Wikipedia:Use of the word terrorism (policy development) archive 2

1. Wikipedia:Use of the word terrorism (policy development)
2. Wikipedia:Use of the word terrorism (policy development) archive

Sources?

Is it written anywhere that flying a plane into the World Trade Center is not terrorism? Outside of Wikipedia, where is dispute or doubt written that certain events are terrorism? Maurreen 03:44, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

During to discussion about this topic on the 9/11 talk pages Reuters refused to refer to the attacks as terrorist. I'm not sure where the quote on that page came from, but the author must know Steven jones 13:33, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The Reuters quote follows. It doesn't address whether the act was or wasn't terrorism, only that Reuters sees the word as emotional and chooses not to use it. Maurreen 16:29, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We lost six members of the Reuters family and offices that housed 550 others who thankfully survived. From the first moments after the attacks, Reuters staff around the world worked tirelessly to account for their colleagues, restore our information services to customers, and report the news. However, these efforts have been overshadowed by the controversy over the policy of our Editorial group to avoid using emotional terms such as "terrorist" in their news stories. This policy has served Reuters and, more importantly, our readers well by ensuring access to news as it occurs, wherever it occurs. As a global news organization reporting from 160 countries, Reuters mission is to provide accurate and impartial accounts of events so that individuals, organizations and governments can make their own decisions based on the facts. . . Our policy is to avoid the use of emotional terms and not make value judgments concerning the facts we attempt to report accurately and fairly.

this makes sense, and I am tending towards thinking that we should use the term only with attribution, and only with attribution to neutral (as opposed to propagandist or crackpot) sources. dab 18:38, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

dab glad to hear you're coming round. I don't feel we have to keep ourselves to neutral attributions though. I think it's OK to quote places like US state department, Fox news and Al jazera(sp?). I think we should avoid quoting thing such as small newsletters and blogs but I don't know where the line is. Steven jones 11:00, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

it's just safer to quote neutral sources. Of course we can quote the state department, but imho the US administration is guilty of the unusability of ther term in the first place, and since the US administration itself is accused of state terrorism, it would just degenerate into name-calling (i.e. different parties calling each other terrorist). So if I was to decide (which I am not), official US administration sources are the one thing not to quote, in this case (they call all the people in Guantanamo terrorists, until the supreme court scolds them for human rights abuse, and they are generally very colse of calling anyone terrorist who criticizes them. also, this would logically imply we have to quote the russian govenment that claims all chechen freedom-fighters are terrorists, to have an excuse to continue their atrocities there, etc. etc.). dab 14:35, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maureen, the Reuters response was in answer to your second question. Reuters, according to the quote, has doubts that certain events are terrorism. No it does not directly say whether they think that the 9/11 attacks were terrorism, but it does say that they don't think that the question of an event being terrorist is clear ot easy. I thought that was what you secind question was asking. Steven jones 11:00, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I guess we interpret it differently. No biggie. Maurreen 16:06, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To stop an edit war over terroris freedom fighter type when I re-arranged a large chunks of the page on Guerrillas, in the section Guerrilla#Post_World_War_II with links to attribuation, we were able to stop the edit wars which were common about the IRA before the external links to diffrent expressions were put in. Philip Baird Shearer 20:22, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Other terms

btw, if this is going to develop into an official guideline at some point, let's make sure it covers other (imho even more) emotional terms like massacre, or genocide. dab 14:35, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think that is getting carried away. It seems like going in the direction of "Let's think of any possible problem." To me, almost anything can be debated. Whether it should be debated, or whether there should be a policy, without a clear need, is a different question.

If the scope of this discussion is expanded, I think it should at least be well publicized. Maurreen 16:06, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not trying to impose anything, here. I have just seen heated discussions about the term 'massacre' before, and the policy for 'masssacre' should at least resemble the policy for 'terrorism'. Myself, I don't care too much about these things, I would just like to come up with something that minimizes edit wars. dab 17:30, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Freedom Fighter or Terrorist?

I always find it hypocritical that people who were prepared to commit terrorist acts (often in their youth) and would say that they were freedom fighters, are then prepared to label others who commit similar acts against their community terrorists. One example are people in the Israeli establishment in later years, who were members of the Stern Gang or Irgun and organised things like King David Hotel bombing

Also people who are labelled terrorists leaders in their youth often get renamed by their enemies as time passes, from terrorist, to politician, to respected elder statement. Many a head the of Commonwealth of Nations fitted that bill in the 1970s, Gerry Adams is moving that way, Mandela has made it all the way and beyond.

So even if someone or somthing is considered a terroris today, they or it may not be considered one tomorrow. If an article is not to become dated, it is not a bad rule of thumb not to use the phrase "Freedom Fighter" or the word "Terrorist". Philip Baird Shearer 20:22, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is another reason why its a better idea to use terms like "militant", "guerrilla", "gunman", "bomber" and "hostage-taker".

Mandela an interesting example: he advocated violent resistance after the Sharpville massacre and the worsening of apartheid laws following non-violent resistance, co-founded the ANC's MK guerrilla group, and led a sabotage campaign against the apartheid regime (legal under Protocol 1 and UN resolutions as an "armed conflict against a racist regime") before his arrest and imprisonment.

