Talk:2021 Meron stampede

Requested move 1 May 2021
2021 Meron stampede → 2021 Meron crowd crush – There has already been a lot of debate about this above, but in summary my opinion is that the use of "stampede" is an extremely loaded term and should be avoided. Contrary to what's written above this is not original research, as reliable sources such as (which is used in our own crowd crush article) say the term is rejected by academics. On the extremely rare occasions that a real stampede happens – that is, people running over you – it is unlikely to be fatal. “If you look at the analysis, I’ve not seen any instances of the cause of mass fatalities being a stampede,” says Keith Still, professor of crowd science at Manchester Metropolitan University. “People don’t die because they panic. They panic because they are dying.”. Obviously I'm aware that many sources are indeed calling it a stampede, but it's more ubiquitously called a "crush" - most sources saying "stampede" also seem to say "crush", while plenty of sources such as the BBC avoid the use of the loaded "stampede" altogether. Finally, regarding the year I am less concerned about that, and I would also support Meron crowd crush as a second choice, but in general I favour inclusion of years for WP:RECOGNIZE reasons and as per similar unambiguous examples like 2016 Munich shooting and 2021 Hualien train derailment. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 10:06, 1 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Whilst "crowd crush" is technically accurate, "stampede" or "disaster" is the Wikipedian vernacular. The main article is Crowd crush; the subsection list is "Examples of stampedes and crushes"; none of the incidents listed (except for this one) is a denoted as a crush. That said, I await the translation of the Hebrew. kencf0618 (talk) 10:23, 1 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment The page has gone through multiple titles whose combinations have included:
 * Year: Include 2021 or not
 * Location: Israel, Mount Meron, or Meron
 * Incident type: Stampede or crush—Bagumba (talk) 10:18, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Also worth noting that the original title was 2021 Israel stampede. There hadn't been as much debate on the locality question, which is why I restored it to "Meron" again this morning rather than to "Israel". &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 10:47, 1 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Move to Meron crowd crush.
 * a) The year isn't needed, because it's a major, well-known event; the only one of its type at this location. The 1911 disaster there wasn't a crowd crush or a stampede.
 * b) The location - rather than merely the country - should be in the title. It took place in Meron, not on Mount Meron.
 * c) It was a crowd crush rather than a stampede, despite many media sources using the latter term. Jim Michael (talk) 10:28, 1 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep "stampede" in title. According to WP:COMMONNAME, Wikipedia [...] generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources). [...] In determining which of several alternative names is most frequently used, it is useful to observe the usage of major international organizations, major English-language media outlets [...]. Looking at the front pages of the world, only UK sources use the term "crush" — the rest of the world uses the term "stampede". "Stampede" is used by the New York Times, The Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal , AlJazeera , Reuters and the Jerusalem Post . "Crush" is used by The Guardian , the BBC  and the Times . There is, in other words, a clear tendency in reliable sources of using the term "stampede" over the term "crush". In any case, since Israel is not part of the UK, there is no reason to favour UK terminology. JBchrch (talk) 10:37, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * This argument completely fails to address the neutrality issue. At the end of the day, this is a *descriptive* title. There's no official name for this incident, which means that we use the title to describe the event in a way that is recognizable. As such, we follow WP:NDESC, which warns us to ""avoid judgmental and non-neutral words". I've explained above that reliable sources have flagged "stampede" on this basis, and it's therefore preferable for Wikipedia to steer clear of that by using neutral language which also recognizably describes the event. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 10:44, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * My understanding is the following: if there is a consensus among reliable sources as to the name of a particular event (as is the case for most newsworthy events), then we must use this name per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOVNAME. If such a consensus cannot be found, and if we editors have to decide on a title, then we must apply WP:CRITERIA and WP:NDESC. It's funny that this discussion would come up right now, because I am working on a draft where there is no consensus on how to name the event in question, so I had to come up with something myself.
