Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Terrorism/Archive 3

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

Deletion watchlist

This is a routinely-updated listing of terrorism-related articles which have been proposed for deletion. Participants in this project are encouraged to offer their opinions on specific instances.

Use of national flags to represent non-state paramilitary/terrorist groupings

I've noticed the Flag of the Republic of Ireland being used to represent the Provisional IRA paramilitary grouping, e.g. at Warrenpoint ambush here. This seems inappropriate to me, but my removal of the flag has been reverted. Can we discuss the appropriateness of this? Mooretwin (talk) 20:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems rather strange that the Republic of Irelands flag is being used in such a way considering the PIRA is an illegal organisation in the Republic of Ireland too :\. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:05, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Just the thing: no one really has a monopoly on flags or national symbols other that what is credited to a head of state. What about these pubs in New York that have Irish flags, and where everyone sings to rebel songs? In short: these things happen.

This has been discussed on several other pages. The green, white and orange tricolour is the flag of Irish republicanism, ever since the mid-nineteenth century (I forget the precise date but Domer will remember it). That it was adopted by the Republic is due to the circumstances in which the state was founded i.e. the Irish Republic and the War of Independence. It did not thereby become not the flag of Irish republicanism. It's use in articles relating to the IRA may seem strange to some, but it is entirely appropriate. Scolaire (talk) 23:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Concur with Scolaire but this raises the whole issue of flag icons and why I am not a fan of them they add nothing to articles and IMO are purely decorative. BigDunc 23:15, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
1) The Irish flag was in use since 1848, thus it largely precedes the modern Irish state and is in no way exclusive of the ROI.
2) Legality has nothing to do with the use of icons here in Wikipedia: the tricolour was also the official symbol of the Irish Republic from 1919 to 1922, an illegal entity at its time. If we apply this standard to all Wikipedia infoboxes, then the US flag for the period of the Revolutionary War, or the Confederate flag should be removed on the basis that these icons were also banned by law.
3) It's crystal clear that the main symbol of Irish Republicanism is the green, white and orange: try CAIN website, for example. You can read there: "It was hoisted above the General Post Office in Dublin during the 1916 Easter Rising, and has since been used by Ireland's Nationalists and Republicans North and South of the border." Therefore, it's hard to argue against the fact that all Republican political groups -armed or not, and of course, including the PIRA- are represented by the tricolour. The only exceptions could be some marxist-related organisations like the INLA, which favoured the use of the so called Starry Plough.--Darius (talk) 23:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Do we have anything stronger - like an actual reference that the PIRA ever officially adopted the tricolour as their flag? Agree with BigDunc re WP:FLAGCRUFT - most are more trouble than they're worth - see the most recent debate on using the UJ to represent Northern Ireland because it doesn't have an official flag, over at Talk:British Isles. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 00:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
A 2006 Queen's University paper states that: "The Tricolour is the flag of the IRA since ideologically they consider themselves to be the legitimate army of the Irish Republic." Link here.--Darius (talk) 00:43, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Aside from the use of the tricolour, another related and more immediate issue is that the particular flagicon in use on Warrenpoint ambush is templated. Hovering over it links to Republic of Ireland, which is obviously incorrect and misleading. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 00:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I removed the icon Warrenpoint ambush because, as stated above, it's templated, and is a live wikilink to Ireland - which was not a combatant. User:Sarah777 has reverted me with an edit summary of (ironically) "please don't edit war; nothing on that page supports you revert". Mooretwin, Bigdunc and I are opposed to the flagcruft (possibly for different reasons), but clearly the flagicon that links to Ireland can't be used to represent another body. If the tricolour is to be included in that and other articles, it needs a separate flagicon template. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 00:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Should we removed the flagicon from articles like Irish Republic or Irish Republicanism too?.--Darius (talk) 00:43, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Darius. The Irish tricolour is the only flag that can be used. But, when representing republican paramilitaries post-Civil War, the flagicon itself shouldn't link to the state. It should be like so. ~Asarlaí 01:38, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
That makes sense. Are there such things as flagicons for things other than states, and if not is there a case for creating them? In general, though, I would agree with BigDunc and Bastun that the graphics should be done away with altogether. Scolaire (talk) 07:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Honestly, it doesn't. It links to File:Flag of Ireland.svg, and I still maintain Ireland were not a participant. If flags must be included (why?), then it needs to not link to a page that a could be misinterpreted as to do with the Irish state. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 18:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Then maybe the file needs to be moved or copied to "Flag of Irish Republicanism" or "Irish Tricolour". If these are the colours that represent the IRA - and we have established they are - then if graphics are to be included they need to have one made for them. Scolaire (talk) 18:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Agree with that. It can be copied rather than moved, and used on both? BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 22:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Why use any flag at all for non-state groupings? To use a flag for such groupings indicates to me that WP recognises such groupings as representing something or someone (a country, for example). PIRA does not represent Ireland, the Republic of IReland, or even Irish republicanism (although it may claim to represent the first and the third of those, that is entirely PIRA's own POV). Mooretwin (talk) 22:04, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
If the flag was a flower, or an animal, would we be asking the question about whether to include flags or not? I believe that because the Irish tricolour is used by other organizations (not connected with the state), there is certainly room for confusion unfortunately, and no doubt the tendency is to over-use flags in articles and info-boxes, but at some point we're still going to need a flag graphic that links to the correct place. --HighKing (talk) 13:30, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The same applied to the English and UK flags. They are used by extremist organisations. The use of flags to iconise these or any organisations is dubious at best, regardless of the legitimacy of any claim to the flag. Firstly and most importantly flags per-se are associated with national entities, therefore their use encourages a category error. Secondly the fact that specific flags are associated with specific countries means that we are creating scope for confusion of entities. I am inclined to agree that the value of flagicons is in any event very limited, mainly serving as a visual cue in lists and tables in sporting articles. Rich Farmbrough, 13:29, 19 September 2009 (UTC).

