Talk:Casio F-91W/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

I'm not exactly sure how the fact that the Mexican president has one, is relevant to the watch. So much so, that he has to be featured in the first paragraph... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kirka80286 (talk • contribs) 12:09, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the information on the terrorist link is excessive. it is interesting, and could warrant its own entry, but has little to do with the watch itself. I suggest re-locating the terrorist part to its own page, with a link from this page. May i also say that while i agree with you Harlequin and geoswan- regarding the ridiculousness of detaining people for owning a popular watch - i hardly think that it holds objectivity enough to justify the extensive entry. Geo Swan, a quick glance down this discussion page shows you behaving in an authoritarian and dictatorial manner. You are a Wiki-bully. Everybody but you has said that the terrorist addition is excessive. i appreciate that you are passionate about the subject... so give it its own page. This particular watch has become both a fashion and technological icon. That is why it warrants a bigger-than-stub entry. NOT because of its alleged links to terrorism. Joe a lewis (talk) 14:30, 28 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joe a lewis (talk • contribs) 14:28, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

At most there should be a few lines on the subject.==Outrageous Irrelevance of Terrorist Involvement== Who on earth decided to include so much material regarding the watches link to terrorism? It encompasses the majority of the article. At most there should be a few lines on the subject. This is one of the most popular wrist watches in the world so I'm not surprised a few terrorist ware it. And all digital watches are "accurate" so it makes no sense what so ever to assume that’s why the watch was selected. There are some really odd people in the world - I just can't understand why all this would be included! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.146.172.146 (talk) 10:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Im sorry, when people are being arrested and then tortured in an illegal prison for simply owning or wearing such a specific watch and being arabic, we can write about it. It IS a big deal, this specific watch was for some reason chosen to be the "terrorist" watch by the US government. It sounds ridiculous because it IS. Thats why we have to report on it. 124.178.181.6 (talk) 08:37, 2 August 2008 (UTC) Harlequin

Who decided to add so much material on the watch's alleged link to terrorism? That would be me.

And the reasoning behind your assertion -- "At most there should be a few lines on the subject." -- is? If you look at the famous essay "Arguments to Avoid" I suggest you may recognize your question as an example of the argument labelled WP:IDONTLIKEIT.

Of course with hundreds of captives in Guantanamo it is hardly surprising that dozens of them were wearing one of the most popular watches ever made. That fact alone would be completely unremarkable. What is extremely remarkable is that this ownership is regarded as a justification for locking them up and throwing away the key.

Why did bomb-makers choose to train to make timers for time-bombs on this particular watch, rather than some other cheap common watch with a built-in alarm feature? It may have been Ramzi bin Yousef who first picked this watch. There might be other watches which they could have chosen, which were both cheap and widely available, world-wide. Maybe through some inadvertent design accident, the other cheap, common watch's design can't be as easily modified to be timers? Or maybe they can be, but RBY just flipped a coin? Or maybe RBY based his choice on how widely available they were. Maybe RBY will explain his choice during his trial?

How many components does a bomb-maker need? A half-dozen, or dozen, or more, depending on how you count them. But the watch would be the easiest component to acquire. Even a soldering iron, or volt-meter would be harder to acquire. And it would be much easier to acquire than the actual explosives, or blasting caps. (Note: I know no more about bomb-making than anyone who has seen a bunch of movies.)

We can give border guards, and customs agents, a list of suspicious items to look for in people's luggage. Some items should trigger arrest, no matter whether they had a legitimate sounding explanation. I suggest that blasting caps would be something that should trigger arrest, no matter what. Other items, depending on the circumstances, like soldering irons and volt-meters, maybe these should trigger suspicion, unless the owner has a good explanation for having them in their luggage. If the owner is an electronics technician, with a gig that requires his tools -- suspicion should be dropped.

I have had a google news alert on this watch for a couple of years. There are assertions that the watches Ramzi Bin Yousef used had been modified before-hand, that he had drilled holes just large enough to stick wires in, that would connect the timer to rest of a time-bomb. Now, personally, this assertion stretches my credulity. It doesn't sound reliable. But, if, for the sake of argument, the assertion was credible, and the ownership of a Casio F91W was one small factor adding to the justification for the apprehension of a suspect the obvious next step is to have someone who is a bomb-disposal expert give it an examination to see if it had the tell-tale holes the assertion claims bomb-makers add to the watch. If it doesn't have them -- drop the allegation.

If it is the one final factor that triggered his arrest -- then let him go.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 02:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment 1

I remember I had a Casio F91W way before 1997, so the date of introduction referenced in the article is no correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cirilobeto (talk • contribs) 16:09, 2006 July 2

"WATER RESISTANT"

I edited it to "apparent upto 10 metres in depth. I've tested this on multiple occassions, with multiple watches. It should also be noted that I shower with this watch every day. Your own experiences are original research and do not belong in a WP article CanOfWorms (talk) 09:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC) What evidence is "Splash-Proof only" based on? "Splashes, rain etc;" is what the instruction sheet that comes with the F91W says for simple "WAter resistant" without a specific depth designation. CanOfWorms (talk) 16:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Mine has seen countless showers, dunks in water, etc. I think this fact should be noted, but as unofficial but just as a known fact about these watches. 66.114.93.6 (talk) 22:36, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

04jtb (talk) 18:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC) Casio are apparently known for being very conservative when water resistance testing, so examples of this watch (including the one I owned) may well be able to go beyond the given depth rating

I know endurance swimmers who swear by them. These guys spend many hours/week in the water, so the middle of the QA bell curve is that they are good. How to get this reflected in WP, without exciting the invigilators is an issue.

Casio's own websites/instructions conflict (@22 May 2013). The US site for the F-91W-1 says "water resistant", whereas the UK site for the F-91W-1XY says good for swimming but not quite for snorkelling. But for some reason the colored UK watches are only "water resistant". The instructions in the packaging says only splashproof (approximately IPX6). As 04jtb says: Casio are conservative. Probably down to poor quality control of their copy.

Reading the Argos www buyer reviews (F-91W-1YER) it looks like: you get a few lemons but mostly they are everything proof. Frontmech (talk) 07:43, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Self research is not allowed on Wikipedia. If you are aware that the watch is water resistant more than advertised and have no verifiable sources that agree with you, this cannot be included. U¹ _quattro TALK 10:44, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I HAD ONE OF THOSE TOO

I had one since about 1992. Though now the area where the strap pins go through has broken off on one side, I still keep it running since I think it keeps particularly good time. Not to mention this watch gets rather astounding battery life. It's only on it's second battery since I got it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.114.93.6 (talk • contribs) 20:10, 2006 July 20

I will remove the date of introduction in the article while it is stablished in which date it was actually introduced. I'm positively sure that this watch was from the late 80's / early 90's. --Cirilobeto 17:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am on my fourth of these. They last about 4-5 years (the last two I bought at Fry's in San Jose or Palo Alto, the most recent less than a year ago). They are remarkably reliable and accurate (all four gained time slightly, but no more than a second a week) 65.91.54.2 15:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I go swimming with mine on aswell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.59.148.150 (talk) 14:04, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Relevancy

I don't see how the stuff about terrorists it relevant, especially in so much detail. Maybe some background, and cult following information would be better? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.200.13.168 (talk • contribs) 17:25, 2006 October 20

You are joking right? The alleged association with terrorism is the most interesting thing about this watch. -- Geo Swan 07:38, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

It is certainly relevant, but yes the detail is unnecessary in this article. - (Nuggetboy) (talk) (contribs) 00:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd appreciate you explaining yourself more fully. The details are (1) verifiable; (2) Not original research; (3) and, IMO, does not represent a biased point of view.

