Talk:List of terrorist incidents/Archive 2

Assassinations

I think no assassinations should be included on this page, there's already a separate list for those and it's unmanageable enough here as it is. --Joffeloff 14:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes and no depending on intent. If the assassination is to scare people a la assassinating policemen in Iraq it does belong. Most of the traditional assassinations of a political leaders do not belong because the major intent was not to "scare" the public but kill one individual "Edkollin 03:02, 27 July 2007 (UTC).

Split?

This article is enormous. Should it be split up by decades?-Wafulz 17:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oppose Terrorism by country represents a truer sub set then does terrorism by decade. Due to different perceptions etc the terrorism lists for each country do differ sometimes. Example The U.S. list has subsections for foiled plots and Arrests and Detentions. If somebody wants to concentrate on a certain period there is hyperlinks to do so Edkollin 06:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC).

prehistorical events

Prehistorical events may be included into this list only if you provide reputable sources which describe there events as terrorism, and only quoting such statement as someone opinion. At these aulden times they all were running around killing each other civilians or not. Towns and villages razed and buried to ground for millenia. It was their way of life. "Terrorism" is the term within the framework of modern morals and to apply it to older times is anachronism. `'Míkka 21:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Copenhagen Bombings of 1807

Why isn't the bombings on Copenhagen by the British listed? I mean, isn't that a terror attack, since it is a direct attack at civilians? --[Svippong - Talk] 13:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I took it out because as it says on the top of the list "the following is a timeline of acts and failed attempts that can be considered non-state terrorism". Alleged acts of state terrorism has its own article. This was a point of debate awhile back and this debate can always be reopened. I am frankly getting tired of repeatedly having to take out alleged acts of state terrorism in this artcle by editors some of whom I suspect are trying to change policy the underhanded way Edkollin 03:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. However, I am wondering, where is this other list you speak of? --[Svippong - Talk] 15:57, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

You are correct there is no such article. It was deleted on August 2nd. Here is discussion that led to the deletion[1].In short it was agreed that since there is wide disagreement as to what it means or if it even exists the article would become an endless battleground. There are articles about allegations of state terrorism against the U.S. and state sponsored terrorism. The acts described are not acts conducted by the main military during wartime but usually done in secrecy during a non declared war by intelligence agencies or irregulars. There is no Wikipedia article for what you are describing ie acts committed by the regular military during wartime. Many acts by the allies during WWII such as the Dresden Bombing would come under this description of alleged state terrorism. To see further discussions of this and related subjects go to Archive1 of these discussion pages Edkollin 17:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

add terror attack 2007

http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=18958844&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=6

Jerusalem - On Wednesday, an off duty IDF soldier from the Israeli Givati Infantry Brigade was badly injured and a civilian was lightly injured in a shooting attack on the trans-Samaria road near the entrance to Ariel. Responsibility for the shooting was claimed by the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's military wing.

someone please add this.

btw off duty=civilian cloths —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.94.44.231 (talk) 17:11, 28 October 2007 (UTC) :

Done. Sometimes if I do not have time to add an incident I store the link in a word file.Edkollin 04:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

1968-1992 10,000 explosions in Northern Ireland alone

From List of terrorist incidents in London‎ :

April 10 1992: A large bomb explodes in St Mary Axe in the City of London. The bomb was contained in a large white truck and consisted of a fertilizer device wrapped with a detonation cord made from Semtex. It killed three people: Paul Butt, 29, Baltic Exchange employee Thomas Casey, 49, and 15-year old Danielle Carter. The bomb also caused damage to surrounding buildings, many of which were also badly damaged by the Bishopsgate bombing the following year. The bomb caused £800 million worth of damage, £200 million more than the total damaged caused by the 10,000 explosions that had occurred during the Troubles in Northern Ireland up to that point.(De Baróid, Ciarán (2000). Ballymurphy And The Irish War. Pluto Press. pp. p. 325. ISBN 0-7453-1509-7. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)).

If there were 10,000 explosions in Northern Ireland between 1968 and 1992 (and that does not include shooting that were probably even more common), is there any point making a world wide list because any list is going to be too large to fit onto one page or it is going to have built in systemic bias. --PBS 15:10, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Finland School Massacre

I am usually not in favor of listing these types of school massacres but I did for this one. The killer was not bullied and more importantly he had a stated socio/political motive Edkollin 17:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

terror attack in Philippines

"The blast, which occurred around 8:15 p.m. at the south lobby of the main building of the House of Representatives, killed Wahab Akbar, a congressman. Marcial Talbo, the driver for Representative Luz Ilagan, was also killed, and Ilagan suffered injuries to her right leg and back."

"A total of nine people, some of them congressional staff members, were also hurt in the explosion, according to the police."

"House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., who confirmed Akbar's death, called the explosion "an act of terrorism.""

from:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/13/asia/13manila.php —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.68.51.57 (talk) 16:13, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Armenian state service

Parishan, there is no such title or a organization in Armenia with that name. Secondly please use reliable, third party sources, Azeri governmental sites are neither reliable or third party. The reason I removed newspaper articles is because WP:Reliable Sources states:

"Mainstream newspapers may be a reliable source for some subjects. Newspaper and magazines have various different forms of articles from straight and neutral reporting through to opinion pieces of dubious veracity. Newspaper articles will rarely have the stature of academic works. With regard to popular culture articles, they may be the best or only source but should still be treated with care, especially with regard to assessing a neutral point of view. The publication of the same facts in several newspapers is not necessarily proof of reliability due to the way the news industry works with common agencies and self-published press releases."

Now if you want to accuse Republic of Armenia in state terrorism I suggest you present academic sources not questionable newspaper articles. Just because Azerbaijan blames Armenians for anything bad that happens in their country doesn't make it true. Also why were the USSR flags changed? VartanM 00:00, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Rememember as far as this list is concerned it does not matter as this is a list of NON-STATE terrorism Edkollin 01:44, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that they should be removed, instead of NPOV-ing? I'm talking about Baku metro bombings. VartanM (talk) 18:34, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Argentinian Jewish Center Bombing taken out

I had to reluctantly take it out. According to Newsweek magazine last week Interpol announced "red notices" for the arrest of three Iranian government officials, including Deputy Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi[2]. This list is for non state sponsored terrorist incidents. Edkollin (talk) 18:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

but wasn't the actual attack carried out by Hezbollah? it doesnt matter who originaly sponsored it (imo) but who carried it out. Resurrection of Lazarus (talk) 16:12, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

To the families of those who died probably not but putting this incident in is in clear violation of this rule "Note: there is no single accepted definition of non-state terrorism in common use. Incidents listed here are restricted to those that: (a) ARE NOT BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN STATE-SPONSORED; and (b) are commonly called terrorism or meet some of the commonly used criteria." If the Iranian government sent money to Hezbollah knowing it might used used in terrorism somehow you might have a point but the Iranian defense minister is being charged as a co-conspirator. Edkollin (talk) 19:21, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

in any case it is only claimed that the Iarnian ministers were involved, the thing didn't go to trial yet and there were no evidence presented (apart from mystirious mr C). the thing is, it wasnt proven that it was state spnsored just claimed. if this guy would be convicted or public evidence would be presented putting the blame on Iran for the planing then we cant know that. i just think that we should base this on things we know for sure and no speculations.Resurrection of Lazarus (talk) 12:01, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Right now Iranian or Hezbollah involvement are just claims which we always get around when we say "so and so suspected". Right now this incident with the new Interpol red letter against the Iranian Defense Minister falls under the "believed to be state sponsored" category but the real issue is the rule itself which I am going to deal with with a proposal below.Edkollin (talk) 06:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

aditional terror attacks in India and Russia:

Digest of domestic news for the week Nov 17- Nov 23, 2007 Friday (the 23rd)

"Lucknow: Terror strikes Uttar Pradesh when militants trigger near-simultaneous blasts in court premises in Varanasi, Faizabad and the state capital killing 15 people, four of them lawyers, and injuring over 80."

http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/16B4EA12FE2BBD006525739D002A554C?OpenDocument

"Russian police are treating the explosion which killed at least five people and injured 13 on a bus in the country's North Caucasus region on Thursday as a terrorist attack, a police source said on Friday. "

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20071123/89242640.html

someone please put those in the article —Preceding unsigned comment added by Resurrection of Lazarus (talk • contribs) 12:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

How about you being that someone?. This talk page is for comments over whether something should be in an article not a file retrieval service. If you are pressed for time stick it a file in the Word Processing program of your choice for later retrieval Edkollin (talk) 07:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

additional terror attacks in Israel

"Israeli killed in West Bank terror attack

Ido Zoldan, 29, of Shavei Shomron shot Monday night near Arab village by West Bank settlement of Kedumim, dies of his wounds short while later. Defense Minister Barak: Heighten alert level ahead of Annapolis "

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3473402,00.html

well this isnt in Israel as recognised by the UN but in the occupied territories...

"IDF foils terror attack on Netiv Ha'asara

Soldiers shoot and kill three terrorists attempting to climb Gaza security fence near Israeli community"

"The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the infiltration attempt. An organization spokesman told Ynet, "It was planned to be a suicide attack." "

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3473411,00.html

i am not sure what is the criteria for inclusion so decide yourself whether to add this one. Resurrection of Lazarus (talk) 16:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

These are acts or planned acts of violence intended to coerce a population of government with the purpose of political or social change so they are terroristic in nature Edkollin (talk) 19:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Pablo Escobar

Incidents should by or about his drug cartel should be taken out. Motivation is financial not a political or social cause although political targets were sometimes attacked Edkollin 09:14, 3 October 2007 (UTC).

It was political. Pablo waged war against the state of Colombia and his motivation was that he did not want to be extradited. The H-Man2 (talk) 22:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Split

I know this has been discussed before, but I propose to split the article on major historical epoch, like say by century or half century to improve its usability. Mbisanz (talk) 05:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is human nature. The last few years have many more listings just because editors are doing there thing when a attacks occur. Maybe cutting out all "unsuccessful" incidents or putting some sort of significance limitation. But that opens up a big can of worms Edkollin (talk) 06:30, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

December 13, 2007?

The article says there has been a terrorist attck in Lebanon on December 13, 2007. I think that should be changed since it's only the 12th today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.55.219.222 (talk) 00:11, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Not sure about the terrorist attack, but it's December 13 in Lebanon. VartanM (talk) 05:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Fixed error Edkollin (talk) 05:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Table, order, source for "terrorist"?

2006	Dead	Inju	Description
February 1	23		The South Korean Embassy in Damascus, Syria is bombed by Muslim extremists linked to al-Qaeda.
February 2	~5	~1	A farm in Patikul, a small town on Sulu Island near Jolo (Mindanao) Philippines is attacked by Abu Sayyaf. After asking the residents if they were Christian, the gunmen opened fire
February 22	0	0	Al Askari Mosque bombing in Iraq ignites sectarian strife resulting in hundreds of murders in the following days.
March 2	4	~24	Karachi, Pakistan near U.S. Consulate is bombed.
	~32	~25

I suggest we use the same format for the description: first the city or more specific location, followed by the (suspected) perpetrators if known, follwed by any other details.

I also suggest that we only keep entries if the source uses the word "terrorist" or the perpetrators are well known to be terrorists according to cited sources in the articles about them. -- Jeandré, 2007-12-14t14:14z, -- Jeandré, 2007-12-15t13:19z

This would unfairly preclude "lone wolf" and copycat incidents as well as those that occurred before the 1970's when the term was not in wide use Edkollin (talk) 04:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

If there's no reference saying it's a terrorist incident, even one written years later, then it can't stay in a list of terrorist incidents in a tertiary source. -- Jeandré, 2008-01-10t19:55z

References

Problem

Well, there's a problem with the 2008 table. It appears at the end of the article, after sources, etc.... If someone knows how to fix it. ThanksKormin (talk) 20:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Gunpower Plot

Why isn't the Gunpowder Plot by Guy Fawkes on here? In my eyes it's the first ever terrorist attempt in history. Meaty♠Weenies (talk) 13:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It was in the article until this edit [3] The rational for doing so is here [4] Tony0937 (talk) 19:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Nanking massacre, Unit 731, etc.

I see that the dropping of atomic bombs in 1945 is listed here as an act of terrorism. May I suggest adding other acts of terrorism in wars? We can add the Nazi concentration camps and biological experimentations. We can also do the ones that Japanese did in China, such as Nanking massacre, Unit 731 (similar biological experimentations that Nazi did), Bataan Death March, etc. Also we can add the Kahmer Rouge massacre in Cambodia. --AquaExecution 22:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

new map?

A couple problems with it. It appears to be based on wikipedia lists, and we've already seemed to establish that our lists are incomplete and may never be complete. Thus the map inevitably displays an incomplete/inaccurate picture, which isn't noted anywhere. And regarding the map itself, it seems kind of strange how the legend is set up, with 1 having its own category, then putting everything 20 and above into the same category (for example Iraq and Israel, then Spain and Russia all in the same category seems a little strange. There should be a 20-40 category.) Sbw01f (talk) 20:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the split of the article into smaller ones

The page itself has a template saying that "it has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page", however I don't see any discussion here. If a discussion occurred (and I certainly hope one did, considering the drastic changes the article is undergoing), where did it happen? --clpo13_(talk) 10:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

There was none. The idea of consensus at Wikipedia is apparently as dated as the horse and buggy Edkollin (talk) 05:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

What happened to being bold, also no content was lost. I watched this happen live and did not object because it seemed a good idea. ^{(Hypnosadist)} 05:05, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Just formatted the page a bit to make the ToC and article more readable. ^{(Hypnosadist)} 10:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Decided to finish off the 1970's and that leaves us with a good place to stop the split. ^{(Hypnosadist)} 11:02, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Any objections to renaming those articles from "List of terrorist incidents, 2008" to "List of terrorist incidents in 2008" and "List of terrorist incidents in the 1960s"? -- Jeandré, 2008-01-19t20:38z

None. ^{(Hypnosadist)} 07:21, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It is not intuitive how to navigate to the articles from the 60's on (the only way is the small table at the top). Can an intuitive method of navigating to these new lists be devised? Mikebar (talk) 07:42, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

More intuitive as of the last edit although I cannot help thinking it could be spaced out or otherwise look a bit better but that is just me. Good work! Mikebar (talk) 06:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Layout

Packing off the last 38 years into a mean little box full of numbers seems to me to have been a Big Mistake. Half the point of having a list of things is for reference: the other half is so that you browse it and get an overview. With this arrangement, that's impossible. I think the layout was much better the way it used to be, and should probably be put back, if not to the way it was, at least with a page for each decade.AdeMiami (talk) 19:27, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Lists by Country?