Requesting opinions on how best to handle characterizations of associations with al Qaida or Terrorism?

A team of legal scholars at Seton Hall University have written a dozen methodical systematic detailed analyzes of the Guantanamo documents. Several of those documents have zeroed in on the terms the OARDEC analysts used to characterize the association between the captives and the Taliban and/or Al Qaida. They found, for instance, that the three most common characterization were that captives were "members", "fighters", or "associates" of the Taliban and/or Al Qaida. They found that relatively few captives were described as "fighters", compared with "members" and "associates".

Do we, or the Seton Hall scholars know why some captives were characterized "members", "fighters", "associates", or some less frequently used term of association. No. Not really. In some cases we can make a likely guess. In other cases the choice of the DoD authors is mysterious. But use of guesses in article space would be inappropriate, and lapse from strict compliance to a couple of policies.

It could be that the DoD authors use of terms has a firm underlying basis, not made public in the unclassified documents, but present in the classified documents, or available to those with the appropriate clearances. Alternatively, the mysterious choices of terms of association could simply be based on inexperienced, poorly trained, and junior personnel being rushed to draft these documents to a deadline. We don't know. As I said above, we shouldn't speculate. Policy doesn't permit it.

The choice the Seton Hall team made was to treat the distinctions in the original DoD documents as if they were all considered and significant choices. I think this is a good choice.

It is not just the Guantanamo documents which refer to suspects as "financiers", "facilitators", "recruiters", "operatives", "lieutenants", etc. Other agencies refer to suspects using this term, just not as often.

I left red-links for the various associations. Recently, a no-doubt well-meaning contributor redirected them all to point to Al Qaida or Taliban. I requested discussion, and recommended deletion of these unhelpful redirects, at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2009 August 20#Al Qaida faciliator and Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2009 August 18#Taliban Airfield Commander.

I started an article on "al Qaida facilitators". It was deleted, after an {{afd}} a year or more ago. So, consensus was, then, that I hadn't made a case for a separate article on a lesser used association.

