Talk:September 11, 2001 attacks

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Quotation

I hope I'm putting this discussion in the appropriate place on the page. If not, feel free to move it. Anyway, VegitaU and I disagree on a point and I wanted to see what others think. In the memorial section, there is a quotation. I like the version of the quotation that includes the name of the person that said it:

In addition, pictures were placed all over Ground Zero. Mark Sigmund described it by saying, "In the nearby area, you can’t get away from faces of innocent victims who were killed. Their pictures are everywhere, on phone booths, street lights, walls of subway stations. Everything reminded me of a huge funeral, people quiet and sad, but also very nice. Before, New York gave me a cold feeling; now people were reaching out to help each other.”

VegitaU prefers the version with no attribution:

In addition, pictures were placed all over Ground Zero. A witness described being unable to "get away from faces of innocent victims who were killed. Their pictures are everywhere, on phone booths, street lights, walls of subway stations. Everything reminded me of a huge funeral, people quiet and sad, but also very nice. Before, New York gave me a cold feeling; now people were reaching out to help each other.”

The reason I like the first one better is that (1) I don't like it when people quote me without using my name. (I've had this happen.) I'm sure Mark Sigmund wouldn't like it either (2) If I were writing an essay or report, I would prefer to have the name of the person who said the quote and I would prefer to have the full quotation so that I could change it to suit my essay.

I just dislike anonymous quotes, because Wikipedia has an anonymous quote and then someone else quotes Wikipedia and someone else quotes that and pretty soon no one knows how to find out who originally said the quote. When I look up a quote on a Web site and it says, "anonymous" that bugs me.

But if most people agree with VegitaU, I will go along with that, because I believe in consensus. What do you guys think? Maurajbo (talk) 20:34, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point and well written comment. The reason I deleted it, though, was because of the GA reviewer's suggestions here. Mark was just the son of the reporter that wrote the article. We don't even mention that relationship (nor do I believe we should), so it came off oddly. Suddenly, as the reader goes on, Mark Sigmund appears and no one knows who he is. -- VegitaU (talk) 21:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Rename suggestion

There's been a rename suggestion made on Talk:Celebrations_of_the_September_11,_2001_attacks#Requested_move_2.
Cordially, JaakobouChalk Talk 08:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Issue changed to a merge suggestion - Talk:Celebrations_of_the_September_11,_2001_attacks#Merge.3F. JaakobouChalk Talk 19:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

CT stuff? Reversion of my edit on options activity prior to 9/11

Why was my edit taken out (diff)? Also, what does CT mean? Please use clear, well-recognized acronyms if you're going to use acronyms in an edit summary. Please respond or I will revert. ImpIn | (t - c) 22:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, CT means conspiracy theory. Economic activity with no links to the attacks don't belong here. Lot's of stuff happened in the weeks before Sept 11th, 2001. RxS (talk) 22:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I've warned the user. -- VegitaU (talk) 23:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Did you even glance at the article? This is an article specifically about 9/11, speculating that the terrorists traded options. Read it and then reply. If necessary, I will take this to wherever I have to, because it is not conspiracy theory and it fits in the article. ImpIn | (t - c) 23:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
FBI finds no proof of insider trading prior to 9/11. 9/11 Commission finds nothing. -- VegitaU (talk) 23:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Then we can note those papers as well. However, the paper I put in was done by an academic (Poteshman) in the field of business. It says that there was unusual activity. This is not the FBI's field; it is this academic's field. This stuff deserves to be mentioned in the article under motivations. It seems that both of you are entirely set in your opinion. Do you want me to open a RfC? Further, it seems that the NR paper outlining the 9/11 Commission's findings provides a very good balance to Poteshman's paper, showing that there was no insider trading. ImpIn | (t - c) 23:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how it fits under motivations when I've given you specific sources renouncing that claim. Maybe it should go in the 9/11 conspiracy theories article. Here it is again: the State Department reiterates - no trading after an "exhaustive search". It's your privilege to take this issue wherever you want. -- VegitaU (talk) 23:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It's still a theorized motivation published in a RS by an author who has published at least 39 papers in finance. It doesn't matter if it has been contradicted; both will balance each other. Plus, it's not a "conspiracy" claim, unless by conspiracy you mean the general conspiracy by the terrorists to commit the action (which, technically, was a conspiracy, but is discussed in "responsibility", a strange name). ImpIn | (t - c) 23:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

