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Are the Canadian church burnings an ongoing situation?

2021 Canadian church burnings (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Our article 2021 Canadian church burnings is about a series of arsons and suspicious fires which many have speculated to be reactions to the discovery of Canadian Indian residential school gravesites. However, officials have found no motive or connections between the fires, as our article points out. The fires in June and July 2021 received a great deal of coverage in reliable sources. CBC News news (in print and video) looked at what they believe is a wider range of fires, from May 2021 (one month earlier than other reports) through December 2023, although they also admit that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have found no clear motive. The Christian Post reported on another fire in October 2024. (Note that thoughts on The Christian Post at RSN have been mixed in discussions from 2015 and 2020.) As I mentioned, the initial fires in June and July 2021 received a lot of coverage. As far as I can tell, the only major news source to connect them to fires through December 2023 has been the CBC. No other sources seem to connect them to a fire in October 2024. And again, officials have found no motive for any of the fires, even in June/July 2021.

Are these sources sufficient to support the claim that the Canadian church burnings are an ongoing situation, or would this be original research?

My thoughts are that the claim is original research, and that we need to rely on the findings of official investigators as reported in reliable sources. These appear to be unfortunate, periodic fires, and extrapolating that they are onging is pure WP:CRYSTALBALL speculation. At Talk:2021 Canadian church burnings#CBC article verification, another editor believes that not saying they are ongoing is actually original research because no source has stated the fires have ended. To me, this seems like an "absence of evidence" fallacy relying on what sources don't say. Thoughts? Woodroar (talk) 00:35, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Woodroar is trying to get a source to say something it doesn't. To point that out isn't a fallacy. The relevant source only comments on events through December 2023 precisely because it dates to January 2024 and never claims that the events ended the month prior. There is no compelling interest to add an end date. We don't have to claim that the matter is ongoing, nor do we have to say it's ended until we have a source that says that. What Woodroar proposes is definitionally original research. ~ Pbritti (talk) 01:51, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Generally, if some event has a definitive ending (e.g. the new president is elected, the boat is unstuck from the canal, the spaceship lands) it will be reported on definitively, but if it doesn't it can be very hard to track down. We have articles about all kinds of stuff like crime waves, tornado seasons, musical microgenres, et cetera, which... I mean, there are hundreds of newspaper articles when a new fad becomes popular, but imagine trying to find a source saying "people are wearing this thing less often nowadays". It would be pretty hard, no? I mean, off the top of my head (literally), do we really need a source that specifically says that the Straw Hat Riots of 1922 stopped occurring to write the article in the past tense? jp×g🗯️ 15:55, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

The key issue is that no one reporting on this has suggested it has stopped or slowed down. Instead, we have reporting that suggests to the contrary ([1], [2], [3]). Even if we appraise these sources as possessing marginal reliability, there's sufficient basis for us to say that Wikipedia to unilaterally assessing this as something that's over would be an unsourced controversial statement. ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:57, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is suggesting that we say the fires have stopped or slowed down. Claiming that they stopped would be just as much of a WP:CRYSTALBALL issue. Claiming that they're slowing down is more nuanced, but it would require a great deal more information from officials about convictions, motives, arson vs. accidents, etc.—analysis that no reliable source has reported on, as far as I know.

For what it's worth, if a source did claim that the fires will continue or have stopped, I'd argue that we probably shouldn't cite them ever again. Woodroar (talk) 13:52, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

But there's the issue: we have an uptick of fires that have been tied to one another over several years. We need a retrospective that identifies an end to the trend (or statistics that suggest that things have changed) to comment on this matter with a definitive end date. You provided a definitive end date of December 2023 but that's unsupported. I agree with what I believe you're implying about us understanding that churches will inevitably burn down/be subject to arson, so we have to avoid assuming that any fire at a Canadian church represents a continuation of that trend. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:28, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

This is a challenging situation. I assume that some churches in Canada burn every year for a wide variety of reasons. Let's say that in the average year, when there is no cause of a spike, the statistical average is 8 churches a year that burn down. And, that a spike caused by motivated arson started in 2021, according to RS, so that for several years, there were (say) 25 church burnings a year. I agree with the commenter above who noted that if/when the number of churches that burn down in Canada every year goes back down to the historical average of 8 (in my hypothetical example), it's unlikely that a reporter in Canada will write an article taking note of that fact that can be RS-used to justify an end-date on the spike in burnings, which makes our job somewhat harder because in the ideal situation, we'd want an article like that to justify putting an end date on the spike in burnings. Still, it wouldn't serve readers, in the absence of an article like that, to imply in the article that the spike continues, if it hasn't. It's surely okay to let that uncertainty run for a few years but if in (say) ten years, the number of burnings a year has returned to historical averages for (say) nine years, we are under-serving readers by not having a way to put that into the article. Novellasyes (talk) 18:11, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Novellasyes on essentially every part of what they said, but would say that a even just three or four years (rather than 10) on from the last comprehensive report that discusses it as an ongoing subject is sufficient time. That would start the clock at January 2024 for now, with it possibly restarting if a new piece of high-quality RS coverage presents it as still ongoing. ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:18, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Why January 2024? We don't seem to have any sources which talk about church burnings in January 2024. The last ones in the article seem to be 2023 and its unclear if those are part of the situation. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:27, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Witchcraft

This dispute revolves around a single word. Should the article say Followers of certain kinds of modern paganism identify as witches and redefine the term "witchcraft" as part of their neopagan beliefs and practices. or should it say Followers of certain kinds of modern paganism identify as witches and have reclaimed the term "witchcraft" as part of their neopagan beliefs and practices. Reliable sources, as listed on the talk page, use "reclaim". However, all attempts to change the wording have been reverted,[4][5] as other editors argue the term "reclaim" is not accurate. This argument, however, seems to be original research and the article should reflect what is written in reliable sources, IMO. The full debate can be read at Talk:Witchcraft#Defining neopagan witchcraft. Additional opinions from experienced editors would be welcome. Nosferattus (talk) 16:29, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps "has appropriated the term..."? My knee-jerk reaction is that "reclaim" states that the modern pagans "had" witchcraft in the first place.Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:54, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Reclaim is an odd word to use there, appropriated does sound better. Neo-pagans have taken the word and use it on their own terms. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:26, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree "reclaim" is not NPOV because it implies they were the original owners of the term, in accordance with the belief that modern paganism is a continuation of historical "witchcraft" (not that this isn't a valid religion, but it shouldn't be endorsed in Wikipedia's any more than any other). I think "appropriated" is definitely fine, but perhaps "use the term 'witchcraft' to refer to their neopagan beliefs and practices" would be better to have absolutely no value judgement on their use of the term. Mrfoogles (talk) 16:53, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Whonix and primary sources

The article on Whonix appears to have a large portion of its sources come from primary sources such as their own wiki and several bug trackers. I have removed several sections that consisted of just primary resources (or no resources at all), but I wanted to get a second opinion here as I am stuck on what to do.

What should be done to Whonix#History, given that more than half of the citations here are based on primary sources and may not be reliable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2620:8D:8000:10E6:8025:190F:6B84:4C55 (talk) 03:43, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Isn't this more of a notability issue? Using primary sources is not ideal, but that doesn't make it original research, even if the sources are non-independent. I don't expect the Linux distro to be too unreliable on its own history, absent major controversy. The only issue would be if there were not reliable secondary sources at all, in which case the article would be non-notable.

In my opinion, as long as multiple reliable secondary sources back up some of the article, other non-controversial sections can be filled in with primary sources for completeness. Mrfoogles (talk) 16:56, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Job (biblical figure)

This is about [6]. I'm not sure the edit passes WP:V requirements. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:45, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

agreed, glanced through the refs and the text doesn't seem to be support the cited sources. This source [7] doesn't mention a character called Vazhir (and is a primary source). This source [8] doesn't support the sentence "As noted, this narrative shares many similarities with the story of Job in the Old Testament, and some scholars suggest that Job may have originated from this tale or vice versa." And not quite sure what these two [9] [10] refs are about. Eucalyptusmint (talk) 01:42, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Defense of Sihang Warehouse

In the Defense of Sihang Warehouse article, one editor Wahreit has been asserting in the infobox that Westerners reported the Japanese military suffered "heavy losses" by citing two somewhat obscure newspapers as a source for this. I feel like this itself falls under Original Research, as drawing such a conclusion from a mere two Western newspaper articles published far from the conflict (rather than for example, a Western military observer or journalist in China) would constitute synthesis and a not a particularly good one.

