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Request for Comment: Description of Weathermen as "terrorists"

Template:RFCpol

In the past several months repeated disagreements and edit warring have arisen regarding whether Wikipedia should describe the Weathermen, and their various members, as "terrorists".
Articles affected include:

Relevant issues include:

Designating the Weathermen as "terrorists"
Describing various acts as "terrorism"
Identifying the organization with the word "terrorism" (e.g. in the lead, when the organization is introduced in other articles, etc)
Covering, or noting, that the group is widely described as terrorist
Covering, or noting, that some people have described them as terrorist or that there is disagreement as to the label
Where to put the material - one article or many? In a section? In the lead? Footnotes? In BLPs?
Applying terrorism-related categories to these articles

Relevant policies, guidelines, and essays

WP:BLP, WP:RS, WP:RS, WP:NPOV, WP:WEIGHT, WP:TERRORISM, WP:COATRACK

Issues specifically avoided:

This is deliberately intended not to be a discussion of editing process or editor behavior
Please keep discussion focused on the content question and not on other editors - if you have a complaint about another editor there are other forums. Should editing abuse become a problem on this page we should discuss that at some other page or a subsection here.

Notification of involved parties

Notification of involved parties:

(will complete later - feel free to self-nominate or withdraw - Wikidemon (talk) 19:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statements from involved parties

Best if we can keep these clean and reserve disagreements for the "discussion" section or for each editor's own statement - Wikidemon (talk) 19:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:CENSEI

The Weathermen, Dohrn and Ayers have all been widely described by law enforcement, the judiciary, journalists, scholars and elected officials as terrorists. The only reason any of them have any notability notable is because they were involved in acts of violence and attempted murder, widely considered to be terroristic in nature by the afore mentioned sources. Note that nowhere in any of the articles are any of the subjects or their actions described as terrorism or any derivative of the term terror unless sourced with the proper NPOV qualifier. Example:

The Dohrn article:

While Dohrn was leader of the group,went underground in early 1970, and engaged in a series of bombings. Its activities have often been described as terrorism,[15] although some, including Dohrn's husband, Bill Ayers, also a leader of the group, have disputed that description.[16][17] The FBI, on the same Web page in which it describes organization as a former "domestic terrorist group", includes a picture of Dohrn.[18] The Encyclopedia of Terrorism has an article on Dohrn.[13]

And the Weathermen Article:

Since 1970 the Weatherman organization has often, but not always, been classified in America as a domestic terrorist organization. "Within the political youth movement of the late sixties (outside of Latin America), the 'Weathermen' were the first group to reach the front page because of terrorist activities," wrote Klaus Mehnert in his 1977 book, "Twilight of the Young, The Radical Movements of the 1960s and Their Legacy".[10] Neil A. Hamilton, in his 1996 book on militia movements in the United States, wrote, "By and large, though, these Weathermen did not rely on arming and training militia; instead, they resorted to terrorism."[11]

Nothing is said without a high quality, reliable and mainstream citation and not without proper attribution in the text. All meaterial contributed is well withing WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, WP:WEIGHT and WP:TERRORISM

This RfC is not necessary, a waste of time and a distraction. Wikidemon should be reprimanded or warned for wasting all of our time. CENSEI (talk) 19:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement: Sourced evidence from Noroton

Here are some 40 sources, some of which have already been brought up at the Weatherman (organization) article. They include The Encyclopedia Britannica (17j), The F.B.I. (8), Seymour Martin Lipset, The History of Terrorism (17i), The Encyclopedia of Terrorism (9 and 14), high school history textbooks (16H and 17e) and reference works such as Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (16D). These are some of the many sources that either call the group "terrorist" or say it isn't (I've added my timestamp to the end of each reference; I intend to add more references to make it clear that this group has been called "terrorist" by a good number of reliable sources; I won't try to add all of them, of course, but more can be found by doing a Google Books search (Weatherman + terrorist = [22]) or a Google Scholar search (same search terms there: [23]) Anyone can do the same for "Bill Ayers" + terrorist"; Bernardine Dohrn" + terrorist):added to first two sentences -- Noroton (talk) 04:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Calling it "Terrorist"

The Weatherman organization has frequently, although not exclusively, been described as a terrorist group since at least 1970:

"Within the political youth movement of the late sixties (outside of Latin America), the 'Weathermen' were the first group to reach the front page because of terrorist activities," wrote Klaus Mehnert in his 1977 book, "Twilight of the Young, The Radical Movements of the 1960s and Their Legacy". --- Mehnert, Klaus, "Twilight of the Young, The Radical Movements of the 1960s and Their Legacy", Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1977, page 47 -- Noroton (talk) 20:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Neil A. Hamilton, in his 1996 book on militia movements in the United States, wrote, "By and large, though, these Weathermen did not rely on arming and training militia; instead, they resorted to terrorism." --- Hamilton, Neil A., "Militias in America: A Reference Handbook", a volume in the "Contemporary World Issues" series, Santa Barbara, California, 1996, page 15; ISBN 0874368596; the book identifies its author this way: "Neil A. Hamilton is associate professor and chair of the history department at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama" -- Noroton (talk) 19:59, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Starting in 1970, newspaper articles identified the group as "terrorist" and quoted others doing so. In December 1970, Michael Charney, a spokesman for the Oberlin Radical Coalition, told The New York Times: "The Weathermen [...] show a contempt for the people of the United States. What they're really saying is that you can't organize a mass movement in the United States for a revolution, so they're resorting to terrorism." --- Kneeland, Douglas E., "Bombings Cost Militants Potential Gains in Support; Incidents Are Alienating Many Radicals and Youths Who Might Join Cause Student Ambivalence Is Found Bombings Cost Militants Potential Gains in Support", article, The New York Times, December 14, 1970, page 1 -- Noroton (talk) 19:59, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In 1975, a UPI article referred to a January 1971 statement issued by Bernardine Dohrn, leader of the Weatherman, "suggesting that the group was considering tactics other than bombing and terrorism." --- No byline, UPI wire story, "Weathermen Got Name From Song: Groups Latest Designation Is Weather Underground", as published in The New York Times, January 30, 1975; "On Jan. 19, 1971, Bernardine Dohrn, a leading Weatherperson who has never been caught, issued a statement from hiding suggesting that the group was considering tactics other than bombing and terrorism.""
In 1980, a New York Times article characterized the group as "the terrorist Weather Underground". --- Montgomery, Paul L., "Guilty Plea Entered in 'Village' Bombing: Cathlyn Wilkerson Could Be Given Probation or Up to 7 Years", article, The New York Times, July 19, 1980 -- Noroton (talk) 19:59, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The term "terrorism" was used in the title of a 1971 book about Diana Oughton, who died in the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, and the girlfriend of Bill Ayers: Diana: The Making of a Terrorist. --- Powers, Thomas, "Diana: The Making of a Terrorist", Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston, 1971; book review: Brownmiller, Susan, no title, review of the book, The New York Times, April 11, 1971 (The book was written by Thomas Powers, who, with Lucinda Franks, reported and wrote a project of the same name for UPI, winning the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1971.) -- Noroton (talk) 19:59, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The FBI, on its website, describes organization as having been a "domestic terrorist group", but no longer an active concern. --- Web page titled, "BYTE OUT OF HISTORY: 1975 Terrorism Flashback: State Department Bombing", at F.B.I. website, dated January 29, 2004, retrieved September 2, 2008 -- Noroton (talk) 20:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The FBI, on the same Web page cited just above, includes a picture of Dohrn. --- Web page titled, "BYTE OUT OF HISTORY: 1975 Terrorism Flashback: State Department Bombing", at F.B.I. website, dated January 29, 2004, retrieved September 2, 2008 -- Noroton (talk) 20:19, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Encyclopedia of Terrorism has an article on Dohrn (see also #14, below). --- Kushner, Harvey W., Encyclopedia of Terrorism], Sage Publications Inc, 2003, pp 108-109, ISBN 0761924086, ISBN 9780761924081 ; retrieved via Google Books, September 5, 2008 -- Noroton (talk) 20:19, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Their elite radicalism, their belief in themselves as the insurrectionary vanguard, shaped the ultimate conclusion: a frenzied overreach of protest which took the form of terrorism, a deliberate assault on persons and property" --- Cantor, Milton, The Divided Left: American Radicalism 1900-1975, Hill and Wang: New York, 1978, pp 215, ISBN 0809039079 -- Noroton (talk)
"In October 1969, the SDS-RYM went undergound, forming several terrorist cells around the United States. The cells called themselves Weathermen [...] The most notorious Weatherman members were John Jacobs, Mark Rudd, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn [...]" --- Burns, Vincent, and Kate Dempsey Peterson, James K. Kallstrom, Terrorism: A Documentary and Reference Guide, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, ISBN 0313332134 ISBN 9780313332135 , page 36 -- Noroton (talk) 20:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Out of this new strategy came the Weathermen, an underground guerrilla cadre who believed that the core of the "Red Army" could be built in the streets of America through te symbolic power of violence. This American verson of the nineteenth-century Russian narodniki (terrorists)" --- Diggins, John Patrick, The Rise and Fall of the American Left, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., 1973 (original edition); W.W. Norton & Co. (revised edition), 1992, p 264 -- Noroton (talk) 20:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Their elite radicalism, their belief in themselves as the insurrectionary vanguard, shaped the ultimate conclusion: a frenzied overreach of protest which took the form of terrorism, a deliberate assault on persons and property" --- Cantor, Milton, The Divided Left: American Radicalism 1900-1975, Hill and Wang: New York, 1978, pp 215, ISBN 0809039079 -- Noroton (talk) 20:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Encyclopedia of Terrorism has an article on Weatherman (see also #9, above) --- Kushner, Harvey W., Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Sage Publications Inc, 2003, pp 406-407, ISBN 0761924086, ISBN 9780761924081 ; retrieved via Google Books, September 5, 2008 -- Noroton (talk) 00:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"A number of terrorist groups and cells grew out of this environment. Although the most prominent example was the Weatherman group [...]" -- Martin, Gus, Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues, SAGE, 2006, ISBN 1412927226, 9781412927222, page 437 -- Noroton (talk) 01:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FIFTEEN MORE, bringing the total to 30 -- I'll just provide links to the following to save space: (A) An Infantile Disorder? by Nigel Young, p 275; (B) The Terrorist Trap by Jeffrey David Simon p 96 ("the most active American terrorist group at the end of the 1960s"); (C) Who Spoke Up? By N. L. Zaroulis, Gerald Sullivan, p 341 ("after a review of Weatherman terrorist activities in 1970"); (D) Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable By Adrian Room, Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, 2002, p 741 ("Weathermen: a terrorist group"); (E) Terrorism Research and Public Policy by Clark McCauley, ("Weatherman, the American terrorist organization", 1991, p. 57; (F) Roots of Radicalism, by Stanley Rothman, S. Lichter, S. Robert Lichter, pp 39-40, 1982 ("[...] the Weathermen were known for their acts, not their ideas. But their willingness to undertake violent revolutionary acts and terror indicates the depth of their commitment [...]"); (G) Terrorism Today by Christopher C. Harmonp, 2000, p 55, ("[...] the U.S. terrorist group Weatherman [...]"); (H) A History of the United States by Philip Jenkins, 1994, p 269, ("One wing ultimately went underground as the 'Weatherman' movement, which launched a terrorist campaign in 1969-70 [...]"); (I) An Encyclopaedic Survey of Global Terrorism in the 21st Century, by R.K. Pruthi, 2003, p 182 ("The best publicized domestic terrorist organization of the revolutionary left has been the Weatherman faction of Students for Democratic Society "); (J) Encarta Book Of Quotations, by Bill Swainson, Anne H. Soukhanov, 2000, p 298 ("the US revolutionary terrorist group, Weatherman [...]"); (K) The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s, by David R. Farber, Beth L. Bailey, 2003, p 255 ("Weatherman" entry: "[...] in December 1969 when core members of this group went underground as a terrorist organization"); (L) Bombs, Beards, and Barricades, by Anthony Esler, 1972, p 314 ("The Weathermen even referred to themselves as narodniks for a while — referring of course to the later 'terrorist' phase of the career of the Russian narodnik generation"); (M) Direct Action: Radical Pacifism from the Union Eight to the Chicago Seven, by James Tracy, 1996, p 149 ("[...] the splinter group, Weatherman, went underground to conduct a terrorist bombing campaign."); (N) Terrorism on American Soil, by Joseph T. McCann, 2006, p 23 ("[...] members of the terrorist organization known as the Weather Underground [...]"); (O) A Clash of Cultures: Civil-military Relations During the Vietnam War, by Orrin Schwab, 2006, p 137 ("[...] the Weatherman, a domestic terrorist organization [...]"). -- Noroton (talk) 02:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
TEN more, bringing the total to 40: (a)Media, War and Postmodernity, by Philip Hammond, 2007, p 87 ("The degeneration of 1960s radicalism into terrorist groups like the Weathermen, the Red Brigades, or the Baader-Meinhoff gang [...]"; (b ) Youth Activism: An International Encyclopedia, by Lonnie R. Sherrod, 2006, p 410 (I could only get the quote in the Google search page, which may or may not be a stable web link, but here it is: "As a leader of the terrorist Weathermen group in the late 1960s told his audience, "Violence, when directed at the oppressor, is human as well as necessary."); (c) Violence in America: An Encyclopedia, by Ronald Gottesman, Richard Maxwell Brown, 1999, p 126 (I could only get the quote in the Google search page, which may or may not be a stable web link, but here it is: "One faction, called the Revolutionary Youth Movement (or Weatherman) launched a terrorist war against "pig AmeriKKKa"); (d) Social Crises: A Casebook, by Robert Hybels, 1974, p 235 (again, couldn't get the quote other than on the Google Books search page, but here it is: "Although the terrorist policy of the Weathermen was never supported by more than two or three percent of the nation's students, it contributed ... "); (e) Nation of Nations: A Narrative History of the American Republic, by James West Davidson, 1989, p 1232 (Again, quote only available on a Google Books search page here: "Out of the radical SDS had come the Weathermen and terrorist Weather Underground."); (f) Campus wars: the peace movement at American state universities in the Vietnam era, by Kenneth J. Heineman, 1993, p 6 ("In 1968, Garskoff and his friends at MSU and Michigan — Bill Ayers, Linda Evans, and Diana Oughton — organized a [sic] SDS faction which evolved into the terrorist group, the Weathermen."); (g) Rebellion in the University, by Seymour Martin Lipset, 1993, p 78 ("SDS first divided among a number of factions, and then split into two major ones, one of which became an underground terrorist organization, the Weathermen [...]"); (h) Peace and Freedom: The Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements in the 1960s, by Simon Hall, p 106 ("Indeed, the growing anguish and rage within the New Left over the ongoing war would lead to the emergence of terrorist revolutionary groups like the Weathermen at the end of the decade."); (i) The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to Al Qaeda, by Gérard Chaliand, Arnaud Blin, Edward Schneider, Kathryn Pulver, Jesse Browner, 2007, University of California Press, p 227 ("Among the revolutionary terrorist groups, mainly on the left but also on the right, we find the following organizations and groupings: * In the United States, the Weathermen and the Symbionese Liberation Army"); (j) The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: in 32 Volumes by Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 1998, p 331 (again, the quote is only available on the Google Books search page here: "... into several factions, the most notorious of which was the "Weathermen," or "Weather Underground," which employed terrorist tactics in its activities."). -- Noroton (talk) 04:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

