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 delete. There are definite potential uses for sources from this article in other articles, but the arguments to delete here, praticularly with regards to the various WP:BLP issues and the fact this is sourced off one DOD list, are very strong. Most (not all) of the "keeps" seem based on the list being notable, but fail to address many of the concerns raised by those arguing "delete". Neil ☎ 22:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Defense Department list of terrorist organizations other than the Taliban or al Qaeda (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

This article is about a list made up compiled not by the Defense Department but by a group of law professors legal scholars. The article doesn't cite any secondary sources that mention the list or tell why it is important. Most of the article is made up consists of repeating the names of groups mentioned on the list. Steve Dufour 00:35, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Another wikipedia contributor, calling on the authority of ((blp)) has commented out 80% of this article.
• I strongly dispute their reasoning. And I encourge those who wish to view this article to view this version. Geo Swan 14:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC) List now restored to the article.[reply]

• Note There is an edit war deleting and undeleting the list and the sources [1] [2] [3]--victor falk 23:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Guantanamo Bay detainment camp-related deletions. —Geo Swan 00:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment -- Nominator's justification is factually incorrect. A team of legal scholars read through the Summary of Evidence memos prepared for the Guantanamo captives' Combatant Status Review Tribunals. They found that the allegations used to justify the captives' continued detention included alleged associations with dozens of organizations that are not on either the State Department's list of organizations proscribed due to suspected ties to terrorism, or on the Department of Homeland Security's list. The team of legal scholars did not make up this list, as nominator contends. They merely gathered the organizations listed in the allegations against the captives. Geo Swan 00:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like making up a list to me.(I do stand corrected on the point that the list makers were "legal scholars", not "law professors" as I said. )Steve Dufour 04:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Plus, it's all primary sources and functionally a hit piece/attack article. • Lawrence Cohen 04:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Could we all make an effort to be civil here?
• I'd like to remind everyone that a perceived POV is not grounds for deletion. Geo Swan 11:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Sorry, I think calling the compiling of a list, based on a methodical analysis "making up a list" is highly misleading. I believe the phrase "making up a list" implies it is being made up out of thin air, not based on any research at all. Geo Swan 11:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep notable info. that should not be lost even if it's moved. JJL 01:55, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that. The list should be used as a primary source for other articles. It does not seem to be notable enough for its own article however. Besides that, how is anyone going to find it under its present title? Steve Dufour 04:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I want to be careful about how I say this. Prior to initiating this ((|tl|afd)) our nominator discussed this article over on Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. Where he called the captives "bad guys". I am very concerned this nomination is another instance of a phenomenon I have discovered before.
• I am concerned that the nominator has accepted the DoD's allegations at face value. There is an ongoing controversy over the credibility of the allegations. There is an ongoing controversy over how many of the captives actually merit the descriptions "worst of the worst", "captured on the battlefield", "very bad men", "terrorist". I have encountered other correspondents who discount the notability of the captives' testimony, of their denials of the allegations against them, of the comments of legal scholars who criticize the allegations, and criticize the Tribunal implementation, because they accept the allegations at face value, without applying any skepticism whatsoever.
• It seems to me that our nominator doesn't recognize these controversies. It seems to me that the effect, if this nomination succeeds, would be to strip our readers of the information they need if they are to reach an informed decision as to the credibility of these allegations. I don't see how this could possibly be a good thing.
• In my experience those who take the Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) assertions about the captives at face value find almost nothing about them to be "notable". They discount everything that casts doubt on the JTF-GTMO allegations. Therefore they find nothing that casts doubt on the allegations worthy of coverage here.
• It seems to me that suppressing material that complies with all the wikipedia policies, because it does not fit within someone's personal preconceptions is in effect practicing a form of POV pushing. I am sure many, maybe almost all apologists are oblivious to the fact that they are POV pushing, because they are unaware of their preconceptions. That doesn't alter that its effect is POV-pushing.
• One of the organizations that Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts used to justify continued detention of the captives is the Tablighi Jamaat movement. I had a long history of contributing to that article. This experience strongly reinforced for me the value of writing from a neutral point of view, avoiding sensational comments, even when the material seems sensational, and trusting that our readers are intelligent enough to reach their own conclusions. Admirers of the movement felt very strongly that the documentable allegations that an association with the movement was suspicious enough to justify years of extrajudicial detention.
• The lesson I took away from my experience with the admirers of the Tablighi movement was the importance of not allowing other wikipedia contributors to suppress material that fully complied with all the wikipedia's policies just because those other wikipedia contributors could not square it with their POV. Geo Swan 12:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My feeling is that labeling any person a terrorist, using only a singular source or primary source (here, the unreliable DoD), simply repeats the point of view of the DoD, and unfortunately doesn't seem to square with me per BLP. It's not the list itself, nor any of your contributions--if multiple sources or multiple governments labeled them as terrorists, I'd be fine with it. Using just the words of one government is the problem. It merely parrots and repeats the DoD's stance, and we can't give them (or the UK government, or the Saudi government, or whomever) any special weight or value. If we do this will either be an advocacy piece, or a hit piece/attack article, depending on the reader's point of view, and nothing more. As such, the article in it's current form (and name) is unacceptable.

