Talk:List of terrorist incidents

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dionysodorus (talk | contribs) at 03:00, 3 October 2019 (→‎RfC: List criteria: Closing per request at WP:ANRFC.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

RfC: List criteria

Closing per request at WP:ANRFC. There seems to be consensus for adopting the criteria proposed by Levivich. This is well supported by the numerous highly relevant policies cited by editors during the discussion. (non-admin closure) Dionysodorus (talk) 02:59, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should the WP:LISTCRITERIA for all "List of terrorist incidents in ..." lists be:

  1. The incident is notable (has a stand-alone article), and
  2. The consensus of WP:RSes describe the incident as "terrorism"

RfC posted 17:36, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Survey

  • Support as proposer: Criteria #1 per WP:NOT and WP:WTAF, and #2 per WP:NOR, WP:V and MOS:TERRORISM. The lists at List of terrorist incidents#1970–present and Template:Lists of Terrorist Incidents include many non-notable entries that are not described as "terrorism" by any sources. A WP:LISTCRITERIA applied to all of these lists will give editors guidance in constructing these lists in line with our core policies NOT, NOR, and V, as discussed in detail at Talk:List of terrorist incidents in July 2019#Criteria and event notability. FYI, I posted {{please see}} links to this RfC on every list article linked in this parent List of terrorist incidents article, the WikiProjects tagged above, the template talk page, WP:CEN (not WP:CENT), and WP:VPP. – Levivich 17:38, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This will lead to a massive cull of entries. And to such an extent that it will certainly lead to opposition and edits wars. The Banner talk 18:18, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per my comment in discussion. Better criteria should be proposed, or to leave discussions on a case-by-case basis. Kingsif (talk) 18:25, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as any ignoring these criteria would depend on WP:IAR which should be deployed with extreme caution in BLP spaces. Furthermore, it's consistent with the requirements of WP:BLPCRIME, WP:DELAY, WP:V and MOS:TERRORIST. Simonm223 (talk) 18:38, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support only including incidents where there is consensus from RS describing it as "terrorism" (sensibly interpreted). We've discussed this before and, I thought, agreed that before. It follows logically from WP:V. "Terrorism" is a contentious term, so we have to fall back on the basic Wikipedia principle of WP:v/WP:RS here. It would be WP:OR to do anything else. Oppose only including incidents with standalone articles. Not everything in a list needs to be notable (that's standard Wikipedia policy). Having somewhere to note events that don't warrant standalone articles seems perfectly sensible. Bondegezou (talk) 19:57, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Call me a deletionist, but there's too much crap in these lists with what can only generously be called "weak sources". I'd rather see a WP:TNT approach to this and rebuild them. The vast majority of incidences includes on these lists are relatively minor and are related to acts of war between State and Non-State actors; terrorism is a type of attack widely used now and to create a list of all such attacks is far too broad to be meaningfully encyclopedic in my opinion. This is especially true when considering the changing criteria for the application of the label "terrorist" and the Foucauldian question of who gets to define these events as such. Does the pronouncement of any head of state count? NGOs, law enforcement chiefs, or pundits? The criteria for accepting the application of the label, even if the application is reported by RS, is unclear. Wikipedia is not a list of all the things, WP:NOTNEWS, and WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:51, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per above. Notability and reliable sources are particularly important in a contentious context. --MarioGom (talk) 08:34, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note On a second thought: a stand-alone may not always be necessary. If an incident is substantially covered in an article section, with enough reliable sources, that should qualify too? --MarioGom (talk) 08:37, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Not every killing is terrorism, no matter how often IAmBarryTheDancingHamster.com says it is.Slatersteven (talk) 09:35, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose because many attacks are clearly terrorism, many of which are known to have been committed by terrorist groups. To remove 24 July 2019 Mogadishu bombing & 28 July 2019 Kabul suicide bombing from List of terrorist incidents in July 2019 is ridiculous. They were both suicide bombings of the offices of prominent politicians. Jim Michael (talk) 11:00, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, though we shouldn't even need an RFC on this, as it's already policy (WP:NOR, WP:NOTNEWS, WP:UNDUE etc. Jayjg (talk) 17:28, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support classification of incidents as terrorism is often highly contentious, which means that we must make sure that any such classification on Wikipedia is clearly supported by reliable sources. signed, Rosguill talk 19:00, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Most countries have an official legal definition of "terrorism" that, when appropriate national officials deem an incident to be terrorism-related, it gives them additional powers, and can lead to tougher penalties for those found guilty of it. (There's a reason that even local police use language like "treating this as a suspected terrorism incident, as to be able to harness those powers to expedite matters). We should only be calling events "terrorism" that have been identified by national government officials as terrorism, rather than RSes which are going to jump to conclusions based on minimal factors, due to the legal connotation. --Masem (t) 19:42, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Discussion moved to discussion section #Masem's !vote/government labels – Levivich 16:14, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as better than nothing but greatly prefer Masem's version. I think the guideline would be useful but we should restrict ourselves to government sources. When an article describes a suicide bombing in Kabul, the readers can easily make the inference on their own, but when we knee-jerk attach the label "terrorism" to something that turns out not to be terrorism after all, the damage is lasting. Daß Wölf 04:05, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support #1 per NOTEVERYTHING and NOTINDESCRIMINATE. See also WP:LISTCRITERIA. Opening the list up to anything labeled as a terrorist attack is insane. There needs to be some practical limitation unless it is intended to turn this into a list of lists. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:43, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support #2 per WP:EXCEPTIONAL. Designating an incident as a terrorist incident is an exceptional claim, and "requires multiple high-quality sources". As explained in WP:PSTS, secondary sources (including reliable news publications) are preferred over primary sources (including government press). Additionally, breaking news reports tend to be less accurate, and it is advisable to exclude incidents from the list (using editorial discretion) until reporters are able to confirm all of the facts involved. I don't think criterion #1 is necessary if criterion #2 is strictly implemented. — Newslinger talk 11:07, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Summoned by bot) Support. as per above argumentation (we should be act carefully when labelling anything as terrorism). Borsoka (talk) 04:49, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Support (invited by the bot) I think about 2/3 of Wikipedia list articles should be deleted, including this one. The 2/3 are subjective and present intractable problems. But, given that they exist... I was vacillating on the "has an article" criteria because list articles typically have a lower threshold for inclusion than that. (hence the "weak") Also relying on the biased media (unreliable wp:"reliable" sources in this context) to make a subjective decision is problematic. But this would help avoiding dooming the editors here to an eternal struggle. BTW I would like to second everything Masem said (except their "oppose") and urge using their criteria. North8000 (talk) 10:28, 3 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support #1 Per WP:CSC there are three common criteria to include items in a stand alone list. The appropriate criteria for this list would be Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia. The other two criteria clearly do not apply. #2, I believe every meaningful statement in a wikipedia article must be backed by a reliable source. When applying a label, it should reflect the majority of such sources. I would also suggest that the lede in the stand alone article must mention the word terrorist when describing the incident. This would make the inclusion criteria clear. Disagreements between editors about using the label would be hashed out where it belongs, in the stand alone article. This includes debating the reliability of the source, be it a government statement, a scholarly journal, or a newspaper article.---- Work permit (talk) 04:36, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

  • This doesn't consider the fact that there are so many fewer articles for non-Anglophone (and even non-US events). Also terrorist incidents from a long time - or even 50 years - ago, before the term became widely used, if at all. Kingsif (talk) 18:24, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:V is relevant here. If we can't positively verify something was a terrorist incident, we should not call it one. EX: Boston Tea Party - is it terrorism? Simonm223 (talk) 18:40, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Other than this parent List of terrorist incidents article, there are no "List of terrorist incidents in ..." lists prior to 1970. There are over 100 of these lists, so that would be a lot of case-by-case discussions. Anyway, I can't imagine why why'd want a different WP:LISTCRITERIA for, say, August 2019, as opposed to, say, January 2015. – Levivich 19:47, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually the term terrorism has been used for a long time. Early in 20th century there was a widespread debate among anarchists and socialists about the usage of terrorism in Europe and Russia. If anything, the term became of broader application in recent decades. --MarioGom (talk) 08:32, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed. History of terrorism and Definitions of terrorism both describe this and discuss the problems with trying to pin down a single definition. Bondegezou (talk) 12:35, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note also the past discussion at Talk:List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_March_2019. Bondegezou (talk) 19:59, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Jim Michael: Hi, I don't understand your comment after your oppose !vote. If reliable sources describe those two attacks as terrorism, then they would be included in the list. If RSes don't describe those attacks as terrorism, then we wouldn't put it on a list of terrorist