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Letter to the American People article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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Warning: active arbitration remedies The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. Parts of this article relate to the Arab–Israeli conflict, which is a contentious topic. Furthermore, the following rules apply when editing the parts of the page related to the contentious topic:
Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. If it is unclear which parts of the page are related to this contentious topic, the content in question should be marked within the wiki text by an invisible comment. If no comment is present, please ask an administrator for assistance. If in doubt it is better to assume that the content is covered. |
On 18 November 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved to Letter to America. The result of the discussion was not moved. |
A fact from Letter to the American People appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 7 January 2024 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
|
An editor posted the contents of the letter, presumably from the Guardian site. Whether it should be displayed or not has the potential of being a contentious issue. My removal was based on copyright considerations with a small caveat – I typically make sure the text in the edit matches are is too close to the source text but because the Guardian has removed this letter, I was unable to do so. There may also be a question of ownership of copyright, as it seems highly unlikely that Osama bin Laden transfer the copyright to the Guardian, but what doesn't seem at issue is that the original text is subject to copyright.
If the copyright issue is resolved in a way making it permissible to use, there is still the editorial consideration of whether it's appropriate. I'm not going away in on that now. S Philbrick (Talk) 18:37, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
It's officially named "Letter to the American People" 69.249.102.223 ( talk) 20:34, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
I added the letter content of the article in a section, which the entire article is made about, but @ Materialscientistremoved it without stating any reason in his summary, then re-added it and asked him to write a summary for his reason of removal, then @ Philipnelson99 removed it saying “disruptive edit”, can someone elaborate what is “disruptive” about writing the content of the letter that the entire article is about ? I spent a lot of time and effort trying to reach it, and it is the central topic of the article, so why did these two users remove it ? Qarabağın ruhu ( talk) 02:42, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Should we add a section that summarizes the letter's content? I agree with @ Qarabağın ruhu that the points made within the letter are necessary to include, but copying the full text would obviously be unnecessary given the fact it's freely available on WikiSource. Pac-Man PHD ( talk) 03:44, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
The text in the article is not the Letter to America. The letter was released in 2002 and the text in the article references the Obama presidency, which did not begin until 2008. Tapemucky123 ( talk) 05:09, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
"Letter to the American people is a manifesto written in 2002 by Osama bin Laden."
The letter has not been definitively linked to Osama bin Laden. While he is the supposed author, there is evidence mentioned within the article itself that raises doubts about this. This should be changed to "Letter to the American people is a manifesto possibly written by Osama bin Laden in 2002." Pac-Man PHD ( talk) 00:15, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
The following reliably sourced statement has been removed from the page, which now presents no doubt about the authenticity of the manifesto being written by Bin Laden. @ Shadowwarrior8 , can you explain why?
authenticity is unverified and has been questioned due to its unusual focus on topics like AIDS and incest and lack of accompanying video or audio Marokwitz ( talk) 13:21, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. ( closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal ( talk) 03:29, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
Letter to the American people → Letter to America – Move for procedural reasons. I am neutral because I am clueless about the correctness of the title, but let's have an official move discussion to get a more formal consensus. PhotographyEdits ( talk) 18:06, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Osama bin Laden, “'Letter to the American People,” November 2002 [1]
letter to the American people"
Letter to the American People"
Online document: the full text of Osama bin Laden's "letter to the American people", reported in today's Observer.Shadowwarrior8 ( talk) 19:05, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
References
Hello everyone, just had a question on this quote from the letter:
"It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed."
The Torah is mentioned twice here, but is he referring to it in its Jewish context or its Islamic context? When I first looked at this quote, I assumed the first mention was the Jewish Torah while the latter is the Tawrat, and I initially linked them as such. However, recent edits to this quote have left me in doubt, and I'd like a knowledgeable answer from someone since I'm not very well-versed in Islam or Judaism.
Thanks, Pac-Man PHD ( talk) 02:05, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
I believe that the word "people" should be capitalized, so the article should be titled: Letter to the American People. Comments? TuckerResearch ( talk) 15:12, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
The result was: promoted by
AirshipJungleman29
talk 16:30, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
Created by PhotographyEdits ( talk). Nominated by Knightoftheswords281 ( talk) at 23:40, 22 November 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Letter to the American people; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.
