Talk:Elephant execution in the United States

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Animal rights Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Animal rights, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of animal rights on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Animal rightsWikipedia:WikiProject Animal rightsTemplate:WikiProject Animal rightsAnimal rights articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Topsy

This list has a very narrow WP:LISTCRITERIA, namely members have to be executed. Per Nance, Susan (2013). Entertaining Elephants: Animal Agency and the Business of the American Circus and several contemporaneous newspaper accounts [1] Topsy meets the lists exclusion criteria "elephant euthanasia", they describe how she was put down because they could no longer maintain her. Topsy is also excluded per WP:WIKIVOICE / "If different reliable sources make conflicting assertions about a matter, treat these assertions as opinions rather than facts, and do not present them as direct statements." "execution" is a very direct statement. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 13:01, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Fountains of Bryn Mawr: it's so funny. Of all the things the things that might be problematic about this article Topsy's inclusion never even crossed my mind as a possible point of dispute! So I don't really know what to say. I'm not trying to force a POV and the distinction between animal euthanasia and animal execution probably has a lot of qualitative, emotional attributes I'm not equipped to evaluate, but yeah, I don't know, I mean...they sure did make an extravagant show out of killing her publicly. jengod (talk) 15:05, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's the thing, Topsy ranks right up there re: "animals killed as a public spectacle". That would be another list and feel free to put her at the top of that one. But WP:WIKIVOICE is policy, we really can't make a claim she was specifically executed. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 22:08, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unclear inclusion criteria

Tagged this as having no precise (and actually contradictory) inclusion criteria - namely "killing of an elephant in order to punish it for behaviors that had inconvenienced, threatened, injured, or killed humans". "killing of an" animal "for behaviors that had inconvenienced, threatened, injured, or killed humans" is one of the definitions of animal euthanasia and euthanasia is excluded in the next sentence. That leaves us with inclusion criteria that the animal had to be "punish"-ed and that it had a ("pseudo-legal or performative aspect"?)

Three out of the first 4 entries do not fit the inclusion criteria - Black Diamond (elephant), Charlie (elephant), and Charlie Ed - were all euthanized (behavioral problems causing grievous bodily harm (severe injuries or death), they were neither punished and/or were not killed in some public performance. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 20:07, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]