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Etymology

Seriously ? Does this section really exist ? The section is entirely not quoted, sources are missing from everywhere... What this section suggest, is that the Arabs are all assassins under heavy drugs ! This is not neutral ! And moreover,[REDACTED] in other languages is far less absolute on the etymology of the word (the french[REDACTED] says that it is a very controversial topic). To finish, I'd like to say that the fact this section is the first one gives me the idea that some people want to make Arabs look like drugged assassins...

RFC: Should there be a separate article called Targeted killing

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Should there be a separate article called "Targeted killing"? Is it separate concept from assassination, or is it an an euphemism for assassination? If it is the former then a separate article ought to exist. If it is the latter then it would be (at best) a content fork or a POV fork and the title should remain a redirect. -- PBS (talk) 02:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Epeefleche

  • Moot/Support Separate Article (and note that this is a questionable RFC). There's no need for this discussion. We've already had it above in this thread. I've given time for fulsome discussion. And conversation having petered out, and a clear consensus having been reached, I created the article on targeted killing. Philip, for some reason, doesn't like the consensus. So he deleted the article first -- really, who in good faith goes ahead and simply deleted the 100K text of a 150 footnote article? On the assertion -- in face of the above consensus -- that he can't see the consensus? Now, that having failed, instead of prodding the article or AfDing it, neither of which could be done in good faith, he says he can't see the consensus in the above months-long discussion which has concluded with a consensus. There is zero question it is notable in and of itself -- a google search will show you that. There is absolutely no reason for it not to have its own page. This has nothing to do with forking -- as the article sources make clear, and the consensus discussion makes clear. I don't know what his angle is. But his stating he can't see a consensus is absurd, as anyone reviewing it can see. I urge a speedy deletion of this moot request.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:30, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
If there is a clear consensus then it will be clear at the end of the RFC. What is your evidence that the term is not an euphemism for assassination? -- PBS (talk) 02:34, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a clear consensus. It is shown above. Your bald statement that there is none is absurd. Furthermore, as to "evidence" that is is "not a eupemism" for assassination, why don't you read the article, and the footnotes, with emphasis on this section "targeted killing vs. assassination". As well as the above discussion of your fellow editors, whose consensus you would like to ignore. This should simply be folded up as a disruptive waste of time. All I can see in your discussion, when it comes right down to it, is IDONTLIKEIT. Your suggestion, that in the face of the above consensus which you would like to ignore, that this 100K article with 150 footnotes should be made a subsection of an article that people and scholars largely don't even think it is a subset of is absurd.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:42, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Epeefleche "There is a clear consensus. It is shown above." Then you are ignoring the comments by, Thundermaker (talk) 15:03, 13 May 2010, JohnC (talk) 07:14, 22 June 2010, . Sean.hoyland - talk 09:07, 13 May 2010, Joshdboz (talk) 14:58, 13 May 2010 (not clear). At most a dozen editors took place in the conversation. Hopefully an RFC will bring in more. -- PBS (talk) 03:31, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Rather than arguing if there is or is not a consensus and making personal attacks. Why not try to explain to me and to other interested parties why you think that target killing is not an euphemism for assassination. -- PBS (talk) 03:15, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Rather than make absurd statements, why not read the comments in the consensus on the talk page above? And read the 100K targeted killing article that you absurdly think should be a subsection of yet another article, that many editors and scholars have indicated it is not even a sub-set of. But yes, I've told you this before. And in the face of it you've simply: a) edit warred (even after being warned) ; b) repeatedly deleted referenced relevant material (even after being warned); c) mis-stated the facts; and d) started this needless, disruptive, wasteful rfc improperly. Filibusters have no place here. --Epeefleche (talk) 03:33, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Instead of making statements about what you do or do not think is absurd, and continuing to make personal comments could you please explain to me and to other interested parties why you think that target killing is not an euphemism for assassination. Hopefully you can do this with sources so that we try to reach a consensus on this issue. There is no fire over this issue. The article name Targeted killing has been a redirect to this page for a number of years. Keeping it a redirect while this RFC runs does no harm. But if it is determined by the RFC that it is a content fork, then harm will have been done to the project for the time that the article exists (because a content fork will have existed). -- PBS (talk) 04:00, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
OK -- that's ridiculous. You think that deletion a 100K article with 150 footnotes does no harm? Why, it deprives readers of the article. What does no harm is leaving it as is. And what would do no harm would be for you to read the article and the above discussion, which answer your question, as I have said repeatedly. And what would do no harm would be for you to stop edit warring, and exemplify the behavior called for by you, as is required by wp:admin.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:03, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
It does harm if it is a content fork or a POV fork. Whether it is or not can be decided by the consensus built during this RFC. -- PBS (talk) 05:39, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

of the sources you have included in your article, which one do you think is the best one to justify a separate article? -- PBS (talk) 22:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Should there be a separate article called "Targeted killing"? -- Cirt (talk) 05:01, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

What do you think? -- PBS (talk) 05:48, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Note
I disagree and think that comments should be interlaced not kept in separate sections. Keeping them in separate sections tends to polarise debate and make it difficult to answer points. For example to answer this point are you seriously suggesting that I should have copied it and placed it in another section? If not then how does someone know that I am replying to the point you have made? -- PBS (talk) 05:48, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Which paragraph above do you think is the best justification for having separate articles? -- PBS (talk) 22:22, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Support Yes, there should be a separate article on Targeted killing. The U.S. Government exclusively uses that term to refer to the practice. To redirect readers’ searches on the term to “Assassination” reeks of POV-pushing. Greg L (talk) 11:37, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Were the assassination attempts against Castro attempts at targeted killing? What about the assassination of ? Just because a government uses an euphemism does not make it any less an euphemism. Governments are for ever using terms that have more than one meaning. For example the American "war on drugs" or the "war on terror" are not wars in any usual meaning of the word. Words can accumulate baggage so it is not unusual for governments to use different terms as they perceive the propaganda value of one term to be altered by its usage over time until it carries connotations with which they would prefer their polices not to be associated. For example the British used the term "concentration camps" during the Boer War, but after the abuse of that term by the Germans, the British called similar camps built during the Malayan Emergency "New Villages" (a concept the Americans used during their "Strategic Hamlet Program"). -- PBS (talk) 22:22, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
This is not a UC Berkely class in world philosophy. We follow the RSs. Period. And right now they quote government sources that always use the term “targeted killing”, which is invariably repeated verbatim by RSs; ergo, we need an article on it. And we don’t redirect to an emotionally charged different article that effectively covers a different topic; doing so is pure POV-pushing. If you don’t like that, go start your own newspaper like The New York Times or the Associated Press and change the real-world practices. In the mean time, WP:RS does not mention “Philip Baird Shearer”.