I have thought about creating an article entitled something like "al Qaida associations", that briefly describes how analysts in the intelligence and counter-terrorism establishments have used multiple terms to characterize how they thought suspects were associated with Al Qaida. I thought "al Qaida member", "al Qaida fighter" and "al Qaida associate", at least, merited greater coverage, possibly articles of their own, because they were discussed, at length by third parties, those scholars, in articles that have been cited by other authors.

The rest of the wikilinks that should now be redlinks I would redirect to "al Qaida associations", when it is created. Other terms that have independent scholarly analysis can also be broken out into separate articles.

I think there is value in having a link to "al Qaida lieutenant" for all suspects who have characterized as an "al Qaida lieutentant. And I think there is value in listing all the individuals who were characterized as "al Qaida lieutenants" in one central place.

I think the situation of "Associations with the Taliban" should be treated similarly.

I welcome input.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 23:20, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no doubt in my mind that if such an article is created, which would at this time be a review - I use the term loosely- of the Seaton Hall work, the correct way to arrive there is by the use of piped links. Let us resolve this now. Rich Farmbrough, 00:21, 19 September 2009 (UTC).
Ok I have read [1] and it seems to me that it fails RS, because it is PR piece by detainees lawyers which makes some rather cavalier leaps of logic. From what you have said above this seems to indicate that there is little or no RS about the US Gov. agencies characterisation of detainees, which I independently thought shines through the documentation, with so much redacted and classified, tells us that there is at least a system there, without revealing much in the way of how well it was put together, on what basis, and how it was run. Given this I am inclined to say that until there is such work carreid out academically, or a release of USG information, there is no gloss that can be put on the terms used, and they should therefore be delinked. Further if that happens the redirects become irrelevant. Rich Farmbrough, 00:49, 19 September 2009 (UTC).
Thanks for weighing in.
Actually at least three sets of scholars have published analyses of the use of these terms in the OARDEC documents -- the Seton Hall University group, a group at the "Combatting Terrorism Centre" at the USMA at West Point, and scholars working with Benjamin Wittes at the Brookings Institute. You are correct that the leader of the Seton Hall scholars worked on behalf of two Guantanamo captives. Some have suggested that the West Point analysis is not reliable, being too closely tied to the DoD. But, I am not aware of any criticisms of the Brookings Institute analyses, which, with their table and graphs, run to a hundred pages or more.
Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 18:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me that our wp:BLP policy, and more specifically wp:BLPCAT is clear that terms such as "accused", "alleged" and "convicted" can and must be specifically attributed to the authors in text, and references must be cited. Only then can the categories be applied. User:LeadSongDog come howl 22:26, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Yemen, Saudi Arabia, attempt on the life of Muhammad bin Nayef

This is a recent event which has demonstrated a small gap in the Wikipedia coverage of the war on terror.

Muhammad bin Nayef is a Saudi deputy interior minister who is in charge of counterterrorism within the kingdom. Recently a suicide bomber detonated himself near the minister, who received only a minor injury. The assassination attempt is described in bin Nayef's Wikipedia biography, so that is not the problem. But there seems to be a connection between the insurgency in Yemen and counterterrorism in Saudi Arabia which is not being covered, and the information we do have is scattered across multiple articles in a complicated way.

First, there are two articles, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The first article is much bigger and describes Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi counterterrorism campaign; this topic is also addressed in Terrorism in Saudi Arabia. The second article is about Al Qaeda in Yemen and is very short, but deputy leader Said Ali al-Shihri has a long article. Terrorism in Yemen and Islamic Jihad in Yemen would also be connected.

There may also be a connection with the Sa'dah insurgency in Yemen, though it is difficult for an outsider to tell if this is just a political fiction. One can find on the web allegations that Saudi Arabia is assisting the government of Yemen, and that Iran and al Qaeda are assisting the insurgency. For completeness I also note that the youth militia fighting for the insurgents shares its name with another youth militia in nearby Somalia, and al Shihri supposedly had words for the Somali mujahideen, but as one group is Shia and the other Sunni it may mean nothing.

I cannot see myself spending the time to get to the bottom of this, but someone else may wish to investigate and consolidate. Mporter (talk) 09:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

your opinions please...