Are there lists of terrorist incidents broken down by country available on Wikipedia? If so, please refer me to the list for India, as I cannot find it. If not, may I recommend turning this into a dynamic table that allows readers to organize not only by year, but also by country, terrorist group, etc. Cheers! 67.242.104.174 (talk) 23:04, 10 January 2009 (UTC) R.E.D.

Proposal to add State and or State Sponsored terrorism incidents to this article

For a period of time all types of terrorist incidents were included here. Then it was split into state and non-state sponsored incidents. The state sponsored incident article was deleted after disagreements of what or if there is state sponsored terrorism. An example would be the Dresden firebombing of World War II. Was it terrorism or a legitimate act of War or a War Crime? While as of last check there were still a list of alleged U.S. state terrorism incidents article there is no general place at the moment to list state or state sponsored incidents. I have come to the conclusion that there might be consensuses for a revision of the non state rule because that rule has been regularly violated by editors over a long period of time. One argument against changing the rule of course is that you would bring the sharp disagreements that sunk the state terrorism article to this article. To start with I propose these three basic courses of action A. Keep things as they are. B. Add state sponsored terrorism but not direct terrorism by a state. C. Put everything in. I am sure you will have other suggestions Edkollin (talk) 07:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Edkollin (talk) 07:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC) B. Can not leave it the way it was I am to tired of deleting violators but I think the Acts of War vs. terrorism argument is to big a hurtle to overcome. Most of the violations have been in the "sponsored" category

I agree that if the other article was deleted that we should add state sponsored terrorism here. and i support what you said about not adding alleged direct state terrorism here to avoid the contraversy. Resurrection of Lazarus (talk) 10:28, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Acts of war are not terrorism. A legitimate aim of war is to sap the morale of the enemy so that the enemy no longer wishes to continue the war. The judgement about military necessity and the bombing of Dresden -- or any other city -- during world war II is far to complicated subject for such actions to be included in this list. As far as the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior is concerned, a bombing of a civilian target within the territory of a country that was an ally of the French, is a different matter. --PBS (talk) 11:13, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Another angle to this is the incident I just deleted the Mossad assassination of Black September Members. Is it direct state terrorism? It is not an action to coerce a population (a general population anyway) or to change socio/political policy but revenge. The Rainbow Warrior incident has some similarties to The Black Tom ExplosionEdkollin (talk) 06:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

As atrocious as war and war crimes are, they do not qualify as terrorism. There needs to be "space" for the article, but confusing and mixing the terms is not helpful to public understanding, and is not a legitimate way to contextualize an argument.--Mr. Stein (talk) 19:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed move

I propose to move this article to [List of non-state terrorist incidents], to reflect the description given to it in the first line. Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 19:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you need to get a much wider consensus for that kind of move. Why don't you propose it in a wider forum first? Jayjg ^(talk) 06:10, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Not much opposition after a month. What forum had you in mind? Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 18:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

No support whatsoever after a month. You could try an RFC. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

That's one way to look at it, although you can take my support as a given. "I think you need to get a much wider consensus for that kind of move."; what are you basing that on? Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 02:37, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The criteria for inclusion

All editors who wish to add to this list should first read Words to avoid.

This means that every incident added to the list must be backed by reliable sources that call it "terrorism". If it's not, it will be removed.

Furthermore, just because some sources label Group X as "terrorists" doesn't mean that everything Group X does counts as "terrorism".

~Asarlaí 17:11, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

And who made this up? 90.208.71.151 (talk) 16:10, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:11, 20 August 2011 (UTC) List of terrorist incidents → List of non-state terrorist incidents – Relisted. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 02:29, 13 August 2011 (UTC) As quiet clearly pov in that it precludes states that commit terrorism, which is not limited to the current era obviously. Lihaas (talk) 21:30, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• I'm foreseeing issues with this article no matter what you call it. I don't see why you couldn't place Pan Am Flight 103 or any similar incident on this list. Maybe it'd be better to move it to Lists of terrorist incidents and list all of the related lists we have. I don't think the proposal is well thought out, so oppose. Rennell435 (talk) 01:29, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

flags

What encylopedic purpose is served by the little flag icons. I suggest they can be removed with no loss in content. Hmains (talk) 01:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree, per WP:MOSICON--ukexpat (talk) 15:35, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Foiled incidents

It says somewhere on the talk page that this list also includes foiled terrorist incidents. However, I don't seem to be able to find any. Or a separate list for that matter. Does anyone know if there is a separate list for this anywhere on Wikipedia? It would actually be an interesting article. --Thathánka Íyotake (talk) 09:08, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

A graphics with time as x axis and both death/injured would be great

And doable with an algorithm. I m not that fast with programming though :D --Alfonsedode (talk) 14:21, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

The list lacks hundreds of incidents.. Should I add them?

Seriously I have enough sources for plenty of attacks before 1970.. Is there a reason why the least is so poor? --Bolter21 (talk to me) 16:01, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

It would be brilliant if you could add more, mate. We want this list to be as comprehensive as possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:26A0:4A00:E19C:96C4:D6B3:80D (talk) 16:10, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

I think it would be great adding them, even better if your source them --Alfonsedode (talk) 14:21, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

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Is the neutrality still disputed?

There's a tag of neutrality dispute for almost three years. Is there a justification?--Bolter21 (talk to me) 10:07, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes! This article is fundamentally non-neutral as long as it is titled "List of terrorist incidents" but excludes incidents of state-sponsored terrorism. That is as biased as excluding incidents of right-wing-sponsored terrorism or corporate-sponsored terrorism. It either needs to be renamed to "List of non-state-sponsored terrorist incidents" or it needs to include all terrorist incidents. -- DBooth (talk) 15:29, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute - Proposal to retain the current, inaccurate and non-neutral page title

Should this page be named using a moderately short, but misleading title that reflects a non-neutral POV? Or should this page have a slightly longer title that is unbiased and accurately reflects the page's intended content? This page is intended to contain a "list of non-state terroist incidents", as prominently stated at the beginning. But at present it is misleadingly entitled "List of terrorist incidents" (instead of "List of non-state terrorist incidents"), thus implicitly reflecting the non-neutral POV that only non-state terrorist incidents qualify as terrorist incidents. Such bias is a violation of the Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view requirement. Unless there is a clear and compelling justification to retain this bias and inaccuracy, it should be corrected to conform to Wikipedia's guidelines. For example, would the additional 10 characters required for an accurate and unbiased title cause unacceptable technical hardship? This issue has been brought up several times over the past 7 years, and so far no consensus has yet been reached on a compelling justification for retaining this bias and inaccuracy in the page title.

