Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Defense Department list of terrorist organizations other than the Taliban or al Qaeda

Another wikipedian blanked about 80% of this article, based on {{blp}} and {{npov}} concerns. I asked them to be specific about their concerns. This is their reply:

"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.

There are some things you seem to be missing. Professor Denbeaux, and some of his Seton Hall colleagues, such as Baher Azmy, have played a central role in organizing the efforts of the pro bono lawyers who are aiding about 200 of the Guantanamo captives.

The name they gave their list seems to really trigger your concern. I don't know, for a certain fact, why they chose that name. But I think I can make an educated guess, based on some of the other choices they made in the other four studies. They could have picked a name like Organizations not tied to terrorism by the Departments of State and Homeland Security, but tied by Defense.

In the First Denbeaux Study the team made an arbitrary decision to accept certain allegations at face value. I think they made this choice because they realized they were accepting some allegations at face value in oder to enhance their credibility. I think they knew that if the line they took in their studies reflected their judgement as to the allegations credibility they would leave too much of their readers behind -- because the jump to what they strongly suspected was credible would be too much of a jump for most reader.

So, my guess is that the Seton Hall team chose a name that didn't suggest the allegations were bogus, because they thought many readers would stop reading at that point. They wrote five articles, each of which addressed a separate aspect of what they learned from studying the Summary of Evidence memos. The article in which this list was found addresses the discrepancies between the different lists of organizations suspected of ties to terrorism used by various branches of the US government. Geo Swan 21:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Geo, I really appreciate your efforts here, but with a title like this, and barely any acceptable sourcing, it's a total mess of BLP concerns. We can make the list "work" correctly, but to do so would require OR. Since we can't do the OR to make it work under other policies, it's never going to comply with NPOV, so it becomes a BLP trainwreck. It's a terrible Catch-22, but that's what it has become. If the list and whatnot were sufficiently notable, this wouldn't be happening, but it simply isn't. For what it is worth, I am in favor of these things all seeing the light of proverbial day, but not like this. • Lawrence Cohen 21:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another wikipedian had a concern that I violated WP:SYNTH. In the interest of brevity, my response here:

• I agree, in my personal opinion, the "no-fly list" merits coverage on the wikipedia. This is an instance where my POV and your POV are in agreement. Recognize, our judgements, your judgement, my judgement, are rooted in our POV.
• I think I am familiar with the WP:SYNTH, thanks. But I don't see how what I wrote in the article breaches that policy. You quoted the passage from WP:SYNTH. I cited published source A. I cited published source B. But, I think, if you check again, I did not introduce novel synthesis C.
• I did state a conclusion, here that I thought that Akhtiar Mohammed's membership in Itihad Islami merited coverage in the wikipedia. So, your demand that I find an RS... Are you really suggesting I have to find a place where Howard Kurtz, Dan Rather, or Bill O'Reilly wrote: "The wikipedia should really cover Akhtiar Mohammed and Itihad Mohammed"? Geo Swan 20:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm saying that 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. • Lawrence Cohen 20:59, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]