I asked for opinions at Talk:black site about how best to cover claims CIA medical personnel had conducted illegal medical experiments by monitoring captives undergoing, um, "extended interrogation methods". I have a draft at User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/CIA medical experiments.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 01:40, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Please help at Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

There is allot of argument going on there. We are following the WP:Terrorist guidelines but a few editors really don't want their organization to look bad. I'm not sure how to proceed in keeping the categories and info on the page. Please come take a look and see if you can't help quench the fire. --68.41.80.161 (talk) 03:47, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Portal:Biological warfare at peer review

A new portal Portal:Biological warfare is now up for portal peer review, the review page is at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Biological warfare/archive1. I put a bit of work into this and feedback would be appreciated prior to featured portal candidacy. Thank you for your time, Cirt (talk) 22:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Thoughts?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Terrorism_laws - there is an old note there suggesting that Anti-terrorism legislation - should be the better alternative for the title - any support to take it to CFD for a change? SatuSuro 05:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

War on Terrorism vs Overseas Contingency Operation

Hey all. I'm asking users from this WikiProject and other WikiProjects to weigh in at the talk page for a question about the War on Terrorism page: specifically at this section. Currently, the page says the war ran from "October 7, 2001 - January 20, 2009", where it ends because the Obama administration has discontinued use of the term in favor of the "Overseas Contingency Operation". However, Overseas Contingency Operation currently redirects back to War on Terrorism. The way I see it, we need to either a) create a new Overseas Contingency Operation page that encompasses everything that has gone on since 1/20/09 with the Obama administration and the war on terror, or b) Incorporate toe OCO stuff into the existing War on Terrorism page, in which case the date would be "October 7, 2001 - present". I personally can see merit to both ideas, but I'm not the expert, so I'm seeking input from people more qualified than me to see if we can develop a consensus. I'm hoping we can War on Terrorism page: keep the discussion here so the discussion doesn't split into multiple discussions on multiple WikiProject talk pages. Thanks all! — Hunter Kahn 16:44, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

They're still excluding terrorism categories for Fort Hood shootings

at Talk:Fort Hood shooting they're still saying we know almost nothing about Hasan's motives, and they claim you can't put any terrorism category on it unless there is absolute proof that it was an act of terrorism, and that statements by white house officials that it was terrorism don't count, and the FBI must be right even though it's obvious that Hasan communicated with Awlaki, and Awlaki is a terrorist, then the FBI conclusion Hasan did not talk to terrorists must be wrong. The 2009 Little Rock recruiting office shooting suspect has just changed his story to a terrorist act, even though the FBI evidently never came to this conclusion on its own. There are a lot of google hits on STRATFOR being told that the FBI is telling agents to "back off" on black muslim converts and no profile muslims, though there is no indication they have been pressured to not declare any such suspect to be a terrorist. There appears to be a bit of Jihad struggle going on to supress any mention of political correctness at Ford Hood. That makes 3 2009 terrorist attacks carried out related to Yemen, Awlaki, or both. Most mainstream source have not connected all 3 plots, though many blogs have pointed this out. Bachcell (talk) 04:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Featured portal candidacy

I have nominated Portal:Biological warfare as a candidate for Featured portal status. Feel free to comment, at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Biological warfare. Cirt (talk) 20:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Fighting "POV terrorism edits"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wjemather#Time_for_the_next_step seems to explain why a number of editors working on terrorism topics are encounter POV pushing from the same two editors. A number of people are attempting to just put up referenced facts that are being erased by people who are evidently just erasing any new information that point to certain incidents being terrorist, or raise questions about the consistency and speed with with the FBI in particular dismisses these incidents It looks somewhat like a fatwa for a holy war to me. Bachcell (talk) 19:45, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

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Hutaree

The article Hutaree, on the apocalyptic Christian militia currently in the U.S. news, could benefit from some experienced editing by members of this project. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:11, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

terror template

can someone create a template for the list of terror attacks in russia along the lines of that of pakistan, iraq or india (Template:Campaignbox Mumbai terrorism or Template:Campaignbox India terrorism)??