attacks. Nothing in this proposal would prohibit those two attacks from being listed (or any other attacks that are called "terrorist attacks" by RSes). So why oppose based on those two attacks? – Levivich 14:47, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    My point is that those 2, which were unambiguously terrorist attacks, were wrongly removed from the July list. The sources on the Mogadishu bombing article don't use the word terrorist - though they use suicide bomber & militant Islamist. One of the sources on the Kabul bombing uses terrorist. I'm not basing my vote & explanation solely on those 2. I mentioned them because they're recent, good examples of attacks which have been removed on the basis of a rationale which is the same or similar to the one proposed here. Jim Michael (talk) 15:05, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm still confused because the example you give appear to meet the list criteria I'm proposing, both #1 and #2. Have you considered that supporting this proposal and having the criteria I propose would actually be a reason to put those two back on the list? As you put it, attacks that are clearly terrorism would almost certainly be described as "terrorism" in reliable sources, and thus meet the proposed list criteria. – Levivich 15:21, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Jim Michael, if sources don't call the Mogadishu bombing terrorism, why do you think it was "unambiguously" a terrorist attack? Some definitions of terrorism exclude political assassinations (as they seek a specific goal, rather than to inspire terror, as per Definitions of terrorism): maybe the Mogadishu bombing comes under that? I don't know, but I do know that Wikipedia is always based on what is verifiable, not on the opinions of individual editors. Indeed, there are many things that are true, but they fail WP:V and so we don't say them. Bondegezou (talk) 15:27, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    It was a suicide bombing which also killed other people & caused a great deal of damage. The bomber would have known that the mayor & herself wouldn't be the only casualties. Neither of the sources on the stub article describe it as terrorism, but I don't know whether or not other articles about the bombing do.
    If assassinations of politicians even when other people are killed weren't classified as terrorist attacks, it would exclude the assassinations of Rafic Hariri & Benazir Bhutto.
    I disagree with the criteria being as narrow as proposed. Jim Michael (talk) 15:48, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah but what's the alternative to "it's terrorism if RSes say it's terrorism"? I mean, how much broader can you get than that? I honestly can't imagine completing this sentence: "Even if RSes don't call it terrorism, Wikipedia should call it terorrism if ..." How do you finish that sentence? – Levivich 15:56, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The international community, from the League of Nations until today, cannot agree on how to define terrorism. Scholars cannot agree on how to define terrorism. This is all detailed in Definitions of terrorism. So what definition of "terrorism" are you proposing, Jim Michael? Bondegezou (talk) 09:47, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @MarioGom: If an incident is substantially covered in an article section, with enough reliable sources, that should qualify too? Yeah, that's an interesting point. An incident might be notable enough for a stand-alone article, yet editors may decide not to have a stand-alone article for some good reason (WP:PAGEDECIDE). Personally, I'd support either "has a stand alone article" or "could have a stand alone article", but using "could have" might lead to like a mini-AfD argument in the middle of a list criteria discussion, which might make things overly-complicated. Even if this proposal passes, though, I don't see why editors couldn't make exceptions to it on a case-by-case basis when there is good reason to do so. "Wikipedia has no firm rules," IAR, and all that. – Levivich 15:56, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I note that WP:LSC, which is a Wikipedia guideline, says: "In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed (for example, lists of unusual things or terrorist incidents), it is especially important that inclusion be based on reliable sources given with inline citations for each item." We have to follow a guideline, and the guideline explicitly includes terrorist incidents as something when inclusion must be based on reliable sources. Bondegezou (talk) 09:50, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • We also need to follow WP:CSC, which outlines whether a list should only include things that have their own articles (as proposed), only things that don't have their own articles (no-one's suggesting this) or should be a complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group. Guidance for the latter says: "These should only be created if a complete list is reasonably short (less than 32K) and could be useful (e.g., for navigation) or interesting to readers. The inclusion of items must be supported by reliable sources. For example, if reliable sources indicate that a complete list would include the names of ten notable businesses and two non-notable businesses, then you are not required to omit the two non-notable businesses. However, if a complete list would include hundreds or thousands of entries, then you should use the notability standard to provide focus to the list." Reading that, given the number of attacks, it makes me more supportive of the proposal that we should only include things that have their own articles. Bondegezou (talk) 09:59, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    There have been hundreds of terrorist