-looking people to represent Uyghurs - while there are a wide range of appearances of Uyghurs, blondes are uncommon. Hzh (talk) 20:13, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1 Oranjelo100 (talk) 13:27, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 due to precedent, as User:Mikehawk10 so aptly demonstrated above. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:14, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 I can't think of any other comparable article that does this, and the fact Genocide of Yazidis by ISIL and Rohingya genocide (which definitely do not do this) are disingenuously alluded to above by Mikehawk10 and Adoring nanny implies that a thorough search has been done by those in favour of option 1 and they have been unable to come up with any comparable example. (The comments referring to the Yazidi and Rohingya articles should, of course, also be weighed accordingly.) What's more, the use of random images of Uyghur people in this article reeks of the kind of ... well, "race-baiting" may be the wrong term, but ... that shows up in some Euro-American media discussing this issue -- I distinctly remember a certain Newstalk programme back in 2009 giving air time to someone saying they had been surprised by images of the Uyghur people back then and how they didn't "look Chinese", and while I am not sure what percentage of this article's expected readership are as ignorant as that Newstalk caller back in 2009, but I wouldn't be surprised if the figure was quite high. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:43, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2: The subjects of the images are not tied to the topic of the article by anything other than their ethnicity. The use of images of individual ethnic group members to represent the whole is directly against the consensus at MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES, while there is no other claimed relevance of the pictured individuals besides their ethnicity.
  The inclusion of the image picturing what appears to be a minor in the "Marriage incentives" subsection (image 3 in the RfC statement) is by far the most problematic of the three images. The article does not suggest that this particular young girl (or minors in general) are at all significant and relevant in the topic's context (MOS:PERTINENCE). — MarkH₂₁^talk 01:46, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1: This doesn't just impact the people who are destroyed - it impacts their families, friends, communities, for generations. Horse Eye's Back and TucanHolmes sum up my feelings: keep, but improve whenever possible. Normchou comment regarding not letting this issue be "abstracted", is on the mark and I think a serious problem on many articles.  // Timothy :: talk  02:29, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1, per Gog the Mild - Idealigic (talk) 15:49, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1, also per Gog the Mild — Czello 17:02, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2: Inappropriate use of living person's image. Not specifically tied to marriage. Appearance overrepresents and underrepresents certain Uyghur traits. Mayboleen (talk) 08:47, 7 March 2021 (UTC) — Mayboleen (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Option 2 - Challenging for me to understand how including images of random Uyghurs illustrates the topic of Uyghur genocide. NickCT (talk) 20:47, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2: Keep the image of the woman with hijab as it is related to the section on clothing, but remove the image of the child since a direct relation between the image and the text (of any section) is in my view missing. The other images included in the article already give a good and relevant representation of the content. Removing the image of the child does not degrade the quality of the article, if anything, it probably enhances the presence and relevance of the other images. — D'Lemelo (talk) 17:30, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Discussion for RfC

Comment and Question: I think that I am seeing an emerging consensus regarding the use of image of the woman in the hijab, namely that the article would be better than it is now if the image is moved from the marriage incentives section to the clothing section. Should I move the image into that section while the RfC continues, or should I wait until the RfC is closed? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 22:37, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

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

March 2021: Number of countries supporting China has not declined

The article misleading states that the number of countries supporting China on Xinjiang "declined".

It has not. 60 countries offered support for China's position at the UN Security Council on Friday [2]

Whilst CGTN cannot be cited as a "reliable source"- The lead part about the decline in countries supporting China is false, was speculative and is designed to push a narrative- --Sunderland Renaissance (talk) 12:14, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Reuters is also reporting this recent development.

The part about the decline in the lead section was accurate at the time of writing, though I am wondering if anybody can find a full list of countries or a fuller version of the statement from an RS. We have pretty good details in the lead regarding the changes over time between the previous two statements, and (depending on the full text of the statement) we might need to modify the lead to incorporate it. I is not 100% clear from the Reuters report that the joint statement is a statement of affirmative support for Chinese policies in the region or if it is a statement telling the US and UK to buzz off as it pertains to China's domestic policies, so we should be careful in how we frame it and should seek a more detailed report. Reuters seems to use a few see the direct quotes without providing a real framing to the statement itself, so it's hard to see if we are in danger of comparing apples to oranges here. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 07:43, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