NOT terrorist, say these sources, which can also be included in articles

It's harder to find sources that state that Weatherman was not a terrorist group. Here are two I found:

In his 2001 book about his Weatherman experiences, Bill Ayers stated his objection to describing the WUO (Weather Underground Organization) as "terrorist". Ayers wrote: "Terrorists terrorize, they kill innocent civilians, while we organized and gitated. Terrorists destroy randomly, while our actions bore, we hoped, the precise stamp of a cut diamond. Terrorists indimidate, while we aimed only to educate. No, we're not terrorists." --- Ayers, Bill, Fugitive Days, Beacon Press, ISBN 0807071242, p 263 -- Noroton (talk) 19:59, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Dan Berger, in his book about the Weatherman, Outlaws in America, quotes Ayers' objection, then adds, The WUO's actions were more than just educational — one could argue that there was a component of 'intimidating' the government and police attached to the actions — bu the group purposefully and successfully avoided injuring anyone, not just civilians but armed enforcers of the government. Its war against property by definition means that the WUO was not a terrorist organization — it was, indeed, one deeply opposed to the tactic of terrorism." Berger also describes the organization's activities as "a moral, pedagogical, and militant form of guerrilla theater with a bang." --- Berger, Dan, Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity, AK Press: Oakland, California, 2006, ISBN 1904859410 pp 286-287; the book describes Berger as "a writer, activist, and Ph.D. candidate", and the book is dedicated to his grandmother and to Weatherman member David Gilbert -- Noroton (talk) 19:59, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Authoritative role of Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers within Weatherman

There's a lot on this, and here's some of it (if anyone wants more, just ask):

Larry Grathwohl, an FBI informant who was in the Weatherman from the fall of 1969 to the spring of 1970, considered Bernardine Dohrn one of the two top leaders of the organization, along with Bill Ayers. --- Grathwohl, Larry, and Frank, Reagan, Bringing Down America: An FBI Informant in with the Weathermen, Arlington House, 1977, page 110: "Ayers, along with Bernardine Dohrn, probably had the most authority within the Weatherman." (Grathwohl's book has been cited in various other books, including books sympathetic to the Weatherman group; I have never read that anyone impugns Grathwohl's honesty or accuracy.) -- Noroton (talk) 20:43, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Wikidemo

As an introduction, it is astonishing that we are even considering calling a living tenured professor of education at a major American university, and his law professor wife, "terrorists", particularly when they deny the claim. That we do so to mirror a political move to taint a presidential candidate for having met them is doubly astonishing. There are blogs and television spots for this sort of thing. This is an encyclopedia!

As creator of this RfC I thought it necessary to resolve once and for all (hopefully) or at least for now the question of whether we should include the "terrorism" label in one form or another in describing the Weathermen and their various members. Although a few have called them terrorists since the beginning this was a relatively minor point until 9/11, and even more so in February, 2008, when Barack Obama's political opponents began to highlight Obama's various encounters with fellow Chicagoan Bill Ayers, one of the formers Weathermen leaders, as a campaign issue.

I will collect my thoughts after further attending to the details of setting up this RfC. In the meanwhile, my basic position is that:

The people involved deny that they are terrorists, with reasonable if not conclusive support. Therefore, accusing them in their own WP:BLP articles of being terrorists in any form (terrorist acts, being part of a terrorist organization, etc., whether endorsed by Wikipedia or sourced merely as commentary) is a serious BLP violation.
The off-wiki practice of calling the Weathermen terrorists in connection with highlighting the supposed connection between Obama and the Weathermen leaders is usually a WP:COATRACK, and part of a deliberate political campaign strategy. We should cover the world as described in reliable sources, but most of these sources merely note that it is a campaign strategy, not a real issue. We can report campaign strategies as such in campaign articles, but should not let election spin leak out into the encyclopedia as a description of the world.
Other than attempts to accuse B. Dohrn of murder (a worse BLP violation yet) there is little dispute over who did what. The Weathermen's actions are well understood and not denied by the people involved. The issue is simply whether we should call this "terrorism" or not. It is an interesting question, because terrorism is a loaded term that means different things to different people, and it means something different today after 9/11 and the events in the Mideast than it did in 1970 when domestic radicals were bombing buildings.
We cannot reasonably say that the Weathermen were terrorists. The sources do not all agree on this. What we can say if we do it carefully is that there is a historical debate over terminology on whether they were terrorists or not, and different people have different opinions on the issue. The debate has some slight notability to the people and organization involved (being a linguistic distinction), but a bigger import on politics where it has some effect however small on the rhetoric surrounding the current election. If we do decide to cover it at all (something I am not convinced we should do but we can wait for discussion), we have to decide where to cover it, where, and how.

I will flesh this out a bit as the conversation evolves.

Statement by User:Verklempt

I have repeatedly pointed out that Brian Flanagan, a core member of the WU, has described the group's actions as terrorism, in the recent documentary film. So not all of the people involved deny they were terrorist. The "freedom fighter/terrorist" debate is always politically tainted, no doubt. However, when you have numerous scholars and journalists invoking the "terrorism" label, the attemot to exclude that incovenient fact from Wikipedia begins to appear a violation of NPOV.Verklempt (talk) 22:13, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Erik the Red 2

The crux of Wikipedia is reliable sources, and reliable sources in agreement. The authority of Wikipedia in terms of biographies of living persons in based on staying away from any statement that could be construed as libelous, and always identifying a person as what they identify themselves as, and not giving any more weight to any reliable source than another. Identifying the Weathermen as terrorists is not representing the views of key Weathermen and reliable sources in agreement. Calling living people terrorists when there is not consensus amongst reliable sources is libelous. Accusing a person of murder when they weren't convicted (regardless of what David Fredosso thinks about the case) is libel. The changes proposed are libel as well as violations key Wikipedia policies: the policy on biographies of living persons and the very Wikipedia manual of style. It is attempts like these to change articles to fit with one's one POV that erode Wikipedia's reputation as a reliable encyclopedia as well as the esteem and image of the people about which the biography is written. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 22:31, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So, according to this line of argument, the OJ Simpson article should not mention his various murder trials?Verklempt (talk) 21:05, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also what Flatterworld said. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 02:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Scjessey

I have carefully looked through the sources provided by Noroton, and also checked out a few others. It would seem to me that the sensible approach would be the following:

In Weatherman (organization) (an article I have had no involvement with), the existing mention of terrorism "Their activities have often been characterized as domestic terrorism,[8] including a later description by the FBI.[9]" seems perfectly acceptable to me. The section "Terrorist Classification" seems completely out of place and unnecessary, and the whole section should be removed.
In BLPs related to members of the organization, the use of the word "terrorist" should not be used, except in the case where a necessary quote uses the term. The organization should not be described as a "terrorist" organization or anything like that - readers can click the blue link back to that article for specific information.
In Obama-related articles, there should be no mention of "terrorist" or "terrorism" whatsoever. There is absolutely no justification for it.

As is usually the case throughout Wikipedia, controversial characterizations and classifications like "terrorist" and "terrorism" should be used sparingly. There is clear evidence that certain editors are overusing these terms when describing Bill Ayers in order to smear Barack Obama with a guilt-by-association tactic. This approach is wholly inappropriate. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:53, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Flatterworld

There's a reason the BBC does not use the word 'terrorist'. It's simply not necessary to use such an inflammatory, emotive term to describe a group or person. All words have at least one denotation nad at least one connotation. In the case of the t-words, the connotation varies through the years, and depending on the people making the claim. For example, Kissinger, Nixon and McNamara are all considered terrorists by many people. I have no interest in seeing edit wars on those articles and many, many more.
'Islamic terrorism' is currently the most typical usage, with its associations with suicide bombers, killing innocent civilians, and so forth. None of that had or has anything to do with Bill Ayers BUT it's clearly to the benefit of political partisans to mislead people into thinking that. I am adamantly opposed to letting Wikipedia be used as a tool for anything other than communicating factual information in a straightforward, unemotional way. We don't need to pour gasoline on the fire. I see no point in amassing a collection of 'quotes' calling someone a terrorist for only this reason. The Weatherman article describes what the group and/or individuals within it did at various points in time. Same with the articles about individuals. Anyone reading the material is perfectly capable of figuring out for themselves if that does or does not meet their own sense of the t-words.
IF a group is on a particular country's official governmental terrorist list, I have no problem including that full fact in the article. It varies, which should be a clue right there. The UK and US lists are different from each other, as well as other European lists, and of course South American lists are different yet - and so forth. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Everyone at the Boston Tea Party was a domestic terrorist, according to the British, but I don't think including that label in that article would improve the state of human knowledge. Also, groups are put on and taken off these lists, so it's not a 'permanent' label. I don't have a problem with mentioning the FBI considered Weatherman a terrorist group, but I want to see the dates. Flatterworld (talk) 02:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Noroton's statement claiming Weatherman 'fits' the FBI's definition of domestic terrorist group. Not good enough, imo. Many groups, including local teenage vandals, fit that definition yet the FBI doesn't consider them sufficient threats to recognize them as such. Flatterworld (talk) 02:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Noroton's statement about Ayers and Dohrn. They signed the original organizing statement, I believe. They were also both kicked out for being insufficiently radical in the mid-70s. Which of course leaves a gap with what various members and ex-members of the Weatherman did after that, yet that is left out implying Ayers and Dohrn were responsible for everything Weatherman did. That's misleading and certainly isn't encyclopedic. Flatterworld (talk) 02:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Noroton reply to Flatterworld

IF a group is on a particular country's official governmental terrorist list, I have no problem including that full fact in the article. The Weatherman is defunct, so it's not on a current list. But the FBI calls them "terrorist" so I don't understand the distinction. The FBI actively sought them and investigated them and indicted the leadership and other members on multiple occasions for acts that the FBI calls terrorist, so I don't understand what the objection is to our stating that the FBI has called them a "terrorist group". What's the difference between the FBI calling them terrorist and the FBI having them on an "official governmental terrorist list"? Ayers and Dohrn. The FBI has stated Dohrn was the leader of the group, and Ayers was one of the top leaders, as have multiple other sources. I didn't say they were responsible for everything Weatherman did and rather than do WP:OR I would state in their individual articles that they were the very top leaders [footnotes here] of an organization that has been called a terrorist group by the FBI [footnote here] and others [footnote or footnotes here]. See this FBI document [24], which states (page 198 of the document; page 13 of the PDF) BERNARDINE DOHRN is the acknowledged leader of the WUO [Weather Underground Organization]. From the same document (page 188 of the document, page 5 of the PDF) WILLIAM CHARLES AYERS ... is one of the authors of the 'Weatherman Statement' upon which the WUO was founded in 1969 and has been considered to be one of the leaders of the organization since its founding. The FBI document, an analysis prepared by the Chicago Field Office [25] was from 1976, after the Weatherman had committed nearly all of its bombings. The Weatherman broke up in 1977, with a group in California declaring itself to be the group and separating itself from Ayers, Dohrn and others, who were members of another faction. This is consistent with all the sources. So Ayers and Dohrn were top leaders of the group when it was committing terrorist acts. Sources also tell us that the central committee they were members of (initially called the "Weather Bureau") controlled the group. Do you still have objections based on sourcing? -- Noroton (talk) 18:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a huge difference between FBI's placing a group on its official terror list, and FBI's press room writing a "byte out of history" page for its web newsletter describing the group in historical context as terrorists. FBI is the keeper of the official terrorist list. It is not the official arbiter of American history. All we can say from this is that the FBI, in one article, characterized them as terrorists and that a field office that was a forerunner to today's terrorism task forces was actively investigating the group back in the day. If we do decide that the "terrorist" label is important enough to discuss in the Weathermen article, those two facts are the most significant instances of applying the "terrorism" label to the group so they would of course be mentioned. Wikidemon (talk) 19:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. I just added the link to the FBI document I was talking about. It isn't a news release. It isn't from the press room. Here's the page with the links to various parts of the long document. Here [26], again, is the link to the specific PDF I was referring to. -- Noroton (talk) 22:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a fascinating document. But not an official designation either. It's an internal FBI file, not for public consumption.Wikidemon (talk) 02:11, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mangojuice

I admittedly don't know a whole lot about this group, or especially about the history surrounding this particular controversy as it relates to Obama. But maybe that makes me well-qualified to speak as an independent observer. Noroton's list of 17 sources describing the Weathermen as terrorists is indeed pretty impressive, compared to the two sources that dispute that description. I did a google book search on "Weathermen -meteorologist" as I figured that would give me hits about this group. What I found was that none of the book hits that came back seemed to describe the Weathermen as terrorists. Terrorist did not appear in the search-page snippets on any of the first few pages of results, and the ones I looked at in depth described the Weathermen group in other ways.

So it seems that the best characterization is that some have referred to the Weathermen as terrorists. Not many, not most, so I really think the word ought to be kept completely out of every article that can't take the space to really explain the issue properly. For most articles I can't imagine such a discussion would be appropriate for anything other than to justify including the word "terrorist," when the word is certainly not needed (descriptions like "violent radical group," for instance, should be uncontroversial).

I also note the lack of meta-sources on one side. What I mean is that on the side arguing that they should not be called terrorists, we have a source that specifically discusses the label issue and rejects the label (Dan Berger's book), but I have seen none that specifically discuss whether the label is appropriate and land in favor of it. In fact, many of Noroton's sources seem to include the word in order to disparage the tactics the Weathermen used: e.g. "The Weathermen [...] show a contempt for the people of the United States. What they're really saying is that you can't organize a mass movement in the United States for a revolution, so they're resorting to terrorism." -- this quote shows the use of the word as a rhetorical device. The speaker has a thesis, which relies on the listener forming a disapproving opinion of the group, and thus the word "terrorism" is just much more effective. #10 on Noroton's list is another example: "frenzied overreach" tips off the speaker's aims, so the use of the term "terrorism" is not a neutral judgement but rhetoric. Another red herring is the quote from Bernadine Dohrm saying the Weathermen were "considering tactics other than ... terrorism", because while this mentions the word, it seems to me that this is actually a claim by the Weathermen that they are not embracing terrorism.

What I do see as usable from the pro-terrorism-label side is the FBI's description of them. This is a historical judgement but coming from the FBI it has an authority unlike all the others. Still, all these histories I'm looking at do not describe them as terrorist, so I think that's got to be heavily qualified. Mango juice^talk 05:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to redo your search as "Weathermen -meteorologist +terrorist" which got me 663 book listings. I'll leave it to you to assess their relevance. I'm just helping out on your google-fu. TMLutas (talk) 05:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are a lot of sources that discuss the Weathermen. It won't do us any good to count the number of sources on either side. Instead, we should be looking at what the most authoritative sources say. I say that the sources we take most seriously are general histories of the period, or encyclopedia articles about the Weathermen. How does that break down? And once again, can anyone point to a source that discusses explicitly whether or not "terrorist" is appropriate to apply to the Weathermen and concludes that it is? Mango juice^talk 21:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I get the impression that calling Weatherman "terrorist" has not been controversial for the most part since 1970 when the group started being described that way. I don't really have evidence that there in fact is or was a controversy about them being called terrorist. If the sources exist and can be found, I support including mention that so-and-so-reliable-source says they were in fact terrorists for this reason ... but the fact that reliable sources can be cited calling what they did terrorism is more important, and we can note that the word was used in connection with specificly mentioning that the group claimed responsibility for various bombings. I simply know that Ayers and Berger (and I'm sure some other sympathizers with the group) have rejected the term, but that doesn't prove there's a controversy. If there is, in fact, a debate about this, I'd be happy to mention it as part of fair, NPOV coverage of these subjects. I think it's especially necessary to note either the Ayers or Berger disagreement (or both), in the Ayers article and Weatherman articles.-- Noroton (talk) 17:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TMLutas

I find it rather strange that we're seriously discussing whether the WUO is not terrorist. Their claim that they were not terrorists rests solely on not killing people on purpose and the only reason that has any plausibility at all is that when they branched out into specific anti-personnel devices, the first one blew up while being constructed. They fit the description otherwise and they did kill people and certainly advocated killing people. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is illegal whether you were kidding or not and similar rules generally do and should follow for the advocacy of killing people for political reasons especially when actual people die in the end.

