[WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

[Delirium]

stevertigo wrote:

>>Many operation names get trumped by popular usage, which is as it should
>>be. If there is not yet a clear popular usage, fall back to official
>>names. Only if there are dueling official names, with no popular
>>preference, does it make sense to invent a term. NPOV shouldn't even
>>be a consideration, save it for the article.
>>    
>>
>
>Sometimes we have to make up our own names. I refer occasionally to the 
> [[Iraq disarmament crisis]] - something coined by me. 
>We could also do that in these cases, following established 
>conventions for neologisms representing events. 
>Naming is part of POV. Either we have a culture that respects NPOV or we do not.
>  
>
I think this is basically right, and agree that the analogy to 
POV-titled bills and so on isn't quite right either.  A bill is a 
specific document, that has a name.  A military operation is also a 
specific thing, with a name.  However, our articles are usually not 
specifically on the military operations---they're on the conflict, 
giving information from both sides, outside interventions, lead-up, 
aftermath, etc.  For example, the U.S. operation in the Gulf War was 
entitled Operation Desert Storm, but a lot of the contents of [[Gulf 
War]] are not strictly part of Operation Desert Storm.  For example, the 
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was part of the Gulf War, but not part of 
Operation Desert Storm.  So Gulf War is a better name, and in that case 
also happens to be by far the most widely used name, which is nice.

More to the point, there are multiple sides to conflicts, and they may 
each have their own names for the conflict.  I think we should only use 
one side's name if it's become ingrained in popular usage.  For example, 
[[Operation Barbarossa]] (Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union) 
and the [[Al-Aqsa intifada]].  Those are relatively few, though; in this 
case the Israeli operation name is rarely used by English-language media 
or commentary, and in fact it was over a day before anyone source 
outside Wikipedia even tried translating it from Hebrew.

-Mark