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Alright folks, let's discuss.
I'm going to say right now...in my opinion putting this article, in its lead section, on the same footing as the mostly recent spate of mass shootings like Columbine or Sandy Hook, in with lone gunmen acting on personal grievances instead of putting it in with massacres or slaughters of civilians perpetrated by agents of the US Government? - goes against the very title of the article. And, as a personal aside...just because content is long-standing doesn't make it categorically correct.
And, information in a lead section isn't supposed to necessarily be cited, because per WP:LEAD it exists elsewhere in the article as a major point. That is referenced.
So. Let's discuss and come to an editorial consensus instead of editing & reverting & editing etc. - Shearonink (talk) 20:38, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What matters is what reliable sources say. There are currently at minimum five sources already cited that use this exact language. It is not for us to express an opinion as editors on Wikipedia that differs with the clear consensus of the reliable sources.
I would also add that an event can be two things at once and that these terms are not mutually exclusive. The article title is correct as it is indeed a massacre, but it also is the largest mass shooting committed on American soil. Both of these things can be and are correct at the same time (according to reliable sources). Iljhgtn (talk) 21:18, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, first off I'm not righting any great wrongs here. This section is what we are supposed to do...discuss editorial issues on the article talk page. I said what my opinion was. So? I keep on eye on this article because it does get attention sometimes from vandals or whatnot but I haven't really edited it that much. Righters of Great Wrongs usually are IN YOUR FACE ALL THE TIME when things don't go their way. I just want to discuss the changes to the lead and get off this present cycle of edit! revert! edit! revert!
A couple of things...the lead section of an article is supposed to summarize important facts that appears in the main text. The concept that a massacre perpetrated by an official part of the US government can also be called a mass shooting appears nowhere else in the article. *If* the editorial consensus is that this information is verifiable and reliable etc then that concept should be discussed in the main part of the article perhaps in the Remembrance section or in the Other subsection of Popular culture. If historians and scholarship and reliable sources since the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 and the Las Vegas shooting in 2017 (which I suppose why the cited sources date from those years) regard this awful event as a mass shooting and ties it in with the American gun culture etc., etc. then maybe how people's attitude towards the Massacre have changed and also how they refer to it has changed then that changing attitude could be mentioned in the main part of the article. But right now it is not. So mentioning this terminology in the first sentence at all is incorrect.
5 sources are cited above and in the article as references for saying that the Massacre was a mass shooting. The Guardian source is a single letter to the editor from an individual. The LA Times states that people's definitions of what massacres are and what mass shootings are can differ, it is not cut and dried or laid out as an absolute. To my mind calling the Massacre a mass shooting diminishes it since it was committed by agents of a governmental entity, the US Army and therefore the Federal Government but I can see that other people's regards in this matter differ. It is sad isn't it that we keep tallies of "worst" events?...
The first sentence would possibly seem to more accurately reflect current attitudes & reliable sources if it states something along the lines of: The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, was the killing [I think murder would probably be more accurate] of two hundred fifty to three hundred Lakota people by soldiers of the United States Army and is regarded by many as the deadliest mass shooting in American history. But then a section on scholarship/historians/interviews about the massacre/deadliest mass shooting concepts etc. would also have to be in place in the article. Shearonink (talk) 06:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