The WUO's competence at killing people is entirely a separate matter. It should not affect their designation. That Obama was propelled forward by the political influence of the Ayers clan should be no impetus for an orwellian whitewashing of history TMLutas (talk) 05:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Hurmata

I haven't reached a conclusion on the topic of this RfC.

I think the issue is bigger than Wikipedia. The issue is the range of meanings of "terrorism". This term seems to have acquired the general meaning of, let's say, "political violence", in the US. But it is important to realize that it only acquired that meaning after the time of Weatherman, possibly in the late 1970s, certainly by the mid 1980s. This is like the use of "smut" for "pornography" in the middle of the last century, or of "materialist" for "consumerist" in the late 1960s (as part of the critique of Western society). The members of Weatherman were called "urban guerillas". I think this is an overly ideological to use the term "terrorism" for just any violent political dissent. I think the U.S. government has brainwashed the American people in this regard, with such success that I myself referred to someone (Ayers, I think) as a "terrorist". Almost immediately, I had misgivings. Terrorizing, extorting, and intimidating are all distinct. On the other hand, these three (considered either as intentions or as effects) can exist simultaneously and even overlap, or one can arise from another.

So in general, I don't think setting bombs in itself constitutes terrorism. Now, I do think it's plausible to describe some of Weatherman's acts (or plans) as terrorism (e.g., the alleged intent to bomb a soldiers' dance), but that's not to say that I'm convinced, and that's not to say that Ayers took part in those acts or plans. I advise that any time we call some violent political group or political person "terrorist", we qualify it in a way that alludes to how the interpretation of the word is evolving and controversial. An internal link would be a good thing.

I must second what TMLutas has said immediately preceding, only more vehemently: I call bullshit on professing to be shocked that a professor could be (or have been) a terrorist. Of course a professor, even a prof of education, could have been, or could be now, a terrorist. Hurmata (talk) 06:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Justmeherenow

[San Francisco Police Officers Association Journal, Feb 2007: "On February 16, 1970, Officer...] Brian V. McDonnell #1001 was standing in the doorway off the office and the main squad room. At approximately 2244 hours, a pipe bomb exploded[...]on the window ledge[...]. Sergeant McDonnell caught the full force of the flying shrapnel, which consisted of heavy metal staples and lead bullets. As other officers tried rendering aid to the fallen sergeant, they could see that he sustained a severed neck artery wound and severe wounds to his eyes and neck. He was transported to San Francisco General Hospital, where doctors attempted valiantly to save his life. Two days later, Sergeant Brian V. McDonnell succumbed to his injuries[...]."

Did Brian V. McDonnell, Robert Fogarty and the San Francisco Police Department feel terrorized? As it was, reporters', FBI report writers', academics', and Congresspersons' staff members' fingers quickly pressed t-e-r-r-o-r on the keyboards of their whirringly motored IBM Selectrics back in the nineteen-seventies without a second thought.

Jay Kinney, the underground cartoonist/former editor-in-chief of Gnosis Magazine has written,

"The standard line...is that the Weather Underground performed two dozen bombings of symbolic targets and that they carefully avoided killing anyone. This excises the Feb. 16, 1970 bombing of the San Francisco police station on the edge of Golden Gate Park in which at least one officer, Brian McDonnell, was killed and others were seriously injured. The bombing, at the time, was credited to the Weathermen....One can't help but wonder whether the WUO's 'clean' record of no deaths is due to careful parsing of just what actions were allowed into the 'official' WUO canon. Were the more reckless pre-townhouse bombings - not all of which were claimed or solved - consigned to a memory-hole about which the less said the better?"

McDonnell was killed by a pipe stuffed with heavy metal staples, while Weatherman underground comrades Oughton, Gold and Robbins were killed by one said to be stuffed with nails: not maybe the exact same M.O. But if Mossad had had wind of evidence regarding a Palestinian professor's alleged violence similar to what the FBI had regarding (now Dr.) Dohrn, Mossad would have thought nothing of going in and simply assassinating that Palestinian professor. (Note: I'm against Israel's doing such things. I follow the thinking of the SDS's erstwhile political fellow traveler Noam Chomsky on such matters.)

In any case, sure, Bill Ayers has said on various occasions,

"I was a revolutionary anarcho-communist, intent on overthrowing the government, a worthy if immodest goal." (Fugitive Days: A Memoir)

I chose to build a capacity to survive what I thougt was an impending American facism---the imperial project was already visiting a facist-like state of affairs in Indochina,Africa,parts of Latin America as well as the ghettos of our cites---to resist,make the cost of empire higher,fight back,and,yes,a bit immodestly,make a reolution that could prevent future wars,bring about racial and economic justice,restore some balance to the world.I was determined,despairing sometimes,hopeful other times,and a bit over the top....But then,who had it figured out right?And have that person write and tell us what to do now in this gathering darkness... (From on-line dialogue)[27]

There is work to be done,work that involves remaking ourselves and our culture in order to free the planet.....The questions we face are huge ehical and political and strategic questions,not little tactical ones.But I must object to a definition of terrorism that is both too large and too small.The by a non-govt.group....both lets the main perpetrators of terror thruout history off the hook,and conflates the actions of Bin Laden with the Berrigans,the Brownshirts with John Brown and Nat Turner,the Klan with the African National Congress.A firmer definition,which applies to all groups,is the killing of innocents to achieve a political end.We still have to figure out the question of a just cause,but terrorism is never really defensible,and in my book I try to show a group of young people flirting with the idea of answering official terror with a terror of our own,never pulling it off and finally renouncing it as an option.... (From on-line dialogue)[28]

Certainly flirting with the idea of terrorism was off the tracks and a mistake. The fact that we never executed that flirtation is important and significant and I think conveniently forgotten, but we never did. (From presentation at a bookstore "book signing" event)[29]

Fine. Still, I'd agree with commentator Kinney (from above) that

"Today, thanks to the Patriot Act, most of the break-ins and wiretaps that the Feds used in their manhunt against the WUO would be perfectly legal, and were she to have resurfaced now, instead of in 1980, Bernardine Dohrn might be in an isolation cell on Guantanamo, with a bag over her head, rather than directing a law center for children and family rights at Northwestern University....Dohrn admits that 'mistakes' were made, though these were seemingly, in her view, strategic and tactical, and her Weather world view appears to be otherwise intact."

My proposal? Let's not have WP label the WUO anything; still, a short graf tellin' it like it is -- "The WUO was uncontroversially called terrorist back in the day but now the label is controversial" -- gives breadth to Wikipedia's coverage and succeeds in being "encylopedic."

"Ayers[was ...]a leader of the Weather Underground[...]clandestine organization[...--]a rabble-rouser and a saboteur. -- JONAH RASKIN (a professor who the NYT says was once a "courier for the Weather Underground." Raskin has asserted he "knew most of [its] members.")[30]

Bill Ayers long ago settled into a life of quiet respectability as[...]a much-published activist for better schools[...but has had an] unquiet past as a leader of the violent Weathermen[...]. He has never apologized for his violent past. -- Chicago TRIBUNE[31]

Bill Ayers, once (as recently described by one who knew him then) a clandestine saboteur, is often characterized in the media as never having apologized for his violent past. Ayers believes, according to a definition of terrorism as "the killing of innocents to achieve a political end," that the organization he lead was "a group of young people flirting with the idea of answering official terror with a terror of our own, never pulling it off and finally renouncing it as an option." -- Justme

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 15:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Brothejr

I’m not as well versed with the Weatherman situation as some of the others here. Yet, I do want to chime in with a couple statements.

First off, WP has to be as neutral as possible. What do we mean neutral? Taking a look at the neutral entry in Wiktonary: [32] we see the first three definitions:

Not taking sides in a conflict such as war; nonaligned.
Favoring neither the supporting nor opposing viewpoint of a topic of debate; unbiased.
(grammar) Neither positive nor negative.

Using the definitions, we see that to be neutral means we take neither side in the debate. We do not synthesize a conclusion, a moral judgment, or anything else along those lines, but just report what others have said of them and the history involved. This means we must use as neutral sounding words, keeping just to the facts, and keeping our personal judgments out of the articles in question.

Now let’s move onto the word terrorist. We have two entries within Wiktonary: Terrorist [33],

One who governs by terrorism or intimidation; originally applied to an agent or partisan of the revolutionary tribunal during the Reign of Terror in France.
Anyone who uses terror as a weapon in a political struggle, frequently in an attempt to coerce a more powerful opponent, such as a government.

Also, Terrorism [34],

The deliberate commission of an act of violence to create an emotional response from the victim in the furtherance of a political or social agenda.
Violence against civilians to achieve military or political objectives.
A psychological strategy of war for gaining political or religious ends by deliberately creating a climate of fear among the population of a state.

You see we also have a problem here with the terrorist word here. For on one side, as pointed to above, the Weatherman organization could be labeled as a terrorist group by strict definition. Yet, there is another side to this that must be taken into account. This portion is not in the definition and would not really be covered in a dictionary, because it is about how the word has become politically charged. The definition of politically charged itself cannot really be found or at least in a concrete form. The term itself helps us show what it is really about. The best definition I can come up for that term is words that spark strong negative feelings within the audience. Some examples of politically charged words are: slaves, Nazi, liberal, and terrorism. (Heck, on a side note, looking at the third definition of terrorism, politically charged words themselves could be arguably argued as parts of terrorism and that the politicians who use them could be terrorist themselves. Though I digress of track and I am not calling the politicians terrorists!)

When politicians wanted to get their audience riled up they would use politically charged words in conjunction with a target (most times a person or organization) to get people to vote their way. This concept is not new and has been around for far longer then man can remember in one form or another, but the base of the meaning has been the same. This idea still works today; all you need to do is look back at all the fighting going on between editors over this simple word.

Yet, to get back to what I said in the beginning, we must be neutral in the matter. We are not politicians, we are not the police, and we are not the moral judges of these people. We are only here reporting on the history and facts of the events. It is understood that we all have our own POV on these subjects and that this POV does at times color our views, yet when we edit WP, we should shelve our POV’s and edit in a neutral manner. We should shy away from politically charged words when describing the events and use more neutral sounding words. If someone calls them a terrorist, then to be neutral, we must then report that person A/organization named them a terrorist, and let the reader them self draw the conclusion. We are not here to draw conclusions for people, but to report the facts and leave it to the reader.

So in my opinion we should only use the word terrorist when reporting what others have said about the group and people, and not abjectly apply the term ourselves to everyone involved with the Weatherman organization. Brothejr (talk) 14:21, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposals, discussions

I propose that edits to any of these articles that follow WP:TERRORIST be allowed. -- Noroton (talk) 19:31, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just fixed the link to WP:TERRORIST. Here is the relevant passage:

Naturally, if a verifiable and reliable source explicitly uses one of these terms, then that term should be used in direct quotes or "X said Y" phrases, properly cited. Or, if multiple reliable sources use it, it may be used to describe a subject, but only to suggest that the subject is widely known as a terrorist, and the references in question should be placed right after the word or the sentence in which the word appears.

-- Noroton (talk) 03:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note about WP:TERRORIST: The policy that Noroton has used above has been in existence since August 19. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:00, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note about SCJESSEY'S MISLEADING BOXED STATEMENT: The language may have changed or gone back and forth, but look back at the long section as it stood at 19:16, April 5, 2006 and you'll see essentially the SAME POLICY only more long-winded. That version states: This is the standard Wikipedia format "X says Y". If this is followed, the article should make it clear who is calling them a terrorist, and that the word does not appear to be used, unqualified, by the "narrative voice" of the article From the "Encyclopedic" examples section: Provisional Irish Republican Army - "The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish Republican paramilitary organisation. The organisation has been outlawed and classified as a terrorist group in [Great Britain, Eire, the US] and many other countries..." Essentially the same treatment. We now return you to your regular, unboxed comments, and can we please not box any more comments because it looks like SHOUTING WITH A MEGAPHONE! (I wouldn't mind if someone removed the boxes from both comments.) -- Noroton (talk) 15:59, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(indeed, every added level of emphasis doubles the assault on the brain cells) - Wikidemon (talk) 16:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As to clandestine Weatherpeople sabotage/"terror" and its connection to the political Obama-Ayers controversy, I meow-self agree with bespectacled lib commentator Michael Kinsley:

“
Ayers and Dohrn spent 11 years setting off bombs and putting out statements threatening violent revolution. They promised to kill innocent Americans and praised the lunatic murderer Charles Manson. In 1981 two policemen and a security guard were killed in the botched holdup....Fake IDs used to rent getaway cars...had been traced to a store where Dohrn worked. A grand jury wanted her testimony. She refused. Said she didn't believe in grand juries. Spent seven months in jail, and then the matter was dropped. Other charges against Ayers and Dohrn were dropped because the evidence was tainted....They remain spectacularly unrepentant....Their victims were liberals[...who] opposed the Vietnam War but didn't hate their country. They were horrified by violence and sincerely wanted the war to end. They believed in democracy, even when dismayed by the result. The slogan of the Underground, by contrast, was "Bring the war home." For strategic and psychological reasons, the Underground wanted the Vietnam War to go on. They wanted the killing and dying to continue and spread, along with anarchy, dope and free sex. The notion of doctrinal divisions among opponents of the Vietnam War must seem ridiculously arcane to most people today. But perhaps you can imagine how infuriating it was to the organizers of the big marches on Washington--struggling to keep them peaceful--that there were people of the left effectively in cahoots with the Nixon Administration, determined to undermine all those efforts. When it became clear even to them that there would not be violent revolution in America, Ayers and Dohrn shrugged and rejoined society in Chicago, where he had grown up....
If Obama's relationship with Ayers, however tangential, exposes Obama as a radical himself, or at least as a man with terrible judgment, he shares that radicalism or terrible judgment with a comically respectable list of Chicagoans and others--including Republicans and conservatives--who have embraced Ayers and Dohrn as good company, good citizens, even experts on children's issues. Northwestern created a "family justice" center for Dohrn to run. Ayers is a "distinguished professor" at the University of Illinois. They write Op-Eds and are often quoted in the Tribune, where, if they are identified at all beyond their academic titles, it is usually as "activists" who have never abandoned their noble ideals.[35]
”

(Hey! What's a few boxes among friends?) $\sim$ Justmeherenow ( ) 17:29, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

A quick response:

They deny they were “terrorists” so it’s a BLP violation to cite reliable sources that call them that? Wow, time to rewrite the Scott Petersen article because that’s got BLP violation written all over it because he maintains his innocence to this date.
Ahh, I see, like everything with Wikidemo, its all about the 08 election.
Strawman, no material appears in the article accusing Dohrn of murder. See above, lots of sources call it terrorism and since they constitute the bulk of reliable sources on this subject it has to be included.
Maybe you cant call them terrorists, but I can cite hundreds of sources that say that the Weathermen were terrorists .. last I checked that’s all the requirement needed for inclusion.

