[WikiEN-l] Terrorism, certainty, and our Neutral Point of View policy

Tue Jan 20 15:27:57 UTC 2004

Maveric said,

> Slamming civilian commercial jets into civilian office 
> buildings killing thousands and destroying a national icon 
> is terrorism no matter how you parse it! I for one was 
> depressed for a month after I saw the towers fall on live 
> television even though I live on the opposite coast and do 
> not directly know a single person killed that day. That's 
> terrorism. 
> 
> The attack on the Pentagon is only half terrorism by some 
> interpretations due to the fact that the Pentagon itself is 
> a military target.

Even if I agree with you, it's still nothing more than your 
point of view (POV) and mine. Even if 50% or 80% or 95% of 
Americans (or Westerners in general) maintain this POV, it's 
still a "point of view".

There is no universally agree-upon definition of terrorism, no 
formula into which we can "plug in" some values to distinguish 
what as "really" terrorism and what isn't. 

Even formulas which mention "innocent people" fail, because of 
a hot dispute over who is "innocent". Are anonymous Israeli 
civilians riding a bus or sitting in a café "innocent", from 
the perspective of the group which sends a 'human bomb' on a 
'mission' to blow them up? You and I may think so, but I 
gather that the Arab nationalist groups which the US labels 
"terrorist" regard these civilians as somehow complicit in the 
"crimes" of their regime. 

Anyway, the solution is to back away from anything that smacks 
of official Wikipedia endorsement, when there is a hot 
controversy. Just figure out as accurately as we can, which 
groups of people (like "Americans" or "Westerners") espouse a 
particular POV, and say that they espouse it. 

The great thing about Wikipedia is that it does NOT have any 
particular slant on current events or history. We can get into 
all the in's and out's of public opinion. A conservative news 
outlet or radio commentator or historian can get away with
cherishing a bias. He can easily twist things to support his 
POV; easiest way is to quote a lot of people who agree with 
you and omit mention of (or say nasty discrediting things 
about) anyone who disagrees. Liberals can (and do) join in the 
fun, too!

Unlike the Bush Administration or the New York Times, this 
revolutionary, ground-breaking, historically unique scholarly 
project -- Wikipedia -- has no axe to grind, no point of view 
to defend. So we can delve into the issues and report 
accurately about all the major and minor variations of thought 
on any subject, no matter how controversial.

This is so wonderful, that maybe some of us are still reeling 
from the shock of such freedom and haven't figured out how 
to handle it. I'm still trying to get a grip on it, myself.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed