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Many of these questions arise frequently on the talk page concerning the September 11 attacks.
To view an explanation to the answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question.
Q1: Is the article biased against conspiracy theories?
A1: Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia so this article presents the accepted version of the events according to reliable sources. Although reliable sources have repeatedly reported on conspiracy theories, reporting on conspiracy theories is not the same thing as advocating conspiracy theories or accepting them as fact. The most recent discussion that resulted in the current consensus took place on this talk page in December 2011. If you disagree with the current status, you are welcome to bring your concerns to the article talk page. Please read the previous discussions on this talk page and try to explain how your viewpoint provides new arguments or information that may lead to a change in consensus. Please be sure to be polite and support your views with citations from reliable sources.
Q2: Should the article use the word "terrorist" (and related words)?
A2: Wikipedia:Words to watch states that "there are no forbidden words or expressions on Wikipedia". That being said, "terrorism" is a word that requires extra attention when used in Wikipedia. The consensus, after several lengthy discussions, is that it is appropriate to use the term in a limited fashion to describe the attacks and the executors of these attacks. The contributors have arrived at this conclusion after looking at the overwhelming majority of reliable sources that use this term as well as the United Nations' own condemnation of the attacks.[1]
This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
September 11 attacks is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
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At the bottom of the rebuilding and memorials section, add "The Onion satirical news source made humor out of the whole situation. They are still cherished today." Fedmonger (talk) 02:30, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@FlightTime, the reason given for the addition of the {{Distinguish}} hatnote was not reasonable: this event was not even a "bombing" as such. Especially given the distinct titles of the two articles, there's no real justification to me that these two would be confused in the context of how this hatnote is used. Remsense ‥ 论08:26, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Even on my reasonably sized laptop, and with my prescription glasses, to my aging eyes the pics in the collage are too small to be meaningful. HiLo48 (talk) 22:41, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose: There is nothing wrong with the collage that's shown in the article now. It's about representing the event, not about the image quality or the size. I do agree that there should be image description for those who have bad vision, but that about it. Additionally, the image you suggested for the impact of United 175 looks like a bomb going off in the South Tower and I don't think that should be used. It'll just egg on` the conspiracy nutjobs. Butterscotch5 (talk) 16:44, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I prefer the status quo, apart from how small the pentagon images are (the “collapsed pentagon” could be replaced by the bottom right mini one and get rid of the other mini ones?). The main image in the status quo is much more iconic. It’s the image that became seared into peoples minds as they all turned on the news that day, and encapsulates a collective trauma. I also like the aesthetics of having the captions all at the bottom, in the proposed version the captions take up too much space imo. Kowal2701 (talk) 22:20, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The version Chronus supports is an improvement, but I am seeing that users like Butterscotch5 and Cena332 have been making a sincere effort to discuss this before making the change. In that conversation, I see no input from those who wanted to update the collage. However, now that Chronus has initiated this RfC I hope there will be more input from those who support the change.
I suggest keeping the current collage, but still working on the newer one to get it to a place where there is more agreement on improvements. Maybe the newer collage should have the same images as the current one? Or half the same ones? It is possible Butterscotch5 is right that the newer version isn't featuring the best images. To me, the newer version seems better because those with aging eyes can click on the individual images to see much larger versions and read the captions to better understand what they are seeing. This seems better than a single image file composed of several smaller ones, with a fairly large block of text to read through that describes them. Ender and Peter22:15, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support (but keep current main image) Functionally, I think the proposed collage is better, the way each image is separate and has its own caption. It can be a bit unwieldy for some to click on a collage and scroll through it as one giant image. Also, the three separate images for the Pentagon crash seem unnecessary. But I agree with Kowal above that the current main status quo image is more "iconic". Showing the moment of impact with the explosion might feel more sensational but ultimately isn't important. The dark billowing smoke coming out of the towers is the ominous image that most people have in mind when they think of that day, and I think it actually captures the emotion of the day better than the fireball picture. Kerdooskistalk22:02, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support with modification The current collage is rather crowded because it wants to capture so much of an extraordinarily complex and sophisticated attack as well as some of its consequences. I'd even say to cut down the proposed collage so as to represent one image per attack site (Pentagon, Towers, Flight 93). I think that'd improve visibility in keeping with HiLo48's concerns.
I'd also propose resizing the images to be equally large. I think doing so would prevent the suggestion that one attack site is more important or significant than another based on size alone, which I personally currently perceive in the proposed collage. Unidentifiability (talk) 04:29, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The proposed collage is more representative of the attacks, and gets across the main sequence of events much better and more concisely. Kzm193 (talk) 23:22, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's been nearly three years since the extended confirmed protection was lowered to autoconfirmed protection, and extended confirmed protection was itself only in place for six months in 2021-2022. - Aoidh (talk) 23:40, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you. However, I've asked for extended protection a few times and it was dismissed. I want you to know that I am totally on board for an extended protection on the September 11th attacks page and any related pages; especially now with the situation going on here in America. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is not the place for us to make that decision. If you are serious about preserving the details, then I suggest creating a website or joining a Facebook group that commemorates September 11th appropriately. Butterscotch5 (talk) 19:13, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This part of the "Planning" section is based on a misquote of the original source and should be removed from the article.
