Talk:Reactions to Innocence of Muslims

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Love Our Prophet was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 22 November 2012 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Reactions to Innocence of Muslims. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

A news item involving Reactions to Innocence of Muslims was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the In the news section on 17 September 2012.

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Inclusion of "Other related attacks"?

Apparently some editors don't want to include the "Other related attacks" section, which included info about the attacks in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and the Israeli border, all of which were reported to be inspired by the video. I know what the current title of this article is, but it's disputed. These non-diplomatic missions attacks are clearly related to the other attacks. They are all part of the larger reaction to the Anti-Islam video, fueled by various reasons. Until we get a consensus here, the status quo remains.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 21:35, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Disputed or not, the article is currently about a string of protests (or "attacks") on diplomatic missions, not the perceived cause of it. The perceived cause is mentioned in the article, yes, but it is a detail, not the topic. A section titled "related attacks" should mean "related to the topic of the article". This is more of a "Attacks that have things in common with the topic". It's like saying Barack Obama and Road Warrior Hawk are related because they're from Chicago. This section belongs in the Reaction section of Innocence of Muslims, if anywhere. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:51, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

In simpler terms, there is no direct connection between Point A (the embassy attacks) and Point C (routine warzone activity), only through the intermediary Point B (a YouTube video). If we decide the Benghazi attack was caused by al-Qaeda (or whoever), should we then consider other shit caused by al-Qaeda (or whoever) to be significantly related to the topic here? InedibleHulk (talk) 22:04, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

It is easy to see that this article has developed far beyond the limitations of it's scope, as per it's title. Instead of paring down the material, this could mean that we should simply use a broader title. Deleting material from a well developed article would be a retrograde step. Another issue is that there is considerable overlap/duplication between this article and Innocence of Muslims#Reactions. So, to avoid unnecessary duplication, we would probably either have to merge this article with the Innocence of Muslims#Reactions or merge Innocence of Muslims#Reactions into this article. In either case, we should not delete material without making sure that it has been inserted into the other article. If we delete material without inserting it in the other article, some material may be lost. As such, I think we should allow the section to stay until we decide what to do. Thanks.OrangesRyellow (talk) 01:47, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, merging is the way to go. This article is at least three existing articles (and several potential) rolled into one, bound by some imaginary "phenomenon" some editors feel obliged to try and adequately define. Split this whole thing into nice compartmentalized articles (or sections) and the naming and inclusion problems are solved. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:23, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

What about the clearly-related protests in Bangkok that missed the mass media? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.253.137 (talk) 13:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Protest map

The large map refers to protests not even mentioned in this article. Batu Caves? There is no argument to retain material that is not part of the article. I have removed places not mentioned in the article. WWGB (talk) 02:34, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The article is about Anti Islamic film protests and attacks despite the current title. Please let the material stay until we decide what to do. Instead of deleting material, changing the title or merging with another article may be better options. Thanks.OrangesRyellow (talk) 03:44, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Reorganization proposal

I propose that contents to be reorganized into 3 major pages:

Innocence of Muslims. The anti-Islamic film that cause such a ruckus in 2012.
U.S. Consulate attack in Benghazi. The terrorist attack on U.S. diplomatic X in Benghazi, Libya. "2012 diplomatic missions attacks" can be redirected here.
Worldwide reactions of anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims. The word "Worldwide" can suggest the global scope of the reactions. I am using the word "reactions" as it covers both protests and attacks, as well death threats like from the Pakistani minister, and possibly pretexts in routine warzone activity like in Afghanistan. The term "anti-Islamic film" may seem redundant but "Innocence of Muslims" was intentionally titled to be misleading, to suggest a film that is favorable to Muslims when it is not. Contents of Innocence of Muslims#Reactions can be moved here."Reactions to Innocence of Muslims" per consensus below. — Hasdi Bravo • 13:48, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Thoughts welcome. — Hasdi Bravo • 20:38, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Support -Separating the peaceful protests (which are now in the Innocence of Muslims article) and violent protests (which are now in the diplomatic missions attacks article) when both the peaceful and violent protests are related is nonsense. However, I'd suggest to name the new article "Reaction to Innocence of Muslims", with the reactions section in the IoM article redirecting to that. That long title you suggested is unnecessary. Take a look at Reaction to On the Origin of Species. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 21:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm cool with "Reaction to Innocence of Muslims." I just thought some might appreciate a bombastic title as significantly more notable. o.0 All that sound and fury over a pathetic film and its director, IMNSHO. I suggest we note the major protests initiated in U.S. Embassy in Egypt, which coincided with the terrorist attack on U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya. — Hasdi Bravo • 21:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Support merging into all existing relevant Main/Further Information articles. Oppose creating new reactions article; the section in Innocence of Muslims should suffice. If we must split for size reasons, "Worldwide" and "anti-Islamic film" are unnecessary in title. And it'd be "Reactions to", not "of". InedibleHulk (talk) 21:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I am also open to keep the section Innocence of Muslims#Reactions if the size can be contained, otherwise "Reaction to Innocence of Muslims" it is. — Hasdi Bravo • 21:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, I think this title should redirect to the potential reactions article instead of Benghazi. Sad as it is, "attack" and "protest involving fire, anger or throwing things at a wall" have become commonly synonymous in news lately. I think more people searching for 2012 diplomatic attacks will be looking for the whole hubbub. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:47, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Hmm... it would suggest that the reactions article be as its own article rather than merely a section under Innocence of Muslims. BTW, will that article be titled "Reaction to Innocence of Muslims" or "Reactions to Innocence of Muslims"? Also, we might want to merge "Reactions to the 2012 diplomatic missions attacks" into that article under "Condemnation of violence" section instead of renaming it to "Reactions to Reactions to Innocence of Muslims". @____@ — Hasdi Bravo • 00:36, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I should have been clearer. If we go with a separate article for reactions, it should get the redirect. And if that article is created, we should merge this Reactions to the Diplomatic Attacks article. Each country can have its own section where we list the protests/attacks/whatever, followed by the official reactions of that country's spokespeople. Much neater that way. I think "reactions" would be better for the title. They may be similar ("We do not condone this!") but they're still technically separate reactions, not a global joint statement. "Reaction" isn't so terrible, though. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC) That reactions article is going to be tough to merge, after looking at it. I didn't realize how much fat we'd have to trim. I'd figured it was just reactions from the countries affected, not the entire political world. That'll be a doozy of a debate, I can tell. But yeah, we'll see how it goes. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:42, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

That been the case, I suggest we just rename this page to "Reactions to Innocence of Muslims", trim out the Libya attack, replace the profile image with a picture of the Cairo "attack", and THEN discuss potential split / merger on "Innocence of Muslims#Reactions" talk page, and also discuss merger on "Reactions to the 2012 diplomatic missions attacks" talk page. Otherwise, the next move is to delete / merge of this page instead, which I sense some editors are not ready for yet. — Hasdi Bravo • 13:48, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:00, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Fine with me. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 20:27, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

So, do we need to formally propose a Page Move to retitle this? Or did we just establish consensus here? Any objectors out there? InedibleHulk (talk) 21:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

We typically hold a formal discussion if there is a potential for edit-war. We can wait around for a few more hours just to make sure no one else objects. In light of agreement with the US administration and mainstream news regarding the Benghazi attack, I can't think of any good reason to reconsider the new title. — Hasdi Bravo • 23:09, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Removing Benghazi

Even the mainstream (including the White House Press) is now in general agreement that this was a separate, coincidental event which has virtually nothing to do with Innocence of Muslims (which has become the de facto common thread tying this article together). It has its own separate enormous article, and is no longer relevant here, in light of multiple reliable sources since it was added. So I'm getting rid of it. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

We may want to have small section to say that the Benghazi attack was initially attributed to the film but was later retracted. Everything else must go. — Hasdi Bravo • 23:11, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

