Talk:2015 Thalys train attack

It was a terrorist attack, not a "robbery" => Needs major update

Hello. Just passing through to say that this article would need a major update as, after remaining silent for more than a year, El Khazzani finally confessed in December 2016 and gave much detail about his motives and plans. I have not looked for sources in English, but here is one in French: [1]. Thanks and regards, Biwom (talk) 03:14, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Indeed the terrorist admitted he was a terrorist and that what he did was a terror attack. Yet one didn't have to wait for his confession. It was obvious. He had an AKM assault rifle. In addition to the rifle, for which he had nine magazines and a total of 270 rounds of ammunition, he was carrying a concealed Luger pistol, a utility knife, and a bottle of petrol. Now what robber will carry such amount of ammunition, as well as a bottle of petrol? He was shirtless. How was he planning to run away unnoticed with his loot?

Therefor, writing in the introduction that "French police believe the incident to be an Islamist terrorist attack, although the attorney for the accused said that robbery was his only intent.", can not be more far from the truth and the common sense. "Believe"? "Yet his attorney... said... robbery"? Are you kidding me, excuse me for the French? If his attorney would claim that he was a peace activist; would you also write it and put the fact that it was an Islamist terrorist attack under the vague "believe" definition?

There can not be more absurd twist of facts and reason. But let's be frank, everyone knows why is that. It became a habit to masquerade islamist terrorist attacks whenever it seems possible, as well as when it is absolutely ridiculous, as in this case.

Anyway, it is not important what is the reason for this funny presentation of clear factual definition of a terror attack as if it is doubtful and unclear. The fact of the matter is that even according to his confession, in which he added that he is sorry he didn't manage to kill anyone.

I suggest the following change for the introduction:

On 21 August 2015, a man opened fire on a Thalys train on its way from Amsterdam to Paris[7][8] before his assault rifle jammed,[9] and he was subdued by passengers before he could kill anyone. Four people were injured, including the assailant.[10] French, American, and British passengers confronted the attacker; they received France's highest decoration, the Legion of Honour, and some received other honours, as well. The Islamist terrorist attack was denied by his attorney for the accused said that robbery was his only intent[11][12], yet at a later date he confessed it was indeed a terrorist attack influenced by Isis. (אריסטו המקורי (talk) 13:27, 2 March 2019 (UTC))

Yes this article is out of date, I've made changes though the Le Monde story linked above is truncated behind a paywall and can't get all the details, but enough. Is the terrorist still waiting for trial or any new developments since 2016 after he confessed? -- GreenC 14:18, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, a lot needs to be updated, and especially the introduction, as I was suggesting above.

The Le Monde source tells a lot in the opened section, yet you also have the source of Le Figaro, where the terrorist admits he got orders to commit the terrorist attack from Abdelhamid Abaaoud [2], a well known terrorist (this fact is also mentioned in Le Monde). Here is the Le Figaro source: [3], and here is Le Figaro page that has all the references to this terrorist attack as well as the trial: [4].

Among other things, the morrocan terrorist said: «Très honnêtement, j'ai regretté de ne pas avoir tué, après avoir vu tout ce qui se passe en Syrie». (translation: "Honestly, I regret for not killing, after seeing all that was going on in Syria.")

No need to 'believe' it was terrorist attack, not with 270 bullets and an assault rifle. We really didn't need to wait for his confession. We only need to be free from ideology while writing in Wikipedia.

(אריסטו המקורי (talk) 09:40, 7 March 2019 (UTC))

אריסטו המקורי, re: "We really didn't need to wait for his confession. We only need to be free from ideology while writing in Wikipedia." No we just need a WP:RS from authorities that have actually investigated the matter to charge him with a terrorist crime (which they did). We certainly DON'T need editors counting the bullets he carried in order to reach their own conclusions! No WP:OR. Pincrete (talk) 15:35, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

אריסטו המקורי, thanks for bringing this up. This article was mostly written in the few weeks and months after the event by English speakers who chase after exciting current events. Very often as time goes by, these articles languish for lack of attention and go stale. It is not anyone's fault or ideology etc.. just simple neglect over time. At the time it was written, it accurately reflected the best sources available. -- GreenC 16:19, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

