[WikiEN-l] The word 'terrorist' (was: User HectorRodriguez)

[Daniel Ehrenberg]

> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at 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 at 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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