Talk:Omagh bombing/Archives/2009/6

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Delisted as GA

With all due respect to the GA reviewer, this article does not even come close to being a GA at present. Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles states "Ideally, a reviewer should have access to the sources cited, and sufficient expertise to verify that the article reflects the content of the sources", I question whether this was done at all with regard to the sources available online at the click of a mouse button. Significant problems with the article, and this should not be taken as a full list just one that's very obvious with a brief check:

  • Image in infobox. Fails WP:NFCC#8, there is no way a picture of the car contributes significantly to readers understanding of the topic, it's a decorative image.
  • Lead. Does not summarise the article, as it contains information not in the main body of the article.
  • "which later forced the organisation to apologise" - forced is a POV statement and is not sourced.
  • "created a strong international and local outcry against the RIRA" - out of the four sources cited for the sentence containing this wording, I cannot find one that actually sources it.
  • "The families of those killed say that they will continue with a High Court civil action for £14 million against the two men" - this is preceded by Colm Murphy and Sean Hoey, who are the "two men" being referred to obviously. Sean Hoey is not a defendant in the civil case. And surely this is now a dated statement? Those comments were made after the acquittal of Hoey, and the civil case started last year. Also the cited source is a dead link.
  • "Sinn Féin leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness condemned the attack and the RIRA itself" - the sentence is over-cited. Right after Gerry Adams is this source, right after Martin McGuinness is this source, and at the end of the sentence is this source. The first source is just Michael McDowell repeating Gerry Adams' comments from the third source, and the second source is just a repeat of Martin McGuinness's comments in the third source. So there's two totally pointless cites, especially when a quote from one person shouldn't really be used to support what a third party has said, especially when a cite is already available for the third party's comments.
  • "He is currently awaiting a Court of Criminal Appeal ordered retrial" - say when it's scheduled to occur, "currently" should always be avoided
  • Background section. Why is Wesley Johnston's view so prominently included, or included at all? Is he a respected academic? Is he a respected political commentator? As far as I'm aware, he's a man with a website, thus a self-published source, his name has no relevant results on Google News in relation to Omagh. Even if he wasn't a "man with a website", the comments make no sense at that point of the article. That section should be dealing with general events leading up to the bombing (bombing specific events belong in the next section)
  • "The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) co-operated with the agreement, and dissident members who saw it as a betrayal of the Republican struggle for a united Ireland left to form the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA) in fall 1997" - so because the Provos co-operated with an agreement that took place in April 1998, dissident members left in fall (sic) 1997? That makes sense, honest! Also do not use seasonal terms, especially American ones on a non-American topic
  • "The perpetrators replaced its Republic of Ireland number plates with false Northern Ireland plates." - that's quite a significant accusation not supported by the sources, that the person who changed the number plates was a "perpetrator" of the bombing. There were several levels involved in cars being used by the RIRA, first there were car thieves, then there was a RIRA team who took possession of the stolen cars and changed the plates, then explosives would be added (possibly) by other RIRA members, who may or may not be involved in the actual bombing, or even aware of exactly where the bombing will be. So that's why "perpetrators" is wrong, you're accusing someone who possibly only changed number plates and who had no idea of what was going to happen, or even what the car was for, of being involved in the actual bombing.
  • "The car bomb detonated at about 3.10 pm, or 15:10 BST" - one or the other, not both.
  • "That morning, three phone calls had been placed warning of an attack in Omagh." - is this factually accurate? I think not!
  • "The office received a second warning" - what office?
  • "Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan" - why does "Chief Constable" link to Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary?
  • "The RIRA has strongly denied that they intended to target civilians. They have also stated that the warnings were not intended to lead people to the bombing site" - why, since the same statement is used for both sentences, are they not combined to avoid the first stubby sentence? Unsourced use of "strongly"
  • "Build-up to the attack" section. The last paragraph is nothing to do with "build-up"
  • "During the 2003 Special Criminal Court trial of RIRA director Michael McKevitt" - RIRA director?! Unless a specific Army Council role is being referred to in full, "director" is strange, as I have never seen any Army Council member of any variation of the IRA referred to by a source as a "(R)IRA director". That is not sourced by page 33 of Black Operations either, in fact many of the other pieces of information sourced by this footnote are incorrect cites, caused by someone copying this footnote and using it for multiple cites. For example this cite for the 7 January 1998 attempted bombing in Banbridge, which is actually sourced by this correctly cited footnote to totally different pages which I originally added.
