Talk:Ahmed Mohamed clock incident/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Aftermath/Reactions

Irving police held a presser on some of the support and hate mail they have received in reaction to this event, was tagged on to other Q/A for other local events, mostly traffic issues, but the clock portion has it's own story is at: http://www.fox4news.com/news/31727029-story

BTW, the clock is still at the police station awaiting pickup.

Heyyouoverthere (talk) 02:40, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Not sure how relevant that material is. If it gets widely reported, we may consider adding a short sentence. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:54, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Widely reported, that's the problem as only 3 of the 4 local TV stations and the DMN showed up for the meeting. Granted the actual content will be shared via the AP and b-roll dump but there were no other reporters present as the initial fever died down and the news cycle has moved on to other events so it's unlikely to show up directly in your own local paper/tv news/CNN-etc. Story will really only continue as a local interest if at all. Although with the Clock Boy Halloween costume that popped up, story interest might rise again. Heyyouoverthere (talk) 00:21, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

"All his teachers" or "Engineering teacher"

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The account of who Ahmed was trying to impress appears to have evolved over time. The initial statements were that he brought it to impress his Engineering teacher. The initial accounts said his engineering teacher told him to not show it to other teachers or students. Ahmed's statement appears to have evolved to "impress all his teachers" giving a reason why he brought it out in English class. The lead says "engineering teacher" the body says "all his teachers." Secondly, it's obvious that no one thought it was a real bomb. Did Ahmed not understand that when he wrote in his parent-approved statement that "Police think it's a bomb" after everything was explained to him that police didn't, at any time, think it was bomb? --DHeyward (talk) 21:22, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

No, the sources have been clear for a very long time that he brought it out in English class because it made a noise and his teacher asked him what was making the noise. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:26, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

So he did not plug it in during his English class?? Jbh^Talk 23:48, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

@TheRedPenOfDoom: your version is what I heard. When questions were raised, the story evolved from "impressing his engineering teacher" and "don't show anyone else" followed by the spontaneous noise to "impressing all his teachers" and "plugging it in" and setting the alarm. Our article is as inconsistent as the story being told as we report all of them as if they are the same thing. --DHeyward (talk) 02:32, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure what standards you hold for a 14-year-old who had been hauled off by the police in handcuffs and then accosted by world wide media to have 100% recollection of what happened, but it is quite possible and quite understandable that details will be fuzzy. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:35, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Details like "Why did you make it?" --DHeyward (talk) 02:48, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

So your position is that we should hold a 14-year-old as a liar because he said "I wanted to show to all of my teachers" when he really meant "I wanted to show to all of the teachers that I like" or "I wanted to show to all of my teachers that I think it might impress" or "I wanted to show to all of my teachers but when the first teacher told me not to show it, I changed my mind"  ? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:15, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

What a bloody waste of time... WP:NOTFORUM for Pete's sake. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:16, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

The WP article says both. Resolve the obvious discrepancy. --DHeyward (talk) 19:43, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

It's crap like this (conflicting content) that makes a great case for not creating articles that are based solely on news stories. The "reliable sources" for articles like these are usually only news, the news can be very biased, the biased reporting becomes the article. Hence, we end up with a biased article that is essentially an extension of news and tabloid garbage rather than something truly encyclopedic. And people wonder why Wikipedia isn't seen as a serious source of encyclopedic content? -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 19:53, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Even worse, the discrepancy has led TRPoD to conclude Ahmed must have lied. It needs resolution if only to prevent false conclusions. --DHeyward (talk) 19:57, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

The sentence in the lead can be changed to, "According to Mohamed, he did it to show off his inventing ability." --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:03, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, if true, it wouldn't be the first time a 14 year old has lied or embellished after-the-fact about something. Personally, I think the story changed because the family's lawyer changed the narrative and gave them a script to follow. But, I digress: as Cwobeel stated above, WP:NOTAFORUM. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 20:06, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Looking at it some more, the following two statements in the article are not inconsistent,

"wanted to show the engineering teacher"

"wanted to impress all of his teachers".

They are not inconsistent because the first one does not say that he wanted to show the clock only to his engineering teacher.

The first sentence in the Clock and arrest section can be changed to, "According to Mohamed, he brought the clock to school because he wanted to show it to his engineering teacher and wanted to impress all of his teachers." --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:52, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Do we have a source that makes that connection? Otherwise it's WP:SYNTH. --DHeyward (talk) 20:58, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

The above sentence is supported by the text and video of the source given in the article. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:03, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll take a look again. --DHeyward (talk) 21:16, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Let me say this again: This page is NOT a discussion forum and neither it is a place to promote fringe views. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:10, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

@DHeyward: If you have an edit to make, make it, otherwise stop wasting everybody's time. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:11, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I didn't realize achieving consensus was wasting your time. Perhaps you're on the wrong project? --DHeyward (talk) 21:16, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Achieving consensus on what? This discussion is about minutiae that has no other purpose than to cast doubts on a LP. See WP:ADVOCACY, and WP:FRINGE. Again, if you have an edit to make, make it. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:19, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

We're clearly discussing an edit to the article, viz. the change indicated in my last message. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:29, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

What is the edit, Bob? The sentence used in the article is fully sourced. If you want to engage in this minutiae, be my guest. I have better things to do than engage in this useless discussion. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:31, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Your messages are very strange to me, especially when you keep asking "What is the edit?". Is it possible that you didn't read the end of this message of mine [1]? --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:37, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't see the contradiction. His engineering teacher is one of his teachers; therefore, "he wanted to impress all his teachers" and "he wanted to show it to his engineering teacher" do not contradict -- he can have both goals, with a desire to impress all his teachers as well as his engineering teacher in particular. Furthermore, thinking about it, it feels like you're trying to perform WP:SYNTH; both statements are sourced (so there's no problems with the way the article covers them now), yet you're asserting that there is a connection between them -- given that both are sourced, you're implicitly accusing the article's subject of a contradiction that isn't supported by any sources, purely by your own synthesis. That it's a clear WP:BLP violation, so this entire talk section should probably be removed -- unless you have WP:BLP level reliable sources to back up your assertion that the two statements contradict? --Aquillion (talk) 23:21, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Who are you referring to? Me? I already noted in a previous message that it wasn't a contradiction [2]. But it wasn't obvious to the editors here, since the discussion by both sides before I entered the discussion were presuming there was a contradiction. If it wasn't clear to editors here, how can you expect it to be clear to readers who might look at this article and think that Mohamed is changing his story when he isn't. I have my limits when it comes to dealing with strange and weird messages like I've encountered here. Getting the drift, I'll pull out of this discussion, leaving editors to act or not. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:06, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

@Aquillion: It's pretty clear that your reasoning is specious. If you can clarify the article and its discrepancies, please do so rather than engage in personal attacks. --DHeyward (talk) 06:33, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't mean it as a personal attack, but there's no contradiction here. Both statements are well-sourced and well-established, and nothing about the two of them is contradictory. You clearly read both of Mohamed's statements, and feel that he contradicted himself; but you lack a source for this, so your assertion is WP:SYNTH, and we can't do anything with that. When you say, above, that his position 'evolved over time' (with no sources stating that specifically, just your personal synthesis), that is therefore an unequivocal WP:BLP violation. --Aquillion (talk) 06:49, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Move to Qatar.

This should probably be in the body, not just the lead, but I can't figure out the appropriate place to put it. Perhaps we need an 'aftermath' section? It might make sense to weld the Opinions and Reactions section into some sort of Aftermath section, and maybe drastically cut down on the opinions in the process -- it isn't necessary to cover everyone who commented on it, and a lot of them feel like they were just WP:RECENTISM at the time that don't really have any significance now. --Aquillion (talk) 01:58, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

When seeing the addition, after I read about it elsewhere (news article), my thoughts are similar, i.e. move to Qatar should be added somewhere to the body as well. I have additional references, and do not want to add those in lead, but will make note of those here (a bit later). Whenever an "aftermath" section (or similar) with inclusion of "move to Qatar" is present in the body, I will insert the additional references, or someone else can. 99.170.117.163 (talk) 17:14, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

It was already added to the body of the article before it was put in the lede, here by Muboshgu. Dave Dial (talk) 17:31, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks for pointing it out, Dave Dial! :-) 99.170.117.163 (talk) 17:36, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Lede

I have rewritten the lede to remove unnecessary redundancy as well as add a bit of detail. The paragraph has been split up for easier reading. It would be best to discuss the changes here rather than allowing edit warring to ensue, as has been typical so far for this article. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 23:11, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

I suppose you're referring to this edit. That looks relatively minor to me, although I notice two problems in it. The first is that it contains two sentences in a row that both say he brought the clock to show it to his teachers. That's annoyingly repetitive ("... brought it to school to show his teachers. According to the boy, he brought the clock to school in order to impress his teachers ..."). The second problem is the grammar of the sentence saying "After reporting him to the school's principal, local law enforcement was called". The implied person acting in the first phrase is the teacher, so it should say something like "After reporting him to the school's principal, the teacher [did something]", or "The teacher reported him to the school's principal, and local law enforcement was called". —BarrelProof (talk) 03:37, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

After witnessing the picking apart of some very good edits and removal of the better cropped photo, I'm leaving this article. Frankly, I'm sick of the battleground and ownership mentality exercised at this article. It's simply not worth it. This is the kind of crap behavior that drives away good editors. No sense wasting my time here any longer, it's obvious that if one isn't part of the article's group of approved editors, one isn't welcome, no matter how good their edits are. Which proves there are editors here who aren't thinking of benefiting readers with every edit or are interested in building an encyclopedia. The interest is in building a mini-kingdom to rule over and control. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 03:58, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand that comment. Was there something wrong or hostile about what I said? I did not object to your edit, and the minor redundancy and grammar problem seem obvious to me. —BarrelProof (talk) 04:01, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

The cropped photo is not good for several reasons: (a) It is blurry as it is resized from an original low-res photo. And (b) it removes the now iconic NASA t-shirt. Not an improvement. - Cwobeel (talk) 04:10, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Creation of IStandWithAhmed Twitter account

The article states that Ahmed created the account, but this flies in the face of numerous other stories that Ahmed's older sisters created the account.

"His sisters, 18-year-old Eyman and 17-year-old Ayisha, could hardly keep up with the tweets and stunning news about their little brother. Because Ahmed was never much for social media, the girls set up a Twitter account for him, @IStandWithAhmed, and watched it balloon to thousands of followers within hours." - http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150915-irving-ninth-grader-arrested-after-taking-homemade-clock-to-school.ece

The article should be changed as it is clearly incorrect on this matter. Other sources corroborating that Eyam Mohamed started the istandwithahmed account include: http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/23/6-unanswered-questions-about-ahmed-mohameds-clock/

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/09/istandwithahmed-teenager-bringing

http://www.colorlines.com/articles/police-call-muslim-students-invention-bomb-take-him-juvenile-detention-facility

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ahmed-mohamed-irving-texas-clock

Unfortunately, I don't understand how Wikipedia cites sources and I don't want to wind up screwing anything up, especially on an article as contentious as this one. 96.228.18.27 (talk) 12:24, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

The currently cited source (the Christian Science Monitor) says that "Ahmed himself opened his own Twitter account Wednesday morning (handle: @IStandWithAhmed) and had more than 37,000 followers by Wednesday afternoon", but (if I recall correctly) you are right – it wasn't Ahmed that opened the account – it was his sister(s). We should fix it ASAP. —BarrelProof (talk) 12:30, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

RFC: How should the clock be described in the lead?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

In the end a closing was not necessary, as it appears that a source led to a better solution. Archiving it since its on WP:ANRFC. AlbinoFerret 16:09, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

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How should the clock be described in the lead?

• A - "the internals of a commercial digital clock inside a locking pencil box"

or

• B - "a digital clock built into a locking pencil box"?

Comments

Previously involved participants

• B - The description of the clock as a commercial digital clock is only available from a handful of sources, while the preponderance of sources does not describe the clock as such, or as a Micronta clock as some bloggers and a handful of sources have argued. Notwithstanding the fact that it may be possible that the clock was built from parts of a commercially available clock, the lead should not make statements of fact based on the unattributed opinions of a few bloggers and commentators, which in turn were all based on a low resolution photo released by police. The assessments and viewpoints of the clock in the photo, as well as comments by the main actor in this incident, are better left to be presented and attributed in the article's body. - Cwobeel (talk) 02:37, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
• B irrelevant details to the primary aspect of why the incident became and maintained its notability don't belong in the summary which is the purpose of the WP:LEAD. WP:UNDUE detail for the lead. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:25, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
• A It's obviously a hoax bomb, he took apart a clock in 10-20 minutes, the question (as Dawkins asks) is why did he bring it to school?! A few more questions in this very popular article: [http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/23/6-unanswered-questions-about-ahmed-mohameds-clock/ "6 Unanswered Questions About Ahmed Mohamed’s Clock". Raquel Baranow (talk) 02:45, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

The Federalist? Are you serious? Maybe popular with some people, but not a mainstream source by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe we should start a section on the conspiracy theories, which are currently being peddled in the right-wing media echo chamber. I'll get it started once I collect some examples. - Cwobeel (talk) 02:50, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

How about this: Texas police asked Mohamed to pick up his clock and Mohamed's hired lawyers to get his clock back? Glen Beck has a lot to say too: latest-and-very-revealing-details-of-ahmed-and-his-clock Raquel Baranow (talk) 03:02, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Got it started Ahmed Mohamed clock incident#Conspiracy theories. Please help expand, as there is more of this shit out there. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:14, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Glen Back has a lot to say about a lot of things, most of it crazy stuff. I have added a short comment of Beck, and that would be enough, see WP:FRINGE - Cwobeel (talk) 03:16, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

No offense to either of you, but your remarks here are partisan. The school was concerned about a possible hoax bomb, but that hasn't been established by authorities to this point. The Federalist also wouldn't be considered authoritative enough for Wikipedia.

On the other hand, though, there are good reasons to be reasonably cautious about the news media's reporting. A case in point which actually has some similarities is that of another student, Erin Cox, last year. The claim was that the school unfairly suspended her after she had gone to a party to pick up a friend who was intoxicated, and her family was suing. It was all over the media. I first heard about it on the Today Show, in fact, where the case was discussed as if all was known for certain (even though nothing had yet gone to court). You can search on the story and see the national coverage it got. Yet then the case suddenly dropped off the media's radar. I happened to think of it around that time, wondering how it had turned out since the media coverage suddenly stopped, so I searched on it, discovering this story. It's from a small, local publication, and it says Cox ended up confessing she was at the party longer than she had claimed and had been drinking. An article from the Huffington Post also questions her story.

We might actually know more for sure what did and didn't happen, if ANY major news media, even local TV news stations, had acted properly by covering the story to its conclusion. If they give so much attention to a story in the first place, then they should cover the conclusion of it as well, but they didn't. That's not right. CNN, ABC News, the Today Show and a whole host of outlets covered the story, and as they did often criticizing the school (as happened on the Today Show and in a CNN opinion piece I came across), yet then they never report on how the case turned out. Not even local news touches it. That means many people were falsely informed on the case, and the news media left them that way rather than correcting what they had reported. Psalm84 (talk) 03:17, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

No offense to you, but this is not the place to complain about the media, or to attempt to correct perceived wrongs. Regarding additional material on the conspiracy theories, there is a ton of more of that bat-shit-crazy stuff, but most of it on non-reliable sources. So unless a RS report on these, such as the Dallas Morning News, we can't use any of that material. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:31, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

You're missing the point here. The point is writing an accurate Wikipedia article, starting with the lede. It isn't accurate to create the impression in the lede that this is a homemade clock that Ahmed made from scratch and spent a great amount of time on. The evidence that has come out since the case went viral, has shown that's inaccurate. That includes evidence from Ahmed himself. He says he spent ten to twenty minutes on it. So the amount of work he put into the clock has been questioned by reliable sources for good reason. The fact that the news media isn't out there discussing this as it did his detainment isn't surprising, but these questions are being discussed in reliable sources. Now, to present as fact that Mohamed did make a bomb hoax, as Richard Dawkins is arguing, that would be putting in an opinion, despite his high stature and the claim being reported in major media. There aren't facts that back up the claim with certainty, and that would also take some sort of legal finding. It's only a suspicion. But the evidence that the clock was not built from scratch, as presented by people who know electronics and as reliable sources have reported on, is conclusive. Mohamed's family also hasn't disputed that this was a clock simply taken apart and soldered into the pencil box, it should be noted, and again, Mohamed's own words on the time he spent on the project are consistent with that. Can a clock be made from scratch in ten to twenty minutes? He said he soldered the pieces in the box. About how long with just that take? He also said the project was either “simple,” or “very simple,” in the context that it was something to show his teachers but not something he expected would be very impressive to them. That's another statement consistent with that it wasn't made from scratch, besides his statement that he used manufactured parts. So *evidence* in reliable sources is sufficient for us to know at least that much about his clock project, and that makes for a difficult description of the clock in the lede. Psalm84 (talk) 04:09, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

See #can we put this to rest?. - Cwobeel (talk) 04:20, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Respondents to the RFC, previously uninvolved

• - A. Now that the hoopla around this incident is dying down a little (and that's why WP is supposed to be NOTNEWS), it's starting to come out that all this kid did apparently was take apart a digital clock, toss the pieces into a pencil box, and haul it off to school for some reason. The sourcing on how his "clock" was made appears to be sufficiently solid to put it in WP's voice. As far as I know, no major media sources dispute this. Cla68 (talk) 11:43, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
  • There is no evidence that "it's starting to come out that all this kid did apparently was take apart a digital clock, toss the pieces into a pencil box, and haul it off to school " has anywhere near the interest or coverage that the "carting off a 14 year old Muslim boy in handcuffs to the police station to be fingerprinted" has received. Nor that those details are relevant to why the incident is important. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:38, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
    • No major media is reporting on the conspiracy theories and tone deafness of some bloggers, with the exception pf BuzzFeed that called it for what these are. - Cwobeel (talk) 14:13, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
• - A It's described enough in reliable sources. Also we have the interview from Ahmed that described his time and assembly. I'm satisfied that he put a Micronta clock in a pencil box. --DHeyward (talk) 18:04, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
• B - per significant non-fringe sources —Мандичка^YO 😜 00:25, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
• A - "According to Irving police, Ahmed's case contained a digital clock that the student had taken apart and rearranged." Plus other sources that have identified the exact digital clock and case it was. Uhcord (talk) 02:27, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

References

• To respond to some comments about the incident itself: In one of Ahmed's early interviews, he described it as a small project, where he put a clock that he put in a pencil case. That it started beeping during class should have clued in anyone with reasonable critical thinking skills that it at its core, an alarm clock in a new case. People wonder why he brought it to school; he answered this: he thought his teacher would be impressed. That some people mistook this for some sort of brilliant new invention is not relevant to the core issue that he was punished in a grossly disproportionate manner.

