Talk:Louvre machete attack

Notability issue
I really see this as WP:NOTNEWS, and WP:ROUTINE coverage...


 * 1. No mass killings, the suspect lightly wounded one person.
 * 2. The usual reactions to terrorism
 * 3. Splash in the news coverage, can anyone provide some evidence on the WP:LASTING impact?

Id rather not start an AfD and go through the 7 day process so I am asking for a discussion here first. Also please keep in mind WP:OSE. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:49, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Tomorrow it will have been one week since the incident, and it's fairly clear there will be no significant follow-up. I think AFD is the only way to successfully turn this into a redirect to List of terrorist incidents in February 2017, but we might be able to get consensus here and save the hassle. (in case it isn't obvious, my !vote would be redirect). Primefac (talk) 13:00, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:CRYSTAL. But do  'note that at the very least there will be follow-up as the attacker is investigated and brought to trial.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:53, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I would opt for a redirect as well which is why I started the discussion here for alternative options. To the AC, I have also been in that position as well when creating an article that was later redirected due to non notability. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:53, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello, I am afraid these sort of cases have unexpected consequences. For example, who in July 2016 would have thought that the New York Times would have cited the  Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray beheading as part of a pattern being continued with the Louvre Machete attack?  If a couple of weeks later the Saint Etienne article had been summarily deleted, where would the encyclopaedic context reside? The NYT in fact wrote that the Louvre attack joins "In just the past 13 months, at least four attacks in France using knives, including..."  I recommend waiting at least a further 13 months, and possibly 26, before deciding if these various attacks grouped by the NYT should, perhaps, all be merged into a single article.  Certainly if 26 months go by and there are no further incidents, the NYT's group will be able to be considered closed. XavierItzm (talk) 23:00, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear Note that Islamist attacks have a way of coming back into the news cycle.  For example, the 2015 New Year's attack plots to attack a restaurant New Year's Eve party in 2015 made headlines again a week ago when new evidence emerged that it was not merely inspired by ISIS, but actually planned and directed remotely from  Syria.  The 2015 Gush Etzion Junction attack was back in the news  because Bob Kraft invited the family of the murdered American student (who was a Pats fan) to come watch the Superbowl in VIP seats.  As I have argued before in these pages, it is far more efficient to create article in the aftermath of high-profile terror attacks receiving international coverage than to go back years later and create 2003 Route 60 Hamas ambush (immediately brought to AFD: Articles for deletion/2003 Route 60 Hamas ambush) or 1996 Paris Métro bombing (immediately brought to AFD: Articles for deletion/1996 Paris Métro bombing), because WP:RS are easy to find and not paywall protected in the period shortly after an attack.  Such article survive AFD because they pass WP:GNG.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:40, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Note however that my argument is that this attack is notable as established by sources. And  WP:NOTTEMPORARY.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:40, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry to go off topic but I have to make a parenthesis and say the New Year's Eve Party terrorist plot takes a whole new significance... as the NYT reports, instead of a "lone wolf," we now have a "remote-controlled attack", with the minutiae directed step by step by the Islamic State. An IS attack in the U.S. homeland.  Wow.  Didn't even know that.  I am floored. XavierItzm (talk) 00:53, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I know. It's truly shocking.  And the number of "lone wolf" attacks in France and Europe that turn out to have been planned and directed from Syria is astounding.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:30, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile the article continues ot be expanded as new material and analysis is published.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:32, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Greg there is no notability here, it is a run of the mill attack with no after effects. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:32, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Apparently, "allahu akbar" terrorist attacks in the West are now "run of the mill." Normalized! XavierItzm (talk) 07:07, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Improper redirect
On Feb 13 User:Primefac redirected this page after a 4-day discussion in which 2 editor participated. Courtesy notices were not sent to any of the editors who had made contributions to the article. This flies in the face of WP:MERGE which is very clear in stating the controversial merges should be handled by templated with a banner (Proposed mergers). However, Primefac appears to be aware that in a controversial area like terrorist attacks it is usually necessary to take the discussion to to AFD; he states as much, "I think AFD is the only way to successfully turn this into a redirect to List of terrorist incidents in February 2017, but we might be able to get consensus here and save the hassle." He did not, however, seek to obtain consensus. He simply moved it, asserting "as per talk" in the move edit. This is not responsible editing. Nor is the assumption that it is now "one week since the incident, and it's fairly clear there will be no significant follow-up." Which, in addition to violating WP:CRYSTAL is disproven by the fact that significant press coverage is ongoing, and very likely to continue since the attacker survived and will be be investigated and tried.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:31, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Mea culpa. Sincere apologies for my actions, I was not in a good place and I shouldn't have been editing Wikipedia. Primefac (talk) 12:48, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Use of the noun "attack" to describe the event
I have questions about the widespread use of the noun "attack" to describe this event. These questions similarly concern other accounts of violence where the use of the word "attack" seems related to the country of origin or religion of the alleged perpetrator or perpetrators. I will therefore try to raise this concern elsewhere as well. (For this reason, please bear with me if you see this comment elsewhere and it seems repetitive.)