IMO many of those who challenge whether potentially embarrassing instances of gaffes and failures on the part of the Bush administration merit coverage on the wikipedia are unconscious victims of the wikipedia's demographic-based systematic bias.

All reasonable people recognize that even the most competently run organizations will have the occasional thing go wrong. It seems to me that many of those who want to suppress aspects of the Bush administration's policy of holding suspects, for years on end, without charge, and without providing them with a meaningful opportunity to challenge the evidence against them unconsciously assume that the errors that occur that flow from that policy are the very limited kind one can expect even in well-run organizations.

Advocating the removal of these well-documented details is, IMO, a POV. Removing well-documented details of failures of this program, on the assumption that they are of a very limited nature, is, IMO, a failure to conform to the policy of writing from a neutral point of view.

I strongly encourage you to read a random selection of the transcripts of the Guantanamo detainees Combatant Status Review Tribunals and Administrative Review Board hearings for yourself. Is justifying the continued detention of a Guantanamo detainee because they were wearing a casio digital watch reasonable? Is justifying the continued detention of fifteen or more men because they were captured wearing a casio digital watch reasonable? You or I or other wikipedia contributors can't offer our opinions on the reasonableness of this policy, in the article without violating NPOV, just as censoring the embarrassing details violates NPOV.

I believe it is important to provide the detail necessary to allow responsible, open-minded readers to form their own opinions as to this aspect of the policy's reasonableness.

If you read a random selection of detainee transcripts you will find other aspects of where the Bush administration's description of this policy is wildly at variance with its actual implementation:

• The Guantanamo intelligence analysts, even after four years, have not been able to figure out a consistent system for transliterating the detainees names.
  • The Department of Defense has released two official lists of detainee names, nationalities, and internal ID numbers. Although the two lists were only released 25 days apart, on April 20 2006 and May 15 2006, the two list differ significantly on how detainees names were transliterated.
  • The Department of Defense routinely thwarted the attempts of Mani Al Utaybi's lawyers to contact him. They told them that they must be spelling his name wrong. Mani Al Utaybi was one of the three captives alleged to have committed suicide on June 10 2006. His lawyers never had a chance to tell him that he wasn't facing a lifetime in Guantanamo, but had been cleared for transfer home to Saudi Arabia. This is the kicker. Although the deaths were reported just 26 days following the release of the full official list of all the names of all the Guantanamo detainees, the DoD spelled his name wildly, unrecognizably different on June 10th than they did on May 25th and April 20th.
  • You are probably familiar with the case of Khalid el-Masri, the innocent German citizen who spent five months being tortured by the CIA in the salt pit because his name matched that of an al Qaida suspect. Well, if you read the detainee's transcripts you will come across dozens of detainees who seem to have been detained as a result of mistaken identity. The kicker here is that, even after el-Masri's story has made the front page of newspapers around the world, even after Dr Rice and the German Chancellor personally discussed his case, el-Masri, whose innocence has been established, without question, was refused a visa when he wanted to enter the USA to file suit for his kidnapping. Was he still on the list of suspects after all this attention?
  • One of the more extreme cases of mistaken identity concerns Abdullah Khan, who was captured when he was denounced as really being Khirullah Khairkhwa, the Taliban regime's chief reader of press releases, and, in 2000 and 2001, the Governor of Herat Province. All of Khan's interrogations consisted of his interrogators insisting he was really Khairkhwa, Khan denying that he was Khairkhwa, and his interrogators insisting he was lying. This pattern continued for the first year and a half he was held in Guantanamo, in spite of his repeated pleas for them to check the prison roster, so they could see that they already held the real Khairkhwa, had held him for over a year, in another section of the camp.
• The most recent Denbeaux study documents that, contrary to the repeated insistence of the Bush administration spokesmen, the detainees were not, in practice, allowed to call witnesses in their defense. Some detainees were allowed to call other detainees as witnesses. Others were told that their Tribunal's President had ruled that the testimony they requested was "not relevant". Other detainees were told that the witnesses they requested couldn't be found, even though they were fellow Guantanamo detainees -- possibly due to the failure of the camp authorities to figure out how to maintain a reliable prisoner roster.
  • Tribunal Presidents didn't rule out all "off-island" witnesses. They frequently ruled that they were "relevant", then set in motion a diplomatic process to contact those witnesses, that failed in each and every case. (Not 98 or 99% of the time, but fully 100% of the time.)
    • The Tribunal President would authorize sending a request to the State department...
    • The State Department was then supposed to pass on the request to the Washington embassy of the country the witness was supposed to be residing in.
    • The Tribunal President was then counting on the Washington embassy to pass the request on to the civil service back home, and was then counting on the foreign government's civil service to find and contact the witness, to see if they would give their testimony on the detainee's behalf.
    • The Tribunals usually allowed only three weeks for all the steps in this process to take place.

It is, in my opinion, extremely important for the coverage of Guantanamo, and the Guantanamo detainees, to be full and complete, because I believe our safety hinges on it. It is, in my opinion, important that those who make decisions on how to spend our counter-terrorism resources do so in a professional, clear-headed, well-informed, unemotional manner. And, if those making those decisions are going to do so in a well-informed manner, they need to be able to rely on trustworthy intelligence, gathered, collated, compiled by professional, clear-headed, well-informed, unemotional intelligence analysts.

Have the senior officials responsible for the intelligence gathering at Guantanamo taken the necessary steps to ensure that the intelligence effort was run in a professional, clear-headed, well-informed, unemotional manner? That is not for you or I or other wikipedia contributors to state, in article space. But I am certainly going to argue here for the importance of fully documenting, in detail, every well-documented instances that suggests the intelligence effort there has been unprofessional, ill-informed, incompetently performed, tinged, at times soaked, in malice, and a blind, and entirely inappropriate thirst for vengeance and retribution.

Remember, those arguing that Guantanamo is well-run, and producing worthwhile intelligence, are the same people who assured the World that Saddam Hussein's Iraq possessed a vast arsenal of WMD that represented an imminent threat.

Cheers! -- Geo Swan 12:59, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

This article is about a wristwatch. This is not so much about the policies you quoted, but about whether this level of detail belongs in this article. It appears that you have quite a bit to say about this and I have no reason to believe any of it is out of line. I would probably create a separate article for this subject, however, and link it from here. - (Nuggetboy) (talk) (contribs) 16:59, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the comments that the level of detail is irrelevant to this article. Especially since the same details are included in the biographical articles for the detainees. This article should mention the subject but the detail should be elsewhere. 169.3.168.209 22:09, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Would you care to offer the reasoning behind your agreement?

Take a look at the other watches in Category:watches. They are mainly mere stubs. If the connection to terrorism was taken out, the Casio F91W article would be little more than a stub. Let's be frank, by far the most likely reason anyone would look up this watch is due to the alleged link to terrorism. So how does removing that material, or putting it in a subsidiary article enhance the utility of the wikipedia?