Now, editors opposed to the “Targeted killing” article (i.e. you) were instructed at this ANI in regard to this dispute that the proper course of action is to instead conduct an AfD. This merge proposal is moot. There will no more edit warring and agitating over merging it to “Assassination” because Misplaced Pages had some liberal, all-volunteer editors active that particular week who fancy themselves as being enlightened beyond all comprehension who don’t like the U.S. government’s lingo.

Obama and the Joint Chiefs don’t have to consult “Philip Baird Shearer” before formulating national defense policy and the terminology that accompanies it. Nor do Epeefleche, me, or anyone else here have to run to your talk page to see if you approve of what Obama does and whether the practices of RSs are wise and properly considered the historical implications of the Bay of Pigs.

So that’s the end of it. Editwarring over a merge (*sigh*) ends. Debate at an RfC over merging (*big sigh*) ends. Bring on an AfD so we can (*really big sigh*) be done with this bickering and nonsense. Greg L (talk) 23:46, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

  • Oppose - I think any two-year-old could tell you that "targeted killing" is the politically correct euphemism for assassination. WP isn't a place for this kind of "war-of-words" WP:BATTLEGROUNDing. NickCT (talk) 04:01, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Comments by Sean.hoyland
    • There was both support and opposition rather than a clear consensus when this was discussed but I don't think that really matters now.
    • The discussions didn't really address the framing problems raised in my view.
    • Is it a separate concept from assassination, or is it an an euphemism for assassination ? It's both. It's also other things. It depends on the source.
    • "The U.S. Government exclusively uses that term to refer to the practice."..so write an article about the US targeted killing operations/narratives just like there is an article about the Israeli targeted killing operations/narratives. We don't follow RS. This is the problem. RS have many things to say about assassinations, targeted assassinations (a UN term), targeted killings (a US preference), preventative killings, execution policy, targeted thwartings (in Israel Supreme Court legal-speak), interceptions, extra judicial killings, killing of non-state actors etc etc. Many, many RS use these terms interchangeably whereas we tend to focus on RS that see differences and ignore RS that don't. The targeted killing article starts with a statement that is akin to starting the article Jesus with 'Jesus is Lord' because it said so in an RS somewhere. It's perilessly close to proselytizing. It frames the article to fit the perspective of a subset of RS, it's circular/self-referential, it makes the sourcing of the article into a self-fulfilling prophecy and brings back happy memories of a lecturer who couldn't draw a circle to save his life always saying 'This is a circle because I say so'.
    • I still think a better approach is to have an article about assassination, to have a section within that article about the counterterrorism operations/targeted assassinations/neologisms and to have separate detailed articles about the targeted killing/thwarting/pick-your-favourite-neologism-because-it-makes-no-difference operations/policies/legal arguments etc of specific states like the Israeli targeted killings article, the US operations, the not at all new in any way whatsoever assassinations/murders/targeted killings of people the Russian State doesn't like e.g. the alleged FSB/SVR/who-knows poisonings of multiple North Caucasus "rebels" etc.
    • On the content of the existing targeted killing article:
      • The material related to Israeli policy (which the Israeli press has no problem calling assassination) needs to be moved to Israeli targeted killings article per WP:SUMMARY.
      • I'm not completely opposed to a separate article for targeted killings but the notion that assassination and targeted killing are different is an opinion not a fact. The notion that targeted killing is what our article says it is is an opinion not a fact. As I've said before, it's a term routinely used by human rights groups to describe assassinations by paramilitary groups/insurgents/death squads around the world. That kind of usage is not something that would even occur to a reader after reading our article because of the way we impose a particular usage on the reader. RS use 'targeted killing' to describe many things and there are many things with different names that are the same as 'targeted killing' according to their usage by the media and academic RS. There's no escaping this complicated reality that exists in RS-world when they talk about these issues. The current article doesn't seem to reflect this. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:22, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Sean, I'm glad you're not completely opposed to a separate article for targeted killings. And I agree that the notion that targeted killing is not assassination is not a universal one, though the article fairly reflects a number of peoples' views on the issue. It is the same as the question of whether abortion is murder -- some people think it is, but we wouldn't delete the abortion article, on the argument that abortion is a euphemism for murder, and redirect it to a subsection of the abortion article. The answer is to not have a POV push where TK is slotted under assassination, but keep it as its own 100K article, and add other views from RSs that you feel are missing. End of story. It's really pretty simple. I'm addressing that issue only, as that is the only issue here, not the editing of the article. This is an article with room for Misplaced Pages to do what it does best -- get the positions/issues reflected in RSs out on the table in a cogent manner. POV-pushing (not by you) by one seeking to place it in a category that there is significant opposition to is as wrong-headed as making "abortion" a redirect to the "murder" article would be. --Epeefleche (talk) 07:52, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Nothing I said really matters and nothing I'm going to say below matters given the more practical issue that we can't redirect (or merge) an article with 100K of reliably sourced information. The article will be substantial even with the Israeli targeted killings material merged over to the main article. There's nothing wrong with the information in the article. Whatever happens it is going to have to be smarter/more considered than a redirect.
So, to continue with what doesn't really matter, the POV push (..more like a drift) is in the other direction though. The current targeted killings article is certainly a POV fork in the sense that it represents the POV that a specific neologism, one of many, means something and doesn't mean something else. That is its raison d'etre. Within those self-imposed POV controlled constraints, it addresses that specific neologism according to policy. I'm not sure the comparson to abortion works. Abortion means one thing in practice in this context whereas targeted killing means many things in practice in this context which makes the comparison a bit problematic. Then there's what happens when you simply treat the words as symbols, assume nothing about their meanings (e.g. forget about whether they are euphemisms, ignore moral/legal interpretations etc) and observe RS usage. RS can and do substitute 'targeted killing' and 'assassination' for eachother on a routine basis in their reports about events (not meta reports about the terms). We can see for ourselves that they really are interchangeable in practice for many RS just like the terms 'abortion' and 'termination'. RS apparently cannot and do not do that with 'abortion' and 'murder' because, according to them, they aren't interchangable symbols. Why they're interchangeable in the first case but not in the second case doesn't matter but it shows that we can also treat 'targeted killing' and 'assassination' as being interchangeable without even considering what those terms mean, without caring whether they really are synonyms/euphemisms/morally-legally distinct, because using them that way reflects their actual usage by a many sources. Sean.hoyland - talk 11:22, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Anytime debate here descends into arguments about issues like “abortion vs. murder”, we’ve got a clear indicator that Wikipedians are presuming to tread into issues of public policy, morality, and the wisdom of governments. It’s amusing to see editors here who fancy that Misplaced Pages can decide public policy issues based on individual editors’ sense of whether RSs and governments are doing the right thing by advancing arguments like “jingoistic euphemisms” and “neologism” and declare that government policy doesn’t satisfy this or that wikipedian’s sense of Truth, Justice, and My Sense of Good and Holy.®™© None of that matters one twit.

