User talk:Tomwsulcer/Terrorism prevention strategies

Created article

Not sure if this article is comprehensive enough; maybe there are strategies I missed? Pretty good overview perhaps. I realize there's somewhat of a bias towards a focus on the U.S. and I tried to include non-U.S. material and information but just didn't come across as much (particularly regarding pictures -- hard to hunt through Wikimedia for good pictures.) Please feel free to add more perspectives. I'll try to add more to this article when I get time.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:26, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Size

{{Split-apart}} This page is 153 kilobytes long. See Wikipedia:Article size and WP:SPLIT. -- PBS (talk) 03:25, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Globalise

{{Globalize/USA}}: This article has a USA bias. See Wikipedia:Countering systemic bias. -- PBS (talk) 03:25, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought that the article had a leaning towards the USA when I read the lead. Let us suppose that we look at it through the eyes of a despotic regime, instead of the USA.

Text	my comment	my reply
A key is correctly identifying terrorists as terrorists.	A tyrant would agree (tick in the box).	Agreed.
When correct, preventing terrorism is straightforward.	tick in the box.	Agreed.
But when authorities can't make this identification, and guess incorrectly, non-terrorists are treated as terrorists, and a slew of new problems arise regarding civil liberties	Don't think a tyrant would would agree. (Cross in the box)	Agreed.
as well as angering the public, lawsuits,"	cross in the box	Right, in a despotism, the public doesn't matter.
possibly causing future terrorism	tick in the box	Agreed, I think generally terrorism leads to more terrorism.
causing more "friction" within the system as the term was used by expert Brian Michael Jenkins, and weakening chances for future cooperation.	Depends on ones counter terrorism strategy: Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant	Probably agree; I think a despot is a terrorist in power. I'll have to look up your Latin-phrase in a second (I'm in edit mode.)
For instance, inability to monitor only terrorists' phone calls means that agents must listen in on the private calls of law-abiding citizens, which violates privacy;	Depends if the state has a privacy policy.	Agreed, in a despotism, people aren't really citizens to begin with.
this can lead to lawsuits as well as reluctance by phone companies to cooperate with authorities,	Depends if the phone company is state owned.	Agreed; lawsuits = only applies in a litigious democracy.
and can result in battles in legislatures whether to grant immunity from lawsuits to phone companies.	Cross in the box	Agreed; despot = no legislatures.
It can lead to a general perception by the public that government is eavesdropping on all phone calls whether this happens or not.	Doesn't everyone already think that?	I assume authorities monitor my calls but are bored
Government must spend huge resources when it can not identify who the terrorists are, what they're planning, and what their likely targets will be, and can lead to sharp criticism from reporters.	Costs can be a problem, but tyrants don't usually loose sleep from "sharp criticism from reporters"	Right, because tyrants can arrest reporters, shut down printing presses etc.
Megan McArdle of The Atlantic wrote after a terrorist sneaked a bomb on a plane in 2009: "Every time they miss something, we have to give up more liberty."	Not in a tyranny	Right, they have no liberty to begin with.
If authorities can't figure out which potential airplane passengers are terrorists, then they have to frisk all passengers.	So the better way is to search only those funny looking foreign ones.	Right, but personally, I like being groped by attractive female security guards.