Cheers! -- Geo Swan 01:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok this is scary... I really like this watch in general, looks nice and retro, feels good, and simple. Also, a few folks have modded their watches and done cool stuff with it, like YouTube user node's modifications. I was looking for a watch to make some modifications to. What worries me, is that I'm a brown guy adding an NFC chip to a watch that terrorists used. I mean granted, Terrorists also drive toyotas: I saw a picture CNN had, and it looked like a toyota commercial. Is it possible that including this paragraph will cause readers/buyers to have second thoughts? Dgramop (talk) 03:38, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

@Dgramop: and yet no one driving a Land Cruiser or a Hilux (which are two of the main Toyota vehicles which terrorists used) is alleged to be a terrorist. That is the case with this watch. As stated in the article, there are other reasons why this watch is popular. It is very accurate at a dirt cheap price. Even expensive mechanical watches like Rolex and Omega lose more than a minute at a course of a week. This loses 5 to 6 seconds in two weeks. There is no other company that makes an accurate watch at a price as low as £7. The second thing is the display. It doesn't "Wash out" when the watch is tilted, meaning it doesn't show every segment on the screen which is a commons thing with digital watches. No expensive watch does that. Which is why it is popular. U¹ _quattro TALK 16:08, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Indirect Source

Source #3 does not have the original document as the link, It should be this instead: http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0203nj4.htm

Other links may also be references to original articles... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.192.206.19 (talk • contribs) 21:50, 2006 October 20

In last time terrorists used the Casio DB-36 model. :) http://www.watch.watchzone.ru/casio/Casio_DB-36-9.phtml--Sergei Frolov 17:51, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

that watch is the most cheap watch and the the most reliable

That is why bombers use that. You can not find that accuracy for this price. And a qualified basic electronic circuit, strong building.That was my first watch, i am keeping that since 1993...And it still works correctly. -- canerinmersin 03:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Bombers don't use it for its accuracy. They use it because it is available everywhere at a low price. U1Quattro (talk) 16:18, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

deleting unexplained tag

I deleted the unexplained {dispute} tag.

Like many other tags, the {dispute} tag tells interested readers to look to the talk page for a discussion of the tag. So far as I am concerned, this places a burden on the person who placed the tag to explain themselves. -- Geo Swan 07:49, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I think this paragraph should go...

The following paragraph was recently added:

"In the Combatant Status Review Tribunal summaries of evidence and hearing transcripts that the United States Department of Defence has disclosed as furnishing its reasons for illegally holding "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it is apparent that numerous persons have been imprisoned for years, largely because they possessed a Casio F91W watch. (See for example the person at page 16 of this DOD summary of evidenceand also the person at page 16 of this hearing transcript)."

I think it should be removed, because it stretches how far we can go inserting our own conclusions. Personally, I too suspect that the current detainee policy will eventually be acknowledged to have been illegal. But it is premature to state, as a fact, that it is "illegal". Citing, or quoting, an authoritative commentator, who states it is illegal is OK. But the unattributed assertion that the policy is illegal is not okay.

Similarly, what is apparent is subjective. Citing, or quoting, an authoritative commentator who states something is apparent is OK. Without a reference it is not NPOV.

The summary of evidence and transcript they cite, are those of Abdullah Kamel Al Kandari and Mazin Salih Musaid... already cited in the table.

Cheers! -- Geo Swan 14:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Move

Most of this stuff should go in a generic Guantanamo article. But this bit "When the Department of Defense was forced to comply with US District Court justice Jed Rakoff's court order to release the documents from Guantanamo detainees' Combatant Status Review Tribunals it became known that the allegations against at least 17 of the Guantanamo detainees justified their continued detention because they had been wearing this model of watch, when captured." needs to be considered carefully, the source given is a blog. Rich Farmbrough, 14:43 8 February 2007 (GMT).

Could you explain the reasoning behind your suggestion more fully?

In my opinion the wikipedia will work best if it allows readers the greatest range of choices to follow through the multidimensional universe of human knowledge. Those wikipedians -- I don't know if you are one -- who feel an omnipresent "urge to merge" articles do us all a disservice, by artificially chaining us to the inherent restrictions of paper documents. Paper documents are inherently one dimensional. The natural way to read a paper document is to start reading at the beginning, and read through to the end. And mergists want to artificially bind us into those bounds on the wikipedia.

We have an article about the Casio F91W, and we don't have articles about the hundreds of other models of digital watch, because the Casio F91W is the terrorist watch. People who come to this article are almost certainly going to be coming here because they read about the connection between this watch and terrorism.

You suggest putting the material about the terrorism connection in a generic Guantanamo article? You realize that if we followed this suggestion with every thing that touches on Guantanamo that generic Guantanamo article would be far too long to be useful. It would be too large to be rendered.

The alleged connection between the watch and terrorism is not confined to the captives held at Guantanamo. Ahmed Ressam reportedly bought two Casio F91W while on his way to bomb LAX. One of the Afghan training camps reportedly gave every alumnus a Casio F91W as a graduation gift. Would it make as much sense, if we were going to merge the terrorism related material into the article on that training camp as it would to merge it with a "generic Guantanamo article". Face it. Merging the material is going to short-change one reader or another. Far better to leave it were it is.

Can't we do the merge, and have a robot go and amend the several dozen articles that link to this article, so they point to something like [[Generic Guantanamo article#The allegation Guantanamo captives wore a Casio F91W]]? No. This is a broken idea. When an article links to another article, wikipedia editors can check the "what links here" button. But, if we have a big huge article, as you suggest, that covers multiple related topics, an editor has no way of knowing that if they change a sub-heading, it will break dozens of links. Or, an editor could decide that the material about the watch didn't belong in the Guantanamo article, and erase it, or go and try to create a new article, like [[improvised timers for improvised explosive devices]].

But, maybe I should have waited for your explanation before I marshalled counter-arguments?

Cheers! -- Geo Swan 02:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Documenting how many captives faced the allegation they wore a Casio?

• This article says "at least nine" -- Empty Evidence, National Journal, February 6 2006
• The Mother Jones article, cited in the paragraph above, says "more than a dozen" "Why Am I in Cuba?", Mother Jones (magazine), July 12 2006
• March 10 2006 -- seven days after the DoD was forced to release the documents the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says, "at least eight" *Casio watch is terror 'evidence' at Guantanamo: U.S. cases against at least 8 detainees cite the timepieces
• The documents the DoD released contain allegations that 17 captives were wearing casio F91W watches. This article cites every one of them. So, that there are at least 17 is hardly in question.

Cheers! Geo Swan 04:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Cite the DoD document. According to the article and blog post cited, there are ten. The man who is the subject of the article, and nine others. Simoncion (talk) 10:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

simply --> solely see talk

I made a couple of small changes.

IMO, whether the watch was given as a graduation present to every alumnus of Al Farouq is merely an allegation. I question whether it should be stated as a fact.

Four of the watch owners are also alleged to have attended al Farouq. Is this statistically significant? Something like 100 captives are alleged to have attended al Farouq. 558 captives had their status reconsidered by a CSRT. Let's see, my math is rusty.

558....x
---.=.---
18.....4

where x represents the number of al Farouq grads we would expect if the distribution of watch owners was unrelated to whether they attended al Farouq. The al Farouq article currently lists something like 100 alleged grads. If the distribution of watch owner was purly by change we would list 124 al Farouq grads.

We currently list something like 100. But half a dozen grads were 911 hijackers, and another half dozen are the lackawanna six. But the list isn't fully populated. The "what links here" shows 147 articles that link to al Farouq training camp. A bunch of them are redirections, or links from talk pages, or other articles that aren't bios of Guantanamo captives. But I don't think the list is fully populated.

So, how many known al Farouq grads would we need to substantiate the claim ownership of the watch indicated attendance at al Farouq?

Regarding whether the watch owners all faced more serious allegations... No offense Randy, but this is an interpretation. Please feel free to call me if you think I have lapsed from keeping my interpretations out of article space. My own interpretation is that Abdullah Kamel Al Kandari faced just three allegations:

1. That he took money to Afghanistan following 911. I found his explanation credible.
2. That his name was found on a suspicious list. This too, IMO was a BS allegation.
3. That he was the owner of a Casio F91W. He clearly owned the completely different Casio Prayer Watch.

So, what makes those other two BS allegations more serious than the BS allegation that he owned a Casio F91W?

Cheers! Geo Swan 00:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's not necessarily statistically significant that four watch owners went to that camp. But there several reasons why the ratio wouldn't matter.

I hadn't checked the dates. Some could have graduated and received their watch years earlier. In this way, the number of detainees may be meaningless. Some who got the watch may have lost or sold them or contributed them to their bomb fund. Others may have had better watches already. There may be some who had their watches stolen by the police who arrested them in Pakistan.

That CSRT did not attempt to claim ownership of the watch indicated attendance at al Farouq. It was only an indication of what may have led them to attend.

From the wording, it appears that not every al Farouq graduate received one. The reference says the watch "indicates that the detainee most likely went through the course voluntarily." This implies that the watch was conditional. Perhaps they'd get one after springing the tuition for Advanced Jihad 4201, while the weekend course on Elementary Wifebeating would only get them a certificate of achievement on recycled paper.

There's also the possibility that other training camps gave away watches too, but it wasn't cited in the CSRT unclassified sections. If so, it would skew the statistics from the other side.

I'm not convinced on Abdullah Kamel Al Kandari. His story does sound credible, but that doesn't mean anything by itself. Anyone could invent that story. He had plenty of time to think one up.

It's okay for you to doubt the importance of his name being on a hard drive but you're going one step further by saying that, because you discount that evidence, it must mean the only thing holding in GTMO is his Casio watch. That's clearly a leap in logic.

We don't know in what way his name was on that hard drive. If it was just his name among a bunch of generic Arabic names, then that's one thing. If it identified him with his profession and/or city of residence then that's something else entirely.

Or, even if it was just his name, it's still relevant if the name of one of his known friends was on the list as well. Note that the article says, "12 biographical questions security authorities asked of his family." The answers could have strengthened the connections to his name.

That's not all they have on him. The ARB also says, "The detainee's name and photograph is found on a foreign state service product that depicts the relationship between al Qaida elements and Kuwaiti extremists." There seem to be a lot of connections there. You may not think it's enough, but they make the watch pretty much irrelevant.

-- Randy2063 19:29, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

We can never be completely safe from threats of terrorism

Our counter-terrorism analysts can never fully protect us from the threats of terrorism. To do so would ruin, totally ruin, our economies. We'd have shutdown our ports. Every container ship would have to be boarded, every container opened, every package in the containeer, opened, visually inspected, and sniffed by bomb-sniffing dogs. This would be just one of the steps we would have to take if we were going to try to totally protect ourselves from the risks of terrorism. This would be tantamount to shutting down our ports... Who would do these inspections? I doubt there would be enough manpower to search every container to this level of detail, if every American GI, and every member of the Canadian Armed Forces, was pulled off whatever they were doing now, and assigned, permanently, to inspecting container ship cargo.

Would this make us more safe? Nope. Shifting GIs from NATO, and NORAD, to container inspection would leave us less safe. Geo Swan 07:25, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you here, but I think you know I'm of the opinion that we need other countries to rein in their terrorists, by force if necessary.

The call for increased container searches is generally fed by unions and politicians.

-- Randy2063 16:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

If NATO will leave Turkey in the end, you can assign as many as you can to inspect your cargos. At least, NATO personnel won't be able to do fancy things like this again. Deliogul 19:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

We need counter-intelligence analysts who are sober and professional

We need counter-intelligence analysts who are sober, unemotional, and professional, who are willing to take the calculated risks. What the transcripts show is that we have a bunch of high-strung, poorly-lead, unworldly, kids doing the bulk of the work. They are doing an absolutely terrible job, that leaves us all at much greater risk than if they had simply done nothing. Geo Swan 07:25, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Just because the detainees' so-called "human rights lawyers" say they're doing a terrible job doesn't mean that they are.

There may be some occasional snafus but I don't see any evidence that that's any worse than in civilian law, or than how the military did in previous wars. Military intelligence today is under greater pressure than they were in WWII. It's a good thing Hitler invaded the Soviet Union before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor or the U.S. war effort could then have faced some similar opposition at home.

-- Randy2063 16:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

The risk of analysis that triggers false positives

Sober, professional Epidemiologists understand the danger of analysis that triggers too many false positives.

Shortly before I turned 40 I started paying for blood tests that showed the level of "prostate specific antigen" in my blood. Guys with sky-high levels of PSA all have prostate cancer. Guys whose level of PSA undergoes a rapid change, just got cancer. But mine was only mildly elevated. The normal range for guys over forty tops out at 4.0 ppm. The normal range for guys under forther was 2.0. When I was 39 my score was 2.1. But, if I had the test six months later I would have been considered normal.

I read all these anecdotal reports of the value of the tests. Guys kept saying, "my PSA was somewhat elevated. So I had annual needle biopsies, to see if there was any hint of cancerous cells. Sure enough, after ten years of needle biopsies, I got a hit, so I had by prostate removed.

But then I read something that totally changed my mind. It seems that when you have the cadavers of otherwise healthy men, and biopsy their entire prostates. epidemiologists found that an amazingly large number of these prostates had microscopic cancer tumors in them. Cancers that don't send out a hormone that directs the local blood vessels to grow branches to start servicing the tumor never grow beyond the microscopic phase. As I recall the stat was that one third of these cadavers had microcancers.

So the needle biopsies were crap shoots. My government health insurance was totally correct not to pay for the tests. I am sorry I paid for them.

Just as there is no way counter-terrorism analysts could increase their paranoia, thus keeping us totally safe, epidemiologists couldn't keep me totally safe from prostate cancer. And, accepting the result that one third of healthy men have these micro-tumors, I realized the PSA test's value in detecting cancer did not offset the danger of a false positive. Geo Swan 07:25, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

But to apply this to the war is wrong if you're only going to count GTMO. There's no question that there is a group of people genuinely at war against us.

IIRC, the U.S. captured between 7,000 and 10,000 prisoners in Afghanistan. Most of them were released there. Only about one tenth of them were taken to GTMO. That's not a sign of excessive paranoia.

-- Randy2063 16:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

What would a guy trained to build bombs carry?

Best to buy things that could be bought in any American strip mall, or Middle Eastern bazaar, one he arrived. Why risk triggering the suspicions of border guards, for something that can be bought once you arrive?

One doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to take a pretty good guess as to what a bomb-maker making time bombs would require. Sure, a watch might be handy. But press reports say GIs consider mechanical times, like you might find in a washer or dryer

Given the terrible bad judgement of Guantanamo analysts maybe I shouldn't say this, but guy who builds his bomb from local materials would want to have a soldering iron and voltmeter. Yet, even searching for guys carrying soldering irons and voltmeters is going to trigger way more false positives that useful leads. Geo Swan 07:25, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

This is why it's important to be able to question prisoners. They need to learn more about them.

I can only assume you're reacting to my comment about the watches that they might have "contributed them to their bomb fund." That was meant to be flippant.

-- Randy2063 16:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

we can never be completely safe from threats of sheer stupidity

we need counter-intelligence analysts who are sober, unemotional, and professional; who is brainfucked enough to believe such crappy information?

"yeah, an owner (arabic appearance) of a Casio F-91W must be a terrorist. torture him!!!" oO °!° Oo

wtf, has anybody of you a clue how complicated it is, to successfully'*' disassemble a watch, in order to use it as a "bomb-timer"?! Oo

'*'afterwards the watch still has to be functional and it isn't waterproof anymore.

how gullible a person must be?

there are so many other ways to create a bomb-timer without ruining countless Casio F-91W watches... most of them are cheaper. no, really. furthermore a whole lot simpler. eg several PICmicro microcontroller will do the job

(btw, you can find microcontrollers: "in a washer or dryer "). but why so complicated? you can also buy microcontrollers here --> http://www.reichelt.de/PIC-12F-Controller/PIC-12F675-I-SN/index.html?;ACTION=3;LA=444;GROUP=A3665;GROUPID=2966;ARTICLE=44997 or somewhere else online...

and PIC-burners (writing devices for the microcontroller) aren't expensive, every hobbyist use them; --> http://www.ebay.de/itm/ICSP-PIC-Brenner-Programmierer-Programmer-USB-Programmierger-at-fur-16F-12C-12F-/141640409135?

also programming a microcontroller is really simple ... http://www.sprut.de/electronic/pic/grund/timer/timer.htm

"but i need a 7seg displays, for the cinematic effect"

no you don't

"you don't seem to understand a real terrorist attacking the USA and the rest of the western civilization, i'll kill you with an explosive device using a Casio F-91W watch as timer"

hmmkay (really useless... such a timer) --> http://www.sprut.de/electronic/pic/programm/stop.htm ; http://www.sprut.de/electronic/pic/programm/led.htm

despite all that, you still need a soldering iron. --89.204.137.198 (talk) 20:29, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Disproving hypotheses is just as important as proving them

Scientist know this. Why don't Guantanamo analysts? Why weren't gumshoes on the ground, checking the captive's alibis? Don't say the USA couldn't afford it, because Guantanamo has bene a terrible expense. The billion dollars it cost is just a fraction of its true cost. The lack of any sanity checks at Guantanamo totally polluted the pool of intelligence. No one should have any confidence whatsoever in intelligence flowing from Guantanamo. Geo Swan 07:25, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

From what I've seen, I think they did ask the detainees' countries for information on these guys, and they did receive some assistance. Sending in detectives is difficult in Arab countries. They've received very little cooperation in the Khobar Towers investigation.

Considering that many of these countries claim to want their people back, it should be them sending in the gumshoes anyway.

-- Randy2063 16:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

You called them graduates

You called them graduates of al Farouq, not alleged graduates of al Farouq. Guantanamo intelligence analysts made all the same mistkes as the analysts who helped legitimize the bogus claim that Saddam had WMD.

They changed every question mark into an exclamation point.

Every household mirror became a signalling mirror. Several of the captives faced the allegation that a search of their home found a "signalling mirror". These captives generally pointed out that the "signalling mirrors were simply ordinary mirrors used for personal grooming Every North American home has at least one mirror.

Since we know the quality of the American intelligence efforts, let's not compound their errors by repreating them. Geo Swan 07:25, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Not exactly. My comment didn't imply that any detainees had gone there who claimed not to have done so. Even if someone wishes to believe they're all innocent, it's a known fact that some of these did go to al Farouq. A few admit to it in the CSRTs, and it's a practical certainty some 9/11 hijackers went there.

Signal mirrors generally have a clear spot in the center that you can look through. It's possible that they used them only for grooming but that doesn't make them into ordinary mirrors.

Besides, there's little evidence that any of these guys ever did any grooming. :)

-- Randy2063 16:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Abdullah Kamel Al Kandari

So, why weren't the factors favoring his continued detention presented to him at his Combatant Status Review Tribunals?

Why? No reason offered. Since they weren't he couldn't try to refute them. This was typical. Most captives ARB factors were longer, and more detailed, than their CSRT allegations. I could believe a handful of captives might have had new "evidence" compiled between their CSRT and their ARB. But, I can't believe they found new evidence against ALL the men. How could captives refute allegations that they were never presented with? He can't. ARB hearings were not authorized to re-open whether the captives were enemy combatants. Geo Swan 07:25, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why they sometimes leave out the factors in the documents, but in his case you can see him responding to those allegations (page 31) so he must have seen them.

-- Randy2063 16:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I'am a terrorist!

I'am a terrorist!, i have one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.113.85.21 (talk) 10:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

hahaha, sorry good one! Markthemac (talk) 19:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

but it's easier to use an egg timer, just for the excitement :(lol) Markthemac (talk) 02:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

How do you switch to 24 hour mode?

That was what I came to this webpage for. The manufacturers website dosnt tell you either - there is no manual or faq for this model. Could anyone tell me and add it to the article please? Edit - I've just found that you press the right-hand button once. So simple.

In fact it would be nice to have a walk-through of everything you can do with this watch via its three buttons.

I bought this watch because it was the cheapest readily available watch I could find here in the UK (in other words, it was the cheapest watch in the Argos (retailer) catalogue). Perhaps this explains why so many middle-eastern people have it - they are poor by western standards, so they all buy the cheapest watch.

And, while I'm here, my watch has "DH" stamped on the back - I wonder what that stands for? 80.0.107.49 (talk) 16:56, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

In the Main watch screen it is the bottom right hand button. Says "24h" in small letters right next to it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.16.19.188 (talk) 19:02, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

You are writing about the watch being poor for European standards. It is as popular in Europe as it is in other places. The reason why Middle Eastern people bought it is the same as why European people buy it. It's a hard to beat watch for its price. U1Quattro (talk) 16:49, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

More tech info

Further information from http://www.shockwatches.co.uk/showdetails.asp?id=635 quote: "LED: A light-emitting diode (LED) is used to illuminate the watch face. Stopwatch function (1/100 - 1HR): Elapsed time, split time and final time are measured with 1/100-sec accuracy. The watch can measure times of up to 1 hour. Daily Alarm, Hourly Time Signal: The daily alarm sounds each day at the time you set. The value indicates how many daily alarms are available. The hourly time signal causes the watch to beep every hour on the hour. Battery Indicator Display: An icon appears when it is time to change the battery. 7 Years - 1 Battery: One battery will supply your watch with the power it needs for about 7 years. Full Auto Calendar: Allowances are made automatically for months of different lengths, in case date corrections for leap years are required. 12/24-hour Timekeeping: Times can be displayed in either a 12-hour or 24-hour format. Water resistance classification (WR) to DIN 8310 i.e. ISO 2281: This model is water resistant to DIN 8310 / ISO 2281, and thus is resistant to minor splashing. Any greater water contact should be avoided. Strap Style: Band Case Material: Resin Strap Material: Resin Manufacturers Part No: F-91W-1XY"—Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.0.107.49 (talk) 17:45, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

There appears no icon when the battery needs replacement. The watch would show light display and work improperly when the battery needs to be replaced. This is false information. U1Quattro (talk) 16:23, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

explanation

This edit concerned me. Its comment about the skills of American intelligence analysts is totally unreferenced.

"Trend Analysis, conducted by the United States' top intelligence analysts revealed, among other common themes, that many al Qaeda terrorists used this watch."

Personally, I don't believe it is true. It there were references, they would trump my gut feeling. But no references have been provided. So I reverted it.

The Citations needed? There are dozens of references.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 05:56, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

inexpensive?

An IP editor at 68.42.72.226 seems determined to remove the word 'inexpensive' from the article description It is re-instated now. CanOfWorms (talk) 13:43, 28 December 2008 (UTC) Current UK price at Argos is 7.79 GBP.,cheaper than any other available comparable item.