From my understanding of French, Figaro does not say that he admitted to receiving orders from AA, it says that a radio had claimed this to be true. "Les interrogatoires se poursuivent ensuite tout au long de l'année 2017. Le contenu de l'un d'eux, celui du 23 novembre 2017, vient d'être révélé par France Inter. Selon la radio, Ayoub El Khazzani confirme que c'est Abdelhamid Abaaoud qui lui a donné l'ordre d'attaquer le train. «Il m'a dit que la cible était le Thalys, où je devais attaquer des Américains», confie au juge d'instruction le jeune homme, qui précise qu'il a refusé la ceinture d'explosifs proposée par Abaaoud, arguant qu'il était «contre le fait de massacrer des gens». Pincrete (talk) 17:38, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

The frwiki does suggest a connection with Abdelhamid Abaaoud. Translate: "The December 14, 2016 Ayoub El Khazzani, interviewed by a Paris judge, traces his links with Abaaoud. He confirms that both of them knew each other well" and "Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the coordinator of the Paris attacks, was the prime contractor of El Khazzani. An attack plan would have been predefined; the attack on the train was the first scheduled before the attacks in Paris, which took place a few months later, in November 2015"[5] -- GreenC 17:50, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

donneur d'ordres is "prime contractor", this better translates as the principal or originator of the plan.[6] -- GreenC 17:53, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Attributing confession

IMO, the confessions should not be used unattributed. The 'confessions' contain some extraordinary claims. My French ain't great but the French sources all seem to be attributing the content of these confessions to some other news org, or, like Le Monde, give no indication of where the contents of the confession came (is it normal to supply such info to the press in France .. it would not be in most countries since the content of interrogations is potentially evidence?).

CNN here repeats essentially the same story, attributing parts to "a source close to the investigation" and other parts to Le Monde and Fr press. CNN are sceptical about some details of the confession: "A week before the train attack, Abaaoud told el-Khazzani the operation was imminent and he would prepare everything for him. And then a few days later, Abaaoud told him the target was a Thalys train and his task was to attack Americans on board, el-Khazzani claimed. El-Khazzani also made the seemingly far-fetched claim that Abaaoud had told him there would be three to five American soldiers in the first-class carriage on the train. There would have been little way for Abaaoud to have had such information ahead of time."

A NYTimes article of Feb 2018 explicitly says that El-Khazzani had remained silent and uncooperative, while most recent Eng sources (inc BBC) do not appear to mention any confession. This should not be in WP:VOICE IMO. Pincrete (talk) 13:03, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi FYI: [7], [8],[9],[10],[11] Many sources English and French say he confessed, and details of the confession are supported by evidence in the CTC Sentinel study, which came out before he confessed. The CNN "far-fethced" statement is an opinion by a reporter; personally I find it credible, the terrorists could have discovered American travel plans online - I could easily find travel plans for Americans in Europe (doesn't matter who, any American). Absence of reportage in the NYT is not evidence other than they don't have the best coverage, for example how can the NYT can say he remained silent, contrary to so many other sources and without mentioning his supposed confessions so widely reported elsewhere? Obviously we have to attribute statements to "a source close to the investigation", and the confession were given to French judges.[12] -- GreenC 16:41, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

The CNN author: "Paul Cruickshank is editor in chief of CTC Sentinel, the flagship independent terrorism studies journal of the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point and is on the advisory committee of the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism in Paris." The 'confession' was (as I understand it) given to examining magistrates (the Fr system - not to courts as the article currently claims - which implies open to press/public). There is little indication of how the contents of these 'depositions' were passed on to media (is this normal in Fr? Certainly would not be in UK). If I wanted to attack Americans in Fr, tracing the travel/holiday plans of 3 ordinary individuals would be a pretty dumb way to do so - every tourist attraction would hold more US citizens, and this would be only attack in Fr where the target was not the Fr state itself. I don't have time to answer all your points now, but I still believe we should be more sceptical about putting all this in WPVOICE. I'm not of course thinking that perp's initial "I found the guns" story is credible merely that a court is the only place where truth or otherwise can be established by public examination and testing of all the evidence. Pincrete (talk) 19:30, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Further arrests

Four more people have been arrested in connection with the attack. Mjroots (talk) 13:53, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 21 November 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. If Wikipedia:Names of articles on recent events or Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Including years in titles of events determines a broad consensus on these types of articles, this can be proposed again. For now the discussion should happen there, rather than on a single article. (closed by page mover) Bradv 01:22, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

---

2015 Thalys train attack → Thalys train attack – The present title contravenes Wikipedia policy, common sense and possibly even good taste.

