Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Terrorists/2004

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2004 votes for deletion regarding Category:Terrorists

Votes for deletion

  • DELETEjust POV.Johncapistrano 10:14, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE, this cannot be NPOV and will lead to huge NPOV disputes. Besides, almost every ruler or military leader in history can be called terrorist in some ways. --Mixcoatl 15:28, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • An inherently POV designation. This category can never been neutral. -- Viajero 20:14, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • DELETE, A terrorist is any individual who uses terror threats, or terror acts to obtain their ends. This would be a very broad category indeed. George W Bush frequently threatens North Korea and Iran. If you limit it to acts of terror on innocent civilians, then you'd have a very large list still, since any war attrocity used as a control measure to incite fear would fall into means, and then every soldier who carried out the acts would be a terrorist. (ie. the Abu Gharib guards). Perhaps it should just be Category: religious fundamentalists and racial purists who use acts of brutality against civilians to acheive political turnover of governments and societies, but that's an awfully long name. This noticibly lets off freedom fighters who are not overly into racial purity or religious fundamentalism. (I would include communism as a form of religion, by the way, so the Shining Path would count as terrorists) 132.205.15.4 04:16, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Unfortunately starting off with trying to equate George Bush with terrorism automatically discounts any argument being made. Also, the Abu Gharib guards are not terrorists by any normal definition. That aside I still think this category would be ok for "officially" designated terrorists or for people belonging to "officially" designated terrorist groups. The category page would need to explain the criteria. But we shouldn't be making up our own standards for who is or is not a terrorist. —Mike 05:52, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)
  • By "we shouldn't be making up our own standards" you seem to be saying we "shouldn't be making up our own minds." -SV 22:53, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Unfortunately, failing to read the previous anon's full statement shows lack of thought. The anon clearly says that Dubya should not be categorized as a terrorist or the Abu Gharib guards. As for the statement of officially designated terrorist, I suppose that would include a whole lot of people, like George W. Bush, because he is officially designated as a terrorist by some groups. Or are you going to be extremely POV and only follow US government pronouncements? This category is only POV and nothing but. Anyone could include anybody into this category and justify it would some phantom official designator organization DELETE 132.205.45.110 16:02, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. The category is inherently perjorative and would have to include organizations like the CIA (Sorry Mike, once headed by Bush Sr.). It's about as valid as Category: Evil people even if you did restrict it to people "officially" designated as evil. Matt 23:56, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete: Even if we go along the lines of the definition given in Terrorism, and it's specifically applied to groups which meet those exact criteria, it's still fairly POV. Suggest replacement with a category "Paramilitary groups", which is more easily defined. Sockatume 23:09, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete: Impossible to keep free of disturbing bias. Category:Terrorist attacks would be slightly less problematic case, as also Category:Convicted terrorists, but still likely to cause Wikipedia more problems than gains. /Tuomas 10:53, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete: As has been said many times, 'One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'. Government recognition means nothing. NeilTarrant 15:08, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Knowing his history, JFW may attempt to remove this vote.Xed 14:41, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Please, Xed, stick to the matter under discussion. Trolling is bannable. JFW | T@lk 16:47, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • Your definition of trolling seems to include pointing out others mistakes - a bannable offense! But removing votes is fine in your ethical universe.Xed 17:12, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete: can never be NPOV. Filiocht 14:44, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. An example, in Ireland, usually the term "paramilitary organisations" is used in media, etc., even by those who abhor the groups. zoney ♣ talk 15:58, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - POV. A few may be obvious examples, but far more cases will lead to endless arguments which the category system is not set up to handle. The sub-category of people convicted on terrorism charges should be far more useful. Warofdreams 17:11, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Replace with more specific categories. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 04:08, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Inherently POV in general. More specific categories may be OK. HistoryBuffEr 02:16, 2004 Oct 16 (UTC)
  • Delete - Terrorism is a POV term, that Western civilians use too easily to refer exclusively to Muslims, and not to their own. -SV 22:53, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. It has too many POV problems. NeoJustin 23:13 Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Wasn't Paul Revere also a terrorist, or was he a good guy because his side won? I forgot. mmmm, depends on whose side you were on...nothing accurate can come of this category. Hobie 03:42, 2004 Oct 16 (UTC)
  • Delete. Might as well be "Category: Enemies". Meggar
  • Delete - Terrorism is a POV term, that Western society use too easily to refer exclusively to Muslims, and not to their own. -SV 22:53, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Many people here have explained definitions which would make this category a useful category-- but that doesn't change that commonly held definitions are sloppy. Because our precise definition and the common sloppy one are different, I feel we'd best move this category to a more precise term. Delete. Chira 17:34, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. One man's freedom fighter... -- RyanFreisling @ 17:51, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Votes against deletion

