Talk:11 March 2004 Madrid attacks
|
|
Template:Onlinesource2004 Archive 1 | Archive 2
Note: The above two archives refer to outdated versions of the article. The page has since been completely refactored; the archives may not seem to make much sense, but they did at the time.
| Contents |
Note: Article has been divided in two
I have now divided the article in two, as discussed earlier, and done a copyedit which has involved some cutting. Adam 11:54, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Thanks (very much) to Adam. Great job. Pfortuny 12:39, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Very nice. Well done, Adam. -- ChrisO 00:14, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Article title
Couldn't the title be more specific, like March 11, 2004 Madrid train attacks or March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings? -- Dissident 18:53, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Well, as far as I know, it is as much specific as it can, there were no more attacks then and there. Pfortuny 20:06, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I agree. "Madrid attacks" sound like they were a bunch of attacks against Madrid. "Madrid train bombings" is direct to the point. —Michael | Talk 05:29, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)
- I'm with Pfortuny here (and with most I hope) -- no other attacks of that scale occurred that day in Madrid, so I think it is pretty specific. And remember the 9/11 page is titled September 11, 2001 attacks. Now that doesn't even specify where it occurred! And before you bring the "you were living under a rock if you didn't know where it occurred" argument, I could say the same applies to the Madrid bombings... Even bin Laden who *is* living under a rock knew of the attacks ;) --Cantus 05:33, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
This peculiar wording arises from the fact that we are not allowed to use the word "terrorist" at Wikipedia, so we have to say "attacks" without saying whether they were attacks of measles or some other kind of attacks. I certainly agree that "Madrid train bombings" would be a much more honest and informative title. Adam 06:30, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- And what if there is another train bombing in Madrid in the future? Using the date, plus the city is about all you need. --Cantus 06:54, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I had not contemplated this (I mean Adam's) point of view (especially the measles :). Seriously, I have changed my mind and I vote for March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings. Pfortuny 07:55, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- There is really no need to get so specific in the title. You don't need to know it 'all' in the title. Encyclopedia Britannica (the be-all end-all, right?) titles (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=420489) the 9/11 attacks as September 11 attacks in their 2004 edition. --Cantus 08:21, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- If the EB was the be-all and end all (BAAEA) I don't think any of us wd be here. Adam 08:46, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- We're here because EB isn't free (in both main senses of the word.) --Cantus 08:52, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- [Off-topic] There are plenty of articles on Wikipedia which are better than the equivalent article in the 15th edition of the paper EB (the one I have). The balance is only likely to tip further. Thus it isn't just about freeness any more. However I agree, there is no need to get too specific in the title. The extra words could be viewed as an unnecessary disambiguation. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 12:08, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Hey, why don't name it to the name given in english media? That was the aim when the article was borned at first, although at that time doubly no victims was reported, only blasts. BBC seems to use "Madrid bombings" — f.e. in swedish "Terrordåden i Madrid" is used, in hispanic "11 M" is used, etc. // Rogper 15:29, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Anyone reading the English-language world media can see that the event is becoming known as "the Madrid train bombings," not M11 or 11M or 3/11 or the Madrid attacks. The article ought to be moved to Madrid train bombings of 11 March, 2004. Adam 12:50, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Oppose. I think that's an unnecessary and overly-long disambiguation - would you call 9/11 the "Plane crashes of 11 September, 2003"? Also, it's not the most commonly used term. Google returns 79,100 results for "Madrid attacks" as opposed to 27,900 for "Madrid train bombings" [1] (http://www.googlefight.com/cgi-bin/compare.pl?q1=%22madrid+train+bombings%22&q2=%22madrid+attacks%22&B1=Make+a+fight%21&compare=1&langue=us). I've added a redirect for "Madrid train bombings", btw. -- ChrisO 13:13, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- You first point is fatuous as I'm sure you know - no-one calls 9/11 the "Plane crashes of 11 September, 2003" (or even 2001). You second point has validity. There is no single established term as yet. But I think "Madrid train bombings" will eventually become established because it is more specific than "attacks." The reason Wikipedia uses "attacks" is because it's a euphemism for "terrorist attacks," which the Wikipedia Friends of Terrorism won't let us call them. "Madrid train bombings" is a much more honest title. Adam 13:23, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Personally I don't mind whether or not "terrorist" appears in the title and my only substantive criticism of your wording is that it's too unwieldy. The more important issue is one of timing. "Madrid attacks" is clearly the most popular usage at the moment, by a near 3:1 ratio, but I agree that this could change over time. The problem is that there hasn't yet been enough time for such a change in usage. I just don't think it's necessary to change the name at this stage, given that it's only been eight days since the attacks. Could we not agree to look again at the matter in a few weeks' or months' time, when the usage has become more settled? The current name is causing no harm and does, after all, reflect the prevalent usage. -- ChrisO 13:44, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- You first point is fatuous as I'm sure you know - no-one calls 9/11 the "Plane crashes of 11 September, 2003" (or even 2001). You second point has validity. There is no single established term as yet. But I think "Madrid train bombings" will eventually become established because it is more specific than "attacks." The reason Wikipedia uses "attacks" is because it's a euphemism for "terrorist attacks," which the Wikipedia Friends of Terrorism won't let us call them. "Madrid train bombings" is a much more honest title. Adam 13:23, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Sure. Actually my suggestion is only unwieldy because it has the date attached, which it doesn't need. Madrid train bombings