1. WP:COMMONNAME. Secondary sources strongly prefer the more concise Thalys train attack (31.900 results) to 2015 Thalys train attack (7.850 results). Wikipedia is based on secondary sources, so we should not be reinventing any wheels here.
2. Two points of the WP:Article titles policy are contravened: WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE. The former says that when there are two titles which are both "precise and unambiguous" (2015 Thalys train attack and Thalys train attack), we should opt for the one that is "the most concise title to fully identify the subject" (i.e. Thalys train attack). WP:PRECISE tells us that "titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that".
3. The unnecessary disambiguator in the title of the article misleads readers. It suggests that there has been a previous Thalys train attack from which this Thalys train attack should be disambiguated. While the title Thalys train attack would make it clear that this was the only such incident in a Thalys train, the title 2015 Thalys train attack prompts me to waste my time looking up a previous one.
4. By keeping this article at this title, we are not only ignoring the policy and common usage, but also leaving the wrong impression that the current format is proper practice, leading to new articles with titles which again contravene the policy and common sense. For example, the article Grenfell Tower fire was once moved to 2017 Grenfell Tower fire and Unite the Right rally was created under the title 2017 Unite the Right rally, all due to this misunderstanding.
5. If the title 2015 Thalys train attack does not disambiguate the event from a previous Thalys train attack, then it seems like it disambiguates the incident from a future Thalys train attack. Preemptive disambiguation has been suggested several times but rejected by the Wikipedia community. The so-called "future-proofing", or disambiguating this from a future Thalys train attack (as if expected), is not only unnecessary but also quite distasteful and morbid. Surtsicna (talk) 10:41, 21 November 2017 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 10:11, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose The purpose of titling is to identify the subject, not simply to distinguish this event from other events. Adding the year is not simply 'future proofing', it is significant information to help identify this event and folows the pattern for other (relatively minor) terrorist attacks in Europe. News sources have no need to add the year, since almost all of their coverage was in 2015 or would refer to 'last year' etc in their text. Pincrete (talk) 11:15, 21 November 2017 (UTC … … btwThe very first item in the supposed 31,900 Google hits!. It is obvious that a news source is not going to use '2015' during 2015, but will tend to do so in subsequent years. Pincrete (talk) 11:25, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

The purpose of titling is indeed to identify, and sources overwhelmingly identify this event simply as Thalys train attack. The title of an article is not supposed to contain "significant information". It is supposed to be the common and most concise name that fully identifies the subject. That is why we h ave Angela Merkel rather than Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Donald Trump rather than Donald Trump (b. 1946), etc. Finally, the very first item in the hits does not use the phrase "2015 Thalys train attack" at all, which actually suggests that the number of sources using that phrase is even lower. Surtsicna (talk) 11:54, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Errrr D Trump is quite a well known figure! Pincrete (talk) 18:48, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

So what? Is Niceto Alcalá-Zamora such a well-known figure that the title of the article about him needs not include any dates to identify him? Surtsicna (talk) 23:53, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

IF there were 4 characters that would readily help to identify him/her, I would support using them. What is the point of article titles that are unclear or actually misleading? Does it look tidier? Pincrete (talk) 10:18, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per Pincrete, particularly wrt the year: Cleraly, the more time that passes, the more the year will be used by RS. Not to disambiguate this attack from other train attacks- but to disambig from other events. — fortunavelut luna^{Rarely receiving (many) pings. Bizarre.} 11:29, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
  • There is absolutely no indication that the year will be used by reliable sources as time passes. Over 70 years have passed yet the Attack on Pearl Harbor is not 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Besides, speculating what the sources might use in the future is crystal balling. Wikipedia does not predict the future. We should use the name that is commonly used now. And surely the name Thalys train attack disambiguates this from other events, as no other event was a Thalys train attack. Surtsicna (talk) 11:54, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

These are obscure events (unlike Pearl Harbor) of which there are so many even readers familair with terror events will have trouble remembering what they are. If you contention is they just need to open and read the article, then it fails the purpose of article naming which is to help identify what the article is about; otherwise call it "Terror event 1", "Terror event 2" etc.. is concise. -- GreenC 15:14, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

