Talk:Crimes involving radioactive substances

Neologism

I've never heard the term "nuclear crime", at least that I recall, and I'm tempted to think that the original author probably made it up. The assertion that it's the "best term" for these phenomena is dubious.

My original impulse was to put the article on AfD as a violation of WP:NEO, but there is a lot of good work here, and it would be a pity to waste it. On the other hand I don't think the article can stay at this title. My suggestion would be to refactor it into list format, and move it to list of crimes involving radioactive substances. Any other ideas? --Trovatore 21:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I would say that nuclear crime is not a neogism, as the term has appeared elsewhere on the web

• http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/nuclear/csis031198.html
• http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/cohens/20040216.htm
• http://www.tridentploughshares.org/IMG/pdf/pledgpnc.pdf
• http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/1994/08/23/001.html

For the ultimate use of the term see the work of the UN, the IAEA has used this term.

• http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geusRoOHtFvEEBJlNXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2djlsdjQ4BGNvbG8DZQRsA1dTMQRwb3MDOARzZWMDc3IEdnRpZANGODUzXzk0/SIG=12iq7fs84/EXP=1165789672/**http%3a//www.radiochemistry.org/2005_conference/abstracts/03.htm

So as the IAEA have used the term, so I think we should stick with the term nuclear crime to label all criminal acts which involve the misuse of radioactive/nuclear materials and technology where the radioactive/nuclear aspects of the material are important.Cadmium

No one who has played googlewhack will be surprised that two common words, nuclear and crime, appear together on the Web. I think these sources are simply using the words in their natural meaning, not creating a new category. For the term not to be a neologism, it would have to have established currency as a distinct concept, not simply a combination of two common words according to the rules of English.

Look, there's nothing wrong with making up terms. I love to do it myself. What you're not allowed to do is to try to use WP as a tool to gain currency for them. It's too powerful a tool; it makes it too easy.

I have no quarrel with the content of the article itself. It just needs to be moved to a non-neologistic title, and drop the OR-ish claims as to the meaning of the term "nuclear crime". --Trovatore 22:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I should say, I have no quarrel with the content of the article provided it is refactored as a list. As far as I know there is no standard criminological category that puts together Klaus Fuchs, whoever poisoned Litvinenko, and those whose carelessness led to the Goiânia accident -- these are just utterly different sorts of things, and creating a commonality out of them is original research, prohibited on Wikipedia. But as a list I think it would be OK -- we have lists of lots of things that no one necessarily thought to list before, and while some see them as "cruft", I don't recall that anyone's raised an OR problem about them. --Trovatore 08:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

About the idea of creating a list, much of the article is in the form of a list, it is a series of examples of different criminal acts which involve nuclear and radioactive materials (or technology) so it would not be too much to change it into a list. I would say that the list is not a definative list as many more radiological misdeeds exist which are not included in the article. I think that the article should be more than just a list, as the majority of encyclopedias do have some editorial comment to explain the meaning of the facts which they present.Cadmium

No list is ever definitive; that's not a problem. Nor does a list have to be just a succession of bullet points. There's room for some explanation.

What there's not room for is any remote implication (stated or unstated) that this is a standard way of categorizing crime, which as far as I know it's just not. I admit it's not my field, but then it doesn't seem to be yours either, unless you have a second life as a criminologist. --Trovatore 17:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Japan

Does the detonation by the United States of nuclear devices over Japan not count as a crime because of its perpetration by a state actor?