 * Regardless, it looks like the correct work is actually stampede. From what I could gather looking at the Cambridge dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, it's "stampede" that applies when crowds are panicking, moving or fleeing, which was the case here. JBchrch (talk) 13:33, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You hit the nail on the head with your quote "if there is a consensus among reliable sources as to the name of a particular event". There clearly isn't though, because numerous sources are actively avoiding the term you favour. When sources are actively telling us this is a problematic term, it's simply wrong for us to be perpetuating it like this. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 13:57, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * On the subject of only UK sources use the term "crush" — the rest of the world uses the term "stampede", six of the eight sources on the page that use 'stampede' (New York Times, Sky News, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Stars and Stripes, Associated Press) are American, so I'm thinking stampede is actually only "the correct word" in American English. And 'stampede' doesn't apply when a crowd is just moving, only when it is panicked or fleeing (see OED, again); which in fact wasn't the case here. Moonraker12 (talk) 18:05, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Not necessarily arguing for crush over stampede, but crush is not limited to UK sources. See "Crush at religious festival in Israel's Mount Meron kills 45 people". CNN, "After Meron tragedy: How to survive a crowd crush". The Jerusalem Post, "Israel seeks to identify 45 dead in crush". Australian Associated Press.—Bagumba (talk) 10:54, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Mention year because of the 1911 disaster when the railing break and people fell and died. Mentioning the year indicating that it somewhat a repeat disaster. Sokuya (talk) 11:17, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * In 1911, people fell and died when a railing broke. It was neither a stampede nor crush.—Bagumba (talk) 11:24, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed - the only way that we'd need the year in the title is if we decide to use disaster in it rather than crush or stampede. Jim Michael (talk) 12:04, 1 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose, keep stampede. "Meron stampede" has 40 000 Ghits while "Meron crush" has 3500 Ghits. Clearly the more common name. WWGB (talk) 11:31, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The same search terms without quotation marks around them yield 19 million hits for meron crush and 14 million hits for meron stampede. Einsof (talk) 11:49, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. "Stampede" just isn't accurate and there are enough journalists getting it right by calling it a crush that we should prefer the latter. Einsof (talk) 11:51, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME, stampede is more commonly used. — Berrely  • Talk∕Contribs 12:05, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support "crush" wording. I've stated reasons elsewhere in this Talk page, and the relevant points have been made by others in this discussion. Essentially: 1. both "stampede" and "crush" are used by sources, there's no unique accepted term; 2. what happened was clearly not uncontrolled running but squashing people slowly. Academic sources consider "stampede" wrong. Pol098 (talk) 13:47, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: If 'crowd crush' fails WP:COMMONNAME, but 'stampede' is non-neutral (which I agree is the case) the answer per WP:TITLE is something neutral and descriptive, like 'incident', or 'tragedy', or 'disaster' (See other, similar articles for examples). Also, if we are going to make an exception for this article, when the sources used call it a stampede, we should take the same view across the board; one of the objections to the use of the term 'stampede' in these cases is that it is discriminatory (we object only when it happens to 'people like us'; compare, for example, Category:Human stampedes in the United Kingdom with Category:Human stampedes in Saudi Arabia). Moonraker12 (talk) 14:03, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link to those cats. Inside, many of those pages do not have the word stampede in them. I would support name changes on most of the articles which are also clearly not stampedes by definition. Shuki (talk) 20:25, 1 May 2021 (UTC)


 * "Meron crowd crush", largely per Jim Michael. There's no clear winner between "stampede" and "(crowd) crush" COMMONNAME-wise, which means we can use our editorial discretion, and there are multiple good reasons to prefer the latter, both for academic accuracy and in light of the general bias toward using "stampede" for events that happen outside the West. Given that this is a) the only event of its kind in Meron and b) very notable: Disambiguation by year is unnecessary. That would only be necessary if there were actual ambiguity with another event, or if a very generic term like "incident" were being used. The 1911 event wasn't a stampede; there will probably be some people who mix it up with one, but that's what hatnotes are for—see, e.g. 1993 World Trade Center bombing. -- Tamzin (they/she) &#124; o toki tawa mi. 17:37, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support "crush" wording. It is inaccurate to call it a stampede when the facts and video show that this was an overcrowding issue, not some mass rush on impulse or flight from some other reason. This specific event does not fall under any common use of the term stampede. Shuki (talk) 20:15, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say it is "inaccurate to call it a stampede" when the top 2 most reliable and neutral sources in the world say stampede...just saying. See my comment below for a more detailed reasoning for this comment. Elijahandskip (talk) 21:54, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I understand your wish to rely on the terminology chosen by those companies, but just because they 'say' it was a stampede but report that it was not about a stampede mentality or action should mean a lot more. I would support an even more neutral simple term 'Meron Disaster' like is used for many other similar catastrophes. Shuki (talk) 13:34, 2 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Support, while "stampede" is probably used more, I don't think the degree to which it is used more supports a strong enough WP:COMMONNAME argument to supersede the utility in using the correct nomenclature; "crush" and "stampede" are both used quite often. &#8209;&#8209;Volteer1 (talk) 21:11, 1 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Keep Stampede as many editors that know me, I use logic in discussions rather than Wiki policies. (AP News) & (Reuters) calls it a stampede.  Logically, since the 2 most reliable and neutral sources in the world (Per the famous media bias/reliability graph/research a few years ago), I have to say that Wikipedia, the worlds largest encyclopedia, should also call it a stampede. Elijahandskip (talk) 21:49, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * P.S. for people wanting to know, (here) is a link to that media bias graph. Elijahandskip (talk) 21:49, 1 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Support In general I think crowd crush is the more overall descriptive term, a stampede refers to usually running as an example a stampede of people on black Friday, however as made clear it in the article it wasn't just people running but instead a crowd crush, of people staying roughly in the same area therefor I think that logic of crowd crush is better to describe the horrible event. Thanks. Des Vallee (talk) 22:11, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * comment as a casual reader from Israel of wikipedia. I was searching online for English "2021 Meron Disaster" to find it. In Hebrew it's called "Mount Meron Disaster" (also Hebrew wikipedia article) or "Meron Disaster". Stampede is a loaded word with animalistic connotation and Crush is too unfamiliar or too cold and "scientific"103.1.31.200 (talk)
 * I know this wasn't your point, but for what it's worth, I've just created redirects for those three titles (except with lowercase dees) and for "2021 Mount Meron disaster". -- Tamzin (she/they) &#124; o toki tawa mi. 02:09, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment No need for the year. I think "disaster" or similar is a better title, as others noted, the event doesn't actually have a name and Wikipedia is supposed to avoid being the source for the name. If we need to choose, "stampede" is more common, "crowd crush" just sounds weird and pedantic. Hydromania (talk) 08:31, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * ... Wikipedia is supposed to avoid being the source for the name: Not true. Per the policy WP:NDESC, non-judgmental descriptive titles often need to be invented. —Bagumba (talk) 18:15, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support crowd crush. It was a crowd crush, not a stampede. I also saw that an earlier editor noted that Wikipedia articles do not need to follow titles used by mainstream news sources. Durdyfiv1 (talk) 09:05, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support crowd crush; it's a more accurate term. Yitz (talk) 09:13, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. Simply because it was a crowd crush and not a stampede. --geageaTalk 13:32, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support It was not a stampede. It was a crowd crush--Steamboat2020 (talk) 14:02, 2 May 2021 (UTC)--Steamboat2020 (talk) 14:02, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Almost all of the articles about similar tragedies (this happens in Meccas somewhat often) use stampede. While "crush" may be scientifically more correct, that is not the term used in common parlance.Jdavi333 (talk) 14:41, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * "used in common parlance" - it cannot be common parlance after 3 days. You can use this argument if it common over the time and wiki article participate also in creation of misleading "common parlance". --geageaTalk 10:31, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * @Jdavi333, I support also changing the titles on all those articles about tragedies where it is not a stampede (and frankly most were not at all). Shuki (talk) 11:14, 3 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Move to "Meron crowd crush". The article doesn't use the word stampede anywhere. --Bsherr (talk) 15:47, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Some people have mentioned using "disaster" in the title. It doesn't seem very WP:PRECISE, and most people aren't going to remember the exact year, making the year a less preferable main disambiguator from other disasters e.g. 1911. I wouldn't use "disaster", short of it becoming part of a proper noun WP:COMMONNAME, which hasn't happened.