tarquin
Or call it "World Trade Center attack" ?
Uh, no. What about the Pentagon and Flight 93?
At any rate, I agree with the removal of the term "terrorist" from the title.
Why? The term 'terrorist' is almost always in the title of the incident when it is referred to in any place I've ever seen a reference (although it is very often just called "9/11" or "September 11" in the USA but those titles are not specific enough for us). The incident also perfectly fits the definition of terrorism. So there is no reason not to use it unless it is unreasonably offensive. I would, in fact, argue that *not* having the word 'terrorist' in the title would be unreasonably offensive (IMO, that would be white-washing, or at lest sanitizing, the title).
That is was an attack, at least, is undisputed :)
Taking out the word "terrorist" in light of the fact that the word is very commonly used in the title and fits the definition, goes against our common name naming convention and also creates a needlessly vague title. It also supports the POV that the incident was not a terrorist act which is absurd since it perfectly fits the definition.
So if something is commonly called something, fits the definition, is not unreasonably offensive, then that term should be used.
More generally (meaning not directed toward Tarquin):
Blacklisting terms is a very bad idea and is more PC than NPOV. Let's not forget that PC is in fact an extreme form of POV and is *not* akin to NPOV at all (which really deals with article *content* and not titles - titles are dealt with through our naming conventions).
PC = "politically correct" . Political correctness in the United States is a political and social movement which aims to use changes in language to prevent offending people who leftists think are offended by the use of certain terms. PC also aims to help change the way other people think by changing the use of certain terms (rather Orwellian if you ask me). This is *not* at all NPOV and should *not* be associated with the 'unreasonable offensiveness' clause of our common name naming convention (which is largely agendaless, unlike PC).
Wikipedia needs to *follow* common usage, not try to change it!
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Daniel Mayer wrote:
tarquin
At any rate, I agree with the removal of the term "terrorist" from the title.
Why? The term 'terrorist' is almost always in the title of the incident when it is referred to in any place I've ever seen a reference (although it is very often just called "9/11" or "September 11" in the USA but those titles are not specific enough for us). The incident also perfectly fits the definition of terrorism. So there is no reason not to use it unless it is unreasonably offensive. I would, in fact, argue that *not* having the word 'terrorist' in the title would be unreasonably offensive (IMO, that would be white-washing, or at lest sanitizing, the title).
It should be taken out because it is both a characterization and unnecesary for identifying the incident. There are numerous other incidents which might be qualified as "terrorist", but where that term might be more hotly disputed. By completely avoiding the term "terrorist", even when it seems obvious, we can avoid the need to set boundaries that define what is and what is not a terrorist act.
Taking out the word "terrorist" in light of the fact that the word is very commonly used in the title and fits the definition, goes against our common name naming convention and also creates a needlessly vague title.
I don't find anything vague about the title, and, if needed, there are other ways of disambiguating. The common name naming convention should not be used as an excuse for overriding good judgement.
It also supports the POV that the incident was not a terrorist act which is absurd since it perfectly fits the definition.
The absence of the term is neutral, and neither supports nor condemns the act in question.
So if something is commonly called something, fits the definition, is not unreasonably offensive, then that term should be used.
More generally (meaning not directed toward Tarquin):
Blacklisting terms is a very bad idea and is more PC than NPOV. Let's not forget that PC is in fact an extreme form of POV and is *not* akin to NPOV at all (which really deals with article *content* and not titles - titles are dealt with through our naming conventions).
This sounds very much like saying that since titles are immune to POV, naming conventions should take precedence over NPOV in the naming of articles. That makes no sense at all, and is inconsistent with the earlier statement that omitting the word would support some POV.
PC = "politically correct" . Political correctness in the United States is a political and social movement which aims to use changes in language to prevent offending people who leftists think are offended by the use of certain terms. PC also aims to help change the way other people think by changing the use of certain terms (rather Orwellian if you ask me). This is *not* at all NPOV and should *not* be associated with the 'unreasonable offensiveness' clause of our common name naming convention (which is largely agendaless, unlike PC).
