Eclecticology (Ray Saintonge) wrote in part:
Maveric149 (Daniel Mayer) wrote:
>Ec wrote:
>>It should be taken out because it is both a
characterization
>>and unnecesary for identifying the incident.
>It should only be taken out if it is deemed
unnecessary for identifying
>the incident.
I basically agree with this. Somebody else noted that the name
"St. Valentine's Day Massacre" is wrong, since only 7 people were killed.
But [[St. Valentine's Day]] is ambiguous, and there is no good alternative.
[[St. Valentine's Day gang killing]] /would/ be nice --
if anybody actually called it that! But they don't.
With that you make it sound as though you are agreeing
with me.
But I also agree with this. [[September 11 attack]] is probably enough.
Certainly [[September 11, 2001 attack]] is enough.
This leaves the question of [[September 11 terrorist attack]],
/if/ [[September 11 attack]] is actually ambiguous;
I'll address that below.
>Otherwise we would have to rename [[My Lai
Massacre]], [[Boston
>Massacre]], (many, many other 'massacres'),
Another good point about these is that they're /fixed names/.
Light [[St. Valentine's Day Massacre]], they are capitalised --
not proof, but good evidence in English of some sort of standard name.
There is no standard proper name for 9/11 in English yet,
but there may well be in, say, 10 years. And in 10 years,
if the standard proper name is [[September 11 Terrorist Attack]],
then I would have to agree with that (capitalised!) title.
Although if you want my prediction for the title in 10 years:
[[Nine Eleven]]. Shall we take bets? ^_^
>Self-censorship is the worse kind.
I would call it restraint by avoiding inflammatory
titles.
This is also a good point -- it doesn't override common names,
because while [[St. Valentine's Day Massacre]] may be inflammatory,
it's a /necessary/ inflammation, if we are to use a common name.
The article body is the place to explain that only 7 people were killed.
But in choosing between [[September 11, 2001 attack]]
and [[September 11 terrorist attack]]
(under the assumption that [[September 11 attack]] is ambiguous),
then I believe that Ec's point becomes important.
Only article bodies can go into the depth necessary
to be /truly/ NPOV -- to explain the intracies of differing opinions.
But article titles can still show restraint.
Also, using dates to disambiguate historical events
is just good policy (at the level of naming convention),
since they almost always work.
-- Toby