• Support per WP:CONCISE, and also WP:CONSISTENCY with other pages in Category:Accidents and incidents involving SNCF. We generally don't include a year if the rest of the title unambiguously identifies the event. See recent RMs at Talk:Manchester_Arena_bombing#Requested_move_3_October_2017 and Talk:2016_Orlando_nightclub_shooting#Requested_move_12_November_2017 for other examples of this.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:11, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

There is room for some events to exclude the date, if readers believe they are so commonly known (like the Pearl Harbor example) but more obscure events need help "to identify the topic to a person familiar with the subject area". A 4-digit year is a concise balance. -- GreenC 15:28, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

No it's not a concise balance. It's just unnecessary, and goes against WP:CONCISE. Someone familiar with the incident will recognise the title either way, while someone who's never heard of it will not be helped or hindered either way. Titles are not supposed to be the provider of the information in the article, they are simply identifiers. That's why WP:CONCISE exists.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:44, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

So it doesn't help to know in which millenium/century/decade an event occurred? It doesn't 'place' anything, to give a clue as to article subject? Pincrete (talk) 16:35, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Please don't make it sound so dramatic. Nobody here suggests not letting readers know when something took place. The purpose of the title, however, is to say what took place, not when; or who the person was, not when he or she existed. We are not supposed to cram info about the subject into the title, especially not when reliable sources do not do so. Surtsicna (talk) 23:53, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Cram? Really Surtsicna? I think you need to review your interpretation of "cram". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:23, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Surtsicna, there is no cramming of the title that I can see. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:23, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Terror events are often associated with the date (9/11) and most terror articles on Wikipedia identify the date with is extremely useful when looking through categories such as Category:Islamic terrorist incidents in the 2010s in helping to identify what an event was. Also notable that most terror articles use dates it is an established consensus (of sorts). WP:CONCISE says balance brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic to a person familiar with the subject area. Since there are so many terror attacks to track, no can be expected to memorize exactly where and when every event was so we balance brevity by excluding country (usually) but including a 4-digit year - a balance of information with the most brevity. -- GreenC 15:14, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
  • The date does not identify what the event was. It tells us when it was. How does the year help identify this event (on its own or in a category) better than the attack type would? Do you really believe that 2015 Thalys train attack is easier to identify than, say, Thalys train shooting attempt? Surtsicna (talk) 00:15, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, again If I was searching for this I'd be searching "2015 French train attack" I wouldn't search for "Thalys", so "2015" is a lot more help than Thalys as WP:CRITERIA 1 2 and 5. This point seems to escape the one or two editors trying to strip years off recent terror attacks. Surprised to see even some experienced editors support this, title truncation isn't a holy virtue. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:05, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

As a btw, there are projects in Wikipedia which are not going along with this fashion for truncation - a good example is WP Ships. Their titles are often quite long and allow readers to be certain which ship the article is about. I hope mentioning those won't cause a fleet of truncators and ambiguators to set sail :) In ictu oculi (talk) 18:11, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Ahoy, cap'n  ;) — fortunavelut luna^{Rarely receiving (many) pings. Bizarre.} 18:17, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Then why not call the article 2015 French train attack? It's not the only train attack to have taken place in France, but it is the only one to have taken place in a Thalys train.
In most cases, the dates in article titles mean little to nothing to people. Nobody recognizes the 2003 Aceh New Year's Eve bombing as something that took place in 2003, and I sincerely doubt that 2015 comes to most people's minds when they think of this event. Since reliable sources overwhelmingly call this event simply Thalys train attack, it seems that my doubt is well-founded. Surtsicna (talk) 00:05, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Couldn't care less between French and Thalys. The point is, sorry Surtsicna, that when people Google for a subject we cannot direct people to search the terms we want them to search. Some people will search "French train" some "Thalys" some "2015". This isn't a test where Google users have to guess exactly the title Wikipedia editors have chosen is the right answer. What we require of a title per WP:CRITERIA is that when it appears among Google results it best meets the requirements of all five criteria, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, taken together. The god of brevity is not the only god in the pantheon. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:45, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Nobody is suggesting that readers remember the year of an event, merely that when they see it, it helps them conclude that this is probably the right event. There have been countless attacks in Westminster throughout its nearly 2000 year history, most of them have been assigned a commonname OTHER than Westminster attack, but does the reader necessarily know that? Pincrete (talk) 09:14, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. The year is very important information for recognition and consistency. The argument against only happens for recent events or very famous events. Dealing with recent evens will always be an ongoing never ending task, and names in transition as events become historic are not precedent setting. Very famous events are always easily recognised, but lesser famous events are not. There are many more lesser events, and so consistency applies to this argument. There is no downside to including the year as long as the title does not become too long, and I submit that the benchmark for "long" is 42 characters, which is the length at which a PDF rendered title requires two lines.