Rename, multiple sources required. Probably should never exist at this current name, as it could be seen as an endorsement of the DoD stance, which we will not do. • Lawrence Cohen 12:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, after moving to "Defense Department list of terrorist organizations" and including the Taliban and/or al Qaeda if those organizations are indeed listed by the Defense Department as terrorist organizations. Citation to a reliable source would be necessary for each entry. Such a sourced list would certainly be notable and would meet appropriate criteria for lists that this present article would not (the "other than" part is just too arbitrary). Erechtheus 02:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC) See response below for new suggestion as to the appropriate result. Erechtheus 02:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry. Several of the correspondents here have suggested renaming the article and/or including the Taliban and/or al Qaed in the list. I have no problem with the wikipedia having an article that listed ALL the orgnaizations that US counter-terrorism experts suspect have ties to terrorism. I have no problem with the wikipedia having an article that tries to list ALL the organizations that any counter-terror analysts anywhere asserts has ties to terrorism.
  • But those would be different lists than this one.
  • Because several people have suggested this here I think it shows an area where this article could be improved. (I'll work on it. Check back later.) The reason why the Taliban and al Qaida should not be included in this list, is because this list is an annotated version of the list the Seton Hall legal scholars prepared of organizations that the JTF-GTMO analysts find suspicious, that are not on the official lists published by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. The Taliban and al Qaida are on the officially published lists
  • As the Seton Hall report notes:

This inconsistency leads to one of two equally alarming conclusions: either the State Department is allowing persons who are members of terrorist groups into the country or the Defense Department bases the continuing detention of the alleged enemy combatants on a false premise."

• In other words, while captives apprehended in Afghanistan were sent to Guantanmo based on an alleged association with these organizations, an alleged association with these organization would not prevent someone who wanted to commit a terrorist act in the USA from getting a valid, legal visa to travel to, and live in the USA.
• The several dozen organizations on this list are far from the only organizations that have been used to justify the continued detention of captives. There are also several dozen organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, which were on the DHS or State lists. Geo Swan 12:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• After reviewing the way this has gone and the responses by Geo Swan, delete. This content has a place on Wikipedia, I'm sure. In its present state, I find there to be some WP:BLP concerns but more a serious concern with WP:NPOV. I don't find the one-sidedness of what is trying to be accomplished in any way appropriate for this project. We're not supposed to be about advocacy, which is increasingly what it looks like is going on here. Erechtheus 02:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I always ask people who hint or state they have a POV concern about my contributions if they can help me understand their concerns. I asked Erechhtheus. And I appreciate that he or she took the time to reply. The (first?) trigger was the name of the article -- which triggered a concern over advocacy for them. It never occurred to me that the article should have a different name. But I told Erechtheus I had no objection to renaming the article. I suggested The Seton Hall compilation of organizations the Defense Department suspects have ties to terrorism. Here is our exchange.

• Special disposition Keep the article; such lists have gotten enough press that I am confident about their notability. However, I have serious WP:BLP reservations about the names within the list unless otherwise corroborated. Ordinarily, reliable sources publish details about the information from which their conclusions are derived. Secret evidence requires circumspection. Its reliability is less verifiable. Best, --Shirahadasha 02:14, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't understand your ((blp)) concern. All of the individuals listed in the article are named as members of these organizations in the memos prepared for their CSR Tribunals or their ARB hearings. As I understand it ((blp)) doesn't say articles can't contain allegations against individuals. It merely says that those allegations have to reference an authoritative, verifiable source. And these allegations do reference at least one verifiable, authoriative source. Geo Swan 12:09, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the concern is that parroting the United States point of view of who is a terrorist, without multiple sources, is the BLP violation. Just because a singular government says someone is something, does not make it so. "Multiple reliable sources". • Lawrence Cohen 12:14, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep changed to Delete below. For now. However, for BLP purposes, is one lone primary source (the US defense department) fine for BLP to accuse someone of terrorism, a pretty severe and life-changing accusation? I would think not, and this should be reviewed to that end. If secondary sources don't exist, no one should be on this list. To that end, it should be renamed. Would this count as a soapbox? Thinking aloud here. • Lawrence Cohen 04:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, changing from keep. All this is sourced to one primary source, the US department of defense. There are no secondary sources corroborating these allegations. • Lawrence Cohen 04:23, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Please explain what you mean by "There are no secondary sources corroborating these allegations."
  • Are you saying you need to have a newspaper report, or an NGO, like Amnesty International, or Human Rights Watch, quote the JTF-GTMO documents, before you will agree they can be used? This does not make sense to me.
  • The wikipedia should not be taking a stand as to whether the allegations against the captives are credible. I don't see how referencing the JTF-GTMO allegations, quoting the JTF-GTMO allegations, without taking a stand on their credibility, violated ((blp)). The article is clear about who is making the allegation. The reader gets to decide how much credibility to invest in those allegations. Geo Swan 12:09, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment This list appears to be based on A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data, who has secondary sources. Mark Bendeaux[4] seem to have received a fair amount of media coverage for his work on Guantanamo detainees: [5] . Here's one source, unfortunately not free: [6]--Victor falk 09:09, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Seton Hall team has published five papers, based on the same 517 memos:
    1. A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data
    2. Inter- and Intra-Departmental Disagreements About Who Is Our Enemy
    3. The Guantanamo Detainees During Detention
    4. June 10th Suicides at Guantanamo: Government Words and Deeds Compared
    5. No-hearing hearings
  • This list is an annotated version of an appendix from the second study -- Inter- and Intra-Departmental Disagreements About Who Is Our Enemy.
  • Several people have said they think the article should have a different name. I disagree.
  • I think e have to stick with the name the Seton Hall team originally chose. As I wrote above, we could certainly have a list that included the Taliban and al Qaeda -- but it would be a different list. Not the list described in the article. The reason why this particular selection of organizations should remain as-is, is that the main point of the article is that the people allegedly associated with one of the organizations on this list could get a visa to enter the USA, but, if captured in Afghanistan, the alleged association causes them to be sent to Guantanamo. As the Seton Hall article says, either JTF-GTMO is correct, and State and DHS are wrong, and the no-fly list is letting in passengers who are potentially dangerous terrorists -- or State and DHS are correct, and JTF-GTMO has been unnecessarily and wastefully holding innocent men for years. Geo Swan 12:46, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Geo Swan
  • Disclaimer -- I started this article.
  • As I stated above, the nomination is based on serious misconceptions.
  • Of course this list is important, very important, for several reasons:
  • As I quoted above, the Seton Hall scholars pointed out that, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, have published lists or organizations their counter-terror analysts suspect of ties to terrorism. If someone applying for a visa to the USA is known to be associated with one of these organizations, they don't get a visa, they don't get a ticket. Or maybe they get arrested and extradited from the country where they applied for a visa. So, individuals believed to be associated with the organizations on this list CAN get a visa -- can fly to the USA -- can live and travel within the USA. They could even sign up for pilot training.
  • It is not our place to insert our own opinions on the credibility of the allegations against the captives. Readers should be making up their own minds However, I believe providing the information that our readers can use to reach their own informed opinion.
  • Readers deserve to be able to read about these organizations, and the allegations against the individuals held because they were alleged to be associated with them.
  • I invite you all to look at Allegations that Tablighi Jamaat has ties to terrorism. Tablighi Jamaat is one of the organizations JTF-GTMO analysts assert has ties to terrorism that neither State or DHS have put on their suspicions lists. I have done a lot of work on that article. About three dozen captives faced the allegation that an association with the Tablighi movement tied them to terrorism. I like this article. I think it is balanced. I think it fully complies with all the wikipedia's policies. I think it stops well short of stating that the JTF-GTMO allegations involving Tablighi are questionable. About a year and a half after I started working on that topic I came across what I regard as a "smoking gun". I found that Fayad Yahya Ahmed had asked his Personal Representative for a document that explained how his association with Tabligh tied him to al Qaida. His Personal Representative told his Tribunal:

We searched for a document to show that there is a connection but did not find one."