—Bagumba (talk) 18:09, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support "Mount Meron Disaster" would be ideal, in line with the terminology used for the Hillsborough disaster, but given a binary choice between "stampede" and "crush", "crush" is a less loaded term. --Zhanmusi (talk) 20:30, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Propose It is almost mind-boggling that "Lag BaOmer" is not in the title. Why not call the Boston Marathon bombing the "2013 Boston bombing"? I propose the "2021 Mount Meron Lag BaOmer crush or disaster". The Kingfisher (talk) 20:50, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Agree with Moonraker12 and some others in this thread that, if the dispute between stampede and crowd crush is not settled, disaster is the best title (followed by tragedy and incident). And, as Jim Michael has pointed out, the year would have to be added. Leoseliv (talk) 21:07, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose until I actually see a number-based argument proving that crowd crush is the WP:COMMONNAME. Anecdotally, from what I've seen, most sources use stampede. Us changing the name because we think it's technically wrong is WP:OR. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 01:44, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * It may or may not be the right title, but choosing "crowd crush" is not wrong because of OR. Per the policy WP:NDESC, descriptive titles are often required to be "invented" by our editors:  ... often invented specifically for articles, and should reflect a neutral point of view, rather than suggesting any editor's opinions. —Bagumba (talk) 02:27, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Definitely keep the year number - given the politics in Israel, especially surrounding the Charedim, the chance of any major change is slim. I just read this morning that it was predicted, back in 1965, that a crowd-disaster would happen eventually. It shouldn't be a surprise if in 4 years on Lag BaOmer (next time it falls on Thursday night/Friday) an other disaster occurs. Animal lover 666 (talk) 06:31, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support Please change the word stampede in the title to crowd crush. The word "stampede" has an animalistic and uncivilized connotation, giving the wrong impression that people were wildly, intentionally storming through the crowds. This is terribly disrespectful to those who died and were injured, as the disaster was caused by extreme overcrowding but not due to any kind of aggressive or intentional behavior. Crowd crush is a much more neutral, fair, and accurate description.185.120.125.41 (talk) 15:02, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I've copied this !vote from this since deleted duplicate RM that the user opened. It was for all intents and purposes a "support", whose bolded text I added above, while the remainder was copied verbatim.—Bagumba (talk) 15:40, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong support apart from anything else (lots of good comments above), the word "stampede" does not appear in the article itself, whereas "crush" appears repeatedly. --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 16:03, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, as some editors apparently took it upon themselves to make the body of the article inconsistent with the title, and then remove any in-prose reference to a "stampede" as inconsistent. Really gives you a headache when you think about it. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 18:02, 3 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Neutral - Either seems fine to me. Love of Corey (talk) 20:51, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support- Lag B'omer Meron Crowd Crush, That covers the place, the event and the actual experience, without any negative media bias that stampede invokes — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smlamm (talk • contribs) 23:24, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 *  Oppose : In support of my opposition, almost every similar event listed in this template (Template:Human crushes) (despite the name of the template), is "year" "location" "stampede". I am not sure if this should be the page that breaks Wikipedia. Jdavi333 (talk) 01:04, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Ambox warning pn.svg — Duplicate vote: Jdavi333 (talk • contribs) has already cast a vote above. —Bagumba (talk) 07:23, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * And in any case, if others were actually 'stampede's, it's appropriate for them to be called that. If any were actually 'crush'es, but are called stampede, it's an WP:OTHERSTUFF argument, and all it does is suggest that we ought to correct others, too. --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 12:58, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support The only reason why early media reports used the inaccurate word "stampede" is because it was believed at the time that the crush was caused by a collapsed grandstand, which lead some journalists to believe that the incident was the result of a rush of people running from the collapse. That proved to be false. There was no sudden trigger; the crowd was simply too big for the venue and a series of minor incidents (slips, falls, and the like) caused a holdup that ultimately lead to the crush as more and more people were pressed together in the crowd. -- Puzzledvegetable Is it teatime already?  16:41, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Condolences