Hah, "inexpensive" is gone for good! I won! 63.201.216.74 (talk) 18:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

rough work

There is something wrong with this page -- I can't get to page 2. Page 1 lists:

1. Abdalaziz Kareem Salim al Noofayaee
2. Abdullah Kamel Abudallah Kamel
3. Abdul Matin
4. Abdul Rahman Abdul Abu Ghityh Sulayman
5. Abdul Wahab
6. Fadil Husayn Salih Hintif
7. Fahd Umr Abd al Majid al Sharif
8. Hani Abdul Muslih al Shulan
9. Humud Dakhil Humud Said al Jadan
10. Khalid Mohammed al Zaharni
11. Majid Aydha Muhammad al Qurayshi
12. Mazin Salih Musaid al Awfi
13. Mohammed Ahmad Said al Edah
14. Mosa Zi Zemmori
15. Muhammad Abd Allah Manur Safrani al Futri
16. Sabri Mohammed Ebrahim al Qurashi
17. Salih Uyar
18. Shabir Ahmed
19. Usama Hassan Ahmed Abu Kabir

Abdullah Kamel Abudallah Kamel

Mohammed Ahmad Said al Edah

Mazin Salih Musaid al Awfi

Fahd Umr Abd al Majid al Sharif

Abdalaziz Kareem Salim al Noofayaee

Majid Aydha Muhammad al Qurayshi

Abdul Rahman Abdul Abu Ghityh Sulayman

Sabri Mohammed Ebrahim al Qurashi

Muhammad Abd Allah Manur Safrani al Futri

Hani Abdul Muslih al Shulan

Humud Dakhil Humud Said al Jadan

Khalid Mohammed al Zaharni

Fadil Husayn Salih Hintif

Mosa Zi Zemmori

Salih Uyar

Usama Hassan Ahmed Abu Kabir

Abdul Wahab

Abdul Matin

Shabir Ahmed

Adil Mabrouk Bin Hamida

Rashed Awad Khalaf Balkhair

Tariqe Shallah Hassan al Harbi

Mohammed El Gharani

Mesut Sen

Ahmed Yaslam Said Kuman

Abdel Hamid Ibn Abdussalem Ibn Miftah al Ghazzawi

Omar Khalifa Mohammed Abu Bakr

Abdullah Gulam Rasoul

Mohammed Ahmed Ali al Asadi

Salah Abdul Rasul Ali Abdul Rahman al Balushi

Saeed Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah Sarem Jarabh

Muhammed Ali Hussein Khnenah

Abd al Nasir Mohammed Abd al Qadir Khantumani

Mahmud Salem Horan Mohammed Mutlak al Ali

Saifullah Paracha

Geo Swan (talk) 05:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Is this article "racist"?

A contributor excised a large part of this article, on the premise it was "racist".

Another contributor reverted that edit.

I left a request for the original excising contributor to explain why they thought that material was racist.

They left a brief reply on my talk page.

I am going to reply here.

Consider lynching. Lynching was an extreme manifestation of racism. Hardly anyone but kooks will defend lynching today. But it was once accepted enough that there were no serious investigations, and practically none of the perpetrators were punished. It was a racist phenomenon. Reporting on this phenomenon is not racist.

If lynching was still being practiced, reporting on it today would not be racist. If lynching was still being practiced today, and some wikipedia contributors were tacit supporters of lynching, I think we could expect them to challenge coverage of lynching that stated it was racist. By our policies, they would be correct to insist that coverage of topic of lynching be from a neutral point of view. Quoting human rights workers who described lynching as racist would comply with the neutrality policy. As would quoting any serious defenders of lynching.

What about coverage of this watch?

Were the allegations that wearing this watch ties one to terrorism credible? Some commentators have challenged the credibility of these allegations. Most of those challenges to the allegations date back to when the first transcripts were published. And all of those challenges underestimate how many individuals faced this allegation.

I haven't seen any serious RS defend the credibility of the allegations.

Is there a tiny grain of truth to the allegation? Ramzi bin alshibh is alleged to have developed a recipe for adapting the Casio F91W, so it could be worn, and carried around, ready to serve as a timer for a time bomb. The Casio F91W has a matte black case. According to the allegations against Ramzi bin Alshibh, two minute holes drilled in the case were the only sign the watch had been adapted. According to the allegations against Ramzi bin Alshibh, these holes were drilled at exactly the right spot that wires could be inserted, to attach to a power source, in turn attached to a blasting cap, in turn attached to some explosives. Presumably some other minute and precise adaptations would have to be done to the inside of the watch.

If security officials capture someone they suspect of being a bomber who uses time-bombs, and he or she was wearing one of these watches, should that merit a closer look? If so, what else should they look for? Well, blasting caps and explosives would be a good thing to look for. Ahmed Ressam had several of these watches, and explosives. Presumably he also had blasting caps, or reasonable equivalent. Security officials were correct to see Ahmed Ressam's possession of several of these watches as an additional cause for suspicion.

But, shouldn't the Guantanamo captives' watches themselves deserve a closer look? Did any of these watches have minute holes drilled in them to insert wires? Does they have other adaptations inside? If these watches were not modified, if the suspects were not also carrying blasting caps and high explosives, should those allegations be dismissed?

What does the public record state? Does the public record state that any of these watches had been adapted? No. I strongly suspect that either the necessary more detailed examination was not performed, or the examination cleared the watches, and their owners, of suspicion.

I suggest a comprehensive list of all the Casio watch allegations is worthwhile, because it enable readers to reach a fully informed conclusion about the allegations.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 15:53, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I do not believe a detailled list of terrorism suspects who are alleged to have used this particular model should be part of this article: it puts way too much emphasis on this model's use as a tool for terrorism. Such a list, put together with the section Claimed use in terrorism, should not account for more than 25% of the total length of the article.

The emphasis of this article should be on the fact it is a best-seller. I own one of these watches myself and I wouldn't dream of using it as a terrorist tool. Ever. Not only does the Detainees listed as having a Casio watch list the detainees, it also gives paragraph-long quotes of the Summary of Evidence memos. The entire section should go into a separate article if it is to be included in Wikipedia at all. The current state of the article gives the impression that Casio designed this watch specifically for Al-Qaida.

So what I'm saying here is that the sections Claimed use in terrorism, Detainees listed as having a Casio watch, and Components of an al Qaeda bomb-making kit, put together, should not under any circumstances account for more than 25% of the total length of this article. If that means deleting information, so be it. Geo Swan, you have to think of people who are not interested in terrorism. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 14:44, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Also, all statements that "such and such was wearing an F91W when arrested" should be removed entirely even when the statement is undeniably true. I wear a Casio F91W, does that make me a terrorist? The mere presence of such a statement anywhere in Wikipedia lends credibility to the hypothesis that Casio designed this watch with terrorism in mind. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 16:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

You own one of these watches -- how do you know you are not a terrorist? Isn't this exactly what you would say if you were a terrorist?

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Just kidding.

Seriously, like me, you read the allegations, and it didn't convince you only terrorists wore the watch, correct? We can hold ourselves responsible for providing neutrally written, well referenced material. We can't hold ourselves responsible for the conclusions our readers reach. I think we have to respect the intelligence and judgment of our readers. Sometimes they are going to reach different personal conclusions than you do, or I do. Sometimes they are going to be right to do so, and you or I will be the ones who are mistaken. Geo Swan (talk) 04:49, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, I believe statements such as "such and such wore an F91W when arrested" qualify as trivial, and the mere mention of such is detrimental to the overall quality of the article. Before mentioning it, you'd have to show that it's been proven that they wore it with intent to use it as a detonator.

You are so trusting of the reader's intelligence? Here's a conclusion an intelligent reader may draw: the author desperately wants us to believe the watch was designed primarily as a detonator, therefore the article has no credibility. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 11:13, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said quite eloquently that perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 11:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

With regard to whether the allegations are "trivial"... can I remind you that these captives were subjected to years of detention on the strength of these allegations? Could you please explain how you could dismiss allegations as "trivial", when they played a significant role in the detention, for years, of over two dozen men?

You wrote: "Before mentioning it, you'd have to show that it's been proven that they wore it with intent to use it as a detonator." Really? Could you please reconcile that statement with compliance with WP:VER? The first sentence of the first paragraph of WP:VER states that the wikipedia aims for "verifiability, not truth". It seems to me you are suggesting the allegations must be proven to be "true", before they can be included. No offense, but the allegations are verifiable, and we aren't supposed to base our contributions on what we personally think is "true".

With regard to your conclusion as to what an intelligent reader will conclude... Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. We can't predict the future. We can't read minds either. We don't know what readers will conclude. As I wrote above we need to prepare the most neutral, best referencec material we can, and trust in the intelligence of our readers. If our readers reach conclusions that differ from ours, it is a mistake to regard this as a failure. Suppressing neutrally written, well referenced, significant material, because we are afraid of what conclusions our readers will conclude is a mistake.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 04:39, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Well... just try adding that kind of information to a featured article and see what happens. Really. I'm serious. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 10:57, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment

link to version before RfC

Sheesh, read WP:COATRACK - this article is about the watch. I am pretty embarrassed that my tax dollars have supported the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, but this is not the place to talk about evidentiary shortcomings. Readers interested in the matter may follow the wikilinks; readers interested in the watch may read about it here. - Eldereft (cont.) 18:03, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that your radical excision was far too extreme. Isn't the point of a request for comment to be to gather comments, and seek a consensus, and to only act after that discussion takes place?

You have my sympathy over your embarrassment over your tax dollars being used to build and run Guantanamo and the CIA's secret interrogation camps. But it seems to me you may have let your embarrassment cloud your judgement. Over the last thirty-nine years there have probably been thousands of models of digital watch. We only have articles about a small fraction of those thousands of models of watches. Why was the Casio F91W one of the first watches to have an article written about it, and the other thousand models didn't? Why? It was the terrorism connection. Most of the thousands of models of digital watches have nothing meaningful to distinguish them from all the other models, and nothing is lost by not having a specific article about them. They are adequately covered in the section of the watch article devoted to digital watches.

The alleged terrorism connection is what made this watch remarkable enough for an article.

Please look at Category:Casio watches. Some of the other article on watches are weak. I wouldn't try to defend some, like the Casio Data Bank, if they were nominated for deletion. Others are problematic, but not as problematic as the data bank, because they lack reliable, authoritative, independent sources.

There are other remarkable, iconic watches, about which strong, well referenced articles can be written. Rolex watches are iconic, known for being a super-premium, super high-quality watch. The Timex Ironman is iconic for being the premium sportsman's watch. And the Casio F91W is iconic for being the watch associated with terrorist bombmakers. Let's be frank. If it weren't for the alleged terrorism connection the only possible reason for this watch to be more remarkable than any of the watches that compete at its price point is that it may be been more successful than most of its competitors. And I don't believe we cover a single one of the other watches that compete at its price point.

Finally, let me address your mention of the WP:COATRACK essay. I would never dispute that this essay raises some interesting points. But I am generally quite frustrated by how this essay is used.

The author came up with some cute names for the various examples of what he or she regarded as coatracks. I think "wongo juice" is the cutest name. What I have found in other discussions where COATRACK was called upon as an authority is that those who refer to the coatrack essay cant or won't be specific as to which of the sub-classification the essay named they thought applied. I regard this as a big weakness of how this essay is used. Do you care to be specific as to which example you think this essay came closest to?

Second, it frustrates me that this ESSAY is often called upon as if it had the authority of policy. It is simply an ESSAY, a summary of a particular argument, from a particular point of view, and has no more inherent authority than any other argument. Geo Swan (talk) 13:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I freely admit that I may have been to bold - all excised material is still in the history if I was. I removed very little material relevant to the watch (for instance, the bit about drilling holes in the back might legitimately be expanded upon), and a great deal of off-topic material; additionally, blockquotes should be used sparingly if at all. I also removed several reliable sources (e.g. the New York Times), as they did not seem to treat the topic in more than passing detail. I would not be opposed to expanding on reports that some intelligence officials consider wearing this watch "relevant data" in terrorism investigations, provided that such discussion is brief and centered on the watch. Long digressions should be replaced with relevant wikilinks.

Linking that essay succinctly summarizes my first encounter with this article - it dealt at least as much with an unrelated issue as it did with the ostensible topic. The relevant policy is Undue weight. - Eldereft (cont.) 19:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• Previously uninvolved RFC comment, listing detainees who have used this watch seems well outside the scope of the article. Many people have presumably owned one of these watches; it's among the most common personal electronic devices in the world. I can only assume that such a list is meant to WP:SOAPBOX. That is not a valid reason for including it in the article. Cool Hand Luke 04:46, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• With regard to the article's scope, as I wrote above we haven't covered any of the watches that compete at the CASIO F91W's price point. The thing that made this watch stand out was the alleged terrorist connection. I suggest that means it is within the article's scope.

• It is important, if we are going to be collegial, to acknowledge when we may have made mistakes, had tunnel vision, or to have made contributions that once held value, but whose value has eroded. I am going to do so here. When I started this article I quoted or paraphrased the specific allegation that connected the watch with the captive. At that time the DoD first published the transcripts from the captives' CSR Tribunals, they did so in a highly obfuscated form. They weren't in alphabetic order by the captives' name. They weren't in numeric order by the captives' ID number. And the DoD had not published an index. Seven weeks later they published a list of names and ID numbers. This made it possible to find a specific captive's transcript. But, to do so required scanning through all 6,000 pages of transcripts published at that time. That meant that finding a specific captive's documents could take all day. So, for the first six captives I found whose detention was justified because they owned this watch I included a quote or paraphrase of the allegation. In late 2007 the DoD published another 6,000 pages of more recent documents -- and indices that made it a lot easier to find a captives' documents -- reducing the time to find a document from all day to about ten minutes. In late November 2008 the New York Times scanned in 16,000 pages of documents, and made them searchable. Further reducing the time to find a specific document from ten minutes to about thirty seconds.

• Here is my acknowledgement of tunnel vision. Since the specific allegations can be found more quickly now I don't think it is necessary to quote or paraphrase each allegation. And possibly, when the list had grown to contain four times as many names, it was no longer necessary to be comprehensive and include each individual allegation. It could have simply listed those captives who were alleged to own a single Casio F91W. I now think I was in a state of tunnel vision, and that level of detail was no longer necessary.

However, one captive was alleged to be carrying two Casio F91Ws. Ahmed Ressam, the millenium bomber, also carried two Casio F91Ws. That is harder to explain than a single watch. And I continue to think he deserved specific mention. Abdullah Kamel Al Kandari, and another captive were alleged to own Casio F91Ws, but described their watches in their testimony, and gave very clear descriptions of a much more expensive Casio Prayer Watch -- a watch that looks nothing like the Casio F91W. Two other captives were alleged to own Casio F91Ws, but described watches with built-in calculators. Casio has made several models with built in calculators, which also look nothing like the Casio F91Ws.

As I stated above I believe Eldereft's excision was too hasty and extensive. The watches alleged role in the construction of terrorist time bombs is important. And I believe that Eldereft was mistaken to cut it back to a mere passing reference. Geo Swan (talk) 14:40, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

FWIW: I think the concerns about undue weight might be resolved by creating a new article about this, and then linking the small section we have now to that.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 03:52, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Remove anything about terrorism, terrorists or Guantanamo detainees from this article, per WP:COATRACK. By all means put the material in a more approriate article. This article should be about the watch. 19:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The particular model of this brand is heavily used in military across all globe because of its durability and low power use. There are armies who are known to order million of them in bulk. I guess someone from military should put their own knowledge, preferably before terrorism section. I suspect the police could be doing the same thing too. Ilgaz (talk) 15:52, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this page was turning into a WP:COATRACK for the "use in terrorism" issue. Per Ilgaz's suggestion I moved the list of detainees to a separate section and included a shorter "details" link here. -Sorenr (talk) 06:42, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

What needs to happen now is for (a) Geo Swan to leave and (b) List of Guantanamo Bay detainees accused of possessing Casio watches to be quietly deleted at some point in the future. Once that is taken care of, problem solved! -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 22:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

differences in older watches and newer ones.