Review for example Category:2015 in rail transport and Category:Failed terrorist attempts for the full set of titling criteria. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:12, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

The categories offer no titling criteria at all. The titling criteria are at WP:Article titles.
That the year is not very important for recognition is illustrated by common usage outside Wikipedia: 31.900 results for "Thalys train attack" and 7.850 results for "2015 Thalys train attack". That this does not change at all after an event is no longer "very recent" can be seen when you restrict the results to November 2017: 534 results for "Thalys train attack" and 111 results for "2015 Thalys train attack".
The consistency argument does not hold water, as there is no consistency about this on Wikipedia at all, not even in the categories you mentioned. Surtsicna (talk) 00:17, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

The categories provide collections that illustrate the benefits of the WP:NAMINGCRITERIA: Recognizability; Precision; and Consistency. These three criteria are to be balanced against Conciseness, the single criterion on which some obsess. Only Naturalness is not at play here.

Linking to ghits is an especially flawed argument, firstly because it is not reliable. ghit counts are not to be relied upon. Secondly, like google ngram data, great care has to be taken to select only introductory uses, to eliminate repeat usage in the same document.

"The consistency argument does not hold water, as there is no consistency" is the second circular argument I have seen you offer. The lack of consistency is a reason to fix things, not a reason to not fix things. I think you clearly have an imbalance in respect for the multiple competing criteria. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:44, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I mentioned WP:PRECISION in the nomination. Titles should be "precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that." Thalys train attack is, thankfully, precise enough to unambigiously identify and define this event; 2015 Thalys train attack is more precise than that. I am not sure about the "some" you refer to and describe as obsessed with a single criterium, but I invoked three criteria to which the present title does not conform: WP:PRECISION, WP:CONCISION and WP:COMMONNAME.
Google hits are a common way of determining common usage. Have you got a better idea? Any idea? We might also take a look at the sources presently cited in the article, and would arrive at the same conclusion. We can also refer to reputable sources such as The Guardian and BBC, both of which prefer to leave out the year when mentioning the incident.
Inconsistency is not something I endorse. Evidently, I would prefer article titles to be consistent with the very clear article titles policy, in this case with WP:PRECISION, WP:CONCISION and WP:COMMONNAME. Many already are in line with these guidelines, and I would prefer others to be consistent with them. I do not see these criteria as "competing" with others; they can all be implemented easily. As explained by Andrewa, the logic here is not circular, just lost on you. Surtsicna (talk) 01:16, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

• PRECISE is an absolute, except for bad cases where some justify imprecise titles on the basis of PRIMARYTOPIC. The trouble with PRECISE is that "but no more precise" can be pushed to absurdity. It's counter balance is mainly RECOGNIZABILITY. The year of an incident is very important to incident.

"train attack" Was it a train attack? The train was not used in attack. Was it an AKM attack? A 9mm pistol attack? A "Moroccan terrorist's attack"? Why not a carriage attack? The attack occurred within a single carriage. "Attack", or "attempted attack". I recall it being an "attempted attack" that was foiled, so I might have trouble finding the article while looking for 2015 failed terrorist attacks.

"Thalys"? It has strong local recognisability, but poor internationally. Quite probably, people outside Europe might only know Thalys for an attempted train shooting foiled by American soldiers, and think it is a place, not knowing it is a company. Why not title it Amsterdam to Paris train attack or France train attack? Different different audiences will remember different things. I think the two leading elements for recognisability are 2015 and train, followed by train and attack-or-terror<something>. 2015 train attack is arguable, it is precise, but also not good enough. French 2015 train attack is more precise and still not good enough. either Thalys or Amsterdam to Paris is required. Choosing from elements of recognisability used in sources per COMMONNAME can achieve PRECISE and CONCISE, and NATURAL, but completely lose it on RECOGNIZABILITY and CONSISTENTLY.

