Talk:January 6 United States Capitol attack: Difference between revisions

RfC on subject names in the lead sentence

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.

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Should the name(s) of this article appear in the lead sentence? AlexEng^(TALK) 02:03, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Proposals

As proposer, I suggest that focusing the discussion to one of the following three options will help streamline the process. Please feel free to add alternative proposals directly to this section.

• Option A:

  The 2021 United States Capitol attack, also referred to as January 6, occurred when a mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump attacked the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021.

• Option B:

  The 2021 United States Capitol attack occurred on January 6, 2021, when a mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump attacked the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

• Option C:

  On January 6, 2021, a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump attacked the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

  AlexEng^(TALK) 02:04, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option D: The same as Option C but with an explanatory footnote that includes common names:

  On January 6, 2021, a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump attacked the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:27, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

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Threaded Discussion

• Support A per MOS:BOLDALTNAMES, MOS:ALTNAME, and WP:OTHERNAMES. The name January 6 is not just the date of the attack, but also a common shorthand name for the event itself, as supported by numerous sources, including international sources such as the BBC and the NZ Herald. In particular, WP:OTHERNAMES adds that

  All significant alternative titles, names, or forms of names that apply to a specific article should usually be made to redirect to that article. If they are ambiguous, it should be ensured that the article can at least be reached from a disambiguation page for the alternative term.

  This is the case for January 6. It's also the example we follow in September 11 attacks, which has the following lead sentence:

  The September 11 attacks, also commonly referred to as 9/11, were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the militant Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

  We should include both the name and the alternative name in the lead sentence of this article as well. AlexEng^(TALK) 02:04, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Community consensus strongly disfavors the notion that "January 6" is the common name. Therefore, it's inappropriate to treat and bold it as the title would normally be in the lede. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 05:18, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

@Iamreallygoodatcheckers: this RfC is to determine community consensus on including a name or names used to refer to the subject in the lead sentence. Nobody is suggesting that we change the article title per WP:COMMONNAME. AlexEng^(TALK) 17:39, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

• "January 6" appears in the first three words of the article. This is silly, as has already been noted in the discussion above. Leave as-is. VQuakr (talk) 02:56, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

  "August 28" appears in the first three words of Obama tan suit controversy, but only my close friends and I refer to the event as just "August 28". Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:02, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

• Option B + D. The title of the article should appear in the lead, but we should also be listing (either in a footnote or the lead as well) various common appellations. Just "January 6" by itself is by no means the WP:COMMONNAME of this subject, and does not have the currency of, say, "9/11' or "September 11" for a specific set of events.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:55, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option D All the other other options, except C, read unnaturally and violate MOS:AVOIDBOLD. However, it's safe to say that this event does have some common names: Capitol riot, Capitol insurrection, or January 6. While none of these names are commonly used enough to change the title under WP:COMMONNAME, I still think they are significant enough to warrant a lede mention. Therefore, I see D as a good compromise that stays within guideline and provides significant information. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 05:14, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option A per AlexEng, and please end all these extensive arguments about how to call it. The world of academia will notice that. (Same person as the IP in the previous section.) -47.196.35.44 (talk) 11:00, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option D is the most encyclopedic. Option C as a second choice. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 13:07, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
• Question - I have seen it said they exist, but can someone show me an example of an RS saying "January 6th", not as part of a sentence, but as a title?Slatersteven (talk) 11:09, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

  @Slatersteven: if you'll check the reflist below this RfC, you'll find numerous sources saying "January 6" as the name of the event, not as part of a sentence. AlexEng^(TALK) 17:39, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

• Option B A title should be in bold at the beginning. Even if January 6 is one of the common names, it is still an ambiguous English language phrasing, and unlikely to be a timeless name or the name used in translations to other languages where such a specific date would not matter. The descriptive unambiguous name is best. If there is really a need to discuss various names then there can be an etymology section. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:24, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option C as a first choice, Option B as a second choice. Wikipedia guidance is clear that we should default to natural language always, and that we don't have to bend over backwards to bold the titles of articles, especially where the article title is descriptive rather than a proper name. This is a case where the title is descriptive and not a proper name, as bolding would imply. If we have a later section that discusses the nomenclature of the event, that's fine, but the first sentence should be as close to natural language as possible. C accomplishes this best, and B is fine too, as it appears to at least flow reasonably well if one ignores the bolding. I think that A and D are the least desirable for the simple fact that the event doesn't really have any formal name, there are dozens of variations used when describing it, and none really predominates. --Jayron32 13:42, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option D as a first choice, Option C as a second choice, per discussion in above section Talk:2021 United States Capitol attack#Use of "January 6" in the MOS:LEAD of this article (pertaining to MOS:AVOIDBOLD, also WP:POSA). C is the longstanding and current version, and D is a natural step up from that version, while A and B would be a step back. — Alalch Emis (talk) 19:32, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option B MOS:FIRST, MOS:Redundancy, MOS:BOLDTITLE Signed, I Am Chaos (talk) 23:16, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option D as a first choice, mainly per MOS:AVOIDBOLD. Alternatively, if there is consensus that the title should appear bolded in the lede, then I like User:SMcCandlish's suggestion of B+D above. (Summoned by bot) Aoi (青い) (talk) 00:43, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support B The title should be used in the lead. I also suggest mentioning other common names via a footnote. --Mhhossein ^talk 02:40, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

  @Mhhossein: that reasoning seems inconsistent with MOS:AVOIDBOLD. VQuakr (talk) 20:08, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

  AVOIDBOLD only applies when Wikipedia has made up an awkward WP:NTITLE for lack of any better option. But that's not the case here. The exact phrase "2021 United States Capitol attack" and close variants of it like "2021 US Capitol attack" are in common usage, which you can find out in a matter of seconds [1]. Aside from "Capitol insurrection" this is about as close as we're going to get to a WP:COMMONNAME. That said, the world would not end if this phrase were not boldfaced; including the Option D terms, either directly in the lead or in a footnote, is really the important part.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:41, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

• Option D as first, Option C as second. The title of the article is descriptive in construction, rather than a solid common name, which is evidenced in the awkwardness of A and B. AVOIDBOLD should apply in this case. — Goszei (talk) 21:21, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Reflist for RfC

References

Notes

The discussion above 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.