I think it's good to have written which countries sent condolences. But I wonder how it is best to be written if it includes a lot of countries. Or is it just good to separate them by commas? Adam080 (talk) 18:14, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * A minor rant here. Nothing personal toward you: I'm aware that these sections are widespread, but after years of encountering them, I still don't really understand their purpose. It's pretty much a given that after a mass casualty, many countries will send condolences, in a manner that's essentially just a function of how close they are geopolitically. Occasionally you get a notable departure from this like Israel offering aid to Lebanon after the 2020 Beirut explosion despite being in a state of war, or, in the other direction, if a country pointedly didn't send condolences when you'd expect them to... But the rest of the time, I really don't see how it adds information to the article that is likely to be useful to our readers. -- Tamzin (she/they) &#124; o toki tawa mi. 18:28, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree in some point, maybe it would be too much to put all of them. Adam080 (talk) 19:05, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer just a summary at least. Officials from almost every country would probably be willing to say that an obviously bad event is bad and give their condolences, a list of twenty Country, Country , etc. serves little purpose, really. &#8209;&#8209;Volteer1 (talk) 21:16, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * We can do without the flag salad that tends to accompany recent disaster articles.--WaltCip- (talk)  23:48, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Map
So in User:Berrely/sandpit3 I have created a GeoJSON map using maplink, but for some reason, when I copy the exact same code into the infobox, it just shows a picture of the world map. WMmaps is a bit buggy, so if someone could get the map working it would be great. — Berrely  • Talk∕Contribs 09:26, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

"deadliest civil disaster in the history of Israel"
I undid the sentence, simply because its not true. In the original hebrew article, the sentence has been already deleted.

first of all, how do you define a civil disaster? also, there's bigger disasters, 1997 Israeli helicopter disaster was a bigger disaster in terms of fatality. and there's some disasters with more victims like the Versailles wedding hall disaster. Axinosinety (talk) 10:30, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The 1997 Israeli helicopter disaster wasn't a civil disaster, it was a military one, and less people died in the Versailles wedding hall disaster than in this event. The reliable sources reporting on it (e.g. or ) aren't wrong. &#8209;&#8209;Volteer1 (talk) 10:36, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * A "civil disaster" is one which is neither primarily within the armed forces (police, army, etc) nor terrorist. While terrorist is itself difficult to define, it's clearly the result of an action intended to kill, which would clearly exclude this incident. Animal lover 666 (talk) 06:03, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Thursday–Friday significance
The article currently says Additionally, for the first time in 13 years, the Mount Meron celebration happened between Thursday and Friday ... Is there a cultural significance or implication there? If so, can it be made stated more explicitly?—Bagumba (talk) 07:35, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Shabbat is the missing info. While the revelry traditionally takes place on Lag BaOmer, it is typically drawn out over a few days to accommodate the large crowds. However this wasn't really possible here because the following day is Shabbat, were no travel or bonfire lighting can take place (among other restrictions). As such there was much pressure to cram more people and bonfires in a short time. I'll try to edit the article to clarify (without too much original research). Rami R 08:23, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 08:30, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Also, Thursday night in Israel is considered to be like Saturday night in the West. Friday is like Sunday, because of the need to prepare for the Shabbat. Durdyfiv1 (talk) 11:42, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I've edited assuming that the festivities had to stop at sunset on Friday, the start of Shabbat. But they may well have been scheduled to end earlier (people had to travel back). It would be useful for someone who knows to state the actual cutoff time. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 20:47, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Stairs were closed by police before stampede
the article don't mention the fact as per many witnesses on scene that the police closed the exit of the stairs before, which was the main cause why people were crushed to deathYeams (talk) 16:36, 4 May 2021 (UTC)