Talk:History of terrorism

Informal Mediation

Hello, I've decided to take the case here and offer my help as a mediator if others agree. I have no prior involvement in this article, and I don't believe I have any significant involvement of the editors involved in the dispute occurring in this article. Because the dispute is restricted to a single article, for the sake of transparency and convenience I'd like to discuss matters on this talk page, unless anyone objects.

What's needed is a list of people involved. Tcncv made the request for mediation but listed a number of people who may or may not be interested in the process. So I would like to see who would wish to participate in the mediation, and whether or not anyone objects to having mediation at all. Feel free to respond here at this talk page, thank you. -- Atama頭 23:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm closing the mediation request. Haberstr showed interest in participating, but Sherzo has yet to respond and has since edited both on the main article space and the talk page here. Mediation requires more than one person. -- Atama頭 17:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Masonery

Many historical books talks about terrorist attacks performed by masons (for example, against Church, or between masons, like terrorism against Napoleon by francmasons) Anyone knows anything about it? Can be masons be considers terrorist?--Ssigfrrido (talk) 12:50, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

'Dynamite' not mentioned in article

As noted in the comments above, the invention of dynamite and its subsequent by revolutionaries transformed 'terrorism' fundamentally in the late 19th century. But the word is not in the article (except in current footnote 31). Somebody feel free to input a comment, possibly in the introduction of '19th century terrorism'.Haberstr (talk) 16:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

That is an excellent point i believe you removed the section on the 19th century terrorists that used in was it catalonia? I do enjoy how you edit the article, then later find fault with those edits, its wonderfully constructive! Sherzo (talk) 21:16, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Another lie. Please research your aspersions before you publish them. Also, please imitate me and improve the 'History of Terrorism' article rather than spending all your time on the discussion page resisting rational change or attacking people making positive changes. For example, the article needs to be condensed and your contribution on this page in that regard is consistently to attack all fair-minded ideas for doing so.Haberstr (talk) 20:07, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

lol, calling decent editors liars smooth move, also if all editors imitated you rather than resisted wikipedia would be truly lost and of no use to any rational human being. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.239.38.135 (talk) 02:49, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Mr. anonymous right winger is back again. I called the statements about me lies. Do you understand the distinction between what I said and your attack?Haberstr (talk) 19:58, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I added references to dynamite to the introductory section on 19th century terrorism and to the Narodnaya article. These have been erased in the latest revert.Haberstr (talk) 19:58, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Article protected (again)

...for one week, in the hopes of heading off the revert-war that seems to be erupting again. EyeSerene^talk 10:41, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Possible sock-puppet

There appears to be a very close similarity in disruptive 'style' and POV from a number of IPs and at least one blocked registered User at this article. Could someone more familiar with the process please initiate an investigation. Cheers. RashersTierney (talk) 18:33, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Three month edit block on new accounts and IP addresses

To stop uncivil comments and a slow revert war between an anonymous user and other editors, I am imposing a three month block on this article for new accounts and editors who use IP addresses. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive579#History of terrorism for more details on this. --PBS (talk) 11:35, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

One month block 2009-12-12

As the slow revert war is continuing I have protected the article for a month. There was a mediation case on this Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-10-21/History of terrorism that was not followed. I will talk to User:Atama and ask him/her to reopen it. As an indication of good faith I suggest strongly that those who are reverting this page take advantage of the dispute resolution process. --PBS (talk) 09:04, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm totally open to doing the mediation (I just recently finished a different case). I can reopen this case (anyone can, actually) but I wanted to see which editors want to participate in the mediation. -- Atama頭 23:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

As before, I'm fine with dispute resolution and any reasonable compromise. (I think what I've contributed in the body of History of Terrorism shows a willingness to be inclusive toward the 'other side' in this dispute.) Hope it works.Haberstr (talk) 23:37, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Since User:Sherzo reverted to his/her preferred version and made one more edit on 10 December 2009, (s)he has made no other edit and as the previous edit that User:Sherzo made was a similar revert on the 6 November. It seems that User:Sherzo is not around very much. It is not desirable to keep this page protected for months (which given User:Sherzo's recent editing history would be necessary to resolve this conflict), I am going to remove full protection and put the protection back to semi-protection.