Title and Bias

This was a riot, not an attack. The reason you keep getting that comment is because you are wrong and keep digging in on being wrong (see: all the comments you get and remove about this very topic). It was not a planned maneuver with a unified objective, ergo, NOT an attack. I don’t know why your small committee is so dug in on this title, but it’s wrong. The result is misrepresentation and a detriment to credibility. Furthermore, this article needs to be scrubbed to remove bias. It’s written with several political assumptions and opinions, which harm credibility. As written, the article asserts people attacked the capitol to overturn the election, but there’s no proof that was the intent for the vast majority of people. Where is your proof that was the objective for even half the people? Citation needed. Trump’s speech said many things, so it’s ok to mention the line about “fight like hell”, but you have to give equal credence to the “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard” line, and the “we're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them”. This article doesn’t do that. This article also doesn’t mention the year of protests and riots in 2020, and therefore leaves out critical context. Many rioters have mentioned this was in their minds as they did this. It was At Least as big of factor as Trump, arguably bigger. It needs to be included to provide the political climate leading up to this riot. There should be NO section titled Siege, since there was no siege. The whole event was over in a few hours, so Siege is incorrect. This article is also way too long, mostly because of the all the extraneous opinions and rabbit holes to try to advance political opinions. Clean it up and get it focused on the important facts. It’s a mess. 72.207.57.142 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 02:59, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

(1) Reliable sources do use both the word "attack" and the word "riot" to describe the events at the Capitol on January 6. In a requested move discussion from earlier in the year, there was a consensus against calling it a "riot".[2] Consensus can change. I don't know that this one has. I do know that merely posting on the talk page and telling us to change the title to "riot" is never going to result in us changing the title to "riot". We'd need a requested move that achieved that consensus.

(2) Is there "proof" that the January 6 events were meant to overturn the election results? Yes, there is. We know that the purpose of people like Trump and Mark Meadows was to obstruct the counting of the electoral votes.[3][4] And we know that they put on a "Save America March" for that specific day, and these people who stormed the Capitol heeded the call. "Save America" from what? What else could they be trying to "save" America from? You ask Where is your proof that was the objective for even half the people? The answer is in the court proceedings. The overwhelming reason for action, cited again and again in court documents, was that arrestees were following Trump’s orders to keep Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the presidential-election winner.[5] The line I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard is quoted in this article already, and is not the exculpation that you think it is. The line we're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them is also in the article.

(3) Finally, you bring up the social justice protests of 2020. What does that have to do with the January 6 attack/riot/coup attempt/whatever you want to call it? Their reason for storming the Capitol was Biden's electoral college victory, not BLM protests. If you think there is any link, provide reliable sources that show us how it's linked. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:21, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

This has been talked about on Wikipedia all year. Multiple votes were cast, with riot, attack, and insurrection emerging as the three most widely-suggested titles, and through a rigorous consensus attack was found to be the most neutral. Please look back in the Talk History and article title discussions and check out all the arguments made there. 98.217.255.37 (talk) 21:58, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

AFAIK, no one has been charged with riot. TFD (talk) 11:27, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

"Natural causes"

While this article says 1 death was an overdose, one was intentional, and 3 were due to natural causes the sources provided do not suppourt this statement. After getting hit in the head with a fire extinguisher and dying in the hospital this death is currently being investigated according to the source provided. And being trampled/crushed to death certainly doesn't seem like a "natural" cause of death.

I think the sources either need to be updated to suppourt the claim, or have that sentence right near the top of the article be reworded. 139.225.127.20 (talk) 01:12, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I think you're just misunderstanding the use of the term natural causes. In the United States, a death can be classified as either 1) homicide, 2) suicide, 3) accidental, or 4) natural. According to the source, the two people who died of heart attacks had their deaths classified as natural. The police officer who had a stroke also had his death classified as natural, though the medical examiner cited some contributing factors. The woman who was "trampled/crushed to death" was later found to have died due to an overdose of amphetamines, which resulted in her death being ruled an accident. AlexEng^(TALK) 10:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Seeking Information Pipe Bombs in Washington D.C. wfo-poi-010521.webm

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:15, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Video shot by Congressman Dan Kildee D-Flint - via Michael Moore on Facebook Watch.webm

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 13:56, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Classifying the attack as a "terrorist incident"

Should the article be categorized under terrorism-related categories as seen here? Love of Corey (talk) 03:09, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, obviously. The categories in question are Category:Terrorist incidents in the United States in 2021, Category:Rebellions in the United States, Category:Coups d'état and coup attempts in the United States, the latter two of which are long-standing (since Jan 7, 2021) and have consensus.

As for the terrorist category, that is also accurately invoked, as the article makes clear that RS have considered this a terrorist event. ––FormalDude ^talk 03:54, 24 December 2021 (UTC)