Political correctness is not just applied to leftist causes. There is just as much rightist political correctness. Orwell was critical of extremes on both ends of the political spectrum.
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Blacklisting terms is a very bad idea and is more PC than NPOV. Let's not forget that PC is in fact an extreme form of POV and is *not* akin to NPOV at all (which really deals with article *content* and not titles - titles are dealt with through our naming conventions).
I wonder what happens when the PC brigade come across articles that begin "So-and-so is a black British actor"
tarquin a écrit:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Blacklisting terms is a very bad idea and is more PC than NPOV. Let's not forget that PC is in fact an extreme form of POV and is *not* akin to NPOV at all (which really deals with article *content* and not titles - titles are dealt with through our naming conventions).
I wonder what happens when the PC brigade come across articles that begin "So-and-so is a black British actor"
I would like the PC brigade to have a look at the title of the [[anti-french sentiment in the United States]] as well
Well, I'm certainly confused. Are you saying that there is NO Anti-French sentiment in the United States?
RickK
Anthere anthere8@yahoo.com wrote:
tarquin a �crit:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Blacklisting terms is a very bad idea and is more PC than NPOV. Let's not forget that PC is in fact an extreme form of POV and is *not* akin to NPOV at all (which really deals with article *content* and not titles - titles are dealt with through our naming conventions).
I wonder what happens when the PC brigade come across articles that begin "So-and-so is a black British actor"
I would like the PC brigade to have a look at the title of the [[anti-french sentiment in the United States]] as well
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? I am confused by your question.
Rick a écrit:
Well, I'm certainly confused. Are you saying that there is NO Anti-French sentiment in the United States?
RickK
About as much as [[September 11 terrorist attack]] ever happened in the US.
About a year ago, Jimbo suggested that for example a title such as [[French American relationships]] could be more ...
Well, at least the article improved.
You said the title of the article is POV. That would mean that there is no Anti-French sentiment in the US, which is obviously not true.
RickK
Anthere anthere8@yahoo.com wrote: ? I am confused by your question.
Rick a �crit:
Well, I'm certainly confused. Are you saying that there is NO Anti-French sentiment in the United States?
RickK
About as much as [[September 11 terrorist attack]] ever happened in the US.
About a year ago, Jimbo suggested that for example a title such as [[French American relationships]] could be more ...
Well, at least the article improved.
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Rick a écrit:
You said the title of the article is POV. That would mean that there is no Anti-French sentiment in the US, which is obviously not true.
RickK
You do not read me well Rick :-) Or I do not explain myself clearly enough
Here is the thread again
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Blacklisting terms is a very bad idea and is more PC than NPOV. Let's not forget that PC is in fact an extreme form of POV and is *not* akin to NPOV at all (which really deals with article *content* and not titles - titles are dealt with through our naming conventions).
Tarquin then said I wonder what happens when the PC brigade come across articles that begin "So-and-so is a black British actor"
I commented I would like the PC brigade to have a look at the title of the [[anti-french sentiment in the United States]] as well (hint : I was talking of *having* a PC title for the antifrench sentiment, not claiming there was no antifrench sentiment)
Then you said Well, I'm certainly confused. Are you saying that there is NO Anti-French sentiment in the United States?
I answered About as much as [[September 11 terrorist attack]] ever happened in the US.
(hint : I was thinking that if [[September 11 terrorist attack]] was renamed for PC reasons, we could perhaps do the same for the [[anti-french sentiment in the United States]], and make it more PC as well)
(another hint : I was saying that it was just as funny to try to hinder the "terrorist" aspect of the attack, than trying to pretend there was no antifrench sentiment in the US)
Then you commented You said the title of the article is POV. That would mean that there is no Anti-French sentiment in the US, which is obviously not true.