“Targeted killing” is used by governments and reliable sources as an action that is distinct from assassination. There are now scholarly books like “Targeted Killing in International Law” by the Oxford Press, which analyze its implications in international law. RSs use the term as distinct from assassination. Wikipedians who attempt to circumvent the fact by hoping up and down and declaring that the RSs got it all wrong and the term is just a “politically correct euphemism” simply have no leg to stand on.

If such editors think they have the stature to change government and public policy, go to the politicians and the reliable sources and the international law experts and go get them to see things your way. Until then, Misplaced Pages will follow the RSs. Misplaced Pages is not a venue for individuals who think they have equal standing with RSs and the U.S. government and who fancy that they can hijack this place to make the world a Better and Brighter Place.®™© Greg L (talk) 12:40, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Geo Swan

We really need to be on guard for excessive zeal on the part of the "urge to merge" crowd. From enough distance all related topics look like needless forks. Aren't both Physics and Chemistry both based on those physical laws those Science nerds are always droning on about? Why can't we merge them?

Even if, for the sake of, "targetted killing" was just a euphemism for assassination, and nothing more, it would still merit a separate article, because a very large number of articles used the term. WP:VER says we seek for "verifiability, not truth". If WP:RS use the term as if it were distinct from assassination that is all that matters.

Contributors who want to merge the two articles because they know that the two terms mean exactly the same thing are lapsing from VER -- and WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. Writing from a neutral point of view requires us to set aside what we personally believe to be true. Those contributors who believe the two terms are identical have a strong obligation to set that belief aside.

FWIW, while I acknowledge that the two terms are related, I do not think they are identical.

I know there are contributors who believe that articles should be merged merely because they are related. I find it frustating to try to lay out what I regard as the terrible damage their efforts inflict on the overall utility of the project, because I find mergists hold this notion on some kind of pre-intellectual level, think that the benefits of merging are so obvious that explanations are not necessary and they don't have to listen to or respond to contrary views.

Reading the[REDACTED] is different to and superior to reading similar non-wiki web-sites, and it would be superior even if there were a web-site that had exactly the same content, word for word -- except it used ordinary old-fashined unidirectional URLs, not bidirectional wikilinks, and the other features of the wikimedia software.

The[REDACTED] provides readers with a watchlist. It is a very useful feature. And it is a feature whose value is significantly eroded every time mergists succeed in merging articles merely because they are related. As it stands now any reader who is uninterested in the topic of "assassination", in general, but who is interested in reading any changes to our coverage of "targetted killing" can place "targetted killing" on their watchlists, and leave "assassination" off their watchlists. If we were to merge the articles everyone interested only in targetted killing will be advised of twice as many changes, via their watchlist, half of which they aren't interested in.

The[REDACTED] provides readers with a "what links here" button. This is also a very useful feature. And it too is a feature whose value is significantly eroded every time mergists succeed in merging articles merely because they are related. When an experienced reader is looking for some particular bit of information, and doesn't find it on the articles where they first thought to look, they can click on their "what links here" button. When articles are focussed on a single topic, all the other articles that link to them have some kind of connection to that single topic. When readers check the what links here list they can find other related articles it didn't occur to them to check. But this doesn't work so well when mergists succeed in stuffing two topics, or multiple topics, into a single article. Geo Swan (talk) 13:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Cptnono
  • Support separate articles. Assassination has a strong connotation of an illegal killing by non-military means of a non-state. That’s no-doubt the very reason the U.S. Government coined the term “targeted killing” to describe the novel circumstances it finds itself in today. Greg L (talk) 01:53, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Call it a consensus

It seems like the vast majority here supports a separate article. I think the best thing to do is go ahead with that plan. The protected TK article as it stands is pretty unbalanced, we need to get the other side's view represented. The view that TK is assassination is completely absent from the other article as it stands in its protected state. I am assuming PBS will not resume his side of the edit war given the number of editors supporting the separate article. I am going to go request unprotection now. Thundermaker (talk) 21:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

The RFC has a long way to go, since when did majorities make for a consensus?
Greg L can you name name one targeted killing that was not an assassination. I think you misunderstand what assassination means. Assassination does not mean murder, it means targeted killing. Now it may be that in some jurisdictions an assassination is murder, but for the side doing the assassination it is not. For example in Operation Foxley was a British plan to assassinate Hitler, on one in Britain would ever had been prosecuted for murder.
One of the clear indications that "targeted killing " is a political euphemism for assassination is the attempt to say that only killing by states is "targeted killing". What happens in a civil war where for political reasons one side does not recognise the other as a legitimate government? Is one side carrying out assassinations while the other doing exactly the same thing carrying out "targeted killing". When the insurgency wins the war do the target killings suddenly become assassinations and the assassinations become "target killings"? Take for example the Anglo-Irish War.
If we make this artificial divide then we have POV problems. For example At the moment it is agreed that various people were assassinated in Northern Ireland during the troubles. What is not agreed is who carried out the assassinations. In the 1980s IRA argued that the British governments had a shoot to kill policy. The British denied it but does that mean that even if the British denied involvement in the killings should Wikipeida articles describe these as assassinations or targeted killings? Does it not depend on whether one believes the Republican or British sources? Using one term assassination means that we do not have to make that political decision. (Northern Ireland Book's Allegations Stir International Libel Fight NYT, 9 August 1999)
Epeefleche and Greg L: If targeted killing is not assassination then should we change the wording of the the death of Billy Wright from "Wright was assassinated by INLA prisoners inside Maze Prison to "Wright was assassinated (or if the British culled in his killing "targeted killed") by INLA prisoners inside Maze Prison"? Now it might be thought that it was just a conspiracy theory that the British saw Wright as an impediment to the Peace process, but it is widely enough believed that the British authorities felt in warranted initiating an inquiry. The enquiry into the assassination lasted five years and included on the panel was a Bishop and a professor from the University of London -- it found no evidence of a collusion. In the smoke and mirrors of the troubles in Northern Ireland making a distinction between government sanctioned "targeted killings" and other assassinations in Ireland is a waste of time, because as everyone knows history over Ireland is as important as the present day. With British Irish Republican relations it always come down to the Mandy Rice-Davies riposte "Well he would say that, wouldn't he?" (Identification Trail for Truth on Alleged Spy in IRA Proves Tricky LA Times, 19 May 2003).
At a international law level it is not at all clear that what the Americans call "Targeted killing" is legal for example see the paper INTERPRETIVE guidance on the notion of Direct participation in hostilities under international humanitarian law by Nils Melzer, Legal adviser, ICRC, (© ICRC, May 2009). It would depend on how direct the involvement in hostilities were. But the example give at the end of the paper about delivering fuel indicates that at least some of the attacks by the US which they term "targeted killing" would be illegal under international law in the view of Nils Melzer, Legal adviser, ICRC. So if they are not all legal is there a distinction between "targeted kills" and the others and in which case what is the correct term for the others? If on assumes they are all assassination, and it is the specific targeting of an individual, whether or not it is legal then then there is no distinction and so they can all be described as associations with no POV connotations. -- PBS (talk) 22:23, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me that this whole debate is summed up by Clark Hold in this article Semantic Minefields, in the NYT published on 15 May 2010:
Scott Shane, the Washington reporter who wrote the article, said he chose his words carefully because there is a political and legal debate over whether killing Awlaki would fit the definition of an “assassination” by the government, which is prohibited by executive orders signed by three presidents — Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. “To adopt the very term that’s in dispute as our own seems highly unwise,” he said.
But this is an internal US debate because of the presidential order. There is no reason why Wikipeida has to murder the English language to fit in with American internal political semantics. Assassination is only murder if it is done to someone on your side, the British participates in Operation Foxley were not involved in a conspiracy to murder Hitler although they were involved in an operation to assassinate him. This reminds me of the debate over terror bombing: The terror bomb us we strategically bomb them, only in this case outside of US politics no-one stigmatises word assassination and although they may draw distinctions between the legal and illegal assassinations, they do not use different words for the thing. This distinction is similar to the US law allowing the kidnapping of a person from a country that does not recognize that the US has such a right (see David Leppard US says it has right to kidnap British citizens, Sunday Times December 2, 2007. "Alun Jones QC, representing the US government ... 'If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.'" I am sure that if a foreign state was to attempt to kidnap a US citizen and were apprehended doing so the US would prosecute the perpetrators and if the person who had organized the kidnapping could be kidnapped in that state and bought to the US they would be prosecuted for as criminals for plotting a kidnapping near identical to the one that bought them to the US court for which no US crime was committed. In the same way the US can assassinate someone and it may be legal in the US while being illegal in a foreign jurisdiction, we do not have to make artificial distinctions, just because American politicians find it convent to do so for political/legal domestic reasons. -- PBS (talk) 23:03, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I support separate articles. The difference between assassination and targeted killings is sometimes non-existent but there's no question that there is a sizable body of RS devoted to exploring the legality and execution of targeted killings as a separate concept. It is a question of POV on what is a targeted killing versus assassination but as long as we stick to designations used by good sources things should be ok. PBS is right, a lot of US targeted killings are basically assassinations with window dressing but that should be explored in the article. I can't see what we gained by deleting it. Sol (talk) 03:58, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment. We've had months of input on this issue on this page, ranging from this through the last eight days of comments above. As Choyoo aptly remarked a week ago: "How many more people do you want?" Well, now we have a bunch more. As Thundermaker remarked above, "It seems like the vast majority here supports a separate article." And as wp:consensus notes, "Editors who refuse to allow any consensus except the one they have decided on, and are willing to filibuster indefinitely to attain that goal, destroy the consensus process." I think its time for the consensus to be noted, as has been suggested by others above, and this months-long conversation rolled up.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:50, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
Epeefleche This RFC open on the 30 September the day you created the article. One week is not a months long conversations. Also I not that instead of addressing the issues raised you attacking people who hold a different opinion from you. Why not debate the issues being raised instead or did you not see the specific question I asked you above? -- PBS (talk) 10:54, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
"This" RFC is a redundant extension of precisely the same conversation that has been taking place on this page since May. The "issues" have been discussed ad nauseum these past months in the above comments by many editors. No person is being attacked. Though perhaps one could argue that one editor's failure to respect consensus is being highlighted. But that is not an attack on the editor; rather, it is an appropriate comment on what is becoming an ever-more-glaring lack of respect for wp:consensus on the editor's part. The above quote from the guideline about filibusters is one that bears examination. I also hope that Thundermaker's above statement is a good assumption, where he writes: "I am assuming PBS will not resume his side of the edit war given the number of editors supporting the separate article." --Epeefleche (talk) 11:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
Have you read the archives? This has been discussed for far longer than you have been involved in the discussion. But I am pleased that you are willing to discuss the issue and that you are not making personal attacks. So when will you start to discuss the points that have been raised in this RFC? -- PBS (talk) 11:39, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
The points have been discussed at great length both since May. The consensus is clear. No need for you to filibuster to block it. As an admin, in accordance with wp:admin ("Administrators are expected to lead by example ... to follow Misplaced Pages policies.... if an administrator finds that he or she cannot adhere to site policies ... while addressing a given issue, then the administrator should bring the issue to a noticeboard or refer it to another administrator to address, rather than potentially compound the problem by poor conduct of his or her own.") it would be inappropriate for you to continue to seek to ignore consensus, and for you to continue to edit war. I see no reason for further discussion, or for further opinions -- what we have above, over these past months, is quite enough. Not only for me, but clearly for the vast majority of editors who have commented here, as has been pointed out to you by me and others. Cheers.--Epeefleche (talk) 14:27, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Jeez, give it up, PBS. Go look up at the very top of this talk page. What’s it say up there in the apricot-colored template? “This article is within the scope of WikiProject Crime.” (Oh… that little inconvenient truth.) You’re getting all hung up on the “politics” connection (that template is up there too) and are inferring a irrevocable connection where none exists: that a government protecting millions of its citizens from being killed by a terrorist in an attack with weapons of mass destruction is a political act that is therefore tantamount to murder.

The unfortunate thing is, the WP:RSs don’t take it that way.

So that is precisely why you are here filibustering to the point of tendentiousness: to POV-push that what the U.S. government is doing with the targeted killing of really, really dangerous people is wrong and want to link it to “assassination”, which has a very strong connotation of being a criminal act. That is precisely the reason why the U.S. government and other Western governments don’t use the term “assassination.” It doesn’t matter if you think governments’ targeted killing of individuals is criminal. The U.S. Government is considered a primary authority and we follow the practices of RSs. We don’t have to run to PBS to see if the RSs are all washed up and naive because they fail to consider the unreliability and evilness and badness of the U.S. Government when viewed in the context of the Bay of Pigs and all the other utter nonsense and POV-pushing you dredge up.

When a significant percentage of the RSs see things your way, then you can just go add them to the article and properly cite them to your heart’s content. And, by the way, the Haight-Ashbury Free Press and their article “The U.S. Government is ‘The Man’ and is really bad” isn’t an RS. What we will not do is is pretend we volunteer wikipedians are dressed in white robes, debating the proper limits on government power and issues of right & wrong on the floor of the Roman Senate. Greg L (talk) 16:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

If as you say Greg L the US government is a primary source, then we ought to promote the usage of secondary sources over primary sources and see if there is agreement among secondary sources that the US governments distinction between legal and illegal assassination warrants the use of different words depending on who is doing the killing.
Greg L As I said above whether an assassination is a crime or not depends on the jurisdiction of any particular court. Think of it like spying, people who spy for you in a time of war are not war criminals those who you catch spying against you are war criminals. Both are spies but from the preservative of a belligerent only one of them is a criminal. Nowhere have I said what the US is doing in killing people is right or wrong. It is you who are using the word assassination to have negative connotations not I.
The common word to describe the killing of Reinhard Heydrich is that he was assassinated (A Google book search returns only one case that discusses if it was "targeted killing": Targeted Killing: Self-Defense, Preemption, and the War on Terrorism by Thomas Hunterpages 19,20 while assassinated returns About 9,280 results. So to argue that this is just my POV is a bit rich.
The problem we have is that you are assuming that assassination always has negative connotations, while I and many others do not (as demonstrated by the use to describe the killing of Reinhard Heydrich). It is summed up in a paper by Daniel Statman (moral philosopher at the University of Haifa in Israel)
In choosing the term “targeted killing” rather than “assassination,” I have sought to avoid the negative moral connotation that is almost inherent in the latter. If the argument of this paper is sound, then not all acts of assassination are morally wrong or, alternatively, not all acts of targeted killing are assassinations. Prior to September 11, 2001, Israel was the only country openly employing this tactic in its fight against terror, and it was strongly condemned for doing so by most of the international community, including the U.S. But since the September 11th attacks, the U.S. itself has adopted this policy in its war against Al Qaeda.
My Bolding. What I have said is that the American Government is using an euphemism for assassination for their own reasons, See for example Mark Tran White House approves assassination of cleric linked to Christmas bomb plot, The Guardian, 7 April 2010:
The policy of targeted killings is controversial. President Gerald Ford issued an executive order banning political assassinations in 1976. However, Congress approved the use of military force against al-Qaida after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. People on the target list are considered to be military enemies of the US and therefore not subject to the ban on political assassination.
Other people continue to refer to targeted killing as assassination, because assassination is "targeted killing" (It is not random killing). Take for example this article in the NZ intelligence activities revealed in banned book in the NZ Herald which is less than 24 hours old or
Here are a few more the first from ABC in Australia by Chris Berg The expansion of presidential power 6 October 2010. Although he thinks Obama's behaviour is pretty unedifying he does not think that it is illegal.
After all, that’s what he promised – ending the use of torture and extreme rendition, revising the Patriot Act, closing down Guantanamo Bay detention camp, eliminating warrantless wiretaps, and restoring the right of prisoners to challenge their detention.
So the debate whether the Obama administration has the legal authority to assassinate an American citizen without any due process is pretty unedifying.
I have now included links to articles by all the Major London based newspapers that have articles that link targeted killing to assassination and do not make the distinction that is being suggested by some in this RFC. The last on is in many ways the most interesting as it states it was an assassination by "militants in Pakistan" and then says "In what is believed to have been the first such targeted killing of a high-ranking soldier, Brigadier Moinudin Ahmed's unprotected jeep was sprayed with automatic gunfire at around 9.30am yesterday." Here is a usage to describe an assassination in what is clearly a crime by criminals under Pakistani domestic law as "targeted killing".
I hope that now I have presented information that "targeted killing" and "Assassination" are words for the same thing from all the highbrow dailies in London and a couple more one from NZ and one from AU that we can have a serious debate about whether we should have a POV Fork or whether it is not a POV fork rather than comments such as accusing editors who are presenting information for debate as fillibusters. -- PBS (talk) 22:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Hmmm… As Mark Twain popularized: There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. (*sigh*) It’s so easy to put out misinformation and so difficult to demonstrate succinctly that things aren’t as simple and clear as you think.