• I'd like to see as many of the organizations on this list as possible have articles like this one. Some organizations only have one or two Guantanamo captives associated with them. Those organizations probably don't merit articles of their own.
• Cheers! Geo Swan 12:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If reliable sources have reported on the list's existence, we can write about the list itself without naming everyone on the list. Please tell me if you can generate and source multiple reliable sources for each name on the list, which do not come from a single primary source (the United States government) asserting that these people are terrorists. If so, I will change this to Keep. Otherwise, this could even be speedy deleted as an attack article on the individuals listed. It also violates Neutral Point Of View to simply repeat a single nation's point of view on something like this, without multiple reliable sources from outside, unrelated parties. • Lawrence Cohen 12:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I strongly disagree.
• I think it is in the captive's best interest to have neutral coverage of the allegations. You have looked into the captives circumstances deeply enough to have a healthy skepticism about the allegations. I think it is best, in the long run, to trust our readers, and count on their good judgement to reach their own conclusion, as we did.
• Yes. They might reach a different conclusion than the one we reached. Well, that is life. It could be a sign that we might be mistaken. And, what if we are right, and the rest of the public is wrong? Well, the public might wise up, eventually. In which case we get to choose whether we want to say, "I told you so."
• Or we might be right, and the rest of the public may never wise up. Well, that is just one of the less pleasant aspects of living in a democracy.
• Back in 2003 George W. Bush thought the USA could force Iraq to appreciate US style democracy, at the point of a gun. I knew that could never work.
• The way I see it, it is the same with the captives, and the allegations against them. If, for the sake of argument, the bulk of the public is not going to exercise healthy skepticism about the JTF-GTMO allegations, if they have a neutral presentation of those allegations, then I think suppressing those allegations would backfire.
• Eventually the public would be likely to learn the information we wanted to suppress. I think getting the neutral presentation out there first is a far better choice then trying to suppress that info.
• Do you think there is no way to cover the JTF-GTMO allegations without endorsing them? I don't see it that way at all.
• In general, the more I learned about the allegations, the less credible I found it. I think the more our readers learn about the less credible they will find them.
• How credible are the allegations? They are, in my personal opinion, dreadfully lacking in credibility. WP:NPOV doesn't permit me saying that, in article space. It doesn permit me to comment about the sensational aspects of the allegations in a sensational matter. But that shouldn't really matter.
• I really have encountered a number of shameless POV-pushers who wanted to suppress coverage of the captive's allegations, and other aspects of their cases, because they thought that factual reporting of the very weak allegations was "anti-American".
• Cheers! Geo Swan 13:27, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Does it line up with BLP and NPOV to list extremely negative allegations about living people from a single primary source in such a list format? If so, how? We have to be compliant with BLP. Also, NPOV has to be adhered to, as well. Using only the Department of Defense as a source, that is not a neutral source, which means that the article is not neutral. Neither is unfortunately acceptable. • Lawrence Cohen 13:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Sorry Lawrence. I am going to ask you return to the article, and check the list in more detail.
• Check, and you will see that I never asserted that the captives were terrorists.
• Check, and you will see that each individual's table entry in the list has the form:

Name Name'

Name Name faced the allegations during his CSR Tribunal that: Detainee participated in Organization XYZ XYZ is (known|believed|suspected) to have ties to (al Qaida|the Taliban|terrorism).

I strongly dispute that this violates WP:NPOV. On the contrary, I believe this is a very neutral way to cover this material.

I am not as familiar with WP:BLP as I am with WP:NPOV, but, as I wrote above, I am quite skeptical that reporting the existence of allegations violates the policy.

You and I are fully entitled to have our doubts about the credibility of the JTF-GTMO allegations. But:

• I am very very skeptical that informing readers of the JTF-GTMO allegations opens the wikipediaa to any danger of libel or slander. The allegations are now very public. The DoD is not some anonymous blogger. In the very unlikely circumstance that one of the individuals named in this article goes to court, they will go to court against the USA, or George W. Bush -- not the wikipedia, or the New York Times, or any other party that repeated the JTF-GTMO allegations without endorsing them.
• I am very skeptical that the passages you commented out violate ((blp)).

I write on controversial topics. Consequently I bend over backwards to fully comply with WP:NPOV. I think I do a pretty good job. But I don't expect to succeed 100% of the time. So I do my best to take all civil, specific concerns that I have lapsed from this policy seriously.

I feel entitled to insist that those who have a POV concern make a meaningful effort to to be specific about the passages they object to. If there is a passage, or a number of passages, that you think do not comply with WP:NPOV I think you should explain your concern about those passages.

You have blanked out the bulk of this article, without a meaningful explanation. I find this highly disturbing.

How the heck am I to make improvements to this article, when you have blanked out 80% of it?

How the heck are the people who might want to express an opinion about this article, when you have blanked out 80% of it?

I urge you to restore the material you commented out.