  • "The attack" section. Why doesn't this even include the number of people killed?
  • "Aftermath" section. This isn't "Aftermath", unless it means "Immediate aftermath of bombing". The last paragraph includes a reaction from Robin Eames which, unsurprisingly, should be in the "Reactions" section which is right underneath it. Move the quote, and amend the title to match the new contents, which are exclusively to do with medical care. This also excessively quotes sources, rather than paraphrasing and summarising.
  • "The Pope and American President Bill Clinton, who shortly afterwards visited Omagh with his wife Hillary, also expressed their sympathies" - link to the actual Pope not Pope, and the sentence needs to be re-arranged or split.
  • "strong international and local outcry" - as comments above regarding this wording in the lead.
  • "Reactions" section. Martin McGuinness's comments are split in two by Gerry Adams' comments.
  • Sinn Féin as an organization initially refused to co-operate with the investigation into the attack" - American spelling shouldn't be used. This does not really belong in the "Reactions" section either, this and the sentence after it woud be better placed elsewhere
  • "On 22 August 1998, the Irish National Liberation Army called for a ceasefire in their operations against the British government." - The use "British government" is dubious and not strictly correct.
  • "The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism has accused the republican paramilitary organization of providing supplies for the bombing." - more American spelling. The source cited is not making the accusation, it says "the INLA has been implicated", so track down the people actually implicating the INLA or remove it. Is the involvement of the INLA a significant view? The only INLA involvement I have seen covered in other sources is that the RIRA indirectly dealt with a gang of car thieves in the Dundalk area through an INLA member who knew McKevitt, but that's hardly INLA involvement or providing the weasel wording "supplies". The inclusion of this in the "Reactions" section is also dubious.
  • "The RIRA also suspended operations for a short time after the Omagh bombing before returning to violence" - for how long, "a short time" is meaningless when it is known exactly when they became active again. "suspended operations" is dubious wording as well.
  • "No group claimed responsibility on the day of the attack, but the RUC suspected the RIRA. The RIRA had carried out a car bombing in Banbridge, County Down two weeks before the Omagh bombing." - facts are being presented inviting the reader to draw their own conclusion, however the source cited says "Suspicion has fallen on the Real IRA because of its use of similar tactics when it bombed Bambridge, Co Down, two weeks ago". So it's not unreasonable to actually cite the Banbridge bombing as evidence of suspicion, rather than presenting it as a meaningless bare fact. However that's an irrelevant argument, as both those sources are actually incorrect. Before the "verifiability not truth" card is played, please look at both sources. They are both from right after the bombing, when full details of the bombing had not been released to the press. See this source that states the warnings received used a recognised Real IRA codeword (indeed, the same one used at Banbridge) thus claiming responsibility for the impending bombing, so it was not necessarily just "similar tactics" that caused the RUC to suspect the Real IRA but also the use of the same codeword, which the press at the time did not know as the full warnings had not been released.
  • "The police believe that bombing of BBC Television Centre" - which police? RUC? Met? Best to find the original source instead of a brief mention in a timeline.
  • "On 9 April 2003, the five RIRA members behind the BBC office's bombing were convicted and sentenced for between 16 and 22 years" - not strictly true, read the source. They were convicted of conspiracy, with the court hearing there was no direct evidence any of the accused had set the bombs, but they were part of the team responsible.
  • "they questioned and arrested at least seven suspects" - "arrested and questioned" would be the way to go.
