Talk:Beslan school siege/Archive 1

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Mashkadov & Shamil Basayev

Why does this article mention Mashkadov instead of Shamil Basayev (who claimed responsibility for the Moscow attack and is considerably more likely to be behind this one)? Ambi 12:17, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Because Maskhadov has publicly denied any responsibility but nothing has been heard from Basayev. While it's certainly possible that his group is behind it, mentioning it at this stage would be pure speculation. -- ChrisO 12:55, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov has denied that his forces are involved in the siege, but the crisis is strikingly similar to the Moscow Theatre Siege of February 2002. Emphasis mine. My point is that at the moment, this section (whether intentionally or not) makes the implication that Maskhadov is linked to at least the Moscow siege, with the connotation that he may well also have been involved in this as well, though. Ambi 13:41, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, perhaps it could be reworded to "Aslan Maskhadov has denied that his forces are involved in the siege. Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for the Moscow Theatre Siege, has not yet commented on the situation, but there are various similarities between both crises." Any criticisms? Gavin 14:01, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's much better. Ambi 21:52, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

School location

I dunno where this would go -- perhaps if someone does an article on the school, but it's on COMINTERN Street. I'm surprised it wasn't renamed. Just a bit of trivia. -Joseph 01:20, 2004 Sep 4 (UTC)

Why would anyone want to rename it? Its our history, regardless for what it means to foreigners. Cacofiend 19:36, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Stalin is also part of your history, and his streets were (AFAIK) renamed :). Ausir 19:55, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Some of them were, but Stalin is still generally commended rather than disliked, especially for the way he dealt with chechens. Cacofiend 20:37, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Clarification please

In the start of the article, it mentions "After an exchange of gunfire with police, in which five were killed," - Question: is that five police or hostage takers? Krupo 06:55, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)

Five terrorists. Lazy Ranma 09:51, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 21:46, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)) ?So why does the page now say that five officers were killed?

Since there seem to be conflicting numbers with the death toll, does anyone else think it would be a wise idea to say "around 400"? --FarQPwnsJoo 09:44, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think it is wise idea. Lazy Ranma 09:51, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

PS 212.111.92.2 is me

Official data - 322 died Lazy Ranma 11:03, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Half of them were children. Most have been shot in their backs.Cacofiend 07:32, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

335 by now.Cacofiend 15:21, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

school ground plan

Please note my rough sketches of the school grounds may be inaccurate. I drew them from BBC news latest article, but I've since seen other, different, examples from BBC and CNN quoting gazeta.ru (Izvestia) as source. I'm still searching for a good source. -Wikibob | Talk 23:29, 2004 Sep 4 (UTC)

It's good that we have plans, and all thanks should go to Wikibob for so promptly adding them, but could someone with some artisitc flare draw some better images - of course if someone can draw something like http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/world/04/russian_s/html/1.stm then that's just great! Tompagenet 10:55, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, these were quickly drawn to help me, and hopefully others, understand what had happened and make sense of the television images. It would certainly be great if someone could produce better alternatives. I'm now more confident that the BBC sketch, on which the rough plan is based, is more accurate than the CNN version, as one can match the view from bottom-right with this photo

It would be nice to know which way is North (I'm guessing bottom left) and where the railway track lies (I'm guessing up).-Wikibob | Talk 18:54, 2004 Sep 6 (UTC)

Would anyone mind if I did a slightly more antialiased and outlined version of Wikibob's drawing? I like it, but I think it just needs a bit of smoothing. (I've now done an image based on the first of Wikibob's plans, but I'm afraid I don't know how to link to it from here without actually inserting it into the page.) Underscore 22:56, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just put a colon before the "Image", i.e. [[:Image:foo.png]]. --Conti|✉ 19:13, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. Here it is: Image:Beslan_hostage_crisis_initial_plan.png. If people think it's okay, I can do another one if there's need for it :-). Underscore 20:07, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The red dots don't line up, is there a reason for that? mvdhout 20:15, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No good reason, other than I was lazy — fixed now. Thanks for pointing that out. Underscore 20:41, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The PDF version of the Saturday issue of Izvestia linked in by someone recently shows that the Comintern street is the one on the left not the one on the top of the diagram. Not sure if both streets have the same name. ilgiz 17:06, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

removed copyrighted image of school

I reverted to remove the image copyrighted by the BBC; I saw no permission to use this, and the BBC state:

"All rights, including copyright, in the content of these BBC web pages are owned or controlled for these purposes by the BBC.

In accessing the BBC's web pages, you agree that you may only download the content for your own personal non-commercial use.

You are not permitted to copy, broadcast, download, store (in any medium), transmit, show or play in public, adapt or change in any way the content of these BBC web pages for any other purpose whatsoever without the prior written permission of the BBC." -Wikibob | Talk 21:45, 2004 Sep 5 (UTC)

Comment: Copyrights on certain things don't really matter. Would you tell someone to delete something that is copyrighted in this type of situation? [terrorist attacks] User:kloy1334 | Talk 10:45, 2004 Sep 18 (GMT -7)

Images?

This article could really use images. Are there free (fair use?) pictures out there? The cutesy diagrams there now wholly fail to capture the full horror of this "hostage crisis" in a way even a small number of photos would. VV 16:35, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Here are 10 photos sourced from Reuters but from the attacker's video, no idea if they would count as fair use. They're linked from the German article [1]. -Wikibob | Talk 00:46, 2004 Sep 9 (UTC)

Some photos would certainly help. But I don't think the diagrams (someone's hard work) deserve the rather disparaging label "cutesy". –Hajor 14:30, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean it as disparaging. Rather, the diagrams have a glow to them which alone don't reflect the gravity of the subject. But obviously they are a huge asset. VV 09:19, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)