would be perfectly clear and unambiguous on its own. But I agree there is as yet no consensus on a title for the event. Adam 13:56, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I think there does need to be some specificity regarding the date. Cantus is absolutely right to ask "what if there is another train bombing in Madrid in the future?" So I'm afraid we're probably lumbered with having to include a date in the title. -- ChrisO 14:10, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Now that's a really fatuous argument. Do we say Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941, on the grounds that the Japanese might attack Pearl Harbour again? Adam 14:23, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Not at all! :-) Pearl Harbor isn't a valid comparison. Don't forget that ETA has already carried out train bombings and was widely reported before March 11th to be attempting more. There's no guarantee that it won't happen again in Madrid, although I agree that it would be very foolish of ETA to try it in the present climate. Given that, it would be prudent to have a specific title to allow for the possibility of a recurrence. You've already endorsed this approach by including a specific date in your proposed name. -- ChrisO 14:44, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- If the date is retained, it should be given in European format, 11 March, not March 11 - MPF 02:37, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The attack may well become known simply as "March 11", with or without the year. This is especially likely in Europe, and almost certain in Spain, where the format 11-M is wery common to refer to major events. Miguel 14:42, 2004 Mar 19 (UTC)
AKAs: M-11
I haven't seen M-11 used anywhere as an aka to the Madrid attacks. 11-M was coined by the Spanish press and is widely used in the Hispanic world. 3/11, is more rarely used, but still valid. I propose removing the M-11 aka. --Cantus 23:14, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I saw 3/11 in an American news commentary this morning. I haven't seen M11 or 11M and I don't think they are becoming established (in English) as 9/11 has done. Adam 01:55, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Article is among most read on Wikipedia this month
The March usage stats for English Wikipedia are showing that this article is the third most frequently accessed English-language page so far this month, excluding meta and special pages and the home page. It is also the most frequently accessed new article, with 15,360 hits so far. United States and World War II come first and second. [2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/stats/usage_200403.html)
Interestingly, although this article's Spanish equivalent also appears in the Spanish Wikipedia top 25, it's only the ninth most frequently accessed Spanish-language page. [3] (http://es.wikipedia.org/stats/usage_200403.html) -- ChrisO 21:51, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- The reason for this might be that Spanish speakers have ready access to primary sources, while the English article has been one of the fastest ways to summarize and translate those primary sources into English. The English article is also Google's top (I'm feeling lucky) hit for "Madrid March 11", but the Spanish article is among the top 130 hits for "Madrid 11 Marzo" — Miguel 21:59, 2004 Mar 19 (UTC)
Usage figures
Comparative figures from Google (http://www.google.com) // Updated by Cantus 00:27, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC):
| Query | Results |
| "Madrid bombings" | 249,000 |
| "Madrid attacks" | 90,500 |
| "Madrid train bombings" | 31,200 |
| "Madrid train attacks" | 13,500 |
| "Madrid terrorist attacks" | 10,600 |
| "Madrid terror attacks" | 4,670 |
| "Madrid terror bombings" | 2,880 |
| "Madrid terrorist bombings" | 618 |
It's interesting to see how these figures are changing - they've changed again since Cantus edited them just a short time ago, with the figures for "Madrid bombings" going down by 9,000. Presumably an artifact of the Google spider? -- ChrisO 23:55, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Redirects
|
Here are the current pages that redirect to this article. I'm listing them here so that they are indexed by Google (and perhaps a search for these titles will turn up this page first). --Minesweeper 10:56, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Date formatting
Seems like some like to change this into 11 March, instead of March 11, which is the english wikipedia date format. I believe it is correct now though... --Vikingstad 21:49, Mar 21, 2004 (UTC)
- Just to correct you, either 11 March or March 11 is acceptable format - see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers). There was a long argument last summer about using European or American format dates before the compromise was agreed and which format of wikified date is displayed was made a user preference. -- Arwel 22:13, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Okay, thank you for clearing up. I didn't know dates were automatically converted to the user's preferred format. :) --Vikingstad 22:20, Mar 21, 2004 (UTC)
- Only [[linked]] dates like 11 March are automatically converted to user preference - dates in ordinary text like 11 March, and dates included within longer page titles, like 11 March, 2004 Madrid attacks are not. Since this is a European article, it should preferably follow the European date/month format - MPF 00:39, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- It'd look even better without the comma: 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks. –Hajor 00:45, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- You're right - wish I'd thought of that! Please do move it to that if you wish (I don't have time to re-do it all just now!) - MPF 00:58, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Done! Moved to 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks. Thanks to user Timwi! --Cantus 05:30, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Victims
How about a separate page that just lists the victims? I'd rather not have 109 new articles that just say X was a victim of the Madrid attacks. - Texture 18:20, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- See also Wikipedia:Votes for deletion on this subject. Rmhermen 18:29, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)
- I like the idea of a separate list. If there is consensus to have the list here, at the VERY LEAST the list needs to be complete, with the proper accents in the right places, and the list needs to be in alphabetical order. Moncrief 21:23, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)
Page Protection