attacks which have never had their own WP articles, despite clearly being notable enough to. Therefore I don't agree with limiting lists such as this to incidents which have their own articles. Jim Michael (talk) 11:05, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    If something is notable enough to have an article, but doesn't have an article, they can be included. WP:CSC says for such lists: "Red-linked entries are acceptable if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future." That should solve the concern you raise. Bondegezou (talk) 12:07, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    What it comes down to is that, as there isn't a clear and unambiguous definition of the boundary of terrorism, we, as an organization, need to be told that it's terrorism. We can't just WP:BLUESKY it. This is particularly the case as "terrorism" generally describes a crime, and WP:BLPCRIME is particularly strict in its enforcement of how we handle such matters. An additional complication occurs that many of the "terrorist" events described occur in warzones and accuse forces that use asymmetrical tactics of terrorism. But the Taliban currently controls about half of Afghanistan, and claims to be the rightful government of the country, so can we safely describe them as non-state actors? Likewise, ISL, at its height, controlled a vast corridor of territory throughout the middle east, and however much we may disapprove of how they governed that territory, we couldn't dispute that they were governing it. Could we describe their televised executions of dissidents as terrorism, or were they war crimes? Or were they crimes against humanity committed by a state? Even when all the options say a thing is bad, whether it constitutes terrorism can still be in dispute. Which is why the duty on us is to be careful with how we describe things, and exclude from "list of" type articles, items that could be disputed as belonging to the list. Simonm223 (talk) 12:49, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    And, of course, it should go without saying that any definition of the word "terrorist" that includes the word, "Islamist" should be discarded on WP:NPOV grounds. Simonm223 (talk) 17:35, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Completely agree. Many of the examples in the current list articles are of actions in civil wars (in Syria, Afghanistan etc.). They are not the kinds of actions that would have been defined as terrorism in the past. Some of them are not being described as terrorism by RS now, but editors are arguing that they must be terrorism because those who carried them out have also carried out actions (in different contexts) that are reliably called terrorism. This seems dubious logic. Whichever, this is all very difficult territory, so we have to stick to basic principles: WP:V, WP:RS, WP:OR, WP:LSC. Bondegezou (talk) 17:41, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    There's a circular logic in describing terrorists as people who commit terrorism and terrorism as being what terrorists do. That's how you end up with nonsense like throwing milkshakes being terrorism and shooting random people in a crowd not being so. So we depend on reliable sources to say, "this is terrorism," and absent that positive statement from sources we can trust we say nothing. We aren't saying "this is not terrorism," but rather, "there is insufficient reliably sourced information to classify this incident." If you want a list of suicide bombings, make a list of suicide bombings. But don't call them terrorism without a bloody source that says so. Simonm223 (talk) 17:45, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed. List of suicide bombings, List of ISIS attacks etc. are probably all viable articles if people wish to document such things. Bondegezou (talk) 17:47, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The editors upset here should consider that there's possibly a reason that reliable media sources are so unwilling to label incidents of violence in Afghanistan as terrorism. Simonm223 (talk) 17:51, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are you saying it's because media sources are biased, because they're scared of being targeted by terrorists, because there's a grey area in regard to attacks which occur during wars - or some other reason? Jim Michael (talk) 08:00, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not saying that media source are scared of being targeted by terrorists. I cannot see anyone saying that. I am saying that the whole area is super grey in terms of what attacks count, which you can read about in existing Wikipedia articles, as mentioned previously. Most of all, I'm saying we should follow Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Bondegezou (talk) 10:51, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Masem's !vote/government labels

  • Oppose Most countries have an official legal definition of "terrorism" that, when appropriate national officials deem an incident to be terrorism-related, it gives them additional powers, and can lead to tougher penalties for those found guilty of it. (There's a reason that even local police use language like "treating this as a suspected terrorism incident, as to be able to harness those powers to expedite matters). We should only be calling events "terrorism" that have been identified by national government officials as terrorism, rather than RSes which are going to jump to conclusions based on minimal factors, due to the legal connotation. --Masem (t) 19:42, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    My concern about adopting governments' definitions of "terrorism" is that the Boston Tea Party would end up on a List of terrorist attacks in December 1773, and Wikipedia, in Wikivoice, would apply the label "terrorism" to things like the Arab Spring, Chechen separatists, the Iranian Green Revolution, the Yellow vests movement, and every other anti-government movement. – Levivich 04:38, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia has clear policy that it favours WP:SECONDARY sources. Reliable sources (academic, books, high quality journalism) thus trump declarations by government officials (which would be a form of WP:PRIMARY source). Particularly in the context of terrorism, it is very clear that national governments have their own biases and agendas (e.g. the Chinese government starting to use the term "terrorism" about the protests in Hong Kong). So, no, I would oppose Masem's suggestion. Bondegezou (talk) 10:54, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Furthermore, in practice, secondary sources, when they mention terrorism at all, generally do so by citing officials stating an event is being investigated as terrorism, which those of us who have been attempting to improve this area have treated as meeting criterion 2. Simonm223 (talk) 12:01, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    While we do generally prefer secondary sources, keeping the fact that "terrorism" is a legal term is akin to making sure we do not report people suspected of crimes but without conviction as guilty of those crimes, even if secondary sources ignore that. This is the type of case that we have to wait for the body in the country (for example, the FBI) to make that designation which may go against how the media and public officials may want to call it. Yes, there are a lot of cases of events that may seem like terrorism where you have the mayor or other non-law-enforcement official calling it terrorism, but they're not the ones with the authority to make that designation. Calling something "terrorism" outside of the official agency with the authority is an attempt to sway public perception, particularly after 9/11, and thus should not be used to try to classify these events in a factual, wikivoice manner. --Masem (t) 13:18, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    So where precisely would you set the bar for this? I have a lot of respect for your opinions on BLP related issues and would be very interested in your feedback here. Simonm223 (talk) 13:42, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Masem, I think I disagree with most of what you say there. Calling something "terrorism" outside of the official agency with the authority may be an attempt to sway public perception, although it may not be. There are many scholarly, reliable sources that are trying to cover the topic in an unbiased manner. Do you deny that? Are you really saying that every secondary source is inherently biased here? And, equally, an official agency with authority calling something "terrorism" may also be an attempt to sway public perception. I certainly wouldn't want to rely on what the Russian, Syrian or Chinese governments say. Are you really saying that every official agency primary source is unbiased?
    Moreover, you are imposing a legal paradigm on what terrorism is. As the Definitions of terrorism article explains, that is only one way to look at terrorism. Terrorism did not begin as a legal term. Terrorism need not be a legal term. That some countries have defined certain acts as being illegal and as being terrorism does not overrule all other discourse around terrorism. Bondegezou (talk) 14:20, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    If you want this list to be the non-legal definition, then the list title needs to be changed to something like "List of incidents considered to be acts of terrorism" or something like that (at which point the suggested guidance is fine). But this list attempts to make no distinction between the legal term and the broader use of "terrorism", and my first reading would be the legal term the way the article is titles in Wiki voice (meaning all those just called terrorism but not officially considered terrorism inappropriate to include). We have to be extremely careful around words with legal meanings not to let the media or court of public opinion misrepresent things here. Heck, right now you have the language in the lead of what is being included, which includes "are illegally perpetrated against people or property;" , which is only something that can be determined from a court of law or law-enforcement agency; secondary sources cannot be used to affirm this because they have no authority to assert "illegality", though obviously they can likely determine on their own.
    If you want to focus on events considered terrorism by secondary sources, then this article needs to be renamed and the lede reworked to explain that better. Otherwise, you need to use the government sources to keep to actual legally-defined terrorism events. --Masem (t) 14:37, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    There is language in the lead section here and in other terrorism articles that could be improved, yes. Once we've come to a conclusion here, we certainly need to revise the lead section to reflect the criteria chosen. However, I think your limited reading of terrorism to necessarily only be a legal definition goes against current practice. Consider Category:Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1970, Category:Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1971, Category:Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1972 and Category:Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1973. The first of the UK's Prevention of Terrorism Acts came in 1974: terrorism did not have a UK legal definition before then. So should all those earlier categories be emptied? Or should they all be renamed Category:Incidents considered to be acts of terrorism in the United Kingdom in 1970 &c.?
