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Stephen Harrison (1 March 2022). "How the Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is Playing Out on English, Ukrainian, and Russian Wikipedia". Slate. On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin issued the order for Russian forces to invade Ukraine. Since then, Russians have killed 352 Ukrainian civilians, including 14 children, according to Reuters. That information is now reflected on the English Wikipedia page for the "2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine," an article that sprang to life mere minutes after Putin's televised address and has been collaboratively written by nearly 740 distinct authors as of Tuesday morning.
Jenny Nicholls (12 March 2022). "History is written as it happens by Wikipedia editors". Stuff (website). Retrieved 14 March 2022. It has been fascinating to watch two very different Wikipedia pages emerge in recent weeks – 2022 Wellington protests, with 151 referenced sources and seven images; and the page 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, with, as I write, 626 references and 33 images.
Ina Fried (15 July 2022). "Wikipedia blazes a trail to agreement in a divided world". Axios (website). Retrieved 17 July 2022. The Wikipedia article (at least the English language one) includes some of Russia's most outlandish claims — such as the idea that the Ukrainian government included Nazis — but authoritatively debunks them as false.
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It's clear there are issues with the current version of the map despite the strong "consensus" it has. I have tried to say this several times, so any step towards actually making it more in line with WP policy is a step in the right direction. TylerBurden (talk) 14:05, 21 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unconvinced. It's one Wikipedia, and the community's effort is to provide the same information across multiple languages. Hence Commons, hence Wikidata. — kashmīrīTALK07:50, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ordering of civilian and military casualties[edit]
The following ordering of civilian and military casualties came off as bizarre and POV,
It is estimated to have caused tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of military casualties.
so I re-ordered it to put military casualties first. The number of military casualties is a full order of magnitude greater than the number of civilian casualties.
The edit was reverted by @TylerBurden, with the reverter claiming that my paying attention to the ordering at all is bizarre. I was told to discuss it on the talk page.
When you have two separate statistics but one overwhelmingly larger than the other, it is usually somewhat more natural to put the larger statistic first, as it represents the more significant parameter. This is especially relevant when the ordering is relevant for propaganda purposes. It is well-known that civilian casualties (in all armed conflicts) are an important propaganda weapon. I am thus afraid the original wording could be perceived as propagandistic in nature.
The convention in armed conflicts is to mention combatant casualties prior to civilian casualties, especially when the former considerably exceeds the latter as is usually true. This is evident in the infoboxes of all major wars. I do not see any compelling reason here to stray from that convention. JDiala (talk) 21:47, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can you provide a link to this "convention"? Because like I mentioned in my edit summary, I don't think it matters, they are both described in literally the same sentence, and both are significant parts of the article, so the placement is subjective and thus there is no reason to change it. I also don't buy the propaganda argument, you could say the same thing about the edit you made placing civilians behind military based purely on numbers being some propaganda attempt to divert focus away from civilian casualties, which would be equally unconstructive. Since it has never been an issue until now I am guessing that most people aren't interpreting it the way you are. TylerBurden (talk) 23:31, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is a stylistic judgement. I don't think that, for stylistic judgements such as this, we require (say) a military handbook which says "mention military casualties before civilian casualties" or something. Rather, it is reasonable to make judgements as competent English speakers as to how a sentence should be optimally arranged to come off as neutrally as possible. I am making the judgement that it is better to put combatant casualties prior to civilian casualties, because the former exceeds the latter by a full order of magnitude. You claim that this could equally be interpreted as propaganda, but this is not true, because I have a logical, non-propaganda explanation for my version (italicized in the prior sentence), whereas you do not for yours.
Imagine one of the first sentences on the 9/11 article writing something like "the attacks killed dozens of soldiers in the Pentagon, as well as around three thousand civilians". That would be a bit weird as the framing appears to emphasize the soldiers dying, despite the nature of the attack (a terror attack on civilians) and that far more civilians died. This would thus not be a natural or neutral way to word things consistent with WP:IMPARTIAL, particularly in the lead where it is especially crucial to be impartial. Likewise here, this is an armed conflict where the overwhelming majority of people dead on both sides are armed soldiers. The immediate emphasis on the comparatively low number of Ukrainian civilian casualties strikes me as strange. This is especially considering that the ratio of civilian-military casualties is not unusually high in this particular war (unlike many other armed conflicts). A reasonable reader could interpret this as having a propagandistic slant. This is not consistent with the project's goals.
I feel that this is ultimately a difference of opinion. Unlike a content dispute, it is difficult to "prove" that a particular sentence has a biased tone, and we might not be able to come to an agreement. For this reason, I welcome input from other editors.
Finally, I am not sure why the fact that the issue has not come up before is relevant. It is quite frequent (in fact, the norm) that a revert made at any given point in time was not something previous editors noticed. JDiala (talk) 04:49, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 June 2024 [Belligerents section][edit]
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North Korea has recently been added to the infobox as a belligerent citing this Kyiv Post article bearing the headline Pyongyang Says It Will Send Troops to Ukraine Within a Month. More specifically, the article says Pyongyang announced early this week that it will be sending troops in the form of a military engineering unit to support Russian forces on the ground in the Donetsk region. The actual planned deployment seems less significant than the title implies; remember WP:HEADLINES. My question is if/how we as editors intend on differentiating this North Korean military engineering support unit from Western countries' military advisors and support elements that are already on the ground as well. Best regards to all SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 18:46, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ukraine is completely dependent on foreign lethal military support.
Here are the the main points of opposition and their resolutions:
1. The West only provides hardware
In addition to having received military intelligence, combined arms combat training, analytical exercise preparation, and war games planning, Ukraine is now receiving fighter jets along with many months of NATO-provided training on those fighter jets.
2. Infobox creep
There only needs to be one entry - either UDCG, US or NATO.
3. Infobox inclusion of Ukraine support advances Russian propaganda
Omission is "Western" propaganda.
4. Distinguishing between aid type is complicated
The types of aid we care about are (a) lethal military aid and (b) the most severe economic sanctions possibly in the history of modern civilization. A single "Supported by" entry - UDCG, US or NATO - would encompass those two types of aid, and only those two types of aid.
After more than two years of conflict, it is far past time for that info box to present an honest assessment of who is engaged in this war. Without lethal military support from the leaders of the so called rules-based international order, Ukraine would have been forced to negotiate a peaceful resolution to this confict long ago. This reasonable inference should be reflected in that info box.
I agree that it is premature at this point to make any changes to the infobox. But it may be worth discussing whether North Korea should be added as a belligerent if their troops (engineer corps) end up in Donetsk as announced. And I think the answer should be yes. --haha169 (talk) 05:22, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Iranian and Western troops are on the ground in arguably similar capacities, so the North Korean troops should not be considered in a vacuum in such a discussion. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 05:46, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What is the nature of Iranian "troops"? My understanding was that they were drone trainers only, and far from the frontlines. If you have a source for something more involved, please share. Similar with Western "troops", if the information is new/different from the last discussion that established consensus. --haha169 (talk) 14:38, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are western mercenaries, and there are plenty of reliable reports about them, however that alone doesn't make Western states, belligerents in the formal sense. Mercenaries can come from anywhere in the world. — kashmīrīTALK18:23, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The infobox lists Belarus as belligerent on the Russian side. This is sourced to a piece of information on the BBC which itself is sourced to a Facebook post by a Ukrainian adviser to the defence minister. I hope editors here agree that this is an extremely poor sourcing for Wikipedia to formally implicate a country in an international war.
To-date, the role of Belarus for Russia has been nearly identical to the role played by Poland, Romania or Germany for Ukraine: as a training and resupply ground, arms supplier, and political backer. There's no good evidence that Belarusian troops are or have been taking active part in hostilities. While bilateral relations are in a rather poor state, neither country is openly engaged in hostilities against the other.[1]
The main reason we list Belarus as a belligerent is that Russian troops were allowed to invade from Belarus. Ukrainian troops may train in foreign countries but always return to Ukraine before entering combat. Russian air attacks were also staged from Belarus. No country has permitted Ukraine to stage air attacks from their territory. GordonGlottal (talk) 19:51, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Under this reasoning it could be argued that Belarus ceased its "belligerency" sometime around 2022, as Russian troops have not moved between Belarus and Ukraine since April of that year, and it is not apparent that Russian artillery and air strikes have since taken place from Belarusian territory or airspace.
A compromise might include a qualifier something along these lines:
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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Not done: See Q4 of the FAQ — Czello (music) 20:28, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Russia
Belarus (2022)