I urge you to be specific about the passages that trigger your concern, and to explain why they trigger your concern. Geo Swan 14:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Specifics: Specifically, I'm concerned about names of real people and organizations being listed on a page called Defense Department list of terrorist organizations other than the Taliban or al Qaeda, when we have no evidence or reliable non-primary sources saying they are terrorists. As of this moment, we have in essence only the United States government saying a person named "Ali Smith" is a terrorist. Should we, based on that alone, list Ali Smith on something like List of Terrorists? Absolutely not, ever. If Saudi Arabia's military department labeled a C.I.A. agent named Stan Smith a terrorist, would we then included Stan Smith on List of Terrorists as well? No RS, no inclusion. Questions for you:

• Why can't this article be about the existence of the list itself?
• Do we have any neutral (not controlled by the US/DoD) media, other nations, or WP:RS that asserts these people are terrorists?
• If someone besides yourself or I restores the list for the purposes of the discussion with sourced information that meet RS standards saying these people are terrorists, I will not object.

Thanks. • Lawrence Cohen 15:15, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why should the article report the actual allegations? Several reasons:

• Because merely reporting allegations, from a highly verifiable source, without taking a stand as to the allegation's credibility, is not a violation of ((blp))?
• Because the credibility of the allegations is best viewed en masse?
• Because, while it would be nice if we could feel confident that the verifiable, authoritative sources we have at our disposal was in line with what we personally regard as the truth, we can't count on that.
  • If we work on enough articles we are going to come across instances where our personal idea of what is true, what is credible, is going to be at odds with the sources we have at our disposal,
  • Suppressing material that is written from a neutral point of view, that cites verifiable, authoritative sources, because we don't agree with them, simply does not comply with WP:NPOV. Being neutral means we are not supposed to let our POV about what is true led us to suppress otherwise valid material.
  • Sorry, but I think that is what you are doing here. In your personal opinion DoD allegations aren't a credible reliable source. You don't seem to realize that this is a highly controversial position.

In the interests of brevity I am going to address your other questions on the talk page. Geo Swan 17:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I think the DoD is doing the best job they can, and don't disagree with many of their assessments, even on this "list". However, we have *NO* sources yet provided that these accusations are notable. Do you have any 3rd party sources? Has any third party source reported on these accusations? If not, they're simply not notable, and goes back to my example of the Stan Smith CIA agent. Any nation saying something, from their government perspective, does not make it so, nor notable. If Germany names me as a terrorist, but no one cares enough to report on it on at least more than one non-German government source, odds are my accused terrorism isn't notable and shouldn't be included on Wikipedia. No sources = no content, not included on Wikipedia. Please see WP:V. • Lawrence Cohen 17:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh> And this assessment of yours is based on what? How many transcripts did you say you read? Geo Swan 18:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't matter how many I've read, or haven't read. BLP seems to be saying we err on the side of caution, and if something isn't reported by reliable sources (WP:RS), we can't verify if it's factual or not (WP:V), and so it is not notable (WP:N). If we try to bring it forward any other way it would be original research (WP:OR), which violates WP:NPOV. Add in that along the way, we'll be basically writing that "X is/is associated with terrorism", when they may not be, and doing possibly substantial damage to someone's name. This is a lose-lose situation for us and everyone. • Lawrence Cohen 18:52, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Further: so, no harm in an article about the list which was a research project by someone, but we can't be listing the people in the list without sufficient RS. • Lawrence Cohen 18:54, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Per my BLP concerns, I've hidden the Primary-sourced list from search engines until concerns are resolved, under WP:BLP. • Lawrence Cohen 12:35, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletions. —• Lawrence Cohen 15:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletions. —• Lawrence Cohen 15:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep or Merge, the information is as said, important and should not be lost. I'm not opposed to trying to merge it with Inter- and Intra-Departmental Disagreements About Who Is Our Enemy if that won't make the article over-laborious, but strongly disagree about hiding the names of detainees based on allegations of "BLP" - the article does not suggest these people are terrorists, it lists them as people the study has defined as such, based on DoD actions. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 15:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BLP's edict is "Do no harm". Do you not consider it harmful to list living people by name or groups under a page called in part, "List of terrorists", when there is no 3rd party sources calling them terrorists? We have some university researchers, restating/parroting what the U.S. DoD said, that person X is a terrorist. This is not encyclopediac. The existence of the list itself is. We have no reason to be listing these people thus without non-primary sources. Otherwise, this is functionally a reprinting of a possibly harmful claim. • Lawrence Cohen 15:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It "does harm" to list Wolfram Sievers as a Nazi war criminal, but the Nuremberg trials declared him such - and he was imprisoned as such (and ultimately hanged). Similarly, this study did not independently label anybody a terrorist, it simply took the "associations" which the US DOD considered to indicate somebody was a terrorist, and put them in a list. A rewording of the title of the article might be in order, but certainly not deletion. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 16:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wolfram Sievers isn't alive, and was convicted in an international court of war crimes and murder. There is no harm in anything there to list him as a Nazi war criminal; that's what he was, and it is widely reported. In this case, we have the US suspecting people of terrorism/terrorist associations, and a group of researchers compiled names from government documents to assemble a new list on this. They published this list they made up, and we reposted it. If we have no secondary sources reporting that these people are terrorists, have terrorist ties, enjoy terrorism, read terrorist fiction, etc., anything, we shouldn't be listing them in a list, by name, on an article in part titled "List of terrorists...". Guilt and defamation by association, perhaps? There is no benefit to Wikipedia as an encyclopedia to name these people (who are not convicted Nazi war criminals, let alone convicted of anything--well played on the Godwin invocation). They can't be listed here thus per BLP. Either way, the list itself isn't notable. It's a random research project that no-one has reported on. • Lawrence Cohen 16:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I find 3,190 google hits for the name of the report to which this list was attached. The 9/11 Commission accused a lot of living people of connection to terrorists, but we still report their assertions - even if they were made in an appendix of the Commission. See Hassan Ghul for one such example - you can't really claim "omg, BLP says that we can't include that detail of the 9/11 Commission's findings because it wasn't in a court of law!" We document who made the allegation (the DoD in this instance), and let the reader decide its credibility. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 18:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there are a total of 21 hits for it, only, when I exclude Wikipedia from searches, and go to the end of the search. Any primary/single source negative assertation to my knowledge should be excluded under BLP. Hassan Ghul is a red herring; he's widely reported on. I'm simply saying that no one should be on any list of this nature, with a name like this, without multiple non-trivial sources saying that "x is a terrorist/terrorist suspect". Otherwise, it's guilt by association, and that is wrong under BLP/NPOV. • Lawrence Cohen 18:14, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Even of those 21 unique hits, , I see Stanford, Oxford, the Commonwealth Institute, Refugee Council USA, Centre for Defence Information and the New York Times...that's a lot of large groups taking this study at face-value. WMF is no different. And I'm not sure if you're living under a rock, or just assume all "Guantanmo Prisoner X" stories are about the same guy - but the majority of these detainees are "libelled", as you would put it, in the daily newspapers. WMF is not alleging they are terrorists, they are repeating what the DoD, executive orders, the global media and a number of national courts which oversaw repatriated prisoners' trials, have already alleged. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 22:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - No independent assertion of notability, over-reliance on primary sources, no independent assessment of value of the list or the article.ALR 15:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per concerns including WP:BLP, a necessarily loosely defined standard, and the DOD's lackluster credibility. --Evb-wiki 17:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep This is important information, and US DOD view on who is and who is not an enemy should be noted - making it very clear that Wikipedia is merely repeating this information for the benefit of our readers, and the perspectives are those of the DOD personnel at Gitmo. Buckshot06 19:10, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the findings of this team of legal scholars should be mentioned in WP. However the list itself does not seem to be notable. Steve Dufour 19:14, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The list is not notable, however, and there are no reliable sources corroborating these views. Unless reliable sources are found for the entries, for the list, this is unverifiable and the views of the DOD personnel at Gitmo would then be not notable. • Lawrence Cohen 19:18, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that the list itself could be cited as a source for another WP article, since it was published in some form (by the college I guess), even if it is not notable enough to have its own article. Steve Dufour 20:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The value in that could be using the list as a possible RS to assert in an individual article that a given person is suspected/believed to be a terrorist by the US Government. As in, "Stan Smith is considered by the United States to be a terrorist.[1]" where 1 is this list? Just so I am understanding you. • Lawrence Cohen 20:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I was also thinking that the researchers' conclusion, which seems to be that the Department of Defense is holding people who would not be considered terrorists by other government agencies, could be mentioned in other articles. Steve Dufour 21:44, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can see that being a valid use for the data in the list, combined with other sources to supplement it. As it stands on it's own, though, this shouldn't be an article per BLP/NPOV without additional sources. It is fine one way, but not the other. • Lawrence Cohen 21:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Request for the nominator to clarify the grounds for his nomination and the policies it violates. The matter at hand is a bit more serious than an article about what a bored made up at school--victor falk 21:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I nominated the article because the list itself seems to be non-notable, not being mentioned in secondary sources, and because the bulk of the article when I nominated it was a reprinting of the list. (An example: The fact that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize is notable. The statement by the Nobel Prize committee awarding him the prize would not be a suitable subject for a WP article.) Steve Dufour 21:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - btw, info on terrorist groups from multiple sources is covered in both War on terror and Terrorist groups. --Evb-wiki 00:25, 16 October 2007 (UTC
  • This article, by contrast, is either a list with only one source (part of my blp concern) or an article about a non-notable list (a list without multiple 3-party coverage). --Evb-wiki 19:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I agree with User:Buckshot06, this article should be kept, it is notable and is stated in a clear manner. But more should be added to the article, and we need some other sources as well. Curt Wilhelm VonSavage 04:24, 16 October 2007 (UTC).[reply]
• Strong Delete; sets a dangerous precedent. Keeping this would give carte blanche for the inclusion in Wikipedia of any list, compiled by any pseudo-governmental department of any country, of people who that source claims are terrorists. There are no secondary sources. ELIMINATORJR 19:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Neutral -There is no list, and the article I see explains what the document is. The source is about infighting withing the US gov't. I guess that the topic is notable, but the list isn't. Speciate 19:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• The list was obfuscated here from the article. The list itself, however, isn't notable. • Lawrence Cohen 19:24, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:Notability is a wikipedia guideline, not a policy. It derives its authority from WP:NPOV, WP:VER and WP:OR. I think it is a good thing that it is not a policy, because, when it comes to a controversial topics, the notability metric fails. For controversial topics the evaluation of whenther material is "notable" relies entirely on the readers fund of general knowledge and point of view. For controversial topics any judgement as to whether material is notable is a POV evaluation.
  • The Department of State has a published list of organizations it regards as suspicious enough to take action. If you are known to belong to one of those organizations you can't get a visa. Possibly other actions too
  • The Department of Homeland Security has a published list of organizations it regards as suspicious enough to take action. If you are suspected of belonging to one of those organizations you will be on the "no-fly list", and can expect to be arrested by border agents, and possibly sent to Guantanamo.
  • The Departmen of Defense has organizations it regards as suspicious enough to take action against. Its list, or lists, are published, and only overlap the published lists of the other Departments by about 50%. If you are suspected of belonging to one of these organizations, you can expect to be sent to Guantanamo.
  • In total, if you combined all these lists, you would have about 100 organizations. Given the seriousness of the "war on terror", given the seriousness of the assertions against these organizations., I don't see why all 100 or 200 of them don't merit coverage on the wikipedia.
  • If you look at the list Lawrence Cohen obfuscated, you can see there is an entry for Itihad Islami. You can see that Akhtiar Mohammad was alleged to be a member of Itihad Islami. You can see that Akhtiar Mohammed acknowledged being a member of Itihad Islami -- which, it turns out is a member of the Northern Alliance. That is worthy of coverage in the wikipedia
  • Cheers! Geo Swan 20:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• The no-fly list of the US government is incredibly notable--if we don't have an article on it, we should. Should we thus include the contents of the no-fly list, by name? Doing so I contend, using only the US government as a source, would be a humongous BLP violation. • Lawrence Cohen 20:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Also, you wrote, "you can see there is an entry for Itihad Islami. You can see that Akhtiar Mohammad was alleged to be a member of Itihad Islami. You can see that Akhtiar Mohammed acknowledged being a member of Itihad Islami -- which, it turns out is a member of the Northern Alliance. That is worthy of coverage in the wikipedia" Is that your conclusion, or did a reliable source come up with this conclusion? If a reliable source didn't come up with this conclusion, and you did, we absolutely cannot use such conclusions in an article per Wikipedia:No original research.
• See the synthesis section:

• "Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research.[1] "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article." - WP:SYN

• • Lawrence Cohen 20:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• In the interests of brevity, I have replied on the talk page. Geo Swan 20:59, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: This is getting far too convoluted with all these needless indented back and forths. This article is both a WP:BLP and WP:SYN/WP:OR violation. Source A (USA DOD) says, "This guy is a terrorist", in various documents; source B says, "Seton Hall has collected all these guys the DOD says in random documents are terrorists in an Appendix," and that C is this title of "Defense Department list of terrorist organizations other than the Taliban or al Qaeda" republishing all these names under a page called "List of terrorists". We're basically saying that they are terrorists. We can't combine sources to make a new conclusion. Listing all these people, who are not convicted of any terrorism in any sourced court of law, under an article called "List of Terrorists," while only listing various diaspora of allegations, means that this is both a BLP and SYNTH/OR violation. Even worse, I just realized that this reference it came from here doesn't even include all the allegations listed in the "List" we host on Wikipedia. All that was gleaned from the various documents. • Lawrence Cohen 21:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Without regard to the actual controversial contents, this is still a list with only one primary source. While the topic is probably notable, we have no way of verifying the contents of the article. It's also patent POV (that of the DoD). --Bfigura ^(talk) 22:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and salt. An article with this title can never comply with WP:NPOV. By definition, it is the POV of the DoD. Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 21:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, it is notable. PxMa 21:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What sources? Regular Google search and a Google news search have nothing. • Lawrence Cohen 21:43, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the article is called "Defense Department list of terrorist organizations other than the Taliban or al Qaeda so it's going to be pretty hard to get sources other then the DD, because it's their list. Also, google isn't everything. PxMa 21:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Did you read the article? This is not a DOD made list; this is a list generated as an Appendix (pages 11-12) of names gathered by staff at Seton Hall university. The article is about this list that they made. Specifically, this article is about pages 11-12 of a report that they did--not even the report itself. In essence, we have an article on a non-notable appendix of a non-notable report (which is now also up for AfD). So, also, if Google isn't everything, on what sources are you basing the notability of pages 11-12 of this report? • Lawrence Cohen 21:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Notability is an irrelevant issue. This can never fulfill WP:NPOV, it violates WP:V for relying solely on primary sources and violates WP:BLP for covering the persons rather than the overall event. All those are policy, notability is a secondary issue here. EconomicsGuy 21:57, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per SheffieldSteel. The list is made up entirely from primary sources and so is inherently POV. Nothing else matters here. EconomicsGuy 21:47, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • That doesn't make it inherently POV. A list of "The accusation of X" is by nature NPOV. There might be an issue with the level of weight it is given, but the US DoD is probably an organization that it isn't unreasonable to give a fair bit of weight to. JoshuaZ 23:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's a fair argument. However, I still don't see how a list of accusations as a stand alone article serves any purpose other than to present the POV of the DoD. A less detailed list could go into an article dealing with this in a larger more NPOV context. EconomicsGuy 23:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, because "other than" introduces an irredeemably arbitrary and POV distinction. Also "terrorist" may not necessarily be a consensus definition. Cruftbane 22:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• delete Individual members of the list may be notable and possibly mention on the list should be mentioned individually. However, this list as it currently stands is an unnecessary compilation of primary sources. JoshuaZ 22:55, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep If they have compiled a list, and we have reliable information about the list, we can and should keep the article, and quibbling about the source being positive or secondary is a little absurd. as long as there is good reason to think it authentic. This is not a list or terrorist organisations, this is a list of those that one notable group interested in such matters considers to be--and as such is notable. Consider a list that the soviet government might have made--it would be notable too, and those on it would have probably considered it an honor. DGG (talk) 23:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This list however, isn't notable. There is no evidence of multiple reliable sources acknowledging it, nor citing it. • Lawrence Cohen 23:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Request that the following articles be nominated together:

• Defense Department list of terrorist organizations other than the Taliban or al Qaeda
• Currently nominated for deletion:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Inter- and Intra-Departmental Disagreements About Who Is Our Enemy
• A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data
• June 10th Suicides at Guantanamo: Government Words and Deeds Compared
• No-hearing hearings
• Mark Denbeaux

My opinion: that they be merged, per not forking content of articles, into Seton Hall reports, currently a disambiguation page to articles above, which is the the name under which their subject meets WP:N:

this request also posted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Inter- and Intra-Departmental Disagreements About Who Is Our Enemy--victor falk 23:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, Mark Denbeaux is idependently notable and should have his own article. JoshuaZ 23:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I knew that... From his article: "Professor Denbeaux gained public exposure beyond the legal and academic communities with his publication February 8, 2006, of " Report on Guantanamo Detainees, A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis [...]"--victor falk 23:57, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - This is a BLP accident waiting to happen. ---- WebHamster 23:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reading the above discussion, I believe WP ought to have an article on the reports - either one or several - and a full set of links to the reports so that people can find them, but not the actual details themselves (people disagree about whether it ought to be there, and it's probably be a bit long). I would also encourage those working on this subject to make it a little clearer where the information is on Wikipedia. Despite looking, I could not find the chart by detainee extracted above. Buckshot06 19:03, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Look at this PDF here, and go to pages 11-12 at the end. That is the chart in question. • Lawrence Cohen 19:10, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete mere recapitulation of a primary source. If it's PD, post the document to WikiSource, but this is not what WP is here for. <eleland/talkedits> 20:03, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Per WP:NOT, Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collector of information. Editor comments that this information is "important" are irrelevant; Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a repository for detailed "important" information. News stories about the list (compiling it, disagreements, consequences, etc.) are certainly proper for inclusion in a Wikipedia article, but the list itself - no way. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 12:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy Delete. Wow, where is Jimbo Wales when you need him? What afreakin' mess, violating WP:POV, WP:BLP, and WP:LIST all in one. We are not a web host for this academic spam. Bearian 21:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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.