    Moreover, every country has its own laws, with some divergence between them. We cannot have a List of terrorist incidents as an article if each act's status as terrorism depends on a different local definition. You'd have to stick to a List of terrorist incidents in Great Britain, List of terrorist incidents in Saudi Arabia &c. Maybe that is the better approach, but I don't want to give up on this article yet!
    It also remains the case that WP:SECONDARY is policy. We cannot overturn that and send editors out to find primary sources. We cannot assert some WP:LOCALCONSENSUS over a Wikipedia policy. We can be careful with language, but we should still be relying on reliable source reporting. Bondegezou (talk) 15:21, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Masem: I've always thought of these lists as "Lists of incidents considered [by the consensus of RSes] to be acts of terrorism", and not "Lists of incidents legally adjudicated to be terrorism". You're right that the list does not attempt to make a distinction. I feel like, "List of incidents considered to be acts of terrorism" is too long and cumbersome for a title. FWIW, I was planning an RM in the future to change the title (I think it should be "List of terrorist attacks", not "incidents"), and perhaps there is a better title that can help clarify that distinction ("considered to be" v. "adjudicated"), but my feelings were LISTCRITERIA first, title second. Would you feel differently about the proposed LISTCRITERIA if the list articles explicitly clarified that the list contains attacks considered to be terrorism, rather than attacks legally adjudicated as terrorism? If this RfC passes, the articles would need to be updated to specify the new criteria anyway, so that would be a good time to also add in such a clarification. – Levivich 16:21, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Keep in mind the phrase "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." If you are not going to use a legal definition, you have to make it 100% clear that these lists are based on widely-accepted consensus of reliable sourcing, which means that this list should not call out these as terrorist acts factually, because then you start to get into something like the Boston Tea Party being called a terrorist act. But in that case, you also have to make sure there's no revisionism going on. If sources today called the Boston Tea Party "terrorism" where the term was almost non-existent at that time, that would be wrong to use. Similarly, "terrorism" post 9/11 has a whole broader inclusion for RSes, so there are going to be events pre-9/11 that, if they happened the same way today would be called terrorism but in the past would never have been labeled as such. There's a whoooole host of problems that you need to be very clear about if you are going to stick to the "broad majority of secondary sources" approach.
    There's also a timing factor here, and the points about the attacks in the UK in the 70s is a good point. Terrorism existed back then, but as you say, no legal definition in the UK. But historically, scholars today all recognize those were terrorism attacks and thus seem proper to call them that. This is the "right" way for WP. On the other hand, what happened in modern events is you get people throwing around the word "terrorism" as the slightly sign that more than 2 people were victims of an event. That might apply, but it needs the test of time (months) to make sure that it is still considered an act of terrorism well outside those initial 24-48 hrs. Mind you, if the gov't comes out to say that event was terrorism before months pass, there you go, but if we're basis it on secondary sources, you definitely want the event to be well into the past before rushing it up on to these lists. --Masem (t) 16:38, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
We are all agreed that the article will need re-wording once list criteria have been agreed.

All sorts of people might rush to call a recent incident terrorism precipitously, but I think you underestimate RSs. Reliable sources, good quality journalism, generally shies away from labelling things terrorism. If we go by the consensus of RS, I do not think we'll have the problems you predict.

As for the Boston Tea Party, if the consensus of reliable sources today calls it terrorism, then we should call it terrorism. Or, rather, given a bit of space, we should say that sources today call it terrorism but it wasn't called that at the time. We follow secondary sources: that's how Wikipedia works. Bondegezou (talk) 21:19, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've used that one as a somewhat hyperbolic example because it fit the criteria (politically motivated violence by non-state actors) that were established on the "list of terrorism" group prior to my getting involved. Frankly, I doubt any serious scholar would consider the incident terrorism, but Wikipedia would based on these lax criteria. I certainly see Masem's point though that would, for instance, mean we'd be in a position of likely including the Yuen Wah protesters on the list of terrorist incidents and I'm not certain that's a can of WP:NPOV worms we want to open. I think, ultimately, basing these lists around the preponderance of reliable sources and liberal use of WP:TOOSOON and WP:DELAY is probably the best we're going to get here. Simonm223 (talk) 12:22, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to close It's been 10 days with nary a comment. Can we get an admin to close this? Simonm223 (talk) 17:36, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I have listed it at WP:AN/RFC. – Levivich 02:03, 19 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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