Talk:Bath School disaster

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Frequently asked questions

Q1: Why is this article called the "Bath School disaster"? Shouldn't it be called a "massacre" or maybe "bombings", "attacks" or something else?

A1: "Disaster" is a historic term in this title. "Bath School disaster" is what the event's survivors called it, as did contemporaneous news accounts, historic documents, state markers, and memorials. Dictionaries and other reliable sources include man-made disasters alongside natural disasters in their definitions. Note that this topic has been discussed on this talk page many times since 2008: here, here, here, here, here, and here. A 2014 RfC re: "Bath School bombings" or "Bath School disaster" resulted in a consensus to keep the present title of Bath School disaster. Please review these discussions and prepare new reliable sources for consideration before initiating a new talk page discussion.

Bath School disaster is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on March 22, 2006, and on May 18, 2020.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 17, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed
March 7, 2006	Featured article candidate	Promoted
April 10, 2010	Featured article review	Demoted
January 15, 2013	Good article nominee	Listed
March 29, 2020	Featured article candidate	Promoted
Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on May 18, 2017, May 18, 2022, and May 18, 2024.
Current status: Featured article

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Schools Top‑importance

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Wikipedia is not a memorial

Listing the names of all 40+ deceased individuals is not encyclopedic. WP:NOTMEMORIAL. Kingturtle = (talk) 04:02, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Recent edit

A recent edit deleted content, apparently citing the policy WP:NOTMEMORIAL, which states "Subjects of encyclopedia articles must satisfy Wikipedia's notability requirements. Wikipedia is not the place to memorialize deceased friends, relatives, acquaintances, or others who do not meet such requirements." This policy statement only applies to subjects of articles, not people who died during a mass murder or mass death event.
The main reason the Bath School disaster is notable are the dead. All those dead students, all the dead townspeople. Without the dead children and the perpetrator's murdered wife and the dead teachers and the dead postmaster and the dead principal plus since *almost* all of of those deaths took place on one day within an hour or so of each other...without the dead, the event wouldn't hold much meaning to history or to the people of Bath. The perpetrator has his own article, he is notable for this act of murdering all these people...of course the individuals don't have their own individual articles, they are not subjects of articles but the list is referenced, all the victims are prominently mentioned in multiple reliable sources - why should Wikipedia ignore their existence?
It is generally-accepted Wikipedia usage according to editorial consensus on an article by article basis, to list out the victims, the dead (especially in school shootings/school mass murders but sometimes in other mass casualty events), for instance,

While the loss of life is central to the tragedy, Wikipedia is not a place for commemorating individual victims unless they meet notability requirements independently. Listing all the names adds detail that is unnecessary for understanding the event's significance and shifts the tone from encyclopedic to memorializing.

The Bath School disaster’s historical relevance doesn’t depend on an exhaustive enumeration of victims. Instead, it’s about the event’s causes, effects, and broader impact. Listing the victims is excessive in detail; it does not directly contribute to understanding the event's broader historical context or significance. The reader does not need to see Emma Amelia Nickols or Galen Lyle Harte to understand the article. Their names are there only to memorialize them; nothing more. Kingturtle = (talk) 04:45, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Again, WP:NOTMEMORIAL only refers to subjects of articles, not content within articles. If the editorial consensus is that the names of victims of murders/mass murder events are not to be listed out in any Wikipedia articles, then after a Wikipedia-wide RfC perhaps WP:NOTMEMORIAL could be edited accordingly and all the above articles have their lists of victims deleted. In the meantime, while this discussion is ongoing, the Bath School disaster's content should be reverted back to its previous form. Shearonink (talk) 05:02, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Including a list of names does little to enhance a reader’s understanding of the event. Encyclopedic articles prioritize summarizing facts that explain why an event is notable, not cataloging granular details that don’t add analytical or contextual depth.

Wikipedia is not designed to serve as a repository for raw data or exhaustive lists. Detailed victim names and information are better suited for dedicated memorial websites or databases where such information is curated with appropriate care and respect.

What makes school shootings/school mass murders exempt from this line of thinking?

Is it that in modern mass shootings, victim names have intense public interest? Or victim names are useful for ongoing policy debates? Is it that public conversations about gun control or school safety often evoke specific victims as symbols, making their names part of the event’s broader historical narrative? Either of those reasons are un-encyclopedic and carry major POV. And furthermore, the Bath School disaster predates modern policy debates about mass shootings and gun violence. Its historical significance lies in its broader impact and context, not the individual victims, who are not central to the larger story being told. Kingturtle = (talk) 05:20, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Quick Question Regarding the Name of the Article

I'm sure the discussion has been had, but could someone point me to the discussion where it was decided to name this article with "disaster" instead of "massacre"? That seems like an odd decision, since "disaster" sounds like a tornado or a flood hit the school, whereas "massacre" makes it clear that the event was perpetrated as an attack by a person. Thanks in advance! Kevin ^{AKA Hallward's Ghost} 00:07, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]