Talk:Columbine High School massacre/Archive 5

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No mention of Hitler?

It seems odd there's no mention of the killers' love for Hitler and even carrying out the massacre on his birthday. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.147.13.35 (talk) 12:40, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

It could be mentioned – provided that it be accompanied by independent, reliable sources. Richard 09:54, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 April 2017

I'd like to add a picture of the victims. This incident should be thought of as much in terms of the reality and value of their lives and identities as of the identities and actions of the individuals who killed them. Ravenrose327 (talk) 04:07, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. -- Dane ^talk 20:35, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Suicides of the perpetrators needs to be fixed

The article says that Harris and Klebold commited suicide simultaneously after counting down from 3. This was orginaly reported as a statement from Patti Nielson in a "Rocky Mountain News" article published August 22, 1999. When contacted by telephone, Nielson said that she has no memory of ever having contact with a Rocky Mountain News. She also said that the shooters counting down from three was only a speculation. From the reports that I heard, Harris was killed by a shotgun blast to the roof of the mouth and died instantly. Following Harris' suicide, Klebold lit a molotov cocktail and threw it. Klebold was alive for a while following the death of Harris before shooting himself in the side of the head with his pistol. Klebold was reported not to have died instantly, and was heard coughing, suggesting that he was choking on his blood, probably unconsciously. I don't have any sources at the moment, so I don't want to edit the article by myself. Hopefully someone can take the time to . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshharel (talk • contribs) 20:40, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

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Parenthetical in lead paragraph

Looking a citations 11 and 12, I'm not seeing anything that supports the parenthetical with the sentence "even though the perpetrators were not outcasts." Did I miss it? Going to add a specific citation needed template there as this seems to conflict with everything else I've read about the perpetrators. - Scarpy (talk) 15:32, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, seeing it now when I read 11 more closely. - Scarpy (talk) 15:36, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Reported as deadliest school massacre

in the lede - although this was reported in the past, Newtown surpasses it now I think, so i'm not sure we should continue to include this line -KaJunl (talk) 02:51, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

It states 'deadliest high school massacre'. The Newtown shooting took place in an elementary school. Richard 07:10, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks- must have misread. -KaJunl (talk) 13:35, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

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In popular culture or Media Section

Would it be beneficial to create a new section with one of these two titles;(a) In popular culture or (b) Mediato to allow for new content and associated citations for listing books, movies/television episodes? Vwanweb (talk) 05:38, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Since there is an article Columbine High School massacre in popular culture (mentioned under 'See Also'), I don't think that would be very useful. Richard 09:24, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

2018 Rewrite

This article needs to be rewritten a lot, and I believe it mentions the misconceptions too much rather than focusing on the facts. Also, there is significant overlap with the Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold article. I've made a couple edits today but I think a lot still needs to be done. Would love to hear some input from other editors. Cait.123 (talk) 18:41, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

• I'd expect a lot of overlap between this and the Harris Klebold article since neither of them were the slightest bit notable outside of this event. What misconceptions are you referring to? Niteshift36 (talk) 19:18, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Outdated source

The sentence in the second paragraph states "The massacre has been reported as "the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history" and uses a source from 2012, which is outdated. It is not the deadliest anymore, so this sentence and source should be removed. 108.30.110.252 (talk) 22:20, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

• I would have kept a modified version of that, but I don't think we want or need a reference in the lead to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, an event many years later. School shootings aren't a sport. --John (talk) 00:31, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Adding single external link to NCTSN

Hello all! In light of my previous edit being reverted, and after discussion, I have gone ahead to add a single external link that goes to the resources page of the National Center Trauma Support Network (NCTSN). Many thanks to all for the consensus building, as per discussion here! Ongmianli (talk) 01:32, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Final Government Report

Reference #126 -- both links are dead, and the report is nowhere to be found. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 22:16, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I have found an archived copy in the wayback machine. Richard 08:03, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Matrix etc.

I just removed this new or renewed section added by Deltaend, and here is why. First of all, the original content was based on a mention in an ABC news article and something on something called Zimbio, and on a single mention in this book, published by some outfit called "BenBella", and all that has is "one reviewer found...", sourced to a cinema magazine. Moroever, what that reviewer found was the old--well, as Richardw pointed out, this whole "trenchcoat" thing is a bunch of hogwash. So here's the thing: this is an encyclopedic article and we're not going to give space to all kinds of theories and associations that lack credible sourcing. By now that which is important has been written up properly in academic sources, and we should be well past the stage where we use news articles from 2006 that lack a byline and any kind of proper sourcing. We're well past "investigators said the killers evoked Neo, Keanu Reeves' character in The Matrix". Drmies (talk) 15:38, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Personally, I found that the wording (especially the inspiration and glorification of the attack and In particular the "lobby" scene glorified a mass shooting plus bombing to prevent reinforcements which Eric and Dylan have been seen as copying) not in accordance with the references given. I might have overlooked it, but I can't find 'glorif*' in those. That did set off the 'original research warning light'. A few versions ago, I shortened the section to The movie The Matrix, which was released 20 days earlier, was briefly blamed for the shooting.^[1] It has been claimed that Harris and Klebold evoked Neo, Keanu Reeves' character in that movie^[2] but that was basically undone. Richard 07:47, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

How do you buy 3 guns inadvertently?

Article states (& has a footnote): "Their friend, Robyn Anderson, had inadvertently[29] bought a rifle and the two shotguns". Now how can someone inadvertently buy a rifle & shotguns??? The statement is so fantastic that I have to doubt that the source is reliable. (PeacePeace (talk) 19:26, 26 June 2018 (UTC))

Probably "unknowingly" would be better. She bought them for the boys intentionally, but didn't know they were going to use them for a massacre. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

List of victims

With reference to a similar list of victims in another article, it was stated that "the standard is that people who are Wikinotable - who have articles - can be included in "victims lists". Those who are not Wikinotable should not be" and that "Lists of non-notable people are non-notable and having their names in the article adds little to the understanding of the subject", in accordance with WP:MEMORIAL. I therefore removed the list of victims on this article as well, but my edit was reverted by WWGB (talk · contribs). What do other editors think - should the list of victims be included or not? Xwejnusgozo (talk) 14:16, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

@Xwejnusgozo: How do you rationalize overlooking WP:ONEEVENT and WP:OTHER ? - FlightTime (open channel) 14:23, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

IMO, that is not a correct interpretation of WP:MEMORIAL, which refers to "Subjects of encyclopedia articles", not victim lists. The inclusion of victim names is usually decided by contributing editors, in the absence of any overarching policy. WWGB (talk) 14:25, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Maybe explain why 6 days ago, you reinstated a victims list[3], and today in the span of 10 minutes(!), you have deleted victims lists from a number of articles about such events?[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] This seems like an ill-advised move, at best, and one that requires a clearer rationale than just throwing up WP:Memorial, especially since you were apparently on the opposite side of the fence less than a week ago. Grandpallama (talk) 14:33, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

In my personal opinion, I believe such lists should be included in the case of disasters/accidents/crimes which resulted in (relatively speaking) few victims. I don't believe that there should be lists of victims in cases where hundreds of people were killed (eg. the 2017 Las Vegas shooting).

However, the reason I deleted the list is because I think that there should be consistency on Wikipedia. I had included a list of victims when I wrote the C23 tragedy article, and it was removed twice by other editors. Why is a list of victims allowed in one article but not another?

Xwejnusgozo (talk) 14:36, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

So you knowingly decided to delete info from various articles, completely ignoring WP:Other, in order to make a point? I strongly suggest you self-revert those edits immediately. Grandpallama (talk) 14:38, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

I also believe in consistency for something like this, with allowance for rare exceptions. However, the last RfC on this question rejected consistency in favor of case-by-case decisions to include or omit. That's the community consensus as of this moment and we are all expected to abide by it. I can hunt down that RfC if you can't take my word for it. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:40, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

@Mandruss:, is this the one? WWGB (talk) 14:48, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

@WWGB: That one only affected that article. I'm speaking of one that was somewhere at Village Pump, probably VPP or VPR, and the consensus was case-by-case evaluations, no recommendation either way, no "default". The issue was kicked down to article level, condemning editors to argue the same arguments again and again at each article. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:52, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

It's not about making a point - it's about consistency. In some cases (eg. Santa Fe High School shooting), I did ignore previous discussions which had reached a consensus, and I apologize about that. To be fair, I did hope that these edits would generate some discussion (which they did) - perhaps it's time for a new general consensus regarding consistency to be reached? Having said that, I don't want to get into any stupid editing wars so I reverted all my edits which removed lists of victims. I also reverted the edits which removed the list of victims in the C23 article. Xwejnusgozo (talk) 14:53, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, you can't "ignore previous discussions" where community consensus was reached. That's kind of the whole point of community consensus. There is nothing to prevent you from raising the issue on individual talk pages that don't already have a clear consensus to include or omit, but mass changes without local consensuses are inappropriate. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:56, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. If you want to argue inclusion/removal on a article by article basis knock yourself out. - FlightTime (open channel) 15:00, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, making a bunch of edits in the hope that they'll generate discussion is exactly pointy behavior. You'd be better served by trying to start conversations on individual articles, or re-opening previous discussions about how these lists are treated, than in what you did. That's the sort of editing that can get you pulled over to ANI. Grandpallama (talk) 15:05, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

I made the edits because I was not aware of the article-by-article consensus, and when two different editors stated that a list of victims should not be included, I assumed that a general consensus had reached the conclusion that articles should not include these lists. I therefore went on to remove lists from a few articles. As I stated above, I did hope that this would generate discussion, but that was not the main point (I wouldn't have done it if I knew that an article-by-article consensus was in place).

Regarding articles where there had been previous discussions, I did not knowingly ignore them but I simply wasn't aware of them since I did not go through each talk page (which I admit is something that I should have done, and once again I apologize for this). I'm not going to waste time arguing about each article, but is it possible to reopen the discussion to reach a general consensus instead of by article-by-article basis? I'm asking since I don't know how these things normally work out. --Xwejnusgozo (talk) 15:13, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Consensus can change and I don't see a problem with revisiting the general question at community level. But it's way too early, it's only been roughly 6 months. I'd give it at least another year, and I'd advise you to collaborate with one or more editors (like me, for example) on framing the RfC question. The framing is critical, and in my opinion the most recent RfC was a misfire because it was poorly framed by a very-low-time editor who didn't know what the hell he was doing. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:19, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Wrong facts

In the first paragraph it says how the killers weren’t outcast which should be changed they were outcasts. Dave Cullins book isn’t very accurate on a lot of things and this is the one that really irritates me because this article is going to make people think that’s true when it isn’t. Redfender98 (talk) 04:34, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello? Redfender98 (talk) 17:02, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

There are multiple references provided which state that they were not outcasts. See for instance reference #10 (David Brooks in The New York Times) and #11 (Greg Toppo in USA Today). Cullen (with an 'e') is not the only source for the article. Richard 06:24, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

But they’re are also more credible sources like from people they knew and students who went to the school that said they were targets of bullying. Like brooks brown, Sue Klebold, Craig Scott, and many others Redfender98 (talk) 19:26, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Personal recollections are rarely reliable sources. Even if those recollections are accurate (and that might be a big if), does that make them more credible than other sources? In any case, I would not bluntly state that Harris and Kleborn were outcasts. Richard 14:00, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:DENY. Mz7 (talk) 00:25, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
On April 4, 2018, Redfender98 changed the above to this: Extended content In the first paragraph it says how the killers weren’t outcast which should be changed they were outcasts. Dave Cullins book isn’t very accurate on a lot of things and this is the one that really irritates me because this article is going to make people think that’s true when it isn’t. Redfender98 (talk) 04:34, 25 March 2018 (UTC) Hello? Redfender98 (talk) 17:02, 27 March 2018 Sorry it was wrong your right I’m stupid! Richard 06:24, 28 March 2018 (UTC) But they’re are also more credible sources like from people they knew and students who went to the school that said they were targets of bullying. Like brooks brown, Sue Klebold, Craig Scott, and many others Redfender98 (talk) 19:26, 28 March 2018 (UTC) Sure I will gladly replace it with the correct fact Eric and Dylan were indeed outcasts! Thanks for correcting me I will change it ASAP! Make sure you call me out again if I mess up! Thanks boss! Richard 14:00, 29 March 2018 (UTC) and removed the text fragment s/he doesn't agree with. I don't think that's the way how things work here. I have reverted his/her edits in the article and restored the original contents of this page. After having a look at his/her other contributions, I doubt if s/he has the right intentions. Richard 08:27, 4 April 2018 (UTC)  Administrator note For both committing vandalism and illegitimately refactoring the talk page comments of other users, I have blocked Redfender98 indefinitely. Mz7 (talk) 09:36, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Personal recollections are rarely reliable??? How do you know that? Do you have a personal recollection that some authority said so? If human memory is rarely reliable, how could anyone be convicted of many crimes? 2 or 3 witnesses is the ancient standard. As to being an outcast, outcast is not a tis or taint, yes or no; outcast could be rated on a 0-10 scale; the concept is not altogether binary. Question is, how much of an outcast? (PeacePeace (talk) 19:30, 26 June 2018 (UTC))

I'll start by saying the goal isn't to defend them - they would have shot me too, but to get at the truth, and to structure the article properly. I don't like how the lead mentions that they weren't outcasts. Whether they were or not, that seems like theorizing which should not be in the lead, but rather in the article body. Furthermore, it is in the part about the aftermath of the shooting, so it seems to quickly change topics from the aftermath to things like motive in a way that is confusing to readers. Also, citations should be avoided in the lead. The USA Today one is ok since it's a direct quote and about the whole massacre, but the rest should be in the body. As for whether they were indeed outcasts or not, it seems to me undeniable they thought so: "I swear -- like I'm an outcast" - Dylan Klebold. I can see one arguing this was in their head though. They probably had more friends than I did....Also why does this article cite television shows when there is so much material and that is so un-encyclopedic? It should not be difficult to cite whatever the shows were using. Cake (talk) 22:25, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 November 2018

Remove "the" from second paragraph under "11:22 a.m.: Police Response" section referencing "the Brian Anderson." It is the 7th word in the second paragraph. Lunser Xanof (talk) 19:57, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

 Done —KuyaBriBri^Talk 20:09, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Kerch Polytechnic College

Um, what's the problem with Kerch Polytechnic College? This is the largest school shooting in the history of Russia (or Ukraine, if you will), I added the sources. Roslyakov’s chosen methods (up to the obsession, he also greeted his friend and shot himself in the library), their sequence, and especially his appearance, can hardly leave any questions. Solaire the knight (talk) 23:58, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for reaching out to discuss the edits. The reasons that I deleted the content are:

• WP:UNDUE - As the section that you added the content to already says, over 40 attacks have been determined to be inspired by Columbine, yet the section does not detail any these other attacks. Specifically detailing one attack would be undue.
• WP:RS - Being completely honest, I'm not entirely sure what the policy on foreign language articles is, but the one English article you cited does not say this is a Columbine inspired attacked, it merely notes the observable similarity in clothing. It does not claim to have any knowledge of the shooters thoughts or intentions. I have doubts that we can say that this is a Columbine inspired attack at this point in time, as far as Wikipedia's policies and standards are concerned. Without reliable sources, any speculation is WP:CRYSTALBALL.
• WP:RECENTISM - States that articles should not be affected by "recentism", meaning, just because something happened recently doesn't give it more encyclopedic value.

Those were my thoughts on the matter. Other editors are invited to comment as well, as always. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 01:18, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, I thought at first that you ignored the topic, but I decided that returning the edit would be a provocation of war from my side. Well, I agree that in the sources I have cited, only one English-speaking one refers to Columbine, but in Russian speakers this is already stated almost as an "obvious fact". Although I can't say for sure whether this was caused by a direct observable link, or only by the fact that this year we already had 2-3 attacks inspired by this massacre. And I can add that Columbine is so popular on Russian social networks (Review article in Russian), that the government even held several laws against it? Solaire the knight (talk) 01:13, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Sorry again for the late response. My opinion on this discussion is still the same. If you wanted to open up an RfC on this topic to attract more opinions, I would support that. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 22:51, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Should try to find sources, but it does look pretty apparent. Note for example his single fingerless glove. Cake (talk) 14:30, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Sourcing in Additional Suicides

I noticed claim at end that "several" swat team members have committed suicide in aftermath of Columbine. This isn't exactly what is said in the source, which is that 10/16 members of just one swat team have died from suicide OR overdose. The source itself is questionable, as it is unclear what interview is being quoted, and I could not find any details on swat team members suicides anywhere else. This extremely vague information contrasts with the very detailed information on suicides among family and students preceding it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.90.234.30 (talk) 05:45, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Fair points. Hopefully it's better now. Cake (talk) 14:33, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 December 2018

Another song about the attack is "The Kinslayer" by Nightwish. 5.29.148.200 (talk) 19:13, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:14, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Current article

Hi Mistercake I appreciate your recent work on this article and don’t mean to edit war or be non-collaborative. I’m going to go through and review the article in detail and then present a few thoughts here on the talk page and then we can discuss what the best options are. I should have some comments here in the next few hours. Of course, all editors are invited to participate as well. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 02:00, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Sure thing. On Doom being the inspiration for the guns, it's pretty apparent. The only analysis I feel I've added is "Why do you think they carried two guns each, a shotgun and another?" Though I don't think that takes much analysis to realize they had a shotgun and a 9mm the same way you have a shotgun and a chain gun in Doom, for whether you need the stopping power of a shotgun or the rapid fire of a 9mm. The Doom manual will show you without any question that the pump action shotgun was Doom 1, and the break-action, double barreled shotgun was the addition of Doom 2, and was also sawn off. Arlene, which Harris named his shotgun after, mostly uses the AB-10 in the Doom novels, which Harris talks about in his journals, and which is thus the obvious inspiration for getting a TEC-9. Carrying 2 guns each including a shotgun being from Doom, and 3 of the 4 guns being from Doom, I don't see as the least bit questionable. The only one even remotely questionable is the carbine rifle, since you don't shoot one of those in the game. However, you are shot at by what is apparently a rifle shooting 9mm ammunition by the first zombie antagonist, and the second zombie antagonist is "shotgun guy". Also, you can see how the Doomguy was depicted in the manuals, when he has the helmet, and he has a long gun, like the carbine rifle. The only other depiction of him back then, aside from his head and the covers, is this from Ultimate Doom. Note the shotgun, and the bullet pouches on the belt rather like what Harris and Klebold wore, and the explosion behind him. Also, don't find Harris shooting at the bombs to be because he saw it as a video game to be questionable. The Doom manuals explain how the nukage barrels explode if you shoot them. He was confident the bombs would go off in the library, even though they didn't go off at the right time. No reason to think they would go off by themselves. What he does to make them go off, as captured on video, is shoot at the bombs once, and apparently did so several times. It's been remarked before that Harris thought it was like a video game or a military mission (and his only experience with a military mission was Doom) and Klebold thought it was like a movie (namely NBK). Though with most analysis like that, it is blurred where both thought it was like a video game and a movie, but I think this is generally correct, though you'll notice I didn't give some reason to think it was like a movie, at least not yet. That's because the video game comparisons are much more obvious. Doom was his life. He had a piece of wood he carried as his "berserk" talisman. Cake (talk) 02:28, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I was optimistic to think I could review this whole article tonight! I will try to finish compiling my thoughts over the next few days. Regarding this current discussion: "its pretty apparent" isn't an acceptable rational for inclusion in Wikipedia. You need a citation to make any of those claims. We can't take facts about the game and use observed similarities to make the claim that Harris and Klebold each carried two guns because it was like a FPS, thats WP:SYNTH. If you and I were having a chat over a beer, I would probably agree with your logic about Harris's Doom obsession, but Wikipedia has much higher standards for inclusion. Additionally, per WP:VERIFY if its apparent, there should be WP:RS that mention it. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 05:55, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough about it not meeting a standard - surely some source points out that the reason "there were more guns than shooters" as Stone said is because that's how an FPS works. Some of your suggestions on how to cut down length are very good. I was under the impression 200,000 bytes was the point of "too big". Also, I have not exhausted the means of shortening it. I think like what I did to the diagrams can be done with other sources from e. g. the Report, and I think there's also room for the use of other abbreviations, e. g. CHS. Where we will probably butt heads, is that my goal was to 86 the "Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold" article. They contain some interesting information not originally found in this article, but is much less unified. I think the format which includes "perpetrators" as a section is better, and less likely to glorify them. Then again, maybe I've added too much info. But I was not done, and admit there is much I haven't yet sourced. Finding it can be difficult, and even if found whether one should source a book or article or some part of the 11k, etc, but I have not ignored it. Cake (talk) 06:20, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Have you brought up your plan over at the Harris and Klebold talk page? That might be a hard sell, as they are both very notable people. I'd imagine someone would notice they didn't have an individual page and might re-make it pretty quickly. What do you think about a "Pre-Massacre Events" type page that would include all the background and biography information, with this page covering mostly April 20th, 1999 and onward? That might be a good solution for length. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 06:34, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Nah I felt there was a lot to fix on this article before I suggested doing that, just the end goal, and a redirect could surely fix somebody's wish to remake the page. A pre-massacre section is possibly a solution. I like the background as it is, though given how long they planned more could be said and I didn't consider it finished. Cake (talk) 07:15, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

FYI, I'll go to the mat that investigators are wrong that they planned to shoot from their cars, and cite Klebold's notes about the massacre to show that is false. I think most researchers who are not investigators know this. The entire reason for thinking they planned to shoot from their cars is that the cars flanked the exits. That's it. The rest is 'synth' from the investigators, if not pure fantasy. For instance, Cullen writes "The failure of the bomb to explode appears to have rattled one of the boys. Either might have panicked but Eric, unlike Dylan, was unflappable. Eric apparently acted swiftly to retrieve his emotional partner. Within two minutes, he had realised the bombs had failed, grabbed his packs, crossed the lot to Dylan's car, rushed with him to the building, and climbed the external stairs to the west exit. That's the first place they were observed, at 11.19." I think "apparently" and admitting none of this was observed betrays his own synth. Klebold sat in his car and panicked, and they didn't go to the stairs until they noticed the bombs had failed? where's the evidence for that? As far as I'm aware, the accounts are pretty consistent that they went to the top of the stairs and waited. Perhaps more importantly, Klebold's notes said they would. It also states to set the car bombs just a minute after the cafeteria bombs. They didn't do that, but given that was the plan, either they wanted the massacre to last 60 seconds maximum before they were taken out by their own car bombs, or "go to outside hill, wait" means exactly what it says. Not to mention the cafeteria bombs likely would have sent glass flying at them in the parking lot. For the "synth", what makes more sense, two shooters in the parking lot, when people could turn around and run the other way, and either the car bombs or cafeteria bombs might tag the shooters, or shooting down at the cafeteria exit from a high point away from the bombs, and when one walks to the bottom of the stairs, as Klebold did, you would have both main exits (South and West) in either direction to spray with gunfire, and could enter the west entrance and fire if people start running away from the parking lot (which is what they did). Even though you will definitely find several sources from government reports and books that say "they planned to shoot from the cars", they have no evidence for this other than "the cars flanked the exits" - though they also seem to contradict themselves by saying the cars were to explode for first responders, and not for fleeing students. I fail to see how Klebold's own words, aside from all the witnesses of which I am aware, are less reputable. It leads to several other errors. For instance, that when Brown saw Harris just before the shooting, that Harris was returning to his car after having just planted the bombs, and was waiting there to shoot. That's not what Brown says happened. Harris pulled into the parking lot, and since he did not go back into the cafeteria, he had been there before and planted the bombs. He was getting out with his stuff to walk to the staircase. And that leads to the issue of how/when the bombs were planted. Actually, my "perhaps" there is not intended to be synth at all. The usual story given by investigators is that they did not see the bombs being planted due to a tape change at approximately 11:14, but several researchers dispute this. Even just after the massacre, it was openly speculated by police that they could have been planted days prior. Some who have studied the CCTV footage think they see Harris and Klebold planting the bombs around 11:00. Further, some seem to have no clue, but doubt all the stories. As I recall, Randy Brown, (Brooks's dad) is something of an expert on the case, and thinks the bombs were so big that they did not plant them alone. So, several people, for various reasons - their missing the bombs on the CCTV, their missing that they were planted days ago, or their missing possible accomplices, think the "tape change" is an excuse, so I added qualifying language. Cake (talk) 23:14, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