  1. It definitely has POV problems, but how else would you categorize articles on the 9/11 hijackers, Timothy McVeigh, etc? There are quite a few individuals who are notable purely because of their substantiated connection to a violent act. One option would be to categorize them by membership (i.e., "Members of Al Qaeda", "Members of Hamas"), but that would leave out the lone guns, and also beg the question of what parent to put those categories into? We could also categorize them by their actions, but that not only seems reductionist (the 9/11 hijackeres accomplished a little more than just being "plane hijackers") but also still will run into POV problems ("suicide bombers"). So what do we do instead? Postdlf 22:08, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  2. I think this category is ok as long as it is restricted to people officially designated as terrorists by the government. —Mike 22:14, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
    Heh. May I ask which government is the government? ✏ Sverdrup 22:17, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    Interpol? [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 16:48, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
    The government is anyone who can make the terror alerts change colors. ;) -SV 22:53, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  3. I think we can keep this, but we should have instrutions for what to include on its talk page. ✏ Sverdrup 22:17, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  4. Tough one, probably should be kept but closely monitored. —siroχo 08:36, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)
    For reference, I added following paragraph to the definition of the prisoners and detainees category (which I created yesterday):
    "Wikipedia, however, does not occupy itself with determining "guilt" or "innocence" of people - that's what courts do - but it does occupy itself with recording what happened to important people."
    Could this be useful for "terrorists" category too? --Francis Schonken 08:44, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  5. Keep. Useful, and defining terrorism is not as hard as people say, most cases admit little controversy. VeryVerily 00:04, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  6. Keep. Our task is not to reform the language as she is spoken, or to deconstruct popular labels. Smerdis of Tlön 14:40, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  7. Keep: the category clearly states that the listing is of people who were involved in deliberate attack against civilians, in pursuit of political\religion\national goals. Though they might be some POV problems, there are inviteable and it is far less worse than to not list these people at all. Since this is a list of people, there is less prolem in the old militant\terrorist NPOV arguments: was he involved in deliberately targeting civilians? he's a terrorist. MathKnight 12:24, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  8. Keep. A terrorist is a terrorist. Period. JFW | T@lk 13:37, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  9. Keep. Anyone who deliberately targets civilians for political purposes is a terrorist. Jayjg 16:08, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    I will agree with keeping it, if it includes "terrorists" on all sides. -SV 22:53, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Would include in that e.g. Iyad Allawi who recently told Fallujah that their city would be bombed unless they gave up Zarqawi (who is almost certainly not in the city) ? When the city will be flattened soon, it will clearly be collective punishment of civilians. What reasoning allows us to decide wether this is terrorism or not? I'm genuinely interested in your answer. - pir 10:57, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • It's a bit more complicated in that case; if you read the terrorism article you will note, under Definition: "Legitimacy. Some hold that a legitimate government cannot, by definition, commit terrorism on its own territory. In this view, a state can commit war crimes or crimes against humanity, but these actions are distinct from terrorism." This kind of act might well be a crime against humanity, depending on exactly what was done, but would not necessarily be terrorism. Was Saddam Hussein a terrorist for targeting his own countrymen (say, the Marsh Arabs)? Was Assad a terrorist for slaughtering the inhabitants of the Syrian town of Hama? I would argue that they were not terrorists for these acts, though they were criminals. Jayjg 15:12, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
        • I must disagree. Allawi does have authority, but many people would tell you that he does not have legitimacy. Same with others. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 20:54, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
  10. I agree with User:Siroxo: "Tough one, probably should be kept but closely monitored." IZAK 00:17, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  11. Keep. Alleged terrorists can easily be listed here as long as sources are cited where they endorse violence against civilians. --Viriditas 02:20, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  12. Keep - We can maintain neutrality on this, by including everyone who has targeted and carried out attacks against non-combatants as "terrorists." -SV 22:53, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  13. Keep - We can maintain neutrality by including everyone who has targeted and carried out attacks against non-combatants as "terrorists." -SV 22:53, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    Incuding those people who ordered the Firestorm bombing of Dresden, or the atomic blasts in WW2? Those who carried them out? Those who agreed with them? --NeilTarrant 00:08, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  14. KEEP. This is definitely an article that "calls" for NPOV discussions. However, many other articles in Wikipedia have the same problem. That doesn't mean that they should not exist.--AAAAA 18:42, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  15. Keep, as Wikipedia should NOT be tool for Orwellian culture. IZAK 06:27, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please vote on this one

Presently the "cfd" notice displayed on the category:terrorists page says "Please do not remove this notice or empty the category while the question is being considered", which is even slightly contradictory to the "cfd" instruction given above on this page ("please do not depopulate the category (remove the tags from articles) before the community has made a decision" - empty and depopulate are not *exactly* the same).

Anyhow, in my view the best way forward for this category is removing the "cfd" notice, apply the "SCD" tool (see: wikipedia:categorization of people), so that improvements can be discussed on category talk:terrorists, and applied without being hampered by the "do not depopulate" instruction. --Francis Schonken 09:46, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sept16 vote on Terrorism

Results:

  • Delete: 13
  • Keep: 9 (?)
  • Replace Cfd with SCD: 1

Oct3 vote on Terrorism

Results:

  • Delete: 9
  • Keep: 10
  • Replace Cfd with SCD: 1

Oct20 vote on Terrorism

Can you revote? There's a separate mess on this on two different days.

Results:

  • Delete: 0
  • Keep: 0

Replace CfD with SCD: 0

  • What exactly do you mean, just add our names to the list of voters again? Or is someone gonna make a new subcatogory for new votes? --NeilTarrant 10:20, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • It seems that you should add your vote to the list above. That's what I've done, anyway... Chira 21:26, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
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