For fighting a fascist regime, the Reagan administration and Thatcher called him a terrorist. Reagan, in contrast, considered fascist Contra insurgents fighting the elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua and massacring civilians to be "freedom fighters" and the "moral equivalent of our founding fathers".

When Mandela was freed from his life sentence for sabotage and elected president, Clinton completely reversed the policy and decided Mandela wasn't a terrorist. His turn to violence (which many consider justified) is now often often glossed over in reports of his life, and he is respected and idiolised throughout the world.Kingal86 17:50, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

all of this doesn't represent a problem to references to events as "terrorist attacks", though. dab 17:54, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

People vs. acts, events, etc.

It appears that there is at least near consensus about labeling people or possibly groups, but not for attacks. Perhaps that consensus can be draft, we can archive the earlier discussion, and continue to attacks any etc.

My suggestion is to handle them case by case. I know that's not much of a sitewide policy, but I don't see any better option. Maurreen 18:28, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree. The policy must call for common sense. The edit wars will not go away either way. I would call for attribution to serious, and if possible neutral, sources for the terms 'terrorist', 'massacre' and 'genocide' (and similar), and avoid their use in article titles (such as Beslan school massacre (although that was a massaccre, of course)), and call for special care if 'terrorist' is applied to individuals (rather than events). holocaust is of course exempt and unproblematic, since that has taken on a precise meaning (or has it? redirects such as Hellenic Holocaust, Prussian Holocaust should not exist, imho). dab 22:43, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Er, how do you mean? Labelling individuals and/or groups definitively as terrorist or labelling them as terrorist according to sources? The latter I have no objection to, the former I do not accept. Sarge Baldy 02:14, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Use of "terrorist" and comparison of Munich Massacre and Sabra and Shatila Massacre

How about replacing Lebanese "militiaman" with Lebanese "terrorist" in the Sabra and Shatila massacre article, á la the Munich Massacre article. The Lebanese Christians were non-government militants carrying out politicial violence targeting civilians. They murdered hundreds of Palestinian civilians and are usually called "militiamen" or even "soldiers". In contrast the Munich Massacre hostage-takers kidnapped and murdered eleven civilians, much less (although still an indefensible war crime), and are usually called "terrorists". Would pro-Israeali Wikipedians revert that or not? Or would they consider POV just like many Wikipedias do with reference to the Munich Massacre.-Kingal86 21:06, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Draft?

I mean:

1. use common sense
2. attribute uses of 'terrorist' and similar to serious, neutral sources
3. in some cases (where almost everyone agrees) it may make sense to refer to an event as 'terrorist' (or similar) without attribution
4. in even rarer cases (when very many neutral sources could be cited for attribution), the same may apply to individuals or organizations.

dab 13:56, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's not useful to tell people to use common sense. Does anyone have any thoughts on "terrorist attacks"? Does anyone mind if I archive part of this page? Maurreen 15:51, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

yes it is. just don't assume they all will. for those who don't, there are still points 2-4 :) dab 16:16, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What is "common sense" to one person is not to another. People generally don't do things deliberately that they believe are against common sense. Maurreen 16:21, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

of course. invocation of common sense is more like a statement "our guidelines cannot solve your pov disputes for you. act responsibly" than anything else. dab 17:23, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't think this draft is much of a policy. It pretty musch says. "It's best to attribute, but if you don't want to; do whatever you think you can get away with". I think we need to actually say something in the policy. It doesn't appear to me that we are close to a concensus on the description of events, but with people/ groups we seem to be closing in. Therefore I would propose a different draft of part of the policy

Terrorism People and Group Policy Draft 2

Wikipedia does not label individuals or groups as terrorists. Wikipedia may indicate that an individual, or leader of an organisation has admitted to being terrorist, if the acknoledgement was made of free will and in a non ambigous way. Wikipedia can attribute accusations of terrorism by serious sources. These sources can include things like goverment organisations, significant non-government organisations and major media outlets. Serious sources should not include things such as letters to the editor, op-ed pieces or blogs.

Any thoughts? Steven jones 11:02, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

sounds good. How do you reply to the 'terrorist' vs. 'militiamen' above? and how do we handle events? what are we doing with

Category:Terrorist organizations, Category:Terrorist_incidents, Category:Terrorists? It seems consensus is impossible to delete them :( dab 12:42, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well if the proposal went into effect they would be eliminated per Wikipedia policy, and they wouldn't need to be deleted on a case-by-case basis. Sarge Baldy 19:33, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

With the terrorist vs. militiaman thing, I'm not advocacating the use of the word "terrorist" (a word I don't like), I'm pointing out what consider to be hypocracy and bias. Kingal86 17:53, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you completely, and your example is hardly alone. There is a latent bias in most English-speaking countries to associate terrorism more with Islamic militants rather than Christian, state, kidnappings, etc. Sarge Baldy 19:42, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Time and time again it has proved impossible to gain consensus for removing the description "terrorist". I feel it is safe to say that, if put to the community vote, as any final draft policy should, it would fail to gain consensus. I understand you feel strongly that we should not use the word "terrorism", but I also ask you to recognise that for the foreseeable future you will not gain consensus to remove the terminology. jguk 20:27, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I wonder why, then, the default policy is an inherently contradictory, unsafe, libelous and hypocritical one.. It appears obvious that the default policy should be the opposite, and consensus must be gained in the other direction. Tarek 23:46, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)