"However, Lawrence Wright wrote that the hijackers chose the date when John III Sobieski, the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, began the battle that turned back the Ottoman Empire's Muslim armies that were attempting to capture Vienna in 1683. Vienna was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburg monarchy, both major powers in Europe at the time. For Osama bin Laden, this was a date when the West gained some dominance over Islam, and by attacking on this date, he hoped to make a step in Islam "winning" the war for worldwide power and influence."
This explanation seemed so bizarre and out-of-place for me, I felt the need to check the original source. In his book "The Looming Tower" Wright states.
"Viewed through the eyes of men who were spiritually anchored in the seventh century, Christianity was not just a rival, it was the archenemy. To them, the Crusades were a continual historical process that would never be resolved until the final victory of Islam. They bitterly perceived the contradiction embodied by Islam’s long, steady retreat from the gates of Vienna, where on September 11—that now resonant date—in 1683, the king of Poland began the battle that turned back the farthest advance of Muslim armies. For the next three hundred years, Islam would be overshadowed by the growth of Western Christian societies. Yet bin Laden and his Arab Afghans believed that, in Afghanistan, they had turned the tide and that Islam was again on the march."
There is nothing here to suggest that Bin Laden chose this date specifically to avenge a historical Muslim defeat. Wright states that Islam's so-called "decline" against the Christianity fueled the Jihadist anger towards the West, but nowhere in the book he makes a claim that the date of Second Siege of Vienna was chosen for the 9/11 attack.
There are other issues with this dubious claim. Why would a Jihadist who had a Salafist approach to life even celebrate the Ottoman Empire which was seen as a corrupt and irreligious polity? (especially considering how Wahhabists declared a Jihad against the Ottomans in the 19th century). Secondly, the Ottomans used the Islamic Calendar, so for Muslims, the final battle of the Siege of Vienna happened on the 3rd of Ramadan, 1094 AH, and not on 9/11. Thirdly, the theory of perceiving the Siege as a pivotal date leading to the decline of the Muslims has been long refuted in the academic circles. Lastly, this battle and its effects do not have any special place in the Muslim mindset. It is surely important in the nation-building myths of Central and Eastern Europe, and for the far-right Christian nationalists but the Islamist mindset is mostly shaped by the wars led by the Prophet, the Muslim expansion during the first four caliphs and the Arab-led Umayyad and Abbasi Caliphates.
In summary, Wright does not claim a connection between 9/11, and the Second Siege of Vienna. There are no references to this date in Bin Laden's writings and speeches. This section is a total fabrication which clashes with the source mentioned in the article and the historical facts.
That article does cite Wright's book, but it sounds like they completely misconstrued him based on what you've quoted here. It looks like Foreign Policy just quoted him out of context to support their assertion. As such, I've removed that section from our article. Good catch! — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite19:12, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Basically every 9/11 Wikipedia page (except this one!) features a claim that Mossad turned over a list of 19 names to the CIA a few weeks before 9/11 and at least a few of the 9/11 terrorists were on that list. The sourcing for this is wild: I see one edit done way back in 2006! to the page for Nawaf al-Hazmi. They all seem to share the same source, either to this BBC article that mentions an Israeli report but doesn't mention any shared names, or a link to the third-party Cooperative Research website which is really just aggregating links to a few stories. The ultimate source of the claim seems to be newspaper Die Zeit but I can't find that article. Several Wiki articles also claim that these names were passed through to the FBI who put them onto some watchlists but did not thoroughly search for them.
Anyway, I am bringing this up because that whole chain of citations is a bit stinky. Nobody's got an actual source saying Mossad turned over four hijacker names. It neatly lines up with some anti-Israel conspiracy theories. But, if it is true, it firmly puts the blame for not catching 9/11 squarely in the FBI's lap, so that would mean we need to cut out some of this "the CIA and FBI weren't working together" commentary.
My comments here are meant to reach out to the 9/11-obsessed editors of Wikipedia and maybe start an RFC. Are there better sources for this claim? If so, let's put them in. But if not, it's time to do a pass over Wikipedia and delete this claim because I am seeing it on a lot of pages. Lordgilman (talk) 22:04, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
The redirect 2001 terrorist attacks has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 October 7 § 2001 terrorist attacks until a consensus is reached. SeaHaircutSoilReplace (talk) 17:26, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Charliehdb (talk) 10:24, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
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