My concern is roughly as follows. First, calling such an incident an attack uses the register of war to characterize the event. (Consider for example the widespread use of the expression _armed attack_ in the UN Charter and in other instruments treating the laws of war.)  This is a very specific move and seems to me to be one of consequence in our understanding of such an event. This is to say that the use of war as an animating backdrop into which to integrate our understanding of the event is a very specific choice, and by no means the only option at our disposal. Using the noun "attack" and the backdrop of war to characterize an individual event assimilates it to the plane of collective action. Assimilating an individual act to wider collective action is a very specific interpretive choice, and one that is not disinterested. For example, characterization of an event as a crime does not generally carry the suggestion of collective action. It might be objected that characterizing such an event as a crime is not apt because of the apparent political motivation of the violence considered. Options other than imposing a frame of either war or collective action onto our understand of an event are nonetheless available. Consider our understanding of the Oklahoma City bombing or the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, for example. No one doubts the political motivation underlying either event, yet our understanding of neither of these events is animated by the suggestion of either war or collective action more generally. If it is wished to indicate a wider conspiracy underlying an individual event, such a conspiracy should be indicated explicitly, not by means of suggestion or innuendo. In a dispassionate account with ambitions of being held out as a reliable encyclopedia article, collective action should be demonstrated by the evidence provided. Collective action should not be an unsubstantiated, hollow spectre that looms over every corner of such an account.

Second, even in the case that collective action--specifically, war--is chosen and adopted as the animating register for the discussion of this event, "attack" is a particularly odd choice in characterizing it. To repeat what's already stated above, both war--and more generally, collective action--are specific interpretative choices for our understanding of this event, neither is obvious or necessary. If such an interpretative choice is adopted, such a choice should be explicit and, ideally, demonstrated by the evidence--deserving a discussion of its own. Now, in the case that collective action and war is chosen as a rubric in which to understand this event, "attack" carries an added suggestion. "Attack" suggests the initiation of hostilities. Once again the claim being made is not explicit, but is glossed over by means of suggestion and innuendo. Again, one suspects that the claim comes by way of suggestion and innuendo because it would collapse if it were made explicitly. The Pentagon and Whitehall began bombing Afghanistan in October 2001, Iraq in March 2003, Syria in September 2014, and Somalia since at least October 2016. French and affiliated NATO forces began their occupation of Afghanistan in December 2001, and of Libya in March 2011. (France has also announced a bombing campaign of the Sahel region in August 2014, that includes parts of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Ethiopia.) One is by no means obligated to understand an individual act of violence in the United States, UK, or France in the context of "war" that includes these military campaigns singularly or collectively; as already emphasized, taking such an act to be one of war is the result of a specific interpretive choice. However, in the case that this route is selected--and an act in the United States, Britain, or France is taken to be part of a war--it seems highly misleading to further portray such an act with an incipient or initiating flavor that "attack" suggests. This portrayal is again glossed over without discussion and seemingly counter to all evidence: if an individual event is understood as a collective action that is part of a wider war, using language that suggests or attributes an initiating character to such an event seems highly dubious when that event takes place 15+ years into the supposed war. Characterizing such an event as an attack seems to want it both ways: to push an account of the event as a collective action that is an act of war, and to at the same time avoid any discussion of that wider war ("attack" with its suggestion that t=0; as opposed to "response," usually reserved for justifications of the ensuring state-violence).

Use of the word "attack" to describe such an individual act thus seems to me highly incoherent. It is an interpretive choice that on the one hand suggests collective responsibility for an individual act of violence, and does so by means of innuendo rather than explicitly (for doing so explicitly would seem dubious in the absence of specific evidence that is often simply not there to be found). And on the other hand, substantive discussion of the wider war being suggested as the animating context in which the event occurs is avoided; "attack" carries with it the suggestion (again, pure innuendo unlikely to survive serious discussion) that the event has an initiating character, glossing over the possibility that such an event could be the response to something.

For these reasons, this word does not seem worthy to form the basis of a discussion which aims to be neutral or dispassionate. Rather it seems highly politicized, and on even a moment's inspection, a tendentious characterization that summarily assimilates an individual event to a collective act of war, while at the same time denying the continuity of the very war being supposed ("attack" bearing the suggestion that event initiates, rather than responds to anything). Moreover, one wonders if the term carries slanderous suggestions; the spectre of collective responsibility cast by the word seems particularly given to scapegoating. "Conspiracy theorist" is a term of derision often used to characterize the speculations of those that suppose collective action or a plot in the absence of good evidence. Well, in addition to its being unthinking newspeak--in its current, and now longstanding, uniform use--"attack" is nothing if not a term of the conspiracy theorist. Collective action is supposed in the absence of evidence. The fear-mongering of supposed collective action gives rise to the war-mongering of suggested collective responsibility.

