Talk:Committee of Vigilance

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Committee of Vigilance == Vigilance committee[edit]

These two terms are synonyms, @FloridaArmy, and the examples you linked in NY and Philadelphia are primary examples of the primary topic, which is vigilance committee. This should redirect there with those different things treated in text. @Qcne Andre🚐 14:51, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you define a vigilance committee as a violent group of vigilantes these groups don't fit. As you reverted my split I refined the scope of the article. Hopefully this solution works for you in which case the subject can be treated more inclusively and a merge is warranted. These issues have been discussed by many editors on the wntry's talk page. Please consider their comments. FloridaArmy (talk) 15:12, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The material about it being a violent group of vigilantes is secondary and should be de-emphasized or removed. The primary use of the term is in the underground railroad. The reason why they were a "vigilance committee" is because they were taking the law into their own hands and what they were doing, to help free fugitive slaves, was illegal since technically at the time, the law said slaves were property of their owners. Please read Eric Foner's excellent book. Andre🚐 15:18, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Whoever created the vigilance committee entry was focused on Western (American) vigilante groups. Abolitionists aiding the underground railroad don't fit with that scope. The scope is now broadened but raises the concern of grouping unrelated entities apart from their names into a single article. Do you have sources tying abolitionists working on the underground railroad to violent vigilante groups? Are you going to include every group with "vigilance" in its name? Why? I'm not sure a separate list of vigilante groups wouldn't be a better way to handle this and have the broader subjects be disambiguated as I was doing before being reverted. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:10, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I'm trying to explain, "vigilance committee" and "committee of vigilance" are the same term. Like the latter is just an old-timey way to say the former. [added Andre🚐 22:38, 11 November 2023 (UTC)] The creator doesn't WP:OWN the article. Per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:SPLIT the primary topic of vigilance commitee is anti-slavery abolitionist societies along the underground railroad. The Western version isn't related except that they have the same name and both are organized groups of citizens taking the law into their own hands. If anything, the western version should be split into a separate article with parentheses to explain the different situation, but this is an extremely minor usage compared to the vast majority of references being to abolitionism. Andre🚐 20:20, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]