As such, I removed the heavy losses from the infobox owing to the lack of consensus and added the following passage to the "Casualties and Aftermath" section.

"While the Shanghai-based North China Herald makes no mention of significant Japanese losses, some overseas Western sources and postwar accounts of the battle report that the Japanese attackers suffered heavy casualties assaulting the Sihang Warehouse."

This was then followed by various Western sources asserting they suffered heavy casualties originally added by the other editor.

To my surprise, my edits have been undone by Wahreit who gave the reason "restored article to a verifiable version before editorializing edits; independent research and synthesis of sources to support conclusions not explicitly supported by the material is forbidden by WP:NOORIGINALRESEARCH".

Does noting that western newspapers in the city do not mention heavy losses count as original research? I'm really hoping for a third opinion that can help direct the article in a better direction.

Thank you, -Adachi1939

References

Naming a painting used in album art when not directly stated in secondary or primary sources

If I can identify what painting is used in album art, is that original research to mention it? Specifically, there's an album that uses a panel of Stefan Lochner's Martyrdom of the Apostles, that of Bartholomew. A secondary source does tentatively identify the painting as being of Bartholomew - he says "I think Bartholomew". More of the painting is used in the internal liner notes, as well as Last Judgement. However, the album liner notes don't credit the painting. For reference, scans of the album art can be seen here: [11] Is it original research to identify the painting by name when I can visually confirm that they are the same? I suspect so but wanted to run it by some others for their opinions.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:41, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

My personal thoughts are that WP:SKYBLUE might apply here. Stepping into the realm of the philosophical for a moment, what's the difference between reading text and looking at images? In both cases, you're taking in visual information and processing that into into concepts in your mind.

To put forth a comparison, if a famous book had the following passage on the cover:

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

I doubt we would need a source to state it "...has a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech on the cover." ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:17, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay, that's helpful. This was exactly the kind of reasoning I was wondering about.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 13:58, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has complained that the caption 'A single brick' is original research in the article Brick. Bricks are quite complicated things, but we appear to be allowed to recognize them. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:09, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I feel like it's OR but also just IAR, it's silly to pretend. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 22:48, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Not OR. The source is: album cover. The source is: painting. That album cover and painting look the same is not a synthesis, it is a simple straightforward observation that anyone, with access to the sources and without specialist knowledge can make. The name of a painting is also not specialist knowledge, anyone can find the name of a painting. (Someone might raise some other issue or there might be a disagreement ('you have the wrong painting' or 'they do not look the same') but none of that relies on OR, and you will have to settle those under other policies, editing methods, or dispute resolution). Now, if you want to publish here, without a public RS, 'why' that painting was chosen for the album, that would be OR. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:42, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Is it OR to say "Team won by biggest margin in 50 years" if the source is our articles?

Suppose in the finals of some major event, Team A beats Team B 6-0. Is it OR to write "this is the largest victory in the last 50 years", if the source is our articles on the previous finals (one would have to manually click through all of them and check that there's been no larger margin of victory)? Banedon (talk) 01:09, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I would argue yes, not so much by outright comparison of stats which could fall under routine calcs, but the absence of recognition of this stat by any reliable source (if that were the case). More to the fact that that statement seems like puffery and thus should not be made in wikivoice. Masem (t) 02:55, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I would agree with Masem… while it is the sort of Original Research we might allow per routine calculation), it’s a bit UNDUE… not the sort of statistic that is worth mentioning in our article unless other sources having noted it first. Blueboar (talk) 20:37, 18 April 2025 (UTC)