It’s not really about intention it’s about physical location of the events as they happened. I believe it’s fact that they waited by their cars for the bomb to go off and then after it didn’t they approached the school and shot Rachel Scott. I’m unaware of any sources that state they waited by the stairs and I don’t disagree that Cullen isn’t a good source. If there are citations that prove your claim please provide them. Again, we need to make a distinction between Wikipedia’s standards and things that could be assumed by some. For now I’d like to pause until I’m able to finish looking at the article as a whole. I will try to finish tonight if I can. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 23:24, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm talking about physical location of the events, and it certainly is not a fact. Tim Krabbe's account has it exactly as I have it for instance, They geared up and set their car bombs, went to the stairs, put their gloves on, waited for the bombs to explode, threw a pipe bomb from the stairs, and opened fire. For one witness, Nick Baker, page 680 of the 11k says at about 11:10, he walked out of the west entrance, and there was Harris "He was positive it was Harris" at the top of the stairs. Jason Brehm, page 721, says a student in a trench coat was waiting at the top of the stairs leaning against a post just before shots rang out. It is fine to challenge me for an account showing this but I challenge you for an account showing they waited by their cars past 11:17 other than an inference made from where they placed the cars. I am pretty confident it doesn't exist. The facts line up just fine with what Klebold wrote: "go to outside hill, wait. When first bombs go off, attack." That's pretty clear. Not "stay by cars, wait When first bombs go off attack." They never even explain what about the bombs failing to explode makes one change the location to open fire from the parking lot to the stairs. Cake (talk) 23:44, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I think maybe I'm splitting hairs on this one. I think we're basically saying the same thing which is: they were first at the car where they put on gear and then headed to the west entrance and then shot Rachel Scott. At the time of my comment, I misinterpreted how it is written in the article. As far as the "perhaps" discussion, can you provide a citation supporting the statement in the article? ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 00:06, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, we agree on that much, but, despite being sworn to by several investigators, I think "waiting in their cars for the bombs to explode" rather than "waiting on top of the stairs for the bombs to explode" is contradicted by everything except a faulty inference due to the placement of the cars, and maybe something they saw in their tapes that we never saw. And yes I am sure I can find something on the tape change. See here for one reason why I think it's best to say "perhaps" they missed the bomb planting from a tape change. Cake (talk) 00:50, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

What I'm asking for is a citation that supports the sentence "The security staff at Columbine did not observe the bombs being placed in the cafeteria, perhaps since a custodian was replacing the school security video tape as it happened." I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to prove with the given citation, as it says people claim to see them drag the bomb in at 10:58. At this point, I'm going to stop replying until I have a chance to finish looking at things. I would advise you to not take what is currently written too seriously; I often change my mind on things after I get a chance to review everything and see the whole picture. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 01:05, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Give me until Sunday night; I’ve got a few things taking my attention and I want to be thorough in my comments. Keep on keepin’ on and we’ll get back to it in a couple days. I don’t have any objections to you continuing to work on the page in the meanwhile. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 16:59, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Sure. Thanks for the help. Pardon if I've seemed confrontational. "ostensibly" or "supposedly" or "allegedly" might be a better choice of words than "perhaps" for the 'tape change'. I supported the tape change story with the bit from the CNN CD which talks about it - where I assume most learned about it, as well as the part from the police records ('the 11k') which talks to the guy who changed the tapes, and the article I linked here on the talk page. Maybe it was confusing so you did not read far enough, but the 4th paragraph of the article details the tape change story. I gave it because it also presents another theory, that they planted the bombs around 11:00, and there being other theories is my reason for adding some kind of qualifying language. There are several issues in the timeline. I have already expressed my concern over the "wait by the cars for the bombs to explode" aspect of the timeline. In fact, there are several witnesses saying they saw them waiting at the top of the steps, and there does not seem to be a soul who says they saw them go from the school to their cars, or waiting near the cars. If that seems like too large of an error for investigators to make, there are others. Several people will tell you they cannot be shooting before 11:21, despite all the official timelines saying it was 11:19. If you watch the CCTV footage from the cafeteria, it does not seem like people are reacting before some seconds into 11:22. Worse still, we have Rachel Scott's lunch receipt from that day, and they claim the cash registers were 10 minutes fast. It reads 11:32. Cake (talk) 23:24, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate direct communication, so I don't think you're being confrontational. Did you have a lot more work left to do on the article? I was thinking it would probably be easier and less confusing to review after you've reached a natural stopping point. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 02:54, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Got to clean up the massacre in the library, check all the sources and probably move the journals down to the bottom to cite the entries dates as footnotes. Also have to mention the bombs found in the kitchen, the bodies supposedly being booby-trapped, the last bus, and the suicides like Greg Barnes that came after. Mostly content with the rest. Cake (talk) 13:16, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Try it now. Any further edits I can think of should probably be the subject of a discussion or just more proper sourcing. Thanks again. Cake (talk) 15:48, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

k I’ll try to finish up this weekend. I’ll let you know. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 18:26, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Nixon Tapes

Hey, still working on reviewing. Sorry for the lag; I've got a few exams coming up that are taking my time. I see that you updated the Cullen citation for the Nixon Tapes content. I still am not able to find this in my version of the book. Can you please quote the passage here so I can try to locate it? I have an e-book, so I can search the document. Additionally, can you clarifying the first citation in the section? It is just numbers and letters, not sure what they mean. Thanks! ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 00:48, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Take your time. I removed the section which was just a study on school shootings in general done a year after and put it on the article for 'school shootings', and have a few things I am still debating on adding or changing. For example, their hacking into the school computer system to get locker combinations in October 1997 got them banned from the computer lab, and after this Harris changed from wearing "preppy" clothes to wearing black every single day. This may also be when Klebold began to grow his hair out. They were also already stealing computer equipment from school before the van incident.

Anyway, the numbers and letters refer to the documents released from the police files, the "11k". "JC" is Jeffco, they are all followed with "001" for some reason, I am not aware of any "002" or anything else, and then the series of numbers following the second hyphen is the page number where to find it. Each page has such a string of numbers/letters stamped at the bottom. It's best to use it whenever we can as the primary source, but I had trouble finding the bit about the Nixon tape quick enough. It is in there for sure though. I even found the page posted elsewhere, but with the bottom cropped out so I could not tell the page number. I will probably find it eventually and change the Cullen source for it. That said, page 41 in Cullen states "Eric laid a micro-cassette on the kitchen counter with some final thoughts." and page 337 states "He had a few reflections to add to his audio memoirs. He spoke into a micro-cassette recorder, indicating that there were fewer than nine hours to go. "People will die because of me," Eric said. "It will be a day that will be remembered forever." Cake (talk) 02:38, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Where did you find the page with the bottom cropped off? I'd be interested in seeing that. I didn't search too hard, but I haven't found anything about Nixon Tapes out there. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 03:02, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Forum of nerds who research the massacre. Here you go. Cake (talk) 03:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm finally getting around to do this review. You'll see one of the few things I did before finishing the review is remove this "Nixon Tapes" section. It was entirely uncited. I'd argue that it was pretty irrelevant to this article anyways, but if proper citation can be found we can discuss putting it back in. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 04:35, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

It certainly was sourced. I just quoted Cullen above. I'm a bit dumbfounded at that. Also, it's a single tape. Also, pretty sure Rampart Range, Hitmen for Hire, and Radioactive Clothing were all part of the Basement Tapes, but have not figured out yet how to relay this fact properly. Also, as I recall, only one witness recalls "Go, Go", and a girl looking right at them said they said nothing, but nodded at each other. "Go" could have been one of the students reacting to the gunfire, telling people to run, etc. Cake (talk) 12:19, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Harris's father finding a pipe bomb isn't from a forum. It's mentioned in the Basement Tapes. Their friend Nate Dykeman said it happened. Cullen includes it on the timeline, etc. Cake (talk) 12:24, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Don't get how the source doesn't say they may have planted the bombs after prom. The cops said this in press conferences on tv even. Also, got an English e-copy of Krabbe's work, so can finally get proper page numbers there. He would be one to say Harris went up the stairs, then Klebold - though he's just relaying his reading of the witnesses. Cake (talk) 12:30, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

*Regarding the Nixon Tapes, the Cullen quotes above that you reference just say that he left a micro-cassette on the table. It doesn’t say anything about Nixon, or a kid from from Singapore or any of the content in the article.

• I looked through the entire archives of the cited newspaper for 1999 and did not find the alleged article about the pipe bomb, only one article saying the complete opposite. I did find a copy and paste of the alleged articles title on a forum, same punctuation and all. As it stands there is no valid citation to the claim that Harris’ dad found a pipe bomb before the attack.
• I’m not understanding the comment about “go go”. I just changed it from saying Harris said it, which was uncited, to saying witnesses heard “go go”, which is cited.
• The sentence used to say more or less “the police took seriously the suggestion that the bombs were planted at prom”. The sources don’t say “the police took it seriously”’and it definitely doesn’t say they investigated, so what is the value of this sentence? Also, the source doesn’t support the claim as written.
• Who is Krabbe and how could he know the order in which they went up the stairs? Which witnesses gave him that info? Regardless, the narrative of this article needs to be cut back drastically. Still working on reviewing though. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 14:14, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

I couldn't find the article either, but it was used as a source in books. I didn't get it from a forum - the forum just seems to have the article. Every book and several tv news reports mention it. They used Nate as a source. I got "Spring 1998" from Cullen's timeline. The Basement Tapes has this: "The camera then focuses in on a black plastic box with the word “explosives” scratched into the side, sitting near the north wall of Eric’s bedroom on the floor. Dylan mentions how Eric’s parents took it away from him. Eric adds that they only took the pipe bomb out of it, and gave the box back." From the source you found t just seems that Nate at least retracted the claim that they blew it up. Though, he's also quoted as saying his parents did that because they did not know what else to do with it. Chris Morris also said they blew it up.

I am saying there are differing reports for what they did just before they began shooting. One witness says he heard "go, go", but the chaos after the shots were fired might explain why only one heard it. It could have been one of the students telling people to run, say. Other witnesses say they said nothing, and only nodded at each other.

It's not a quote to say they took it seriously, but it says investigators included after prom as one of the possibilities for when the bombs were planted...which is to say they took it seriously. This source says they "investigated" whether that was the case. This isn't controversial. They couldn't figure out when the bombs were planted, and the 'tape change' seems like an excuse. The bombs were heavy, so it is wondered how they could have planted them without people noticing. Both were at the after prom party the prior weekend. Hence, it was taken seriously that they did it then.