This page is now temporarily protected due to the edit war re: listing victims. Please discuss the issue on this talk page and come to a compromise. moink 21:24, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I think a prominent link to the excellent Cadenaser (http://www.cadenaser.com/comunes/2004/11m/) list of fatalities would be more than enough, but I'd have no argument with a properly formatted list of names on List of victims of the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks -- given names before surnames, with all the necessary diacriticals, maybe age and nationality, too. Loaded with tragedy though each one of those names is, a badly presented subset of them does not belong in the main article. –Hajor 21:40, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- We should make a 'List of' and link to it from the article, and the list should be complete. I don't think any of the links outside wikipedia are good enough to be linked, they are all in spanish, and thus make no sense to have on the english Wikipedia. — Sverdrup 21:45, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I was the one to add a list here in an effort to remove the individual articles. I agree with those above that this is too large to include in the article and should be created as a separate list. A list outside Wikipedia is just as good if one can be found in english. - Texture 21:47, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
A separate list article is the right thing to do. We can also use the external link to the list published by El Pais (http://www.cadenaser.com/comunes/2004/11m/) as an initial source for victim entries. Miguel 22:24, 2004 Mar 23 (UTC)
- OK. Re the title, I note the 9/11 pages are located at Casualties of the September 11, 2001 Attacks: XX: "casualties" is, I think, better than "victims", and inclusive enough to cover both the slain and the wounded. Can we have our page back now? User:Awe! would appear to have withdrawn from the discussion. –Hajor 22:33, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
We got the page back. Where should the link go? - Texture 22:35, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I unprotected it. I'm still watching to see if this gets bad again, though. moink 22:36, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Move page
Based on evidence above, see Usage figures, I believe the name of this article should be changed (yet again) to 11 March 2004 Madrid bombings, to reflect more accurately on how people the majority of people identify the events. The more vague term attacks is used more correctly in the 9/11 article, because of the nature of those events. --Cantus 22:38, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Do you have a link to the usage figures? The ones I see for March for Wikipedia don't even show Madrid as a search entry. - Texture 22:48, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I'm talking about Google search results, see Usage Figures topic above in this page. --Cantus 23:13, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Don't forget to vote at Talk:Aftermath of the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks on the same issue. This will also decide the name of Casualties of the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks or Casualties of the 11 March 2004 Madrid bombings
- Oppose:
- Support:
- Discussion:
- Spain sees this as their 9/11. Doesn't "bombings" reduce it in caliber? Israel and Iraq have "bombings". This was a concerted attack. - Texture 22:43, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- How about making that link a redirect? Both are correct. - Texture 22:44, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I could have done that ;) My point is to gather support to change the *name* of the article. --Cantus 22:46, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- :) Me too. Although, I am gathering support for a redirect as an alternative. If everyone got bored and left, do you want to flip for it? - Texture 22:48, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Creating a redirect is dangerous, because then to change the article back to that redirection page you have to ask an admin (Well, if that page is subsequently edited). --Cantus 22:50, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- (Thanks for the smiley edit) As for changing it back, I am waiting for a decision before creating it as a redirect and as an admin I can help out if any need arises for redistribution. Texture 22:53, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Creating a redirect is dangerous, because then to change the article back to that redirection page you have to ask an admin (Well, if that page is subsequently edited). --Cantus 22:50, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- :) Me too. Although, I am gathering support for a redirect as an alternative. If everyone got bored and left, do you want to flip for it? - Texture 22:48, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I could have done that ;) My point is to gather support to change the *name* of the article. --Cantus 22:46, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- How about making that link a redirect? Both are correct. - Texture 22:44, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Spain sees this as their 9/11. Doesn't "bombings" reduce it in caliber? Israel and Iraq have "bombings". This was a concerted attack. - Texture 22:43, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
911 days
There seems to be endless confusion about whether this was, in fact, 911 days after Sept 11, 2001. Discussion on the current events page, and the current text at 900 (number), conclude that the calculation is correct if you count it as the number of days between the two dates - i.e. there are 911 days from Sept. 11, 2001 to Mar. 11, 2004 exclusive. I'm too tired to doublecheck this myself right now, so I'll leave it to someone else rather than fiddling with the article. - IMSoP 22:05, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- This was discussed two weeks ago, and the conclusion was that it didn't merit a mention in the article, plus it wasn't a likely Islamic terrorist patron anyway. --Cantus 22:08, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Oh, OK; I didn't mean to repeat old discussion. Although, your answer doesn't quite fit with the current state of the article, since the "Responsibility" section still mentions that "It has been widely reported that...", but then implies that such reports are false, which is misleading. But maybe this was re-added later and should be removed or rewritten or something. - IMSoP 23:02, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Hmm, I thought that bit was gone, lol. --Cantus 23:52, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Dumb question: Does this really matter? This does seem to be yet another wasteful exercise in numerology. Arno 10:16, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Translation sought
Does anyone know of an English translation of King Juan Carlos's speech to the nation on March 11? I cannot seem to be able to find one. Arno 10:16, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, Arwel. I even looked there but I missed it. Arno 07:28, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Police raid
Just saw this on the news.... it appears to have some relevance to this article:
- One policeman and three suspected militants have been killed in an explosion in a suburb of the Spanish capital, Madrid.
