Talk:Welkom mining explosion

undiscussed move

Jim 2 Michael, can you revert your move? i believe most of the sources i have come across have been referring to the incident as occurring in a south african mine rather than a welkom mine. in addition, an explosion is suspected, but it does not appear to be certain at the moment if that is how the victims died. i had also taken the phrase "mining disaster" from the name of the category "2023 mining disasters", and figured that this was specific enough for now.

by the way, i do not understand your penchant for renaming articles to remove the year from the title. you have made similar undiscussed moves before, which have often been controversial. for example, you moved the article "2022 Sitakunda fire" to "Sitakunda fire and explosions", a move which did not seem to be supported by any other editor, and after a lot of wasted editor time, it was moved back to the original title. personally, i think it would be wiser to discuss such moves before implementing them in the future. dying (talk) 22:19, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Titles should be precise, as can be seen from Category:Mining disasters. South Africa is far too large an area when we know the name of the city, Welkom. It's named by many RS but isn't in most titles because it's not a well-known city like Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg or Pretoria. I won't support any title which includes South Africa &/or does not include Welkom. Explosion is far more precise than disaster & those RS which specify the cause all say it was an explosion; none say it was a fire, landslide, gas leak hypothermia etc. We wouldn't call the 2023 Yinchuan gas explosion the 2023 China disaster or 2023 China restaurant disaster. By specifying the location & type, this major event, unique at its location, doesn't need the year. Jim 2 Michael (talk) 23:18, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Jim 2 Michael, just because we know that the incident occurred near a city does not mean that the title needs to reference it. the article titled "2009 Harmony Gold mine deaths" also deals with a mine near welkom, but does not mention the city in its title. also, not all article titles that mention a geographic location include a reference to the nearest city. i had previousy mentioned to you the example "2013 Mexico train accident", which refers to the country even though we know it happened near huimanguillo. in addition, the high-profile article titled "2023 Odisha train collision" references the state of odisha even though we know it happened near bahanaga. for another mining disaster article that references a country when we know the name of a nearby municipality, see the article titled "Niger gold mine collapse", about an incident in the village of kondago. also, although i was unaware that this disaster was mentioned on itn/c before i created the article, i see that what appears to be the first reference to the incident describes it as "another one of similar scale in South Africa".

to be clear, i do not believe whether or not most reliable sources name a city in its title determines whether or not we use the city's name in an article title. instead, i look to see whether reliable sources refer to the event using the name of the city. you seem to be telling me that the name of a city is used in an article title as long as it has been mentioned in reliable sources, regardless of how reliable sources actually refer to the event. i do not recall reading about such a requirement anywhere, aside from in your comments. wp:ncevents does not seem to mention anything of the sort. also, your requirement seems to suggest that the article titled "January 6 United States Capitol attack" should be moved to "January 6 Washington, D.C., attack", which i assume would not be a popular move.

i am not sure why you referenced the mining disasters category, as many articles in that category prove that your assertion is incorrect. of the 25 articles that address incidents since 2014 that are currently categorized by year of mining disaster (excluding this article and one redirect), 9 have titles that end with the phrase "mine disaster", and 5 others have titles that similarly lack the level of precision that you require, using phrases such as "mining accident" and "dam disaster".

in addition, as i have mentioned before, it is uncertain how the miners have died. some reliable sources have reported that they died from an explosion, but since other reliable sources have been careful to note that this is not certain, i would prefer to be conservative and not use an article title that suggests that they died from the explosion before there is confirmation that they did. in particular, this notice that the south african government published makes no mention of a gas explosion, only stating that "methane levels ... are very high". the situation in yinchuan is very different, as it is immediately obvious that the victims died due to the explosion; no investigation is required to determine this. in addition, the phrase "restaurant disaster" is currently not used anywhere in article space on wikipedia, while "mining disaster" is a common enough way to refer to such an incident that it is used in the name of a category as well as in a number of article titles.

if the investigation in south africa eventually determines that the miners had died via an explosion, i have no issues with changing the title to state this (provided, of course, that reliable sources have not settled on a different common name by then). however, such a move also seems unnecessary, as it seems that the majority of articles about recent mining disasters are not precise about the nature of the disaster in the article title anyway.

i believe you also seem to have a misunderstanding of wp:noyear. i do not think years are omitted from an article title simply because removing the year would result in a description that does not apply to any other wikipedia article. that guideline states that it is omitted when "in historic perspective, the event is easily described without it". we obviously do not have the historic perspective to determine if this mining disaster can easily be described without the year. for an example of how historic perspective has led us to dropping the year from an article title, see the article titled "Russian invasion of Ukraine". for about a year after it was first created, it was named "2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine" because we did not have the historic perspective to determine if it could easily be described without the year. now, however, we do have the historic perspective, and the year has been dropped. there are still other pages on wikipedia that discuss other russian invasions of ukraine; the year's omission from the title of the 2022 article was due to the historic perspective gained, not the presence of other articles on wikipedia. to that end, one should not drop the year from an article title simply because one has renamed an article with a description specific enough that no other article on wikipedia could be similarly described. in any case, wp:noyear states to "please discuss it with other editors if there is disagreement", and since there is often disagreement over your interpretation of wp:noyear, let me reiterate my suggestion to discuss such moves before implementing them in the future. dying (talk) 04:21, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

The vast majority of articles about disasters (mining or not) include a location in their titles that's much more precise than the country. The large majority of disasters (mining or not) are titled more precisely than disaster (unless that's part of the common name, such as Aberfan disaster & Hillsborough disaster). Some RS describe this accident as an explosion, which makes it verified as well as relevant. All RS which don't haven't specified a cause, so there's no contradiction.

Where a common name exists, that overrides the usual title format. Prominent examples include September 11 attacks & January 6 United States Capitol attack (the latter of which went through several page moves & discussions about its title). Jim 2 Michael (talk) 15:32, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

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