Further to this decision, I have left a message at User talk:Sherzo informing User:Sherzo that he/she must engage in the WP:dispute resolution process and not revert this page without doing so. As User:Sherzo may not come back to look at his/her talk page for several more weeks I would ask you User:Atama to be patient and allow the mediation request to stay open until such time as User:Sherzo edits Wikipedia again, so that we can see if (s)he wishes to take part in mediation. -- PBS (talk) 19:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

No problem. I'll reopen the case shortly, it seems to me that the principle disputants here are Sherzo and Haberstr, and if Sherzo agrees to the mediation we can proceed with anyone else dropping in who wants to. I'll make note of this in the case. If it takes weeks for that to happen it's not a problem for me. -- Atama頭 19:54, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm having doubts about this mediation based on Sherzo's message on my talk page. Sherzo has declared that Haberstr is a vandal and that their only interest in this article is to revert Haberstr's edits. Frankly, I think that rather than mediation, Sherzo should be strongly encouraged to not edit this article if they have no productive interest in it. This seems more like a user conduct problem than a content dispute. -- Atama頭 22:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

When User:Sherzo made his/her last edit to this page (s)he also filed an WP:ANI against me and as you say left a message on your talk page. Given these two actions I consider the edit to be disruptive and I am going to revert it. I think it is a better alternative to leaving the page indefinitely protected. If User:Sherzo reverts again without engaging in good faith conflict resolution, given the comment placed on your page,[1] I will block his/her account. -- PBS (talk) 08:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

user:Sherzo was blocked for this edit because user:Sherzo reverted to a version preferred by user:Sherzo ignoring warnings to use the dispute resolution process. I have reverted that edit. This is an administrative reversal, and should not be taken that I endorse or approve of the current version. -- PBS (talk) 01:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Further to the above, I think it's quite possible they won't even notice notice a 24-hour block, but I didn't want to go straight to indef. However, a long block would be my inclination should they revert again. EyeSerene^talk 12:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

PBS please you actions have long presented your bias please don't be so disengenious as to present yourself as coming to the article with clean hands, as you took no such action against haberstr reverts. Perhaps a community Peer review by experts would be the best way to settle this. If such a review feels that Haberstr version is the better article over the consensus version then I would leave at such judgement, but i am no confident no group of experts or academics would come to such a conclusion. Sherzo (talk) 16:30, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Sherzo. You have been asked repeatedly to use the dispute resolution resolution process. Haberstr has shown willingness to go down that path (so until you engage in that process you can not expect anyone to have much sympathy with your actions even if they disapprove of the current content of the article). The blocks that you are incurring will get longer unless you stop reverting without first following the dispute resolution process. The blocks are not to punish you but encourage you to use the process, if you do so and initiate an RFC, there is no reason why you can not place requests on the talk pages of various appropriate projects to request that experts review the article contents. -- PBS (talk) 22:48, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Definition

I think that the definition section as it is today is not satisfactory for an article on the history of terrorism.

My thinking is that Bruce Hoffman, "a well-known scholar" wrote about the changing definition of what terrorism has meant and been used by different generations. Hence a source from a specific time in history may describe an attack as a terrorist attack, when using today's current common usage it would be no such thing, and vice versa.

I also think mention needs to be made that the further back in history one goes the more difficult it is to use modern terms that have evolved over time, to categorise the actions of people from previous eras. Think of it like war crimes, we do not accuse a commander of a previous era of committing a war crime, if what they did was acceptable under the law of war at that time, although today it would be. For example de Santa Anna is not considered a war criminal for declaring no quarter for the defenders of the Alamo when they refused to his offer to surrender, because although a war crime today it was accepted practice at the time.

