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This article was nominated for deletion on 17 September 2015. The result of the discussion was Renamed to Ahmed Mohamed clock incident.

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Aftermath/Reactions

Irving police held a presser on some of the support and hate mail they have received in reaction to this event, was tagged on to other Q/A for other local events, mostly traffic issues, but the clock portion has it's own story is at: http://www.fox4news.com/news/31727029-story

BTW, the clock is still at the police station awaiting pickup.

Heyyouoverthere (talk) 02:40, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Not sure how relevant that material is. If it gets widely reported, we may consider adding a short sentence. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:54, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Widely reported, that's the problem as only 3 of the 4 local TV stations and the DMN showed up for the meeting. Granted the actual content will be shared via the AP and b-roll dump but there were no other reporters present as the initial fever died down and the news cycle has moved on to other events so it's unlikely to show up directly in your own local paper/tv news/CNN-etc. Story will really only continue as a local interest if at all. Although with the Clock Boy Halloween costume that popped up, story interest might rise again. Heyyouoverthere (talk) 00:21, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

"All his teachers" or "Engineering teacher"

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The account of who Ahmed was trying to impress appears to have evolved over time. The initial statements were that he brought it to impress his Engineering teacher. The initial accounts said his engineering teacher told him to not show it to other teachers or students. Ahmed's statement appears to have evolved to "impress all his teachers" giving a reason why he brought it out in English class. The lead says "engineering teacher" the body says "all his teachers." Secondly, it's obvious that no one thought it was a real bomb. Did Ahmed not understand that when he wrote in his parent-approved statement that "Police think it's a bomb" after everything was explained to him that police didn't, at any time, think it was bomb? --DHeyward (talk) 21:22, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

No, the sources have been clear for a very long time that he brought it out in English class because it made a noise and his teacher asked him what was making the noise. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:26, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

So he did not plug it in during his English class?? Jbh 23:48, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

@TheRedPenOfDoom: your version is what I heard. When questions were raised, the story evolved from "impressing his engineering teacher" and "don't show anyone else" followed by the spontaneous noise to "impressing all his teachers" and "plugging it in" and setting the alarm. Our article is as inconsistent as the story being told as we report all of them as if they are the same thing. --DHeyward (talk) 02:32, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure what standards you hold for a 14-year-old who had been hauled off by the police in handcuffs and then accosted by world wide media to have 100% recollection of what happened, but it is quite possible and quite understandable that details will be fuzzy. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:35, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Details like "Why did you make it?" --DHeyward (talk) 02:48, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

So your position is that we should hold a 14-year-old as a liar because he said "I wanted to show to all of my teachers" when he really meant "I wanted to show to all of the teachers that I like" or "I wanted to show to all of my teachers that I think it might impress" or "I wanted to show to all of my teachers but when the first teacher told me not to show it, I changed my mind"  ? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:15, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

What a bloody waste of time... WP:NOTFORUM for Pete's sake. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:16, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

The WP article says both. Resolve the obvious discrepancy. --DHeyward (talk) 19:43, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

It's crap like this (conflicting content) that makes a great case for not creating articles that are based solely on news stories. The "reliable sources" for articles like these are usually only news, the news can be very biased, the biased reporting becomes the article. Hence, we end up with a biased article that is essentially an extension of news and tabloid garbage rather than something truly encyclopedic. And people wonder why Misplaced Pages isn't seen as a serious source of encyclopedic content? -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 19:53, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Even worse, the discrepancy has led TRPoD to conclude Ahmed must have lied. It needs resolution if only to prevent false conclusions. --DHeyward (talk) 19:57, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

The sentence in the lead can be changed to, "According to Mohamed, he did it to show off his inventing ability." --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:03, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, if true, it wouldn't be the first time a 14 year old has lied or embellished after-the-fact about something. Personally, I think the story changed because the family's lawyer changed the narrative and gave them a script to follow. But, I digress: as Cwobeel stated above, WP:NOTAFORUM. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 20:06, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Looking at it some more, the following two statements in the article are not inconsistent,

"wanted to show the engineering teacher"

"wanted to impress all of his teachers".

They are not inconsistent because the first one does not say that he wanted to show the clock only to his engineering teacher.

The first sentence in the Clock and arrest section can be changed to, "According to Mohamed, he brought the clock to school because he wanted to show it to his engineering teacher and wanted to impress all of his teachers." --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:52, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Do we have a source that makes that connection? Otherwise it's WP:SYNTH. --DHeyward (talk) 20:58, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

The above sentence is supported by the text and video of the source given in the article. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:03, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll take a look again. --DHeyward (talk) 21:16, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Let me say this again: This page is NOT a discussion forum and neither it is a place to promote fringe views. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:10, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

@DHeyward: If you have an edit to make, make it, otherwise stop wasting everybody's time. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:11, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I didn't realize achieving consensus was wasting your time. Perhaps you're on the wrong project? --DHeyward (talk) 21:16, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Achieving consensus on what? This discussion is about minutiae that has no other purpose than to cast doubts on a LP. See WP:ADVOCACY, and WP:FRINGE. Again, if you have an edit to make, make it. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:19, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