A couple of differences in the article to the older watch I have:

1) "assembled in China" vs. Korea

2) LED vs. incandescent back light.

66.114.93.6 (talk) 22:48, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

That is not true as the F-91W is assembled in China as well as Thailand and Japan. Plus the bew model has a green LED back light Vs the amber LED blacklight in the original model along with the "CASIo" test. U1Quattro (talk) 05:04, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

F-91 (and other 590/593 modules) always had LED light. But older versions had an LED with wire pins, modern ones (at least my 2011 F-84) have an SMD 1206 LED.

Siealex (talk) 19:07, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

CASIo

I've just removed:

When the lower right button is held down for more than 3 seconds, the word 'CASIo' is displayed on the LCD.

This does not work on my watch. While this may be original research, so was the original statement it seems, so I'm removing it as unsourced. JRawle (Talk) 20:03, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

All Casio 593 modules seem to do the CASIo trick, at least on real ones. 78.101.85.132 (talk) 18:27, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I bought a pink one a few days ago (1st September 2011) and the casio trick works for me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.162.143.42 (talk) 15:24, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

It is used to distinguish original watches from fake ones so if your watch does not display that, it's a fake. U1Quattro (talk) 16:59, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

CASIo

This works on my watch too. In fact I added a more detailed version of this post a while back. What do we need to do to make this stay on the page? There are obviously a number of watches that this works for, and apparently some that it does not work for. It's obviously evident to me and whoever posted that note after me. How do we prove it? Shall I take a photo? Get an official statement from Casio? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.45.195 (talk) 11:25, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

(My note was removed on 04:25, 16 July 2009 Zippy (→Trivia: del unsourced trivia (and incidentally, unable to duplicate on my own Casio F-91W))

04jtb (talk) 11:24, 16 January 2010 (UTC) I have photographed my watch doing this, [1]

None of the items in the Trivia section is referenced. Unfortunately, you really need to cite a reliable source in order to add information to an article. Taking a picture of your own watch falls foul of Wikipedia:No original research. Incidentally, if you do ever want to include images in an article, you should licence them appropriately and upload them to Wikipedia, not link to an external photo-sharing site. JRawle (Talk) 15:21, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

CASIo

My F91W does not show "CASIo" when holding the lower right button down for any length of time either, as some have noted. At the very least the article should be changed to say that some of these show "CASIo". This should stop others from removing the reference entirely.

Still going fine after over 13 years on the original battery! (I almost never use the alarm or light) 118.92.49.138 (talk) 23:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you have a pirate copy of the watch? 203.14.156.27 (talk) 13:37, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

My old (early 90's) watch doesn't do that either. 66.114.93.6 (talk) 04:24, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

And yet, here is a picture of it happening:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Casio_F-91_Module_593_Displaying_CASIo.jpg

Original source: http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg201/jacktaylor-timmy/Misc/BILD0610.jpg

Also see the bottom two comments here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Casio_F91W&oldid=330706891

Alas, all of this is original research, and cannot be added to the article unless someone digs up a source. Guy Macon (talk) 16:09, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Right. Even the F-94W shows "CASIo" when the lower right button is pressed for 3 sec. Why was the reference to the F-94W, that i added removed? Any explanations?Yottamaster (talk) 05:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

My Casio A159 with the same 593 module does not show this too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.202.187.153 (talk) 12:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

My A168 does show it.217.238.173.252 (talk) 13:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

This works ONLY on watches produced approx. 2010 or later! My old F-91 and W-59 do NOT display this, but my 2011 F-84 does.

Siealex (talk) 19:05, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Request: numbers

If anyone could be so kind as to dig up some production numbers and perhaps numbers of watches distributed broken up by country, area, or continent, then adding that to the article might add background to the terrorism allegations. Given that the price of these watches is rather low, the numbers will be high, but how high?

Also, clarification on the popularity of this watch with british special forces might be useful. With or without numbers. Since harsh environments means more breakage than usual, they might "use up" more watches than most other people. How much more? Should be interesting to find out. And, oh, a primary source reference please. 77.164.22.201 (talk) 23:13, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

It is doubtful that Casio would ever release sales or production figures. That sort of information is usually a closely-guarded secret. It is also doubtful that anyone chooses this particular watch for harsh environments. That's what the G-Shock watches were created for. In particular, the Casio GWM5610B [ http://www.casio.com/products/Timepiece/G-Shock/GWM5610B-1/ ] is very popular among elite military units (my personal experience, don't have a cite). Guymacon (talk) 19:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd be astonished if the F-91W was used by the military special forces of any nation. It's an excellent watch for what it costs (I have one), but it has very limited waterproofing and a poor backlight, and the accuracy is nothing special. When you're going on $1m missions you don't wear a $10 watch. --Ef80 (talk) 19:34, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

About Underrating

In plain words, it lasts longer, is more accurate, and resists water more than stated in the article. That's facts. No wonder it continues to be "a huge seller" - You don't too often get reliability AND accuracy for ten bucks that could easily surpass a hundred, even thousand dollar piece. Just for the record, I broke two hellar expensive watches, and I must say it's a relatively easy thing to do. But not the F91W. This one was made to last, so it does.

You've clearly never subjected it to certain categories of organic solvents.©Geni 17:30, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Clearly I haven't, because it's plastic. But that's not really "use", is it? You don't subject a metal and glass hand piece to sulfuric acid either. By the way it's still working on my wrist and I finally measured how accurate it is: mine rushes 6 seconds per month, 72 for an year that is. According to official regulations, that's accurate enough to be classified as a chronometer (not chronograph). So forget about +/- 6 minutes an year - not true. Oh, and I still haven't changed battery, nor has it leaked water.

Possible source

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/apr/28/casio-f-91w-watch-design-hipsters-al-qaida

©Geni 17:30, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Primary Sources

The sources involved in these edits [2] are all primary sources, to wit court/tribunal documents involving charges against various living persons. Per WP:BLPPRIMARY: Exercise caution in using primary sources. Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses. That is the rationale for removing references to these sources. There are adequate independent secondary sources on the text without resort to these kinds of sources. Fladrif (talk) 19:15, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

This is not a BLP so WP:BLPPRIMARY does not apply. Secondary sources are prefered but this article needs more references, not less. --Racklever (talk) 19:42, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

BLPPRIMARY isn't limited to BLP's. It applies anytime an assertion is made about a living person in any article. Fladrif (talk) 19:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Hyphen in product name?

F-91W

Nowhere on the Casio website are F91W or any other names of similar watches hyphenated like F-91W. It is not listed this way on Amazon either. Based on the currently nominated for deletion F105W article, no one can seem to decide what form is correct. BoxOfChickens (talk · contribs · CSD/ProD log) 22:19, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

See image. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:12, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

It appears that the name was most likely officially changed by Casio (all newer watches do not have hyphens in the name), however it still remains on the watch as F-91W. BoxOfChickens (talk · contribs · CSD/ProD log) 22:31, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Casio F-91W. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070222074351/http://www.thebostonchannel.com:80/news/7879445/detail.html to http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/7879445/detail.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080704000658/http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0203nj4.htm to http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0203nj4.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080330072511/http://www.casio.com:80/products/Timepiece/Classic/F91W-1/ to http://www.casio.com/products/Timepiece/Classic/F91W-1/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 15:47, 16 November 2016 (UTC)