If anyone can provide compelling justification for retaining this bias and inaccuracy by keeping the current page title, please do so below. Otherwise, the page will be renamed to "List of non-state terrorist incidents" to accurately reflect its content. Thanks! -- DBooth (talk) 20:51, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

• DBooth Hopefully in the extensive period of time since your last edit you have seen some report of an event that may have changed your views. The simple fact is that a major motivation behind these attacks is to influence political directions by instilling fear. How is the WP:COMMONNAME not appropriate? Please also note that the section reached through the shortcut WP:TERRORIST is found on a project page that is basically entitled WP:Words to watch and which begins with the cautionary statement: "There are no forbidden words or expressions on Wikipedia, ..." We also need to keep track of the first pillar of Wikipedia in that we are here to build an encyclopaedia. Our priority is to present clear informative content. The rest is guidelines which, in various cases, may variously apply. GregKaye 03:21, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Whole lede specifies non-state terrorism, I've moved the page to match. If we have to use this term, it's good to see there's an attempt at defining it here. Gob Lofa (talk) 18:51, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Greg, you seem to be implying that: (a) if I paid more attention to certain terrorist incidents then I would start thinking of those as the ONLY kind of terrorist incidents; and (b) that a biased POV is acceptable on Wikipedia because Wikipedia "is not censored". Not true. Wikipedia's policy is very clear on this point: "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV)" (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). This is not a "guideline" that "may variously apply", it is a requirement. It is certainly fine to refer to any terrorist act as simply a "terrorist act", regardless of the sponsor -- be it a state, a religious group, a group of deposed generals, a ragtag band of ambitious dictator-wannabes or any other group. It is not okay to pretend that only terrorist acts that were sponsored by certain groups qualify as terrorist acts. That would be very non-neutral. As a useful thought experiment, imagine that Daesh re-establishes a caliphate, declares itself a state, and gets a few other renegade states to recognize its statehood. Should its terrorist acts then suddenly no longer be considered terrorist acts, simply because they are now state-sponsored? No. That would be nonsensical. Bear in mind also that state-sponsored terrorism is fundamental to the origin of the word "terrorism", which arose to describe "government intimidation during the Reign of Terror in France" (see terrorism). -- DBooth (talk) 17:57, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Ukraine

Since the combat actions of the War in Donbass continue to make it to these lists, and in my opinion they have nothing to do with terrorism, I have opened a discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Designation of terrorism in Ukraine. All opinions, and mostly those of uninvolved users, are welcome. Thank you.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:36, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

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Attacks on military targets

In several of the sub-lists of this one (such as List of terrorist incidents in February 2019), guerilla attacks on exclusively military targets are listed as terrorist attacks. I would like to remove any incident that clearly falls outside the Definitions of terrorism, using the four criteria in the lead section of said article. (Link to previous discussion) Does anyone have any input? Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 10:47, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Exclusively military targets or guerrilla attacks don't necessarily fall outside the definition of terrorism, especially unless there's a war. The third point of what is not considered terrorism talks about legitimate targets in a war. The second excludes attacks for self-defence and punishments for criminals. The fourth collateral damage due to a war. RookerBowman (talk) 13:00, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

New incident

Hi friend. Can somebody add this new article to main table of article? Gunman attack in Tripoli 2019 Thank you so much.Forest90 (talk) 13:13, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

This page only lists major incidents and that Tripoli attack had four victims which is a small number compared to those on the list.Sjö (talk) 09:26, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

July 2019 WP:LISTCRITERIA proposal

Editors may be interested in Talk:List of terrorist incidents in July 2019#Criteria and event notability – Levivich 03:10, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

RfC: List criteria

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should the WP:LISTCRITERIA for all "List of terrorist incidents in ..." lists be:

1. The incident is notable (has a stand-alone article), and
2. The consensus of WP:RSes describe the incident as "terrorism"

RfC posted 17:36, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Survey

• Support as proposer: Criteria #1 per WP:NOT and WP:WTAF, and #2 per WP:NOR, WP:V and MOS:TERRORISM. The lists at List of terrorist incidents#1970–present and Template:Lists of Terrorist Incidents include many non-notable entries that are not described as "terrorism" by any sources. A WP:LISTCRITERIA applied to all of these lists will give editors guidance in constructing these lists in line with our core policies NOT, NOR, and V, as discussed in detail at Talk:List of terrorist incidents in July 2019#Criteria and event notability. FYI, I posted {{please see}} links to this RfC on every list article linked in this parent List of terrorist incidents article, the WikiProjects tagged above, the template talk page, WP:CEN (not WP:CENT), and WP:VPP. – Levivich 17:38, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose This will lead to a massive cull of entries. And to such an extent that it will certainly lead to opposition and edits wars. The Banner talk 18:18, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per my comment in discussion. Better criteria should be proposed, or to leave discussions on a case-by-case basis. Kingsif (talk) 18:25, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support as any ignoring these criteria would depend on WP:IAR which should be deployed with extreme caution in BLP spaces. Furthermore, it's consistent with the requirements of WP:BLPCRIME, WP:DELAY, WP:V and MOS:TERRORIST. Simonm223 (talk) 18:38, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support only including incidents where there is consensus from RS describing it as "terrorism" (sensibly interpreted). We've discussed this before and, I thought, agreed that before. It follows logically from WP:V. "Terrorism" is a contentious term, so we have to fall back on the basic Wikipedia principle of WP:v/WP:RS here. It would be WP:OR to do anything else. Oppose only including incidents with standalone articles. Not everything in a list needs to be notable (that's standard Wikipedia policy). Having somewhere to note events that don't warrant standalone articles seems perfectly sensible. Bondegezou (talk) 19:57, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support - Call me a deletionist, but there's too much crap in these lists with what can only generously be called "weak sources". I'd rather see a WP:TNT approach to this and rebuild them. The vast majority of incidences includes on these lists are relatively minor and are related to acts of war between State and Non-State actors; terrorism is a type of attack widely used now and to create a list of all such attacks is far too broad to be meaningfully encyclopedic in my opinion. This is especially true when considering the changing criteria for the application of the label "terrorist" and the Foucauldian question of who gets to define these events as such. Does the pronouncement of any head of state count? NGOs, law enforcement chiefs, or pundits? The criteria for accepting the application of the label, even if the application is reported by RS, is unclear. Wikipedia is not a list of all the things, WP:NOTNEWS, and WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:51, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support per above. Notability and reliable sources are particularly important in a contentious context. --MarioGom (talk) 08:34, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Note On a second thought: a stand-alone may not always be necessary. If an incident is substantially covered in an article section, with enough reliable sources, that should qualify too? --MarioGom (talk) 08:37, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support Not every killing is terrorism, no matter how often IAmBarryTheDancingHamster.com says it is.Slatersteven (talk) 09:35, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose because many attacks are clearly terrorism, many of which are known to have been committed by terrorist groups. To remove 24 July 2019 Mogadishu bombing & 28 July 2019 Kabul suicide bombing from List of terrorist incidents in July 2019 is ridiculous. They were both suicide bombings of the offices of prominent politicians. Jim Michael (talk) 11:00, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support, though we shouldn't even need an RFC on this, as it's already policy (WP:NOR, WP:NOTNEWS, WP:UNDUE etc. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:28, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support classification of incidents as terrorism is often highly contentious, which means that we must make sure that any such classification on Wikipedia is clearly supported by reliable sources. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:00, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Most countries have an official legal definition of "terrorism" that, when appropriate national officials deem an incident to be terrorism-related, it gives them additional powers, and can lead to tougher penalties for those found guilty of it. (There's a reason that even local police use language like "treating this as a suspected terrorism incident, as to be able to harness those powers to expedite matters). We should only be calling events "terrorism" that have been identified by national government officials as terrorism, rather than RSes which are going to jump to conclusions based on minimal factors, due to the legal connotation. --Masem (t) 19:42, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  Discussion moved to discussion section #Masem's !vote/government labels – Levivich 16:14, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support as better than nothing but greatly prefer Masem's version. I think the guideline would be useful but we should restrict ourselves to government sources. When an article describes a suicide bombing in Kabul, the readers can easily make the inference on their own, but when we knee-jerk attach the label "terrorism" to something that turns out not to be terrorism after all, the damage is lasting. Daß Wölf 04:05, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support #1 per NOTEVERYTHING and NOTINDESCRIMINATE. See also WP:LISTCRITERIA. Opening the list up to anything labeled as a terrorist attack is insane. There needs to be some practical limitation unless it is intended to turn this into a list of lists. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:43, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support #2 per WP:EXCEPTIONAL. Designating an incident as a terrorist incident is an exceptional claim, and "requires multiple high-quality sources". As explained in WP:PSTS, secondary sources (including reliable news publications) are preferred over primary sources (including government press). Additionally, breaking news reports tend to be less accurate, and it is advisable to exclude incidents from the list (using editorial discretion) until reporters are able to confirm all of the facts involved. I don't think criterion #1 is necessary if criterion #2 is strictly implemented. — Newslinger talk 11:07, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
• (Summoned by bot) Support. as per above argumentation (we should be act carefully when labelling anything as terrorism). Borsoka (talk) 04:49, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
• Weak Support (invited by the bot) I think about 2/3 of Wikipedia list articles should be deleted, including this one. The 2/3 are subjective and present intractable problems. But, given that they exist... I was vacillating on the "has an article" criteria because list articles typically have a lower threshold for inclusion than that. (hence the "weak") Also relying on the biased media (unreliable wp:"reliable" sources in this context) to make a subjective decision is problematic. But this would help avoiding dooming the editors here to an eternal struggle. BTW I would like to second everything Masem said (except their "oppose") and urge using their criteria. North8000 (talk) 10:28, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support #1 Per WP:CSC there are three common criteria to include items in a stand alone list. The appropriate criteria for this list would be Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia. The other two criteria clearly do not apply. #2, I believe every meaningful statement in a wikipedia article must be backed by a reliable source. When applying a label, it should reflect the majority of such sources. I would also suggest that the lede in the stand alone article must mention the word terrorist when describing the incident. This would make the inclusion criteria clear. Disagreements between editors about using the label would be hashed out where it belongs, in the stand alone article. This includes debating the reliability of the source, be it a government statement, a scholarly journal, or a newspaper article.---- Work permit (talk) 04:36, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