  • "He is, as of January 2008, the only person ever convicted in connection with the explosion" - no he is not. The conviction was overturned, therefore to state that as of 2008 he was convicted is a false statement. Unless he is re-convicted if and when the appeal comes to trial, nobody has been convicted. If you want to include it, it has to be something like "Until his conviction was overturned blah blah blah, he was the only person ever convicted in connection with the bombing". Note it should also be "bombing" not "explosion"
  • "Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan published a report on 12 December 2001 that strongly criticised" - there's that use of "strongly" again
  • Civil suit. This is not a prosection, therefore it does not belong in a section called "Prosecutions"
  • Striking that, as it varies by jurisdiction and the civil case was a strange case taking evidence in two jurisdictions. I'm not sure either way. 2 lines of K303 13:08, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Hoey. His acquittal and the immediate reaction to it are split in two by Flanagan's comments made a month afterwards
  • "Flanagan issued a 190 page counter-report in response" - sort out the poor embedded HTML formatting
  • "Assistant Chief Constables Alan McQuillan and Sam Kincaid sent affidavits giving information that supported the report" - not sourced by the cited source
  • "He has argued that the multiple warnings were given by the RIRA to cause confusion and lead to a greater loss of life" - these arguments have nothing to do with the Ombudsman's report. These arguments were made at the time of the bombing, not in reaction to the report. Therefore they most definitely don't belong in that section, you're using Flanagan's arguments against something totally different
  • "On 29 July 2001, a double agent using the pseudonym Kevin Fulton" - since when was Kevin Fulton a double agent?! If you use tabloid sources (which aren't even citing the right sentence I hasten to add) expect to get it wrong, get a better source. And I'm aware Fulton (or his ghost writers) repeatedly claim he was a double agent, his activities show he was no such thing at least according to the traditionally accepted meaning of the term. This source is cited at the end of the sentence, to what end?
  • "He stated that MI5 did not pass his information over to the police" - get a better source than the Sunday Mirror, per above. This source is very dubious for sourcing that sentence, as Fulton's allegations were made in July 2001 and that report is dated February 2006, so is it even referring to the same thing?
  • "Flanagan called the allegations "an outrageous untruth"" - not sourced by the cited source
  • "In September 2001, British security forces informer Willie Carlin stated that Nuala O'Loan's associates had obtained evidence confirming Fulton's allegations" - again, tabloids like the Sunday Mirror are best avoided, as are stories that briefly cover earlier stories when the original stories can be cited just as easily. The comments by Carlin were not in September 2001, they were in August 2001.
  • "On 21 February 2004, PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde called for the Republic of Ireland to hand over Dixon." - not sourced by the cited source
  • "Chief Constable Orde stated that "security services did not withhold intelligence that was relevant or would have progressed the Omagh inquiry."" - this is effectively misattributing the quote. The source cited crucially has the wording "It's the view of the senior investigating officer (Superintendent Norman Baxter) - who I spoke to only two hours ago -" immediately before that comment. So comments you are attributing to Orde are actually him reporting the view of the senior investigating officer.
  • "The group has the goal of creating a permanent memorial in time for the tenth anniversary of the bombing on 15 August 2008" - since it's now 2009, this needs changing or removing.
  • "Senior government representatives from Britain, Ireland and the Stormont Assembly" - since "Ireland" links to Ireland, "Britain" should not link to United Kingdom. Better still, since the people being referred to are named in the cited source as Shaun Woodward, Martin McGuinness and Brian Cowen, why not name them and include their political office?
  • "However, a number of bereaved families boycotted the service and held their own service the following Sunday" - since the cited source says it was the "Omagh Support and Self Help group" who held the alternative service, and they are already covered in the article, why not actually say who boycotted it rather than the vague "a number"?
  • "They argued that the Sinn Fein-dominated Omagh council would not acknowledge that Republicans were responsible for the bombing" this immediately follows the sentence above, thereby implying that was the reason they did not attend. The cited source does not really support this argument.
  • U2 information is largely sourced by a fansite. If it hasn't been covered by reliable sources, it doesn't belong in the article.
  • "GCHQ monitoring" section. Two sentences do not make a section. Expand it, or merge it somewhere else
  • Quotes. Too many quotes from sources are used at length. While quoting specific people is recommended, more paraphrasing and summarising is needed for other quotes.
  • Variations in grammar. co-operate and cooperate (and variations on the terms) are used interchangably, this needs to be consistent
  • Sources. Plenty of links are pointing to sources which are obviously wrong, I have listed several above but I no not doubt there are others. All of them need to be checked.
  • Footnotes. Often in the wrong order when multiple citations appear in a single sentence, and are almost all missing access dates for links, and often do not use citation templates. Random and incorrect use of bold and italics in the footnotes as well.
  • Over-citing. Four references are not needed in the infobox to source that 29 people died, neither are three needed to source the RIRA was responsible, as neither of these are disputed by any reliable sources are they? Similar over-citing elsewhere too
  • Off-topic information. In many sections there's information that either doesn't belong in that section, or in the article at all. The article is too long because of this, try and keep it on-topic not include every piece of information unless it's truly relevant. To show how much information was added by an over-enthusiastic IP editor, look at this irrelevance I removed some time ago.