Krabbe with an accent on the e is the Dutch author who wrote "We are but are not psycho". He knows the order because he based his account on the witnesses in the Columbine report. I'd have to go back to give you the specific names of the witnesses, but there were a few who said Harris was alone at the top of the stairs before Klebold joined him. One of them came out of the west entrance at roughly 11:10 and only saw Harris up there. Cake (talk) 15:34, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Also - that microcassette tape is the Nixon tape. Cullen twice calls it the Nixon tape. E. g. ""Eric left his microcassette on the kitchen counter. It was an old tape, reused, an someone had labeled it "Nixon""" I cited the part of the Columbine Report which includes Harris's paper about Singapore, which shows you why this was. Here is yet another source with Cullen himself calling it the Nixon tape. Cake (talk) 15:37, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

We are engaged in a good faith discussion about disputed content, I'd appreciate if you didn't restore content until its been fully discussed.

• With the given citation above about prom, Its fine to add it back.
• The information about Singapore is not a citation, its gibberish numbers. No one who didn't ask you about it would be able to find that citation if they wanted to verify. Please provide a direct link or full citation to what you are referencing, because I am unable to verify the accuracy. My pages of Cullen's book don't say anything like what is said in the article. The only thing I see that is valid is a discussion where Cullen said the phrase "Nixon Tape". I believe it exists, but the content is not properly sourced and cannot be verified. I'll let it stand until you respond because edit warring isn't going to help resolve this article, but if you aren't able to support it with verifiable citations, it needs to go. Specifically what I am looking for are citations that support "Nixon from Singapore" and that the given quotes were said on a tape labeled "Nixon" that was left by Harris.
• Per the first chapter of Krabbe's book, he worked off of the available files on the internet. I don't anticipate that he would have information that could tell us when Klebold took off his jacket, or when Harris put his glove on, or who went up the stairs first. Information on Wikipedia needs to be WP:VERIFIABLE, so more than one source should agree with the facts stated. However, I'm open to looking at what is contained in the book. If you have an english version, I'd love to see it.

^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 18:10, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

I was able to find the "Singapore" text using your reference. (Though for the record it is JC-001-026659). This doesn't say anything about the micro cassette, and to use this to make your claims is WP:SYNTH. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 20:51, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Hm. I suppose that is true, but I feel it should be mentioned in this article. It's a confession to the crime for one, as well as the notorious counterpart to the mysterious "Basement Tapes". If that is right and it should be mentioned, then one should answer the question "Why was it labeled Nixon". "see this document which is the only one which mentions Nixon" seems the answer, though I suppose you are right it doesn't mention the tape. In the police file I linked above, it mentions the Nixon tape had an Oriental voice on it. So, synth of a kind, but not a lot stronger than the synth of adding two numbers together. Cake (talk) 21:21, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

On Krabbe, it's often the choice for people's favorite book on the subject, myself included. He definitely used the 11k, so presumably by "internet files", he means the police files, not random forum posts or something. Because of this, he's better on the facts than most. He also has a more philosophical take on the crime, and has many original insights. Some are a stretch though. The translation is like a copy-paste job into google translate, so there is some grammar which is lost. (Snipped) is a master-file of Columbine books, including that one. Cake (talk) 21:21, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Also, there's nothing "fringe" about them shooting from the top of the west staircase - or whatever you want to call the only outside staircase, on the west side of the school leading to the west entrance. Every source ever would corroborate that. When Rohrbough, Kirklin, and Graves were shot, they were attempting to ascend the staircase. That's why Harris's trench coat was on the ground at the top, and Rohrbough was dead at the bottom. The only thing "fringe" - and it isn't fringe either, but perhaps not orthodox, is the suggestion that they never planned to shoot from the parking lot. One should at least include both ideas, for that they never were going to shoot from the cars is supported by numerous things 1) Klebold's notes. 2) Witnesses saying they went to the staircase, 3) Krabbe saying "the witnesses say they went to the staircase", 4) Klebold not flanking the exit with his car, 5) the cars set to explode, 6) the cafeteria bombs set to send glass flying into the parking lot, while you are protected by the staircase, 7) the elevation provided by the staircase, etc etc.

Major issues

Ok, after having a chance to dig into the article (though I did not finish because I no longer feel that peer editing is the solution) I am sufficiently alarmed by the amount of fabricated citations and use of primary sources that may or may not exist. For new editors joining the conversation, I had been conducting a review of the article located here [15], where my concerns are listed. I'll give you the opportunity to provide the "JV-" citations, but I ultimately think the article needs to be reverted back to [16]. Again, I'll give you a chance to respond. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 19:39, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Well it seems to me it is better to use primary sources, especially when secondary sources conflict with them. It's the police files, so it's not without some authority, and seems to me to avoid original research. It's the police's research. As for the "JC-" citations, I can understand wanting something more thorough. Colloquially, the term for the Columbine documents is "the 11k", but I assume "the 11K, p. JC-" is no less clear. I've wondered if that should be said in the article, though as you mention it's already long enough. The "Columbine Report" is usually what it's found under - but so is the CNN CD, which is quite different. The same can be said for citing is as JeffCo Sheriff's Department. So, I changed the Nixon one to "Columbine Report documents", in hope that that's clearer. Cake (talk) 20:51, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

It is clearer, thank you for that. I would say that your argument is not correct. As Wikipedia editors we are not allowed to analyze primary sources in this way, that is WP:SYNTH. From WP:PRIMARY:

• Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so.
• Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.

I respect your work here and appreciate the constructive conversation we've had, and if I were reading your academic paper on the events of the day I wouldn't have a problem with what you've done, but based on the high standards of wikipedia in regards to sourcing and analysis of primary material, I feel pretty strongly that the article needs to be reverted to the version I provided above. After reviewing the previous version, I think it does a good job of providing accurate information while satisfying the above WP:PRIMARY policy. I can imagine that you don't agree with that, so let me know your thoughts and how you would like to proceed. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 20:58, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

I can certainly respect that, and get that writing a paper is not the same thing as writing an encyclopedic entry. Believe me, I have my own opinions about things I've left out for that obvious reason. The only thing for which I relied heavily on the 11k, unless I have forgotten, is what was said during the library massacre. Even then, I didn't use everything. I don't feel I used primary sources for large sections of the article. Also, even the secondary sources, from Cullen to Kass to Krabbe, are using the 11k as their source, and when they don't is when e. g. Cullen gets ridiculed for flatly making things up. There aren't really any other sources unless you went to the school. So, it seems a little silly in my opinion to forbid citing the 11k. If we do, I think the only thing that would be hindered is the library massacre section, which I don't think requires synth. It's just "witness so and so said Klebold was here when he said this." It would have to be reverted to a much more confusing, and false narrative. "At the entrance, Harris said everybody with white hats stand up. And he said something about all jocks stand up. And he said something about anybody with a white hat on is dead. And when nobody stood up, he said he would start shooting anyway. And he said he was getting his revenge. And he said this was for bullying him last year." Yet by all accounts, Klebold was more vocal, and Klebold's journal is the one resenting jocks. Most of this was said by Klebold, and not while standing at the entrance either. Questions like "well, when was this said? by whom? didn't they speak during the massacre? did they just go on a huge monologue before opening fire?" cannot be answered if the 11k is forbidden. Cake (talk) 21:09, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Also, RE: "Klebold took off his jacket, or when Harris put his glove on, or who went up the stairs first". When Harris put his glove on might be "who cares", but their each wearing a

glove from the same pair seems relevant and should be introduced somehow. The same for Harris going up the stairs first. Though, he almost certainly went up the stairs first, right after talking with Brooks. Also, to answer "who cares when they took off their jacket", and not sure whether you meant to say Klebold or Harris. There's a few reason for this. For one, the diagrams of the crime include this. One can cite more than the witnesses - one can cite the cops culling all the witness reports. Not to mention the books. Second, this is given as one reason for the chaos about their being more than 2 shooters. Because of starting with their trench coats on, and later taking them off there was 2 shooters in trench coats, and 2 shooters in T shirts, and they didnt know those were the same 2. Third, they were probably copying the opening scene from Natural Born Killers in which Mickey removes his coat. Also, I revised it a bit, since they usually say Harris took it off after shooting Scott and Castaldo. However, Patti Nielson seemed to say he wore a trench coat (and a beret, bizarrely). Cake (talk) 21:34, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

• I see that a key component to your argument about these various discussions is something to the effect of "without the primary sources, how do we answer the question of (blank)?" and I would again say that it is not our place to use primary sources to answer those questions and that these things are far beyond the scope of a wikipedia article. That goes for the Nixon tapes content as well. You need a reliable secondary source to make the claim that the micro cassette was titled Nixon in relation to a school project. We cannot just infer that based on police documents or school papers.
• I take back what I said about the west stairs, it is not a fringe theory. Sorry for that. [17]
• The problem with using the police documents in this way is that eye witness accounts vary. Statements are disputed. People don't agree on exactly what was said. To pick and choose what we think is the accurate event out of those is providing an analysis that we cannot provide on wikipedia. Further, I question the amount of quotes used and wonder if its important for an encyclopedia to contain everything the shooters may have said. I agree that some quotes have encyclopedic value, such as the white hats quotes or the racial slurs, but do we need to list every time one of them may have said things to the effect of "oh I'm just killing people"? It is something I have pondered throughout this review and would love thoughts from the community.
• I also wanted to mention that I think the version I have suggested reverting to has the best summary of background events and events following, with an appropriate level of detail. One of my previous comments about this article is that the background is way too long and in depth and didn't belong on this page.^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 22:31, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Well ok then - I'm fine with saying "On a tape known as the Nixon tape he said blah blah" or whatever, without any further explanation. I figured that would get "What's the Nixon tape?" I originally edited out the slurs, but somebody included them again, so I started including them, but I wonder the same. The quotes about white hats and jocks, asking about God, and taunting Isaiah, if only for the media focus, seem relevant. The quote about helping Kirklin before shooting him, and telling Savage he was killing people, seem relevant if only as so often told as part of the story. Especially since Savage was let go. With all the speculation about how the events were supposed to play out had the bombs gone off, and what their motive was, it seems like several quotes are relevant. I can think of more to include, even. Sticking to the ones said during the massacre and not in the journals, I would also include those about blowing up the school and getting revenge. Crystal Woodman and Bree Pasquale (considered the most perceptive witness) both were on tv crying saying - in Woodman's case, they said it was for revenge and that they waited for this all their lives - and in Pasquale's case they said it was because people were mean to them last year. No doubt part of the reason why "revenge for bullying" was the initial reasoning. And the comments about blowing up the school seem relevant given that was their plan. I haven't checked the specific revision, and worry just a revert will lose something, but I do like how you shorten paragraphs. I tend to just think "what are the 12 things that need to be said" rather than how best to say them.