• This doesn't consider the fact that there are so many fewer articles for non-Anglophone (and even non-US events). Also terrorist incidents from a long time - or even 50 years - ago, before the term became widely used, if at all. Kingsif (talk) 18:24, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

  WP:V is relevant here. If we can't positively verify something was a terrorist incident, we should not call it one. EX: Boston Tea Party - is it terrorism? Simonm223 (talk) 18:40, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

  Other than this parent List of terrorist incidents article, there are no "List of terrorist incidents in ..." lists prior to 1970. There are over 100 of these lists, so that would be a lot of case-by-case discussions. Anyway, I can't imagine why why'd want a different WP:LISTCRITERIA for, say, August 2019, as opposed to, say, January 2015. – Levivich 19:47, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

  Actually the term terrorism has been used for a long time. Early in 20th century there was a widespread debate among anarchists and socialists about the usage of terrorism in Europe and Russia. If anything, the term became of broader application in recent decades. --MarioGom (talk) 08:32, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

  Indeed. History of terrorism and Definitions of terrorism both describe this and discuss the problems with trying to pin down a single definition. Bondegezou (talk) 12:35, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

• Note also the past discussion at Talk:List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_March_2019. Bondegezou (talk) 19:59, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
• @Jim Michael: Hi, I don't understand your comment after your oppose !vote. If reliable sources describe those two attacks as terrorism, then they would be included in the list. If RSes don't describe those attacks as terrorism, then we wouldn't put it on a list of terrorist attacks. Nothing in this proposal would prohibit those two attacks from being listed (or any other attacks that are called "terrorist attacks" by RSes). So why oppose based on those two attacks? – Levivich 14:47, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

  My point is that those 2, which were unambiguously terrorist attacks, were wrongly removed from the July list. The sources on the Mogadishu bombing article don't use the word terrorist - though they use suicide bomber & militant Islamist. One of the sources on the Kabul bombing uses terrorist. I'm not basing my vote & explanation solely on those 2. I mentioned them because they're recent, good examples of attacks which have been removed on the basis of a rationale which is the same or similar to the one proposed here. Jim Michael (talk) 15:05, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

  I'm still confused because the example you give appear to meet the list criteria I'm proposing, both #1 and #2. Have you considered that supporting this proposal and having the criteria I propose would actually be a reason to put those two back on the list? As you put it, attacks that are clearly terrorism would almost certainly be described as "terrorism" in reliable sources, and thus meet the proposed list criteria. – Levivich 15:21, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

  Jim Michael, if sources don't call the Mogadishu bombing terrorism, why do you think it was "unambiguously" a terrorist attack? Some definitions of terrorism exclude political assassinations (as they seek a specific goal, rather than to inspire terror, as per Definitions of terrorism): maybe the Mogadishu bombing comes under that? I don't know, but I do know that Wikipedia is always based on what is verifiable, not on the opinions of individual editors. Indeed, there are many things that are true, but they fail WP:V and so we don't say them. Bondegezou (talk) 15:27, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

  It was a suicide bombing which also killed other people & caused a great deal of damage. The bomber would have known that the mayor & herself wouldn't be the only casualties. Neither of the sources on the stub article describe it as terrorism, but I don't know whether or not other articles about the bombing do.

  If assassinations of politicians even when other people are killed weren't classified as terrorist attacks, it would exclude the assassinations of Rafic Hariri & Benazir Bhutto.

  I disagree with the criteria being as narrow as proposed. Jim Michael (talk) 15:48, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

  Yeah but what's the alternative to "it's terrorism if RSes say it's terrorism"? I mean, how much broader can you get than that? I honestly can't imagine completing this sentence: "Even if RSes don't call it terrorism, Wikipedia should call it terorrism if ..." How do you finish that sentence? – Levivich 15:56, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

