Now my objections to what certain agenda driven editors wish to make this page into are by now well known, so I therefore propose to move the Warning Box here until such time as we can resolve whether to have it here at all and if so with which wording. I kindly ask those who wish to make "haha funny" jokes about "not getting out alive" to take a step back and think long and hard about what it is they are trying to say and convey and whether that meets an elemental status of fairness. Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:59, 23 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

If the crime rate in a location is abnormally high, we say so; https://www.worldnomads.com/travel-safety/europe/belgium/crime-hot-spots-in-belgium might be worth a glance? K7L (talk) 05:42, 24 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I agree with K7L, it was already determined from the discussion at Talk:Brussels#Brussels_districts,_several_important_things that the crime rate in the area is way above the Brussels average. This is not just an opinion of WV editors but based on statistical data from the Brussels government. That data also indicates that violent theft is on top of the list, which is very relevant to travelers.

@Hobbitschuster: Please do not remove warning boxes from articles without reaching a consensus on this first, you're putting travelers unfamiliar with the city at risk here! ArticCynda (talk) 07:37, 24 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I've reinstated the warning box, rewording to take out the hype and melodrama, without losing the content which helps travellers make informed choices. K7L and ArticCynda are right that there should be some form of warning in the article while we work out our disagreement. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:23, 24 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I still think the Warning Box as it stands is way too alarmist and as someone said somewhere (I think it was TT, but it may have been somebody else) the mere fact of a district having ten times the crime level as other parts of the town does not merit such a warning box. To give you a different example, while I would agree with putting a warning box on top of the Managua article currently do to the ongoing issues you can read about in the media which started in mid April 2018, I would not put a warningbox over a district article containing Mercado Oriental, even though said market is said to be a major crime hotspot and it does indeed have a lot of corners where it is very easy to imagine crime happening. I have been there once with two trusted Nicas by my side. I would not go there alone, fluent Spanish notwithstanding, and I would not advise anybody to go there alone. I did not to my recollection carry valuables beyond my wallet, but the fact that I am writing these lines should be indicative of what happened to me during my visit... Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:34, 24 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I removed the Special:Diff/3562248 travel advisories from the warning box. None of them mentioned International District or Molenbeek and only one "certain neighbourhoods" (I could of course have missed some mention), while touristy areas, transport hubs etc. were mentioned in many of them. Why weren't the alerts linked from Brussels instead? If they are to be linked that is where they belong. --LPfi (talk) 15:44, 25 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I am disappointed that the warning box is not clear about exactly which area it is referring to. It is not clear if it is about the whole district or just Molenbeek. I think that the article should have a stay safe section giving further details - exactly which main streets should be avoided. This district does have Brussels-Midi, one of the main train stations - is it safe to walk into town from here? UK Travel Advice does warn about muggers there. AlasdairW (talk) 18:13, 25 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I also do not think that a warning box which if I recall correctly is to be used to warn of clear and present danger to life and limb is the right thing to warn of "Crime levels that may be high for Europe, but are nothing out of the ordinary for the US. Or well at least they were in the past". Because, correct me if I'm wrong, after you strip away the brouhaha and the scaremongering, this is what remains, is it not? Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:36, 25 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

There are plenty of other instances in which the red box has been used to warn of serious criminality, ranging from Harvey Illinois to Guatemala. If the area has absurdly high rates of unemployment and out-of-control street crime, we say so, even if placing such a label on a community with a high level of immigration from North Africa is not politically correct, safety comes first. K7L (talk) 02:23, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I doubt travellers who just got mugged after wandering into the district because WV neglected putting up a proper warning, would care a lot about political correctness. Besides, the high level of immigration from North Africa in the district and its high crime rate/threat level are 2 purely objective facts about the district; the warning message never said that there is a connection between the two. ArticCynda (talk) 07:58, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

We do not tell about beautiful architecture in warning boxes, unless it distract you from holes in the street. Talking about ethnicity in a warning box clearly hints there is a connection. There might be, but it is irrelevant for the warning (I suppose there is an abundance of unemployed young men with failed dreams, which has a more direct connection, but also that rather belongs in Understand). --LPfi (talk) 08:14, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Frankly, I do not know enough about Harvey to opine either way. What I can say is that the certain groups engaged in crime in Central America tend to be overwhelmingly armed (three guesses where those guns are coming from), overwhelmingly involved in the drug trade in some fashion and overwhelmingly ruthless (in part due to "super mano dura" which gives a caught criminal even with "just" a minor non-violent offense basically no future in life). I am not sure the same is true for any large group of European criminals, especially with regards to targeting random passers by. Mafias and the likes of course exist in Europe, but when they use violence, it is almost always against somebody they "know", whether that be a rival, former member, politician unwilling to take plata (and thus given plomo) or a journalist asking the "wrong" questions. I also recall somebody writing in one of the Molenbeek discussions that the crime rate is actually trending (steeply) downwards. If that is true, there would be even less case for the warning box. After all, we needn't inform people with a warning box about the fact that Hamburg-Schanzenviertel or Berlin-Kreuzberg, as those issues are now largely (not completely, but largely) in the past. Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:16, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I follow your reasoning, but given the nature of the situation (and risk of people getting injured if a judgmental mistake is made here), I would very much apply the w:Precautionary principle and leave a strong warning box unless we can assure the traveler there is no elevated risk involved in visiting the district. ArticCynda (talk) 15:24, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

