Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bat Ayin ax attack


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. It's not uncommon for Wikipedia guidelines to conflict each other. If many editors from various backgrounds all think that the notability guideline is more applicable to this situation than the not news policy, then the community's common practice is likely to differ from an out-of-context, literal reading of the latter policy. Deryck C. 13:16, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

(NB. Sorry DGG - I'm closing this against your recommendation despite having attended your lecture at Wikimania.)

Bat Ayin ax attack

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  Stats )

Fails WP:EVENT/WP:NOTNEWS; no coverage from more than a month after the event (and very little after more than a couple of days), no lasting effects. (We don't even have the tenuous claims to significance based on military or settler retaliation that you find in other non-notable articles.) Every death in this conflict is tragic but not every death in this conflict is encyclopedic. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 19:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletion discussions. --BDD (talk) 19:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Palestine-related deletion discussions. --BDD (talk) 19:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. 02:31, 17 August 2012 (UTC)  • Gene93k (talk) 02:31, 17 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep Significant coverage in WP:RS.As was shown in this deletion discussion is more then enough--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 20:15, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I've addressed your argument in the deletion rationale by pointing out that WP is not a newspaper and is not bound to cover anything that takes up part of one news cycle, and would appreciate if you explain why you believe that WP:EVENT should be suspended. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 20:17, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The consensus was pretty on that WP:EVENT why it should be different here?--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 20:27, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Moreover it does received significant coverage so it satisfy WP:EVENT.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 20:31, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That is flat-out untrue. WP:EVENT asks for persistence of coverage or lasting effects, neither of which are present here because it's just a news story like any other out of the region. Why don't you just admit that you want to keep it because you think having more articles on Israeli children makes Arabs look bad? It would be more honest than citing policies that not only fail to support but that also undermine your !vote. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 20:38, 16 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete. Per User:Roscelese. WP:EVENT, WP:NOTABILITY etc are being consistently wikilawyered by vote-massing and sheer confusion in comments that do not address policy. There is a programmatic creation of such articles that looks, given its patent defiance of policy, distinctly odd. Nishidani (talk) 20:21, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: I've noticed that you were deeply involved in the creation of the article Death of Khalil al-Mughrabi. Can you explain in what way is the current article less notable ? Marokwitz (talk) 06:00, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - Coverage in two books published by SAGE Publications (notable publisher of reference works and academic journals) in 2010 & 2011:,  — Preceding unsigned comment added by They think it's all over (talk • contribs) 22:56, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Er, this is one chapter reprinted in two separate books, and the mentionis trivial. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 01:33, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Strong keep - This was not a minor criminal incident which was only covered in a local newspaper for a short period of time - it was a nationalistically motivated terror attack carried out by terrorist organizations aimed at killing innocent Israeli civilians (children!) simply because they were Israelis. The event was widely covered in the Israeli media and the international media. Terrorist attacks with significant national or international press coverage are inherently notable. In addition, it should be noted that this attack and the rest of the terror attacks committed during the last decades had, unfortunately, a lot of influence on the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. I really do not understand why anyone might think this is a trivial event. I assume you would have never attempted to argue of an insignificant news event if a similar terror attack would have been carried out by a terrorist organization within the United States or Europe. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 00:41, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Dead Wrong. The voting patterns in both the al-Mughrabi and Yehuda Shoham article show a distinction. There is no lockstep lineup of delete on one page, keep on another as you find with several editors like User:Crystalfile; User:Exx8; Activism1234; User:Soosim (all of whom initially voted to keep an Israeli victim article and delete a Palestinian victim article). You will not observe that pattern with many editors like myself, Zero, Nableezy and several others. Nishidani (talk) 11:03, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Except for the fact that Zero !voted to delete the Israeli victim and keep the Palestinian victim, while Nableezy didn't !vote on both, you make an excellent point. Or in other words, your (by now quite expected) "we good, them bad" fails as usual. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:04, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Zero voted to keep an article that has sources discussing a government cover up of a killing, with sources showing a lasting impact from that event and sources providing in depth coverage of the event over a period of time. He voted to delete an article that was (is) pretty much just a memorial page with any in-depth coverage regulated to the immediate time range following the event. If you can adduce a pattern relating to ethnicity from that then you have a better mind than I. The pattern in "delete - no more propaganda" and "keep - it would be a crime to delete it" should be much clearer. Finally, to crib a quote from someone I am sure you admire, You can go to my talk page and point out any inconsistencies within what I have actually done rather than what you think I should do if you need to get that off your chest. Thanks.  nableezy  - 20:46, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * So we're moving from "we have more consistent editing patterns" to "we have better arguments". That's nice, but not exactly what Nishidani said.
 * That's an excellent quote, by the way. Someone should publish a book of that guy's sayings. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:21, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I dont see any inconsistency in Zero's votes. The two articles are not analogous, one of them deals with more than a child's death. The other is a memorial page. He voted to delete an article that has sources suitable only for a memorial page. He voted to keep an article that has sources dealing with a government cover-up, a subsequent investigation, and the fallout from that. I fail to see what inconsistency there is in a set of votes on different types of articles. Yes, I liked the quote too. Good thing it was CC-BY-SA, otherwise I might get in trouble for stealing it. I just wish the author would remind himself of it before implying that my not doing something is some sort of proof of an inconsistent editing pattern.  nableezy  - 22:18, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I was not implying you were being inconsistent. I was implying that because you didn't !vote in both discussions, you are not a good example of someone who !voted in both the same way. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 23:11, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I see. Well, then, consider me withdrawn from this AfD.  nableezy  - 23:31, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * 1. The imaginary guideline you cite about terrorist attacks being notable if they're covered nationally for a day or two or if the victims were children does not actually exist. 2. The argument that I wouldn't be voting to delete if it hadn't happened in the Middle East is a truly foolish one, because it's not my call, it's the sources' call. It's true that the sources might have covered the incident for more than a few days if it had happened elsewhere. But we do not substitute our judgement for the judgment of reliable sources, which have determined that this was not a non-news event. 3. If the attack had significant effects, you should be able to cite sources which substantiate those effects; arguing that it and all the other attacks like it had a cumulative effect is an argument for a merge, not a keep. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 01:33, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You cannot completely disregard the whole terror attack being carried out by terror organizations against innocent civilians, just because you do not like it, basing your entire argument only on the fact that it wasn't an ongoing event in the media. In my opinion, terror attacks which are not widely covered in the media for a long period of time or followed by a wide scale military response also deserve their own articles in Wikipedia. This attack received extensive media coverage both in the Israeli media (since you are not from Israel you would not know this) and internationally (check this article for yourself and see that it is based on prominent international sources such as Associated Press, The Telegraph, UPI, MSNBC, BBC News, the Washington Times, and Ma'an News). In any case, does anyone else think that terrorist attacks carried out by terror organizations against innocent civilians, which took place within Europe or the US for example, and with similar amount of national and international media exposure, do not deserve their own articles according to WP:EVENT/WP:NOTNEWS? TheCuriousGnome (talk) 02:26, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, disregarding an event that wasn't ongoing in the media and didn't have any lasting effects is exactly what EVENT and NOTNEWS ask us to do. I'd be very interested in knowing whether your claim that all terrorist attacks (apparently especially if they don't get the coverage WP requires?) are notable is consistent, or whether it somehow disappears when the perpetrators aren't Arab or Muslim, but I think I already know what the answer would be. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 02:47, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You keep on trying to argue or to hint that the purpose of this article is to discredit any people of Arab ethnicity or Muslim faith (a preposterous claim since acts of extremists can never be attributed to the entire ethnic or religious group to which they belong.) nevertheless, in my opinion, your insistence to promote only the deletion of articles about terror attacks carried out against Israelis, and not for example to promote the deletion of articles about terror attacks with similar media coverage which were carried out against non-Israeli or non-Jewish targets in Europe or the US, might indicate mostly that your main concern here and in general is not really about insufficient media coverage. In any case, since both of our opinions on this subject are well understood to all at this point, I suggest that we wait and see what the rest of the community thinks should be done. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 05:13, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - it's a terrorist attack that occured outside a period such as The Second Intifada (although terrorist attacks still occur, they aren't as frequent) and resulted in multiple deaths. Bit surprised that terrorist attacks like these are being singled out for deletion as "not notable."  It fits the criteria for notability as listed here, as it does have significant coverage (articles in international media outlets that deal with that specific attack) from reliable secondary sources independent of the subject.  The incident made the headlines for the local media outlets, and also grabbed some headlines in international media outlets.  Coverage of the event lasted for far more than a few days, and interest in the story still remained about a month later, as seem from reports in international media outlets when the perpetrator was caught.  The attack was planned for weeks, and is rather significant when you consider that it took place a day after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu took office, thus being a test for him as well.  Indeed, coverage lasted for even more than a month, although that isn't necessary to establish notability.  As mentioned above as well, the attack is also mentioned in a certain book.  Even a United Nations organization UNISPAL, which is certainly not fond of Israel or even neutral towards the conflict (look at their name) mentioned it in a report in 2010, which I believe demonstrates notability as well.  Not the best example, but a May 2009 report in Global Post uses the event as a picture.  Etc.  -- Activism  1234  05:23, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * All these are not policy-based arguments. Israel's IDF kills, often deliberately if you follow their criteria of who is a child (anyone who is about 12 yrs old) and a terrorist (any child of that age who throws stones at the occupier), 10 times more children than are killed by Palestinian terrorists. It has a sniper policy of a field officer directing snipers to shoot into demonstrators to hit, often fatally, a designated unarmed person who they think leads a protest over land theft (at Bil'in this happens often). These likewise are one-off events, they happen so often, and we do not write articles about them, but put them into lists. Terror, devastating infrastructure, shooting at farmers, assaulting them consistently, is part and parcel of settler occupation. We make lists (Price tag policy etc.) in adherence to wiki guidelines. I'd believe this was an objective interest if you wrote of any terror incident on the West Bank. No, the coverage is of the small number of events in which occupying settlers and their children, esp. their children, are killed. It's a POV abuse of the encyclopedia. Nishidani (talk) 06:50, 17 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep - passes WP:GNG. significant event also.--BabbaQ (talk) 22:27, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete Minor event, without major continuing coverage. A few incidental mentions of the photo over several years is not significant. I agree with Nishidani that this is incompatible with out general line of discussions on these incidents. Whether I agree with what I take to be his implication that this is an indication of general bias is another matter.  DGG ( talk ) 19:44, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:DIVERSE. There's coverage from various international news orgs such as AP, The Telegraph, UPI, Philadelphia Bulletin, Maan, Media International Group, and pretty much every major Israeli news outlet. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:26, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep Many sources of broad spectrum cover this e.g Associated Press, The Telegraph, UPI, MSNBC, BBC News, the Washington Times. Crystalfile (talk) 10:26, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. According to WP:CRIME media coverage can confer notability on a high-profile criminal act, and I believe in this case it is clearly notable enough to keep. Terrorist attacks with significant national or international press coverage are inherently notable. Coverage by reliable sources is diverse enough to make it notable per WP:DIVERSE and WP:GNG. Marokwitz (talk) 05:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep—While I don't agree that terrorist acts are inherently notable, in other points I agree with Marokwitz entirely. It should be noted that the article does not fail WP:EVENT. It can be argued that it doesn't based on no lasting effect (although that might be because we don't have sources about that—I think it did have a lasting effect, especially in the field of Price Tag attacks). Still, other aspects of WP:EVENT are satisfied, like global coverage and diversity of sources. Overall I don't see a good reason to delete this well-researched article. —Ynhockey (Talk) 16:52, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Clarification, I didn't say that terrorist acts are inherently notable. What I wrote is "Terrorist attacks with significant national or international press coverage are inherently notable" Marokwitz (talk) 13:18, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.