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I THINK BEFORE THIS GETS NOMINATED AS A GOOD ARTICLE, IT WOULBE CUSTOMARY TO WORK OUT THE NPOV PROBLEMS. One way to accomplish that would be to simply place a prominent banner across the top…
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''An event mentioned in this article is a [[Template:September 11 selected anniversaries|September 11 selected anniversary]]''.
''An event mentioned in this article is a [[Template:September 11 selected anniversaries|September 11 selected anniversary]]''.


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:See [[WP:STABLE]]. Never got very far. [[User talk:Thatcher131|Thatcher131]] 00:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
:See [[WP:STABLE]]. Never got very far. [[User talk:Thatcher131|Thatcher131]] 00:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
::Hmmm... thanks again Thatcher131. [[User:Travb|Travb]] ([[User talk:Travb|talk]]) 05:38, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
::Hmmm... thanks again Thatcher131. [[User:Travb|Travb]] ([[User talk:Travb|talk]]) 05:38, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

== Now that Morton Devonshire thankfully cleared away so much of that clutter, I'd like us to get back to fixing the horrendous NPOV problems ==


== Examples of NPOV problems ==

Here are some missing analyses of the attacks that are missing from the article or do not receive proper NPOV treatment and due weight. These all are all from the verifiable, credible sources I listed above. Again, the correctness or incorrectness of these issues are immaterial to our discussion here. Its important that they be included in the article amidst the other hypotheses currently given a slanted POV treatment.

=== Conspiracy Theories ===
The use of the phrase "conspiracy theories" in the article is inappropriate. If what we are talking about are theories all the editors agree are waco and unsubstantiated than I do not see any reason to even include those in the article. Theories such as "the Jews did it" of the "illuminati did it" are no doubt verbalized about these attacks. But they are probably also blamed for [[Elmo_TMX|Elmo TMX]], yet that article makes no mention of conspiracy theories. However there are sources of theories surrounding these attacks that do not belong under the conspiracy theory heading that are also not represented in the article at all: Griffin, Jones, Tarpley, Hufschmid, Meyssan, and Thompson, just to name a few.

I do not have the above sources at hand at the moment but from memory I'll try to list important analyses that are missing from this article.

=== A possibility of controlled demolition ===
Jones and others have found evidence — such as signs of molten iron, visual analysis of the collapses, and chemical and physics analysis borne out through experimentation — that the collapses may have been due to a controlled demolition of the twin towers and WTC 7 on September 11th. If this hypothesis is correct it accounts for the greatest number of fatalities on that day. This evidence says nothing on its own about a government conspiracy, but it does suggest the attacks were much more elaborate than alternative hypotheses.

=== Simultaneous failure of routine defenses ===
Fighter jets, routinely scrambled for commercial aircraft flying off course and typically intercepting wayward aircraft within 15 minutes, were not scrambled at all until every plane had already crashed. The time between the first reported hijacking and the last collision was over an hour. Again, this does not suggest Elmo TMX flew the plane into the pentagon. However, it is a notable failure on the day of the attacks and it is cited by sever authors published in verifiable sources.

=== Documented efforts to delay, obstruct or avoid Congressional or other independent investigations ===
Some of these sources present evidence that members of the US Congress, calling for a serious and more thorough investigation of the attacks, were intimidated by executive branch agents.

=== The scientific surveys showing the doubts about prior investigations and the need for further investigation ===
The NYT and other articles cited above should also be included in the article. They show the doubts Americans (and others around the world) have about the current state of investigation into the attacks.

These last two subsections demonstrate the partiality of the official investigations (partial, both in the sense of incomplete and partial in the sense of representing an account of interested parties). The article how it currently stands presents only that one partial account: and it presents it (as some of the editors try to insist above) as simply the facts mam. Again, there are other partial accounts not included in the article.

=== Attacks used as a pretense ("an opportunity" according to Rumsfeld) to ram through administrations policies ===
Some of these sources also document this quite well. This is an important part of the US government response that is absent from that section. Some of these policies include homeland security, war against terror, war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, the use of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as a "zone of total despotism for the administration", TSA intimidation of airline passengers, suspension of Habeus Corpus, and so on. The article makes no mention of these and is written as if readers are a bunch of kindergartners on a tour of the Whitehorse.

----
These are accounts of the attacks in verifiable sources written by reputable authors. They should be incorporated into the main sections of the article. They should be interspersed through the various sections and subsections of the article Some of these sources provide additional analysis of the nature of the attacks (section 1), allegations and culpability (section 2), reactions (section 3), the response of US government entities (section 4), and the long-term implications of these attacks (section 5). Throwing them into an incited and pejorative subsection entitled "Conspiracy theories" or into another article with the same title advances a particular POV, or as Mongo calls it: it's POV pushing.

I welcome other editors to add to this list above and make comments and criticisms below. Again, we're not arguing whether these accounts are correct or incorrect. We are discussing how these accounts can be included within the article to fix the NPOV violations.

----
=== Comments ===
'''please remember to discuss the NPOV problems in terms of how we can fix them within consensus and not your personal views about whether these are true or false, good or bad, crazy or sane, etc.'''


== Reworking the article so that it follows Wikpedia policies ==

First, from looking at the history, I think many of the vandalism problems were simply caused by a failure of editors to compromise and strive to meet Wikipedia's guidelines and policies. So I think one of the advantages of working out a true consensus here so that we can unlock the article and have it join the greater Wikipedia community.

Second, as has already been mentioned scientific surveys indicate the official story is only one piece of the description this encyclopedia article should address. Dismissive arguments suggesting the public is just stupid or misguided or mentally defective are not relevant here (unless you want to cite someone who makes these arguments; again no original research here). Here's a list of sources discussing the waning confidence of the worlds population in the official story.
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/nyregion/08prepared.html?ex=1164517200&en=83de1b55bcb12412&ei=5070 Polls Show Drop in Assurance Since the Attacks of Sept. 11]
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/us/07poll.html?ex=1164517200&en=cf50939a90859ed3&ei=5070 9/11 Polls Find Lingering Fears in New York]
* [http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/13469 Americans Question Bush on 9/11 Intelligence]
* [http://www.zogby.com/search/ReadNews.dbm?ID=855 Half of New Yorkers Believe US Leaders Had Foreknowledge of Impending 9-11 Attacks and “Consciously Failed” To Act; 66% Call For New Probe of Unanswered Questions by Congress or New York’s Attorney General, New Zogby International Poll Reveals]
Keep in mind that the last piece showing the views of New Yorker residents reflects community with quite a significant proportion of eyewitnesses to the attacks and also a high proportion of people directly effected by the attacks.

Third, one aspect of the NPOV problem with the page is that (as mentioned above) it fails to describe the posiitions of the advocates of one particular theory as just that: advocates of one particular theory. So, for example, the article says:
: 9/11 "consisted of a series of coordinated terrorist[1] suicide attacks by Islamic extremists"
intead of saying:
: "Consisted of a series of coordinated hijackings of four commercial jetliners which were subsequently flowin into New Yorks’s World Trade Center and the headquarter of the US military: the Pentagon in Alexandria, Virginia. The FBI believes 19 islamic extemsists associated with al-Quada and Osama bin Ladin were behind the planning and execution of this attack"
The first example reads like a novel, The second reads like an encylopedia article. This is only an example and I'm not weded to this wording. However the entire article is filled with these NPOV problems.Fixing passages in this way will also facilitate including other cited views of the attacks (as well as cited crticisms of those views).

Fourth, I'm including a list of sources that support what many of the dissenting editors — a majority by my count of recent discussions and edits — believe should be included in the article. These sources all meet Wikipedia's guidelines for verifiability and reliability. There may be counter arguments that also criticize these pieces, but those counter-arguments need to be cited in verifiable publications and not simply crafted as original research here on the discussion page. The David Ray Griffin books are largely secondary sources so make ideal sources to cite here on Wikipedia.

Fifth, the use of the term "conpsiracy theory" is simply perjorative when used to characterize the positions taken in these books. They know more theorize a conspiracy than the views of the official account (theorizing that 19 hijackers under the umbrella of a poowerful worldwide organization know as al-Quada coordinated the attacks). So using pejoratively is inappopriate in the article and here in the discussions. Using it to describe only some of the theories of the conspiracy (in the non-pejorative sense) is confusing and misleading for readers.

So with the scientific surveys, the preponderance of verifiable sources and what looks like a significant number of wikipedia editors seeking to fix these NPOV problems, we need to get serious about that discussion. This means we have to stop arguing about whose wrong, false, stupid, misguided, mentally deranged, etc. We need to focus on crafting a discussion here that shows the genuine disagreements by the various parties weighing in on this tragedy. As the [[Wikipedia:NPOV_dispute#How_can_one_disagree_about_NPOV.3F |NPOV]] policy states:

<blockquote>Neutrality here at Wikipedia is all about presenting competing versions of what the facts are. It doesn't matter at all how convinced we are that our facts are the facts. '''If a significant number of other interested parties really do disagree''' with us, '''no matter how wrong we think they are''', the '''neutrality policy dictates''' that the discussion be '''recast as a fair presentation of the dispute between the parties'''. (highlighed portions to underscore the misunderstaniding about NPOV represented in the discussion thus far)</blockquote>

Perhaps we could start another sandbox article here on this page (or a linked page) to begin to fix the problems. Then when we reach a genuine consensus we can move that article to the main article. In the meantime we can work on the most egregious violations of NPOV and make the article read like an encyclopedia article rather than an historical novel (it is some nice prose however, I don't want to mess that up).