One question: Why? Why would or should we follow that principle? Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:01, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

We do not have a practice of putting warning boxes when we suspect there might be a risk, rather when there obviously is a risk, confirmed by official alerts. It seems the new Understand section gives a fair warning, but as I said, I do not know the neighbourhood. Is the situation in the rest of the district similar? --LPfi (talk) 16:31, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Actually no, the template is there to warn the voyager of non-obvious dangers - and we don't require that the warnings come from governments (who sometimes provide useful info, but sometimes have their own political agenda). If a web search for "Molenbeek" finds newspaper coverage or other reliable sources, those too may be cited when we post a warning. K7L (talk) 17:01, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Official sources are limited to police crime statistics, since the Brussels government probably would rather not have too much publicity on the safety aspects of this district. A google search on Molenbeek or Kuregem returns ample independent evidence of the situation, though.

With the w:Precautionary principle I meant that I'd rather give too many warnings than too few. Better have 3 warning boxes that are maybe unnecessary, rather than omit one and risk travelers getting hurt. ArticCynda (talk) 18:16, 26 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

The warning box is, in my opinion, not necessary, since the content of the box perfectly fits into a "Stay safe" section. Also, there is quite clear advice on this issue on Wikivoyage:Where_you_can_stick_it#Stay_safe. Dangers should always be seen relative to their context, and scaring travelers or blaming ethnicities is very counterproductive (at the least). Localizing the dangers to specific well-identified areas is also much more helpful, and the current "Understand" section is at least attempting to do that. Xsobev (talk) 10:37, 27 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

The decision as to when to use warningboxes is usually based on the severity of the danger. Try a web search for Molenbeek and it very quickly becomes very obvious that the warning box is indeed necessary. K7L (talk) 04:48, 28 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Template:Warningbox#Article_placement mentions: "if the danger is localized or avoidable, place it under 'Stay safe'". Can we at least agree to move it to the stay safe section? As for whether using the box at all, it is stated that it should be used "sparingly", with examples such as "civil war in this region", "devastated by earthquake last week", "Ebola virus outbreak", or "death penalty for marijuana possession". None of this applies here. As you have suggested, I looked at a few newspaper articles that come up when searching for Molenbeek. First, the search only lists articles from around 2015/2016. None of them warn of going to Molenbeek. The closest to what might cause dangers to tourists are "criminal gangs" (source) mentioned only in one article. More importantly, two individuals were quoted:

• Ahmed El Khannouss, the borough’s deputy mayor, said: “I know everyone thinks it’s a base for radicals and terrorists, but a lot of that is stigmatisation.” (source).
• Turine [the Green deputy mayor of the district] warned against stigmatising any community or district. (source)

... and stigmatising we should not do on WV either. Xsobev (talk) 07:55, 30 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I came across at least one article that went a bit like "I tried really hard to get mugged in Molenbeek. It didn't work". Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:59, 30 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

The danger with moving the warning box to the Stay safe section is that not everyone scrolls down the page that far. There is a risk that travelers unfamiliar with the city and unaware of the criminals and terrorists roaming around here only look at the attractions section and then venture into the district unprepared for the threats they will be facing. That is why a warning box belongs at the top of the page, so that it cannot be overseen. ArticCynda (talk) 13:36, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Original warning:

WARNING: Best known internationally as the hideout of the terrorists responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris and bombing the Brussels metro and airport, Molenbeek and its surroundings are no longer the inviting residential neighborhoods they used to be. An expanding ghetto void of law and order, the district has become a hatchery for islamic fundamentalism and criminals of all trades. Going here alone is decisively not a good idea, and doing so may dramatically shorten your life expectancy. Crime rates in Molenbeek are 10 times higher than in the rest of Brussels, and tourists are often targeted because they are assumed to carry valuables.

Current warning:

	WARNING: Molenbeek and its surroundings have become unsafe, with criminals of all trades. Going here alone is decisively not a good idea, and it is advisable to avoid the area entirely after dark. Crime rates in Molenbeek are ten times higher than in the rest of Brussels, and tourists are often targeted because they are assumed to carry valuables.

I think the new wording, which is at the beginning of the article and directly above this comment, makes the warning box appropriate. I think we know this is a dangerous place, so it's okay to give a warning. But at the same time let's not go back to the above description again. I think the name of the district is also appropriate. And one other thing: should we mention terrorism the warning box? Selfie City (talk) 18:37, 30 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

How dangerous is the district really? The WarningBox by its very nature and color and design is supposed to alert people of immediate danger to life and limb. War zone type of danger. Rampant disease kind of danger. Is this the kind of danger a visitor to this part of Brussels faces? And keep in mind that whichever terrorists there are in the area, they have thus far never struck inside Molenbeek, nor are they likely to. So why mention that here? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:48, 30 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I'd moved the terrorism from the red box to the "Understand" section, but see that it has now been removed from that section in an attempt to downplay a real danger. I would support it being reinstated, either to the text or the warning box, as we don't withhold or downplay important factual information just to avoid hurt feelings. K7L (talk) 23:51, 30 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Hobbitschuster: likewise there were no suicide bombing attacks during the time ISIL occupied Mosul, and yet, we still had a warning box on the page of that city... ArticCynda (talk) 13:30, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Mosul was at the time a war zone. And whatever you can say about Molenbeek, they do not throw gays off rooftops or behead infidels there, do they? Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:36, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

It was not a war zone as long as the occupation lasted, per definition, since you can't be at war with yourself. And yes, the terrorists (or "freedom fighters" as you would probably prefer to call politically correctly) in Molenbeek are also an ISIL branch: the suicide squads responsible for the Paris and Brussels attacks all originated from this district, and the attacks were claimed directly or indirectly by ISIL. It was already pointed out as well that there is indeed a frightningly high and increasing support for sharia in Molenbeek and its surroundings. Do we really need to wait or the first gay travelers to be thrown off rooftops before you think a warning box is justified? ArticCynda (talk) 13:46, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

We are talking about very different things here. In Mosul being Christian or opposed to ISIL was probably enough to be beheaded, so the warning was indeed in place also when it was not a war zone (which it was for a significant part of the occupation). ISIL in Molenbeek (if present) is trying to keep a low profile to avoid being noticed by the police, concentrating on attacks elsewhere. An increasing support for sharia does not mean sharia is going to be imposed on tourists visiting the area. If you are to be taken seriously, you should keep such troubling developments (which can be mentioned in Understand, where relevant) separate from real dangers to tourists (which can warrant warning boxes and mentions in Stay safe). --LPfi (talk) 14:03, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Hobbitschuster: a Google Search on "Molenbeek" and "war zone" yields 27,200 results. Personal experiences of people who have actually visited the city aside, this might give an indication of the magnitude of problems going on there. ArticCynda (talk) 14:16, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I don't think we should decide whether or not to include a warning box based on statistics or even just facts — common sense should work effectively as our guide for writing this article. It should be common sense that — drawing from elements of logic, fact, and history — that Molenbeek is a dangerous place to visit. Let's remember this: just because nobody's been thrown off a rooftop in Molenbeek doesn't mean it's a safe place to visit. On the other hand, ArticCynda: just because Google Search yields 27,000+ results for "Molenbeek war zone" or whatever you entered doesn't mean that there are 27,000+ articles out there talking about Molenbeek being a war zone. Chances are that the first 100 pages shown on the Search results are about Molenbeek, the next 1,000 are about war zones in general, and the next 26,000 or so include either the word "war" or the word "zone" separately. Unless an editor has experienced Brussels or we can find a reliable online source proving that Molenbeek is extremely dangerous to the tourist, is there reason to include a warning box? Selfie City (talk) 16:27, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Selfie City, I have lived in Brussels myself for a few years, and visited many times before and afterwards so I am writing from the perspective of firsthand experience. Secondly, if you search for "Molenbeek" + "war zone" you do only get results that mention Molenbeek and the combination "war zone" (and not just "war" or "zone"). ArticCynda (talk) 16:45, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Oh, with a plus sign. As long as the plus function works on Google search, that's a different story. And I'm not doubting that Molenbeek is a dangerous place. But because you called the place a "Ghetto" and entered what some consider to be controversial edits about it, I don't think the other editors will trust your experience of Brussels. It would be helpful if we could get the opinions of some more admins (like Ikan Kekek and AndreCarrotflower) on the issue, and that could help us resolve all of this. Selfie City (talk) 16:54, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

ArticCynda seems to be operating exclusively from a European perspective here. European cities are among the safest in the world when it comes to crime, so "10 times as high as the rest of Brussels" doesn't mean a whole lot. People being thrown off the roofs of buildings was a specific hypothetical that was mentioned, so let's talk about murder specifically. Brussels' murder rate in 2017 was 3.6 per 100,000. Multiply that by ten and you have a murder rate roughly equivalent to that of Birmingham, Alabama, which has the 5th-highest murder rate among cities with populations over 100,000 in the United States (a country where the crime rate is somewhat higher than Europe but still far behind most of the rest of the world). There's no warning box on our Birmingham article, nor are there any on New Orleans, Detroit, Baltimore, or St. Louis, numbers 1 through 4 on said list of U.S. cities. So, regarding Molenbeek, I think it's fine to note the danger in the "Stay safe" section, but a warning box is overkill. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:37, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Definitely there's quite a few American cities in the Midwest, along the Mississippi River, and the Atlantic coast that have high crime rates. However, these cities generally have a history of racial issues (meaning more crime), something not the case in all of America by any means. In somewhere like Detroit, the downtown area is probably fine without a warning box but the areas around it, if they were individual districts, would need some kind of warning to travelers due to their crime level. Let's keep in mind that a lot of America — particularly in the parts where there are no racial divisions — are probably much safer than Molenbeek. I think the issue is that Molenbeek has a reputation for crime and terrorism, while cities like Detroit don't have a reputation for crime even though they have plenty of it. It's definitely a difficult decision. Selfie City (talk) 17:49, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Also, remember that in a place like Molenbeek there are probably many crimes that go undetected. In America, I would think that number is much lower. Selfie City (talk) 17:56, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

It's irrelevant whether Molenbeek has a reputation for crime and terrorism. What's relevant is whether that reputation is deserved; in other words, how much danger tourists are actually putting themselves in by visiting the area. Furthermore, I'm sure unreported crime is an issue to some degree in Molenbeek, just as it is an issue in many impoverished neighborhoods of American cities. There are a lot of cases where numbers don't tell the whole story, but this isn't one of them, and in general we shouldn't be putting up warningboxes and dissuading people from visiting a certain place without a damn good reason. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:14, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yes, Selfie City, we should be restricting ourselves to facts only when determining whether to use a warningbox. If we don't restrict ourselves to facts, we risk falling prey to prejudice and poorly-founded claims that some people consider "common sense", but which are really common myths and stereotypes. I don't put myself up as any kind of expert on Belgium, a country I have yet to even visit, but facts have been brought to bear in this discussion, and they speak eloquently. Parenthetically, every city in the U.S. has "a history of racial issues", and connecting those with crime statistics makes no sense, because then you'd claim what? That racism in New York was cured because crime plummeted? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:04, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I hope no one is implying there is a connection between racial issues and crime in a city, because certain oversensitive editors will interpret that as racism. I agree, Andre, that European cities are among the safest in the world, and yes Selfie City, even in Europe Detroit is widely associated with a questionable reputation regarding safety. But that makes the situation with Molenbeek even more tricky because travelers would not expect the dangers and are thus unprepared for them. For instance, if European travelers visit developing countries like the USA, they naturally expect higher crime rates, and will be more alert. When this is not expected, as in the case of Molenbeek if it wouldn't have a warning box, travelers will be completely caught off guard. That is why, in my opinion, Molenbeek needs a warning box: to cope with the specific threats relative to the European safety context. ArticCynda (talk) 07:36, 1 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

First, I completely agree with what User:Ikan Kekek and User:AndreCarrotflower said.

Second, I would like to point out that User:ArticCynda's claim of a "10 times higher rate of armed robberies" introduced in this comment is based on statistics with absolute numbers (see the data source in Dutch/French that was given by User:ArticCynda). The example provided by User:ArticCynda is for armed robberies (French: vol à main armée; Dutch: diefstal gewapenderhand) in 2017 comparing "Molenbeek-Saint-Jean" (77) to "Watermael-Boitsfort" (9), "Evere" (7) and "Ganshoren" (8). Not provided in this example is the figure for "Bruxelles" (the district that includes our Brussels/Centre, Brussels/Pentagon, and more). Here the figure is 241 ("three times higher than in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean"). To further set this into proportaion, the total number of reported armed robberies in all of Brussels in 2017 is 802. Judging from that User:ArticCynda's claim is highly misleading. These statistics, as in fact any statistics, should be interpreted with great care. Aspects not considered here are for example the number of inhabitants or the size of each of the mentioned official districts, or other reported crimes. How User:ArticCynda's example turned into "criminals of all trades" and "Crime rates in Molenbeek are ten times higher than in the rest of Brussels" in our current warning box is unclear to me.

Third, regarding User:ArticCynda's Google search of "Molenbeek" + "war zone" that yields around 27.000 results. A search for "Pope Francis" + "war zone" yields around 75.000, one for "Germany" + "war zone" yields 1.210.000 results. Numbers obtained in this way do not tell us anything at all (not even do they "give an indication of the magnitude of problems going on" (User:ArticCynda)) with respect to our problem.

Xsobev (talk) 12:38, 1 August 2018 (UTC)Reply