Peer review

Can we get this article peer reviewed? 2010_Moscow_Metro_bombings it should be a GA or jsut below at least.

Logo again

I just want to point what RAF is more known for their guerrilla, not for killing lots of civilians. So it misleading a little. Or forcing someone's PoV, probably. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.77.21.121 (talk) 03:48, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It also seems highly biased to single out one group (which just happens to be a left-wing group) and use its logo to represent the concept of terrorism. Also, if the definition of terrorism is "an act of violence against non-combatants intended to apply political pressure to achieve a desired objective" then the atomic bombings were acts of terrorism (a massive killing of civilians intended to compel the Japanese government to surrender). 180.25.116.202 (talk) 14:02, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Experienced opinions needed for List of charities accused of ties to terrorism medcab case

I am a participant in a mediation case involving edits to List of charities accused of ties to terrorism. At issue is this edit, which lists the Capital Athletic Foundation as a terrorist supporting charity. We (the medcab participants) would greatly appreciate more opinions at our mediation page. Additionally, interested editors might also read our inconclusive RSN discussion which is brief, and the article's talk page entires which are not so brief. Thanks in advance. Bonewah (talk) 13:15, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Deletions at Colleen LaRose

There are two sections whose deletion causes me concern at the above. I am meeting resistance to having them remain -- even though they reflect information that is presented in the RSs that describe the accused (Jihad Jane). Please go to talk:Colleen LaRose#COATRACKS.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Relevant AFD - Everybody Draw Mohammad Day

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Everybody Draw Mohammad Day. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 17:16, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

FAR for Ziad Jarrah

I have nominated Ziad Jarrah for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 01:16, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Portal:Terrorism at peer review

A new portal Portal:Terrorism is now up for portal peer review, the review page is at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Terrorism/archive1. I put a bit of work into this and feedback would be appreciated prior to featured portal candidacy. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 14:58, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

List of ships attacked by Somali pirates

It has been proposed to split this 176k long list into four lists. Comments at the talk page please.

PS: Ever thought of doing some archiving?Mjroots (talk) 09:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Featured portal candidate - Portal:Terrorism

This portal is currently being considered for Featured Portal status. Comments would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Terrorism. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 01:10, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Does Category:Religious paramilitary organizations work as an NPOV cat name?

There's been a lot of controversy on Wikipedia over terms such as "terrorist" for various armed groups, prefering terms such as "militant". I've put together a category, Category:Religious paramilitary organizations to see if it's a workable solution to non-judgementally tie together armed non-state actors with a religious commonality/purpose. This could include some of the less-disputed "terrorist" groups, as well as "self-defense forces", "militias", etc. under an objective terminology. I'd appreciate any input, and if the cat name is solid some help populating it would also be great. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:14, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Relevant AFD - Steve Eichel

Please see discussion, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Eichel. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 22:44, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Portal:Terrorism

I was wondering why the primary portal for WikiProject Terrorism is rated as "low importance"? Shouldn't it be top importance?

76.66.192.55 (talk) 19:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Please discuss a proposed merge of Cyberterrorism and Internet and terrorism at Talk:Internet and terrorism#Merge. Fences&Windows 19:19, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Eco-terrorism

FYI, Eco-terrorism lists Al-Qaeda and the Unabomber as ecoterrorists... seems like people are stretching quite a bit with their definitions on that article. (anti-modern-technology is not ecoterrorism, you can destroy the environment just as well with Roman technology as modern technology ;; as for Al-Qaeda... what more is there to say? )

76.66.192.55 (talk) 16:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

'Terrorism' is a Conceptual Fraud

'Terrorism' is only considered legitimate as a concept by rightists and those who are either their minions or their unwitting dupes.

What 'terrorism' really is is poor persons defending themselves. It might also be considered war waged by and for poor persons against those who own the means of production and the means of conveyance of ideas and the means to mete out public abuse.

