Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of rampage killers (familicides in the United States)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete‎. Placing less weight on the !votes that aren't based on P&G, consensus to delete emerges. Owen× ☎ 01:19, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of rampage killers (familicides in the United States)

List of rampage killers (familicides in the United States) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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I'm nominating this as a kind of test case and to gather opinions of experienced AfD editors on this kind of page, of which there are quite a number including List of rampage killers (familicides in the Americas) and List of rampage killers. I'm going to argue that this list in particular fails the GNG because sources are not provided that specifically note the importance of this type of crime - which the page gives as family killers, but seems to exclude those killers who are killed in police gunfights (for example). I'm going to suggest that this list is therefore strongly editorialised (arguably WP:OR) with regard to what is or is not included. Fundamentally I don't think we need this list and WP:NOTEVERYTHING. JMWt (talk) 11:03, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Crime and United States of America. JMWt (talk) 11:03, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 11:47, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Familicides are a distinct category in criminology and have been so for a very long time (Paul Näcke's "Über Familienmord durch Geisteskranke" was published in 1908). The topic is socially and scientifically relevant, which is proven beyond doubt by the countless books, research papers and newspaper articles on the topic. The same is true for the rest of the "Lists of rampage killers". (Lord Gøn (talk) 16:30, 10 January 2024 (UTC))[reply]

For the benefit of other contributors to this discussion, you are the originator and main editor that has worked on these lists, correct? JMWt (talk) 16:33, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have started these lists, but have not done any edits on them for 10 years now. (Lord Gøn (talk) 19:17, 11 January 2024 (UTC))[reply]

Oppose. Familicides are a specific and independently discussed type of mass/spree/rampage murder (the terminology issue there is 90% of the problem, but that's the sin of academics, not us, and is a whole other issue). The scope is definitely arguable but I don't see any reason why it should be deleted, barring a question of this family of lists as a whole, which I understand but respectfully disagree with. These lists are a bit of a mess and I'd like to see the criteria be a bit less arbitrary (I have no idea where the criteria as used came from, but it's not too far off from the numbers I've usually seen definitionally in the relevant literature (~4, the quibble I mostly have is with the injury counts) so it's not that pressing), but a lot of notable lists are and that can be fixed. The "in the US" bit is of course not independently notable (well it might be, I can recall seeing several academic publications on US familicides) but it is standard practice to split articles per country based on size.

Per WP:NOTABILITY, 'Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists and tables. Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group. One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list. The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been. Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable, although editors may, at their discretion, choose to limit large lists by only including entries for independently notable items or those with Wikipedia articles.' The overarching set of "familicidal mass murderers' has been discussed extensively in academic literature, even if some of the individual cases have not;

Some "general overview" sources to look at:

Familicide: A Facet of Violence

Familicide: A Systematic Literature Review

Filicide and Familicide

Familicide, Case Characteristics PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:18, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If I may respond, the issue isn't whether the term is notable but whether the list is notable. As you have said, sources do not define the topic in the way this list is arranged, so in my view that's a big red flag. Second, surely we'd all agree that there is something unpleasant about 'ranking' named killers in this way. Third, almost by definition there needs to be WP:OR in order to find killings that meet the criteria - for one thing is the whim of involved editors to decide what to include or exclude if the inclusion criteria is not following a definition in a source. If you could, I would appreciate you addressing these points, please. Thanks. JMWt (talk) 07:47, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

1 - It defines it in a slightly different way and even then some studies do have numbers closer to what the page uses. Fixing this is not hard so I don't think this is a big issue.

2 - I don't think that's a valid point for deletion. We have lists on lots of unpleasant things. Maybe make the lists unnumbered if that bothers you. I don't know.

3 - Not so much 'whims' as it is numbers, is it? The only problem I see with the list in that sense is that it has decided to a use a definition that is uncommon. Much like 'serial killer' has a varied definition, so too does mass murder. All the pages need to do is, IMO, to find a more common definition and stick with it. It's not like the definition used in the page is far off, so it wouldn't be that much of an issue to fix.

I don't think it's original research in the way you define. I think any original research problems arise from these lists, it's a definitional issue - as before, the individual items, with lists, "Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable". Any original research issue - if you have a list title called "List of newspapers in Uganda", and each individual entry is not mentioned in an overarching source discussing journalism in Uganda, does that make adding new entries to the page original research? No. The issue is with definitions and inclusion criteria, and to fix the pages in that sense there would have to be very few changes.