To respond to the question about how to describe the project: A reasonable description might be "an alarm clock that was disassembled and reassembled in a modified pencil box." --Zfish118 (talk) 16:54, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

• B. The vast majority of non-WP:FRINGE sources describe it that way. --Aquillion (talk) 23:21, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
• B reads better, is better sourced, and is an accurate description even if the fringe nutters are right. --JBL (talk) 00:56, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
• B. I'd use "in" instead of "into", but this does read better. The comment by @Zfish118: describes the incident the best way I've seen, so far. (I commented on this on the WP:FRINGE noticeboard before I was invited by the RfC bot. I haven't made any edits to this article or read its talk page, so I'm saying I'm uninvolved.) Roches (talk) 12:44, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• B. As described by non-fringe sources. Immortal Horrors or Everlasting Splendors 14:45, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• B. Per our WP:UNDUE policy. Kleinebeesjes (talk) 22:46, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• B. That B-version of the statement conveys the essence of the factual aspect of this point. To confuse it with the why and wherefore and the conspiracy aspects does the article and WP no favours. Whether any such aspects might be of interest in their own right would be a separate matter. They could be described and discussed in text or even in entire sections that could deal with technical details, conspiracy theories, evaluations, and the nature of information sources; if desirable they might well cover both the intent and execution of the deed and the competence and appropriateness of the reactions of the authorities. To conflate such points would compromise the clarity and objectivity, and accordingly the encyclopaedic standard, of the article. None of which requires option A for this particular assertion. JonRichfield (talk) 03:54, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
• A. It seems to me to be the clearer description of the device, and I think the threaded discussion below has come to the same conclusion. A line from the NPR article published shortly after the incident sums it up well: "...take apart a clock and rebuild it inside a pencil case." A good deal of commentary is in line with this description, and "B" makes that point less clear. We shouldn't be afraid of sounding "like" the conspiracy nuts, so long as we don't include any of the nutty stuff they say. AdventurousSquirrel (talk) 00:57, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• I don't have much time to comment tonight, but I believe that it's important to state in the lead in some fashion that a commercial clock was used. Mohamed admits that much himself, and also makes statements consistent with that (for example, on the amount of time put into his clock project). This is significant and noteworthy because the news media's coverage on this aspect of the situation has been misleading, by and large. Many teens have built clocks from scratch (and I'm not saying Mohamed also couldn't, or perhaps did at another time, but in this case, he clearly didn't); I've read many comments on different sites about people who did so as teens. In this case, he did far less than what many teens have done. Yet the media presented this part of the situation as that he made the clock from scratch, and that misreporting was the basis for not only the perception that on the basis of this clock project alone, Mohamed is extremely talented, but also as part of his story on why he made the clock which the officials reacted to with suspicion. You can see the difference in that if Mohamed had spent some days or even hours on a truly homemade clock project, that clearly would have an impressed his teachers. Yet he spent minutes on a project in which he merely reassembled parts from a manufactured clock, and that teachers told him resembled a bomb. So this is an important part of the incident, given that it directly relates to the controversy in that it appears to be a factor in the school and police officials' questions over his motivations behind the project. Psalm84 (talk) 02:53, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

• While I may agree with many of the things you say, Wikipedia is not the place to correct any perceived wrongs. In Wikipedia we follow the sources and describe significant viewpoints as reported in reliable sources. The discussion of the clock itself and how it was build and with what parts, can only be given justice in the article's body, with full attribution for a WP:NPOV presentation. And by the way, if Mohamed had spent some days or even hours on a truly homemade clock project I am of the opinion that nothing would have changed. The teacher that alerted the principal and police, was his English teacher, who would have been clueless no matter how the clok was built, or how long it took to put it together. - Cwobeel (talk) 02:59, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

• Well, I don't agree, and these are some of the reasons why. It's not a matter of "correcting perceived wrongs," but correctly and truthfully explaining the matter. There actually is reliable source support for the fact that Ahmed didn't build a clock from scratch. The number of reliable sources doesn't necessarily matter, either. Media coverage can be distorting. Some things are hyped, including at times whole stories, and the media can "get things wrong," particularly with developing situations. So how the media presents things is highly significant, which can't be overstated, but isn't 100% binding in the sense that every judgment of the media must be agreed with if such a judgment isn't entirely supported by the facts they themselves are reporting. In other words, it's important to make logical use of these reliable sources, and during the editing I've done here, I've seen that's what editors generally do.

In this case, the media gave the impression that the clock was homemade (and Mohamed's presumed bbvious talent in making it therefore underscored the suspected bigotry of the school and police). Is it disputed that the media gave the "homemade" impression? But there is enough evidence scattered around in reliable sources that "homemade" truly wasn't the case as presented by the media. And as I've started to discuss, this is a significant point in the incident, and important enough to be reflected in the lead, as it is discussed in the article proper. Psalm84 (talk) 03:20, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

• Ugh, there is an unfortunate problem with the news media on this one. The clock Ahmed "built" is obviously just the guts of a commercial clock stuffed into a pencil case. Whether he disassembled and reassembled it is unknowable. The problem is twofold: Many of the media sources claiming he built it are putting their own words in Ahmed's mouth, and many of the "media" sources claiming he didn't built anything then immediately follow with theories about Ahmed and his Dad conspiring to make the school/police look bad. So the "significant" viewpoint is just wrong (not unusual for mass media) and the "correct" viewpoint is coming largely from anti-Muslim dingbats (to be fair, this does not describe everyone criticizing Ahmed's "invention", but if you take a good look around the internet, it's many or most of them). I want the fact that Ahmed's clock is just the guts of a commercial clock stuffed into a pencil case to be in the article, and I think it belongs. But I'm not sure I've come across any sources that would justify it anywhere else but down in a reactions section. I think it would be best if, right here, people presented what they feel are the best sources for a sentence characterizing the clock. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:15, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

How about the Make magazine article? They're very pro-Ahmed, they're not dingbats, they're a serious edited magazine, and they say clearly that it's the guts of a commercial clock stuffed into a pencil case. -- 120.23.90.79 (talk) 06:00, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

• @Someguy1221: no one is arguing that descriptions of the clock should not be in the article, and in fact they are already included in detail. What this is RFC is about is what to say in the lead. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:25, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

• Whoops, I didn't make it clear I already knew that. Though the last time I read the article, it was not in the lede. I see that has changed. I don't like the disjointedness between the lede and the introduction of the article right now. The lede describes accurately what the clock was, but the incident section only gives Ahmed's statements on what the clock was, and the truth isn't revealed until further down. The description should be the same in both places, and based on the best available sources. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:31, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

• Sorry, you lost me there. What is the "truth"? - Cwobeel (talk) 03:33, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Ugh, I seem to really suck at writing today. Maybe I'm tired. The truth is that Ahmed's clock is a commercial clock minus its case. The truth is present in the "responses" section, where it belongs, and more recently in the lede, which is what we are supposed to be discussing. I think the lede should reflect the article, but entire first half of the article only presents Ahmed's description of the clock. So either the start of the "incident" section should change, or the lede should change, and whatever decision gets made should match was the best available sources say. The best sources I've found discussing the nature of the clock and asserting what the clock is (rather than reporting what so and so said the clock is) are all blogs. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:47, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

• Consider this article from the Daily Beast, which interviewed several of the electronics experts that have spoken out in media and offered the opinion that it's a manufactured clock simply removed from its case:

• [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/nerds-rage-over-ahmed-s-clock.html "Ners rage over Ahmed's clock

The story notes that the Daily Beast tried to contact Ahmed's family for comment, but they didn't return the messages. Psalm84 (talk) 04:01, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

As I have said, I have no issue in adding sources and commentary about the clock in the article's body, with full attribution. What we arr discussing is what to say in the lede. - Cwobeel (talk) 04:03, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

And actually all the comments from sources described in the the Daily Beast, are already in the article. What is not in the article is this: The fact that a teenager was put in handcuffs over his clock appears to be less of a concern to some people than the apparently shoddy engineering of the “invention” in question. and some engineers say something’s fishy about the high schooler’s invention, and the Internet has been lit aflame by claims of conspiracy - Cwobeel (talk) 04:05, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