-- PBS (talk) 03:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Generally, Philip, your comments are spot on. You are sharp to realize that this whole new dimension to terrorism (ie tyranny = terrorism in power) is relevant. Wondering how we can work to fix things with these articles to make them more relevant. And you're right the article is perhaps too long, and with the USA bias (I realize this, but there's loads more material with US-based reporters, sources etc and to some extent (right or wrong) the US sees itself as the primary warrior in the war on terrorism, although material I came across suggested that Britain handled it better, for a longer period, via the IRA. Even the pictures -- much easier to find US-oriented ones. So, I think the solution to the USA-bias is for me to search a bit harder for the non-USA ones, which are hopefully there. I think some parts of this article overlap with stuff in Counter-terrorism and War on Terrorism but I like that this article emphasizes the prevention aspects of coping with terrorism, but what do you think? And what about this: shifting towards a sense of terrorism as inclusive of despots and tyrants? That is, terrorism is something that tyrants do to their captive publics; and therefore prevention takes on a whole new twist, involving exposure, activism by citizens. Like, I think what's happening in Iran now is terrorism by the authorities against the public -- stealing the election, arresting student leaders, blaming outside interference, etc etc.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:04, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the point I am making, it has nothing to do with state terrorism. The point is your moral compass is not yet adjusted to seeing the world thorough a neutral point of view. You are writing with a specific point of view as described in Wikipedia:systemic bias. I suggest that you read Wikipedia:Writing for the opponent and then read this article from other the perspective and see if it complies with WP:NPOV.

Let me make it another way. Magabe was described by the Smith regime as leader of a terrorist organisation. Now that he is head of state, I am sure that he has his own problems with people he considers terrorists (whether you or I would consider them terrorists is another issue). You will have your own opinions if Mandela was/is a terrorist, but the point is that people held both view (as they do in Britain over Martin McGuinness who is now deputy first minister of NI). The problem is summed up in WP:TERRORIST, which is based on WP:ASF "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves". For example you can state that "in the 1980's the British government considered the ANC a terrorist organisation (cite speech by MT)." you can not write in the "1980s the ANC was a terrorist organisation (cite speech by MT)." as the latter is not asserting facts, including facts about opinions.

If you follow that then much of this essay needs to be re-written. Taking just one example from the introduction: "Sometimes authorities are so protective of civil liberties that it interferes with their ability to prevent terrorism." this could be written more accurately as: "Thomas H. Kean [position] has stated that the United States Constitution is an imedemnet to the FBI preventing terrorist attacks". It is the opinion of an expert, and his opinion was specific to the USA. The current wording generalises from a source with is a non generalised statement.

Two specific points which are not directly pertinent to this discussion: (1) "this article will focus on a more widely accepted conception of terrorism." but the article is written so it either focuses or does not focus! (IMHO the whole paragraph fails WP:ASF and WP:EDITORIAL as it expresses an opinion in the passive narrative voice of the article and the the article would be no worse off without it). (2) "She wrote: "The TSA's obsession with fighting the last war is so strong that I expect any day to see them building wooden forts at our nation's airports in order to keep the redcoats at bay."" At the start of the American War of Independence under the definition used in the article the terrorists were the "Patriots" ;-) I think that is a good example of why we have WP:TERRORIST -- PBS (talk)

I agree with you that tyranny is a form of terrorism -- if that's the point you were making earlier. If so, then this article needs to address methods to prevent terrorism when tyrants are the terrorists. This is a shrewd observation on your part. And I agree that it's a good idea to go over the article, perhaps at a later stage, and try to be more objective along the lines you suggest. Still, I urge you to try to keep some perspective about things here. This article has over 150 solid references -- it's well-researched -- and emphasizes the theme of prevention. It is a decent, well-put together article which compares favorably with others in this difficult topic. It has MORE references than almost all other Wikipedia articles. Its length and thoroughness you've turned into a criticism -- it's "too long" you wrote, maybe it should be broken up. Maybe so. Still, in your comments above, I didn't get one iota of praise or any kind of positive comment from you for doing something which I do without getting paid. Not that you're obligated to say anything nice; still, consider that your comments here are decidedly not WP:NPOV since they're entirely negative, but disparaging, nit-picky, possibly violating policies such as don't bite the nooBs. That you've set yourself up as the sole arbiter of what Wikipedia determines constitutes "terrorism" with your numerous revisions on the Terrorism page -- these suggest perhaps you're violating a well-established Wikipedia principle of WP:OWN -- but here it's not just an article you're "owning", but an entire "subject" -- terrorism -- in which you've appointed yourself sole authority over what is allowed in articles related to this admittedly difficult subject. I realize Wikipedia is a place where different egos battle, and with people with differing agendas compete to have their views labeled as "mainstream", but I think we all have a duty to try to keep Wikipedia civil with a collegial atmosphere as best we can, as per WP:CIVIL, and I urge you to reconsider the tone of your conduct here.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Another possibility, perhaps simpler: rename the article "Terrorism prevention strategies for the United States". What do people think?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:31, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Copied from User talk:Tomwsulcer by Tomwsulcer:

I am not biting a new editor, nor am I being uncivil. From your suggestion below "Another possibility ..." I think you now understand what I was saying. This was a very large piece to write and I have not edited the article, personally before I wrote a piece like this I would have posted a message to counter-terrorism and discussed my ideas for an article such as this before I wrote it. But this is history and we go from where we are. All I have done is make two suggestions on how you can improve this article. The first is to consider putting in an overview and splitting this article up (see Wikipedia:Summary style) and secondly to phrase the article so that it has a neutral point of view. Both of these are not issues of content but issues of style dictated by Wikipedia policies and unless the policies are changed non-negotiable. I am not going to actively edit this page, all I am doing is explaining how you can edit this article to make it compliant with Wikipedia policies. If you work out how to do these things your understanding of how to write good articles on Wikipedia will improve. See Wikipedia:Article development and Wikipedia:Good articles -- PBS (talk) 22:20, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

--PBS (talk) 22:27, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Given the discussion, I'm renaming this article to "Terrorism prevention strategies for the United States". This will solve the USA-orientation problem; in future I'll try to add new articles where possible to address matters unaddressed. Regarding my decision to create a new article rather than work on existing ones, or post discussion on articles such as counterterrorism: My viewpoint is that the whole subject of terrorism on Wikipedia is dominated by a few self-selected editors who have appointed themselves to serve as sole authorities regarding what goes in to these articles and what doesn't, and who don't maintain an open-minded and tolerant attitude about additions or changes; as a result, it is easier for me to contribute new articles rather than endlessly try to battle with them on existing articles. Regarding the name change: there are many available well-sourced references from the viewpoint of the US; at this point, to rewrite the article to emphasize the viewpoint of other countries would require much more work, and much digging and chopping, since there is less material available; renaming the article is the easiest choice at this point. When I get time I'll try to improve it along the lines suggested; while I agree some parts of the article could be rewritten for a more neutral tone, I don't think the entire article suffers from "systemic bias" as alleged, and I don't think it requires the whole article to be extensively rewritten. I encourage other editors to be more open-minded and inclusive here and avoid pejorative put-down statements such as your moral compass is not yet adjusted to seeing the world through a neutral point of view. Please accept that there are differing viewpoints on this controversial subject and remember Wikipedia is a cooperative volunteer project dependent on the mutual good-will of contributors. We can all learn from each other; nobody has a monopoly on declaring what's biased and what's not biased. Nobody knows everything. There's a fine line demarcating constructive criticism and WP:WIKILAWYERING, please don't cross it, and please try to cultivate an atmosphere of constructive collegiality.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:24, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Speedy delete request removed

I have removed the speedy delete request because we do not delete an article before and recreating it under another name. If a piece is to be moved it is done by moving the article using the [move tab] at the top of the page. We do not delete an article and recreate it because it would destroy the edit history which is always kept for copyright reasons. If for any reason you think that a move is controversial, then put in a request to move using the Wikipedia:request move procedure. -- PBS (talk) 21:14, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

Terrorism prevention strategies → Terrorism prevention strategies for the United States — This page was subject to a cut and paste move which I have deleted. Should this page be globalised or kept focused on the USA and moved? —PBS (talk) 10:12, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

No consensus for the move. -- PBS (talk) 02:30, 8 February 2010 (UTC)