Talk:Islamic terrorism

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Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 12, 2006	Articles for deletion	Kept

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"Islamist terrorism"

Some time ago, editors (not including me) agreed that this article was about "Islamic terrorism" not "Islamist terrorism". Hence they changed the name. Currently the lead treats Islamism as a synonym for Islam, something that is wildly inaccurate. Unless there is a source that treats both followers of Islam, and followers of Islamism the same when it comes to terrorism, this shouldn't be there. If there is such a source, please quote it.Bless sins (talk) 01:00, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a lot of discussion on the title name in 2007, and with the exception of one C. Logan the consensus was for Islamist Terrorism. ~~I'm going to change the name.~~ --BoogaLouie (talk) 16:42, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Boogaloogie, it seems that the discussion to which you are referring was started on the very day that an admin closed a discussion which led to moving the article to “Islamic terrorism”. Such a contentious change as moving the page to “Islamist terrorism”, without a formal move request and discussion, would be vandalism and reverted. Carl.bunderson (talk) 21:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I won't change the name without discussion on it. --BoogaLouie (talk) 22:15, 21 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The current title is unacceptable and I put POV tag on it on the basis of former discussions which you can find here, then here and here. Unfortunately there isn't any consensus over the title of the article and I think it's the worst title which could be chosen.--Seyyed(t-c) 03:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this article should be renamed to "Islamist terrorism," as that's what the article is about. Titling the page "Islamic" is inappropriate. --Aude (talk) 06:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

I have requested this article be renamed. Wikipedia should not conflate the word "Islamic" with "Islamist." Sources using the term "Islamist" include the 9/11 Commission Report, which also describes what it means [1]. Lawrence Wright [2] and other experts also use the term. The Wikipedia article is about Islamist terrorism, and should be properly named as such. --Aude (talk) 06:45, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Oppose. The common name for the topic is Islamic terrorism. Andrewa (talk) 11:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Where is that Andrew? -- fayssal - Wiki me up^® 11:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Throughout the English-speaking world. For example, 670,000 Google hits for Islamic terrorism vs 185,000 for Islamist terrorism (your results may differ according to your connection and/or locality). Andrewa (talk) 12:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And when most Americans use the term kleenex they simply mean tissue paper but that doesn't mean that all tissue paper is in fact kleenex. Then there is the fisher cat which is in fact not a cat at all but a marten. Of course it's good friend the dolphin fish isn't a dolphin either. The google argument is entirely lacking. If we agree that the most accurate term is "Islamist terrorism" but that the much more generic "Islamic terrorism" has become more popular then the appropriate way to deal with it is renaming to Islamist terrorism, redirecting "Islamic terrorism" to this page and writing a first sentence of the lead similar to the one on Mahimahi which would instead of saying that it is commonly called the dolphin fish say that Islamist terrorism is commonly referred to as Islamic terrorism. If there is an accuracy issue we shouldn't look to the mistakes of colloquial speech as our guide.PelleSmith (talk) 13:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's logical, but no change of vote at this stage, see below for why. Andrewa (talk) 20:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support Islamist terrorism is more neutral. --Seyyed(t-c) 15:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support for same reasons as pelleshmith and seyyed. --BoogaLouie (talk) 16:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support per myself and all those who want to move.PelleSmith (talk) 17:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

From the survey above:

And when most Americans use the term kleenex they simply mean tissue paper but that doesn't mean that all tissue paper is in fact kleenex. Then there is the fisher cat which is in fact not a cat at all but a marten. Of course it's good friend the dolphin fish isn't a dolphin either. The google argument is entirely lacking. If we agree that the most accurate term is "Islamist terrorism" but that the much more generic "Islamic terrorism" has become more popular then the appropriate way to deal with it is renaming to Islamist terrorism, redirecting "Islamic terrorism" to this page and writing a first sentence of the lead similar to the one on Mahimahi which would instead of saying that it is commonly called the dolphin fish say that Islamist terrorism is commonly referred to as Islamic terrorism. If there is an accuracy issue we shouldn't look to the mistakes of colloquial speech as our guide.PelleSmith (talk) 13:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This can be justified in terms of policy if we see it as following WP:IAR rather than WP:NC. But is the proposal really an improvement? I'm unconvinced. In preferring that the title be specific (they're both accurate) as opposed to generic, what we're doing is to put some content - the information that all Islamic terrorists are Islamist terrorists - into the page title. This is part of a campaign to promote the use of the more specific term.

And this campaign has merit. But it's a big policy shift if we support it in this way. What I'd prefer is to have a redirect from Islamist terrorist, and a clear article lead that points out that the Islamic terrorism as described in the article stems from a particular faction, rather than from all of Islam.

Another possibility would be to have two articles, one at Islamic terrorism and the main one at Islamist terrorism. This is for example what is done in tree of life articles when a genus is represented by only one species. I think in this instance that this is not the right way to go, I just mention it because several of the generic vs specific examples given above seem to suggest it as a solution.

Disagree that the google argument is entirely lacking. Google is not God, certainly, but it's relevant. Andrewa (talk) 20:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]