BTW, I would not oppose a section on the conspiracy theories, if such theories gain sufficient prominence to warrant inclusion. - Cwobeel (talk) 04:11, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

The fact that it is a commercial clock is not a conspiracy theory. You are telling one side as fact without a reliable, unbiased expert source. The teenager was put in handcuffs because he brought a specific clock to school. The clock is obviously an important part of the incident, whether you agree it looked like a bomb or not. The fact you have such a problem with accurately describing or even showing a picture of the clock, leads me to believe you also feel the teachers were justifiable in thinking it could be a hoax bomb. 106.187.88.122 (talk) 11:04, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

You are way off here - we dont go searching from someone we identify as "neutral" - we present what the mainstream reliable sources present, as they present it. the manufactured "controversy" about "that 14 year old didnt build a clock he merely put one back together" is a sideshow and irrelevant to the main coverage of the incident and why the incident is notable. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:22, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Describing what the clock is as identified by reliable sources is not a "manufactured controversy" as you put it. The clock is central to the story and you are attempting to use an article to showcase what you personally feel is important about the incident. Most media centered around the fact that a kid brought a device which was confused as a bomb by school officials, and whether this is an example of profiling. Clearly the actual device is central to the story, nobody is saying he got arrested singularly because he is not white and showed up to school. Irving is one of the most diverse cities in the country and has a large muslim population, this has been covered as "arrested for bringing a device to school (when muslim)", not arrested for showing up to school (when muslim). Your argument for censorship is incredibly weak. - 106.187.88.122 (talk) 12:35, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Quite the contrary, YOU are the one pushing for excessive details that YOU feel are "important" but which haven't been given that level of importance in the reliable sources coverage of the story. The coverage of the story is most decidedly not: "In Irving Texas, One of the most diverse cities in the country, a boy tried pass off a minor bit of reconstruction as if it were the new sliced bread! (oh, and by the way he was dragged off by the police. and oh, he was Muslim.)-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:47, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

That is not even a remote paraphrasing of what I said, and is totally uncalled for. - 106.187.88.122 (talk) 12:51, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

• I started a reply on this, but in the course of it stumbled across something really shady done by the New York Times, if it isn't somehow a mistake. I don't know. I'll get to that in a moment, but on this topic, then, I have to say that it isn't a matter of following the shape of the news media's coverage, or not following it.

It's a matter of following an encyclopedia's format, specifically Wikipedia's, however well that fits with the media's coverage.

In this case, if we were to follow the media's coverage, the public reaction would be far more important, even more important than what happened.

Below is a partial outline the New York Times first report, I believe, on the incident, by paragraph.

And this is where I ran into something with the New York Times article that really surprised me. :The original article at the link that I read when the story broke has now been “transformed” into a very different article with the same link. So I found the original article on the Boston Globe web site, which credits the Times. I don't think I'm mistaken about this, and it seems entirely unprincipled to radically alter the original story later on and pass it off as the original.

:Original N.Y. Times story via the Boston Globe

Original link with altered story; original title: Ahmed Mohamed, 14, Builds Clock, Is Cuffed for Bomb Hoax, and Ends Up Invited to White House; new title: Handcuffed for Making Clock, Ahmed Mohamed, 14, Wins Time With Obama

A site which carries some of the original N.Y. Times article and a link to the “replacement” article

Original intro:

A high school student in Texas whose hobby was inventing thought he had a unique idea for a project: to build his own clock.

The effort landed him in handcuffs and juvenile detention on Monday, accused of making a hoax bomb.

The detention of Ahmed Mohamed, 14, a student at MacArthur High School in Irving, Tex., near Dallas, generated accusations that he was targeted because of his religion.

New intro:

HOUSTON — Ahmed Mohamed’s homemade alarm clock got him suspended from his suburban Dallas high school and detained and handcuffed by police officers on Monday after school officials accused him of making a fake bomb. By Wednesday, it had brought him an invitation to the White House, support from Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg, and a moment of head-spinning attention as questions arose whether he had been targeted because of his name and his religion.

Looking through the new article, it seems substantially different from the original, and it's concerning that the N.Y. Times would just switch articles like that. If you reference what they write in another work, including here, then when anyone follows that reference, as people will, there will be entirely different material.

Back then to my point. On the original N.Y. Times story, you see that paragraphs 1 and 2 say that he wanted to make a clock and he ended up handcuffed and placed in juvenile detention. It isn't until paragraph 16 that the incident is even discussed. Paragraphs 3 through 15 talk about the public reaction, including President Obama's support and a couple of statements from Josh Earnest, and also mentions that Ahmed appears at a news conference at his house, where reporters were given pizza and drinks by his family. Then it talks about the public discussion, quotes Ibrahim Cooper, mentions that people online posted selfies of themselves with clocks, talks about support from Hillary Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg. At paragraph 16, it has one short sentence on Ahmed making the clock, and the next paragraph/sentence “covers” what happened in school. Then remainder of the article discusses the actions of the school and police interspersed with more public reaction.

The New York Times' article is representative of the media's coverage, but it doesn't, as often is the case, fit the framework of an encyclopedia article. Psalm84 (talk) 22:19, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

• The lede has to be accurate, including in its description of the clock. I think an accurate statement on that would be something to the effect that since the story broke, questions have been raised about the originality of the teen's project. Psalm84 (talk) 22:30, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

• I've added some to the lede, which I believe makes sense since as it is now, it doesn't adequately summarize what happened. Here's what I've come up with:

In September 2015, Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old Muslim Sudanese American high school freshman, was detained by police at school in Irving, Texas, under suspicion of possessing a hoax bomb. An aspiring engineer who had won prizes for science projects in the past, Mohamed brought a digital clock that he had constructed within a pencil box. It was widely reported in the news media to be a homemade clock, although questions have been raised about its originality, and Mohamed has said that the clock took him ten to twenty minutes to make the night before, and that he used some manufactured parts.

The incident began when a teacher heard the clock's beeping in class and told Mohamed that she thought it looked like a bomb. The teacher confiscated the clock and Mohamed was later questioned, taken into custody by police, handcuffed, transported to a juvenile detention facility, fingerprinted, and his mug shot was taken. He was then released with no charges filed but was suspended from school for three days.

News of the incident went viral on Twitter, and sparked a debate on racial profiling and Islamophobia. Politicians, technology company executives, and media personalities remarked on the incident. Psalm84 (talk) 00:56, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Where's the evidence that he ever won anything in a school science project? It's not in the article. Raquel Baranow (talk) 03:33, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

@Psalm84: you can be WP:BOLD and make the edit, although we dont have any text or sources in the article about Mohamed winning science prizes. If you have these sources, add to the article first. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:48, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Lede is being discussed and should not be changed, especially without evidence for the science prizes. "Aspiring engineer": is POV are all boys who take apart things "aspiring engineers"? Raquel Baranow (talk) 03:56, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

I ran across that claim and I'm nearly certain it was in a major news source. It takes some time to cite sources, so I haven't been in a hurry to change the lede, but wanted discussion on it first. I'll try to locate a source on his previous interest in science. Psalm84 (talk) 04:12, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

@Psalm84: see:

• Selk, Avi (September 26, 2015). "Before Ahmed's fame". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on September 27, 2015. Retrieved September 27, 2015.

- We should add some of that to the articles' body and then add something per your wording to the lede. - Cwobeel (talk) 14:34, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

can we put this to rest?

Per NPR article of September 16 (two days after the incident):

In interviews with local media, Mohamed says he wanted to show the engineering teacher at school what he had done over the weekend: take apart a clock and rebuild it inside a pencil case.

References

We can close this RFC if we use that wording: He took apart a clock and rebuilt it inside a pencil case. - Cwobeel (talk) 04:15, 27 September 2015 (UTC) - Cwobeel (talk) 04:15, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Along the lines of that comment, I would like to say two things: 1) I don't like the way this RFC was phrased as a choice between only two specific alternatives – there are many possible ways to describe the thing Mohamed brought to school; and 2) As time moves on, it seems possible that a better understanding of the actual details will emerge – probably we won't forever need to be trying to base our understanding on a photo and a press release from the police and the remarks that the people involved in the incident (and the people not involved in the incident) have already made. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:42, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the current version [3] is as close as we can get to a factual and neutral summary of the article. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:00, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

The opening sentence of that version (and the current article) says that he "was detained by police at school". That statement tells readers that he was kept at the school, which is incorrect. He was taken from the school in handcuffs to a detention facility where he was fingerprinted and photographed (and further questioned). The fourth sentence provides that information, but the first sentence seems incorrect to me. A person should be able to read the first sentence and stop there with an accurate understanding of what it says. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:44, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

That first sentence is still the same. As there has been no response to the comment just above, I plan to soon change the sentence to address that problem unless someone else does something to fix it, although I haven't yet decided exactly how I will change it. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:14, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Support A, or better Cwobeel's "He took apart a clock and rebuilt it inside a pencil case." I see a lot of hysteria in the discussion above, and worse in the links cited, apparently from people who have never been, or met, a 14-year-old boy. I can assure you all that a 14-year-old boy will say, and apparently believe, that he has "built" something when all he has done is screw together a couple of pre-built components. And if a 14-year-old boy is in a classroom with a new toy that can do stuff spontaneously, the toy will do its stuff during a class, however clearly he has been told to turn it off. Maproom (talk) 08:45, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