Also, to get into speculation not suited for the article, I find the comments about blowing up the school interesting for other reasons. The false narrative about shooting from the parking lot, is usually supported by the notion that that was "plan A", and when the bombs failed, they moved to "plan B" and went to the staircase. That's the narrative in the Governor's report, for instance. But, since frankly all we know is they went to the staircase, and there are good reasons to think it's all they did - and that they opened fire in the first place, I have my doubts that they ever thought the bombs failed. Indeed, if they moved to the staircase because they had given up on the bombs, why did Klebold enter the cafeteria to check on them? Worse still, they said multiple times in the library they were going to blow up the school. In fact, multiple witnesses said when they let Savage go, they said they told him to run because they were going to blow up the school. Savage doesn't mention that, but it makes some sense. Why not just avoid shooting him, instead of tell him to run? So I think it's very much on the table that they thought the bombs might explode during the library massacre for some reason. There were two of them. Maybe they were set at different times, and they only thought one had failed? If so, then maybe they started shooting because they thought the bombs were about to go off, not because they thought the bombs had failed. Doesn't that make more sense? I am convinced the comments in the library about blowing up the school are either for that very reason, or it was to make people get up - since they kept telling people to get up in the library, presumably to shoot them more like a video game, or it was because they were that confident (again thanks to video games) that when they shot at the bombs, they would explode. However, you don't need to go to the trouble of building bombs if you just want to say "get up, we have a bomb", and they must have known by the time they got to the commons and shot at the bombs, people would have fled. Indeed, they didn't even go straight to the commons after leaving the library to go shoot at the bombs. And why didn't Klebold shoot at the bombs the first time he entered the cafeteria from outside, unless they didn't think they had failed until after the library massacre? So, I think there's a whole interesting can of worms left out if you leave out the quotes about blowing up the school. Cake (talk) 01:38, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Page 144 of the copy of Cullen's book that you provided, Cullen says the label "Nixon" meant nothing. The page does support the rest of the quote. I am going to edit the section to a proposed version, let me know your thoughts. I think its about time to move to an RfC to attract community input on where to go with this article. To summarize my position on why I think we need to revert to version [18]:

• The background section was an appropriate length and coverage depth.
• The use of primary sources and WP:OR in this current article.
• Many book citations were found to not match what they actually say. As I pointed out in the review, I am troubled by finding what I believe is a completely fake article cited [19][20], with origins on a columbine forum. The article has been found here [21] I apologize for any accusation that an editor may have falsified this article. I stand by the claim that many of the book citations don't line up.
• Lots of uncited material. For example this article claims that one of the shooters said "God is gay" without citation. (Citation was provided in this example)
• The "other factors explored" section of the previous article did not appear to contain WP:OR while this one does. Examples of OR in this version include the "Hitler's Birthday", "Music" and "DOOM" sections (and up in the background for the "schoolwork" section).
• I question the purpose of the "general studies" section.
• If we do revert I would also propose merging the two tables into one and removing the injury descriptions from the table. "intial incident" and "library" appear to be constructs of this article. Not sure what the thought was behind the two tables; I see its been in the article for a while. I'd also take a look through the description of events to see if it the tone needs to be improved or citations added. I'll wait for your response before moving forward with an RfC. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 02:43, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I think we must be using different editions, given how often you fail to find the info on page numbers I've cited. And I trust Cullen means nothing relevant to the massacre, not nothing whatsoever. I did not use any forum post. I used Cullen's timeline. I think that forum just contains an article that no longer exists. If I look hard enough, I can find you Nate being interviewed on tv saying the same thing. He may have retracted it, but it was not a made up story. Look at Cullen's timeline for Spring of 98. The tables weren't mine and I've always wondered why they were there - especially when it includes all the injured, not just the dead. I just separated the bits about copycats into sections and added some like Weise. All the general studies were there already. Might need a better header name. It does seem useful to characterize the copies in general in this case. And hm, I fail to see those as OR. KMFDM released a statement and "doom rules" might be the most well known article about the massacre. The book Masters of Doom in the further reading has a chapter on the massacre. Well known they were fans of both. I was also quite tame in the schoolwork section. For instance, Klebold's story obviously depicts him watching himself kill students. The man is his height, left handed like he is, etc. They went quite overboard with the foreshadowing. Go ahead though; what do I know Cake (talk) 03:14, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Here, Footnote 14 mentions Nate's story that he later retracted. Or just look at Cullen's timeline in the beginning of the book. Far from made up. Cake (talk) 03:35, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Using the copy that you provided, the Cullen information was on page 144, not what was cited. I'll open an RfC. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 03:38, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, like I said, the pages rather than the information seems the problem, other than e. g. the Texaco film footage or other places without a citation. I can show the video, but not sure when it was released. Also go to 4:10 of this video, and there's Chris Morris talking about the Harris pipe bomb. Nate's was off camera but with audio, still looking. Cake (talk) 03:46, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

You just said he retracted the claim, so we cannot state in the article "Harris' dad found a pipe bomb." With the right citations, we could state "After the massacre, a friend claimed that he was aware of a time that Harris' dad found a pipe bomb before the massacre. He later retracted the claim." ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 03:58, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I did not know about that until you found it. Still, the source you found only said he didn't know if they ever blew it up, but that they did in fact discover a bomb. He also said they didn't want to turn it into police. My point was the claim isn't from some random forum - it just happens to have the article. Cake (talk) 04:09, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I found the article. I apologize for this accusation [22]. I still don't think we have the whole story to put it back in the article. The other article I posted [23] is about his retraction, but its not 100% clear if he is saying the whole incident never happened or if just the exploding it with his dad part didn't happen. I'd imagine there are more news articles out there following the retraction that can tell us the whole story. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 04:21, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I looked forever for that thing, so was frustrating to say I copied it from a forum. If I had, I wouldn't have needed to look for it! Also had to use "Spring 98" from Cullen's timeline, while having dates for about everything else. There does seem to be a bigger story. This mentions that the Enquirer stood by its story. On the Good Morning America audio interview, Nate sure seems to imply they went and blew it up, and I could imagine he felt pressure to retract that even if it were true. As I recall, he says they kept it in their room, but were afraid the thing would go off, and didn't want to call the police and get Harris in even more trouble when he was already in diversion. It seems to me at least they definitely found a pipe bomb, and it's a bit of a mystery what happened to it - but it's hard to imagine they, say, just buried a live bomb. Cake (talk) 04:39, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Going to address the things in your sandbox I can address quickly. If I need to shut up until you are finished, let me know.

• Fixed the Brown cites. One was just wrong, the others were right but the books starts at page 12.
• Radioactive Clothing (worst dialogue ever) is admittedly silly, but it's part of the basement tapes, and they are acting out shooting and bombings, so it seems relevant, but I already moved it to the notes section.

• The Wanton Violence at Columbine High source doesn't work? That should tell you the matches/igniters part. The part about Morris must be another Cullen page error.

• Why not "scott was hit four times?" I don't know. The bit about the carbine was already there as I recall. Aside from detailing which gun was used, I think that's because of ballistics, which I know nothing about, but apparently there are some questions about those first shots because of the same 9mm ammunition for both the TEC 9 and the carbine. I added one was to the head, since others were shot more, but didn't die.
• Rohrbough was on the sidewalk, but Harris was at the top of the stairs when he shot him. Harris never came down the stairs.
• "What is 'securing' other than telling people?" Presumably locking doors.
• I didn't think autopsyfiles was good either when I saw it, and went to change it, but then as I recall could not find another source which said Bernall died instantly, or that Klebold specifically killed Townsend. Cake (talk) 05:18, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Fixed all I could see that might be construed as OR about Hitler's B-day. Not sure what it is about Doom. If it's the quotes from them, I can use the Masters of Doom book, but it would just be the same quotes. Will see what I can do about the KMFDM section in future. Cake (talk) 05:36, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for working on this. Here are some examples that are still concerning regarding WP:OR.

• School work section: "Harris and Klebold also incorporated their schoolwork into their pre-massacre activities."

This section doesn't use non-primary sources to support this claim. Section is mostly supported by primary sources.Needs a non-primary source to make the definitive claim "they incorporated schoolwork into their pre-massacre activities." We cannot state that and then use examples of their schoolwork to support it, that is WP:OR. (also, what is a pre-massacre "activity"? Anything in their life could be construed as a "pre-massacre activity".)

• "The attack occurred on April 20, Adolf Hitler's birthday, which led to speculation in the media that the attack was political. Some people, such as Robyn Anderson, stated that the pair were not obsessed with National Socialism nor did they worship or admire Hitler in any way." and "Harris at least did revere the Nazis, praising them often in his journal."

Unless I'm missing something, this section doesn't have a source supporting these claims. The second part quoted is 100% OR. Need a non-primary source to make this claim. I also want to use this opportunity to caution against WP:AWW, which can be seen at various points in this article, seen above in the sentence "some people, such as Robyn Anderson...".

• "Harris said of the massacre, "It's going to be like fucking Doom." He also wrote "I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy...so I will force myself to believe that everyone is just another monster from Doom." In Harris's yearbook, Klebold wrote "I find a similarity between people and Doom zombies". Harris named his sawn off, pump-action shotgun Arlene after a character in the Doom novels. Harris said the gun was "straight out of Doom". Klebold had a TEC-9 and a sawn off, double-barreled shotgun. The Doom novels and Harris's journal reference an AB-10 several times, which is like a TEC-9." and "Harris spent a great deal of time creating a large WAD, named Tier (a song by Rammstein), calling it his "life's work."

Again, OR. The writer is picking the parts of the primary literature that support their point. This analysis is not what we can provide on Wikipedia. The basement tapes say the gun was named Arlene, but they don't say "I named this gun Arlene because of DOOM." If you said essentially the same information with non-primary sources it would be fine (if not a bit WP:QUOTEFARMy but we can deal with that later). ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 14:48, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

• The last two sentences of the schoolwork don't use primary sources. Block's article specifically says his bomb experiments were like from a science class. The relevance of the Nazi and Manson essays and Harris's "guns in schools" essay and "man in black" Klebold essay seem obvious enough to me. The day before the massacre, Nazi and Manson pictures were uploaded to the school server, and reading about Manson is probably why Klebold mentioned always wanting to stab people in the library. Regardless, it should be quite easy to find a secondary source, so I'll remedy this. For example, Peter Langman is one easy example. He writes much about the Nazis and Manson with them. In fact, Harris and Klebold called each other "indigo" and "green" sometimes, respectively. Langman speculates this was due to Manson, who referred to members of his cult with color names. He might be right - but those colors were also the colors of their characters when they played Doom on multiplayer.
• Fair point about the sources on Hitler's B-day. It could use some about the media, and the rest about Anderson and such was not added by me. Again, will add Langman among others since he hardly shuts up about that, as I recall. He's how I know Klebold once drew a swastika on his face, for instance.
• In the journal entry on December 3, he wrote, " I dubbed my shotgun “Arlene” after Arlene Sanders from the DOOM books." Again, I'll just use Masters of Doom. Probably half of that is in there. The source from Block too is all about video games and them. Cake (talk) 00:31, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

RfC on future of article

Should the current version of Columbine High School massacre be reverted to this version [24]? ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 03:58, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Comment: For editors new to the conversation, its worth knowing that I began to conduct a review of this article that is located here [25]. After getting about half way through it became clear to me that peer reviewing the current version of the article is not the best course of action. I have summarized my argument for reverting to this version [26] above, and will do so again here for your convenience:

• The background section was an appropriate length and coverage depth.
• The use of primary sources and WP:OR in this current article.
• Many book citations were found to not match what they actually say.
• Lots of uncited material.
• The "other factors explored" section of the previous article did not appear to contain WP:OR while this one does. Examples of OR in this version include the "Hitler's Birthday", "Music" and "DOOM" sections (and up in the background for the "schoolwork" section).
• I question the purpose of the "general studies" section. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 04:03, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Oppose:I'm against reverting as I like a lot of the material that's been added. I've had a quick look and removed the most egregious WP:SYNTH violations and some of the over-fussy formatting which led to too many very short sections. Overall I'd say it's getting better, not worse, so good work. --MarchOrDie (talk) 19:08, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback and recent edits on this article. Can you clarify what sections of the new material you think are beneficial? ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 19:17, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Comment My vote doesn't seem relevant as it is mostly about my edits, but I want to say a few things.

• Bas has the gift with style and shortening sections, but I of course would not have added what I did to the background had I felt it not been relevant, or filled in the gaps given what was written already and so already judged as relevant. For one example, the "ground zero" comment seems quite the whopper. Brooks Browns mother seems to take it as the date to say when they started planning the massacre.

• The criticisms about OR and synth seem valid. However, much of the 'synth' from the secondary sources is no better, and what they get right usually relies on the primary sources. I am (slowly) trying to remedy some of these encyclopedic concerns without losing the content by combining references to the primary and secondary sources. Not sure if that's sufficient, but it seems better than before. For example, Larkin mentions the "anybody with a white hat or sports emblem is dead" comment, but this comes specifically from Lapp. Also, the previous editor had Harris say "let's go kill some cops" which I figure they got from some secondary source. Kass notes they say "pigs are here, let's go kill some cops". And Bree Pasquale says Klebold said "pigs are here". Also, Bree is generally regarded in the literature as the best witness. Krabbe notes this for instance, and gives the example that Harris climbing on the bookshelf is mentioned by Bree and nobody else, but everybody assumes it happened for that reason. So I can understand the worry about some internet random like me picking which witnesses to use, but that's only partially true, and I am striving to make it false. However if we make it false by just repeating what's in e. g. the "Through the eyes of survivors" article and most other secondary sources we will have avoided OR, but we will have repeated the falsehood that Harris and not Klebold was yelling for the jocks to get up. While referencing primary sources is a problem, surely the secondary sources contradicting the primary sources is also a problem.
• Not that this is enough to convince anyone, but I assure you if a book is referenced, what is referenced is in there. If I could just make up sources, I would have a lot more citations. It seems I've had some trouble using different editions and online versions getting the page numbers screwed up. I fixed the Brown cites. With Krabbe being in Dutch and the English version making the page numbers wonky I've tried to use him as little as possible despite him being probably the best secondary source. Luckily he has a section with footnotes where he will quote a line and give a page number so one can figure out the page or at least estimate it. My Kass version has page numbers but I think it's the 2014 edition and the original editor put the 2009 edition so I kept that, but I don't think you have raised any problems there. Cullen has been the only one that seems to give me problems. Even when I looked in the index and copied the page numbers, you said I got it wrong. So, the page number for the part about the propane bombs in Cullen's edition is the only thing I can imagine still giving problems, and I assure you I looked right at it.
• I've tried to remedy at least the Hitler's Bday section, March has done some of the Doom section, and I hope to fix the music section. I think deleting those would be a real shame not only because of their relevance, but because e. g. the lead mentioned video games being blamed for the massacre yet the article had bupkis about the connection to video games, which is terribly bad encyclopedic practice in my opinion.
• Also I really appreciate the vote of support from March and his edits, but I am curious about the justification for removing Clinton's comments after the massacre. Why is that video even on the site if it is not for this article, I wonder. It seems a lot more important than the survivor testimony video - which confusingly says Harris was inside with his trench coat, contradicting most sources and the article. Cake (talk) 18:31, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Team BasiloCake: Action Plan

Ok, I'm sad to see that our discussion hasn't attracted much input. I'd imagine it is an intimidating discussion to try to jump into due to the length and scope. Here is what I think is best:

• As you may have seen, I've set up the review page for a re-write and the talk page for discussion. I will draft an article and explain my reasoning from changes on the talk page. For there we can discuss what we agree on and don't agree on. I think this is a more efficient option than going line-by-line. I will aim to have this completed by the end of the weekend. Just a note: I do a lot of editing on campus, and due to the nature of this article I don't want to work on this article at school, to avoid anyone getting the wrong idea about my interest in this topic. So if you notice in my contribs that I'm doing other low priority things, I'm most likely somewhere where I can't work on this project.
• For the things that we cannot come to an agreement on, we can ping editors who have edited here in the past or try another RfC with more specific and less overwhelming questions for the community. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 01:10, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Odd vandalism

See the phrase "He turned and threw a cricket". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.15.21.214 (talk) 17:44, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

It's explained earlier in the article. It's a carbon dioxide cartridge filled with gunpowder.--Srleffler (talk) 18:55, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

You are quite right. There is an explanation of the unusual term earlier in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.15.21.214 (talk) 10:21, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

As I recall, some articles on thwarted copycats use "cricket" like it's the real term for a CO2 cartidge filled with gunpowder, though I had certainly never heard it before reading about Columbine. They were wrapped with duct tape and with a slew of kitchen matches attached to the end. Apparently not all (as the cops had one explode on them due to striking the match), but I think most of the pipe bombs had a fuse lit with the lighters they carried. The match strikers attached to their wrist were (mostly) for the crickets. Cake (talk) 10:32, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

The time of the planting

Good way to say it with "Some internet sleuths", which is what I meant by researcher. I was not going to include it until I saw Prendergast, who has written several legitimate articles on the massacre, saw it as worthy of an article, which gave me the excuse. I am not sure myself whether I believe that is them in the video, but it's by far the most likely timeline out of the options for when they were planted. The "tape change" story means they had 3 minutes from planting the bombs until they were set to explode - and they had to still plant bombs in the kitchen and to 'gear up' with their trench coats and weapons and ammunition. In fact given this timeline and so assuming things like the conversation with Brooks was before and not after the bombs were planted, it seems to me you would have to say they were already geared up, despite their saying they wouldn't be and it making sense not to be, and that people in the cafeteria didn't just miss the bags but two dudes hurrying with guns and clanking with ammo and such. The after prom story means they must have connected the timing devices later or something, since I am not aware of a way to set them with usual analog clocks to "11:17, two days from now", plus taken the risk of the bombs exploding while they were asleep at home or something. You also have to explain why in their final goodbyes on the Basement Tapes the duffel bags are on the floor in the home. Cake (talk) 19:11, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

RE: the pipe bomb found by the Harrises. It seems like Nate still agreed that they found a pipe bomb, and Harris in schoolwork mentioned his parents finding weapons, and on the Basement Tapes he says they found a pipe bomb. That's all I noted in the article - that Harris's parents found a pipe bomb. That doesn't seem to be in dispute. What's in dispute is what they did with it. Nate notes they didn't know what to do with it, which seems pretty reasonable. They certainly don't still have it, so something happened to it. Nate retracted his story that they blew it up after he said they did in the paid interview with the Enquirer, and Harris's father denied it. One does get the 'vibe' or whatever the word is that they blew it up but did not want to admit that due to guilt over the massacre or legal repercussions or whatever. Zach and Chris both stuck to the story that they blew it up. Minus mentioning Chris, which I showed you on video saying that's what happened, Kass does a very good job of telling all the angles to the story. Cake (talk) 12:21, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what your argument is regarding the Eric's dad and the pipe bombs. You are I both agree that Nate made the claim and then retracted it. We cannot just say that he found a pipe bomb without also stating the retraction. To only present the facts that agree with what you think is WP:POV pushing. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 15:35, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

I hope you had a chance to see my response to your comments on the review page. There I suggested that instead of this line-by-line approach I will write my own version of the article and then we can compare and discuss section by section and see what we agree on and what we don't agree on. I think I will have some time to do that tonight. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 15:42, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Let me try to be more clear: Nate retracted the claim that Harris's dad went out to the mountains with his son and detonated the bomb. A lawsuit said he found it and detonated it in February 1998, but he denied this; and Cullen says it was Spring of 1998, not February, so perhaps that provided the necessary out. As far as I aware, Nate never retracted that they found a pipe bomb. All I said in the last edit was that they found a pipe bomb; not that they detonated it. Both Chris and Zach said they found it and went to the mountains and detonated it, though. Harris straight up says they took a pipe bomb out of his "explosives" box and gave him back the box according to the Basement Tapes transcript, and he also talks about his parents finding weapons in a school essay. It's doubtful that was the guns, leaving pipe bombs as one of the few remaining possibilities. Cake (talk) 22:55, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Ok, there are a couple of things that we should discuss and try to get on the same page about.

• 1. The purpose of this article is to present the commonly agreed upon version of events. At times it seems like you are trying to construct what you think is the most factual version of events based on the evidence available, but as we've discussed before, that isn't what wikipedia is for. Your argument above about Harris mentioning it in the basement tapes and it probably wasn't a gun is WP:SYNTH and not suitable for Wikipedia. Any argument that is A + B must equal C is one that I am not interested in considering for our purposes here. This isn't to say that the article shouldn't mention legitimate alternative theories, but they must be covered by reliable secondary sources and be presented in their own section and not within the main narrative.
• 2. This is a topic that has been extensively researched and covered by investigators and journalists. Any fact that wikipedia is able to state about this event should be supported by secondary sources and WP:VERIFIABLE. Based on the extensive amount of materials on this case, I don't see why any facts of the case would need to be supported with primary sources. As quoted from WP:POV

"If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;

If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;

If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it is true or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article.

Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public. If you can prove a theory that few or none currently believe, Wikipedia is not the place to present such a proof. Once it has been presented and discussed in reliable sources, it may be appropriately included. See "No original research" and "Verifiability"."

To further address the pipe bomb situation, even with the details above you absolutely cannot factually state that his dad found a pipe bomb. You could state "Harris's friend claimed that his dad found a pipe bomb and detonated it, but later retracted his statement." There is no definitive proof that this happened, there is definitive proof that his friend claimed that it happened. This is important because I believe Harris's dad is still alive and so this must comply with WP:BLP. Can you post the interview? I can't find it if you did and I'm not able to find it on youtube. I'm open to saying "he retracted the claim that they detonated the bomb together" if it can be proven that that is correct.^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 00:01, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, as I said before Kass says everything I just said, including the part about the tapes and the essay, except for Chris Morris supporting Zach's story and Nate's original story, and Cullen also supports it and dates it to Spring of 1998. Those are probably the most popular books about the massacre, such that I haven't even really done a thorough look through the others on this matter. Also, I mentioned the part about the tapes and essay last for a reason. Several tv news stories mentioned they found a pipe bomb. Not that that necessarily matters, but it's to say there are things in the article which fewer people know is part of the story. Cake (talk) 00:28, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Re: the interview. Do you mean the interview with Nate Dykeman? It was definitely on Good Morning America but off camera, and at least talked about the whole "they didnt know what to do with it" aspect. I've seen it posted before. However, videos about the massacre are often removed. I'll look again for it. Cake (talk) 00:32, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I reviewed the Cullen and Kass books. You are correct that they both support the sentence "Harris's dad found a pipe bomb", feel free to throw it back in with both books as citations.^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 00:51, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Ok. I appreciate trying to protect Harris's father - God knows he's been through enough. However for better or worse it is probably the most commonly told story referring to bombs before the massacre. I don't think they so much as injured a single person with a bomb, but it was certainly part of their vision.

Cullen and Kass are probably the two most orthodox book writers, and Dwayne Fuselier and Kate Battan the two most orthodox investigators, who at least Cullen relied on. Langman is an authority on not just Columbine but school shootings in general, which gives him his own peculiar insight. Klebold's mother and Brooks Brown have the additional insight of knowing them personally. However Klebold's mother has that natural wish to protect her son, and relies on Cullen, and Brown had the reputation of a liar (both Harris and Nate, who didn't ruin his credibility by killing anybody, called him a compulsive liar. He even admits he was during his high school days. Klebold giving him the website seems an example of a lie, and indeed it's hard to imagine it making sense. Why risk the massacre being thwarted? For that reason, perhaps the first question for people interested in the massacre above "beginner" level is whether Brooks really spoke to Harris. No witnesses recall it. Though, in his defense, his story never changed, and the few details he might have gotten wrong were correct, e. g. Harris parking in the wrong parking lot and not wearing his hat).

Cullen has received lots of criticism - not just from internet sleuths (though tons there) but including from Kass, and perhaps indirectly from Battan (she criticized the view of Dylan as a 'follower' at least). I would not mind picking Battan's brain. For one, I'm sure she's more qualified than say me the random guy on the internet, but it seems interesting for them to pick a woman to research two high school boys. Not expected, at least. Many said Jeffco's "investigation" was more of a coverup and excuse-making exercise; about the warrant, not entering the school, the massacre happening in the first place, etc. Rohrbough's father would not mince words and tell you Battan's job was a coverup, for instance. She also has her own peculiar insight. Many sources say people recall hearing "glass breaking" before the massacre in Harris's home, and that this must have been part of the bombs. She says confidently nope they must be mistaken, there was no glass involved in any of the bombs. She would know, but I am left unsatisfied. Not even as shrapnel? Even if true, what about the Molotov cocktails? Weren't they glass? She also thinks there isn't any insight to be gained by what they said in the library. Not say how they felt or what they planned on saying so it would freak out the media or anything like that, just whatever they had to taunt people in the moment. The example she gives is the Christian taunting coming to them because people were praying, saying "oh god help me", etc. Then again, Rachel Scott's dad says the Basement Tapes was all about how Christians were scum, and the part he secretly recorded is about this

Larkin and Krabbe are both the interesting outsiders since they don't take the position that they were crazy but instead they were acting rationally/consciously. Larkin takes it more as a political act, a rebellion against the jocks and the school, while Krabbe takes it more as a philosophical act, a rebellion against life in general. Also just as far as sticking to the facts, and trying to reconcile contradictions, Krabbe does the best. Larkin might do the best to explain the element of allure to copycats, and Krabbe that but also the element of allure to researchers, or internet sleuths, or what Cullen might call the 'fangirls'. I must say I find it a bit cliche and simplistic to say because they killed people, they must have been crazy. While I respect their opinion and would never pretend to be a psychologist, I doubt very much Fuselier, Langman, Cullen, et al would say the same before the massacre, or had it never happened. People too often say that about e. g. serial killers. Gacy/Bundy/Dahmer were crazy nuts. "Oh really? So you would have judged them not guilty due to insanity then?" I want to say. It also has that element of making people feel better, like how say John Walsh of America's Most Wanted would surely call the 9/11 hijackers "cowards". Um, they were some mean son of a guns for sure. I wish they had gone into the woods and killed themselves without hurting anyone else. But cowards is one thing they weren't. Cake (talk) 10:27, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't say its about protecting Harris' father, more protecting Wikipedia from lawsuits. I'd say I have a more in depth knowledge of this event than the average person, but as you've seen multiple times, I definitely don't have every fact memorized, so I appreciate you pointing me to the right sources when I challenge something that is supportable. While your thoughts are definitely interesting and if we were out getting a drink I would probably enjoy getting into these topics, I'd say most of this is outside of the scope of this project per WP:NOTAFORUM and I'd prefer to keep discussion within the scope of article content. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 16:43, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Sure, sorry, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole, but it seemed to me you brought up the question of who are the proper authorities for an article of this kind, and why these authorities, and what are the problems with each, if any. Cake (talk) 21:35, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

“Columbine” search redirect and disambiguation

Hi everyone,

I was wondering about the plausibility of having a search for the word “Columbine” redirect to this page, and then having the current “Columbine” page (which says “Columbine may refer to”) move to a new “Columbine disambiguation” page that would be linked at the top of this page. I looked at the other results on “Columbine may refer to” after searching the word “Columbine” and they all seem very obscure and unnotable compared to the Columbine Massacre. I would venture to estimate that over 90% of searches with just the word “Columbine” on Wikipedia and the Internet at large are with the intent of finding sources related to the Columbine Massacre.

To me, it’s like how if you type “LeBron” or “Lebron”, Wikipedia automatically redirects you to the LeBron James Wikipedia page. Certainly, there are and have been other people with the name LeBron who have a Wikipedia page (even before LeBron James was well-known). But at some point in LeBron James’ basketball career, the Wikipedia community got discussed and decided that the name “LeBron” or “Lebron” is so uniquely tied to the identity of “LeBron James”, that the redirect was necessary. I feel the same way about the word “Columbine”.

(For those who aren’t familiar with LeBron James, he’s an American professional basketball player, considered to be one of the greatest basketball players of all-time, and arguably the best basketball player of all-time)

I feel very strongly that “Columbine” should redirect to “Columbine Massacre”. But I’d love to hear other opinions and thoughts regarding this, and especially your reasons too.

Thanks everyone 🙏🏼

Mrbeastmodeallday (talk) 07:42, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

It is not the only Columbine massacre. We also have an article on the Columbine Mine massacre (1927) in Serene, Colorado. Dimadick (talk) 07:59, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

• I have posted a proper Wikipedia:Requested moves discussion on Talk:Columbine#Requested move 14 February 2019. Please discuss there. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:47, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

  @Mrbeastmodeallday: Please see WP:BEFOREMOVING. The proper way is to post a request as I have per Wikipedia:Requested moves. Please do not move pages to an implausible article title like "Columbine (disambiguation)!" with the exclamation point to circumvent this. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:47, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Bombs in the kitchen?

@Basilosauridae: and @SMBH 7: They were definitely mentioned even on television news, see here here, here, here here or here but I am now unsure whether this is a mess up for finding the cafeteria bombs in general, or they meant there were additional bombs in the kitchen. Most or all of these do make it sound like the former. I was eager to explain why they seem to enter the kitchen on the CCTV, and extra bombs in there made sense. Did they think cops or students were hiding in there to shoot? There were also gas cans marked as in or near the kitchen, not near the main cafeteria bombs which had their own gas cans. Harris said he had 6 time bombs, which I thought was weird if there were kitchen bombs (2 in the cafeteria, 2 in the cars, and 2 diversions), but I thought perhaps he could have 1 to explode both diversions and 1 to explode both in the kitchen. I'll have to deal with feeling like an idiot which is ok, but perhaps for that reason I am interested in vetting this a little more. What's the date on their finding the cafeteria bombs? Is this also considered the 22nd? I guess I assumed this was the 20th or 21st. I can recall the story of e. g. Mike Guerra tapping on the 2nd one in Cullen's book, but not the date. I will check again. This source seems to say it was the cafeteria bombs. Cake (talk) 02:20, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for my absence from this discussion. I’ve had some personal things come up and it’s best if I withdraw from this article. It’s not fair for me to hold this discussion up. Maybe when things calm down I’ll pop back up and see where we’re at. Best of luck. ^†Basilosauridae❯❯❯Talk 04:48, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Jennifer Doyle & Austin Eubanks Injuries

This article says that Eubanks (rest in peace) was "critically injured", but he himself claimed otherwise in an interview back in April:

"Of everybody who was actually shot, I was the least severe. I wasn't internally injured, I wasn't critically injured. In retrospect, I probably needed some form of pain management, narcotic pain management, for three to five days," he added,

The statement in the sources for that line doesn't mention severity of injury either. An older site used in the sources available through wayback machine says:

Austin was treated for a gunshot wounds to the hand and a bullet grazed knee. He was released from the hospital the same day

Jennifer was hit with three shotgun pellets in her right hand: One crushed her ring finger, another entered her wrist, and another entered the back of her hand, resulting in seven broken bones. Released from the hospital April 24, 1999. Jennifer now has a metal plate and screws holding her ring finger together.

Jennifer's injuries were more severe, but certainly don't sound immediately life-threatening as critical would imply. A Shortfall Of Gravitas (talk) 23:00, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

References

Motive

Been some edit wars with the motive recently. Can understand either side here. I do think "evidence of" is a nice way to put it moderately, as it should be disputed in my opinion, but what do I know. Can't be doing "original research", and have to stick to what the mainstream says. However, the mainstream is garbage on this front. The psychopathy/depression narrative is contingent on Eric being the mastermind, since he was older and shot more people. However, chances are if either was a mastermind, it was Dylan. Dylan wrote about the idea first. Eric had better guns, but Dylan had better guns if this was Doom, which is all they knew. Dylan also descended the stairs (probably to be the one shoot students; Eric could protect his back from cops). If their shirts came from Doom, Dylan was dressed like the monster with higher HP. Dylan's car bomb was more complex. Eric copied Dylan more often than vice versa, he was the new kid (e. g., the trench coat) Eric apologizes a lot more than Dylan, etc. Dylan was probably more twisted than he is given credit. Cake (talk) 15:35, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

• Newer references specifically discredit older / original news stories, and that is okay. Initial information can be wrong. This is what happened in this case. WhisperToMe (talk) 12:35, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• Yes, the initial ideas of bullying compete with newer ideas of mental illness - and both may well be false, and have many other theories vying for their positions. So, I appreciate the qualifier of "Evidence of", to say that mental illness is an opinion or at best an inference, but hardly a fact. Cake (talk) 17:11, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• It should be based on the balance of newer/updated sources. How many say mental illness, and how many give another motive? My understanding is almost all newer/updated sources discredit much of the earlier claims. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:57, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• Well I tried to tell that story in the article somewhat. Cullen gives the most popular narrative, but it's only the most popular narrative, and not as if it's authoritative or something. Brooks Brown, his father Randy Brown who seems to consider himself something of a sleuth on this case, and at least many as lay people would still emphasize bullying. They can't both be right, and there's a good possibility of neither, hence all the others. I'm not sure any properly give it, but they are what one finds in the sources. Larkin believes it was like a conscious revolution, not mental illness, and he also would emphasize it as against jocks whether as bullies or as the top of the social hierarchy. Larkin thinks they planted the bombs under the jocks tables, rather than the conventional wisdom that it was about taking out the pillars (at least to me, the evidence seems to support the pillars). Jerald Block thinks it was mostly about playing a shooter game IRL and also sort of Luddites resenting technology for making them rejects, hence targeting the library. Easy to say similar with movies like NBK and music like KMFDM. Krabbe seems to think they were making more a philosophical statement about the tragedy or pointlessness of life. Again, not mental illness, even adopting their quote "we're psycho but not psycho". There was a period where all that was known is what they said in the library, before the cafeteria bombs being made public, when people thought it was about jocks, blacks, and Christians, and to a certain extent the cafeteria bombs discovered ended those ideas, but bullying from jocks survive for sure. Mental illness is rather specific to the FBI; several "newer/updated" sources - Krabbe, say, is far more dedicated to the facts would not say they had personality disorders or that those were the motive, whatever that would mean. Cake (talk) 06:42, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• In some cases it may be hard to figure out which is the most authoritative. Perhaps the best guidance is to just do your best and to follow the general idea in Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Undue_weight: "[represent] all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." I would be interested in knowing if someone's done a literature review on Columbine, and that may be a key on how to balance/represent the viewpoints. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:37, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• Was saying I think "Inconclusive, evidence of psychopathy in Harris and depression in Klebold" is about as good as one can get. Inconclusive is the true answer for any article taking the balance of sources, and is part of the reason for such interest in the case, but with the FBI's authority and Cullen's authority on the popular consciousness of the case it's nice to mention they feel there is "evidence of" (and no more) of psychopathy and depression. Not to mention it rests on an idea of Harris being the leader for which there is no real evidence, just his being older and that he killed more and wrote things down. On top of what the article mentions, Harris was the new kid more apt to "copy" the local kid with the strange style it seems to me, but then I am obviously beyond OR at this point. Cake (talk) 21:14, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• In that case best thing to do is say "Author A wrote in Book A that..." and "Author B wrote in Book B that..." If someone who did a literature review (published in an academic journal) described the Columbine motivations as being unclear while citing other works, citing that would really help. WhisperToMe (talk) 21:31, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• Yes, it would. I did try to cite Sheriff Stone saying the big question is why, and there are several articles such as e. g. this. Cake (talk) 22:47, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

contemporary news articles from the Rocky Mountain News

Home pages from the Rocky Mountain News

• https://web.archive.org/web/19990422182231/http://www.insidedenver.com/
• https://web.archive.org/web/19990423210521/http://www.insidedenver.com/
• https://web.archive.org/web/19990427061020/http://www.insidedenver.com/
• https://web.archive.org/web/19990429081815/http://www.insidedenver.com/

These could be resources for improving the article... WhisperToMe (talk) 02:08, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Again interesting how you can see it was initially reported that bombs were in the "kitchen", as if they targeted lunch ladies. Was the theory to sell to potential copycats evolving, hoping they'd bomb kitchens rather than entire cafeterias? Did they confuse a cafeteria with a kitchen? Cake (talk)

Also found http://web.archive.org/web/19990422115923/http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/US/index.html WhisperToMe (talk) 00:44, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

International reactions?

Why isn't there an international reactions section? Many world leaders I'm sure commented! Victor Grigas (talk) 20:19, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

@Victorgrigas: Many news articles from 1999 were taken down, but there are archives taken at the Wayback Machine... WhisperToMe (talk) 04:10, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 April 2019

In my opinion, in our current world rife with gun violence, mass depression and anxiety among young persons, and inordinate levels of social isolation fostered in part by the internet (cf Parkland just last year, VA Tech a decade ago or so, Aurora movie theater, Newtown/Sandy Hook in 12/2012, the Orlando/Miami gay nightclub shooting within the past 5 yrs., San Bernardino in 2015; Clackamas Town Center just outside Portland OR on 12/11/2012; Reynolds High School in Troutdale OR; Rogue Community College in Southern OR in 2015; the MAX tragedy on Trimet light rail Memorial Day wknd a few years ago; etc., etc., etc.), this page is highly irresponsible.

Young(ish) persons considering suicide or homicide as ways to cope with their pain and suffering do NOT need more information readily available online, replete with images of the shooters and every last detail of the horrific encounter.

Mental health professionals, parents, educators, law enforcement, first responders, and the students themselves need timely, accurate information about kids who are in trouble.

Hallmarks of likelihood to commit violent acts against oneself or others include social isolation (particularly being rejected chronically by one's peers - which may include online shaming, bullying, etc.;) changed mood, self-hatred, belonging to an oppressed group, messages of violence in popular culture, recent losses or traumas, lack of hope about the future, and most importantly, access to the means by which to inflict harm; access to a gun increases the likelihood of death to self or others manifold times over.

It may also include extreme faith beliefs about martyrdom and righting wrongs. It will ALWAYS include a history of some trauma in the young person's life, though this may not be obvious to those interacting with the young person on a daily basis - teens and young adults are masters at hiding and accommodating their suffering.

If you know or think you know a young person who is struggling emotionally/psychologically; who has been the target of repeated bullying or teasing or rejection; who has been abused or neglected at home; who seems unusually withdrawn or begins talking about wanting to harm themselves or others; who has ANY history of harming those more vulnerable, especially animals who are entirely defenseless; who has been taught to believe something about their identity is fundamentally unacceptable to their family or culture or faith; or if you just have a "sixth sense" that something awful is about to happen - PLEASE GET THEM HELP.

School counselors, teachers, police officers, firefighters, paramedics, behavioral health providers, psychiatrists, librarians, best friends, nurses, doctors, others who have survived mental and emotional struggles - these can all be potential resources to ward off a potential crisis.

If no one acts, the consequences can be devastating and forever lasting.

This does NOT mean an untrained person should take matters into their own hands. But it does mean if you believe someone is seriously hurting and at risk of causing harm, it is time to tell an adult who is trustworthy and who can take the steps necessary to intervene.

A simple slogan we have all learned in airports around the country since the tragic losses on September 11, 2001 - "If you see something, say something" - is a good reminder. More accurately, if you sense something, out of concern for another young person, or for the well-being of classmates, family members, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends, pets, etc., DO NOT WAIT.

Evolution designed us with a fear center in our brain for a reason - it is essential for our own survival and that of our species. If you feel yours "going off" because of a young person's behavior, mood, writings, art, words, or overall way of being, it is better to be on the safe side and share that concern with a trusted adult who can hopefully obtain assistance in determining if help is needed. Sometimes, even just approaching the person who is struggling with compassion and mentioning that you notice they seem sad/angry/to be having a hard time can be a window into their knowing that their struggle is seen and that someone cares.

And please, in the name of all things that every good parent and culture and faith teaches, please do not harm a young person knowingly and with ill intent. You cannot know how a seemingly "harmless" phrase, gesture, or act, done over a lifetime by numerous persons, can ultimately turn out. We all make mistakes in this regard. But engaging in purposeful cruelty to a young person who may be dealing with heartaches about which you know nothing is like pouring gasoline on a fire; it will explode at some point and do irretrievable damage.

To those who control Wikipedia, you largely do a wonderful job educating all of us.

In this particular instance, I suggest the potential for harm by offering meticulous detail and imagery about this horror greatly outweighs its benefit. Victims of gun violence never fully heal. Please consider removing content that only serves to inflict more injustice by suggestion or reminders. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kristine MUNNY (talk • contribs) 00:32, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Does this sermon belong in Wikipedia even on a talk page? I recommend deletion of it. (PeacePeace (talk) 03:16, 30 August 2019 (UTC))

BrunoElite (talk) 20:42, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Dylan only fired 8 shots from his shotgun, first 2 were to Lance Kirklin and Dan Rohrbough, Then Shot a girl in the ankle with it, then when they entered the library fired one to Kyle Velasquez, Then one under a table wounding three people, Then one to Matt Ketcher, Then one to Mark kingten, then one to Lisa Kreutz and Valeen Schnurr. I never saw anything saying he fired it more than that.

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. EvergreenFir (talk)

20:52, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

It was a double-barrel shotgun, so you are recounting 14 shots yourself. The story is often told as him shooting Lance and Daniel. However, in the El Paso Report, a reinvestigation into his death pushed by his parents after suspecting a cop may have accidentally shot him, and seen as more authoritative than JeffCo, none of Daniel's wounds came from a shotgun. It clearly states Harris, not Klebold, would have been prosecuted for his murder. Stephanie Munson, who got shot in the ankle I always took to be with the TEC-9. Though I am open to correction, I don't think Dylan had even reloaded from the shot to Lance yet, and he was more comfortable with the TEC-9 inside the school. It was also at a distance.

The rest of your telling of the usual story is correct. However, given the bullet diagrams, it seems at least those last two might be false. There are two shells by Velazquez, and two shells where he stood to shoot the three people (Dan Steepleton, Makai Hall, Patrick Ireland). There simply are not any more shells from his shotgun on the floor, but it does note there are two spent shells in the gun itself, so perhaps that accounts for Kechter. The other two are something of a mystery. Either it was really Harris, or they got kicked or picked up and put in his pocket or something. In fact, the critical incident teams report, which I assume is what you are calling into question, saying he shot 12 shots from his shotgun, say there were 6 in the library, which again suggests only the first three, not the last two. It says the 4 we are missing happened inside, but not in the library, as in the hallway or cafeteria. I am not sure where those are supposed to be, but they fired plenty of times at lockers and the ceiling and so forth. Cake (talk) 23:04, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 January 2020

I'd like to add a bit more detail about the evidence surrounding the Kerch Polytechnic Massacre being a copycat crime. I'd also like to clarify the name of the shooter. My changes will probably be a sentence at the maximum, maybe less. Thanks.

Change "The Kerch Polytechnic Massacre," to "The Kerch Polytechnic Massacre, perpetrated by Vladislav Roslyakov,"...

Add after "he also committed suicide in the library." -> "Roslyakov was a known member of multiple only communities that praised Harris and Klebold for their actions, and he allegedly said "it would be good to have a massacre." Sarahjanelage (talk) 15:56, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:56, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 April 2020

Change archived references to live links.

Reference 6, linked to a Salon article on web.archive is live on the original site

Reference 18, linked to a CNN article on web.archive is live on the original site

Hoping someone will update the links. Thank you! IgnacioCastroM (talk) 21:25, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@IgnacioCastroM:  Done - thank you! GoingBatty (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Value of the video clip

While it's interesting to have video of a survivor, there could be so many of those, and this guy says Eric had his trench coat on inside, which is apparently false and may confuse readers. Clinton's very much should stay, but the other I'm not so sure. Cake (talk) 02:10, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Eric and Dylan articles

Really are nothing but a rehash of this article in my opinion. Would be interested in other casting their vote on that page for making it a redirect to this article. Cake (talk) 21:38, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Columbine High School massacre/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Buidhe (talk · contribs) 04:02, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

• With 26 tags, this article unfortunately is a long way from being fully WP:V and therefore meets the quick-fail criteria. Please make sure that all content is cited to reliable sources before renominating. buidhe 04:02, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Bold in lead

The link to what wiki has to say on it definitely shows the edits to be in good faith, and both versions seem to come with a cost, but I worry whether it is in fact redundant. It is not "The Columbine High School massacre was a massacre at Columbine High School", as the Mississippi River flood example, but obviously a school shooting and attempted bombing, which does not necessarily follow from a massacre. Not even sure how many are familiar with things like the distinction between a rampage and a massacre. Note how many words it takes in that first sentence just to get to Columbine High School. While by no means bad as it is, it comes across a bit journalistic in my view. Of course, who cares about my view, if it's the policy to have it that way. But I do prefer the bold like all the other articles. Cheers. Cake (talk) 16:57, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Bill Clinton's remarks

Please change the date of Bill Clinton's remarks to May 20, 1999. 73.167.238.120 (talk) 22:30, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done RudolfRed (talk) 23:24, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Record

The Columbine high school never was the deadliest school shooting in the US. as seen in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_by_death_toll, the University of Texas tower shooting was already dealier, so this line should be remove — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elllundril (talk • contribs) 18:12, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

While true, many sources would say it was the worst until the massacre at Virginia Tech. Presumably, Whitman in the tower rather than in a building makes it not always considered a school shooting. Perhaps it's thought of as a "campus shooting" by some instead, or as it has it a 'tower shooting'. Taking Whitman into account, it's right that the truth could be more like "The scale of murders at Columbine when contrasted with the other 90s shooting had them forget about Whitman" but that might be "original research" on our part to point out. Thus, it's been handled how it is, with a footnote mentioning Whitman. Cake (talk) 23:57, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Could the text read "one of the deadliest school shootings" and not "the deadliest school shooting"? Even though the shooting at the University of Texas at Austin occurred at The Tower, it was still at the campus so I believe that would qualify as a school shooting or a university shooting. I also do not see the footnote mentioning Whitman as 18 people died including Whitman, not 17. This is my two cents. 73.167.238.120 (talk) 09:24, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

The weird individual articles for Harris & Klebold

Still not a thing on them that isn't either TMI or belonging on this page to the point of being taken from it. Only more surprised at how it isnt seen as fancruft. Lying to yourself if you think that page has any purpose other than as a shrine. Cake (talk) 19:40, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I haven't read through the Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold article to know whether it's a "shrine" to two murderers, but I don't think this means a separate article on them is otherwise impossible to create. They're the best-known school shooters in the United States if not the world, with numerous books and articles discussing their lives. Seung-Hui Cho not only has a separate page from the Virginia Tech shooting, but it currently has "good article" status. --Ismail (talk) 06:24, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 March 2021

Columbine High School is in Littleton, CO, not Columbine, CO 24.192.177.41 (talk) 07:49, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

 Not done. I don't know why the address on Google is showing up as Littleton, but geographically it's definitely in Columbine. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 08:19, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Not only does Google have Littleton as the city, but many other websites, including the school's, have Littleton as well. Here is The History Channel's website showing Littleton. [27] 73.167.238.120 (talk) 15:18, 16 April 2021 (UTC)