And that reply illustrates exactly why it shouldn't be included. Of course it matters that is has been debunked. Otherwise I might as well copy the Loose Change script in here and then just write "lol, j/k!" Now you take an issue with the throughly proven and re-proven account we have written here as a "conspiracy"? You might as well take this up with the admins, because we're just going to argue back and forth here. -- VegitaU (talk) 23:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I finally found the diff. These allegations were discussed here and deleted here. -- VegitaU (talk) 23:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

That was no discussion. That was a statement by one person -- I clearly see relevance to this article. If something has been claimed by a RS, and there is a subsequent debunking, it makes more sense to include both. Encyclopedias are here to record information. What surprises me is that you don't realize that by immediately settling the question of insider trading in the main article, you would actually decrease interest in the 9/11 conspiracy theories. I don't take issue with the "conspiracy theory" label, which is well-accepted, but I don't like the "responsibility" title much (vague), and I don't think that insider trading can be categorized as "conspiracy theory" rather than "responsibility". The author of this paper clearly targets the terrorists as the ones trading. Do you dispute that? I do wonder why Poteshman didn't mention the work done by the government, however. ImpIn | (t - c) 00:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The claims that unusual options trading was observed have been widely reported, but also widely debunked. Since they are generally not accepted to have any credence or importance, it is inappropriate to claim they do. Encyclopedias record information, yes — but not indiscriminately, and especially not when that information is widely regarded to be false, misleading, or of no relevance to the topic. --Haemo (talk) 01:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

No. The claims of unusual options activity have been confirmed by researchers in finance. The connection of this activity to the terrorists (or other parties) has been dismissed. Two separate things. However, it's not worth battling over; I see it is covered at the 9/11 advance-knowledge debate. ImpIn | (t - c) 02:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

If the connection between this type of trading and the terrorists has been dismissed, then it doesn't belong here in the first place. If it's been dismissed it probably doesn't belong in 9/11 advance-knowledge debate either. RxS (talk) 04:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree it should not be in this article as the put options were rejected by the FBI and the 911 commision. However, it should be in the 911 conspiracy theories article or perhaps it is more approriate for the 911 advance-knowledge debate article. Don't be put off by the explanations you are given as to the claims being debunked. Financial experts are still virtually unanimous that the options are suspicious and should be properly investigated. Before the limited U.S. investigations even began the FBI had already stated (in Congress) that they saw nothing that was suspicious in the trades (10X is considered evidence of insider trading and for 911 it was 285X). The ONLY reason the claims were dismissed, according to the 911 commision, was because the company that made the majority of the options was not in any way connected to al Qaeda (they found it was coincidence). What makes it relevant for the other articles is that the manager of that company was the executive director of the CIA. It should also be noted that it was not just put options, there was also suspicious trading in 5-year bonds and oil and gold futures (in one case over $5 billion for a single transaction) and a surge of more than $100 million in illegal transactions on the WTC's own computors in the hours before the attack. Wayne (talk) 05:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

RxS, you don't seem to understand that one RS does not immediately silence another RS, especially when each is equally (or uniquely) qualified to make claims. ImpIn | (t - c) 09:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

As a rejected theory, it clearly doesn't belong in this article. Perhaps it belongs in 9/11 advance-knowledge debate. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 12:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree that it doesn't belong in this article, but I don't know if it is the fact that it is rejected as much as it is the fact that it is of little significance in the main event. ImpIn | (t - c) 22:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
A little bit of both. --Tarage (talk) 08:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Yeah, actually my statement doesn't make a lotta sense, especially considering that I tried to add this in earlier (before I knew about the 9/11 Commission's investigation). The fact that it was dismissed reduces its relevance -- although, like Kauffner, I think there's an argument to be made for mentioning it still. Like I said, illuminating this fact actually nips the conspiracy concerns in the bud. ImpIn | (t - c) 01:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Everyone's heard of this insider trading stuff, so I think it should be mentioned in the article. But the 9/11 commission did a good job of debunking it. The company that purchased the suspicious put options was at same time purchasing airline stock. It strikes me as inheritently unlikely that the hijackers would give the names of the airlines they were targeting to stockbrokers. Most of the hijackers had no idea they were even on a suicide mission, so there seems to have been an usually strict "need to know" rule. Kauffner (talk) 09:46, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Everyone's heard of a lot of false information about 9/11. This is the place for factual information. No insider trading. -- VegitaU (talk) 16:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