'Deconstructed' or 'reconstructed'

It seems that 'deconstructed' would be more appropriate here, as I believe the prevailing consensus is that the clock was taken out of it's original case in order to show its workings for study. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.209.102.124 (talk) 22:03, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

"Deconstructed" would be poor word choice as its connotation is usually metaphorical. Would "repackaged" be sufficiently consistent with the sources? VQuakr (talk) 23:54, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Changed to "repackaged". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.209.108.116 (talk) 23:21, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Brietbart Article

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/18/real-story-istandwithahmed/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.189.159.193 (talk) 17:01, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

I read through it. I didn't notice anything new in it. Is there something about it that should affect the content of this article? —BarrelProof (talk) 19:09, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Actually it doesn't matter what's in this source b/c it's crappy.--TMCk (talk) 19:43, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Brietbart is among the WORST sources - they don't have a reputation for fact checking and accuracy they have a reputation for deliberate falsification. [4] -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:55, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

But anything from Gawker or Vice is perfectly acceptable right? Totally not bias at all. 2602:306:C5B4:77C9:E555:3767:E60F:564A (talk) 00:24, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

If you dont understand difference between "bias" and "making shit up and not printing retractions when claims are shown to be wrong" I feel very very sorry for you. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:15, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Lead sentence: There’s only one problem: the whole story smells. It stinks of leftist exploitation. Gimme a break. - Cwobeel (talk) 00:17, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Lawsuit

Now it seems that after the family left the United States for Qatar, they are seeking $15 million in a lawsuit against the city of Irving and the school district. http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/11/23/clock-kids-family-demand-apology-15-million-in-damages/ ..Heyyouoverthere (talk) 21:46, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Here is a link to more info regarding the discussion that was closed below because someone did not like it: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/23/us/ahmed-mohamed-clock-letters-demand-apologies/ Heyyouoverthere (talk) 20:53, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

It was closed because policy directs that article talk pages are not to be used as general discussion forums for commentary or questions about the article subject, and the below comments are not directed toward improvement of the article. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:57, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The lawsuit says he is suing his former school district in Texas for five million dollars. Does that mean if the case were to be successful, the defendant would be paid out of the budget for that area? Or would any damages come from liability insurance that the school district might have? Just trying to clarify as to what threat this case might have on the defendant's former students if it were successful. As the American education system is already grossly underfunded, how would losing five million dollars be taken into accound? 86.182.42.119 (talk) 09:30, 24 November 2015 (UTC) Local news has more info on it. While the city and district would not comment due to the pending nature, legal experts did weigh in and said this was more of a threat that would not make it past the initial stages and to actual court. A shake down if you will. They also talked about the case requiring the family to return back to the U.S. and finally release the school records that would show the complete picture of what went on that day. 129.119.55.4 (talk) 12:53, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Notability

Does this event justify a Wikipedia article? It does not seem to be sufficiently notable.Royalcourtier (talk) 23:34, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

It was discussed rather extensively at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ahmed Mohamed (student), back when this article was formatted as a biography. What makes you feel that it is not sufficiently notable? VQuakr (talk) 00:33, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Changes to lead

@Besh Saab: The current version of the lede was worked on and reached consensus after long discussions in talk. Please review the archives for details. If you want to make changes to the lead, you will need to gain consensus in talk. Please respect WP:BRD - Cwobeel (talk) 15:27, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Cwobeel. I feel it's imperative that this Wikipedia page brings to light the consensus that exists within the "nerd" community that the clock claimed to be an invention was little or no more than the components of a factory-made alarm clock placed inside a new body. This information is neither hoax allegation, nor conspiracy theory. It is just plain obvious once you take the time to listen to the arguments of the "nerds", as they have been reported. This is also consistent with the fact that the student has difficulty describing how the clock was made, and did not bring the clock to show Barack Obama despite this being the original justification for the invitation to the White House. Irrespective of the implications this notion may have on how people perceive this story, it is critical for us to represent the facts.

Please note that I do not have the time nor desire to entertain any discussion about the intentions of the student, the student's family, or other non-related material. If users would like to comment here, please restrict all discussion to whether or not this Wikipedia page should acknowledge that those with experience in circuits appear to be in consensus that the clock was a factory-made unit transferred from one casing to another. (One good description for this rational can be found here.) Besh (talk) 16:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

References

This article, like any other article in WP, reports significant viewpoints made in reliable sources. It is not our role as editors to "right a wrong", or to present the "nerds" viewpoints, unless these are (a) significant, and (b) reported in reliable sources. This has been discussed at length, so I invite you to peruse the talk page archives. - Cwobeel (talk) 16:26, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you again, Cwobeel. I suppose my point is that this is a significant viewpoint and is reported as such in reliable sources, such as the Guardian, Metro(.co.uk). The fact that there is only one widely-disseminated descriptions for how the clock was transferred from one casing to another is irrelevant. If something is clearly described scientifically, it only needs to be described as such once - verified multiple times if possible, and at infinitum ideally, but described only once. There is one description of the structure of DNA. One set of Newtonian Laws. Please keep this in mind when calling up rational for "significant viewpoint". The viewpoint is significant because it has gathered broad media attention, partially due to the connection with Dawkins. Moreover, it is un-refuted. All rebukes actually refute the implied importance/meaning of the notion - not the notion itself that the clock was taken from another device. So, even if this was only reported in a single reliable source, it would still be relevant information for the WP page and should not be contained within a section on hoax allegations and conspiracy theories. The change that I suggest should be made is indeed very specific and cannot be lumped together with the many details of previous discussions in the talk history regarding hoax allegations. I invite others to leave their comments, if they have them. Besh (talk) 17:28, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Your claims about what is "consistent" with anything are unsupported original synthesis — you may not assemble a collection of sources which say A, B and C and use them to create new idea D. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:49, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Salon

This was a case which was discussed by practically every media outlet and politician in the English-speaking world. Of the very few examples of media on the page, we include Salon, which is a special-interest website which writes more on feeling and preconceived political beliefs than evidence (WP:QUESTIONABLE), and is basically the mirror equivalent of Breitbart or The Daily Stormer, which would be equally out of place in an article of this notability. It doesn't even appear that this "Chauncey Devega" is a notable person on the fringe left.

There are of course notable opinion pieces (mainly ones which come from actual newspapers or TV channels): for example, I can largely guarantee that a pro-Ahmed opinion piece in the NYT, BBC or CNN would have much more quality control and less of a basis on gut instinct. I don't see what's being added by having this one out of a very small batch on the page. '''tAD''' (talk) 19:35, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Salon is not a "special-interest website" and should not remotely be mentioned in the same league as Breitbart, let alone The Daily Stormer. That's an utterly absurd comparison. It's a mainstream, widely-read and widely-accepted reliable source. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:26, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I have added a second reliable source which discusses the same issue; there should be no doubts that the concept of this incident exemplifying the "school-to-prison pipeline" is a significant current. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:35, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what is being disputed here, but to compare Solon to a neo-Nazi website is absolutely absurd. It calls into question your ability to edit articles on this project. And Salon does not have near the credibility problem that Breitbart has, nor the fact checking or editorial mess. So no, you start off with 3 strikes right away here. You're out. Dave Dial (talk) 00:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

No sir, that's your opinion, which again, is all that Salon is, an opinion website for an outside political view. I'm not against featuring opinions in favour of Ahmed, not at all, but as long as they're from competent sources and not an online rant site. See [5] and [6] for the myopic ideology-by-numbers tripe put out on that website. '''tAD''' (talk) 16:08, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Matthew R. Francis: A Rationalist’s Irrationality,Why is Richard Dawkins such a jerk?

This was already discussed at some length, but I still perceive some unresolved issues:

• Why would commentary of Dawkins' tweets be included?

Those tweets are relevant to this article, commentary of them is not, it's just, supposedly, relevant to the tweets.

While reverting @Cwobeel: wrote "If we are meentioning Dawkins, then we include commentary about his Twitts." I'm not aware of this policy, can you please provide a link? I am eager to find out how the possibility of recursion, i.e. indefinite commentary of commentary would be handled.

• This particular commentary seems irrelevant both to this article and the tweets.

It is not even commentary on the content of the tweets, as in a rebuttal or a pointing out of a factual error. The first sentence is the author's subjective opinion on the appropriate "direction of punching" based on his subjective judgement of the incident. The second sentence is the author's subjective judgement of Dawkins' stance history, explicitly on other issues, not on the subject of this article and, in the context of this article, a misleadingly worded observation about them. Nothing wrong with criticizing Muslims, but in this context a casual reader could be left with a sense that Dawkins specifically targeted Ahmed because he is Muslim, for which there is no evidence.