    The links you provide mostly date to when this story first broke in early April of this year. Up to that time, the kill order had been classified information. The U.S. Government told only some select news organizations, like The New York Times and Reuters. When the The New York Times broke the story with their “U.S. Approves Targeted Killing of American”, they used the terminology provided to them in their off-the-record meetings with government officials: “targeted killing”. It was a brand new term but The New York Times went with it. I’d have to do more research to be sure, but it appears Reuters wasn’t as rigorous as The New York Times. What is a two-bit news paper from Nowhere Australia to do(?), second-guess their Reuters feed? It appears all the Reuters subscribers simply regurgitated what they had been spoon-fed.

    Things have certainly changed after those first days when the story was first breaking. I think you will find that today, the most reliable news organizations far and wide use the term “targeted killing” because they recognize the distinction to “assassination” which implies an illegal killing accomplished by non-military means and also recognize their responsibility to avoid editorializing.

    Oh, op-ed pieces like “Barack Obama must justify covert killing. Or halt it” and blogs, like your “The expansion of presidential power” by Chris Berg don’t count as RSs. All they’re doing is being paid to POV-push (like you’re doing here for free). We have to look at the modern practices (modern being longer than just a few days after a new term is introduced) of primary RSs and and scholarly papers on the subject as it applies to international law, like “Targeted Killing in International Law” by Oxford University Press. We certainly cannot be looking at op-ed pieces by sensationalists who want to talk about “murder” and “assassination.” I can no-doubt find an op-ed piece opining that earth should be “sanitized” by burning Osama bin Laden to death and a video tape produced of it and broadcast to the world. We can’t have people advancing arguments here by quoting dueling extremists and nut cases. Sorry, it just doesn’t work that way. Greg L (talk) 23:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Greg L, As a formatting issue please do not use bullet points in reply to non bullet pointed comments, because it breaks up the indention. I used one indention level ":" in my last posting you have used "::*" so this posting by me which uses ":::" is no more indented than your last one and for third parties who come to this conversation later it will be difficult to see where you last comment ended and mine stated.
FYI ABC is not a "two-bit news paper from Nowhere Australia", it is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation equivalent of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and the page is a reliable source (see Misplaced Pages:SOURCES#Newspaper and magazine blogs) Opinion pieces in newspapers are just as valid as any other reliable secondary source on these issues, while publications on the US Government policy by the US Government are primary sources and should be treated as such. Have you had time to read the Nils Melzer paper a link to which I posted on this page yesterday?
BTW Targeted killing is not a new term. It has been used as an euphemism for assassination for more than 20 years See A year of reckoning: El Salvador a decade after the assassination of Archbishop Romero by Human Rights Watch, 1990 page 16.
Also you seem to have concentrated on the newspaper articles which were there to show that common usage is not necessarily the same as the usage used by the US Government. You have not commented on the results of the Google book search on the for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, or the comments by Daniel Statman is there a reason for this? -- PBS (talk) 02:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Go look up at Thundermaker’s post that started this thread, PBS. What’s it say?


“ It seems like the vast majority here supports a separate article. ”

One thing is abundantly clear: there is certainly no consensus for merging. Yet you’re still making waves by restoring the {merge} template back to the “Targeted killing” article moments after I took you to task on your talk page. Since this RfC was going down in flames and the tag had been off the article for days, I find that stunt to be most curious. Was it too intended to bait and provoke? I won’t remove it. But when someone else does, I do hope you will behave yourself.

Because the term “assassination” carries a strong connotation of the killing of an especially notable human by the hand of another using stealth and by non-military means outside of the bounds of state or international law, the U.S. government developed the term “targeted killing” precisely for the purposes of avoiding that connotation. A state’s right to defend itself from catastrophic harm from terrorists who wear no military uniforms is well established in international law (see “Targeted Killing in International Law” by Oxford University Press).

The leading and most prestigious most reliable sources like The New York Times (ever since the story broke on April 6th), and the AP (here as recently as Sept. 25th) are using the new term. Accordingly, the new term is here to stay.

It doesn’t matter if there are old articles from early April that used that first Reuters news feed containing the word “assassination”; they too now use the new term. And your citing op-ed pieces and blogs matters not one twit because they are not WP:RSs.

Yours and your associate’s efforts to delete the “Targeted killing” article and then blank the page and redirect it to “Assassination” failed. This RfC to merge has failed. You and your associate’s arguments about 50s-era CIA dirty tricks in Cuba make it clear that a deep mistrust and hatred of the U.S. government underlies your desire to see “targeted killing” more closely linked to “assassination.” Such moves are a clear breech of WP:NPOV and amounts to nothing other than POV-pushing.

The “Targeted killing” article is an outstanding, exceedingly well cited work by Epeefleche. Misplaced Pages and its readership are the beneficiaries of that donation. My hope is that after this RfC is done, you two will behave yourselves. My fear is that the next step will be edit warring in the new article. That would be a most unfortunate outcome. It would be better if you accept defeat, stop making waves, and just walk away. Greg L (talk) 15:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

  • I don't think "outstanding" is relevant to the issue; and Epifleeche, I do wish you didn't actually use the word "absurd" to describe other editors' statements, even if you may have good reason for thinking it's true. It's just not helpful.