- The blast was set off by the suspects as police closed in on an apartment in the south-western area of Leganes, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said.
- Eleven police officers were hurt in the blast, some seriously.
- Police said they had been looking for three men of Moroccan origin in connection with the Madrid train bombs. cont... (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3597443.stm)
fabiform | talk 22:17, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- This is relevant to the Aftermath article. But since it is a developing story, I'd suggest to wait before any inclusion is made. --Cantus 22:27, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Emphasis of the article
Well I just reread the article (and tweaked it in one or two places, nothing major). I got the feeling that the article places too much emphasis on ETA. Now I realise that initially they were the main suspects, and that the fact the Spanish government went out of its way to say that ETA were to blame needs to stay in the article, but perhaps references to them should be trimmed in other sections.
The introduction looks perfectly balanced to me. In ==The attacks== ETA is mentioned twice, in the paragraph about booby traps, saying that it followed their MO, and in the next paragraph about the type of explosives used. I would suggest moving the first mention of ETA and booby traps to the section which explicitly deals with the analysis of ETA's normal tactics. As an aside, should "The police are investigating reports of three people in ski masks" now be in the past tense? ("The police investigated reports...")
- Problem: there were no actual booby traps. Those were in the initial reports because, intentionally or unintentionally, reports interpreted facts in the way most likely to place the blame on ETA. I fell for that myself. The unexploded devices were all in backpacks on the trains, and failed to explode presumably because the timers were set 12 hours late. When they were found, they were reported to be in parked cars and timed to explode on rescue workers. Miguel 00:06, 2004 Apr 5 (UTC)
The responsibility section begins with "Although ETA has a history of mounting bomb attacks in Madrid...." which implies the reader thinks ETA was behind the attack. Now that it seems so unlikely to be ETA, I think this whole section should be reworked to place a higher emphasis on a fundamentalist Islamic group. In fact, this should start by restating what was said in the introduction, i.e. that we cannot yet say for sure who did this. Then say that arrests have centered on people linked to Islamic fundamentalist groups. After this the article could jump back to ETA and work through all the initial suspicions and misinformations, and the denials by ETA. Followed by a detailed analysis of the al-Qaida theory. At the moment the section "ETA suspicions" is twice as long as "Al-Qaida suspicions".
Is the subsection "Precedent" named correctly? It descibes plans which in hindsight seem to relate to Spain (rather than Iraq), not prior attacks. How about "Al-Qaida intelligence", or something like that?
I do think this is an excellent article by the way, I just want it to be as good as possible. Any comments? fabiform | talk 21:00, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I also think that the text underneath the heading entitled ==Spanish muslim== should be merged with the text relating to the ==National== heading. User:ChicXulub 22:51, 5 Apr 2004 (GMT)
removed pov
I removed the following lines:
Politically, it is one of the most successful attacks in recent history. Following the attacks, the ruling party was quickly removed and the new government complied with the attackers demands and withdrew troops from Iraq.
There is no way to establish this. Furthermore, it makes more sense the other way around: in Spain, as in many other countries whose governments followed the USA into Iraq, people were very opposed to this policy and the socialists had already stated that they would withdraw spanish troops from Iraq if they came to power, which gave them strong support. So there's no way of telling if the bombing had any effect on the votes of the people. But it certainly didn't affect the policy of the new government. At least that's how I understood the newsreports on the subject. Maybe the writer of this is from the USA and therefor doesn't have access to objective newssources? Sorry, I couldn't resist placing that remark :). DirkvdM 19:45, 2005 Mar 29 (UTC)