  • Largely to do with the above, but worth mentioning separately is overall topic balance. You've got two paragraphs dealing with the medical care given to the injured, a paragraph largely dealing with the objectives (as opposed to their actual activities, which are also covered) of the Omagh Support and Self Help Group, yet you've got two sentences (which are only a direct quote from the BBC) that actually even come close to dealing with the effect of the Omagh bombing on the Northern Ireland peace process?! Sorry, but the effect on the Northern Ireland peace process needs to be covered in way more detail than that.
  • Bias. The one source that has actually covered how the bombing happened, as to how the bomb ended up where it did and why the warnings were inaccurate is not cited with regards to this, instead the article relies on the uninformed opinions of people immediately after the bombing. This is totally unacceptable, it is ridiculously biased to exclude this information.

I could go on and on, but hopefully that's made my point quite clear? I have no doubt someone may object to my delisting despite the large number of problems I have pointed out, if you do I request that you follow the procedure at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment and include my comments above as my reason for de-listing it. 2 lines of K303 14:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

  • It's fascinating that you have such a laundry list of problems with this article yet you did not present them during the review, or more importantly, you did you offer to review it in the first place. I will not revert your delisting of the article but bear in mind that there is a process to all of this. Once the decision is made to promote an article to GA status, then it should be submitted to Good Article Reassessment, rather than being summarily delisted. You should have listed it there first along with your critique and allowed consensus to rule out. What you have done is entirely inappropriate and circumvents the established processes. You request that procedures be followed AFTER you decide not to follow them yourself. Since I am the GA reviewer I do not feel it is appropriate for me to list this article in GAR. H1nkles (talk) 15:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
It's equally fascinating that such a laundry list of problems was completely missed when the article was reviewed in the first place. Judging by that list, it is clearly not a GA so should not have been passed, and its delisting was correct. ONIH is a very knowledgable editor who left the project for personal reasons and that might explain why he didn't contribute during the initial process, but as I stated above how was this passed with so many glaring problems? BigDuncTalk 15:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I am neither supporting the review or questioning the quality of the editor - ONIH is obviously very knowledgeable of WP. I am simply stating that the proper channel would have been to submit for reassessment first. I will leave it to the article's editors to employ the critique as they see fit or submit to GAR if they desire. I will admit that I am irritated that people throw stones after the decision has been made rather than contributing to the process from the beginning. We are all trying to improve the quality of WP articles, that I know is ONIH's motives as it is mine. I just wish the effort could have been more collaborative from the beginning rather than after the fact. H1nkles (talk) 15:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I had hoped you would take my comments in good grace, and accept that passing this as a GA was not correct and leave it at that. If you want to argue about process, so be it. For an article to be a good article, it has to meet the good article criteria, one of which is "factually accurate and verifiable". When reviewing good articles, the reviewer "should have access to the sources cited, and sufficient expertise to verify that the article reflects the content of the sources". Now I don't expect you to have access to the book to check what is cited to that, and if the problems were solely confined to a source you did not have access to I would not have delisted it straight away. However when the sources are available at a click of a mouse button, there is no excuse for not checking them. I know you at least clicked on some of them, as you identified dead links. As an example, the sentence preceding this reference reads "On 21 February 2004, PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde called for the Republic of Ireland to hand over Dixon" which is allegedly sourced by this footnote. Now what stands out to you about the footnote? How about "Published 16 August 1998", sourcing a sentence referring to 2004?? Did that not ring any alarm bells? Checking the source in case it was updated since 1998, there is no occurrence of the word "Dixon" anywhere on the page. Now repeat that for the various other footnotes which I have identified as being incorrect, and possibly some others I did not identify, and do you see the problem? It looks like you didn't check whether the information was sourced or not, you just saw a footnote, checked the link wasn't 404, and said "ok, it's sourced". Sorry, but that's not good enough. Passing good articles without properly reviewing them just devalues good articles altogether. And expanding on my comments about the book, there are problems with this article listed above which aren't obvious to anyone without a good knowledge of the subject, and had the problems been limited to those I would not have delisted it either, but as there were problems that should have been picked up by any reviewer yet weren't, that's a moot point.
