Talk:Soft target

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jaselee1993. Peer reviewers: CashVanBuskirk.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:43, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Flagging a typo
"to generate terror, create chaos, and intimate" the public? Surely that should be "to intimidate" or "to intimate [sic]"? Not sure which, as I don't have access to the original. 68.101.78.195 (talk) 11:47, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Fixed the typo. Thanks for flagging. Neutralitytalk 02:32, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

On the use of dictionaries
I changed the first line to avoid quoting a dictionary. Please, do not revert it to the way it was. If you think you can do a better job, please go ahead, but do not start with a dictionary quote. Dictionaries may be used as references and may even be quoted but in special occasions WP:DICTS. 71.63.91.85 (talk) 12:34, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:DICTS is an essay (and therefore not a policy and guideline). There is no bar on the citation or the quotation of dictionaries to get a handle on the broad topic, so long as the article as a whole isn't a WP:DICTDEF (which this article is not).
 * I'm fine with dropping the in-text attribution to the dictionary. Neutralitytalk 13:23, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * thanks for your reply and also for your general interest in this article. I want to alert you to a conversation I started about this article's lead--I was trying to test my arguments in a larger forum. An went beyond my query and suggested reworking this article to include the subject of "hard targets" into a new hybrid one called Targets of terrorist attacks. Though I do not completely agree,  I think there is certainly a vacuum without a pairing article (i.e., Hard Targets). Filling up that void could become a project if you agree.  In regards to our immediate concern with the, those who joined the conversation agreed that it is not appropriate. Again, the arguments are laid down in here.   We can bring the discussion back to this article's talk page (here) if you prefer. I just wanted you to know the full extent of my views before taking any action. I would appreciate your thoughts before I remove the quote from the lead. Cheers, 71.63.91.85 (talk) 12:33, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Hard target redirects to soft target. Neutralitytalk 13:08, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Neutrality The redirect from the hard to the soft was mentioned in the discussion. And there lies a problem, according to what was . But I am not too concerned with that now; that could become a future focus of attention for me. At this moment, I am more interested in reaching a consensus regarding the article's lead. Please, take a look at my arguments, and the rest of the conversation here. As I mentioned above, I can copy and paste from the other forum and bring the conversation here (article's talk page), if you prefer it this way. I have not done it yet to avoid replication and clutter. But if it would facilitate our quest for a consensus, I would easily do it. 71.63.91.85 (talk) 18:08, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Verbal attacks
The term 'soft target' also seems to include verbal attacks. According to the collins dictionary: "a thing or a person that is easy to criticize or make an attack upon" (source) -- － Cy21 ➜ discuss 09:30, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Math on the ratios of soft / hard targets doesn't add up
In the article we have:

> Of terrorist attacks worldwide from 1968 to 2005, 72% (8,111) struck soft targets and 27% (4,248) struck hard targets.

However the math doesn't add up - 8111 / 4248 is far off from 72% / 27%. The source here is a book which makes learning the original intention of the numbers difficult. Razziabuissa (talk) 00:18, 1 June 2023 (UTC)