    As for the proposal, I cannot see how "targeted killing" could be regarded as a euphemism: it sounds harsher to me, not softer, than the word "assassination". Targeted killing has a separate, well-referenced definition and usage. The article is well-cited and distinctive. I believe there is a good argument that it remain separate. It would be better if both leads distinguished each other explicitly. Tony (talk) 16:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

There are lots of sources that also say that they are one and the same thing. Assassination is targeted killing, and targeted killing is assassination. What both parties to this dispute can agree on is that the phrases describe the targeting killing of a specific person not engaged in direct hostilities. For example when the king of the UK remained in London during World War II if the bomb that hit Buckingham palace had killed him that would not have been an assassination. The think were there is disagreement is whether such targeting and killing can be split into two neat categories. That targeted killing is a lawful extra-judicial killing of a specific individual by a state while assassination is only unlawful targeted killing by non-state actors and unlawful targeted killing by a state. The trouble is that like "enemy combatant" the US government is making up definitions to make distinctions that many others do not recognise. This I believe makes it a content fork of this article at best and a POV fork at worse. Let me give you an example of what is wrong with the new article.
"Targeted killing is the intentional killing – by a government or its agents – of a civilian or "enemy combatant" targeted by the government, who is not in the government's custody." Four questions: Where is the source for this sentence? So the shelling and sniper rounds that targeted civilians in Sarajevo was OK? What is an enemy combatant? What would be different in meaning if sentence was rewritten "the intentional killing – by a government or its agents – of a civilian or "enemy combatant" targeted by the government, who is not in the government's custody is an assassination"?
--PBS (talk) 03:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
PBS -- there are lots of people who say "abortion" and "murder" are the same thing. But we don't delete the abortion article, saying that it should only appear under the murder article as a subsection. Same issue, by very close analogy, here. The point is that there are loads and loads of RSs that say they are very, very different. It would perhaps be somewhat helpful if you were to respect the consensus here, which I believe may be a core wiki concept that admins are bound to honor under wp:admin.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Not all abortion is murder (it depends on the jurisdiction) not all assassination is murder (it depends on the jurisdiction) and a "targeted killing" may well be murder in some jurisdictions. A better analogy using abortion would be having an article on "abortion" and another on "Pregnancy termination". -- PBS (talk) 04:26, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
No. Unless you can show me that there are multiple highest-level sources that say abortion is not pregnancy termination. Which, of course, isn't the case. That makes your analogy ... perhaps, after careful consideration of it, perhaps slightly less than optimal. --Epeefleche (talk) 04:37, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. As per many of the other comments above, I feel there are sufficient differences between the two terms to warrant distinct articles. Two articles will provide better targeted-linking from other articles.  HWV258.  19:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support - for the same reason that homicide, murder, manslaughter, etc. are different forms with one or more different legal elements. Bearian (talk) 00:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support to better define a specific concept that is well-documented in the article by reliable and verifiable sources that distinguish targeted killing from assassination. Alansohn (talk) 18:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support for two separate articles. I think I spotted this on a talk page and immediately assumed targeted killing was a synonym for assassination, but the reliable sources allow the creation of a totally separate article. It's not for us to discuss the rights and wrongs of the labels, and it isn't for us to revisit previous killings (in Northern Ireland, Nazi Germany, or wherever) labelled as assassinations and consider whether targeted killing applies or not, it is for us to record what the reliable sources have to say. Bigger digger (talk) 18:07, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Many reliable sources do not agree that there is a dichotomy between targeted killing amd assassination as a Google book search on shows. Here are two from the first page:
  • Terrorism and homeland security: an introduction with applications by Philip P. Purpura p. 58
  • How terrorism ends: understanding the decline and demise of terrorist campaigns by Audrey Kurth Cronin pp. 24,25
If you read the first few pages of the first book returned in the search Targeted Killing: Self-Defense, Preemption, and the War on Terrorism by Thomas Hunter pp. 5–7. You will see how people who suggest that there is a difference have to create an artificial difference. First Hunter acknowledges that "Though numerous scholars and other experts have tired, the concept and practice of assassination has proven a complicated concept to define." He then goes on to says "For the purposes of this discussion assassination is defined as the premeditated killing of a prominent person for political or ideological reasons" (page 5). ... "Targeted killing in contrast, is the killing of an individual of group of individuals wihout regards for politics or ideology, but rather exclusively for reasons of state self-defence" (page 7). But to make this distinction he has had to make up his own definitions and to do so he has had to qualify the definition of assassination as "for the purpose of this discussion". Making such an artificial difference may suit some and it certainly is convenient for the American government, but that does not make it any less a content fork as many consider targeted killing to be assassination.Hunter's artificial construction "For the purposes of this discussion" reminds me of those academics who redefine the meaning of genocide so that they can then use it as a polemic to condemn settlement in Australia and the Americas. Take for example Tony Barta who argue that if a group is decimated as a result of smallpox introduced unintentionally by European settlers or European farming methods causing a group of aborigines to starve to death, the result is in his opinion genocide. This is so far removed from the test of of guilty mind (mens rea) needed for genocidal intent as used in international lay by the ICTY etc, as to give the word a whole new meaning to genocide, and we enter Humpty Dumpty's world of "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less".
-- PBS (talk) 20:48, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
PBS-- Many reliable sources do not agree that there is a dichotomy between abortion and murder. That does not, however, lead us to delete the abortion article. And to say -- "a subsection under murder should be sufficient". We've gone over this endlessly with you. You are not listening to the nearly unanimous consensus above. WP:admin suggests that you should follow wp:consensus.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
PBS, you've used your own assessment to criticise the text. That's original research and not a very solid base from which to criticise my point. Even if you could provide a reliable source that supports your criticism, that would merely provide more evidence for the need for this article to reflect the academic discussion of the term. Bigger digger (talk) 22:07, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
There is an article it is called "Assassination". I am proposing that as it has been for a number of years "Targeted killing" should remain a redirect to this article and in this article the term should be discussed. Epeefleche, you seem rather hung up on Abortion and murder (is that an American cultural thing?): cider and perry made from apples and pears are we have four different articles, but we do not have a fifth called pear cider just because the marketing departments of some manufactures find the term helps sales instead we redirect pear cider to the most appropriate article. -- PBS (talk) 00:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
PBS -- come off it. Are you really suggesting that just because you previously redirecting the then-existing targeted killing article to assassination yourself, we should ignore the clear consensus these past months on this page? That hardly seems like a compelling argument for you to ignore consensus, and browbeat every editor who agrees that you are wrong here. As to the abortion/murder analogy, which I gather you are trying to get your arms around, the analogy is that while some may see the two as the same, a sizable body of RSs, academics, and judges would see them as two distinct concepts (rather than one being a subset of the other). Same as here.--Epeefleche (talk) 01:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support separate article. I really can't believe this is still being discussed after so long and after clear consensus. Quoting Epeefleche, "And as wp:consensus notes, 'Editors who refuse to allow any consensus except the one they have decided on, and are willing to filibuster indefinitely to attain that goal, destroy the consensus process." Agree. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 02:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling You talk about the process of an RFC etc, but you do not explain your reasons based on sources why you think that there shoudl be separate articles. What is it that you have read that persuades you that there should be separate articles? --PBS (talk) 23:55, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Avoid tendentiousness