CENSEI (talk) 20:35, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And there are plenty of sources that say otherwise. NPOV demands dispassionate discussion. Clearly the word "terrorist" needs to be grappled with in describing Ayers. On the other hand, the term is contentious. And NPOV suggests we ought not simply call him a terrorist - we ought to explain the viewpoints, both his and otherwise, and leave the issue there. We shouldn't call him a terrorist - we should say who calls him a terrorist, and explain why they do so.

As for the "it's all about the 08 election," let's be honest - it is all about the 08 election. This wasn't an issue before the ABC debate. Nobody cared. They care because this is framing a major political debate right now. We ought not lie to ourselves about this. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Obama-Ayers controversy is what got me interested in Ayers, Dohrn and the Weatherman organization, and it's certainly what will make many people interested in it. There's simply nothing right or wrong about that, as far as these articles are concerned, but it's worth watching for our own POV. Yet that doesn't mean we can't edit these articles and provide information in an NPOV way, consistent with all Wikipedia policies and guidelines (in letter and spirit). In fact, I've made numerous edits to the Ayers and Dohrn articles, and some to the Weatherman article, that have nothing to do with this election. Every single source I've cited so far (16 of them at this point) was published well before this election (I think the latest was 2005).

What Phil Sandifer is alluding to, and what Eric the Red 2 has suggested elsewhere, is spelled out in WP:TERRORIST: We don't call them terrorists ourselves; we cite the fact that others have called them terrorist; we cite the fact that others have said they are not terrorists. This is largely what Wikidemon opposes.

Rather than talk in vague generalities, I find it's often very useful to have specific language. I'll take the proposed sections from the Dohrn and Weatherman articles and put them here for examination, although that may take a little time. -- Noroton (talk) 20:56, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidemon should back up the boldface part of this statement (from point #1) with citations or in some other way: The people involved deny that they are terrorists, with reasonable if not conclusive support. I haven't seen "reasonable support" from sources. Quite the opposite. -- Noroton (talk) 21:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not all of the people involved deny they were terrorists. Brian Flanagan, a core member, has called the group's bombings "terrorism".Verklempt (talk) 21:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Phil, the ratio of sources calling them terrorists to those that specifically reject it is 20-1, its not even close, even Dohrn called what they did “terrorism”. You are right, it is about the election, my point is that Wikidemo reflexively removes any material from any article that could be construed as even tangentially critical of Obama. Back to my prior point, no editor is calling them a terrorist, we are referencing and citing good sources to do it. If you have any specific issues with any of the text, please bring it here. Wikidemo's point in this exercise is to strip any mention of terrorist out of all these article. CENSEI (talk) 21:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly we should address, in an NPOV manner, what reliable sources say about Ayers, as well as what he says in his own defense. I am hard pressed to see how to do that without bringing up the word "terrorist." Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:16, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your thoughts on the text, including the sources used, as it currently exists? CENSEI (talk) 21:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of which article specifically? Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My general impression, confirmed by what I have just read in the WP article on terrorism, is that the word has really no precise meaning at all. It is simply a judgemental word, a pejorative one. It's like calling an act or a person “despicable”. It adds nothing to the description of the act or the person's ideas and intentions.

In WP we should describe what people did and believe, and let the reader decide what to think of them. To speak of terrorism does nothing to inform the reader of the facts, and attempts to force eir judgement of them. It is best to avoid it, whether in the articles cited above or in any other article, including those on 9/11 and other such events.

Of course, when appropriate, it may be mentioned that an act or a movement has been called terrorist. I don't think that that should be done in the lead of an article, though.

David Olivier (talk) 21:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)I was hoping we could avoid infighting among editors. I have defended Wikipedia against some atrocious editing problems but I am not myself a POV editor here. Ayers did what he did, and the encyclopedia covers that. Applying the "terrorist" label is a value judgment placed on top of those bare facts that does not further explain them. It just applies a moral judgment. I disagree that the point of the articles is to present the moral case against Ayers and his moral defense. He has not been convicted of any of this in court and it's not up to us to conduct a surrogate trial. The specifics on how we address it depend to some extent on the article. The bio article is simply to chronicle his life. His life events are not in serious dispute, only how to describe them. The Ayers article as is addresses the point fairly sensitively. Insisting in adding, on all of the other articles, a characterization of Weathermen as terrorists, is a coatrack and serious BLP violation. Let's compare:

Bernadine Dohrn is former leader of the radical leftist organization Weather Underground

(with)

Bernadine Dohrn is former leader of the radical leftist organization Weather Underground (often accused of being terrorists)

(or)

Henry Kissinger, architect of United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977

(with)

Henry Kissinger, architect of United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977 (which many consider to be murderous imperialism)

(or)

Woody Allen, who married his former girlfriend's adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn

(with)

Woody Allen, who married his former girlfriend's adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn (who was so young many consider it uncomfortably close to pedophilia)

(or)

Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Justice

(with)

Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Justice (who some people think is a $*#$% unfit for the bench)

The point is, whether or not there is a reliable source to say people make these judgments, it is a problem if we carelessly repeat those judgments here. WP:BLP and WP:TERRORIST say we cannot simply endorse disparaging opinions, and also that we have to be careful about simply repeating them. We can debate the merits more later. For now I'm just pointing out that the debate is not over what Ayers did, but how to judge it. Wikidemon (talk) 21:58, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is false to say that the "terrorist" label is always a value judgement and nothing more. The truth is that many scholars have attempted to validate and apply the construct in an objective manner. You are disparaging the overwhelming scholarly and journalistic consensus about the WU as mere "opinion". It would seem that you really are not familiar enough with the relevant scholarship to be editing on this topic.Verklempt (talk) 22:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Attempted is not equivalent to success. Is there a consensus scholarly definition of "terrorist?" i.e. one that any scholar in a relevant field would accept? Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bernadine Dohrn is former leader of the radical leftist organization Weather Underground (often accused of being terrorists), strawman, text like this does not exist in the article. CENSEI (talk) 22:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ecX3)Aside to CENSEI - you might want to check out the difference between a straw man and an analogy, but yes, various proposals have included a parenthetical clause of exactly that sort in the lead or even the first sentence. Back to Verklempt...Swell, consider me an ignoramus on the loose then, but I'm going to continue editing. I have not seen overwhelming scholarship or journalistic opinion that the group is terrorist. Even if you're right it would be a mistake to blindly accept scholarly constructs on matters of politics or consider them objective. Plus you do have to be careful where that argument goes. If we're going to accept the word from academia you will find it far more sympathetic to Ayers and his politics than is the American body politic.Wikidemon (talk) 22:31, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, strawman is appropriate because you began this RfC and continue to state that myself and Norton are calling Ayers, Dorhn and the WU "terrorists" when what we are doing is citing reliable sources that have called them terrorists and attributing those statements to said reliable sources. CENSEI (talk) 17:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, that's a different question. Let's not mince words. Using the word terrorist or terrorism to characterize people's actions or the notable activities of a group is to call them terrorists. Repeating someone else's opinion that they are terrorists means that they are called terrorists on Wikipedia. Same problem. You can't get around that by couching it in language atributing the statement to a source. Anyway, everyone knows what we are talking about and seems to get the distinction between Wikipedia asserting that they are terrorists (which most people oppose and is not under discussion), and Wikipedia covering the fact that they have been called terrorists (which is under discussion).Wikidemon (talk) 18:53, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What you say is true, Verklempt. Over time, I too have seen really a lot of attempts by various scholars to define terrorism. None of the definitions hold, as is confirmed by the very repetition of the attempts. Now why do they insist so much on finding a definition? Obviously, it is because to be able to label something terrorist is to label it bad. It is really clear that that is what is at stake in the attempts to label Ayers and others terrorists. It adds nothing. It serves an agenda. David Olivier (talk) 22:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whether or not "terrorism" is a defined term and whether or not that matters

The above discussion suggests that we may disagree on what terrorism means. Is it a specific term or general, an opinion or a fact? Is there scholarly or journalistic consensus? Maybe we can get somewhere by trying to understand what it means to call someone terrorist, or report that others have done the same. Wikidemon (talk) 22:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The trouble is that the accepted "definitions" typically would also include things like the Firebombing of Tokyo by their definition; so some definitions try to include "non-state entities"; while others argue that you can't claim the identical action is different depending on whether 15 Saudis carried out 9/11, or Saudi Arabia carried out 9/11. Just as people often object to the term "war" for a specific military action and it gets parsed out to "military conflict", similarly "terrorist" is parsed out to "militant". "The Red Army Fraktion were a group of left-wing German militants..." and such. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 22:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We are not required to define "terrorism", since we are not ourselves calling anyone or anything terrorist; we are reporting that others have used the term. None of the articles will go into the definition -- that normally doesn't happen in articles about people called terrorists. Bill Ayers (and to some extent Bernardine Dohrn -- but apparently by allusion) have discussed whether or not they are terrorists, and in that case, the question comes up. If a source discusses a particular definition, we can always report that, but that's probably not necessary. We are reporting on the views of reliable sources under the special definition of "opinion" used by WP:NPOV#A simple formulation:

Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." For example, that a survey produced a certain published result would be a fact. [...] No one seriously disputes any of these things. So we can feel free to assert as many of them as we can. By value or opinion, [FOOTNOTE: Opinions involve both matters of fact and value; see fact-value distinction ] on the other hand, we mean "a matter which is subject to dispute." There are many propositions that very clearly express values or opinions. That stealing is wrong is a value or opinion. [...] However, there are bound to be borderline cases where it is not clear if a particular dispute should be taken seriously and included. When we discuss an opinion, we attribute the opinion to someone and discuss the fact that they have this opinion.

Works for me. If we know a source discusses its use of the term "terrorism" we can decide whether to include that discussion of the definition (perhaps in the footnote?) If we don't, we assume the source is using the term with possibly rough edges in the definition. This happens all the time with every kind of source, and should not prevent us from using a term -- in fact, we'd be prevented from saying anything at all in the encyclopedia if we had to provide exact, precise definitions for everything. Dictionaries are able to come up with a definition. People are able to use the term. We can use it too. This might help: The Sorites paradox involves the philosophical problems with the definition of "heap". Yet we can still use that word (3,213 times in the encyclopedia, so far). -- Noroton (talk) 00:00, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, what's key here is that terrorist, being both a perjorative term and one with an unclear definition, is not an appropriate one to use objectively. That is, we cannot use "Bill Ayers is a professor of education and terrorist" as an article lead. (Not that anyone is saying we should.) And that's a very important qualification - the term cannot be used outside of specific, attributed claims. That sets it apart from, say, "professor of education," which is unambiguous. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See my statement above. Flatterworld (talk) 02:41, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is an interesting point in Mangojuice's satement, above. Noroton's list of citations notwithstanding, we do not know how common the word usage is. Even if we did, the original research / synthesis involved in mining sources in order to study what usage patters we could derive from them is beyond the scope of the encyclopedia - that would turn us into a dictionary. There are 40 sources of varying reliability (and probably thousands more) that use the word terrorist. And there are an untold number that do not use the word terrorist. The opposite of a source using the term is a source not using the term; it is not a source that says the term should be avoided, for there are very few sources indeed that delve into the subject of the word terrorism as a label or categorization as it applies to the weathermen. As an analogy (not a straw man, an analogy), suppose someone notes that Henry Kissinger has eaten a hamburger and decides that Henry Kissinger is a pig-snarfer. Is there going to be another source that writes a critique of the first source, saying that despite eating hamburgers Henry Kissinger is decidedly not a pig-snarfer? Probably not. Very few people write those kinds of pieces. Where I'm going with this is that even if we recognize that some but not most of the sources apply the term "terrorist", that does not give us the context or the sourcing for a section on word usage. It does not give us the measure of notability (by which I mean weight) to establish that the question of when the word is used or not is relevant to the subject at hand.

As a final example, our article reports on Britney Spears' "infamous" performance in the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. And infamous it certainly is - that's the one where she was out of shape, couldn't dance, and seemed mentally to be somewhere else. However, we probably shouldn't be using the word "infamous" because it's editorializing. It might be worth a little time speculating about whether the performance was infamous or not - certainly some sources say it was infamous and it fits the dictionary definition of infamy, sort of. But you could also argue that it does not, and that many people while acknowledging how wrong, bad, and immoral the performance was (she bombed like a Weatherman for sure) chose not to use the word "infamous" and instead opted for more neutral terms like "sloppy", "unrehearsed", or "controversial". Since we cannot call her infamous directly, may we instead add a section to the article entitled "referred to as infamous" to the Britney Spears article? Well, despite all of the reliable sourcing, we simply do not have enough to go on that the label is notable or that it makes any difference. - Wikidemon (talk) 15:53, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We don't need to have a precise knowledge of how common it has been over the course of nearly 40 years for reliable, prominent sources to have called them "terrorist" -- my long list shows that it has been common. We don't even have any evidence yet that the "Weatherman was not terrorist" POV is at all common. See the end of WP:WEIGHT: To determine proper weight, consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors. Because of the controversial nature of minority views, special care should be taken to avoid biassing articles by writing from the majority or minority perspectives. To take the Britney Spears example, Wikipedia allows us to report the opinions of others on her performance, and if we have reliable sources saying it was "widely thought to have bombed", WP:NPOV specifically allows that (as discussed in the four subsections just below WP:WEIGHT). -- Noroton (talk) 19:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A list of 40 citations (not all reliable, by the way, and none reliable for the purpose of actually saying they are terrorists) does not establish that it is common. If 40 people do something 40 times in history that does not make it a common occurrence. It is clearly common for unreliable sources to use the term. We are not trying to establish that they were terrorists, or that they were not. Rather, we are debating whether it is proper to cover the fact that some people call them terrorists. Hence, it is off topic to look for reliable sources to say they are not terrorists. I'm not sure that the section of NPOV you quoted is exactly on point - it goes to reporting weight of significant viewpoints about facts, not significant word usage. Rather, we see that the term is sometimes applied and sometimes not. More often not, but it is used. What is relevant to the BLP issue is that they themselves deny being terrorists, and that there are a number of opinions that agree with them. The point of the Britney Spears example is to show that not every word usage issue is relevant/notable to its subject. Although it would be balanced to report that many people thought her performance was "infamous" (or that she was "chubby", "awful", etc), it would neither be neutral, nor satisfy WP:WEIGHT concerns, to devote a section of her biography to reporting people's opinions about her. Wikidemon (talk) 19:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For Article: Weatherman (organization) Proposal 1 by Noroton

This section was edit-warred over at the Weatherman article. I put it here to show what kind of insertion we might use, but I am very flexible as to exact language and even length. It probably contains too many quotes. In any event, I think this is a good start and may help focus the discussion (please discuss in the discussion section):

-- Noroton (talk) 00:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Referred to as a terrorist group

Since 1970 the Weatherman organization has often, but not always, been classified in America as a domestic terrorist organization. "Within the political youth movement of the late sixties (outside of Latin America), the 'Weathermen' were the first group to reach the front page because of terrorist activities," wrote Klaus Mehnert in his 1977 book, "Twilight of the Young, The Radical Movements of the 1960s and Their Legacy". [1] Neil A. Hamilton, in his 1996 book on militia movements in the United States, wrote, "By and large, though, these Weathermen did not rely on arming and training militia; instead, they resorted to terrorism." [2]

Starting in 1970 newspapers covering their bombing of public buildings identified the group as "terrorist".^[1] Michael Charney, a spokesman for the rival Oberlin Radical Coalition, told The New York Times that year that the Weathermen resorted to terrorism because Americans were unwilling to participate in a revolution. Thomas Powers and Lucinda Franks wrote the Pulitzer-prize-winning news series, "Diana: The Making of a Terrorist" about the life and death of member Diana Oughton (later expanded into a full-length authorized biography on the subject). The group fell under the auspicies of FBI-New York City Police Anti Terrorist Task Force, a forerunner of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces. The FBI, on its website, describes organization as having been a "domestic terrorist group", but no longer an active concern. [3]

Others either dispute or clarify the categorization, or justify the group's violence as an appropriate response to the Vietnam war. In his 2001 book about his Weatherman experiences, Bill Ayers stated his objection to describing the WUO (Weather Underground Organization) as "terrorist". Ayers wrote: "Terrorists terrorize, they kill innocent civilians, while we organized and agitated. Terrorists destroy randomly, while our actions bore, we hoped, the precise stamp of a cut diamond. Terrorists indimidate, while we aimed only to educate. No, we're not terrorists." [4] Dan Berger, in his book about the Weatherman, Outlaws in America, quotes Ayers' objection, then adds, The WUO's actions were more than just educational — one could argue that there was a component of 'intimidating' the government and police attached to the actions — bu the group purposefully and successfully avoided injuring anyone, not just civilians but armed enforcers of the government. Its war against property by definition means that the WUO was not a terrorist organization — it was, indeed, one deeply opposed to the tactic of terrorism." Berger also describes the organization's activities as "a moral, pedagogical, and militant form of guerrilla theater with a bang." [5]

FOOTNOTES

Mehnert, Klaus, "Twilight of the Young, The Radical Movements of the 1960s and Their Legacy", Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1977, page 47
Hamilton, Neil A., "Militias in America: A Reference Handbook", a volume in the "Contemporary World Issues" series, Santa Barbara, California, 1996, page 15; ISBN 0874368596; the book identifies its author this way: "Neil A. Hamilton is associate professor and chair of the history department at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama": Montgomery, Paul L., "Guilty Plea Entered in 'Village' Bombing: Cathlyn Wilkerson Could Be Given Probation or Up to 7 Years", article, The New York Times, July 19, 1980: "the terrorist Weather Underground"
Web page titled, "BYTE OUT OF HISTORY: 1975 Terrorism Flashback: State Department Bombing", at F.B.I. website, dated January 29, 2004, retrieved September 2, 2008</
Ayers, Bill, Fugitive Days, Beacon Press, ISBN 0807071242, p 263
Berger, Dan, Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity, AK Press: Oakland, California, 2006, ISBN 1904859410 pp 286-287; the book describes Berger as "a writer, activist, and Ph.D. candidate", and the book is dedicated to his grandmother and to Weatherman member David Gilbert

discussion of proposal

I gather that this is the complete proposal for the Weathermen article (i.e. no proposals for other sections or the lead), but that Noroton favors adding material to other articles as well. I cannot evaluate this proposal in isolation - what material is proposed for other articles? My baseline position, which I have not had a chance yet to fully explain, is that we should not address this material at all in the encyclopedia. I don't want to explain the reasoning anew each time the proposal made so I will do it in my statement when I have a chance, and after we have a time to see what emerges from the discussion. I think we have to get some preliminary direction on whether, how, and where the material should be treated before we can consider specific text for specific articles - so this may be premature. If we do decide to add material it should only be in the Weathermen article, not in any BLPs or election-related articles. Also, if we do include something should not be a shoehorn for bringing up terrorism in other places the Weathermen are discussed. Even to fit in the Weathermen article alone it will have to be trimmed considerably for weight, some of the sources reconsidered for relevance and reliability, some additional context and balance added, and a less provocative section heading (or better, no separate heading) used. Wikidemon (talk) 01:04, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll say it once and for all: calling a group a terrorist group is passing moral judgement which is not Wikipedia's place. The proposal does not fit the WP:TERRORIST language of x says y is z, but rather that y is generally referred to as z, source x as well as sources a,b,c, and d all say this as well. There is a difference, and it is a vital one. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 02:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand why you would say that, Eric. Please tell me how specifically does my wording not fit WP:TERRORIST, which says: Naturally, if a verifiable and reliable source explicitly uses one of these terms, then that term should be used in direct quotes or "X said Y" phrases, properly cited. Or, if multiple reliable sources use it, it may be used to describe a subject, but only to suggest that the subject is widely known as a terrorist, and the references in question should be placed right after the word or the sentence in which the word appears. The passage I wrote was designed with that guideline in mind. -- Noroton (talk) 03:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The passage does not say that the subject is widely known as a terrorist and then cite sources to that effect. It says, "The Weathermen are usually known as terrorists, here's all the people that think so (in excruciating detail), and here's why their right. Oh yeah, there are some who disagree with me, but I'll just shove them into a little hole at the end and hope that no one reads the entire section." This is not appropriate. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 13:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, your point is that you think the language of the first sentence (Since 1970 the Weatherman organization has often, but not always, been classified in America as a domestic terrorist organization.) implies usually and seems to endorse that POV. Since I don't think Wikipedia can endorse that POV, and don't want to, I am open to alternative language that doesn't do that but that still gets across the point I want to make in that passage: That (a) many different sources, (b) which are reliable, (c) from 1970 to now have considered the group terrorist and called it that, while (d) some sources have also disagreed. Having looked at a lot more sources through the Google Book search above, I'm willing to use different, better sources than what I have in that passage. Can you suggest alternative language that meets the three encyclopedic points I set out to make? On the principle that it is up to the editor who wants to add information to the article to justify it, I think I've shown in my long list of many, respectable sources that the idea that Weatherman was terrorist is not just some tiny-minority view and is either a large minority or majority view (I haven't even looked at Google Scholar and only got half-way through the Google Books results, rejecting many sources along the way). Can you or anyone suggest language that meets WP:WEIGHT: Articles in Wikipedia should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. We can't characterize in the article what is the most prominent POV on "Is/was Weatherman terrorist?" (and the WP:ASF section prohibits doing that without sourcing the characterization anyway, and I don't know of any sources that do that). So let's present both views. Let's recognize that every indication is that the view of Weatherman as terrorist is a more prominent view (don't just look at the numbers for this, look at the prominence and quality of the sources). Scjessey in his statement says that only the briefest mention, already in the Weatherman article, should suffice. But I think it's only fair to the Weathermen to state in the article that certain Weathermen have publicly disagreed with that. Since all indications are that this is a minority view, it needs to be balanced with the more popular reliable view. Taking all this into account, do you or does someone else have a proposal for alternate language that we might agree on? Noroton (talk) 18:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC) wording changes to clarify the second-to-last sentence -- Noroton (talk) 18:46, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion of terrorism per se belongs in the Terrorism article. Period. Flatterworld (talk) 02:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: That Ayers' status of a professor is irrelevant to whether he is or isn't a terrorist

Wikidemon's naive idea that tenured professors are not terrorists is simply so far out of line that it needs highlighting. Terrorism is a game anybody can play, period. No profession is exempt and certainly not US professors. TMLutas (talk) 05:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for calling me naive. Ayers' status as a prominent professor of education (nationally recognized, tenured, published, major university, etc.), and his wife's as a law professor, suggests they are integrated and accepted in society. That is important in three respects. First, serious people (as opposed to political hacks trying to win an election or Wikipedia editors shooting the breeze) have judged them respectable people. So designating them as terrorists is at the very best only a small part of who they are. Second, it is utterly unremarkable that someone in Obama's position in a town like Chicago would encounter two people of that stature. Third, it is bad enough for Wikipedia to accuse anyone of being a criminal. To accuse a prominent menber of society of being a criminal is especially dubious. Wikidemon (talk) 07:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ayers was a terrorist, now he's a professor. Abimael Guzmán was a professor, then he became a terrorist. The two careers are not mutually exclusive.Verklempt (talk) 21:13, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd tend to think WP should stick for the most part with phrasings that concentrate on action rather than labels. Interestingly, eg the Obama people mentioned something about Wm. Ayers' "crimes." Which, sure, does simplify things by shortening "armed revolution" (even that engaged in historically, eg John Brown's) into, by definition, "crimes" -- but still withoug apparently taking the next step and labeling its participant in Ayers' case as "a criminal"? (Nonetheless, a short graf in Wikipedia's coverage that discussed the actual "terror" label itself and mentioned how it was once UNCONTROVERSIALLY applied to the Weatherpeople yet now has become this way, would lend WP's treatment depth and hence could itself be labeled "encyclopedic".... )

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 12:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(to Wikidemon) Believe me calling you naive was about as charitable as I could think so, you're welcome. You are assuming that people who revel in death and destruction cannot be integrated and accepted in society. I give you the Palestinian Authority and the competing Hamas government in Gaza as two modern day counterexamples. The Irish acceptence (especially in the US) of IRA activities generally categorized as terrorism is yet another one. Your assumptions do not hold. Normally, one would drop them at that point. TMLutas (talk) 14:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps, instead of assuming stupidity you might want to engage your brain and actually give some thoughts to the basis of the statement. Just why, do you think, are people making a fuss of the point that Ayers is a well-known professor and an active figure in Chicago politics and society? Wikidemon (talk) 15:15, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know why Bill Ayers' acceptance in the 'respectable' side of Chicago politics pisses me off but I don't think I can make claims for other people, nor should I. To my mind Bill Ayers is not individual Bill Ayers but a member of the Ayers clan and that name means something in Chicago politics, old debts that are still being traded and collected. Not even being a terrorist, a sexual deviant promoting the end of monogamy, or a communist matters much in the clannish, corrupt politics of Chicago. Touching on the whole Obama thing, It's not that Obama is the 2nd coming of the Weathermen but rather that he was sponsored by the clan and he owes the clan and what *that* debt is going to mean for the presidency of one Barack Obama is as ignored as the more complicated mess that Bill Clinton was actually guilty of instead of the presidential hummers and lies under oath that actually dragged him down to being the 2nd President impeached in the history of the US.

And a note about stupidity (your word, not mine). I did not say that you're acting as a political hack or whore. I did not say that you were gaming the wikipedia system. I did not say that you're acting like a paid operative for the Democrat party nominee for President. I did not impugn your motives in any way shape or form. I said you were naive and that's better than the benefit of the doubt that I think you deserve. But it's what I'm giving you because that was the mood that I was in when I wrote that note and giving you that benefit of the doubt remains the better option for resolving this controversy. So, Mr. naive, please don't imagine that we couldn't continue this conversation on other terms or that I haven't thought things through. That you imagine that *I'm* mentally unengaged is the most naive thing you've said so far. TMLutas (talk) 22:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, no, we could not continue this conversation along those lines within the bounds of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA, and though I respect your take on Chicago politics I do not think there is much more to be gained in a discussion of whether or not I am naive. This entire discussion is a sideline but thanks, after considering the matter I agree that whether someone is a professor is of little bearing on whether he is or is not a terrorist; however, when accusations of terrorism are made it is a fair question to look at who they are being made against and why.Wikidemon (talk) 22:56, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your insinuation aside, people have been calling Ayers and the WU terrorists long before Obama came along. If it were up to me they’d all be swinging from the gallows and all of Ayer's daddy's money wouldn’t have bought his way out of it and then a life in "respectable" circles. CENSEI (talk) 23:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, Ayers is notable because he was a terrorists. Not because he is a professor. There are 10,000's of academics who do not have Wiki articles. CENSEI (talk) 14:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He is notable for his role within the Weathermen, a position which he obviously doesn't hold now. Thus it is even more inappropriate to refer to him as a terrorist in the present tense, when he is a respectable and upstanding member of society and a professor at a world-renowned university. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 15:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Care to demonstrate where in the article that is being done? A specific block of text, for example, that says "Ayers is a terrorist" instead of "Ayers was considered a terrorist by X, Y and Z" as its currently phrased? And when did UIC become "world renown"? CENSEI (talk) 17:06, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with putting it in the past tense, and his present position is prominently described in the article, including in the lead, and should be. In any event, his being a professor is irrelevant to this discussion: It's obvious that you could have been a terrorist and then become a professor. -- Noroton (talk) 18:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a natural progression of terrorists based on physical progression. Setting the bombs yourself is a young man's game. But once your hands are too unsteady to build one, your face too well known to set one, do you automatically stop being a terrorist? If you're a nostalgic who still works for the same ideology that you once set bombs to implement, what makes you stop being a terrorist? It's the repentence, I would say, that makes the difference. Others may disagree. TMLutas (talk) 14:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Potential points of agreement

There seems to be some agreement on some points here, but I'm not sure how much. Without trying to cut off any discussion, here are some areas where we might have a consensus:

We won't approve language in which Wikipedia endorses calling anyone or any group "terrorist." This is in agreement with WP:TERRORIST. I think that going into this, either no editors or very few editors were advocating we do this. WP:NPOV#Impartial tone demands we don't take sides.
Calling someone or something "terrorist" is a sensitive topic that demands to be treated with sensitivity. Language must be conservatively written, per WP:BLP.
As per WP:ASF and other parts of WP:NPOV policy, Wikipedia reports on the "opinions" of reliable sources, with "opinion" defined basically as "something that reliable sources disagree about". We attribute opinions, but we are authorized and even encouraged to mention them in order to give readers a description of the important points of a subject (From WP:WEIGHT: Wikipedia always aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject.).
There are no grounds for saying that calling Weatherman "terrorist" is a fringe or small minority view. There are enough reliable, reputable sources showing that calling Weatherman "terrorist" is, at least, a very significant view. (I have 40 sources so far, including general reference works that call it "terrorist", reference works about terrorism that call it terrorist, and many works by academics who call it that.)