IMO, to fix the list, we should just set it at 4 killed or 6 killed (with one perpetrator, which I think used to be a list rule but people kept breaking it so it was removed). Forgot which two definitions are more common but I've seen those used most often as definitions. PARAKANYAA (talk) 15:20, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying. For me there's a big difference in a list of newspapers in Uganda and this one. One could collate online/offline sources on Ugandan media with straightforward and accepted criteria as to what a newspaper is. In contrast, this list is of a very specific type of crime, with a specific number of victims and which, apparently, did not lead a police shootout. That's a) entirely arbitrary and b) means that one has to go searching the media archives to find crimes that meet those criteria. Again, I appreciate the willingness to engage. JMWt (talk) 15:41, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The police shootout thing is arbitrary and I have no idea why that is there, I will fully admit. I would guess it's as some barrier to incidents which start as familicides and then become public mass murders, which there are a few of, but it's not even effective in that case it's just arbitrary and in no way meaningful or recognized, so I understand your frustration. Should the list be kept that criterion should be removed

I respectfully disagree, as 'mass murder' is a pretty well discussed if specific type of crime, and mass murder of family members is a quite well discussed subtype of that. PARAKANYAA (talk) 16:06, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

1. There is nothing in the list that mentions anything about a "police shootout". This is not a criterium for inclusion whatsoever. Please cite the relevant paragraph, so I can see what you mean.

2. In the context of an encyclopedia it is irrelevant, if something is "unpleasant". I guess List of genocides is also unpleasant.

3. There's as much OR in this list as there is e.g. in the List of films. And of course one has to find stuff that meets the criteria in order to add it, but that is true for every list about every subject.

4. You can also collate online/offline sources about familicides and rampage killings, that's how this list came into being in the first place. These topics are well defined research subjects, so you should not have a problem doing so, if you actually bother to get into the topic. The caveat is that there is a grey zone that will always exist in such matters. (btw List of genocides is struggling mightily with this.) These lists circumvent this issue by focussing on cases that definitely and without a doubt belong into either category, and the defining factors in these types of killing are the number of victims and the perpetrators. (talk)] Lord Gøn (talk) 20:23, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete familicide may be a notable topic, but that does not mean that there are sources discussing incidents in the United States as a group, which would be the requirement for notability. (t · c) buidhe 07:47, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32067295/

  https://jmvr.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Out-of-Sight-Out-of-Mind-An-Analysis-of-Family-Mass-Murder-Offenders-in-the-US-2006-2017-Diaz-et-al.pdf

  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7033703/

  https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1300&context=etd2020 And I could find more sources on the "In the United States" bit, if you insist, but even beyond that it's common practice to split by country. PARAKANYAA (talk) 15:21, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I'd just note that those papers do not specify or name the killers - and also (for example) one has 163 in an 11 year time period. So it clearly isn't using the same criteria as the WP page. JMWt (talk) 15:47, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  1. The six-fatality threshold is one of convenience and exists to prevent recentism and escalating length. During my studies I have compiled a list of over 2000 mass murders in the United States between 1880 and 2015 of which about 33%-50% should be familicides. It is unfeasible that anyone would keep the list up-to-date and halfway complete, if the victim-threshold were to be lowered.

  2. That this list is not notable is simply erroneous, because newspapers and reasearchers compile and publish similar but usually much shorter lists quite frequently. This list, and all that are associated, serves a very specific purpose, which is to allow people to put such crimes into historical and global perspective. Before I started this project, the media and certain researchers made all sorts of wild claims based on little or no data; many of those nonsensical arguments have been put to rest since the data has been made available on Wikipedia.

  3. That newspapers do not always include the names of the perpetrators is irrelevant, because clearly the name of the perpetrator is important, not the least to make further research easier for anyone who wants to do so, but also for historical reasons. As far as I'm aware, Wikipedia does not adhere to the principle of damnatio memoriae.

  4. "I don't think we need this list" is not an argument. What you want to say is "I don't need this list". Maybe you don't find it useful, but many other people do, including researchers who work and publish in the field of criminology. e.g. here on page 69. (Lord Gøn (talk) 19:50, 11 January 2024 (UTC))[reply]

  1. That's original research. Wikipedia is not a venue for you to publish the results of your study.

  2. That's not a reason to put the information on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a cloud service, an academic journal or a blog for you and your research.