A brief mention of that would be fine by me. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I think one third of the lead is a bit much emphasis on something we're trying to explain isn't related to the article's topic. Undue weight, for sure. It'd be like explaining in Bill Clinton's lead how he didn't murder anyone. I suggest this goes in a "Libya" subsection of Diplomatic Missions. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Hmm... I could probably cut it down further, but the undue weight can be alleviated by expanding the lede (third paragraph and beyond) to cover other protests and also the events the lead up to the mob attack in Cairo. Even though Benghazi attack is unrelated, the incident is heavily cited as a response to the film in early news reporting. Right or wrong, mob attacks and demonstration at other diplomatic facilities used the incident in both Egypt and Libya to evangelize the protestors. In reality, Cairo is the point of origin of the major protests, not Benghazi. What do you think? — Hasdi Bravo • 16:47, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I think Cairo (and to a slightly lesser extent, Sana'a) was certainly the spark that got the story buzzing, so should be in the lead. No other events strike me as leadworthy. Benghazi certainly was heavily cited, but that information is now outdated and contradicted (like Saddam Hussein's "links" to dead newborns, 9/11 and WMD). The article is largely based on news reports, but it's not about them. Perhaps we could have a "Media Reaction" section and move it there? InedibleHulk (talk) 21:41, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Under the Benghazi article, there is already a section "Investigation (government, intelligence, and news sources)" for this. For this article, we need a brief mention of the initial mass reporting that both Cairo and Benghazi were prompted by the film on 9/11. The protest in Sana'a and others happened two days later. Hindsight being 20/20, we now know better that the Benghazi attack is unrelated, but back then it didn't stop the protests to snowball from both incidents. The main thing is a lot of people still think otherwise, so we at least have to mention this in lede for the next few weeks or so. After that, it can be a footnote. — Hasdi Bravo • 02:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Ok, we can remove the second paragraph if we can briefly mention the Benghazi in the first. Savvy? — Hasdi Bravo • 03:06, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
On September 11, 2012, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Cairo, Egypt was mobbed by protestors; a group scaled the embassy wall and tore down the American flag to replace it with a black Islamic flag. This incident (and the coinciding armed attack in Benghazi that was later determined by U.S. intelligence as not prompted by the film) marked the beginning of a series of violent and non-violent protests outside U.S. and other Western diplomatic facilities across the world, apparently in response to an anti-Islamic online video known as Innocence of Muslims. However, other underlying issues of discontent have fueled both protest and violence in some countries, and expanded to other Western-related locations. The protests that continued in the ensuing weeks resulted in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries.

That's much better, I think. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 13:36, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Guys, I did something that I believe will accomplish the above with less words AND have the additional explanation in a footnote. Check out the article now and let me know what you think. — Hasdi Bravo • 14:44, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
On September 11, 2012, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Cairo, Egypt was mobbed by protestors, apparently in response to an anti-Islamic online video known as Innocence of Muslims. A group scaled the embassy wall and tore down the American flag to replace it with a black Islamic flag. This incident, and the coinciding heavily armed attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya that was widely misreported as a similar reaction to the film, launched a series of demonstrations outside U.S. and other Western diplomatic facilities across the world. Although, other underlying issues of discontent have fueled the protests in some countries. The protests that continued in the ensuing weeks also expanded to other Western-related locations, some of which turned violent, resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries.

Even better. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:34, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I have boldly made a change to how the Benghazi attack is presented in the lead, too make it conform better to current knowledge. There are actually three separate elements of the controversy over how the Benghazi attack was initially characterized. Was the attack (1) spontaneous or was the attack (2) premeditated, and was the attack (3) motivated by the video. The concepts of "spontaneous attack" and "motivated by video" seem to have become conflated to such an extent that they are viewed as synonymous in some people's minds and it would be helpful if the article could parse this out a bit (without doing OR or POV). Evidence from reliable sources (e.g. The New York Times) indicates that the attackers stated to eyewitnesses that they were acting in response to the video, and also that advance planning for the attack most likely occurred and that there were no spontaneous protests taking place immediately prior to the attack. There are at least a couple of New York Times articles that support these facts, and there also may be other reliable sources. PeaceLoveHarmony (talk) 17:49, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I restored info about Benghazi to the lead, based on info from reliable sources, e.g. The New York Times. Made some minor modifications to what had been there previously. Apparently someone removed this info, but did not explain why on the Talk page. Since numerous eyewitnesses reported that the attackers said they were acting in response to the video and since the spokesman for the attacking group stated the following day that it was in response to the video, it seems to make sense to at least mention the attack here in the lead. I also included a sentence about the political controversy in the US over the role of the video in the attack. PeaceLoveHarmony (talk) 18:42, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Infobox title