Verifiable sources that represent a significant view excluded from the article:
----
* {{Harvard reference
| Surname=Griffin
| Given=David Ray
| Authorlink=David_Ray_Griffin
| Title=The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11
| Year=2004
| ISBN= 1566565529
| Publisher=Interlink
}}

* {{Harvard reference
| Surname=Griffin
| Given=David Ray
| Authorlink=David_Ray_Griffin
| Title=The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions
| Year=2004
| ISBN= 1566565847
| Publisher=Olive Branch Press
}}

* {{Harvard reference
| Surname1=Griffin
| Given1=David Ray
| Surname2=Scott
| Given2=Peter Dale
| Title=9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out
| Year=2006
| ISBN= 1566566592
| Publisher=Olive Branch Press
}}

* {{Harvard reference
| Surname=Tarpley
| Given=Webster Griffin
| Title=9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Third Edition
| Year=2006
| ISBN=0930852370
| Publisher=Olive Branch Press
}}

* {{Harvard reference
| Surname=Hufschmid
| Given=Eric
| Title=Painful Questions: An Analysis of the September 11th Attack
| Year=2002
| ISBN=1931947058
| Publisher=Olive Branch Press
}}

* {{Harvard reference
| Surname=Meyssan
| Given=Thierry
| Title=9/11: The Big Lie
| Year=2003
| ISBN=1592090265
| Publisher=Carnot USA Books
}}

* {{Harvard reference
| Surname=Meyssan
| Given=Thierry
| Title=Pentagate
| Year=2003
| ISBN=1592090281
| Publisher=USA Books
}}

* {{Harvard reference
| Surname=Meyssan
| Given=Thierry
| Title=9/11
| Year=2002
| ISBN=2912362733
| Publisher=Carnot Editions
}}

* {{Harvard reference
| Surname=Thompson
| Given=Paul
| Title=The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11--and America's Response
| Year=2004
| ISBN=0060783389
| Publisher=Regan Books
}}
----
--[[User:Cplot|Cplot]] 03:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

----
=== Comments ===
'''please remember to discuss the NPOV problems in terms of how we can fix them within consensus and not your personal views about whether these are true or false, good or bad, crazy or sane, etc.'''


== Good article nomination ==

I think before this gets nominated as a good article, it would be customary to work out the NPOV problems. One way to accomplish that would be to simply place a prominent banner across the top of the article that it is one of Wikipedia's only press releases from the United States Government. That way we make it clear that this article does not participate in the standard Wikipedia processes of consensus, [[WP:NPOV|neutral point-of-view]], [[WP:OR}no oritinal research]], etc.
?

Revision as of 06:48, 28 January 2007

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An event mentioned in this article is a September 11 selected anniversary.

Please remember -- this talk page is for discussing the mechanics of the article (what to include, how to include it) only and not a place to discuss the events of 9/11 Sdedeo (tips) 18:16, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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Ungrammatic title

The entry title ought to be “September 11, 2001, attacks” if the date format is going to be Mmmm DD, YYYY. However, beyond making this note, I am not going to try to wrestle with anyone over this issue. —SlamDiego 13:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Previously discussed. This is the same style Wikipedia uses for 7 July 2005 London bombings etc. Peter Grey 22:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely false. “DD Mmmm YYYY” ≠ “Mmmm DD, YYYY”. In the latter case, the year is offset by a comma. A title “11 September 2001 attacks” would be grammatic, and “September 11, 2001, attacks” would be grammatic, but “September 11, 2001 attacks” is not. (Now, I need to work on my resolve to let this go.) —SlamDiego 06:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is "Ungrammatic" even a word? Travb (talk) 05:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Possible to make this page perma-protected ?

Is it possible to "vote" on one version of this article and make it perma-protected? I know this is against everything that wikipedia stands for, but this article has been the center of argument for years, there is 26 pages of archived material (Granted, users on this talk page archive quite frequently). These years long arguements have had a ripple effect across wikipedia.

anyway, just a suggestion. Personally, I have never got involved in these really high-profile pages such as Iraq War and 9/11. It seems like a waste of time to be edit warring over one page indefinetly...Travb (talk) 00:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:STABLE. Never got very far. Thatcher131 00:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm... thanks again Thatcher131. Travb (talk) 05:38, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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