  3. It is relevant when assessing the notability of the list. Given that you are doing something beyond the published work shows that this is beyond what is considered notable.

  4. No. What I'm arguing is that you are using Wikipedia in a way that it is not to be used. We are not a despository for an arbitrary collection of indiscriminate information. JMWt (talk) 20:06, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I mean by this logic writing any kind of standalone list article is original research, no? Relatively few lists on Wikipedia are simply copies of preexisting lists, rather they set out a generally-accepted criteria of a notable set of items (which I believe and have demonstrated above "familicide mass murders" satisfies) and list things that fulfill it. Basically every standalone list article would be "original research" by your standards. Wouldn't call it "indiscriminate" either. When the overarching concept or set is notable the list article inherits the notability in that sense PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Nope. The key phrase above is this one: "Before I started this project, the media and certain researchers made all sorts of wild claims based on little or no data; many of those nonsensical arguments have been put to rest since the data has been made available on Wikipedia."

  User:Lord_Gøn is using Wikipedia to publish research in order to right wrongs. That's the role of an academic journal not an encyclopedia. WP:OR and WP:NOTBLOG, WP:NOTDATABASE and WP:WIN. JMWt (talk) 20:54, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Whatever the purpose in writing this was, 15 years ago, it's on a relevant concept on a relevant set of items that are notable as a set. I believe Lord Gon's point in saying that wasn't about "winning", but about the fact that publications and researchers do publish (shorter) lists of what basically amounts to the same topic of the overarching list, strengthening this one's claim to notability. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:57, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  You do know that even 15 years ago newspapers liked to publish lists of such crimes? And you do know that research literature including extensive lists of familicides precedes this list by a 100 years? What motivated me to put these lists together is entirely irrelevant. This doesn't change one iota that it was relevant back than and remains relevant today. (Lord Gøn (talk) 21:02, 11 January 2024 (UTC))[reply]

  1. The given threshold is not original research. It's addressing a number of problems that inevitably arise when you compile such lists. A father killing his wife and five children is a familicide. Every researcher and handbook will agree on this, so the case is clear. A childless husband killing his wife and two random people in the street, well, I guess people's opinion will be divided on that.

  2. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia about topics that are considered relevant for the people on this planet. Lists of such crimes have been published for decades in newspapers, books and research articles. Therefore the topic is certainly of as much relevance as the List of Pokemon, Maral Torkaman, or the Sirhowy River.

  3. The great thing about Wikipedia is that it can go beyond what published works have done. Show me the published work that lists all wars or all football players? Does that mean the multiple lists listing wars and football players are not notable and that we should refrain from compiling lists on those matters? What about the List of curling clubs in the United States? Where is the notability in that? Has there ever been any work published on this topic? No? Does that mean Wikipedia should delete it, even though it is probably very handy and useful for people interested in Curling? And how is it any different what the list in question does than e.g. what the List of mass shootings in the United States does?

  Fact is, the topic is notable, the multitude of published material leaves no doubt about it. The fact that other such lists have been compiled and published many many times in the past proves that lists of cases of familicides and rampage killings are being considered scientifcally and socially relevant.

  4. "despository for an arbitrary collection of indiscriminate information" is not far from the defintion of an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia about everything and anything that is deemed relevant. Criminology is a relevant topic, familicides and rampage killings are important topics in criminology; compiling case lists is common in the discussion of such crimes. (Lord Gøn (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2024 (UTC))[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 14:07, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Notability questions of the list aside, what possible justification could there be for this table's default behavior to literally order the murderers by kill count, with numbered rankings, as the default sort criterion? This is extremely grotesque, and serves no encyclopedic purpose whatsoever. jp×g🗯️ 01:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy delete After looking into these articles in a bit more depth, there seem to be about a dozen articles of this type, constituting a gigantic walled garden of original research. None of the "inclusion criteria" for these lists are based on any sort of reliable sourcing, policy, guideline or even talk page consensus in most cases -- they seem to have just been made up one day. Here is an example: List of rampage killers (familicides in the Americas) says that "This list should contain every case with at least one of the following features: * Rampage killings with 6 or more dead * In all cases the perpetrator is not counted among those killed or injured." There's literally no source for this definition at all. They are all like this. The main article, List of rampage killers, has not only an introductory paragraph and a large editnotice, but a talk page FAQ of "rules" made up unilaterally by a single user in 2011 (there's no discussions in the talk page archive regarding a consensus on any of these things). To make things worse, these articles have almost all been tagged as consisting of original research since 2017. And not just that there are parts of them that are original research -- the entire lists are original research because the criteria for inclusion are completely made up! There's a discussion on the long-dead content noticeboard about WP:OWNERSHIP issues going back many years, which seems to have gone nowhere. But this is completely unacceptable as a Wikipedia article. I normally come to AfD to comment in favor of keeping articles, but in this case I think that a very large swath needs to be cut. jp×g🗯️ 02:50, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  JPxG The reason why the list exists and behaves in such a way is that it is an older list, List of mass murderers by number of victims (made to mirror List of serial killers by number of victims, which I have also nominated for deletion, though it seems likely to survive when IMO it has the exact same problems that lead this page to being AfD'd) This much older version of the page was redirected and merged to the rampage killers list, which eventually acquired the weirder criteria. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:33, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Also, IMO, if the criteria are such an issue, I mean we can just change the definition to the one used by mass murder, all else failing (which is three not including the perpetrator according to most accepted definitions). Considering the criteria used now are higher than that (in most cases) we would have to remove very little. Provided the AfD on the similar serial killers list is closed as keep anyway, because beyond the criteria reasons which are fixable the only reason I can see to actually delete these articles is "it's in bad taste", which is not a valid deletion criterion (after all, who "the worst mass murderer" is is a question people ask, much like it is of serial killers, as was raised in that AfD) Or we could delete both of them for having that same issue, I suppose. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:20, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Okay, I rewrote the lead with citations using the commonly accepted definition accepted by reliable sources (3 dead minus the killer), and I am removing all incidents that do not fulfill these criteria (plus a few ones that looked dubious). Any more problems with the page you can see (once I fix that)

  Also I think these should all be retitled "mass killers" or "mass murderers" as that is 10 times over the more common term (I assume it was attempting to solve the very old spree vs mass killer terminology issue, but as in 2024 no one reliable uses the term spree killer that isn't really an issue anymore). The only unresolved issue is the "grotesque" thing, which I don't think stands as we have lists that are the same as this but of serial killers and no one seems to want to delete those. Also, WP:NOTCENSORED

  I'm probably also going to merge the home intruders and vehicular homicide lists somewhere because those don't seem to be independently notable or a defining subtype of mass murder, unlike familicides. Also I don't know why China is considered separate from the rest of Asia so I'm probably going to merge that. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:14, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Mass murders and rampage killings are not the same. A robber killing five people during a robbery is a mass murderer, but not a rampage killer. Gang members killing four members of a rival gang are committing a mass murder, but not a rampage killing. A disgruntled worker shooting up his workplace, killing two and wounding 20, is a rampage killer, but not a mass murderer. The scientific literature is making clear distinctions between these types of crime, so Wikipedia should, too. (Lord Gøn (talk) 01:17, 1 February 2024 (UTC))[reply]

   Rampage killings with 6 or more dead
   Rampage killings with at least 4 people killed and at least ten victims overall (dead plus injured)
   Rampage killings with at least 2 people killed and at least 12 victims overall (dead plus injured)
   An incidence of rampage killing shall not be included in this list if it does not include at least two people killed.
   In all cases the perpetrator is not counted among those killed or injured.

• Delete per as written and sourced, or WP:TNT. There's no definition of "rampage killer" in the article. There's no legal definition; it's used in shlock films and popular culture, but I'm not aware of its use in criminal justice, and I taught the subject for over a decade. I would not oppose a userfication, but I won't touch this hot mess. Bearian (talk) 15:24, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Owen× ☎ 00:07, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The term "rampage killer" is common in the scientific literature, e.g. here. That there isn't a legal definition is irrelevant. (Lord Gøn (talk) 01:08, 1 February 2024 (UTC))[reply]

• Keep Familicide is a notable topic, so it makes sense that we should have related lists. Inclusion criteria can always be changed. This source gives the following definition: "Familicide refers to the killing of multiple family members, most commonly the homicide of an intimate partner and at least one child." That's from the Journal of Family Violence, so this term is clearly used in academia. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 02:29, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: Article needs a rename and cleanup, not deletion. Familicide is a notable topic and this meets the criteria for a legit fork. A limited number of entries have wikilinks, but it is still a useful navigation aid for readers and passes under WP:CLN/WP:AOAL.  // Timothy :: talk  09:14, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.