I'm for a very careful use of the word "terrorist" : "X is a a terrorist"... "X was a terrorist" is more acceptable IMO. The 9/11 hijackings is terrorism, no doubt about it. Having wrote this we can spend a long time arguing about Hiroshima and Nagasaki or even Dresden. Don't doubt about the sense of my comments "Uncle Adolf" and his supporters wished for us (I mean most of the Europeans) much more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Dresden. This is what I can write about my quest for NPOV, and I don't feel to write much more with my English language skills.
Syncerely yours. Eric Demolli.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" littledanehren@yahoo.com To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 10:33 PM Subject: [WikiEN-l] The word 'terrorist' (was: User HectorRodriguez)
From: "Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] The word 'terrorist' (was: User HectorRodriguez) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 09:13:41 -0500 To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@Wikipedia.org
There's nothing wrong with removing the word "terrorist". It's a loaded word, and probably doesn't belong in the plain text of any article other than [[terrorism]] itself.
On the other hand, if a prominent figure or body has a relevant quote, and a user suppresses that quote for no other purpose than to eliminate the word "terrorist", then this is censorship and shouldn't be encouraged.
We can say:
- Clinton called the 9/11 hijackings "terrorism" and
helped provide bi-partisan support for a military campaign to punish the "terrorists" responsible.
This way, it's not the Wikipedia which says that the hijackings or crashes or civilian deaths are acts of terror, but a particular, well-known spokesman for a large and influential group.
Ed Poor Ancient Wikipedian
Remember, NPOV isn't about making every sentence completely indisputable and wishy-washy, it's about making the article as a whole unbiased. Censoring the word "terrorist" from Wikipedia would be very destructive to it as an encyclopedia. We can use the word "terrorist" and even say that someone is a terrorist without using quotes; all we have to do is present both sides in the article. Here's my example of the same thing:
According to most Americans, the 9/11 attacks were terrorism. [later in the article] Clinton helped provide bipartisan support for a military campaign to punish the terrorists responsible. [even later in the article] Some people said that the 9/11 terrorist attacks weren't terrorism and...
Otherwise your article has sentences two times longer than they need to be and with a feeling strong of skepticism that they were terrorists.
Daniel Ehrenberg
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