A better way than ghits? There is basic advice at WP:GHITS. Just don't use terrible methods. There are tools to help, but their results are not to be relied upon I recommend using the quality sources currently used in the article. You should step past the primary sources, including the news sources describing what happened yesterday or last week. If using news sources especially, you should be wary of being influenced by their headlinese; instead, go to the story lede and find the introductory statement. For events, it is extremely common for quality sources to introduce the topic using the year. If they use the month and day, it is probably still too recent a news source. "when mentioning the incident" is not the test. "When introducing the topic" is the test. Both headlinese and subsequent mentions should be discounted.

Consistency means consistency with other titles. You are not the first to advocate a definition of consistency that points to an algorithm (containing IF..THEN clauses), and to call for consistent application of the algorithm. That may produce consistency in editor behaviours, but it does not produce consistency for the product as received by the reader. Reader issues come ahead of editor issues.

Only two lines of argument from you were circular. Brevity is required because bevity is expected; and Consistency is to be ignored because consistency if weak. Perhaps we see it differently due to adopted perspectives of time scales. I consider this topic to be a recent event. It has not yet achieved its historical perspective.

I'd like to point you do listings again that show partial consistency and bring out the desire for consistency, plus recognisability. They are List of terrorist incidents involving railway systems and Category:Terrorist incidents on railway systems. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:49, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

• Comment A lot of talk here about the importance of including the year for recognition and even assertions that the year will be used by the sources in the future, yet no data, nothing that indicates this might be true. Meanwhile I have been spewing out links to article titles policy and evidence of common usage. Despite whatever shortcomings they may have, these must amount to more than unsupported claims and predictions (and even mocking) I have been getting here. Surtsicna (talk) 00:17, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

They already do, when a news event happened in the same year as the source, they will tend to use nothing or 'in February this year', the immediately following years they tend to use 'last year/two years ago', then to use year. These are events that barely are in the news cycle long enough to establish ANY commonname, nor to establish a name common to US and Europe, the need is to give a clear name. Pincrete (talk) 10:13, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I have shown that not to be true: 534 results for "Thalys train attack" and 111 results for "2015 Thalys train attack" in November 2017, over 2 years after the incident. The point of my comment was not to repeat ourselves but to highlight the complete lack of data supporting the prophesy of what the common name will be in the future vs data that shows which name is more common today. Surtsicna (talk) 22:01, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

No, you have shown the opposite to be true, the recent articles ALL refer to 2015 within the first few words of the article, or the title. None of them feels that the 'bare' description is sufficient to describe the event. If that is true of a news source in 2017, why should it be less so in 2020? You didn't really expect a 2015 source to use the year did you? Why would that when they can say "in August this year". Pincrete (talk) 22:15, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

• Pincrete is completely right, newspapers cannot be used slapdash for article titling decisions. They are both (1) in headlinese, and (2) part of the continuing daily conversation. They quickly become primary sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:30, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

• Support. I note that this would reverse a recent undiscussed move (Pincrete moved page Thalys train attack to 2015 Thalys train attack over redirect: The name was the result of discussion .... naming is about clarity as well as distinguihing from other events). This previous move seems to have no basis in current guidelines and policy, the above discussion notwithstanding. Andrewa (talk) 05:17, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I reversed a wholly undiscussed mass-reversal of dozens of articles, none of which the renamer seemed to know anything about, nor care about. When a decision has been made on an article that the year is a helpful identifier, what is this obsession with removing it by people who don't even appear to edit on the topic area? Pincrete (talk) 10:13, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Decisions on what to name articles are not reserved for those who "edit on the topic area", per WP:OWN. In fact, those who understand the policies and guidelines best are often those who don't regularly contribute to particular topics, but are focused on a WP:CONSISTENT approach to names across the Wikipedia. Their views are as valid as the views of topic regulars.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:22, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

So an editor's individual interpretation of how much info is necessary in order to be 'PRECISE' carries more weight than a team of editors who have spent time considering the issue, yes that makes total sense. Let's abandon local consensus. Pincrete (talk) 19:04, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

meta:Conflicting_Wikipedia_philosophies#Authorism_vs._Communalism. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:20, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Except of course that in this instance, 'authors' was plural whereas implementation of " communal rules" was singular! Pincrete (talk) 20:36, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Amakuru, the authorism philosophy, which I support because content writing editors deserve the highest levels of respect from the community, does not advocate that authors "reserve" decision making rights. Instead, it advocates their right to be heard prominently, to be involved, prominently. If the backroom Wikipedians feel the content writing Wikipedians don't understand what they are doing, it calls for conversation and mutual education. Citing "WP:OWN" is a bit rich, almost rude, when outside editors drop in with airs of authority and try to make decisions based on the rules that they wrote. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:38, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