It is valuable when one engages in scholarship or in any attempt to understand something or someone to attempt to understand the subject in the manner in which that subject understood herself/himself, or in the manner in which members of a body or an organization understood that body or organization at the time it was in existence. No so-called 'terrorist' ever considered or called himself or herself such. The labeling of persons and organizations as 'terrorist' is a conceptual fraud employed by fascists to deceive and to impugn persons and organizations without first ever having understood them as they understood themselves. All those labelled terrorists are called 'revolutionaries' by those who understand them. Indeed, in America, before the Zionist-Imperialist Terror Fraud (ZTF) came into full vigor recently, even rightists sometimes called these groups 'revolutionaries' and 'freedom-fighters', as evidenced by newscasts from the United States on the Symbionese Liberation Army and other groups and other such reports that were broadcast or printed during the time that these groups were active.

The specific way in which 'terrorism' as a concept enters the psyche of the average American at present for instance, is as an immediate negation of critical thinking and of serious attention to a subject, and this has partly to do with the passing of information as knowledge and partly to do with who owns the conveyances of information and of knowledge. Such immediate negation of critical, thoughtful attention to a subject is the opposite of serious, intelligent understanding, the kind of understanding which all encylopedias have attempted to achieve.

Populistic, vernacular concepts that lack conceptual legitimacy do not merit a place in a serious encyclopedia, especially one that has the spirit of freedom, equality, and integrity, and one which is dedicated to the education of the people.

Kodienyc (talk) 18:41, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Patent nonsense. Terrorism is simply defined by the selection of targets principally for the purpose of causing terror, irrespective of any strategic military value. It has nothing to do with the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the terrorist's motivation for acting, but has everything to do with the methods and targets chosen. In the present era, the terrorist's principal weapon is the 24-hour news network. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:42, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

By that definition all wars are terrorism. So the concept is, again, improperly inferred. Also, no so-called 'terrorists' are attempting to cause 'terror' (refer to above). This is nonsense and is a half-baked fantasy of the right, which is using the false concept of terrorism to deflect the people's attention from their wars, and this description indicates a lack of understanding of the subject matter altogether. You are saying that the definition has nothing to do with the 'terrorist's' motivation and in the prior sentence saying that the definition rests on the idea of 'the purpose of causing terror' and then go on to make a judgment about the revolutionaries' ideas about strategy. So this is contradictory as well, and this definition of the concept would then lack both internal validity (consistency) and external validity. 208.105.138.187 (talk) 21:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Assuming that the above was added by User:Kodienyc, please try to be consistent about logging in to edit. There is no "left" or "right" monopoly on the use of terrorism. Nor is it exclusively a choice of the weaker, or "revolutionary" side. Ghengis Khan used it regularly to establish control over newly subjugated populations.LeadSongDog come howl! 07:02, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

New category for false alarms

Greetings from the Anarchism Task Force. I'm working on a minor article on a news event that occurred earlier this year, when an anarchist was falsely accused of threatening a terrorist attack against a train. In the process, I've begun looking up appropriate categories and have found none regarding incidents that investigation revealed to have been false alarms. Never minding an internet search, I'm sure anyone reading this can recall hearing of many such events over the past ten years. Anything from suspicious figures mumbling awkwardly in an air flight, to overly-enthusiastic tourists jumping over security fences at government events. This seems to be a branch of this WikiProject's domain which has gone largely undocumented in Wikipedia. Wanting to create the category for future articles along this line, what would be the most appropriate terminology for it? "Category: Terrorist false alarms"? "Category: False terrorism incidents"? --Cast (talk) 03:31, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You mean like the invasion of Iraq? 180.25.116.202 (talk) 14:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Well, that may be a controversial use of the category, but editors can hash that out on appropriate talk pages. I simply intend on using it for those situations I've described above. --Cast (talk) 23:23, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
How about police infiltrating peace, environmental, domestic partner and anti-death penalty groups and labeling them as terrorist organizations? http://www.wbaltv.com/r/18541189/detail.html 180.25.116.202 (talk) 04:05, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Again, that doesn't describe what I'm getting at, but it may be a fair category to have for biographies and organizations who were erroneously associated with terrorism in a prominent and notable fashion. The categorization of Green Peace as a terrorist organization immediately springs to mind, but again, I would leave that for other editors to hash out on appropriate talk pages. Here and now, I'm just interested in an appropriate title for incidents falsely associated with terrorism. An example would be the 2002 Florida terrorism scare, when three young Muslim medical students were detained and investigated off a busy highway, after a woman allegedly overheard them making terrorist threats on the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.(Terror alert shuts Fla. road; three questioned (September 14, 2002)) News events like this haven't received much treatment on Wikipedia; an unfortunate blind spot for this WikiProject. --Cast (talk) 19:03, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Discussion about the current image illustrating the article on Ahmed Yassin

There is a discussion ongoing as to the current image illustrating the article on Ahmed Yassin. Should you be interested, your input would be appreciated at Talk:Ahmed Yassin#Better picture?. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 20:50, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

RfC: Should the image illustrating Yassin be changed

Please review the request for comment at Talk:Ahmed Yassin#RfC: Should the image illustrating Yassin be changed and comment if you feel moved to do so. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 18:29, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Popular terrorism articles

I don't know how to set it up myself, but I think a page such as this one would be great for this wikiproject.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:39, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Talk:2010 Austin plane crash

I noticed at Talk:2010 Austin plane crash there's a dispute over whether it belongs in a terrorism cat. I looked in to the cats and while theres some mention at Category:Terrorist incidents that "This category lists attacks by non-state-aligned groups that did or intended to create civilian casualties, in significant numbers, as opposed to hate crimes, serial killers, and other criminal activity.[improper synthesis?]" but feedback from those more experienced in when the cat should be used would likely be helpful. The attack was called an act of terrorism by a few people as discussed in the article, but not everyone, including the FBI agree. Nil Einne (talk) 21:25, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Finding appropriate articles

The Category for Saffron terror was recently deleted, as it was too specific to be of any use outside of the main article, Saffron terror. The general consensus was that it should be moved into Category:Hindu terrorism, to be a higher-level category. Now, I was wondering if anyone else can help me find articles that would fit under this umbrella? Obviously, there is an extreme amount of controversy surrounding the idea of Hindu terrorism (so much so that the Indian government doesn't even want the term Saffron terror to be used by anyone and have been trying to get rid of the term for years), which makes it more complicated to determine whether an article actually fits or not.

But, I was just wondering if some other users would care to help me with this. SilverserenC 16:56, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Terrorism articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Terrorism articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:42, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

RfC: Should there be a separate article called Targeted killing

Please review the request for comment at Talk:Assassination#RFC: Should there be a separate article called Targeted killing and comment if you feel moved to do so. Thank you. --Shuki (talk) 12:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Renaming of category

I have proposed here to rename Category:Hindu terrorism to Category:Hindutva terrorism, as to be more accurate to the meaning that the terrorism is politically and nationally motivated and not religiously motivated. Please join the discussion. SilverserenC 22:23, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

RFC: Should there be a separate article called Targeted killing

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 22:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

KAL 858 at PR

Korean Air Flight 858 has been listed at peer review, and I would be grateful for any feedback. Thank you, wackywace 17:49, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:08, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

A few historical articles off my to-do list

Not to foist off work, but my To-Do list is getting rather lengthy, so I thought I'd post a few of the redlinks I've noted here in case anyone else finds these groups intriguing enough to write an article on. Is there any other area where we're cataloging such redlinks for this topic? Some of these may also exist under some other name, so help with redirects would be awesome too, as I may just have overlooked them in my searches, or they may have been started since I compiled the list more than a year ago.

MatthewVanitas (talk) 14:47, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Terrorist group articles need to be moved

Both Category:Terrorist incidents in the 1970s and Category:Terrorist incidents in the 1980s contain a number of organizations associated with terrorist activity. Obviously an organization is not an incident. I propose you make a decision on how to remedy this. __meco (talk) 09:03, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

1975 AIA building hostage crisis

Hello, my friends: A group of us are working on clearing the backlog at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_lacking_sources_from_October_2006. The article in the above header has been without sources for the past four years and may be removed if none are added. I wonder if you can help do so. Sincerely, and all the best to you, GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:03, 15 November 2010 (UTC)