  The international community, from the League of Nations until today, cannot agree on how to define terrorism. Scholars cannot agree on how to define terrorism. This is all detailed in Definitions of terrorism. So what definition of "terrorism" are you proposing, Jim Michael? Bondegezou (talk) 09:47, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• @MarioGom: If an incident is substantially covered in an article section, with enough reliable sources, that should qualify too? Yeah, that's an interesting point. An incident might be notable enough for a stand-alone article, yet editors may decide not to have a stand-alone article for some good reason (WP:PAGEDECIDE). Personally, I'd support either "has a stand alone article" or "could have a stand alone article", but using "could have" might lead to like a mini-AfD argument in the middle of a list criteria discussion, which might make things overly-complicated. Even if this proposal passes, though, I don't see why editors couldn't make exceptions to it on a case-by-case basis when there is good reason to do so. "Wikipedia has no firm rules," IAR, and all that. – Levivich 15:56, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
• I note that WP:LSC, which is a Wikipedia guideline, says: "In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed (for example, lists of unusual things or terrorist incidents), it is especially important that inclusion be based on reliable sources given with inline citations for each item." We have to follow a guideline, and the guideline explicitly includes terrorist incidents as something when inclusion must be based on reliable sources. Bondegezou (talk) 09:50, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• We also need to follow WP:CSC, which outlines whether a list should only include things that have their own articles (as proposed), only things that don't have their own articles (no-one's suggesting this) or should be a complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group. Guidance for the latter says: "These should only be created if a complete list is reasonably short (less than 32K) and could be useful (e.g., for navigation) or interesting to readers. The inclusion of items must be supported by reliable sources. For example, if reliable sources indicate that a complete list would include the names of ten notable businesses and two non-notable businesses, then you are not required to omit the two non-notable businesses. However, if a complete list would include hundreds or thousands of entries, then you should use the notability standard to provide focus to the list." Reading that, given the number of attacks, it makes me more supportive of the proposal that we should only include things that have their own articles. Bondegezou (talk) 09:59, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  There have been hundreds of terrorist attacks which have never had their own WP articles, despite clearly being notable enough to. Therefore I don't agree with limiting lists such as this to incidents which have their own articles. Jim Michael (talk) 11:05, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  If something is notable enough to have an article, but doesn't have an article, they can be included. WP:CSC says for such lists: "Red-linked entries are acceptable if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future." That should solve the concern you raise. Bondegezou (talk) 12:07, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  What it comes down to is that, as there isn't a clear and unambiguous definition of the boundary of terrorism, we, as an organization, need to be told that it's terrorism. We can't just WP:BLUESKY it. This is particularly the case as "terrorism" generally describes a crime, and WP:BLPCRIME is particularly strict in its enforcement of how we handle such matters. An additional complication occurs that many of the "terrorist" events described occur in warzones and accuse forces that use asymmetrical tactics of terrorism. But the Taliban currently controls about half of Afghanistan, and claims to be the rightful government of the country, so can we safely describe them as non-state actors? Likewise, ISL, at its height, controlled a vast corridor of territory throughout the middle east, and however much we may disapprove of how they governed that territory, we couldn't dispute that they were governing it. Could we describe their televised executions of dissidents as terrorism, or were they war crimes? Or were they crimes against humanity committed by a state? Even when all the options say a thing is bad, whether it constitutes terrorism can still be in dispute. Which is why the duty on us is to be careful with how we describe things, and exclude from "list of" type articles, items that could be disputed as belonging to the list. Simonm223 (talk) 12:49, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  And, of course, it should go without saying that any definition of the word "terrorist" that includes the word, "Islamist" should be discarded on WP:NPOV grounds. Simonm223 (talk) 17:35, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  Completely agree. Many of the examples in the current list articles are of actions in civil wars (in Syria, Afghanistan etc.). They are not the kinds of actions that would have been defined as terrorism in the past. Some of them are not being described as terrorism by RS now, but editors are arguing that they must be terrorism because those who carried them out have also carried out actions (in different contexts) that are reliably called terrorism. This seems dubious logic. Whichever, this is all very difficult territory, so we have to stick to basic principles: WP:V, WP:RS, WP:OR, WP:LSC. Bondegezou (talk) 17:41, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  There's a circular logic in describing terrorists as people who commit terrorism and terrorism as being what terrorists do. That's how you end up with nonsense like throwing milkshakes being terrorism and shooting random people in a crowd not being so. So we depend on reliable sources to say, "this is terrorism," and absent that positive statement from sources we can trust we say nothing. We aren't saying "this is not terrorism," but rather, "there is insufficient reliably sourced information to classify this incident." If you want a list of suicide bombings, make a list of suicide bombings. But don't call them terrorism without a bloody source that says so. Simonm223 (talk) 17:45, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  Indeed. List of suicide bombings, List of ISIS attacks etc. are probably all viable articles if people wish to document such things. Bondegezou (talk) 17:47, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

The editors upset here should consider that there's possibly a reason that reliable media sources are so unwilling to label incidents of violence in Afghanistan as terrorism. Simonm223 (talk) 17:51, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

• Are you saying it's because media sources are biased, because they're scared of being targeted by terrorists, because there's a grey area in regard to attacks which occur during wars - or some other reason? Jim Michael (talk) 08:00, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

  I am not saying that media source are scared of being targeted by terrorists. I cannot see anyone saying that. I am saying that the whole area is super grey in terms of what attacks count, which you can read about in existing Wikipedia articles, as mentioned previously. Most of all, I'm saying we should follow Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Bondegezou (talk) 10:51, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Masem's !vote/government labels

• Oppose Most countries have an official legal definition of "terrorism" that, when appropriate national officials deem an incident to be terrorism-related, it gives them additional powers, and can lead to tougher penalties for those found guilty of it. (There's a reason that even local police use language like "treating this as a suspected terrorism incident, as to be able to harness those powers to expedite matters). We should only be calling events "terrorism" that have been identified by national government officials as terrorism, rather than RSes which are going to jump to conclusions based on minimal factors, due to the legal connotation. --Masem (t) 19:42, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

  My concern about adopting governments' definitions of "terrorism" is that the Boston Tea Party would end up on a List of terrorist attacks in December 1773, and Wikipedia, in Wikivoice, would apply the label "terrorism" to things like the Arab Spring, Chechen separatists, the Iranian Green Revolution, the Yellow vests movement, and every other anti-government movement. – Levivich 04:38, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

  Wikipedia has clear policy that it favours WP:SECONDARY sources. Reliable sources (academic, books, high quality journalism) thus trump declarations by government officials (which would be a form of WP:PRIMARY source). Particularly in the context of terrorism, it is very clear that national governments have their own biases and agendas (e.g. the Chinese government starting to use the term "terrorism" about the protests in Hong Kong). So, no, I would oppose Masem's suggestion. Bondegezou (talk) 10:54, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

  Furthermore, in practice, secondary sources, when they mention terrorism at all, generally do so by citing officials stating an event is being investigated as terrorism, which those of us who have been attempting to improve this area have treated as meeting criterion 2. Simonm223 (talk) 12:01, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

  While we do generally prefer secondary sources, keeping the fact that "terrorism" is a legal term is akin to making sure we do not report people suspected of crimes but without conviction as guilty of those crimes, even if secondary sources ignore that. This is the type of case that we have to wait for the body in the country (for example, the FBI) to make that designation which may go against how the media and public officials may want to call it. Yes, there are a lot of cases of events that may seem like terrorism where you have the mayor or other non-law-enforcement official calling it terrorism, but they're not the ones with the authority to make that designation. Calling something "terrorism" outside of the official agency with the authority is an attempt to sway public perception, particularly after 9/11, and thus should not be used to try to classify these events in a factual, wikivoice manner. --Masem (t) 13:18, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

  So where precisely would you set the bar for this? I have a lot of respect for your opinions on BLP related issues and would be very interested in your feedback here. Simonm223 (talk) 13:42, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

  Masem, I think I disagree with most of what you say there. Calling something "terrorism" outside of the official agency with the authority may be an attempt to sway public perception, although it may not be. There are many scholarly, reliable sources that are trying to cover the topic in an unbiased manner. Do you deny that? Are you really saying that every secondary source is inherently biased here? And, equally, an official agency with authority calling something "terrorism" may also be an attempt to sway public perception. I certainly wouldn't want to rely on what the Russian, Syrian or Chinese governments say. Are you really saying that every official agency primary source is unbiased?