Am I right that we're in basic agreement on these points and that we can move on to other points? There's still significant disagreement on other points. -- Noroton (talk) 19:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree on #1 and 2. As for #3 we are under no obligation to report opinions at all. The encyclopedia is a chronicle of the facts of the world, not its sentiments on whether people are good or bad. Neutrality / weight go to reliable sources' opinions as to matters of fact (e.g. is global warming caused by human activity?), not to matters of opinion (are people who support carbon emissions immoral?). I have not evaluated each of the 40 proposed sources in depth but among the ones I reviewed, few to none reliably report that the Weathermen were terrorists or that there is a widespread opinion that they were. For the most part they merely use the term themselves. For #3 it is hard to say, but being fringe or not is not the issue. Most newspapers avoid the term when they are in reporting mode, and use it if at all in opinion pieces, blogs, etc. It would be interesting to know if they have their own style guidelines on this.Wikidemon (talk) 19:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Direct quote from WP:BLP: "The article should document, in a non-partisan manner, what reliable third party sources have published about the subject and, in some circumstances, what the subject may have published about themselves."Verklempt (talk) 22:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree on all points, especially #4. As for #3, while we are not obliges to report "all" opinions, the opinion that the WU were a terrorist organization is overwhelming. For Wikidemon to state that the sources presented by Norton don’t indicate an overwhelming consensus of published material concluding that the WU were a terrorist organization is simply incomprehensible. CENSEI (talk) 21:00, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The sources presented do not support a conclusion that Weathermen were terrorists. That's easy to comprehend, I think. Wikidemon (talk) 08:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree on all points under the condition that reporting the majority opinion is not an excuse for steamrolling the minority opinion. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 17:54, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find #1 Orwellian and do not agree. Whether or not Ayers qualifies under WP:TERRORIST is a different matter but if you're going to excise the entire term, start with a RfD for Category:Terrorists and List of designated terrorist organizations before going on. There are times when the word is called for, even in an encyclopedia. Neutrality in tone and POV is good but terrorist is not only a pejorative term but also a descriptive one. If the shoe fits, the terrorist should wear it. #2,3,4 are fine. TMLutas (talk) 14:20, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Cites"

Excerpts from WP articles on other armed groups

Irgun#Views about Irgun. Views about the Irgun have been as disparate as any other political topic in Israeli society. Leaders within the mainstream Jewish Agency, Haganah, Histadrut, as well as British authorities, routinely condemned Irgun operations as terrorist and branded it an illegal organization as a result of the group's attacks on civilian targets.^{[citation needed]} However, privately at least the Haganah kept a dialogue with the dissident groups.
Provisional IRA#Categorisation. The IRA is a proscribed organisation in the United Kingdom under the Terrorism Act 2000.[5] In Northern Ireland the IRA are referred to as terrorists by the Ulster Unionist Party, the Democratic Unionist Party and the Progressive Unionist Party. Members of the IRA are tried in the Republic of Ireland in the Special Criminal Court. On the island of Ireland the largest political party to state that the IRA is not a terrorist organisation is Sinn Féin, currently the largest pro-Belfast Agreement political party in Northern Ireland (Sinn Féin is widely regarded as the political wing of the IRA, but the party insists that the two organisations are separate). The European Union has removed the IRA from their list of terrorist organisations. Peter Mandelson, a former Northern Ireland Secretary (a member of the British cabinet with responsibility for Northern Ireland) contrasted the post-1997 activities of the IRA with those of Al-Qaeda, describing the latter as "terrorists" and the former as "freedom fighters" (though Mandelson subsequently denied this sentiment [69]). IRA supporters preferred the labels freedom fighter, guerrilla and volunteer. $\sim$ Justmeherenow ( ) 20:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

3. John Brown (abolitionist)#Posthumous view of Brown's character. Undoubtedly, as the U.S. distanced itself from the cause of the former slave and wearied of "bayonet rule" in the South, its view of Brown declined in a manner parallel with the demise of Reconstruction. In the 1880s, Brown's detractors– some of them contemporaries now embarrassed by their fervent abolitionism– began to produce virulent exposés, particularly emphasizing the Pottawatomie killings of 1856. Other intellectuals found Brown to be a forerunner of some strains of anarchism, much as contemporary scholars have frequently compared him with contemporary terrorists.

4. African National Congress#Violent political resistance. The ANC was classified as a terrorist organisation by the South African government and by some Western countries including the United States of America and the United Kingdom.

5. Animal Liberation Front#Listing as a domestic terrorist group. The ALF was named as a terrorist threat by the United States Department of Homeland Security in January 2005.[98] In hearings held on May 18, 2005 before a Senate panel, officials of the FBI and ATF stated that "violent animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists now pose one of the most serious terrorism threats to the nation," adding that "of particular concern are the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF)."[99][100] In the UK in 1998, Paul Wilkinson, former director of the University of St Andrews Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, said that the ALF and its splinter groups were the "most serious domestic terrorist threat within the United Kingdom," and that the ALF is "very close" to killing someone.[101]

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 21:06, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

6. Army of God (AOG) is a right wing pro-life organization that sanctions the use of force to combat abortion in the United States. In 2001, at the height of the United States anthrax scare, more than 170 abortion clinics and doctors offices in 14 states received letters containing white powder and the message "You have been exposed to anthrax. We are going to kill all of you. Army of God, Virginia DARE Chapter."[1] HBO produced a documentary on the Army Of God entitled Soldiers In The Army Of God.[2] The anthrax incidents have resulted in their being mentioned among terrorist organizations at the FBI.[3]

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 21:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

7. The Boricua Popular/Peoples Army — or Ejército Popular Boricua in Spanish — is a clandestine organization based on the island of Puerto Rico, with cells throughout the United States. They campaign for and support the independence of Puerto Rico from what they characterize as United States colonial rule. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) describes the Boricua Popular Army as a terrorist organization.

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 00:49, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

8. Sons of Liberty. Well, it's true that an earlier version of the article did truthfully state, "Viewed from the British side the Sons of Liberty were considered a revolutionary terrorist organization, and they were derisively referred to as 'The Sons of Violence'"; however the current namby pampy version reads, "British authorities and their supporters known as Loyalists considered the Sons of Liberty as seditious rebels, referring to them as 'Sons of Violence' and 'Sons of Iniquity.'"

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 02:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Those aren't very close examples. The IRA is generally considered terrorist, and was on many official state lists. Hundreds of people were killed in factional fighting by the IRA and its counterparts. To be fair, this Irgun action[36] killed 91 people and they killed hundreds of people overall. It was also an organization devoted to achieving geopolitical change in the middle east through use of terror. Plus nearly everybody involved is dead now, so no BLP issue. And the issue not tied in with a Presidential election (though it is tied in to Israeli/Palestinian relations). John Brown is a far less well known, long dead character - if it became an issue people would object to calling him terrorist because the concept did not exist back then. ANC is another ball of wax for sure - the US labeled them terrorists at the time it was supporting apartheid. But a very different issue, relating to real regime change. Wikidemon (talk) 20:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Irgun and the IRA are nationalistic while the Weathermen were red. Yet all three offered armed resistance to imperialism (Brit or Yank) in hopes to educate citizenry and prepare them and the powers that be for envisioned political change. (It would be best to discipline ourselves to stop distracting from whatever subjects at hand by harping on the election. An encyclopedia must not slant coverage to support/counter propogandistic purposes.)

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 20:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ADDED LATER. Note that Jonah Raskin compares the Weather Central Committe ("The Weather Bureau") to the IRA:

[...T]he (Weather) Central Committee felt that it not only could but should direct “aboveground” political activity. Perhaps the model of an armed underground controlling legal protest worked for a time in Ireland with the Irish Republican Army, but it did not sit well in the USA in the 1970s. Young protesters tended to distrust leaders, especially when they were invisible, and by-and-large they did not appreciate the notion of an elite clandestine group telling them what to do. I saw the undergrounders on the West Coast, too, and spent time with Bernardine and Bill who befriended my parents, ex-Communist Party members. [ ... ¶ ...] For a time, I allowed myself to think that the Weather Underground would be the instrument to rejuvenate the American left, and to link our political shrieks and cries in the heart of the empire to the roar of revolution in the Third World. [ ... ¶ ...] I declined an invitation to join. I knew that I could never have made a bomb or planted one in a building, and I could not have given myself over entirely to an organization that made bombs and that also demanded and expected the kind of discipline and loyalty you'd find in a communist party. [ ... ¶ ...] One of the last communiqués in The Weather Eye defends the Symbionese Liberation Army [...].

$\sim$ Justmeherenow ( ) 23:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, the election point is quite relevant. If we wanted to avoid slanting coverage for propagandic purposes the proposal to plaster "terrorist" all over the encyclopedia in connection with the Weathermen would not be here. The primary reason why anyone is talking about this issue at all now is that a number of off-wiki partisans are trying to tie Obama to Ayers and Dohrn, and from there to terrorism. Avoiding slant means resisting attempts to turn Wikipedia into a broadcast for those fringe political tactics. I'm not the one who brought up the election - it's the people trying to insert terrorist into a lot of election-related articles. Not a day goes by that someone doesn't add "terrorist" to the Obama or Obama/Ayers article, or try to insert Obama's name into the Ayers or Weathermen articles. Probably several times a day, and several a day are getting blocked for this. This takes all forms, ranging from trolling, sockpuppetry, and vandalism, to equally confrontational but better-formed attempts. But it is clearly all triggered by the election. In response to the comment before, WU was not armed resistance, nor is "education" really what terrorism is about. Wikidemon (talk) 21:07, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Go to the Brown article. What's quoted is the section's lede. Afterward a score reliable opinion sources say Brown was a terrorist/proto-terrorist/terroristic. Let's everybody knock off U.S. elections rhetoric. The Weatherman article should be treated the same as any other armed group.

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 21:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidemon: "WU was not armed resistance, nor is 'education' really what terrorism is about."

Wasn't armed? Didn't "resist"? Never published screeds to educate? Don't blind yourself to neutral coverage the sources through worrying about the sharp parries and thrusts of partisanship.

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 22:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding ALF, that's another ball of wax too - the US government is calling a lot of things terrorist these days. It's quite dubious, and eco-terrorism is quite a different subject. But it does clearly fit into the camp of an official designation. None of these are very close examples, and if you find one and it's covered that way here, we'll probably have a BLP violation that should also be revisited.Wikidemon (talk) 21:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopedic treatment of armed groups should be done without regard to contributors' political leanings. I'm an ardent Obama suporter in real life. Still, when I'm confronted with the question, "Individual X was listed by the FBI as wanted for crimes allegedly comitted as a member of an armed resistance group, making X WELLKNOWN. Does so-called "BLP" apply?" -- I see that "BLP" prohibitions don't apply. The Academy of Plato had etched above its entrance "Let no one ignorant of mathematics enter here." If I were Jimbo the Great (See an image of the sprawling Forbidden City complex at St. Petersburg, Florida here.), I'd set up a pass-fail editing admissions test. How the test was scored would be a deep secret. I'd offhandedly have the answer to the above question mentioned within some introductory matter to the test, then at the very end of the test, a question would be asked about it and anybody who'd kept that one answer in hi/r head that long would pass!

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 22:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

3rtiary "takes" on Weatherfolk

Brittanica. Weathermen: American organization: "... By 1969 [...S.D.S.] had split into several factions, the most notorious of which was the 'Weathermen,' or 'Weather Underground,' which employed terrorist tactics in its activities."
Encarta. Weathermen or Weather Underground, revolutionary group organized in the United States in 1969. Numbering only a few hundred young men and women, the Weathermen sought to overthrow the U.S. government. They preached and practiced a doctrine of armed struggle. [...] The Weatherman launched a campaign of violence to promote world Communism. In October 1969, they roared down Chicago streets, breaking windows, attacking police, and vandalizing cars. In these “Days of Rage” and subsequent actions, the Weathermen tried to “bring the [Vietnam] war home” to the streets of America. In March 1970 three Weathermen died when they accidentally detonated a bomb that was believed to be meant for Columbia University in New York City. The Weathermen eventually claimed responsibility for setting off about 20 bombs, including a small one in the United States Capitol.
The Weathermen, who changed their name to the nonsexist Weather Underground, conducted terrorist activities through much of the 1970s. They attracted publicity but failed to advance their goal of a revolution. Most Americans rejected their ideas and were repulsed by their violent activities. Their actions contributed to the discrediting of left-wing political alternatives in the United States. By the late 1970s many of the members of the Weather Underground had given up the revolutionary struggle and turned themselves in to authorities. Many were jailed for their violent crimes. $\sim$ Justmeherenow ( ) 23:21, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting thing about that extremely short Encarta article -- look in the upper lefthand corner of the page and you find a link to "American terrorism". Click on the link and the Encarta page you get to lists Weatherman as a terrorist group. All professional reference works like these can't be used for sources because they're "tertiary" (see WP:PSTS, a part of WP:OR, about that), but they show how professionally written reference works approach the subject. Where exactly is the controversy over calling this group "terrorist", beyond Wikipedia? -- Noroton (talk) 23:29, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

3. Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Ed., 2001. terrorism: "Since the late 20th cent. acts of terrorism have been associated with the Italian Red Brigades, the Irish Republican Army, the Palestine Liberation Organization, Peru’s Shining Path, Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Weathermen and some members of U.S. “militia” organizations, among many groups. Religiously inspired terrrorism has also occurred, such as that of extremist Christian opponents of abortion in the United States; of extremist Muslims associated with Hamas, Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, and other organizations; of extremist Sikhs in India; and of Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo, who released nerve gas in Tokyo’s subway system (1995)."

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 23:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Justmeherenow, I'm impressed. -- Noroton (talk) 23:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ayers' primary take against WUO's designation as terrorist (while he comments on 2ndary usages)

While researching today the Weatherfolk graphic emblem, I've notice this from what Ayers blogged in 2006:

The Weather Underground, born[...]from the ashes of a terrible explosion that killed three of our leaders[...]on March 6, 1970[...was o]riginally a militant formation inside Students for a Democratic Society[...]. By the mid-1970’s[...]the organization had effectively flamed out.[...] Living through that time, the aggression, the assassinations, the terrorist war raging on and on in our names, it seemed as if we were experiencing terminally cataclysmic events and permanent war. Looking back, of course, we can see that[...]the war lasted only a decade, and then it was done. Three million people were needlessly killed. But in those days, with the outcome far from certain, we had to choose our actions[...].

We issued our first communiqué[...]in May 1970.[...]Within months we had established a pattern of action—retaliation for what we believed were attacks on the Black struggle, and offensives against the war machine. Our signature was a warning call[...]to clear a specific area, and then letters of explanation[...]. Each letter had a logo hand-drawn across the page—our trademark thick and colorful rainbow with a slash of angry lightning cutting through it. New morning, it signified, changing weather. Oddly, as intense as it all looks and sounds, it was in our minds then cautious and responsible, a huge de-escalation from the apocalyptic plans of just months earlier.

This was a time when I, along with most of my closest friends, were referred to again and again as “home-grown American terrorists.” That’s what Time magazine called us in 1970, and the New York Times, too, and that was the word hurled in my direction from the halls of Congress. Terrorist.[...] I knew, of course, that there were several deeply disturbing aspects to our history, foremost the question of violence[...]. We who survived went on to carry out a few highly visible anti-government bombings—acts that raise questions each generation will ask and answer differently. While the U.S. was killing two thousand people a day, planting a bomb in a pipe in the Pentagon was our high-pitched wail against the war’s sickness[...]. Is the concept—terrorism—consistent and universal, does it apply to all parties engaged in certain actions, or does it change over time? Which terrorist had a 100,000 British pound reward on his head in the 1930’s? When did he become a “freedom fighter”, his image rehabilitated? How many Israeli Prime Ministers were designated “terrorist” by the British government at some point in their political careers? Which group of foreign visitors to the White House in 1985 were hailed by Ronald Reagan as the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers, “freedom fighters” against the “Evil Empire”?What did George W. Bush call these same men?[...].

