[WikiEN-l] Terrorism

Sun Jan 18 11:08:17 UTC 2004

Ray Saintonge wrote:
>"Many people regard ..." carries a strong POV wallop  It applies the 
>logical fallacy that if a significant majority consider something to be 
>true, then it must in fact be true.  

No it doesn't. If something is true, then it is true. If in fact a great many 
people say and think a certain way, then the statement needs to be made. 

>A statement founded on public  
>opinion should be subject to verification just as much as anything else.

Sorry, but polls do not exist for everything. Some things are just plain 
common sense because they are views so widely held. For example, the 
statement that OBL is a terrorist or that Al-Queda is a terrorist 
organization. 

Of course more info is needed! Refining that we could say that they are both 
widely regarded as terrorist in the West and by nearly all national 
governments in the Arab world. That is attributing a POV to its adherents. It 
is also in line with NPOV.

Taking that out would be expressing the minority POV that they are not 
terrorist. 

Oh and some things are so widely held that there is no real need to be 
wishy-washy about it. For example that the 9/11 attacks were terrorist acts. 
However, as I stated on that talk page the word 'terrorist' should be taken 
out of that title for other reasons (not common as shorter title and not 
needed for disambiguation).  

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)