I can understand how one could make a mistake and think the commentary is relevant, since the referenced article was obviously prompted by Dawkins' tweets. The content of the commentary, however, is nothing but a couple of non sequiturs and a thinly veiled ad hominem attack of Dawkins and as such not relevant for this article. It is not about the subject of the article, it is not even about Dawkins' tweets and it should be removed.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bahati (talk • contribs) 00:57, 3 December 2015‎ (UTC)

To tell you the truth, IMO the entire thing about Dawkins should go. He is not an expert on the subject and his opinion is not significant. - Cwobeel (talk) 16:10, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

What subject? Which opinion? Bahati (talk) 18:15, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Dawkins' opinion is not significant. He has no expertise on the subject, and is known for trolling about Muslims in Twitter. His opinion should not be inlcude in the article as it is not significant. - Cwobeel (talk) 18:20, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, you've said that. What you haven't said, even after being asked explicitly, which of Dawkins' observations would you consider "opinion"? And can you expand on your requirement for expertise? What, exactly, requires it and how would we recognize such an expert?

The narrative adopted in this article is "Genius boy harassed because Muslim." While I fully acknowledge this to be the prevailing view in reliable sources the narrative "Alleged hoax bomb made by a boy, son of prominent Muslim activist, by transplanting the innards of a commercial clock in to a pencil case made to look like a briefcase, brought to school with awareness it could be regarded as suspicious and to which he intentionally brought attention to during class despite teacher's advice. The boy was subsequently detained and questioned, seemingly in accordance to laws and policies." is also congruent to those sources. Yet paints an entirely different picture of the incident and is blatantly missing from this article. Dawkis' tweets are about the only kernel of this narrative and should not only stay, but should be expanded on. Bahati (talk) 20:58, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• If the commentary deriding Dawkins' Tweets from reliable sources are not worthy of inclusion, his Tweets most definitely are not. Dave Dial (talk) 18:31, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

I fail to see the implication. Could you please expand on your thought process? Bahati (talk) 20:58, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Sure. There are many people that commented on this incident, but we are not reporting their opinions, because they are not significant. A rant in Twitter by Dawkins is not significant enough to warrant inclusion. Dawkins is an ethologist, evolutionary biologist, not an expert on bombs, clocks, electronics, or anything related to this incident. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:40, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

We shouldn't be "reporting" anything, we should present the facts of the incident, as available from reliable sources. And if you do feel like any opinion, and I do stress opinion, requires expertise than most of this article should be deleted.

Dawkins' tweets are a source for the fact that Ahmed's assembly was wrongly characterized as an "invention" by himself and others. Dawkins' credentials are plenty enough for that to be a valid observation. They are also the source for the questioning of Ahmed's motives, since motives of all other involved parties seem to be known to pundits from "reliable sources", even though it's just synthesis once removed. As I've stated above, the entire article is biased towards a single POV. Like it or not, this incident has another POV, otherwise it wouldn't be controversial. Bahati (talk) 23:51, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Pencilcase or briefcase?

The case looks like a briefcase, but it is small. It may be too small to be a "real" briefcase, but was it actually used to carry pencils? Is there a source demonstrating that it is a pencilcase? "Small briefcase" or "miniature briefcase" might be better. cagliost (talk) 09:56, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

References

It was a pencil case, as reported by numerous sources: [7], [8], [9] - Cwobeel (talk) 15:30, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

It seems it was a Vaultz Locking Pencil Box, 8.25" x 5.5" x 2.5" not even close to be a "real briefcase". You can find these in Amazon [10] - Cwobeel (talk) 15:34, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Removing some bias from the article

• Concerns about media manipulation are just as founded as concerns about profiling and "Islamophobia" at this point and should be included in the lead.
• There's no evidence that I'm aware of of parts being assembled. To my knowledge a clock was transferred from the original casing in to a different casing.
• The pencil case used resembles a briefcase. This information should not be omitted since "pencil case" alone evokes images of childish innocence, something that would be inappropriate at this point.
• The "Hoax allegations and conspiracy theories" section is thoroughly unencyclopedic. There are quotes about Richard Dawkins' history of alignment with a "wrong end of a controversy" and misrepresentations of his words. The passages don't follow the order of the title and make it difficult to differentiate between allegations of a hoax and "full blown" conspiracy theories. Simply noting that there were "conspiracy theories" offered and that someone found them unfounded is biased. The section should be either expanded to include the details of those theories, or removed altogether and Dawkins' stance moved to "Opinions" section.

Bahati (talk) 15:25, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

• No, the vast majority of reliable sources that are not biased do not reflect your concerns. Only Dawkins and some other conspiracy theorists have made those types of accusations. Dave Dial (talk) 15:44, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
• I would invite you to read Dawkins' tweets again. And definitely try to understand that commentary of his prior stances on unrelated subjects has no place in this article. Further more, without the so called "conspiracy theories" I fail to see what the actual controversy would be and how this incident would be noteworthy. The article reads as "boy harassed because Muslim". Seems open and shut, at least for the casual reader. We are avoiding the full description of the scope of the incident by using the nebulous term of "reliable source", which is in and of it self dubious amidst accusations of media manipulation. Bahati (talk) 16:10, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Concerns about media manipulation are just as founded as concerns about profiling and "Islamophobia" at this point and should be included in the lead. The lead summarizes the body. The body does not mention "media manipulation", so the body does not.

There's no evidence that I'm aware of of parts being assembled. To my knowledge a clock was transferred from the original casing in to a different casing. Assemble: to put together. The terminology was extensively discussed on this talk page to come up with a concise way to describe it that matched the sources and met WP:NPOV; please have a look above and in the archives before "reinventing" the wheel. Why do we care about the extents of your knowledge?

The pencil case used resembles a briefcase. According to whom? It was ~ 8 inches (20 cm) long. Briefcases are much larger.

For Dawkins, his comments drew significant amounts of ire and he later backtracked. What is being misrepresented? What is the definition of "unencyclopedic"? Have you read the deletion essay WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC? commentary of his prior stances on unrelated subjects has no place in this article. Wrong; secondary sources have noted his previous commentary. We would not be allowed to independently synthesize the connection, but that is not the case here.

The article reads as "boy harassed because Muslim". Yup.

We are avoiding the full description of the scope of the incident by using the nebulous term of "reliable source"... Yup. We are absolutely required to use reliable sources.

...accusations of media manipulation. WP:GREATWRONGS. This appears to be a case of you wanting to push your personal opinions and biases into the article. VQuakr (talk) 16:52, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the hoax/conspiracy sources, one of them from HuffingtonPost really does not add to the article/story only that it has screenshots of Tweets from Dawkins and some responses by others. While the article on Slate did expand on it but that article is biased in it's content with a sub headline of "Why is Richard Dawkins such a jerk?" yet touted as a reliable source. Seems someone else's own personal opinion and bias was used to select such a source. Heyyouoverthere (talk) 21:04, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Huffpo includes some commentary in addition to referencing other Tweets. Not much commentary, but some. The "jerk" subheadline is not repeated in the Slate article; authors do not always have full control of their titles due to clickbait issues. I am not clear on why that makes the source biased. Even if it were biased that does not make it unreliable or unusable; see WP:BIASED. Kindly keep your speculation about other editors to yourself. VQuakr (talk) 06:37, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Media manipulation should be part of the body then. I'll see what I can do. I'm sorry, I should've checked the talk, it just seemed unlikely to me that the misleading wording "assembled the parts" was chosen on purpose, let alone after a discussion.

According to whom? It was ~ 8 inches (20 cm) long. Briefcases are much larger.

According to the images available. The size difference being the reason it resembles a briefcase, not being an actual briefcase.

For Dawkins, his comments drew significant amounts of ire and he later backtracked

Ire and backtrack are ill defined terms and seem to portray either something irrelevant, people being annoyed by his comments, or misrepresent that something outrageous or incorrect was said and apologized for after prodding by reasonable objections. I'll try to do better.

Wrong; secondary sources have noted his previous commentary. We would not be allowed to independently synthesize the connection, but that is not the case here.

No, I mean his previous commentary and especially value judgement of it by a single person, the "secondary source" are non sequitur and thus unencyclopedic. Why is a quoted comment about Dawkins in an article not about Dawkins?

Yup. This appears to be a case of you wanting to push your personal opinions and biases into the article. Kindly keep your speculation about other editors to yourself.

