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Talk:7 July 2005 London bombings/Archive1 - Talk:7 July 2005 London bombings/Archive2 - Talk:7 July 2005 London bombings/Archive3

I have added Talk:2005 London bombing/MissingInfo for people to list bits that have been lost in the course of ongoing edits so they can be added back later if required. SimonLyall 7 July 2005 12:29 (UTC)

His comments are listed under 'religious leaders' by the pope's and should be moved (and probably shortened) to the world leaders column. Brendan OShea 7 July 2005 16:26 (UTC)

Until you can cite a Wikpedia policy on calling terrorists "millitants", please stop changing from the former to the latter. Andy Mabbett 7 July 2005 16:34 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that terrorist attack here in the intro is NPOV and refers to the tactics used (ie attacking civilians during rush hour without warning in order to create panic and fear) Kfort 7 July 2005 16:37 (UTC)

I agree. It should be called a 'terrorist attack'. What you call the people behind it is a different matter. Especially as we don't even know who is behind it yet... --Frankie Roberto 7 July 2005 17:34 (UTC)

As they are officially being called "terrorists", and not "millitants", we should keep it like that. Sonic Mew July 7, 2005 16:49 (UTC)

If "officially" you mean "by the government", since when does NPOV mean the government's POV? — Phil Welch 7 July 2005 23:40 (UTC)

Does anyone outside of the UK or its former (or current) territories believe this nonsense? That the British army doesn't attack civilians, but "terrorists" do? Please...this is like the nonsense about bloodthirsty Huns from World War I. Give it a break. Ruy Lopez 7 July 2005 16:57 (UTC)

I suggest you condemn both, not neither. Evercat 7 July 2005 16:59 (UTC)

Come on folks, don't change it without discussing it here. The consensus in the media and the government is terrorism. Kfort 7 July 2005 17:01 (UTC)

NPOV does not mean "the POV of media and government". — Phil Welch 7 July 2005 23:40 (UTC)

HappyCamper why don't you step up and discuss it here instead of editing out a broad consensus view? Kfort 7 July 2005 17:08 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of this section in the talk page, and I cannot seem to edit consistently without encountering edit conflicts. Regardless, I've added something to the bottom of this page if you are interested. I don't mind what people use or consider appropriate terminology. If my edits don't remain in the article, then that's okay too. --HappyCamper 7 July 2005 17:42 (UTC)

The article quotes people and sources who call this terrorism, which is fine, but the omniscient narrator calling this terrorism is not fine. Ruy Lopez 7 July 2005 17:22 (UTC)

I think you need to find yourself a dictionary and look up the word terrorism. It is the precise word for a deliberate attack on civilians. What some country did somewhere has absolutely nothing to do with how this common English word is properly used. --Lee Hunter 7 July 2005 17:50 (UTC)

Please stop using a crime such as this as an argument, it is really distasteful. --213.54.228.130 7 July 2005 18:04 (UTC)

We cannot include full statements as these are copyrighted by their authors. Please stop adding them. ed g2s • talk 7 July 2005 16:37 (UTC)

Oh come off it. World leaders etc making statements surely know and expect and intend for their words to be reproduced. Evercat 7 July 2005 16:43 (UTC)

I agree, this is clearly fair use, news, and most of the statements were spoken, not even written. Kfort 7 July 2005 16:45 (UTC)

Tony Blair's most recent statement was even made just from hand-written notes! Sonic Mew July 7, 2005 16:47 (UTC)

Public statements, press releases etc etc are not copyright and can be quoted in full. --Lee Hunter 7 July 2005 17:52 (UTC)

The day's events will likely be regarded as the worst terrorist attack on the United Kingdom to date.

Unless the death toll rises rapidly, no. See Pan Am Flight 103:

Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up as it flew over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, when 12–16 oz of plastic explosive was detonated in its forward cargo hold, triggering a sequence of events that led to the rapid destruction of the aircraft. Winds of 100 knots scattered passengers and debris along an 88-mile corridor over an area of 845 square miles. Two hundred and seventy people from 21 countries died, including 11 people on the ground.

I suggest instead:

• Worst ground-based terrorist attack in UK to date, or

• Worst terrorist attack in England.

Good point. The second is more sensible wording IMO. — Trilobite (Talk) 7 July 2005 16:44 (UTC)

It is officially being called the worst UK terrorist attack on British soil. Sonic Mew July 7, 2005 16:46 (UTC)

edit of map in photos

this map needs to be updated - it shows 7 explosionsin fact there were five - but some of them affected two stations. thanks

Also - What about Omagh? Andrew Marr on BBC said this is not on that scale?? User:Philipdw

29 people at Omagh. This was at least 33 and was four bombs not one. So bigger than Omagh. — Trilobite (Talk) 7 July 2005 17:02 (UTC)

What is the definition of "worst terrorist attack"? Is it related to body count, or amount of people injured? Does the manner in which the victims were injured or killed matter? What about damage to buildings and infrastructure? "Worst" needs to be replaced with a more definite adjective. Poiuyt Man ^talk 7 July 2005 17:48 (UTC)

I agree with that. "More killed than any other attack" or something. — Trilobite (Talk) 7 July 2005 17:49 (UTC)

Technically, the lockerbie incident was viewed as an attack on the United States, since the plane was from an american airline, carrying mostly americans, and flying to america from Germany. On CNN, UK officials called the transit bombings "The worst attack on the UK since WWII." --Crucible Guardian 7 July 2005 21:59 (UTC)

Honestly, is this some kind of joke? They are regarded as a terrorist organization and attack civilians all the time.

it is sourced, although it does come across as rather curious. Kfort 7 July 2005 17:12 (UTC)

Since all Israelis are conscripted and required to serve in Israeli's armed forces, Hamas claims that there are no adult Israeli civilians. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} July 7, 2005 17:15 (UTC)

It is hypocritical and the conscription argument is quite specious considering that Hamas often targets locations in which it is certain there will be children present. i.e. Jerusalem Bus 2, Sbarro, 2003 Haifa Bus Bombing, etc... etc... Thankfully these coordinated London attacks did not target such locations.

"Hamas spokesman Moussa Abu Marzouk condemned the bombings, saying "Targeting civilians in their transport means and lives is denounced and rejected."

It must be some kind of sick joke. It was Hamas who devolped the method of targeting mass transit systems as early as 1994. In 1996 this terrorist group attacked serveral buses in Tel Aviv and in the Al-Aqsa Intifada they attacked even more buses with suicide bombers. Jerusalem bus 20 massacre, Meggido bus attack, Meiron bus attack, Haifa line 37 bus attack and Jerusalem bus 2 massacre to name the least. I think putting Hamas statement here defiles and desecrates the memory of those who were murdered in the vicious terrorist attacks in Britain and Israel. My condolences to the families of the victims. MathKnight 7 July 2005 21:46 (UTC)

Happy Camper put this in the edit summary:

the term "terrorist attack" should not be used at the moment - the mainstream press has not consistently used this term for the events yet. If the term is used, please provide a reference for it

The BBC are using it, also calling it the worst terrorist attack on British soil. This is on a completely different scale to the IRA. Sonic Mew July 7, 2005 17:20 (UTC)

See the new edits and the reference to a Bloomberg report I added. I'm much more comfortable that the term "terrorist attack" is now an objective and accepted term for the event. Previously, the term seemed to be used only as an intensifier in the article, although personally, I have no doubt that the events of today were a "terrorist attack". I was erring on the conservative side a bit too much when it came to editing this article to describe this tradgedy. Sorry for posting here belatedly. --HappyCamper 7 July 2005 17:27 (UTC)

This has been reverted back and forth more than a dozen times, can we agree on a term (bombing, terrorist, terrorist bombing, since Lockerbie or not, etc...)? The discussion page is a better place to have it, IMO. Personally, I favour "terrorist attacks", but we need to agree on something. StuartH 7 July 2005 17:49 (UTC)

I really don't know what term is best. I've personally decided to take a WikiVacation from this article and come back maybe in a week or so after the editing has become a bit less hectic, and the media has had more time to give the general public more information on this event. I want to have some quiet time to reflect on the incident myself at the moment. I'd be happy with whatever term is used as long as it's reasonable. All the terms that you've stated seem to satisfy this reasonable criteria anyway from my perspective, so I trust your judgement. --HappyCamper 7 July 2005 17:55 (UTC)

The hotline numbers etc have disappeared. I've no great problem with this, but perhaps others do? Evercat 7 July 2005 17:23 (UTC)

• It kind of helps to have the numbers there, as people are trying to find out information about relatives, friends, etc. and it saves a lot of work looking up the numbers. Kaiser Matias 18:47 7 July 2005 (UTC)

I've re-added the numbers, since no reason was given for their removal. At the least we need the list of foreign ministry contact instructions. They're at the bottom (should be getting less urgent), but plainly visible at the ToC.

08:54: Suspicious people were said to celebrate on the tube with big firecrackers. Rich Farmbrough 7 July 2005 17:27 (UTC)

I too was going to ask this, there are no sources anywhere, could one be added to the article if found? Otherwise i think it's an erronious entry. -- Aslate

I've taken it out for now. If anyone can provide a source we can always put it in later. — Trilobite (Talk) 7 July 2005 17:47 (UTC)

Agreed. I think that's the best alternative to follow through with right now. --HappyCamper 7 July 2005 18:04 (UTC)

Ok, I'm new here, so don't hurt me. Why is Wikipedia reporting on this? I thought that breaking news was supposed to go to Wikinews and not on here.

"The cause is unknown for certain at the moment, but a terrorist attack appears extremely likely." -- That sounds a lot more like a news report than an encyclopedia entry.

"The Muslim Council of Britain utterly condemns today's indiscriminate acts of terror in London." Today? In an encyclopedia, there is no today...

I understand that all of this can be easily changed when more facts come out, but shouldn't events have a little time to cool and have facts gathered and crossreferenced before it is stuck in an encyclopedia? (If this question is better asked elsewhere, please let me know and rm) -- Marvin01 7 July 2005 17:54 (UTC)

You're right, but it's inevitable that people will want to add these things to Wikipedia, as the events are surely encyclopaedic, even if the tone of the article isn't at the moment. It will settle down into a more stable form soon enough. I do think people should focus their breaking news efforts on Wikinews, which exists for the purpose. — Trilobite (Talk) 7 July 2005 17:57 (UTC)

Part of our reputation as an encyclopedia is that we can change things in order to react to events, unlike paper encyclopedias, which quickly become dated. Putting in today is a mistake but being as accurate as possible up to the minute is only to be encouraged. Plus we need to utilise the ionterest in the subject to create a great article, SqueakBox July 7, 2005 17:58 (UTC)

More comments: This is a good place to ask this question I think - you could also try the Village Pump as well. Yes, you're right, it might be better to wait until the events settle before an article is written. However, it's nearly impossible to prevent a Wiki from being edited like this. My personal stance on this is to "trust the Wiki" - sure, as the events unfold, it might sound like a news report. After all, it's only been less than 24 hours since the event. Nevertheless, I thoroughly trust that the article will become objective and encyclopedic. In other words, I agree and share all your concerns, but for me, I think in articles like these, the Wiki nature of this will ensure that everything works out in the end.

One problem we'll need to find a way to solve in the future is to squish this page duplication bug during massively quick edits. Today, some administrators were briefly protecting the page so that page duplications could be fixed, and also, to prevent the loss of edits during the removal of the duplications. --HappyCamper 7 July 2005 18:03 (UTC)

Yes, I am a bit paranoid to edit anything (even though all I have done so far is on discussion pages) for fear that I am messing up what someone else is doing!

I like this place, it just seems odd that additions and changes happen immediately, while only deletions require drawn-out discussions. It would be nice if it were easier to discuss what would go into an article and what sort of orginization should be used before the article is actually written, instead of everybody throwing stuff on the wall and seeing what sticks. But then I am new here, and I do not mean to be rude by suggesting you are doing things wrong without any experience. By looking at the quality articles around, I can easily see that everything works itself out in the end. Since I am way off topic, I will move the discussion over to my talk page or something, if anyone wants to have it. -- Marvin01 7 July 2005 18:29 (UTC)

That is basically what happens with these current events articles. We get "hit-and-run" editors who come and add things then go away again, and often they are really badly worded or duplicate something elsewhere in the article, then various regulars will keep an eye on things and try and keep it all in a reasonable state. It all settles down eventually. It's only natural I suppose that if people come across articles like this and see something that hasn't been updated, even if it only broke seconds ago, they hit the edit button and put it in. — Trilobite (Talk) 7 July 2005 18:32 (UTC)

If I may.. in many ways this proves to me the superfluous "fork" that is Wikinews. As I have followed the building of this article since early this morning, I find it appropriate to see the '"encyclopedia"' chronicling all knowledge in this manner. The history has faithfully recorded the back and forth, into the solidifying of ever stronger information. The events of this morning are absolutely atrocious, and it pains me to doll out any accolades at this time, however, the decentralized yet collaborative forum that is Wikipedia, is something we can be proud of. Should we not continue to use such a forum as we move forward in thoughtful response to this morning's events? I will hope so. TTLightningRod 7 July 2005 19:16 (UTC)

Firstly, I agree with you about Wikinews. I opposed its creation and while I hope it succeeds eventually I've been really unimpressed by it so far. One of the best things about Wikipedia in my view is its timeliness, and the way really good articles can be put together very quickly. This was great to see with the new Pope, who soon had an extensive article while Britannica will have absolutely nothing on him until their next edition comes out. I'd love Wikipedia to be somewhere people come for good background on current events, but I don't think much of it as a breaking news service. Articles like this that can get edited literally every 20 seconds or so are generally in need of a lot of work by one or a few people who can overhaul the whole thing some time after the attention has died down before they become decent articles. I'm sure in a month's time this will be a really great article, well organised and fully referenced. Covering topics in the news over a period of days and weeks is good, but minute to minute updates don't produce Wikipedia's best work. I share your pride in the impressive things Wikipedia can achieve though. — Trilobite (Talk) 7 July 2005 19:29 (UTC)

my feeling is that this will be an interesting application of that visual history generator for viewing edits to a wikipedia page. very chatotic at first, and then cooling off into understanding, might as well put this as a page, because it will be eventually, and more information works out better as base material for a finished article, we can chuck the chaff later!

Yes, a novice to the nature at play here, would be well advised to consider anything read at any particular moment, as in a constant state of flux. (just the same warning I give to anyone about EVERY article here) It is in the history tab that I find to hold so much promise. As you say Trilobite, over time a dedicated number of people can comb through the mountain of information sent here, with that, a very informative and neutral article can be built. At the speed of the internet, very strong demands for neutrality,.... and free. TTLightningRod

Also, I couldn't get the major news websites like guardian.co.uk, cnn.com, or bbc.co.uk to update this morning (due to high traffic on their part I would imagine) and the 'pedia became a valuable source of info. Many of my friends (I'm a Londoner) were stuck at work without access to television news, and I pointed them here. I know that's not really what this site is for, but it was a big help! Thanks to everyone who updated this article today. --Urbane legend 7 July 2005 23:03 (UTC)

where did these go? i can maybe see why the removal of emergency numbers would happen, because this isn't really a primary site for people who have an emergency would go to, but the links to the blogs provided actual accounts of people involved with the attacks, and therefore i believe are very pertinant to the article. ~thatordinaryboy

when people update those numbers can they put a timestamp (preferably for when the new numbers were announced) on it? <comment by Gurkha at 19:09, 7 July 2005>

911 dead and 1776 injured is some sort of numerological sarcasm. BBC is reporting 37 confirmed dead and overy 700 injured. Charmii July 7, 2005 18:57 (UTC)

The nowpublic link contains maybe 4 pix of the event, 1 being of vague interest. For comparison the guardian web site as 64, and cnn and bbc even more. What else could this be but disguised promotion? I already had to edit that section to remove someone promoting his blog. It's sad to see people piggybacking a tragic event to direct traffic to their sites. I didn't bother removing the nowpublic link, I'd rather raise that concern here so maybe others will 'clean up' their links elsewhere. Adidas 7 July 2005 19:14 (UTC)

Anyone notices the casualty part? Screwy numbers and prostitutes...

The words "casualties" and "deaths" mean two different things. "Casualties" encompasses both deaths and injuries. If you only mean deaths, say "deaths" or "fatalities", not "casualties".

Someone should change the prettytable under the "Casualties" heading to say deaths or fatalities instead of casualties, since it is only listing deaths. I tried to change it but my changes wouldn't go through.

The news sources are reporting only 37 or so ... what is the news source for that number?

A vandal. Unfortunately this page seems to be attracting a number of mentally unbalanced editors. -- Arwel 7 July 2005 19:25 (UTC)

Agreed. I've already blocked a couple on sight for inserting profanity. This article is of such high visibility at the moment that there's no need to mess about with warnings in my view. These people know what they're doing. — Trilobite (Talk) 7 July 2005 19:30 (UTC)

Someone apparently screwed with the injury list too: "Recent reports state that 30000 people (208 at Royal London Hospital alone [4]) are being treated in hospital and 15120 of those are in a serious condition." Someone please fix this. Loknar

the article is getting ridiculously long (500kb and counting) Peregrine_AY 7 July 2005 19:29 (UTC)