As an aside, note that Ayers says that in the spring of 1970, when the Weatherfolk had begun to issue warning calls, that this was a "huge de-escalation" from the group's previous "apocalyptic plans of just months eariler"; and note that Brian V. McDonnell died on February 16th of 1970. $\sim$ Justmeherenow ( ) 18:33, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The freedom fighters of the 1985 meeting were of Afghanistan, mujahadeen fighting against what was an illegitimate Soviet invasion and installation of a Soviet puppet regime. There is a set of rules regarding legitimate and illegitimate use of force. They spring out of the bloody mess of the 30 Years War and the Peace of Westphalia that ended it. Currently, we live under that same system and it's that system that is under attack in several different ways, most visibly these days by Al Queda that is trying to create enough violations of the system that it collapses, throwing the West back into its pre-Westphalian position (ie not top dog civilizationally). Westphalian politics is somewhat strange to modern eyes because we can hardly imagine a world without it and do not have a healthy caution of what would happen next. From the quote, it's pretty clear that Ayers doesn't believe in the system and we should be wary of adopting a POV regarding the question. TMLutas (talk) 14:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What Noroton's list does or does not demonstrate

Sources you can bring to the table are key in assessing whether or not policies like WP:BLP or WP:NPOV are violated (though not the only considerations). I think the sources I found and posted in my statement above demonstrate the following:

1. There are very prominent sources that call the group "terrorist".
- General reference works call it "terrorist" -- demonstrating that authoritative sources that cover only the most important summaries of a topic consider the idea that the group was "terrorist" to be an important element, and therefore, so should this general reference work, which has a capacity for coverage far in excess of any of these. Remember: WP:PILLAR, first pillar, first line: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs. The general reference works include:
  - The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: in 32 Volumes by Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 1998, p 331 (quote on Google Books search page here: "... into several factions, the most notorious of which was the "Weathermen," or "Weather Underground," which employed terrorist tactics in its activities.")
  - Encarta Book Of Quotations
  - Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable, 2002, p 741 ("Weathermen: a terrorist group");
- Specialized reference works call it "terrorist", demonstrating that they consider that aspect an important feature of the group and also that they consider the group important enough to mention :
  - Encyclopedia of Terrorism has an article on Dohrn; and an article on Weatherman
  - Youth Activism: An International Encyclopedia (17b)
  - Violence in America: An Encyclopedia
  - The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s
- American history textbooks (high-school level, I think, but perhaps college level), which tend to be careful in tone and only mention prominent facts:
  - Nation of Nations: A Narrative History of the American Republic, by James West Davidson
  - A History of the United States by Philip Jenkins
- Books about terrorism mention the group. I won't bother to try to list all of them (too many) but note those that state the Weatherman was not just terrorist, but the most prominent terrorist group in its era:
  - "A number of terrorist groups and cells grew out of this environment. Although the most prominent example was the Weatherman group [...]" -- Martin, Gus, Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues
  - "Within the political youth movement of the late sixties (outside of Latin America), the 'Weathermen' were the first group to reach the front page because of terrorist activities," wrote Klaus Mehnert in his 1977 book, "Twilight of the Young, The Radical Movements of the 1960s and Their Legacy". --- Mehnert, Klaus, "Twilight of the Young, The Radical Movements of the 1960s and Their Legacy"
  - An Encyclopaedic Survey of Global Terrorism in the 21st Century, by R.K. Pruthi, 2003, p 182 ("The best publicized domestic terrorist organization of the revolutionary left has been the Weatherman faction of Students for Democratic Society ")
  - The Terrorist Trap by Jeffrey David Simon p 96 ("the most active American terrorist group at the end of the 1960s")
  - "The most notorious Weatherman members were John Jacobs, Mark Rudd, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn [...]" --- Burns, Vincent, and Kate Dempsey Peterson, James K. Kallstrom, Terrorism: A Documentary and Reference Guide,
2. Many books that mention the Weatherman group in passing have described it as "terrorist" in their short descriptions, demonstrating that authors on topics other than terrorism view this aspect as a prominent feature of the group (too numerous to mention, simply go down the list). I didn't list them, but I found several books on music/popular culture/Bob Dylan that said in passing that this group took a line from a Dylan song to name itself and this is a "terrorist" group. This shows just how widespread and noncontroversial it has been to call this group "terrorist" -- an important point. The idea that it's controversial to call the group "terrorist" may be true in Wikipedia talk space, but out in the wider world it isn't. (From WP:WEIGHT: To determine proper weight, consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors.)
3. This is shown as much by the information in their Wikipedia articles as by information in my statement, but nevertheless: It is not a "smear" to call Dohrn or Ayers a "former terrorist". They were among the most authoritative (powerful, influential, controlling, the public face of it, the leaders of it) people in that organization (I'm happy to find more sources for that if it's disputed, but see the WP articles), they were among the founders, they were members of the governing committee and they are reported to have engaged in actions and made statements that are consistent with being a terrorist. Calling them "terrorist" is an "opinion" as WP:NPOV defines it and is one based on conclusions from certain facts. Whether or not to say that others call them "terrorist" in their Wikipedia articles is something that should be argued on other grounds than that it is a baseless charge. I could import information from their articles to show this, but I don't think I need to make this page any longer.
4. Calling Weatherman "terrorist" is not primarily a 2008 campaign tactic. Only one of the 40 works I cited was published as late as 2007. Time to put this charge to rest.

-- Noroton (talk) 20:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. 1 and 2 have some merit, but they don't necessarily address weight concerns, and we have to be careful about whether these sources are calling the WU terrorist, merely using the term to refer to them, or voicing opinions or judgments about the group. #3 is a bit of an extreme position, and I doubt there will be much support for referring to living people as terrorists in their own articles, when they themselves deny the claim. Particularly with the BLP policy. I will consider referring to the matter in the WU article only if it is kept out of these other articles, and it is explicitly understood that we are not using the WU article to support terrorism verbiage in other articles involving Ayers, Dohrn, Obama, or the election. #4 is clearly untrue - it is obviously all about the current election. Finding 40 pre-election sources does not prove anything. The events happened 40 years ago and of course they were covered at the time and in the interim. This only became an issue because of the election, and the vast majority of off-Wiki material about Ayers and terrorism relates to the political tactic used against Obama. Wikidemon (talk) 20:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think your charge is accurate. I have been advocating including the terrorism scholarship into the WU article for a long time, since before the current campaign began. I'm also voting for Obama. These two issues are not and should not be criteria for any editing decisions.Verklempt (talk) 21:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the talk page for Weatherman shows this discussion going back years. Wikidemo, 1 & 2 go directly to WP:WEIGHT -- when general reference works mention it in their necessarily compressed coverage, they consider "terrorist" an important feature, and that supports our including it; the more specialized the work, the more it is authoritative and useful for citations in the articles. As to #3, we refer to living people as terrorists in Wikipedia all the time, and it is easily within BLP policy as Verklempt notes below: What matters is whether there is good sourcing for it or not. That's the BLP standard with WP:WELLKNOWN people like Ayers and Dohrn. As to #4, the point was that if a fact is picked up as a campaign tactic, it doesn't prevent Wikipedia from using that fact -- the fact being that Weatherman, Ayers and Dohrn have been called "terrorist" by reliable sources, have been criticized for certain actions and have defended themselves. The fact that they're professors now, figures in Chicago politics, have associated with Obama and that that has been controversial (enough to be worth its own Wikipedia article -- confirmed at AfD), means that not stating that they have been called "terrorists" and forbidding mention of it would leave holes in those articles. They are controversial precisely because they are considered former terrorists by so many, and if that were not the case, there would be no controversy. Let us simply report, consistent with WP policy, what reliable sources have said. -- Noroton (talk) 23:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Being a terrorist is not a question of fact. It is the application of a judgmental label. I don't see that WELLKNOWN applies to this kind of decision. When something becomes a partisan talking point ("Obama is friends with unrepentant terrorists") we have to be careful not to endorse that. We do not have an article on an association between Obama and Ayers. We have an article about the the political controversy that arose when anti-Obama partisans tried to link the two. The controversy does not arise because Ayers was a terrorist; it arose because people who wanted to defeat Obama in an election trumpeted that Ayers was a terrorist and that Obama and Ayers supposedly were friends.Wikidemon (talk) 07:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Being a terrorist is not a question of fact. It is the application of a judgmental label. This distinction is irrelevant as to whether or not the information can go into an article. Under the WP:ASF section of WP:NPOV, disputed information is to be treated as "opinion" and is still acceptable in articles. You would need other grounds to call it a policy or guideline violation. When something becomes a partisan talking point [...] we have to be creful not to endorse that. Including information in an article from multiple reliable sources is not endorsing that information, as WP:NPOV clearly states. We are clearly allowed to report matters that are disputed when we cite reliable sources. I know of no policy or guideline that prevents inclusion of reliably sourced information relevant to the notability of a subject of an article. If you can find one, please cite it specifically, perhaps below, where I've asked you three specific questions about BLP policy and whether there is something in it that prevents our adding the fact that these subjects have been described as "terrorist". Provide specifics, please. -- Noroton (talk) 17:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a huge difference between questions of fact and questions of disparagement. ASF concerns opinions about what the facts are - not the facts about opinions. That some people deride Ayers as a terrorist is not disputed information. It is very specific information of a sort that is not encyclopedic because it is mere epithet. The policies and guidelines at play are fairly fundamental: WP:BLP, WP:RS, WP:RS, WP:NPOV, WP:WEIGHT, WP:TERRORISM, WP:COATRACK. Wikidemon (talk) 17:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What WP:BLP actually says

Direct quote from WP:BLP: "The article should document, in a non-partisan manner, what reliable third party sources have published about the subject and, in some circumstances, what the subject may have published about themselves."

Note that the WU is routinely labeled as "terrorist" in scholarly publications. If professional scholars publishing in peer-reviewed venues think that this term has validity, then it should be included, per BLP.

Note also that BLP privileges "reliable third party sources" over and above what the subjects themselves say.

Note once again that some WU members have themselves used the word "terrorist" to describe their actions.

It is clear that Noroton's proposal does not violate BLP at all, per the quote from BLP above.Verklempt (talk) 22:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are other parts of WP:BLP that would be violated. For example:

Editors must take particular care adding biographical material about a living person to any Wikipedia page. Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid paper; it is not our job to be sensationalist.
Beware of claims that rely on guilt by association. Editors should also be on the lookout for biased or malicious content about living persons. (applies to Obama-related articles in particular)

Certain editors are campaigning to apply the term "terrorist" to articles (mostly Obama-related) that mention WU members. I think one must ask oneself why?. Why Obama-related articles in particular? Why now? -- Scjessey (talk) 23:46, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why? I said up near the top of the discussion section that the Obama-Ayers controversy got me interested in this. As I've said, that's neither good nor bad -- what interests us will interest us. If you look at the history of the Weatherman, Ayers and Dohrn articles, you'll see my interest goes beyond the controversy. I certainly don't need to defend the fact that I want better articles, and what I've argued here is for better articles. That's more important to me than promoting or detracting from a particular candidate. I'd be happiest with an Obama-Ayers controversy article that gives good coverage of all the important angles of that controversy, including the ones that put Obama in a good light. I and others have nothing to be ashamed of about that. If I wanted to bias an article either for or against a particular candidate, I'd have something to be ashamed of. Let's put the relevant information in each article in the most neutral way possible. Why now? Funny you should ask that. I just took a look at Talk:Weatherman (organization)#Terrorists or guerrillas. Check the timestamps at the beginning of that discussion: 2005. Noroton (talk) 23:57, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You say "would be violated". Not necessarily. I don't know how you can justify that "would". I take it the "guilt by association" point applies to the Obama-Ayers controversy article and no other. I have an answer for that, but I think it's better right now to concentrate on the fundamental point that "terrorist" has been applied as a fair description of the subjects of the three other articles, since the "Controversy" article has many other considerations. I'm worried that this will all get so complicated and long that no one will be left discussing anything on this page. The "tabloid" point above simply doesn't apply to the Britannica and Encarta encyclopedic articles, so if they mention it in those short articles, it doesn't seem "sensational" to mention it here. -- Noroton (talk) 00:22, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The first Wikipedia article I "created," about a year ago, was on proto-terrorist Isaac C. Haight. (P/s, my dad's cousin was regional historian Juanita Brooks, who wrote in '61 the seminal work on the massacre this Utah Territorial Militia officer (Haight) sanctioned. Will Bagley, coincidentally also related to Brooks, published another history on it in 2002. And just this year Oxford University Press published the event's most comprehensive treatment yet!) Let's see. In February I did the image/infobox at Tulsa race riot, which had involved this time participation by Oklahoma militia and citizenry.

Anyway, since I like politics -- and even remember when the Weathermen were all over the news; it seems that portions of their commuiques would be quoted on CBS, ABC, and NBC evening news reports after they'd bombed the Capitol, Pentagon or the like; and since most members of my family of origin tend toward the political and cultural left... And lefter. (Even myself)... Well, I'm just quite fascinated by "the Weathermen" (as they were called in the news back then). And I'm not alone, there's been just a lot of ink spilled on the group.

How about you, Scjessey: what piques your interest?

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 01:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised we're even talking about this. If BLP means anything, it means we can't accuse people of being terrorists in their own bio, not when they've never been convicted of the crime and they plausibly deny the label. Can anyone with a straight face think that Wikipedia should start calling people terrorists in this way? Wikidemon (talk) 07:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How can you say that, Wikidemon? It depends on the circumstances. See the opening lines of the Osama Bin Laden article, about someone who also has not been convicted:

Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin `Awaḍ bin Lādin (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎; born March 10, 1957),[1] most often identified as Osama bin Laden or Usama bin Laden, is the founder of the jihadist organization Al-Qaeda.[2] He has been designated a terrorist by scholars, journalists, analysts and law enforcement agencies.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] In conjunction with several other Islamic militant leaders, bin Laden issued two fatwa in 1996 and then again in 1998 that Muslims should force the United States and its allies to withdraw their military forces from the Arabian peninsula, by attacking American military and civilian targets.[13][14]

He has been indicted in United States federal court for his alleged involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, and is on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

Although bin Laden has not been indicted[15] for the September 11, 2001 attacks, he has been reported to have orally claimed responsibility for them, in a conservative-leaning English language newspaper[16] and in videos released to the public.[17] The attacks involved the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 11, and American Airlines Flight 77; the subsequent destruction of those planes and the World Trade Center in New York City, New York; severe damage to The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia;[18] and the deaths of 2,974 people.[19]

What exactly is the real difference? That charges had to be dropped because Supreme Court rulings forced the case to close? It's been said that with the Patriot Act now in place, those wiretaps would have been legal today, which seems plausible to me. Please tell us why Ayers and Dohrn should be treated one oway and Bin Laden another when each were leaders of what many reliable sources have called terrorist organizations. Note that this article language stands despite WP:BLP, probably because it meets WP:WELLKNOWN criteria. Please explain how BLP policy is different for Ayers, Dohrn and Weatherman. -- Noroton (talk) 14:22, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comparing Ayers to Bin Laden is farfetched and pretty close to a Godwin's Law argument. Bin Laden is on nearly every government's list of terrorists and admitted to personal involvement in the greatest terrorist incident in the history of the world for classic terrorist aims of affecting geopolitics in the mideast. BLP policy is the same for everyone. WELLKNOWN does not apply to calling Ayers a terrorist. It covers allegations or incidents. The terrorist label for someone not on a terrorist list is not either - it is a judgment. Further, we do not have reliable sourcing for saying the Weatherman is a terrorist organization. The comment about the circumstances of the trial is a red herring. What might have happened is not relevant. There was no trial and Ayers was not convicted. Moreover, if there had been a trial and if had been convicted, it would be a conviction for things that are already well-documented - it would not change the question. Wikidemon (talk) 16:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Terrorism" is an allegation based on the facts that he was one of the top leaders of a terrorist organization. The U.S. government called it a terrorist group. Ayers' wife, Bernardine Dohrn, has her picture on the FBI Web page talking about the terrorist Weatherman group of which she was the top leader. (1) So what's the BLP problem? It doesn't matter one whit that Bin Ladin is on more than one government's list of terrorists -- both Dohrn and Ayers were wanted by the FBI. And multiple, multiple, multiple reliable sources consider them to have been leaders of a terrorist group -- something which so many sources state baldly and which very few sources can be found to disagree with that it doesn't even seem to be much of a controversy. BLP policy is the same for everyone. (2) Tell me where in BLP policy it says that when a multitude of reliable sources call a group terrorist it somehow becomes a violation of the policy, and tell me where in BLP policy we can't say that someone is called a leader of a terrorist group by reliable sources. (3) Tell me where in BLP policy we can't say, after showing these facts to readers, that other reliable sources say this person was a terrorist. These are serious questions, not rhetorical ones. Please answer them. I've numbered my requests to make it easier. We seem to have a fundamental disagreement here, and we should discuss it with specifics. -- Noroton (talk) 16:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The BLP problem is in accusing a living individual of terrorism, turning them into an unwilling pawn of election-year politics. Ayers is in a position of not inconsiderable respect in society so calling him a terrorist is rather inflammatory - and is indeed being done primarily to inflame passions in a US presidential election. It throws the "do no harm" and reliable sourcing requirements out the window, not to mention NPOV. The differences between Bin Laden and an American education expert who was part of a radical 60s youth movement, are too numerous to count, and it is hard to take seriously a comparison. The official designation is all-important, something that is expressed in WP:TERRORISM. The word is slippery and imprecise, but today we have government lists so we can, objectively, say that someone is on the lists or not. In the Weathermen's time there were no lists, so any designation we make today is a judgment in hindsight made as to the group's degree of perceived moral corruption. Most sources do not accuse the Weathermen of terrorism; a few do - mostly in the context of opposing Obama's presidential campaign. There is little to no reliable sourcing that Ayers is a terrorist and, again, it is not a question of fact. Nobody here is proposing having Wikipedia actually say Ayers is a terrorist. They just want Wikipedia to report that the invective has been hurled. Disparagement is not an encyclopedic subject.