We're clearly discussing an edit to the article, viz. the change indicated in my last message. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:29, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

What is the edit, Bob? The sentence used in the article is fully sourced. If you want to engage in this minutiae, be my guest. I have better things to do than engage in this useless discussion. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:31, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Your messages are very strange to me, especially when you keep asking "What is the edit?". Is it possible that you didn't read the end of this message of mine ? --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:37, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't see the contradiction. His engineering teacher is one of his teachers; therefore, "he wanted to impress all his teachers" and "he wanted to show it to his engineering teacher" do not contradict -- he can have both goals, with a desire to impress all his teachers as well as his engineering teacher in particular. Furthermore, thinking about it, it feels like you're trying to perform WP:SYNTH; both statements are sourced (so there's no problems with the way the article covers them now), yet you're asserting that there is a connection between them -- given that both are sourced, you're implicitly accusing the article's subject of a contradiction that isn't supported by any sources, purely by your own synthesis. That it's a clear WP:BLP violation, so this entire talk section should probably be removed -- unless you have WP:BLP level reliable sources to back up your assertion that the two statements contradict? --Aquillion (talk) 23:21, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Who are you referring to? Me? I already noted in a previous message that it wasn't a contradiction . But it wasn't obvious to the editors here, since the discussion by both sides before I entered the discussion were presuming there was a contradiction. If it wasn't clear to editors here, how can you expect it to be clear to readers who might look at this article and think that Mohamed is changing his story when he isn't. I have my limits when it comes to dealing with strange and weird messages like I've encountered here. Getting the drift, I'll pull out of this discussion, leaving editors to act or not. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:06, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

@Aquillion: It's pretty clear that your reasoning is specious. If you can clarify the article and its discrepancies, please do so rather than engage in personal attacks. --DHeyward (talk) 06:33, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't mean it as a personal attack, but there's no contradiction here. Both statements are well-sourced and well-established, and nothing about the two of them is contradictory. You clearly read both of Mohamed's statements, and feel that he contradicted himself; but you lack a source for this, so your assertion is WP:SYNTH, and we can't do anything with that. When you say, above, that his position 'evolved over time' (with no sources stating that specifically, just your personal synthesis), that is therefore an unequivocal WP:BLP violation. --Aquillion (talk) 06:49, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Move to Qatar.

This should probably be in the body, not just the lead, but I can't figure out the appropriate place to put it. Perhaps we need an 'aftermath' section? It might make sense to weld the Opinions and Reactions section into some sort of Aftermath section, and maybe drastically cut down on the opinions in the process -- it isn't necessary to cover everyone who commented on it, and a lot of them feel like they were just WP:RECENTISM at the time that don't really have any significance now. --Aquillion (talk) 01:58, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

When seeing the addition, after I read about it elsewhere (news article), my thoughts are similar, i.e. move to Qatar should be added somewhere to the body as well. I have additional references, and do not want to add those in lead, but will make note of those here (a bit later). Whenever an "aftermath" section (or similar) with inclusion of "move to Qatar" is present in the body, I will insert the additional references, or someone else can. 99.170.117.163 (talk) 17:14, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

It was already added to the body of the article before it was put in the lede, here by Muboshgu. Dave Dial (talk) 17:31, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks for pointing it out, Dave Dial! :-) 99.170.117.163 (talk) 17:36, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Lede

I have rewritten the lede to remove unnecessary redundancy as well as add a bit of detail. The paragraph has been split up for easier reading. It would be best to discuss the changes here rather than allowing edit warring to ensue, as has been typical so far for this article. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 23:11, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

I suppose you're referring to this edit. That looks relatively minor to me, although I notice two problems in it. The first is that it contains two sentences in a row that both say he brought the clock to show it to his teachers. That's annoyingly repetitive ("... brought it to school to show his teachers. According to the boy, he brought the clock to school in order to impress his teachers ..."). The second problem is the grammar of the sentence saying "After reporting him to the school's principal, local law enforcement was called". The implied person acting in the first phrase is the teacher, so it should say something like "After reporting him to the school's principal, the teacher ", or "The teacher reported him to the school's principal, and local law enforcement was called". —BarrelProof (talk) 03:37, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

After witnessing the picking apart of some very good edits and removal of the better cropped photo, I'm leaving this article. Frankly, I'm sick of the battleground and ownership mentality exercised at this article. It's simply not worth it. This is the kind of crap behavior that drives away good editors. No sense wasting my time here any longer, it's obvious that if one isn't part of the article's group of approved editors, one isn't welcome, no matter how good their edits are. Which proves there are editors here who aren't thinking of benefiting readers with every edit or are interested in building an encyclopedia. The interest is in building a mini-kingdom to rule over and control. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 03:58, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

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