  • I agree with those sentiments. The RfC has run two weeks and is overwhelmingly in support of two separate articles. I’ve removed the merge tag from the article. Greg L (talk) 20:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
The RFC will automatically end after a month. At that time we can see what the conensus is. In the mean time the merge templates should stay in place as an advert for this RFC. -- PBS (talk) 23:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
No. I’m sorry, but Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy. Two weeks is long enough for an RfC that is as lopsided as this one. The consensus is clear and there isn’t a snowball’s chance that the outcome will change. The tide is overwhelmingly against you here. I’ve removed the tags.

I’m only peripherally involved in this dispute so please correct me where I’m wrong; is it not true that you disagreed with the existence of “Targeted killing” and nominated it for an Article for Deletion? Isn’t it true that the community consensus at the AfD was to keep the article?

Is it not also true that you and the shepherding author of “Targeted killing” then edit warred for a bit, where you were effectively making the article disappear by redirecting all direct searches on the article and all links from elsewhere on the project to “Assassination”?

And isn’t it true that failing all that, you then started this RfC to merge the two articles, which clearly (again) shows that the community is overwhelmingly against your desires and believes that the project needs the “Targeted killing” article?

We shouldn’t have to now conduct a little mini‑RfC as to whether this merge-RfC is sufficiently clear as to the community’s views; the consensus is clear as glass. Had you started your opposition with this merge-RfC, perhaps the community might be in a more obliging mood to let it run out for 30 days until it flat bots-out. But since you’ve wikilawyered pretty much every trick in the book and had abundant and strong evidence going into this RfC that the community wanted the “Targeted killing” article, I just don’t think the community is predisposed to further entertain you with still more jockeying and maneuvering and venue shopping.

I strongly suggest you not editwar or further agitate on this issue as you seem to be crossing the line of Misplaced Pages:Tendentious editing, which is a form of disruption. As one of our “early” admins, I’m sure you’ve seen this sort of thing in other editors; it’s high time to see it in yourself. If you find yourself tempted to keep on pushing the community’s buttons on this sordid issue, please go find an uninvolved ‘Crat (who will hopefully give you some wise counsel). Greg L (talk) 14:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Greg L As you request:
  1. "isn’t a snowball’s chance that the outcome will change" in which case you should not object to it running to its conclusion.
  2. You are not on the periphery of this you have been very active in this discussion.
  3. To the best of my knowledge/relocation there has been no AFD on the page, if there has then please show the link to it.
  4. "Is it not also true that you and the shepherding author of “Targeted killing” then edit warred for a bit". No the page was a redirect for several years, it should have remain that until this RFC was finished (remained at the last stable version).
  5. "Had you started your opposition with this merge-RfC" The merge banners are mealy another way of advertising the one RFC which I asked Epeefleche to start before reverting and which (s)he declined to do so so I started it before the page was protected.
  6. I presume that you are aware that consensus is neither majority voting nor unanimity, that it lies somewhere between the two, In the case of this RFC a number of different views have been expressed, and I would have thought that no harm is done with letting it run to the end of the four weeks. What is your reason for not wanting the RFC to be as widely advertised as possible (which removal of the merge template does)?
--PBS (talk) 23:49, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Agree with GregL on this one. PBS continues to refuse to respect consensus. In addition, wp:snow is about closing discussions because they don't have a snowball's chance, not wasting time by continuing them as he suggests be done. His reference to the page having been a redirect for many years is a misleading one, as he leaves out that he was the person who redirected the page! With barely any support for his view from others. Yes, tendentious editing is a phrase that comes to mind.--Epeefleche (talk) 00:21, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Oh dear; pardon me, PBS. I had my facts a bit off. You at first redirected “Targeted killing” to “Assassination.” Then you started an RfC on whether there should be a separate article. All the while, you edit warred with Epeefleche by refusing to let the article exist while the RfC was ongoing and you did this by insisting on redirecting the article to “Assassination”. Epeefleche took you to ANI over your conduct. So then you changed your tact and abandoned edit warring over *redirecting* and instead focused your efforts on making it an issue of *merging*. Accordingly, an RfC that began as one over redirecting and was going down in flames for you morphed into one about merging.

    In short, you have been exceedingly successful up to now gaming the system and wikilawyering when it could not possibly be any clearer that the community wants the “Targeted killing” article. There will be no more playing your games because the {merge} tag just serves to harass and torment the editor responsible for all the hard work creating that article. Of course, that isn’t part of your intentions, which by AGF, are assumed to be good and noble; but badgering is a side effect of your dispute with Epeefleche. Your antics are just a cold reminder that no good deed goes unpunished. That comes to an end now.

    As I stated above, had you started your opposition with this merge-RfC, things would likely be different. But since you’ve wikilawyered pretty much every trick in the book to frustrate another hard-working editor by effectively deleting his work from articlespace with your redirect, I just don’t think the community is predisposed to further entertain you with still more jockeying and maneuvering and venue shopping. Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy and is not required to cave to every demand you make. Two weeks is more than enough for lopsided RfCs like this one; it happens all the time. As WP:BUREAU says Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, rather than through tightly sticking to rules and procedures.

    If you just gotta have the {merge} tag reinstated because you are just so certain an extra two weeks of advertising it will reverse the colossal landslide, go find a Crat to advise that such a move is a bright idea and is good for the community. “Makes PBS happy” comes up short. Greg L (talk) 01:11, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

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