  Moreover, you are imposing a legal paradigm on what terrorism is. As the Definitions of terrorism article explains, that is only one way to look at terrorism. Terrorism did not begin as a legal term. Terrorism need not be a legal term. That some countries have defined certain acts as being illegal and as being terrorism does not overrule all other discourse around terrorism. Bondegezou (talk) 14:20, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

  If you want this list to be the non-legal definition, then the list title needs to be changed to something like "List of incidents considered to be acts of terrorism" or something like that (at which point the suggested guidance is fine). But this list attempts to make no distinction between the legal term and the broader use of "terrorism", and my first reading would be the legal term the way the article is titles in Wiki voice (meaning all those just called terrorism but not officially considered terrorism inappropriate to include). We have to be extremely careful around words with legal meanings not to let the media or court of public opinion misrepresent things here. Heck, right now you have the language in the lead of what is being included, which includes "are illegally perpetrated against people or property;" , which is only something that can be determined from a court of law or law-enforcement agency; secondary sources cannot be used to affirm this because they have no authority to assert "illegality", though obviously they can likely determine on their own.

  If you want to focus on events considered terrorism by secondary sources, then this article needs to be renamed and the lede reworked to explain that better. Otherwise, you need to use the government sources to keep to actual legally-defined terrorism events. --Masem (t) 14:37, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

  There is language in the lead section here and in other terrorism articles that could be improved, yes. Once we've come to a conclusion here, we certainly need to revise the lead section to reflect the criteria chosen. However, I think your limited reading of terrorism to necessarily only be a legal definition goes against current practice. Consider Category:Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1970, Category:Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1971, Category:Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1972 and Category:Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1973. The first of the UK's Prevention of Terrorism Acts came in 1974: terrorism did not have a UK legal definition before then. So should all those earlier categories be emptied? Or should they all be renamed Category:Incidents considered to be acts of terrorism in the United Kingdom in 1970 &c.?

  Moreover, every country has its own laws, with some divergence between them. We cannot have a List of terrorist incidents as an article if each act's status as terrorism depends on a different local definition. You'd have to stick to a List of terrorist incidents in Great Britain, List of terrorist incidents in Saudi Arabia &c. Maybe that is the better approach, but I don't want to give up on this article yet!

  It also remains the case that WP:SECONDARY is policy. We cannot overturn that and send editors out to find primary sources. We cannot assert some WP:LOCALCONSENSUS over a Wikipedia policy. We can be careful with language, but we should still be relying on reliable source reporting. Bondegezou (talk) 15:21, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

  @Masem: I've always thought of these lists as "Lists of incidents considered [by the consensus of RSes] to be acts of terrorism", and not "Lists of incidents legally adjudicated to be terrorism". You're right that the list does not attempt to make a distinction. I feel like, "List of incidents considered to be acts of terrorism" is too long and cumbersome for a title. FWIW, I was planning an RM in the future to change the title (I think it should be "List of terrorist attacks", not "incidents"), and perhaps there is a better title that can help clarify that distinction ("considered to be" v. "adjudicated"), but my feelings were LISTCRITERIA first, title second. Would you feel differently about the proposed LISTCRITERIA if the list articles explicitly clarified that the list contains attacks considered to be terrorism, rather than attacks legally adjudicated as terrorism? If this RfC passes, the articles would need to be updated to specify the new criteria anyway, so that would be a good time to also add in such a clarification. – Levivich 16:21, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

  Keep in mind the phrase "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." If you are not going to use a legal definition, you have to make it 100% clear that these lists are based on widely-accepted consensus of reliable sourcing, which means that this list should not call out these as terrorist acts factually, because then you start to get into something like the Boston Tea Party being called a terrorist act. But in that case, you also have to make sure there's no revisionism going on. If sources today called the Boston Tea Party "terrorism" where the term was almost non-existent at that time, that would be wrong to use. Similarly, "terrorism" post 9/11 has a whole broader inclusion for RSes, so there are going to be events pre-9/11 that, if they happened the same way today would be called terrorism but in the past would never have been labeled as such. There's a whoooole host of problems that you need to be very clear about if you are going to stick to the "broad majority of secondary sources" approach.

  There's also a timing factor here, and the points about the attacks in the UK in the 70s is a good point. Terrorism existed back then, but as you say, no legal definition in the UK. But historically, scholars today all recognize those were terrorism attacks and thus seem proper to call them that. This is the "right" way for WP. On the other hand, what happened in modern events is you get people throwing around the word "terrorism" as the slightly sign that more than 2 people were victims of an event. That might apply, but it needs the test of time (months) to make sure that it is still considered an act of terrorism well outside those initial 24-48 hrs. Mind you, if the gov't comes out to say that event was terrorism before months pass, there you go, but if we're basis it on secondary sources, you definitely want the event to be well into the past before rushing it up on to these lists. --Masem (t) 16:38, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

We are all agreed that the article will need re-wording once list criteria have been agreed.

All sorts of people might rush to call a recent incident terrorism precipitously, but I think you underestimate RSs. Reliable sources, good quality journalism, generally shies away from labelling things terrorism. If we go by the consensus of RS, I do not think we'll have the problems you predict.

As for the Boston Tea Party, if the consensus of reliable sources today calls it terrorism, then we should call it terrorism. Or, rather, given a bit of space, we should say that sources today call it terrorism but it wasn't called that at the time. We follow secondary sources: that's how Wikipedia works. Bondegezou (talk) 21:19, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

I've used that one as a somewhat hyperbolic example because it fit the criteria (politically motivated violence by non-state actors) that were established on the "list of terrorism" group prior to my getting involved. Frankly, I doubt any serious scholar would consider the incident terrorism, but Wikipedia would based on these lax criteria. I certainly see Masem's point though that would, for instance, mean we'd be in a position of likely including the Yuen Wah protesters on the list of terrorist incidents and I'm not certain that's a can of WP:NPOV worms we want to open. I think, ultimately, basing these lists around the preponderance of reliable sources and liberal use of WP:TOOSOON and WP:DELAY is probably the best we're going to get here. Simonm223 (talk) 12:22, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• Move to close It's been 10 days with nary a comment. Can we get an admin to close this? Simonm223 (talk) 17:36, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

  I have listed it at WP:AN/RFC. – Levivich 02:03, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Testing the new criteria: September incident

I have removed some incidents from lists according to the new criteria. Here is one of the incidents introduced by Lukasvdb99 (diff) on List of terrorist incidents in September 2019 with the following text:

A woman was stabbed by a Palestinian boy and became injured.

I reverted (diff), it was reintroduced again (diff), and I have added an additional source and more accurate text (diff):

A 12-years old Palestinian boy tried to stab a group of police officers. A policewoman was lightly wounded.

While the police label incident a terror attack (unsurprisingly), Haaretz does not. It also looks like a minor incident in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict which will never have a standalone article. Is this something that should be kept or deleted according to the new criteria? --MarioGom (talk) 08:47, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

MarioGom you made a mistake while changing the text and adding a additional source. You put the sources at the wrong incident. I corrected it and put the right source at the right incident. And I think the police decides when it's a terror attack and not Haaretz. And both incidents have a standalone article. --Lukasvdb99 (talk) 09:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Our agreed guidelines, above, are that reliable, secondary sources decide what's terrorism, which would include Haaretz. We prefer not to use primary sources, i.e. the police.