After further review, it looks like we'd be comparing apples and oranges if we compare the numbers. Previous statements have been focused on affirmative support for China’s policies, while Reuters and Radio Free Asia appear to frame this more in a non-interference lens. Chinese state-owned Xinhua vaguely frames the statement as one in opposition to non-specific actors that promote "unfounded allegations against China out of political motivations". It appears to be significantly differently phrased and framed than those statements which RS have said explicitly provided affirmative support for China's policy regime in the region. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 08:26, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I don’t think we should have so much information about that in the lead, its a little two scoreboard like. I’d recommend cutting the whole thing down to a single line about opposing letters at the UN. I’d also cut the ICJ section down to one line, its just way too much specificity for the lead. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:35, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

That being said @Sunderland Renaissance: you’re going to need to provide a detailed explanation with diffs to support your assertion that it "was speculative and is designed to push a narrative” or retract it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:38, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with Mikehawk and HEB that this doesn't need to be mentioned in the lead, and this also does not really contradict the earlier reported numbers.
  The new statements are suitable for the "Reactions at the UN" subsection in the body though (cited to Reuters and Axios, not CGTN). I also agree with HEB that the lead mentions of the UN & ICC can be shortened. — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:49, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
• Agree with Mike, HEB, & Mark. mv to "Reactions at the UN" subsection in the body.  // Timothy :: talk  06:38, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Persecution: ethnicity vs religion

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

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I wanted to start this discussion because I recently changed the lead of this article to focus on the ethnicity of the Uyghurs (Turkic) rather than their religion (majority Muslims). User:Mikehawk10 reverted my edit, per: 'Reverted good faith edits by Blue Wiki (talk): They are many non-Uyghur Muslims that are also wrapped up in this, including Kazakhs and other Turkic Muslims.' In fact underlining my assertion that the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples are not being persecuted because of their religion, but because of their ethnicity, and because they are not Han Chinese. I want to resolve this issue by seeking the opinion of other editors, because this is an important distinction in understanding the reasoning for the persecution. --Blue Wiki (talk) 10:59, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that the persecution is happening exclusively because of religion or ethnicity, but instead as the result of both. This is what the vast majority of RS appear to be reporting, from what I can tell. This is certainly the case in Western media's reporting on the overall situation, (ee 1, 2, 3), but also in the Chinese academy. (See Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences researcher Li Xiaoxia's quotes referencing "religious extremism and ethnic separatism" in 4).

Regarding the first sentence in particular, the three sources cited each refer to the number as being the number of "Muslims" that were detained. This phrasing is not accidental, as the original source of this number is a United Nations report on the topic which that explicitly states that the estimate refers to the number of "ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities" being forcibly placed in the Xinjiang re-education camps. For this reason, I believe that the current phrasing of there being "more than one million Muslims (the majority of them Uyghurs) being held in secretive detention camps" is a more accurate portrayal than the proposed alternative. Mikehawk10 (talk) 22:05, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your comprehensive comments. This remains a complicated issue, maybe in the future there will be more clarity on the topic. We shall see. Blue Wiki (talk) 20:53, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

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

Citation overkill

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

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I have added a reference to the last CN-tag that I found, but as soon as I finished, I realized that so many sections are overcited (WP:OVERCITE). This particularly happens in the lead section (one has 10 references on a singe claim!!!), Middle east section, Organ harvesting section and the Oficial visits to the camp section. We do not need all of them. This is a common problem on controversial topics, where a person spams citations on a controversial claim or a bold/serious one, hoping that it somehow increases the verifiability. We could definitely trim a lot of these excessive citations, especially ones that mention the exact same thing or ones that may be biased in some way. Wretchskull (talk) 15:11, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Citation overkill and biased sources are completely different and unrelated issues. If you have concerns about biased sources those need to be addressed separately. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:23, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Bias or no bias, that first paragraph of the lead is pretty bad. The first set, after "one million Muslims", is all newspaper source (including two separate Al Jazeera articles). The second batch, after "ethnocide or cultural genocide", is news articles and two journal articles (one only visible in the archive link). The third, after "called it a genocide", has news reports (including one ICIJ news post), two US government press releases, and one Canadian government statement. At the very least, all should be culled to have one news source at most. Some of these sources aren't even used in the article body, so it's unclear what unique information they are meant to bring. CMD (talk) 16:39, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh yeah I completely agree that we have citation overkill in the lead, but its an issue we’ve tried to address before and leads to a cycle of uninformed or malicious editors removing “unsourced” content and then other editors overreacting and overstocking the citation supply. Personally I like completely citation free lead sections and support the removal of literally all of them, but sorting on grounds of bias is not part of the process. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:44, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