• Support as entirely consistent with article title policy and WP:DAB guideline. If people want to change the WP:P&G material (either directly or by RfCing a naming convention that makes an exception – and one has been drafted at Wikipedia:Names of articles on recent events), then that is the route to take. Titles should comply with policy unless and until such a change has achieved consensus for implementation.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  15:15, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
• Note to closer: This should be relisted at least once because of the policy change proposal (see my comment above) already being made, and because WP:VPPOL has been notified (neutrally) of this RM in conjunction with notice about the proposal. I.e., there's a WP:DISCUSSFORK that's happened. This RM could be directly affected by whether there's support from more than the block of commenters above for this idea the proposal page, or a bunch of opposition, now that the question has been brought to the attention of a broader venue; the RM could be affected directly by that notice, even aside from the proposal; and the RM could affect the proposal discussion itself.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  15:15, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment: It's not just a fork but a more general and centralised discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Names of articles on recent events#This impacts an enormous number of articles.
  • Agree that relisting once may be a good idea. But if we have consensus here either way (I do not envy the closer) it's valid to close this (perhaps as a new consensus) and then cite this case as a precedent for adopting or rejecting the proposed new guideline. Often going from specific cases to the policy/guideline discussion is the better way to go. Andrewa (talk) 16:39, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support per WP:DAB. We usually use the date and year if it causes ambiguity, and in this case, there is no ambiguity. CookieMonster755 𝚨-𝛀 00:37, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per Pincrete et al. Also, I don't buy the statistics given above about how common "2015 Thalys train attack" is compared to "Thalys train attack" for several reasons: 1. Anytime you compare a trigram with a four-gram you are going to skew the results heavily in favor of the trigram. For starters, it should be completely obvious that the trigram frequency is an upper-bound for the four-gram, so you are stacking the deck from the outset because the 4-gram cannot possibly "win" that race. So that comparison should be thrown out when considering your vote. 2. If you view the title as a descriptive title, as I do, then counting the number of hits of the exact quoted phrase is misleading at the outset, since that's not how NDESC titles roll. For example, any RS references to "...stated that the attack on the Thalys train in 2015 was...", "...spoke of the 2015 attack on the Thalys train, and...", "...during the Thalys train attack in 2015...", all would count as support for the existing NDESC title in my view; however they would tally as zero hits for the current title, and one hit for the proposed title by the exact match method, which is an invalid method for judging NDESC titles. Mathglot (talk) 09:44, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose the suggested name may technically be unambiguous, but it's not an improvement. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:59, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

Many if not all of the participants above are already involved in this discussion at the relevant policy talk page, which also links here. But there is as of yet no consensus there to change the policy, as far as I can see. Andrewa (talk) 05:27, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Proposed naming convention

There seems some support above for a specific naming convention for events such as this. I think that if we are to adopt it, as proposed I think by the oppose !votes above, then it should be formally adopted, so I have started a draft at Wikipedia:Names of articles on recent events. Please help me develop it there and/or comment on its talk page. Andrewa (talk) 09:02, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Anglade (again)

EEng, re this edit, there was/has been considerable dispute about this actor's role in the attack (RfC at head of page - 'Actions of train crew'). I'm in the "a mildly famous French actor cut his hand while panicing, so what?" camp, but there was considerable coverage at the time of his accusations that the train crew 'ran away' - and the RfC concluded that coverage of his 'role' should be greater than some of us had proposed. Just letting you know, I think your edit is good and leaves enough. Pincrete (talk) 11:11, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Too bad it wasn't Gerard Depardieu, because if he'd just jumped on the bad guy, then he and his weapons would have been instantly compressed to a superdense elemental pulp, much like something drawn into a neutron star. EEng 15:35, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Trial

Has El Khazzani been tried yet? 76.189.141.37 (talk) 20:07, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

The investigation is still going on. I am sure there will be considerable coverage when the trial opens and this article will be updated. Mezigue (talk) 20:42, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Sentence

I don't understand the phrase "received life and lifetime deportation from France". If he gets a life sentence, presumably that means life in a French prison. If he's been deported, where to? Is he in prison there? I can't find anything on the web about it. PhilUK (talk) 21:36, 21 August 2022 (UTC)