General: Article is new enough and long enough |
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Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems |
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|
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation |
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Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px. |
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QPQ: Done. |
Overall: Good to go once the Twitter citation is removed. All hooks are good, but the third one is probably the best. — Sourcing is fine, however please remove the Twitter citation. This claim about views was in the Washington Post, no need to link to Twitter also. MaxnaCarta ( 💬 • 📝 ) 08:44, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
The entire letter is centered around US support to Israel, yet, the first two paragraphs of the lede, mention the word Israel zero times. Clearly the lede has not properly summarized the article's body and needs major work. Makeandtoss ( talk) 14:08, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
The letter criticizes American foreign policy in the middle east—and particularly as it applies to its support of Israel—to justify attacks on American targets; the letter also employs antisemitic tropes. Aszx5000 ( talk) 14:34, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
There seems to be two letters going by the same name. This article's 2002 letter, and the letter found in 2011 when ObL was killed. — al-Shimoni ( talk) 05:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Letter to the American People article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Warning: active arbitration remedies The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. Parts of this article relate to the Arab–Israeli conflict, which is a contentious topic. Furthermore, the following rules apply when editing the parts of the page related to the contentious topic:
Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. If it is unclear which parts of the page are related to this contentious topic, the content in question should be marked within the wiki text by an invisible comment. If no comment is present, please ask an administrator for assistance. If in doubt it is better to assume that the content is covered. |
On 18 November 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved to Letter to America. The result of the discussion was not moved. |
A fact from Letter to the American People appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 7 January 2024 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
|
An editor posted the contents of the letter, presumably from the Guardian site. Whether it should be displayed or not has the potential of being a contentious issue. My removal was based on copyright considerations with a small caveat – I typically make sure the text in the edit matches are is too close to the source text but because the Guardian has removed this letter, I was unable to do so. There may also be a question of ownership of copyright, as it seems highly unlikely that Osama bin Laden transfer the copyright to the Guardian, but what doesn't seem at issue is that the original text is subject to copyright.
If the copyright issue is resolved in a way making it permissible to use, there is still the editorial consideration of whether it's appropriate. I'm not going away in on that now. S Philbrick (Talk) 18:37, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
It's officially named "Letter to the American People" 69.249.102.223 ( talk) 20:34, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
I added the letter content of the article in a section, which the entire article is made about, but @ Materialscientistremoved it without stating any reason in his summary, then re-added it and asked him to write a summary for his reason of removal, then @ Philipnelson99 removed it saying “disruptive edit”, can someone elaborate what is “disruptive” about writing the content of the letter that the entire article is about ? I spent a lot of time and effort trying to reach it, and it is the central topic of the article, so why did these two users remove it ? Qarabağın ruhu ( talk) 02:42, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Should we add a section that summarizes the letter's content? I agree with @ Qarabağın ruhu that the points made within the letter are necessary to include, but copying the full text would obviously be unnecessary given the fact it's freely available on WikiSource. Pac-Man PHD ( talk) 03:44, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
The text in the article is not the Letter to America. The letter was released in 2002 and the text in the article references the Obama presidency, which did not begin until 2008. Tapemucky123 ( talk) 05:09, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
"Letter to the American people is a manifesto written in 2002 by Osama bin Laden."
The letter has not been definitively linked to Osama bin Laden. While he is the supposed author, there is evidence mentioned within the article itself that raises doubts about this. This should be changed to "Letter to the American people is a manifesto possibly written by Osama bin Laden in 2002." Pac-Man PHD ( talk) 00:15, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
The following reliably sourced statement has been removed from the page, which now presents no doubt about the authenticity of the manifesto being written by Bin Laden. @ Shadowwarrior8 , can you explain why?
authenticity is unverified and has been questioned due to its unusual focus on topics like AIDS and incest and lack of accompanying video or audio Marokwitz ( talk) 13:21, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. ( closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal ( talk) 03:29, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
Letter to the American people → Letter to America – Move for procedural reasons. I am neutral because I am clueless about the correctness of the title, but let's have an official move discussion to get a more formal consensus. PhotographyEdits ( talk) 18:06, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Osama bin Laden, “'Letter to the American People,” November 2002 [1]
letter to the American people"
Letter to the American People"
Online document: the full text of Osama bin Laden's "letter to the American people", reported in today's Observer.Shadowwarrior8 ( talk) 19:05, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
References
Hello everyone, just had a question on this quote from the letter:
"It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed."
The Torah is mentioned twice here, but is he referring to it in its Jewish context or its Islamic context? When I first looked at this quote, I assumed the first mention was the Jewish Torah while the latter is the Tawrat, and I initially linked them as such. However, recent edits to this quote have left me in doubt, and I'd like a knowledgeable answer from someone since I'm not very well-versed in Islam or Judaism.
Thanks, Pac-Man PHD ( talk) 02:05, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
I believe that the word "people" should be capitalized, so the article should be titled: Letter to the American People. Comments? TuckerResearch ( talk) 15:12, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
The result was: promoted by
AirshipJungleman29
talk 16:30, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
Created by PhotographyEdits ( talk). Nominated by Knightoftheswords281 ( talk) at 23:40, 22 November 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Letter to the American people; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.
General: Article is new enough and long enough |
---|
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems |
---|
|
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation |
---|
|
Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px. |
---|
|
QPQ: Done. |
Overall: Good to go once the Twitter citation is removed. All hooks are good, but the third one is probably the best. — Sourcing is fine, however please remove the Twitter citation. This claim about views was in the Washington Post, no need to link to Twitter also. MaxnaCarta ( 💬 • 📝 ) 08:44, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
The entire letter is centered around US support to Israel, yet, the first two paragraphs of the lede, mention the word Israel zero times. Clearly the lede has not properly summarized the article's body and needs major work. Makeandtoss ( talk) 14:08, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
The letter criticizes American foreign policy in the middle east—and particularly as it applies to its support of Israel—to justify attacks on American targets; the letter also employs antisemitic tropes. Aszx5000 ( talk) 14:34, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
There seems to be two letters going by the same name. This article's 2002 letter, and the letter found in 2011 when ObL was killed. — al-Shimoni ( talk) 05:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)