Why do you want to waste time with process wonkery, when it's quite acceptable for an editor to delist an article themself anyway? You haven't even attempted to rebut my points about why this isn't a good article, instead suggesting I waste the time of other editors. Do we need several other editors to tell us this source from 1998 doesn't source a sentence referring to 2004? If process is so important to you, follow the proper process for reviewing good articles in future, so that the label of "good article" doesn't become meaningless due to half-baked reviewing. You promoting this article was out of process in my opinion, so you'll just have to live with me delisting it. This article does not meet the good article criteria, it shouldn't have been passed. If anyone wants to disagree and take it to good article reassessment be my guest, but you're just wasting everyone's time if you do. Your time would be better spent fixing the article so it is a good article, and if I'm still here when it's ready I'll review it myself, and there won't be a four week wait involved as is usual with GA noms either. 2 lines of K303 13:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
As a general comment for future reference (for ONIH), while it is fine to do an "Individual reassessment"—you updated the Article History with "GAR" here, you should use the correct templates (discussed on the page you linked to in your last paragraph) to also set up a reassessment subpage for the review.
Besides any possible statistical bot reasons, a subpage acts as a stable link for the Article History entry; whereas, an ordinary talkpage section moves to an archive on a busy talkpage like this. (I haven't moved it, since I haven't set one up before.)
Notifying the most recent GA reviewer is generally a good idea as a courtesy too, probably more so where a review was completed as little as 48hrs or so earlier. –Whitehorse1 16:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The Real IRA ... a 'Terrorist Organisation'

The Real IRA was designated a terrorist organisation by the US Federal Authorities [1][2] [3]. As such, individual members of this organisation are deemed to be terrorists. In the article these terrorists are referred to sympathetically as paramilitaries which is incorrect. Suggest the designation be altered to reflect the correct title for these individuals to Terrorists. --De Unionist (talk) 13:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course, the IRA were a terrorist group. But, it's best to discuss your proposals for the article (rather then edit war). GoodDay (talk) 15:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Sorry friend but you are missing the point here. The IRA no longer have the designation 'terrorist organisation' but others have including the Real IRA who carried out the Omagh Bombing. My edit simply corrected the error which saw the Real IRA referred to as paramilitaries when this is incorrect. They are simply terrorists. Do you support thie change of designation? --De Unionist (talk) 16:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I see you attempted to add the text in an unattributed manner despite being pointed towards WP:TERRORIST. As the United States did not designate the Real IRA until 2001, I object to any designation being backdated to 1998. O Fenian (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Ok, so they weren't terrorists prior to 2001, they only became terrorists when the US chose to designate then such? What planet do you live on....nod! --De Unionist (talk) 16:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Agree with O Fenian this editor has been shown links but either doesn't understand or refuses to acknowledge them if the latter their edits can just be explained as disruptive. BigDuncTalk 17:02, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Which bit of 'terrorist' do you not understand? Have you not read Wikipedia policy on such a designation.."If a reliable source describes a person or group using one of these words, then the description must be attributed in the article text to its source, preferably by direct quotation, and always with a verifiable citation" wp:Terrorist --De Unionist (talk) 17:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Yup, that is what WP:Terrorist says. Canterbury Tail talk 17:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Pity his edits totally ignored it then isn't it? O Fenian (talk) 17:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I dunno, I think he has a fair point. It's referenced from a reliable source, especially so coming from a country that traditionally supported that side of the conflict to then label them as a terrorist organisation. Canterbury Tail talk 17:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Was his edit "attributed in the article text to its source"? It does not say "referenced to its source", it has to be attributed to its source in the text. O Fenian (talk) 17:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Ah, no fair point. Canterbury Tail talk 17:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
If it's referenced properly there shouldn't be a problem. There's certainly precedent. BastunnutsaB 17:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
(Or rather there was until Vintagekits noticed my post...) BastunnutsaB 18:17, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Was the PIRA designated as a terrorist organisation in the US, UK or ROI? Mooretwin (talk) 18:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
US, no. UK, yes. ROI... em, it depends on what time period you look at and who you ask. The Squicks (talk) 18:49, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The Provisional IRA and the Continuity IRA were previously designated as 'Other Terrorist Groups' by the US authorities. This was deleted following the peace process in Northern Ireland. The Real IRA however have been designated a 'terrorist organisation' since their split with the PIRA in 1998. --De Unionist (talk) 19:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Prove it. O Fenian (talk) 19:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The Real IRA was designated a terrorist organisation by the US Federal Authorities. Public Notice 4363 [4] --De Unionist (talk) 19:43, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

"effective May 16, 2003". O Fenian (talk) 19:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
So you can read then. --De Unionist (talk) 20:06, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
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