Talk:Moore County substation attack

Quote

@Love of Corey - any particular reason for removing the quote from Duke Energy? Unless someone has time / energy to distill it down to finer grained paraphrased points (something I don't have time to do right now) I think it's a valid thing to include, at least in the short-term. Sprhodes (talk) 01:27, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Duke Energy and/or Randolph Electric Membership Corporation

I initially thought that all of the targeted substations were Duke Energy facilities, but something I read in another article pointed out that Randolph Electric Membership Corporation also serves some portions of Moore County. It isn't immediately obvious to me if all of the targeted facilities were owned by Duke Energy, or if one or more were also ones owned by Randolph Electric Membership Corporation. Might be good to clarify that if/when a suitable source becomes available. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sprhodes (talk • contribs) 02:16, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

@Sprhodes According to this source southern Moore County (where Southern Pines and Aberdeen are located) is covered by Duke Energy Progress. DiscoA340 (talk) 22:40, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I ran across another article that explicitly stated that both of the facilities that were attacked belonged to Duke Energy. So I think it's all good, nothing in the article currently says otherwise as far as I can tell.

--Sprhodes (talk) 23:17, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The FBI notice already included here explicitly states both substations that were attacked belong to Duke Energy. 71.202.106.133 (talk) 21:11, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

The website for the Randolph Electric Membership Corp. notes that none of their substations were vandalized. They did suffer an outage because of the attacks on the two Duke Energy substations, West End and Carthage. They restored power early to some by creating tie-lines from transmission lines with power to 2 of their substations, Eastwood and Seven Lakes. This is the "repair work" as captioned in an article in "The News&Observer 2600:1700:9C90:960:2A:27F2:8E1E:580F (talk) 23:32, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Precursor concerns

I am not seeing how this section is relevant to the rest of the article. It has nothing to do regarding the substation itself; talks generally about the nations infrastructure, extremism, and strings previous attacks like they are somehow connected. A total fluff piece in my view and should be removed; but wanted to also discuss it if anyone feels differently as to why it should be included. --WashuOtaku (talk) 02:07, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Now that the Electrical grid security in the United States article exists, I think we could probably shorten the discussion of "precursor concerns" in this article and just link to the other article for more discussion of that topic. Sprhodes (talk) 22:03, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

A warning that X might happen was issued. X happened. How much more obvious a connection do we need? Likewise, discussion of previous incidents of the same nature are clearly related. No one is saying they are specifically connected, as in "executed by the same persons" or anything (a claim for which there would be no support, obviously), but they are absolutely connected conceptually and would be of interest to a reader reading this article.

If the FBI warning had been years ago or something, and/or if the only previous similar incidents were ancient, I could buy the idea that there isn't enough of a connection to justify discussing that here. But in point of fact, the FBI memo was less than two weeks ago. Being so nearly contemporaneous makes it relevant, IMO.

All of that said, the best long-term strategy here might be for somebody to write an article titled something like "Power Grid Security in the USA" or something of that ilk, talk about all of this stuff, and that could then just become a "see also" on this article and the one about Metcalf. The problem is, I for one don't have the free cycles to write that right now. But if somebody would like to take a stab at it, I'd be happy to try and chip in a little.

Sprhodes (talk) 05:45, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Let me also add, drawing this connection is not just my idea. Yet another article from a credible news source has just appeared discussing the connection(s) between Moore County and other previous attacks, where said article also alludes to even more previous incidents (in Oregon and Washington) than I had mentioned in the deleted section. See: https://www.cbs17.com/news/north-carolina-news/other-states-reporting-power-outage-attacks-similar-to-north-carolina-moore-county-document-says

I think it's pretty clear that there's something here that needs to be discussed, I think the only open question is around the best way to present the information (as in, mention it here in passing, write a whole new article, or "other"). Sprhodes (talk) 05:54, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

We should follow what RS say. RS are discussing precursors, so so should we. Bondegezou (talk) 07:54, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

The problem is that the precursors have no connection to this event and is frankly misleading. We also already have a link to Metcalf, so we do not need to be redundant in the information. --WashuOtaku (talk) 13:49, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I believe that when you say "the precursors have no connection" that you are taking an overly narrow view of what "connection" means. My guess is that you mean there's no causal link or link regarding the exact same group of actors being involved. And that's fair to a point. But I would argue that there is clearly a conceptual / thematic link and a temporal link. And that's enough that a number of reliable sources have seen fit to discuss that connection, as tenuous as it may be. I think we should follow suit. We don't have to have a huge section on that, or go into a ton of detail, but I can't see any good reason not to mention it in passing, as long as valid citations are available (and they are). Sprhodes (talk) 15:36, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

We should put events into context. In considering what context is relevant and what isn’t, we should be guided by reliable sources, rather than our own personal interpretations of what may or may not be relevant. Bondegezou (talk) 12:24, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Drag show “rumor”

The claim that was actually posted on social media by that woman, was that the outages were literally divine retribution (i.e., God sent the attackers), _not_ that the attackers were consciously motivated by a desire to shut down the drag show. I think the article should clarify this, as it’s an important distinction (if somewhat subtle). An analogy would be those “God Sent The Shooter” signs that Westboro Baptist Church would wave after every mass shooting; Westboro weren’t claiming that the shooters were actually fellow Christians, but just that their actions were being directed by God, like puppets used to carry out his will. 2604:2D80:6984:3800:0:0:0:121B (talk) 09:14, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't believe that's clear from what's been reported in reliable sources.

We could write more about this person, her background, what she said and that the sheriff talked to her, although that might be too much under WP:BLPCRIME. Bondegezou (talk) 13:15, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

The article should stay focused on the substation and the facts, not go off on a tangent with rumors and circumstantial evidence. --WashuOtaku (talk) 13:31, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Until or unless more information becomes available from reliable sources, I don't think we need to go into any more detail on the drag show thing. Sprhodes (talk) 15:37, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

The most up to date coverage I’ve seen here is [1]. I leave that here for interest, but I concur that there’s not much to warrant very much coverage in the article. Bondegezou (talk) 12:21, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

More attacks

[2] Worth covering? Bondegezou (talk) 14:18, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

No, it's out-of-scope. --WashuOtaku (talk) 15:52, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

@Bondegezou, that Guardian material may be worth adding to Electrical grid security in the United States Quisqualis (talk) 01:42, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Within the current article, there's a mention at the end of the Background section regarding those same Northwest attacks without stating any dates, so dates and a Guardian ref would be helpful there. Quisqualis (talk) 01:49, 11 December 2022 (UTC)