I answer You do not read well Rick :-)
(hint : that means I never wrote anywhere the title of the article was POV. That was interpretation of your part. I only commented on PC considerations. In short, we are just talking of two different things. I was also mentionning the suggestion Jimbo made a year ago : the title [[French American relationships]] is more **PC** than the current one.
I often think that I write too much in length, but sometimes, it is best that I use 10 times more words, since visibly, I am so little understood.
Do you understand now ?
(hint : if you tell me again that I am wrong in claiming that there is no antifrench sentiment in the US, play again :-))
-------
What were you saying Ed ? School ? Text analysis ?
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Tarquin wrote:
At any rate, I agree with the removal of the term "terrorist" from the title.
Why? The term 'terrorist' is almost always in the title of the incident when it is referred to in any place I've ever seen a reference (although it is very often just called "9/11" or "September 11" in the USA but those titles are not specific enough for us). The incident also perfectly fits the definition of terrorism. So there is no reason not to use it unless it is unreasonably offensive. I would, in fact, argue that *not* having the word 'terrorist' in the title would be unreasonably offensive (IMO, that would be white-washing, or at lest sanitizing, the title).
This assumes that there's a reason for it to be in the title at all. Why is that? What else could "September 11, 2001 attack" mean? Titles are not required to be maximally complete. Furthermore, the attack on the Pentagon was /not/ obviously terrorism, since it was an attack on a military target. (I would argue that it was terrorism, but only given the context of NY.)
That is was an attack, at least, is undisputed :)
Taking out the word "terrorist" in light of the fact that the word is very commonly used in the title and fits the definition, goes against our common name naming convention and also creates a needlessly vague title. It also supports the POV that the incident was not a terrorist act which is absurd since it perfectly fits the definition.
Leaving "terrorist" /out/ of the title absolutely does *not* support any position that the attack wasn't terrorist. How could it do that? There is no presumption that titles include all relevant information. (That's what the article /body/ is for. ^_^)
Our "common name" naming convention also doesn't apply unless the phrase "September 11 attack" is /not/ commonly used without the word "terrorist". (That may be true, but I don't know it.)
So if something is commonly called something, fits the definition, is not unreasonably offensive, then that term should be used.
Names are not required to be complete!
More generally (meaning not directed toward Tarquin):
Blacklisting terms is a very bad idea and is more PC than NPOV. Let's not forget that PC is in fact an extreme form of POV and is *not* akin to NPOV at all (which really deals with article *content* and not titles - titles are dealt with through our naming conventions).
I remember once trying to convince you of this very thing: NPOV is primarily about article bodies, not titles, and titles need to be further determined through arbitrary conventions. That was a while ago, so I won't pretend that I changed your mind (or even that your mind changed since that was a different context); still, I'm glad to see you say this.
PC = "politically correct" . Political correctness in the United States is a political and social movement which aims to use changes in language to prevent offending people who leftists think are offended by the use of certain terms. PC also aims to help change the way other people think by changing the use of certain terms (rather Orwellian if you ask me). This is *not* at all NPOV and should *not* be associated with the 'unreasonable offensiveness' clause of our common name naming convention (which is largely agendaless, unlike PC).
Since this is a digression, I won't go on about what slander the term "PC" is. Suffice it to say that no social movement called itself that. All that "politically correct" nonsense is neither here nor there.
Wikipedia needs to *follow* common usage, not try to change it!
True, but that's really not relevant to this debate, since both "September 11 attack" and "September 11 terrorist attack" can be found, in common usage, to refer to this event. (Also, there is no particular naming convention for this sort of thing.) Thus our name is free to err on the side of caution.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Our "common name" naming convention also doesn't apply unless the phrase "September 11 attack" is /not/ commonly used without the word "terrorist". (That may be true, but I don't know it.)
I won't comment much on the underlying issue, but I did do some googling, for whatever that might be worth...
"September 11 attack" - 33,700 "September 11 terrorist attack" - 13,900
In Google News, "September 11 attack" - 71 "September 11 terrorist attack" - 10
So, although it would not be my first choice, it does seem that the "common name" naming convention may point us a way out of this discussion.
