Talk:List of largest peaceful gatherings/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Kumbh Mela

Nearly 100 million people attended Feb 2013 Kumbh Mela--a Hindu festival of bathing in sacred rivers. In the most sacred day, about 80 million bathed together in the Ganges river. But there is no way to edit this entry and add this event, since the "editor(s)" have locked it to any changes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.108.184.225 (talk) 06:30, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

What about military battles?

I changed the description to "peaceful" gatherings. "Gathering for a single event" is extremely vague and doesn't seem to logically exclude military battles. Is there some distinction that is supposed to be implied in the article, and if so the article should be revised to reflect that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.191.117.107 (talk) 09:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC) I propose "nonviolent" rather than "peaceful" as the word nonviolent is more precise. Would a restless gathering qualify as peaceful? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.163.130.66 (talk) 17:43, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Questions on sources for Phillies, Red Sox, LBJ's reported attendance

This is an interesting list, one that I haven't seen duplicated. But I didn't see a source for the Phillies' parade claiming 2 million people attended that in 2008. Is there a scientific estimate for that, something other than media reports? A media report at http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/sports/20081101_Phillies__2_million_fans_express_heartfelt_joy_at_World_Series_celebration.html?referrer=digg said it was a "city estimate," which is biased and unscientific at best. And is the Red Sox 2004 parade attendance of 3 million an estimate done by a scientific study or estimate, or just a media estimate? It wasn't clear in the source cited. This report at http://www.command-post.org/2004/2_archives/cat_massachusetts.html said it was Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s office that did the estimates. Should we trust a political office with an obvious bias with such an estimate? Also, in LBJ's 1965 inauguration where the crowd as estimated at 1.2 million, later reports such as http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123145851449666169.html have pointed out how sketchy that estimate was. Jacksonthor (talk) 23:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

What about New York parades?

I found a USA Today report at http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/99play/wsfs52.htm that says 3.5 million people each attended parades for the Yankees in 1996 and 1998. But it doesn't provide a source for that estimate, which is frustrating. This NY Times story at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B03E5DA103DF931A15753C1A96E958260 says the 1996 count was done by the mayor's office, which again is biased and unscientific. A story at http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/national_world/stories/2009/01/21/BIGGEST_EVER.ART_ART_01-21-09_A6_8KCKJ9U.html?sid=101 says "millions" attended a 1951 parade in New York for Gen. Douglas MacArthur after his firing by President Harry S. Truman, as well as parades in 1927 in honor of aviator Charles Lindbergh and in 1962 for Ohio astronaut John Glenn. But I don't know how they estimated those New York crowds. Seems this will always be an inexact science. But I don't think we can rely on hometown mayor office's who make estimates of their own cities' parades. Jacksonthor (talk) 23:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

short version or long version?

An IP has changed the long format cersion with explanation for every event, with a short format version that lists the events with no context. I think that the long format looks much better, but I would like to hear other opinions first --Enric Naval (talk) 21:25, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I spent a long time removing cruft, improving syntax, grammar and layout and added some more sources. I believe in quality over quantity, the article still needs work doing but reverting all my work isn't the answer. 94.192.38.247 (talk) 00:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's not cruft, that's context to understand the event. After analyzing it properly, I think that removing the context really reduces the quality of the article. For example:

Long version	Short version
5 million Hindu pilgrims paid homage at Sabarimala shrine in Kerala	An estimated 5 million people gathered in Sabarimala
Eleven million Iranians gathered at the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini	An estimated 12 million people gathered at the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini
The Bishwa Ijtema, an annual Tablighi Jamaat Islamic movement congregation held at Tongi, Bangladesh in 2007 had attendees of about 3 million	An estimated 3 million people attended the Bishwa Ijtema in Tongi, Bangladesh in 2007.

The short version does not explain who gathers and does not leave clear why they gather.

There are other problems: you used "an estimated X million" everywhere, replacing all expressions like "about X million", "over X million", etc, even altought those were direct quotes from the numbers reported in the sources. You also removed all gatherings of less than 2 millions "for brevity"; there is currently no inclusion criteria for this list, there is no requisite in wikipedia that lists have to be brief, and I think that gatherings between 1 and 2 millions are quite notable (indeed, any gathering bigger than the notable Million Man March should make the cut comfortably).

I went back to the long version, but I'm merging some of your changes into it so they arent' lost. See the Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle, you were bold but your edits were reverted, now it's time to discuss them. If you want to remove all gatherings of less than 2 million, then make a proposal here. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Enric, the reason why I put 'estimated' is simply because all these figures are estimates, I don't think anyone can have a confirmed figure for gatherings of this scale, each quote is an estimate. The reason for leaving out gatherings below 2 million is because there are simply so many and the list will always be impoverished of including all gatherings at this scale in history. The line has be drawn somewhere, perhaps 1 Million and up then? I understand you would rather have more context to each entry and welcome altering my version in this manner, but a wholesale reversion of all my edits isn't suitable. I may have been too concise but I also made many improvements. Thanks for discussing here Enric (Not many people bother to). 94.192.38.247 (talk) 21:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I've kept all your edits and readded the gatherings over 1 million. 94.192.38.247 (talk) 22:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. About "estimated", if the source says "over 3 million", then we should say "an estimated over 3 million", and not "an estimated 3 million".

One thing, the wikiproject assesments at the top of the talk page are usually done by members of the respective wikiprojects. They use the rating to determine how much attention their wikiproject should give to the article. If you change their rating then you are breaking their internal scale. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

What about the big funerals?

Wikipedia says that the funerals of ABd al Naser, Um kulthum and Abd al Halim Hafez, all in Egypt, were attended by more than 4 million people each 192.117.143.226 (talk) 21:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Please find sources and add them to the list then. 94.192.38.247 (talk) 00:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)