Did I just waste my time trying to discuss something with you? Bahati (talk) 14:34, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

"According to the images available" - that is original research and synthesis. Your interpretation of the images is not consequential here. What do reliable sources say? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:46, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

One would expect an image of the thing to be a reliable source, as in no more interpreting and synthesizing than simply describing the content of it, but I can see how this would be a contentious issue in an article like this. Point received none the less, I'll try to find a reliable source, it shouldn't be a problem. Bahati (talk) 21:54, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

@Bahati: Why is a quoted comment about Dawkins in an article not about Dawkins? Because Dawkins publicly commented on the subject of this article. Maybe I am misunderstanding your question? Re Did I just waste my time trying to discuss something with you? My last sentence in the 16:52 post was unnecessarily abrasive. I apologize. VQuakr (talk) 19:11, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I'm asking why is there a quote about Dawkins, as in a subjective value judgement of his stance history, not specifically related to the subject of the article? I'm not sure I understand why any opinion from that source was included, since it seems to offer no factual rebuttal to Dawkins' tweets, but again, a subjective judgement on which "direction" it is appropriate to "punch" based, yet again, on their subjective assignment of victimhood to Ahmed. Even if the latter judgement could be enforced based on some "majority opinion", as it does seem to be the case for the article as a whole, the former ones seem irrelevant. Apology duly excepted, not least because only a lack of time prevented me from being equally, if not more abrasive. Bahati (talk) 21:54, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

There is a quote about Dawkins's history because the source made that connection in the context of an article about this subject. Coverage in reliable sources is how we judge what is relevant, as discussed at WP:WEIGHT. VQuakr (talk) 00:35, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, we judge what's relevant based on policy, not the source by deciding what to include in their article. How are a subjective, blatantly biased tutorial about "direction of punching" and a non sequitur, thinly veiled ad hominem attack of Dawkins relevant? To put it another way, the referenced article is a source for what, exactly? Bahati (talk) 02:30, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Is there any evidence to support the accusation that the photo of Ahmed in handcuffs was staged after Ahmed's release? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.196.231.21 (talk) 19:00, 29 November 2015‎ (UTC)

If you don't have any such evidence or reliable sources for such an accusation, this subthread will be hatted. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:38, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

The second paragraph is worded as a verbal attack on Ahmed Mohamed's persecutors, and certainly not appropriate in an encyclopedia context. —jhx4mp_{(talk|contribs)} 01:34, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

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NPOV Noticeboard discussion regarding "Hoax allegations and conspiracy theories"

Discussion here. D.Creish (talk) 00:35, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

"Conspiracy theories"?

So why exactly are opinions critical of Ahmed's intent referred to as "constituency theories" while no such language is used when discussing allegations of racial profiling or Islamophonia? Why are some opinions presented without any accompanying rebuttals and others are preceded by a rebuttal? Either all rebuttals should be present or none. This article in its current state is objectively biased. 69.125.66.208 (talk) 03:30, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Because they are widely referred to in reliable sources as conspiracy theories. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:30, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Accusing Napolitano of promoting conspiracy theories without explicit and strong sourcing violates BLP. Even if that were satisfied the section heading is non-neutral and a violation of NPOV. This must not be restored without clear consensus. D.Creish (talk) 17:11, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

There are, by my count, at least five strong, high-quality cites in the section describing the allegations as conspiracy theories. However, if your objection is to Napolitano specifically, I think the best thing to do is to just remove the quote to him for now; this satisfies both WP:TONE (in that we must describe something as a conspiracy theory when there's such an overwhelming consensus among the sources describing it that way) and WP:BLP (in that we avoid blaming Napolitano for it personally.) Additionally, I feel that devoting a paragraph to Napolitano in particular is probably giving his personal concerns WP:UNDUE weight in any case. The paragraph above already describes the accusations in terms broad enough to cover it with appropriate weight; none of the sources seem to highlight Napolitano's contribution to that as being uniquely noteworthy or anything to the point where we need a separate paragraph for it calling Napolitano out by name. --Aquillion (talk) 19:54, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

It's not the overwhelming consensus of reliable sources that speculation of ulterior motives involved conspiracy or were classified as conspiracy theories; if that's the position you'd like to defend which would be necessary to consider such a non-neutral section heading let's discuss at the NPOV noticeboard: I've started a thread. D.Creish (talk) 00:33, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

It definitely is. Looking over the list of sources you're using to allege otherwise, all but one are an opinion piece, and that one is from very early in the controversy. I'll also note that you've restored Napolitano's name to the section; weren't you arguing we should avoid calling him out by name? I don't feel that his quote adds anything in particular; the conspiracy theories are detailed more thoroughly above, and in retrospect (given that his quote doesn't seem to have been picked up anywhere else) I feel it's clearly WP:UNDUE. He said something careless that was later discredited, but I can see why you wouldn't want him to personally be the poster-boy for the conspiracy theory section; I'm willing to compromise by removing his quote from the section. --Aquillion (talk) 06:30, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Rename to "Ahmed Mohamed"

While this article originally just focused on the one event, it now seems to have expanded in scope. 62.64.152.154 (talk) 21:08, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Factory clock

Personal opinions unrelated to article improvement.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Why isn't there more information in this piece of garbage article about how the innards of the clock were clearly factory? --140.32.16.52 (talk) 07:34, 29 February 2016 (UTC) Because whether the innards were factory or not is not particularly central to an article about an instance of Islamophobia. VQuakr (talk) 07:43, 29 February 2016 (UTC) Wow that's some neat ad hominem but seems to me like there is a pretty critical difference between "making a clock" and "taking a clock apart" -- he did not re-assemble the clock, he removed the casing. He is not a engineering genius, he is a troll. I look forward to hearing why I am a shitlord. Please try to be less biased in your enforcement of your regime of social justice. ~ <3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.172.60.18 (talk) 18:24, 27 April 2016 (UTC) It takes some real "ingenuity" to take a clock out of its housing and mount it in a suitcase... someone call Mensa, we have a winner. The fact he talks about "soldering CPUs" together and other nonsense shows he probably has little idea about computing, electronics etc. aside what a kid might pick up from watching cartoons. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but clearly there is not the ability to make a clock out of discrete components. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.132.10.250 (talk) 13:14, 11 January 2017 (UTC) Please refer to WP:NOTFORUM. 65.128.3.208 (talk) 20:42, 22 May 2016 (UTC) This article does appear to be one sided and support the idea that it is a clear cut and dry case of Islamophobia. Is there any section for the rebuttal of the law enforcement and school district? I would be very interested in seeing testimony from both sides including the teachers and arresting officers involved as there is speculation of possible lawsuit ahead. I would like to examine all of the facts of this case and make my own decision. This article does not accurately portray the alleged incident without that evidence.Depresyondayim (talk) 00:07, 22 July 2016 (UTC) Wikipedia relies on reliable sources. Wikipedia also has many guidelines against directly using legal documents and similar, so testimony would need to be reported on by reliable, independent sources, and any conclusions would have to be made by those sources before being included in this article. If you know of such sources, bring them forth, please. Seeking out sources specifically because they disagree with the current article risks false balance. "Both sides" is a common source of difficulty, because it assumes that both sides are equal. It also implies that there are only two sides, which is an oversimplification as there are almost always many more than that. Grayfell (talk) 01:14, 22 July 2016 (UTC) All of Wikipedia's "reliable sources" are far left media outlets, like NYT, HuffPo etc. Who would predictably have seen the school's perfectly reasonable response to this kid's stupid prank as "Islamaphobia". I found no mention of Amena Jamali in the article. She is a Muslim valedictorian of the school who went public to defend the school, saying it is a place where there is "no or very little prejudice." She also said that the school is the "reason she is proud of her religion and heritage today." You won't find the school's side of the story because they're restricted from voicing it by Federal privacy laws due to the Mohammed family not signing a FERPA release form. Waliway (talk) 05:06, 8 September 2016 (UTC) References

No malicious intent revert

I have reverted edits to the article by anonymous IPs which fundamentally change the meaning of the sentence in a way which is both directly contradicted by the cited reliable source and which tends to bring the article subject into disrepute. The cited source states clearly and specifically No charges were laid after it was determined the teen had no malicious intent, which is consistent with other sources such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which states Police said they had determined Ahmed had no malicious intent and it was "just a naive set of circumstances". NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 11:16, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I have read the suggested edit and the suggested revert, and I understand where NorthbySouthBanof is coming from. I also understand where the anonymous editor is referencing. If you search for "Police said they had determined Ahmed had no malicious intent" in a search query, you'll find the exact language or sentence from multiple media sources, but absolutely none of them cite what officer or when this statement was made. Without a primary source, a reasonable person must ask themselves, How would they determine that he had no malicious intent? While the 2nd edit stating "they couldn't prove malicious intent" is a spin to make Muhammed appear guilty, "they determined there was no malicious intent" is a spin to make Muhammed appear innocent. The first edit removing this line maintains all level of factual evidence without the spin in either direction. I suggest a third party review this sentence and decide what is more accurate as there is no primary source to back this statement.

Howlowcanig0 (talk)

You are very new here, this is your first edit, and you don't seem to understand Wikipedia policies. I suggest that you read Wikipedia's five pillars to get a better understanding of how we write encyclopedia articles. Suffice to say, it is not for us to investigate the reporting of reliable sources, and that you or anyone else disagrees with the content of that reliable source is irrelevant. Reliable sources have reported, as a fact, that police cleared Mohamed, and absent any reliable source claiming otherwise, those sources are controlling here. Furthermore, your insistence on a "primary source" is contrary to Wikipedia policy on primary sources — as a tertiary source, we rely primarily on reliable secondary sources to support our content, because those sources have professional editing and fact-checking systems. It is a widely-reported fact that police determined Mohamed had no malicious intent, and that fact will remain in the article. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 11:10, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

"Soldering together CPUs"

As reflected in past talk page discussions, the source here (It's really simple to me, because I've built more stuff that's very complicated, like CPUs and soldering them) is ambiguous -- did he really mean he made CPUs, or was he just speaking imprecisely about using them in something else he soldered together? Without another source to clarify this, I really think we should just drop the CPU part and leave it at ...it took him "10 or 20 minutes" to put it together and that he had built more complicated items, but that the clock was simple..., especially since it's something people are pointing at to attack the guy. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 20:13, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

 Done. The boy's quoted remark doesn't seem especially clear about what he was trying to say about CPUs, so I agree with removing the mention of CPUs, although whether the boy's statement was attacked is not necessarily our concern. —BarrelProof (talk) 21:18, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Makes sense, and I agree with the change. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:38, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Built or taken apart?

I'd like to see some clarification on whether the boy actually built an electronic clock. Or did he simply disassemble a clock designed and built by someone else? But if we cannot determine this (or doing so would violate our original research policy), then I have another suggestion.

Particularly since there were lawsuits about the supposedly 'defamatory' charges the boy had carried out a hoax, perhaps we could cite some of the reasons given in the legal papers. Like it was defamatory to call the construction/display of the circuits a hoax, because the boy really did make it himself. There would be sketches of the circuits, and so on. (But I heard the judge asked for just that, and the lawyer hemmed and hawed for 15 minutes and then conceded he had no evidence that the boy made the thing himself.) Likewise, we could cite some of the reasons various people have given for declaring the 'homemade' device a hoax, such as: "Duh, it's this particular model of a Radio Shack clock radio, and I have the pictures to prove it."

I come to Wikipedia for answers, or at least the details of two sides (when there's a controversy). I don't see the sides' evidence and reasoning here: just accusations and a court finding. --Uncle Ed (talk) 22:52, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

The defamation suits alleged that the defendants called Mohamed a terrorist. How much creativity was invested in the clock is relevant neither to the kid's detention nor the lawsuits. VQuakr (talk) 00:12, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Okay, but if the suits alleged that the defendants called Mohamed a terrorist, then this allegation (1) is more important than whether the boy built a clock or disassembled one; and (2) should be in the article, which on a cursory reading did not mention the "terrorist" allegation. What I found when scanning two of the sources rapidly is that one defendant said that Ahmed’s arrest was a publicity stunt by terrorists, and that someone persuaded the boy to bring the device to school. Whether this is the same as calling the boy "a terrorist" I leave up to you. --Uncle Ed (talk) 13:29, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Lawsuit Outcomes

There are several recent outcomes to lawsuits his family launched surrounding the event, including one that was recently dismissed "with prejudice," and forcing his family to pay legal fees associated with the case. Shouldn't this outcome be added to the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.140.255.50 (talk) 17:54, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Lawsuit outcomes are in the last paragraph of the lead, and in the "Lawsuits" subsection. The phrase "with prejudice" appears three (count 'em, three) times in the article. That his family was compelled to pay all costs is also in the "Lawsuits" subsection. Marteau (talk) 08:20, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Remove "Unsupported allegations"

Adding the word "unsupported" to "allegations" amounts to POV-pushing. Further, the citations given didn't state that the allegations were "unsupported". If anything, one citation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Mohamed_clock_incident#cite_note-auto-4 specifically stated that "Electronic experts have said that Mohamed's clock looks astonishingly similar to a clock that was sold in the 1980s by Radio Shack." I'd say that's enough to disprove that the allegations are "unsupported". What is happening is that somebody wants to discredit these allegations, but doesn't want to bother to find a source which claims that the allegations are "unsupported". Calling them "unsupported" for the specious reason that "No evidence has been offered to support them, thus unsupported" reeks of WP:OR. Did a WP:RS actually say this? I did a Google search for "ahmed clock unsupported" and I saw no source claim that such allegations are "unsupported". And if anything, it is not necessary that allegations be proven to include them; merely calling them "allegations" is accurate. Incidently, this kid and his family just got spanked by the courts in Texas. https://www.popehat.com/2017/01/11/clock-boy-gets-his-clock-cleaned-with-texas-anti-slapp-statute/ And today, http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2017/05/19/clock-boy-lawsuit-dismissed/ 2601:1C2:4E01:CE00:4146:2231:C4F1:8E76 (talk) 19:35, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

No; we call them allegations "unsupported" because the preponderance of the best and most reliable sources consider them unsupported. MarkBernstein (talk) 20:07, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

No, you don't. They don't _SAY_ they are unsupported. And, I am unaware of a gradation of sources that you are implying when you say, "the best and most reliable sources". Show some cites, the burden of proof is on the person wanting to keep the word "unsupported" in the text. You've already claimed a "preponderance", that means that you already admit there is a dispute. Show your work. 2601:1C2:4E01:CE00:4146:2231:C4F1:8E76 (talk) 20:40, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, see http://www.mediaite.com/online/debunking-the-muslim-clock-kid-and-the-obama-block-kid/ which cites: http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engineering-ahmed-mohameds-clock-and-ourselves/ It completely debunks Ahmed's role in "building a clock". It was a hoax from square one. 2601:1C2:4E01:CE00:4146:2231:C4F1:8E76 (talk) 20:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Neither citation following the statement in question contain the word "unsupported". It is reasonable to expect at least one citation attached to the phrase to have the word or at least the implication. I'll await the provision of such a cite before I revert. Marteau (talk) 20:59, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

There is plenty of expert opinion that Ahmed DIDN'T actually build anything. http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/muslim-boys-cool-clock-is-a-fraud-says-expert/ Nobody asserts that he actually built anything. I agree we should wait a few hours, but the POV-pushers have the burden of proof to defend the inclusion of the word "unsupported" is used by Reliable Sources. So far, I haven't found a single example. If anything, there is far more media on the side of the claim it was a hoax. 2601:1C2:4E01:CE00:4146:2231:C4F1:8E76 (talk) 21:08, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

WND doesn't pass WP:RS, since it lacks a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. On the other hand, most reliable sources do describe it as a conspiracy theory, so I've updated it to reflect that - the one source that was currently used in the article was from earlier in the timeline before all the facts got out. Better sources include: [11], [12], [13], [14], [15] From the last one in particular: "A week after police called a homemade clock that Ahmed brought to school a "hoax bomb," then dropped the charge, viral posts have called the 14-year-old everything from a fraudulent inventor to an Islamist plant who planned all along to get himself handcuffed. Most of these theories cite no evidence, many contradict each other and some clash with known facts..." We have to reflect that broadly skeptical tone in our article. On top of that, Mohamed is covered by WP:BLP, which, per WP:BLPSOURCES requires that we use the highest-quality sources. We definitely can't rely on WND. The other things you link to - covering the lawsuits - don't support the idea that the conspiracy theories were accurate, merely that the people involved were not liable because their accusations were protected speech. In fact, the Popehat link (which we can't cite because it's a blog) specifically notes that the reason they weren't liable is because the accusations were "hyperbole and opinion", not potentially-defamatory statements of fact; the author goes out of his way to distance himself from the actual accusations (which, based on the sourcing we have, are now thoroughly refuted.) --Aquillion (talk) 21:45, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Only a *conspiracy theorist* would allege that someone who talks about "CPUs and soldering them" would think that his contraption was just a gutted Radio Shack clock. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.186.71.211 (talk) 09:40, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

There are no reliable sources which say any actual evidence has been supplied by the "hoax" conspiracy theorists; claims about what Mohamed did and didn't build or where he got the parts from have no relevance or connection to Mohamed's intent in constructing the clock. It is a BLP violation to suggest that there is any evidence Mohamed's intent was malicious. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:17, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Reliable sources say "most" or "many" of the allegations were without basis. "Most" and "many" imply "not all" and the imply the existence of some evidence with basis, otherwise the sources would have said "all", wouldn't they? Implying that they said or implied "all" is simply incorrect and misrepresents the sources which say "most" and "many"... I'm not sure how much clearer I can make that, and how you choose to parse "most" as meaning "all" and allow that misrepresentation to remain in the encyclopedia. Marteau (talk) 22:51, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

If you have a reliable source that says there is any credible evidence for the claim that Mohamed intended to create a hoax, I invite you to present those sources here. Until and unless that happens, any implication to the contrary violates Mohamed's right to fair treatment in the encyclopedia. We are not in the business of giving credence to lunatic, Islamophobic conspiracy theories accusing a child of wrongdoing. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:39, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

(Redacted) 2601:1C2:4E01:CE00:4146:2231:C4F1:8E76 (talk) 01:54, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I have redacted the above rant as an entirely-unsourced and unfounded attack on the article subject. We aren't here to make speculative inferences and highly-derogatory claims about living people, as the above poster did. Confine comments here to discussion of how to improve this article. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:20, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

You do not have authorization to simply remove whatever you like. If there are specific statements you can claim violate some rule, remove them and leave the rest. Otherwise, it appears strongly you don't have specific arguments to make regarding what we are saying. 2601:1C2:4E01:CE00:C1EC:E881:6186:49C1 (talk) 04:29, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

The entire statement was libelous - it accused a named, minor living person of crimes and wrongdoing. We are not a platform for you to spout off about living people. Conservapedia or Reddit are thataway. We are writing an Internet encyclopedia based upon reliable sources, not upon random-Internet-user speculation. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:22, 20 May 2017 (UTC)