The current type of infobox being used is an attack infobox. Not all reactions to the film were violent attacks, which is why I wanted to name the title of the infobox "Attacks in response to Innocence of Muslims". That title more accurate describes the infobox. The title of the infobox and the article don't have to match. If we want to title it the same as the article title, then we should use a different infobox template, specifically the one designed for protests. See the one used for 2012 Afghanistan Quran burning protests. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 15:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The norm is to have infobox's title in the lede to match the article's title. If you prefer, you can have that infobox moved a different section like "attacks in response of the film" or something. Otherwise, I made sure the infobox caption itself also stated "mob attacks in response of the film", but yeah, I think {{Infobox civil conflict}} is a better template to use. — Hasdi Bravo • 16:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

On the second thought, maybe we should move this infobox down to the section "Protest at diplomatic missions". If so, you can change the title back. I think a better image to use for a different infobox in the lede is the protest in Cairo, e.g., like this. — Hasdi Bravo • 17:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The infobox should definitely be kept at the top of the page, where's it's more accessible. What I'm saying is the infobox needs to incorporate the protests as well as the attacks. Right now it only discusses the attacks. I suggest we keep the title of the infobox as it is now, but replace the current "attack" infobox the "protest" infobox. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:32, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree, a protest infobox makes more sense. Only a very small percentage of the events here can reasonably be called attacks. Of the death toll, most are protesters killed by security guards in suppression of the protests. This infobox suggests the protesters attacked and killed 75 people, in retaliation for the video. Pretty misleading. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:49, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Can we change the infobox image to one from the Cairo protest (e.g., see this article from Voice of America) and this the Yemen protest started two days after that. — Hasdi Bravo • 14:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

No that image came from Reuters. If you enlarge it and look at the bottom right corner, you'll see it. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 20:10, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

RE: Overall title

There are arguments made that the protests on September 11, 2012 were related to more than the Innocence of Muslims video. For example, here:

I propose to make the title to this article more general: Protests on September 11, 2012. Myster Black (talk) 20:01, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

No. This isn't an article about the single protest on that day. It is an article on the reaction of the video.--Amadscientist (talk) 20:19, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

You may also wish to review Misplaced Pages:Single-purpose account.--Amadscientist (talk) 20:23, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Amadscientist, there is no individual page for the protests at all. If I search for the Cairo protest, the number 1 recommendation is this page. Further, "September 11 2012 attacks" redirects to this page. That is very disingenuous. As for your single purpose account charge, I find it a bit accusatory. My goal is to accurately help Misplaced Pages with its encyclopedic endeavor. Myster Black (talk) 21:24, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I made no charge. I suggested that you may wish to review that page. The above argument has nothing to do with your POV to alter the name of this article.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:43, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Now that we have that cleared up, what say you about my other questions? Do you believe that if someone types in "September 11 2012 attacks" that they should be redirected to this page? There is significant evidence that planning for the protests (at least in the case of Cairo) as well as the attack in Benghazi was performed independently of any outrage about Innocence of Muslims. While there is much controversy about these issues, that is all the more reason that linking all of these things back to a page titled Reactions to Innocence of Muslims is at best a gross simplification of the events, and at worst an inaccurate portrayal. Myster Black (talk) 21:57, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I think what you may be looking for is Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion. If I understand you correctly, you object to the redirect to this article. I could understand that and even support the redirect being removed.--Amadscientist (talk) 22:32, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad you agree with this point. I will look into the technicalities of this. If you would be willing to help, I would appreciate it. However, I need to return to my original point. There is evidence that the Cairo protest was planned before the trailer to the movie started circulating (in fact this is mentioned in the page itself). Therefore, I still propose that placing this protest (which appears to be the driver of the rest of them) squarely in a "Reactions to Innocence of Muslims" page is inaccurate. As I said before a broader title would be less controversial. My initial proposal was too narrow, as this page does include events that span more than just September 11, 2012, however I stand by the point that the title of the page is too controversial. What about "September 2012 Anti-American Protests"? Myster Black (talk) 15:55, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

No, I don't agree that "some evidence" is a strong argument for your proposed alterations and note that your statement that you feel that the protest appears to be the driver of the rest of them, is inaccurate at best. This article was split from its main article. The change you are attempting would be inappropriate.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:19, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

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