At this point we have laid out the arguments and it is getting repetitious. Others have sounded in. We should see who else participates in the discussion. Wikidemon (talk) 17:20, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The key phrase in the Bin Laden article is "has been called" not "is" and then cites sources. Also, are there any sources that deny that Bin Laden is a terrorist? No. Are there several reliable sources that deny the WU's activities were terrorism? Yes. Key difference there. Wikipedia cannot go around accusing living people of terrorism. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 18:06, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If we describe what others are saying, for and against, we aren't going around accusing anyone of anything. -- Noroton (talk) 19:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidemon, please try to focus. You called this RfC to discuss the WU article. The Ayers and Dohrn articles are irrelevant. You are just attempting to sway the uninformed passers-by with this BLP distraction.Verklempt (talk)

The subject of this RfC is if, how, and where, the subject of terrorism will be discussed in connection with the Weathermen, in the Weathermen, Ayers, Dohrn, Obama-Ayers, and Obama/campaign articles. BLP is one of the primary policies at play in calling living people terrorists.Wikidemon (talk) 02:08, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To excessively euphamize terrorism creates problems with WP:NPOV. One should be more sensitive in the case of a living person. This does not mean that one should lie or soften things down to the point that a drive by reader comes away with a false impression of what the WUO, Ayers, and Dohrn were about. Can we only be honest about the dead? TMLutas (talk) 14:46, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Judging consensus on Dohrn, Ayers, Obama, Obama-Ayers

At this point we seem to have no consensus for, and considerable opposition, to adding material describing the Weathermen as terrorists in any BLP article or other article beyond the main Weather Underground article. We should let the discussion proceed for a few more days before assessing consensus, but if anyone feels that accusations of terrorism should or should not be mentioned in these other articles please sound in to express that opinion.Wikidemon (talk) 17:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The conclusion by contributors that I've heard over and over again in these discussions is that WP shouldn't label itself the WUO terrorist, however it can and should include the encyclopedic information that the group was considered this by various sources, with eg Ayers' take that they shouldn't be termed terrorists given encyclopedic mention, too. Per Ayers' own blog, these sources considering the group terrorist include "Time magazine...in 1970, and the New York Times, too, and [it was]...hurled in my direction from the halls of Congress." And, I'll add, all on-line encyclopedias, the FBI, and many current opinion makers. What surprises me about Wikidemon's rhetoric is how he ignores the distinction between WP's assigning the term and WP's mention of sources' that do so or do not do so; instead Wikidemon just says WP shouldn't be "describing the Weatherpeople as terrorists." Such tiptoed parsing reveals less an impartial arbiter, independently looking at guidelines and facts in making editorial decisions, than it does somebody envisioning hi/rself a hired gun grasping whatever straw necessary to passionate advocate for a pre-determined editorial point of view.

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 19:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rereading WD's proposal I see he's saying that the discussion of the label should occur only in the Weatherfolk article. I'm not averse to that.

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 19:37, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. This section is an attempt to focus the discussion on where, not how, the material might be mentioned. My hope is that we can get various people to sound in for a few days on what they think. Sooner or later the ruber hits the road and we have to decide whether there is a consensus to include terrorism label info in all the articles, some, or none. It's best if we can be simple in stating our opinions here instead of arguing the same points as other sections or trying to proclaim consensus just yet.Wikidemon (talk) 19:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What we should start doing is looking at specific language, starting with the Weatherman article, and incorporating what many participants in this discussion have said so far. -- Noroton (talk) 20:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are free to ask that question too, and we have sections open for that. I personally cannot reach a conclusion about what to say in the Weatherman article if anything, absent an understanding of where else it might be said. Both questions will take at least a few more days to gain some idea of consensus - this RfC is less than 48 hours old has been open so far only over a weekend. Wikidemon (talk) 20:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am opposed strongly to use the terrorist description on the BLPs of Dohrn and Ayers. It is imperative that it is not used on the Obama-Ayers controversy article as that is the number one way to transmit guilt by association. I am willing to discuss ways to include it on the WU article, but I am opposed to giving it the undue weight of its own section. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 20:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would leave 'terrorist' discussions to the Terrorism article. As you can see, it includes a very long discussion of all this. Why repeat that same discussion in every group which could possibly be considered a terrorist group? It's totally unnecessary. Flatterworld (talk) 18:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In general, I agree that the "terrorism" thing should be excluded from individual bios. (This doesn't depend on WP:BLP. It applies to bios of people who've died, as well.) The only possible exception that occurs to me is Ayers's explanation for his view that they weren't terrorists. The quotation can appropriately be considered for inclusion in the Bill Ayers article because it sheds light on the thinking of the bio subject. That should not, however, become a coatrack for hanging the whole terrorism debate. Something like: "The Weather Underground has often been accused of practicing terrorism. In response, Ayers wrote...." The first sentence doesn't need a citation if the citations are in the linked article. I should note that I'm not saying definitely "include it". Ayers has written a lot and our article can't quote everything. I'd lean toward saying that his discussion of terrorism is interesting enough to make the cut. For purposes of this RfC, though, I'd say only that it could be considered an exception to Wikidemon's proposed generalization. JamesMLane t c 11:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Erik the Red's proposed wording

Okay, here's what I propose: a sentence in the lead that states, "During their active time, the Weather Underground was uncontroversially referred to as a terrorist by the FBI and other contemporary sources (sources for terrorist classification here). However, there is current opposition, including by one of the former leaders of the WU, Bill Ayers, to the classification of the activities of the Weathermen as terrorism. (sources against terrorist classification here)."

Feel free to comment, improve, execute me, etc. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 01:11, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Barring something coming up in the specific sourcing TBD later, not bad, not bad at all. TMLutas (talk) 14:48, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Something like this is fine for the body but I don't think we should put it in the lead - there's no showing that their being called terrorists at the time is relevant to their notability. If we say that sources at the time called them terrorist we should admit that most did not. Could you highlight the source for saying the FBI and others referred to them at the time as terrorists at the time, or that "opposition" is only current? Wikidemon (talk) 15:24, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Say I've tatted my back not with a rainbow and lightening bolt as did some young Weather"men" but with the iconography of anti-government survivalist groups. Instead of having firebombed the house of a New York State Supreme Court justice in the '70s in solidarity with Black militants, I start a campaign beginning with firebombing the house of the State District Judge who'd taken away for awhile some four-hundred odd children from fundamentalist Mormon families last April in Texas. The media reports, without editorializing, that I've been listed by the FBI as a terrorist -- just as they'd done back then with the Weatherfolk. Although my philosophical fellow traveler Bo Gritz is appalled that I've besmirched the movement, I become a hero to many anyway. Decades in the future, I've come to adopt only peaceful advocacy, yet never disavow my violent past.

It has to do with Words. As it is now, so it was then: according to general knowledge encyclopedias, the media, the governmnent, the dictionary, "bomb-hurling revolutionary" equals "member of the underground resistance" equals "terrorist." Remember, if you were of news-viewing age then, Squeaky Fromme? Soon after she tried to "off" Ford, an issue of Time said,

Law-enforcement officials try to draw a careful distinction between the couple of hundred hardcore, bomb-hurling revolutionaries and the above-ground activists, who number in the thousands. The Bay Area has uncounted tiny study groups that regularly meet to debate the application of Communist theories to American society. There also are several radical communes, among them the Revolutionary Union and the October League, that seek to organize leftist groups within labor unions. Still other Bay Area activists work in behalf of prison reform, improved veterans' benefits, black rights and increased help for the poor; indeed, new groups and new causes spring up as fast as a poster can be pasted to a utility pole. ¶ Within this array of leftist activity hide the underground revolutionaries. They strike and burrow underground again in such places as the working-class neighborhoods of Los Angeles and the Mission District in San Francisco or the squalid slums of East Oakland and Sacramento. In addition, many terrorists are believed to be hiding among the students and transient street people of Berkeley's South Campus section. Furtive meetings between the underground and aboveground activists undoubtedly take place in the area's many coffeehouses, bars and parking lots. Other good meeting places are the parks known to students as People's Park and Ho Chi Minh Park. ¶ Through contacts like these, the revolutionaries win new recruits.

I've read scores of news articles now from the '70s about the Weatherfolk and so many of them use the term. Really. Trust me on this. And these articles' aren't shaded as partisan or opinion pieces but just as straight news. Wikidemon, I'll admit, when I'd first read this statement of yours: "If we say that sources at the time called them terrorist we should admit that most did not" -- I jumped to the conclusion you were engaging in lawyer-like "tricks" of phraseology (some fancy-pantsed advocate who'd, say, list a slew of articles that call the Panthers "militant," but not "revolutionary" and another slew of articles that would call the Panthers "revolutionary" but not "militant" and try to laughably argue that this alleged discrepancy indicated that one or the other of the designations should be thought controversial because of this evidence!(?)) But I've decided that you must not just be playing rhetorical games but are actually sincere in the belief that in the '70s there was controversy about whether bombers should be referred to off-hand as terrorists. Your editorial POV in this, nonetheless, I believe is in the minority (but I guess we'll find out after this RfC).

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 18:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not laughable at all. I'm not sure where that analogy is going, but the FBI did not list the weathermen as a terrorist organization so there is no question of anyone covering that. If you want to claim it was general knowledge, then or now, that the Weathermen were terrorists you have to show that. I don't see the sourcing and I doubt that's true. If we are going to include it at all we should avoid any summary editorializing about it being "uncontroversial" and stick with the facts. Change "uncontroversial" to some other word that carries an accurate implication as to frequency (e.g. "sometimes", "often", etc) and it's within the bounds of reason. You didn't address the question about timing - we should be accurate as to the timing of FBI use of the word, and as to the timing of people rejecting/opposing the word (and if we cannot establish timing we should simply not comment on timing). As to placement, the lead is only supposed to include material that is also in the body of the article. This makes a lot more sense for the body than the lead but I'll reserve judgment on weight and placement matters until we get a sense of if and how this relates to the other related articles.Wikidemon (talk) 18:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again, we are not linguists or word usage experts - to begin inferring bigger things from word usage choices made by the sources is original research.

The above discussion is exactly why we should avoid the use of 'terrorist' except in the Terrorism article. Flatterworld (talk) 18:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re Wikidemon: Tweaking the issue of timing and of how common the term was used is fine. And, to be honest, folks, I don't care if Weather are called terrorists, anti-imperialist revolutionary fighters, guerrillas, leftist paramilitary, bomb-tossing Leninist, violent radical or what; however, the a euphemistically ambiguous designation such as merely "radical" would be just plain weak. Re Flatterworld: Let's just at least agree with each other that you belief that each article listed here should not properly cover the fact that these organizations' have been termed terrorist is an editorial POV that's in the minority.

\sim

Justmeherenow ( ) 19:32, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been fine with every word other than terrorist (and communist, which is partly true but misses the point) - violent, militant, radical, leftist, etc. I tend to agree that radical is too weak because it suggests a place on the scale of opinion but it leaves out the real issue, which is their having committed violent actions. Wikidemon (talk) 19:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But contemporaries referred to the WU as terrorists, not militants/radicals/leftists/etc. The article needs to make that clear. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 23:58, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure about that? I've been looking through a lot of news articles and "radical" seems to be the most common identification. Most news reports during their existence used the term one way or another when they felt a need to designate them as something, e.g. radicals, radical student group, radical organization, etc. That seems to run 2-3 to 1 over terrorists during the group's 1969-1977 existence, about 2-1 from 1978 to 2007, and roughly even now. "Militant" and "violent" have been a distant third and fourth, respectively. Wikidemon (talk) 00:40, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

^ No byline, UPI wire story, "Weathermen Got Name From Song: Groups Latest Designation Is Weather Underground", as published in The New York Times, January 30, 1975; "On Jan. 19, 1971, Bernardine Dohrn, a leading Weatherperson who has never been caught, issued a statement from hiding suggesting that the group was considering tactics other than bombing and terrorism.""[3]

[1] No byline, UPI wire story, "Weathermen Got Name From Song: Groups Latest Designation Is Weather Underground", as published in The New York Times, January 30, 1975; "On Jan. 19, 1971, Bernardine Dohrn, a leading Weatherperson who has never been caught, issued a statement from hiding suggesting that the group was considering tactics other than bombing and terrorism.""[3]

[1]

@@ Line 516: / Line 516: @@
 ::::::I would leave 'terrorist' discussions to the [[Terrorism]] article. As you can see, it includes a '''very long''' discussion of all this. Why repeat that same discussion in every group which could possibly be considered a terrorist group? It's totally unnecessary. [[User:Flatterworld|Flatterworld]] ([[User talk:Flatterworld|talk]]) 18:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
+:::::::In general, I agree that the "terrorism" thing should be excluded from individual bios.  (This doesn't depend on [[WP:BLP]].  It applies to bios of people who've died, as well.)  The only possible exception that occurs to me is Ayers's explanation for his view that they weren't terrorists.  The quotation can appropriately be considered for inclusion in the [[Bill Ayers]] article because it sheds light on the thinking of the bio subject.  That should not, however, become a coatrack for hanging the whole terrorism debate.  Something like: "The Weather Underground has often been accused of practicing terrorism.  In response, Ayers wrote...."  The first sentence doesn't need a citation if the citations are in the linked article.  I should note that I'm not saying definitely "include it".  Ayers has written a lot and our article can't quote everything.  I'd lean toward saying that his discussion of terrorism is interesting enough to make the cut.  For purposes of this RfC, though, I'd say only that it could be considered an exception to Wikidemon's proposed generalization. [[User:JamesMLane|JamesMLane]]<small>&nbsp;[[User_talk:JamesMLane|t]]&nbsp;[[Special:Contributions/JamesMLane|c]]</small> 11:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 == Erik the Red's proposed wording ==