Another problem which occurs in this area, is one has to be aware of the attitudes of the protagonists. If take for example the shackling of POWs in World War II by the British and the Germans, both side claimed that they were only doing it in retaliation, and Lex talionis has long been an acceptable if unfortunate part of the laws of war. Likewise in the absence of positive laws, the actions which might seem like a terrorist act have to weighed against the actions of the other side of a conflict. -- PBS (talk) 04:45, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Dear PBS, ideally WP should contain a "history of the definition (or concept) of terrorism" either in this article or in definition of terrorism. You are indeed right in saying that "terrorism" is a historically grounded term that has evolved. If you look at the history of this article, however, you will find that some previous editors did not seek to create a history of the definition of terrorism but rather a "working definition of terrorism" in order to choose which incidents and groups to include in this article ( See: Talk:History of terrorism/Archive 5#Definition and terminology section ). Since it is unwise trying to synthetisize a definition, the end result was a rather poor list of definitions. My intention was to harmonize this article with what we have in terrorism and in definition of terrorism. Eventually, it would be interesting seeing this subsection evolving into a real "history of the definition". In the meantime, this is the best we have.

The purpose of the list was and is, of course, not to synthesize a definition, but to indicate clearly that there are a diversity of definitions and a lack of consensus. Also, the 'definition' section here should not be a 'history of the definition' section, but a section indicating as best we can what this history is about. Please feel free, though, to go ahead and harmonize the terrorism and definition of terrorism WP articles with this one as it is written now. Doing so would make both far less U.S./Eurocentric and more reflective of the consensus that there is no agreed meaning for the term.Haberstr (talk) 20:53, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I will refrain myself from commenting on your interesting examples on the laws of war since it might take us rather far away from the issues at hand. Cheers! -- Bonifacius 18:19, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The definition section it replaced was succinct and featured a diversity of proposed definitions, without 'privileging' any country's or ideology's preferred version. The section now is exceptionally U.S./U.K. security establishment centric. Also, there already is an entire 'definition of terrorism' wikipedia entry, so -- in an article that is already too long -- I think we should return to the earlier diverse and succinct definition section. By the way, what exactly is your difficulty with the earlier diversity of definitions? I don't get a sense of what was wrong with it, from what you have written.Haberstr (talk) 21:47, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Gunpowder Plot & Sons of Liberty off-topic and misleading

There are many events throughout world history that could be understood as terrorism by one of the well over 100 definitions. The problems with the Gunpowder Plot as an instructive example are many, and, well, the Sons of Liberty . . . So very very Anglo-American centric. In any case, I'm trying to get the article under 110K in length, that's my main motivation for eliminating the section devoted to these two topics. They are still prominently referenced and linked (to their wikipedia main articles) in the introductory paragraph of the 'pre-reign of terror' 'terrorism' section.Haberstr (talk) 20:44, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

The gunpowder plot would be a more notable historic example than the reign of terror Capt Jack Doicy (talk) 10:04, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Severe problems with the article

The quality of these article has nose dived. It has primarily become one editor's soapbox and this is very bad has it has become extremely POV to that editors opinions. I have read a few books on terrorism almost all that deal with it's history mention the gunpowder plot few dealt with the reign of terror then only in passing and none dealt with terror bombing and the horrendous acts of the soviet and nazis regimes, if the acts of states are to be included why aren't the Roman decimations included or Cromwell wrath upon Ireland or the 30 years war or the spanish inquistion? all wars can be considered acts of terrorism since people are terrorised in them. As such their inclusion is at best Original research at worst the soapbox POV of one editor who treats the article as his own property, driving out all those who disagree with them, So the article no longer reflects any sort of consensus thinking. The quality of writing on much of the article is now much poorer especially the introduction. Weasel words have sprang up and sourced statements have been deleted with no explanation.

This article should be of much higher quality as it deals with important and controvesial issues and hopefully by tagging it this we attracted the attention of better editors than I who can move it back onto the right track or at the very least warn the readers of the severe problems the article suffers from. Capt Jack Doicy (talk) 10:04, 10 April 2010 (UTC)