Those who find the idea that including the word terrorism in the title is biased to be mistaken or misguided or PC might still take comfort in a different reason for changing the title -- to comport with common usage.
For me, a standard policy of not using the word terrorism in such cases would be silly. The word can be overly politically loaded in some contexts, but in others it is not.
But I could be comfortable with other reasons for changing the title.
--Jimbo
Gah. You do all realize every time we change the title we kill thousands of links in?
A better google comparison would be "september 11" "attack" -terrorist vs. "september 11" "attack" "terrorist".
Shorter phrases will pretty much always have more hits than longer equivalent ones.
The change from "September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack" to "September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks" was in my opinion completely unnecessary. But I understand people's need to make an imprint.
The Cunctator wrote:
Gah. You do all realize every time we change the title we kill thousands of links in?
How is that? Was the move not done properly?
A better google comparison would be "september 11" "attack" -terrorist vs. "september 11" "attack" "terrorist".
Have you performed this Google search? You may be surprised! ^_^
But those are both fairly useless searches to perform. We want /phrases/ -- not the entire content of a page.
Analogue: "jimmy carter" president : 335,000 "jimmy carter" -president : 221,000
So do we move [[Jimmy Carter]] to [[President Jimmy Carter]]? No ... because more people will look for just "Jimmy Carter" than for the entire phrase "President Jimmy Carter".
What the search above reveals is that /most/ web pages on Jimmy Carter mention that he is president -- but that's not what we're asking for.
And if /most/ web pages on September 11 mentioned that it was terrorist (my Google search suggest that they do not! but let's pretend), that would not be of any help in choosing the title.
Shorter phrases will pretty much always have more hits than longer equivalent ones.
One reason why page titles should usually be shorter. The shorter phrase is what people will more often look for. Titles are not meant to be maximally complete. OTC, they should be (barring some other useful convention) as short as will do the job (being clear and disambiguating).
The change from "September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack" to "September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks" was in my opinion completely unnecessary. But I understand people's need to make an imprint.
Well, the latter name violates /more/ naming conventions than the former, if that's what you mean. ^_^
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
Gah. You do all realize every time we change the title we kill thousands of links in?
How is that? Was the move not done properly?
Mostly because we don't have a good automated way of moving articles that have inbound redirects. When an article is moved, its former location becomes a redirect (to the new location), so any inbound redirects to the old location are now double-redirects (redirects to a redirect) that no longer work properly (since the Wikipedia software only follows one level of redirection). The only solution at present is to manually change each of these "#REDIRECT [[September 11 Terrorist Attacks]]" pages to "#REDIRECT [[September 11, 2001 attacks]]", which whoever moved the page did not do (there are, indeed, quite a lot of them).
-Mark
Mark (Delirium) wrote in part:
Toby Bartels wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
Gah. You do all realize every time we change the title we kill thousands of links in?
How is that? Was the move not done properly?
The only solution at present is to manually change each of these "#REDIRECT [[September 11 Terrorist Attacks]]" pages to "#REDIRECT [[September 11, 2001 attacks]]", which whoever moved the page did not do (there are, indeed, quite a lot of them).
Ah! if this is so, then the move was /not/ done properly. This is a problem, but it is a different problem. One doesn't kill these links /every/ time the title is changed, only every time that it is not changed properly! ^_^
That said, according to "What links here", there are /no/ double redirects. Not a single one!!!
To be honest, this is so surprising, that I'm wondering if it's a bug???
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Mark (Delirium) wrote in part:
The only solution at present is to manually change each of these "#REDIRECT [[September 11 Terrorist Attacks]]" pages to "#REDIRECT [[September 11, 2001 attacks]]", which whoever moved the page did not do (there are, indeed, quite a lot of them).
[...] That said, according to "What links here", there are /no/ double redirects. Not a single one!!!