My proposal would be to keep the WSJ source for the first bunch, on the grounds that it is used in the actual article body and arbitrarily that it is currently first, keep the two academic sources for the second bunch, and keep one US government press release (the one on the bipartisan bill) and the Canadian government source for the third bunch. CMD (talk) 17:02, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I’ve trimmed the repeated sources. I think your proposal is certainly preferable to what we have now. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:08, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

My slight modification to your proposal would be to drop the government sources as well and leave that bit unsourced, none of the sources support the whole thing and its a general enough statement to be left unsourced. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:14, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Wretchskull: don’t falsely claim a talk page consensus when you haven't participated here since opening the discussion and no consensus has been reached. We haven't even discussed anything outside the lead. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:34, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: I never falsely claimed anything so you can stop accusing me of it. If you actually paid attention, I mentioned other sections rather than the lead. Just because I didn't participate further (I didn't have time) doesn't make a policy-breaker okay, it doesn't even need consensus if it is an obvious or important policy. I checked the sources and simply removed ones that said the same exact thing or quoted OTHER sources that were mentioned. I will revert your edit because it is something unacceptable in Wikipedia policy. Other than all of this, I do not like your behavior at all mate. All of that started simply because I and some other editors told you to stop tag bombing articles with CN-tags, and you made a whole song and dance about it. You went to an article talk that I participate in saying that you were surprised that I didn't know this or that, talking with coarse behavior, and so on. And here, you completely ignored my premise about overciting and said that biased sources have nothing to do with overciting and paying attention to the small mistake I made while completely ignoring my suggestion. WP:CIVIL and WP:POINT are articles that I recommend you check out. I am aware about WP:LAWYER but because this case is relatively obvious, the underlying principle should be to remove redundant overcitations. Now please, if you think that my intention is bad or mean, then I am sorry because it is not my intention. I want Wikipedia to be a great place for everyone. I hope you understand :) Cheers. Wretchskull (talk) 17:04, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

We haven't discussed those yet, we’ve only addressed the lead so far. If you would like to discuss other parts of the article we can. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:14, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Also what do you mean "All of that started simply because I and some other editors told you to stop tag bombing articles with CN-tags, and you made a whole song and dance about it.” Following editors around wikipedia is generally discouraged per WP:HOUND, I hope you aren’t editing this page because of me. Perhaps you misspoke? Also are you referring to Gender pay gap? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:14, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: It is extremely difficult to take what you are saying seriously because you are accusing me of WP:HOUND-actions you explicitly did yourself. Yes, I am referring to the gender pay gap. If you are wondering why I am here then it is not because of certain editors, I generally visit good & featured article nominees and try to fix existing issues or sometimes visit their talk page and see if the issue has already been discussed, usually in articles with interesting content. Also, you are yet again dodging what I said earlier. I didn't only mention the lead, I explicitly stated the exact sections with WP:OVERCITE. I said "This particularly happens in the lead section (one has 10 references on a singe claim!!!), Middle east section, Organ harvesting section and the Oficial visits to the camp section.. Anyway mate, if you do not like my edit, that's alright. I'm getting a 3O to see what they think. Cheers. Wretchskull (talk) 00:17, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm with Horse Eye's Back here regarding the content of the page. We have been through a bit of a cycle of people removing things because they were "unsourced" or "insufficiently sourced" and then accusing the page of being biased because they allege it linked to too few sources. Some of them were added were to show that non-Western sources were also reporting this, per my comments in above sections. Pages that are of controversial topics tend to have more citations and attributions in the text, simply because this ends the edit-revert cycles that, for example, we have been dealing with constantly. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:21, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Dear fellow editors. I am declining the third opinion invitation, as there are more than two editors actively involved. Please assume good faith and avoid ad hominem attacks on each other. All editors clearly have the best interests of the encyclopedia at heart, and I am confident that a sensible agreement can be reached. Please consider Mikehawk10's wise words. With all respect, Springnuts (talk) 08:44, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Mikehawk10 That is fine, and I understand that. The reason I began this is exactly because WP:OVERCITE says that controversial topics are usually overcited. Adding citations that say the exact same thing (which is why I deleted some redundant citations) are discouraged. If one has, say, 6 citations, it is best to trim three of them and leave three of the best. Anyways, it seems like there hasn't been any resolution to this so I'll just give it up to you guys because I assume you know more. Cheers. Wretchskull (talk) 10:19, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

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