[WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

[Fastfission]

This has come up a few times. Here was what I thought the most
reasonable solution was: if the operation name is obviously meant to
influence your opinion about the validity/success of the operation
itself, it should not be used as the article title, and instead
something more neutral and descriptive should be used.

So "Operation Barbarossa" -- no problem. "Operation Crossroads" -- no
problem. "Operation Just Cause" -- should be "United States invasion
of Panama" (which it is). "Operation Iraqi Freedom" -- should be
something more neutral (it is currently "Iraq War", which I find a
little too ambiguous, personally, since there have been many Iraq
Wars, but anyway, anything is better than the operation name).

This seemed to me to be commonsensical and in compliance with our NPOV
policy (which trumps MOS, mind you). Most of the operation names are
not, in fact, what the names of such operations are best known by in
English (I ran some numbers with Operation Just Cause awhile ago and
some variation on "U.S. invasion of Panama" was almost always used
first, with the operation name secondarily used if used at all).

However there have been many who have objected to such an idea on some
sort of ill-seated notion that the official name for something is
always the best title of an article. I think that's pretty silly even
if we didn't have a NPOV policy.

FF

On 7/13/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> A customary part of [[military terminology]] is the usage and promotion of military
> terms to frame political disputes in the language of a particular POV, or else to frame
> indecent acts of violence in sterile and quasi-scientific language. "Liquidation" and
> "pacification" are probably the most canonical examples; from WWII and the Vietnam War,
> respectively. The Rumsfeldian usage of the term "humane" also comes to mind.
>
> Current issues, include the inclusion of the term "Operation Just Desserts" in the
> [[2006 Israeli-attacks on Lebanon]] article in the lede. Likewise the article
> [[Operation Summer Rains]] also a military, hence POV nomenclature and hence needs
> renaming, though I cannot myself determine what to call it.
> Is it an "incursion" (ie. "a limited incursion into the country of Congress") or an
> "invasion", a "retaliation" or a "retribution" etc.
>
> -Stevertigo
>
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