Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Right-wing terrorism (2nd nomination)


 * 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__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. While POV-forking can be a concern with such a topic, there is consensus here that this constitutes a legitimate spinoff of the broader article on Political terrorism. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:43, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Right-wing terrorism
AfDs for this article:


 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

This is a POV fork of Political terrorism. Any content that isn't irredeemably biased belongs there along with all other political terrorism material. This page should be deleted and set to redirect to Political terrorism. This has been previously discussed at AfD and the consensus was overwhelmingly for a delete. AlanStalk 09:26, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Politics and Terrorism. AlanStalk 09:26, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep It's not a fork of political terrorism. As pointed out in Terrorism, it is one type of political terrorism. The article is referenced to reliable sources that define the topic, and it is used as a category by reliable sources such as the Brookings Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Guardian, and many other sources.
 * Right wing terrorism is distinguished from other types of political terrorism not only by its objectives, but also the its organization, types of targets chosen and other factors.
 * While the original article was deleted in 2006, it was a stub article that was original research.
 * TFD (talk) 09:54, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I hear what you're saying, but the problem with calling things "left-wing" or "right-wing" is very much issue of perspective, a point of view. For example if you're in the United States most of the population might refer to the Republicans as "right-wing" and the Democrats as "left-wing", whereas a lot of the rest of the world (the other 7.5 billion of us) would probably say that both US parties are very definitely hard-right. It's all a matter of perspective. So when you start calling things "left-wing" or "right-wing", whether you like it or not you're taking a perspective. There is no objective position on this. AlanStalk 15:23, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Note that Left-wing terrorism also has a discussion in Articles for Deletion.
 * Keep, seems like a fine WP:SPINOFF given content length of related articles, does not appear to be a POVFORK. If you do notice NPOV issues like UNDUE weight, it's worth bringing them up in the article talk page. Note previous AFD is more than 15 years old. &mdash;siro&chi;o 10:19, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep, for reasons elaborated above. I appreciate the difficulty of maintaining NPOV given the level of controversy both around xxx-wing and "terrorism," but the controversies should be discussed in the article rather than glossed over. Leifern (talk) 10:55, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep Meets all criteria for a separate article. Addressing the AFD rationale, this is a "sub article" (rather than a POV fork) on a topic that is so huge that it needs sub-articles. North8000 (talk) 14:10, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete Given the difficulty in pinning down the specific meaning of "right wing" or "left wing" it is easy to misidentify the motivations, goals, or even actors. I am aware that this article is regarded to be well-developed, but I am also supporting the destruction of the Left Wing Terrorism article for the same reasons (though that article does not seem to be held in the same regard). It seems to me that deleting left wing without deleting right wing would harmfully bias the project of creating an encyclopedia with a neutral point of view. commie (talk) 14:28, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Defining left or right wing is not an issue for these articles because the books and articles that discuss these topics define what they mean as part of their definitions. It's like wanting to delete Southern American English because southern can mean different things to different people. But it's not an issue because books about Southern or American English define what they mean by Southern American. TFD (talk) 14:40, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * i also have major reservations about identifying any particular act as terrorism, since, as the main article states, it's a charged term. commie (talk) commie (talk) 15:11, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete - Let's take this for example, which is one of the items listed - 2009 shooting of Pittsburgh police officers. I don't see how an incident stemming from an argument over a dog urinating in a house has political ramifications. There's also no sources listed for either of these on the list: Murder committed by John Ditullio, Murder of homeless man by Aryan Soldiers, Tri-state killing spree by white supremacists David Pedersen and Holly Grigsby, Murder of MeShon Cooper-Williams, Murders of Danny and Deanna Lorenzo and Black man burned by White supremacist. KatoKungLee (talk) 14:49, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Having checked the first three of those cases, all are included in the cited source. They're all listed in the chart under the header "Number of People Killed in Deadly Attacks in the Post-9/11 Era, by Ideology".  It's possible to dispute whether that source's assessment that those people are terrorists with far-right ideology is precisely the same as being a far-right terrorist, but that seems like the sort of thing which should be solved through our normal mechanisms.  At any rate, the fact that it's possible to dispute whether some entries on the list really should be included is not really a compelling argument that the article as a whole needs deletion. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:57, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete along with Left-wing terrorism, merge both into Political terrorism. If the latter needs to be split, do it by geography, not left-right, which removes context. I've made my case at greater length at Articles for deletion/Left-wing terrorism (2nd nomination), but the case is essentially identical here. - Jmabel &#124; Talk 15:17, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep - this is a widely discussed concept, and the article could and should include discussion of how the term is used - what acts are described as right-wing terrorism, and by whom? We shouldn't be shy of having articles on controversial or contested concepts, so long as there is appropriate context. Warofdreams talk 20:55, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep As long as this is focused on the broader aspect of the term with a few well-agreed on examples from academic sources, this is a reasonable article. Google scholar gives tons of hits so it is a clearly notable term. Now, whether this should be merged into Political terrorism is another story, which is a fair option, but that should be discussed separately. --M asem (t) 13:52, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep There can be no doubt that the subject is notable. I don't see any point in merging it as it's a notable subject in its own right. I agree with those suggesting it should not be used as a list but just include a few notable examples. It needs to be sourced on multiple clearly reliable sources. Doug Weller  talk 10:58, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Strong keep Some topics are complex and have many subtopics, so you need different articles about related things. It wouldn't make any sense to marge this into political terrorism. BuySomeApples (talk) 20:01, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep, It is well cited and for reasons stated above it seems to be an insightful article that maintains a general NPOV. To force the mountains of context and citations for left and right wing terrorism into one space, "political terrorism", could lead to more disputes about prominence, pecking order and so forth. Not to mention it would be a pain to read if you are only looking for one or the other. DN (talk) 21:08, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep. Valid spin-off of larger topic, complete with ample sources describing the sub-topic in detail. Binksternet (talk) 23:39, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:SPINOFF. Does not appear to be a POVFORK. The argument that you can't define left- and right-wing would mean TNTing a huge swatch of articles because, like it or not, that split is ubiquitous in modern sources and has been for roughly two centuries. Most of the other valid arguments are opportunities to improve this article, Political terrorism, or Terrorism itself, not for deleting the article. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 13:09, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment I do not see any policy based reasons for deletion for the two articles on left and right wing terrorism. The topics' notability is established by the academic sourcing. Some of the delete voters seem to think that the articles' content is based on what editors consider to be left or right wing. But the sources say the perpetrators' objective must be establishing a socialist/communist state or a fascist/rw authoritarian state respectively. The literature explains how ideology determines the types of participants, their choice of targets and other features. While the terms left, right and terrorism may be ambiguous, it is an etymological fallacy to assume that means terms using those words must also be ambiguous. TFD (talk) 21:32, 4 August 2023 (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.