The events look minor to me, but if they meet notability criteria for standalone articles, then they're in. If they don't, they're not. Bondegezou (talk) 11:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Based on the criteria from the RfC I'd say that, no, we don't include it. It's not being treated as terrorism by RSes. Simonm223 (talk) 12:40, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand why you prefer to use secondary sources. I think it's more logical to let the police decide when an incident is terrorism related, because they do the investigation and they have the clues that say it's terrorism or it's not. Secondary sources like Haaretz take over information from primary sources like the police. Other secondary sources take over the fact that the police call this incident terrorism, but Haaretz doesn't. This is their choice of how they bring the news. They don't say it's terrorism or it's not terrorism. --Lukasvdb99 (talk) 15:04, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

We had a lengthy discussion you can view in the previous Talk section about the criteria and why they are as they are. Wikipedia generally favours secondary sources over primary sources, as per WP:SECONDARY. Bondegezou (talk) 16:21, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Lukasvdb99: thank you for the correction. Indeed, I mixed two incidents. Wikipedia always prefers secondary sources (WP:RS). Note that taking every Government usage of the word "terrorist" at face value in Wikipedia voice would mean labeling as terrorist Leopoldo López in Venezuela until 2017, for example, or participants in many protests in multiple countries. --MarioGom (talk) 11:14, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

References

Maidan Shar attack

The Maidan Shar attack is listed at List of terrorist incidents in 2019 and List of terrorist incidents in January 2019. Given this is an attack from one faction of the War in Afghanistan against the military of the other faction, the labeling as terrorist incident is questionable. Reliable sources are not treating it as a terrorist attack ([5], [6]), except in quotes from Government officials ([7]). Anything against removing it from the lists, considering the new list criteria? --MarioGom (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I support removal. Bondegezou (talk) 19:02, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

How many list pages per year?

On Template:Lists of Terrorist Incidents, 1970–2010 is one list page per year, 2010–2014 is two list pages per year (Jan-Jun, Jul-Dec), and 2015–2019 is one page per month. It looks like combining the 12 monthly 2019 lists into one 2019 list would create a list about 180–200k, which is larger than the max recommended in WP:SIZERULE. Should they stay as they are now? Should they be consolidated into one page per year? Two pages per year? Thoughts? Thanks in advance. – Levivich 04:33, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Changes in criteria for listing terrorist incidents circa February 2019 abd their unfortunate consequences.

First I should say that this is my maiden comment on the talk page and that I find its structure less than instantly and intuitively obvious.

I am a user rather than a contributor(except financially) to Wikipedia and from December 2017 to February 2019 have used the List of Terrorist Incidents to track and analyse Boko Haram violence in Nigeria and adjacent Niger, Chad and Cameroon. The results appear in http://www.bokoharamvictimsrelief.org/violence-2017-19/. If you take a look at this analysis I think you will agree that it is a real contribution to knowledge. It makes it possible for example to identify the activities of different BH factions through time and space and to make predictions -- as for example in November 2018 when I predicted that something big was going to happen in the extreme north of Nigeria. A month later the Barnawi faction captured and held territory in extreme northern Nigeria for the first time since early 2015 -- contradicting President Buhari's ill-informed and over-optimistic statements.

It may be that the compilers of these lists do not realize just what a contribution they are making. The Boko Haram area is very poorly covered by any press and no one besides me is synthesizing the data and publishing. Thus the millions of victims of Boko Haram, IDPs and others, are denied any substative basis for making life and death decisions. (Not that many of them have access to the web, but the knowledge does trickle down, and I have sent the analyses to Nigerian newspapers, ho have apparently ignored them.)

The Wikipedia listings were especially valuable both because of their breadth of coverage and because they reference the original sources. This allowed me to check everything and follow up incidents by googling, enabling me to locate almost all incidents in space despite the imprecisions of the original reports. There really was and is nothing comparable.

Then in March 2018 everything changed. Incidents were only reported if they were "notable", usually with >100 persons killed. From hundreds of incidents the numbers went down to tens (or less). There is no way I can use them to continue the analysis. So PLEASE go back to the old criteria.

Thanks for your attention.

Nicholas David

http://homepages.ucalgary.ca/~ndavid/Homepage/ http://www.sukur.info http://www.bokoharamvictimsrelief.org https://www.youtube.com/user/nicdavid37 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicdavid (talk • contribs) 16:49, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing stopping there being an article List of Boko Haram attacks with its own inclusion criteria. Why don't you or someone else create that as a locus for the collation of information you've found useful? Bondegezou (talk) 22:14, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Question

Is List of terrorist incidents in London a child article of this one? There is a dispute about whether the RFC result applies to that article. FDW777 (talk) 13:11, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Just recording that I commented at Talk:List of terrorist incidents in London#Question. Levivich ^harass/_hound 19:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

WP:RSN#Is a statement by Governor Cuomo enough to all an incident terrorism at Terrorism in the United States ?

An editor is insisting that this is a terrorist incident and can be included in Terrorism in the United States solely on the basis that Governor Cuomo said it was (once). The perpetrator was deemed unfit to stand trial and is in a mental facility. Our RfC doesn't apply to that standalone list I assume. Doug Weller talk 12:32, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

• Repeating what I said at WP:RSN - the governor is not an RS, it doesn't belong on the list unless RSes are describing it in that way. Adding it without RS is a BLP violation. I won't comment on whether that RfC formally applies there (I haven't read it), but it seems like an obviously sensible approach to take. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:04, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Omitted nations from list of incidents by country?

Apologies if I've missed a discussion that's been archived elsewhere. But why don't Israel and Jordan have their own entries in the list of terrorist incidents by countries? Also, wouldn't that list be more navigable if it were in alphabetical order? Thanks. The Sanity Inspector (talk) 12:23, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

The list of terrorist incidents by countries merely lists those articles that exist. It's not that certain countries have been omitted: it's just that Wikipedia grows through the work of individual editors and no-one has happened to create those articles. Thus, what articles exist or don't exist is up to the wider community, so I suggest you raise that question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Terrorism rather than here. Bondegezou (talk) 12:33, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Terrorist incident which happened for more than one day?

How should be terrorist incidents which occurred for more than a day should be listed (if they should at all)? Sure "conventional" terrorism like bombings, stabbings, and vehicle attack mostly occur for just a portion of a day but how about hostage crises or full occupation by terrorist groups (such as the 2017 Marawi siege by ISIS-affiliates which is widely described as terrorism)Hariboneagle927 (talk) 11:18, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

We currently list and just give a date range. See List_of_terrorist_incidents#1900–1929 and the 28 April 1903 - 1 May 1903 Boatmen of Thessaloníki bombings. Bondegezou (talk) 11:36, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

RfC on including Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in the List of Islamist terrorist attacks

An editor has started an RfC asking "Should Operation Al-Aqsa Flood by Hamas be included in the List of Islamist terrorist attacks?" at Talk:List of Islamist terrorist attacks#Should Operation Al-Aqsa Flood by Hamas included in the list of Islamist Terrorist attacks?. Interested editors are invited to participate. TarnishedPath^talk 00:01, 7 November 2023 (UTC)