To be honest, this is so surprising, that I'm wondering if it's a bug???
I think the link table's gotten messed up somehow. When I checked a few hours ago (when I wrote the message you quoted above), there were quite a few double-redirects that I was pondering fixing, but I decided to wait until the dust settled before spending a lot of time doing so. The fact that they've all disappeared is a bit confusing. Hopefully we can track down these now-missing redirects and point them to the right place, or get the link table for [[September 11, 2001 attacks]] rebuilt properly. I'll post a message on the village pump about it, in case a developer who reads that but hasn't been following this rather lengthy discussion drops by. =]
-Mark
Mark (Delirium) wrote in part:
Toby Bartels wrote:
To be honest, this is so surprising, that I'm wondering if it's a bug???
I think the link table's gotten messed up somehow.
I'll post a message on the village pump about it, in case a developer who reads that but hasn't been following this rather lengthy discussion drops by. =]
There's a bug somewhere -- also check out the red links on [[September 11]].
I just reported this to the Sourgeforge business.
The main relevance of this bug to the debate /here/ is that we probably shouldn't change things anymore until the bug gets fixed, so the double redirects can be fixed. (I say "anymore" since Lance's move has just been reverted, so there should be no double redirects right at this moment. I still support Lance's move if the redirects /are/ fixed.)
-- Toby
One other point. 9-11 is universally held to be a terrorist attack. By arguing "We shouldn't use the word terrorist because we dispute the very conception of terrorism" we are engaging in political advocacy.
Wikipedia should try to properly reflect the world more than it should try to shape it.
We already have an excellent discussion of the fuzziness of "terrorism" in that article. That's the place for such a discussion, not in the Sep. 11 namespace.
On 01/15/04 at 10:57 AM, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com said:
The incident also perfectly fits the definition of terrorism. So there is no reason not to use it unless it is unreasonably offensive. I would, in fact, argue that *not* having the word 'terrorist' in the title would be unreasonably offensive (IMO, that would be white-washing, or at lest sanitizing, the title).
"Terrorism" is a lot more than just a technical term; it carries emotional baggage and implies a moral judgement (like calling someone a "vandal" in Wikipedia!). Passing moral judgements on subjects is obviously incompatible with NPOV. Moreover, if we label Al Queda or Shining Path terrorists, one can make the argument for labelling the US government a terrorist organization for mining the harbor of Managua in the 1980s, or destroying the Al Shifa pharmaceuticals plant in Sudan in 1998, or causing 500,000 Iraqi children to die of malnutrition during the 1990s by means of sanctions. Passing moral judgements can go both ways.
On the Talk page of [[King David Hotel bombing]] Zero wrote something awhile back to the effect that the word "terrorist" should be banned from every article except [[Terrorism]]. I am inclined to agree with him.
V.
Viajero wrote:
"Terrorism" is a lot more than just a technical term; it carries emotional baggage and implies a moral judgement (like calling someone a "vandal" in Wikipedia!). Passing moral judgements on subjects is obviously incompatible with NPOV. Moreover, if we label Al Queda or Shining Path terrorists, one can make the argument for labelling the US government a terrorist organization for mining the harbor of Managua in the 1980s, or destroying the Al Shifa pharmaceuticals plant in Sudan in 1998, or causing 500,000 Iraqi children to die of malnutrition during the 1990s by means of sanctions. Passing moral judgements can go both ways.
On the Talk page of [[King David Hotel bombing]] Zero wrote something awhile back to the effect that the word "terrorist" should be banned from every article except [[Terrorism]]. I am inclined to agree with him.
I disagree that the word shouldn't be used--at the very least, allegations of terrorism should be mentioned; we shouldn't just pretend the word doesn't exist, since it does, and it is widespread use. For example, [[Hamas]] should and does mention that the US and EU (and many other countries) consider it a terrorist organization. [[King David Hotel bombing]] should also mention that many people consider it a terrorist attack, since, well, they do.
-Mark