OK. It's rather frustrating that you and RxS seem to display a lack of understanding of the nature of facts and encyclopedic information. It is a fact that there was highly unusual trading (probability ~3%) preceding these attacks. It is a fact that this was noted by academics and traders, and highlighted in the news. It is a fact that the suspicious trading was investigated by the 9/11 commission and found to be innocuous. It is not a fact that there was no insider trading. Do I have to spell out the difference for you? We do not know that there was actually no insider trading. We just know that the 9/11 Commission believed there was not. ImpIn | (t - c) 01:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
The 9/11 Commission investigated and found nothing. No one disagrees on this point. The 9/11 commission is a reliable source and their points and conclusions carry a heavy weight. I'm not sure how to prove to you that there was no insider trading, but since so few people seem to hold that point of view, it would be undue weight to add this point. If we had to list everything the 9/11 Commission investigated from insider trading to bombs in the building that were later proven to have no merit, we'd have an article that went nowhere. Fact or not, major reliable sources (FBI, 9/11 COM, State department) all say: no trading. And reliable sources are the ones that hold weight here on Wikipedia. This is about verifiability, not truth. -- VegitaU (talk) 01:38, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
  • It doesn't need it to be proven. I'm not asserting that insider trading happened. I'm just emphasizing the fact that widespread media speculation about a highly unusual phenomenon is encyclopedic information, as is its subsequent dismissal. These are facts relevant to the occurence. RxS, who expressed above that "since its debunked it shouldn't even be in the 9/11 advance knowledge debate", and yourself, both seem to not comprehend this, RxS especially. ImpIn | (t - c) 01:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
There isn't widespread media speculation about insider trading. In fact, considering the enormous number of reliable and mainstream sources, there's hardly any at all. Reliable sources are the ones we draw from here. If you want to speculate about these things, there are plenty of web sites for you. This isn't one of them however. RxS (talk) 01:56, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
There certainly was soon after the attacks. This article is largely a historical description of the event. The fact that Poteshman published a paper in 2006 on it is a testament to the fact that this interest remains to some degree -- although current interest, like I said, is somewhat irrelevant when we're discussing the historical event. ImpIn | (t - c) 02:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

In the wake of the attacks there was widespread speculation about everything. Now, seven years later, we have definitive answers to almost all that speculation and we've written those answers here and cited them. Speculation may be encyclopedic, but it doesn't go here where only factual cited information is written. Like I said above, you can put this in another subarticle about the attacks to your liking, but not here where we state cited facts. -- VegitaU (talk) 02:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Oh, speculation about everything? Really. Some people were speculating that space invaders from the moon were doing the attack? I'd never heard that one. I doubt it reached CNN. No, your attempt to characterize this as wild speculation by a couple obscure people is clearly false. It was in the mainstream news repeatedly, continued to get attention, was investigated by the Commission, and recently had a paper published on it. I keep getting drawn back to this because of the assertion of blatant falsities. There was fairly limited speculation after the event, and this speculation, if notable enough, deserves to be mentioned in the article. I already ceded putting it in this particular article. ImpIn | (t - c) 02:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I didn't realize your imagination was so wild. Please try to stay focused. News agencies were speculating on everything having to do with airliners smashing into buildings: what could have caused it, what exactly happened, whether there were bombs in the buildings, who the hijackers were, how they managed to break into the cockpit, who they were, who directed the attack, possible targets for Flight 93... it was endless. And now we have answers to all that and no reason to write "some organizations thought there might be more bombs in the building, but this was later proven false." -- VegitaU (talk) 02:50, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Insider trading is not completely dismissed.

"Congressman Dennis Kucinich revealed that he is initiating an investigation of the insider trading that took place leading up to 9/11, particularly in regards to put options placed on American Airlines and United Airlines stock."
February 22, 2008.

The insider trading issue has NEVER been disproved, only the connection of the trading to al Qaeda has. The conclusion from the 911 commission:
"Some unusual trading did in fact occur, but each trade proved to have an innocuous explanation. For example... a single US-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to Al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6".
The issue isn’t whether the guilty parties had "conceivable ties to Al Qaeda", it is whether they had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Having said that the topic is still not appropriate for this article. Take it to the fore knowledge page. Wayne (talk) 11:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)