The innuendo and spectres that one might expect to litter Pentagon briefings should not provide the basis for an encyclopedia article that aims to be disinterested. Alfred Nemours (talk) 15:48, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * , maybe I missed it (your essay is a bit long, so I skimmed), but you don't actually offer an alternate suggestion for the title. Primefac (talk) 15:59, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * "3 February 2017 Louvre stabbing"? "3 February 2017 attempted stabbing at the Louvre"? "Assault of [name of victim]"? "Stabbing of [name of victim]"?
 * Difficult for me to comment since I don't know what happened. Go for straight description (as always, with the tacit addendum, _of what you know_).Alfred Nemours (talk) 16:28, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Anything involving a "stabbing" is going to be incorrect because the chap had a machete. The victims were soldiers and their specific identities aren't really relevant since they're not notable individuals (i.e. "who the heck is Joe Bloggs?"). Don't get me wrong, I can understand where you're coming from, but I can't think of a better title than the one we're currently using. Primefac (talk) 19:42, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Agree with Primefac - "attack" is not incorrect in this instance. Shearonink (talk) 02:13, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for both replies. Both replies are appreciated, including the second (even if it is a kind of mere vote for one or another characterization). But before concluding in support of one descriptive term one or another, please pause for a moment to consider, and if possible, engage with the concern being raised. Let me illustrate by means of a concrete example. Compare two accounts, Louvre machete attack with the Stabbing of Timothy Caughman. We have two accounts, each an individual assault of another individual. The assault in the Louvre was carried out my means of a machete, the assault in Manhattan by means of sword. Neither assault has by any account been described as a robbery or motivated by money. Rather, both have been widely described as ideological and politically motivated. I think that the difference in the portrayal of these acts of violence is typical and illustrative of the concern that I have been trying to raise.


 * Louvre machete attack at the present time uses the word "attack" something like 15+ times, and from the start of the article until the end the predominant impression conveyed is of the political aspect of the attempted assault. The "background" section and the "aftermath" section bookend the article; each of these two sections unmistakably suggests the collective nature of such violence, with the background section informing the reader that this attack is "one of 12 Islamist terror attacks on French police and soldiers" in the past five years, and the aftermath section speculating about the social and economic effect of this and associated terror attacks. At the present time the article closes by listing links to articles about six other attacks in France, along with a link to a wikipedia article on "stabbing as a terrorist tactic." Through and through, the reader is presented with event that she is repeatedly told is an example of a widespread social phenomenon.


 * Stabbing of Timothy Caughman, in contrast, describes an assault of one individual by another individual. This is first indicated by the title (concrete description of an assault of a specific, named individual, rather than "Garment District Attack"), The word "attack" is used once to describe the event, and the header "attack" is here used in the sense of "approach," "selection of victim," or "modus operandi"--not to describe a social phenomenon that is either widespread or of any geopolitical import. This is of particular note given that--by any measure--the wider social phenomenon of white supremacist violence in the United States of which Timothy Caughman's stabbing is an example dwarfs that of Muslim violence in France (the Southern Poverty Law Center charts around 1,000 threats and violent acts in the month following the latest U.S. presidential election alone).  While Louvre machete attack attempts to detail Abdullah Reda al-Hamamy's political sympathies to its reader, in Stabbing of Timothy Caughman, description of James Harris Jackson's motivating bigotry is limited only to his private intentions--nothing is said of either his political tastes or subscriptions to white supremacist video channels (including National Policy Institute, Radix, Cybernazi, Politically Incorrect, and Esoteric Truths). Stabbing of Timothy Caughman does not close with links to articles about Dylann Roof, the white supremacist violence in the United States (either today or its hundreds year old history), or, it should be needless to say, the wikipedia article on "stabbing as a terrorist tactic."


 * What accounts for the obvious differences between these two accounts? Why was James Harris Jackson's murder of Timothy Caughman (which Jackson stated was committed on his way to try to stab more Black men in Times Square) not described as a terrorist attack? Note that Jackson's stated reason for choosing New York as his location to find Black men to stab was to publicize the event, a hallmark of terrorism. In any event, what accounts for the contrast between these two depictions of two individual stabbing assaults (the first depicted as having a primarily sociopolitical meaning, and the second primarily as an individual act of crime directed against another individual)? I don't want anyone to rush to either propose editorial changes or supply conclusory defenses of existing editorial choices. I think that the contrast given by these two articles is illustrative of something that would not anyway be really addressed by changing either of these articles.  Rather, I simply want this concern to be heard if not engaged.  Any feedback on this score would be much appreciated.   Alfred Nemours (talk) 15:00, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Categories
I removed the terrorism-related categories as it's not clear from the article if they belong: diff. I moved the related citation into the body. Please let me know if there are any concerns. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:55, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I removed the categories again: diff. They are not supported by the article copy. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:41, 6 September 2018 (UTC)