[WikiEN-l] Re: minor issue, but still a npov warning

Sat Jan 15 16:36:19 UTC 2005

Delirium a écrit:
> Anthere wrote:
> 
>> Till yesterday, the information on landing and on the probe was 
>> entirely in the mission article. Even today, most of the information 
>> was still in the mission article, not on the landing one. To such a 
>> point there is currently no wikipedia reference on the net about the 
>> landing article. Wikipedia reference is on the mission article.
> 
> 
> Why would that be the right thing to do?  The landing is merely one part 
> if the mission---The [[Apollo 11]] page, by comparison, doesn't have one 
> article on the trip *to* the moon, and a separate article on the moon 
> landing.  There's one article on the entire mission, trip and landing, 
> and then separate articles on the equipment, like the lunar module. 

You cannot compare I think.
Unless I am wrong, the Apollo II main mission was to go on the moon. So, 
the craft, the mission and the equipement may be confused in one 
reference. Also, it was set only by only one country.

In this case, the Cassini mission is multiple, and releasing a probe is 
only one of its mission among others. Among its mission, there is a 
mission of carrying a probe. But there are other missions. So that makes 
sense to differenciate the mission of one craft, with the mission of one 
of the object it is carrying, because the goals of both parts were 
different. The engineers working on one part had for the goal to reach 
one place in the universe in good shape, the other engineers had the 
goal of landing titan and getting data. This is not the same mission, so 
it makes sense that there are not treated under the same name entirely, 
though obviously an article under mixed name is due.

The second point, and the one which really makes me react is simply that 
both parts, even if of course the job was a common job, were not created 
by the same people, from the same nation.

The probe landing is a HUGE success for the european space industry. In 
particular after recent failure. Huge means for all this industry new 
blood, more money etc...
While repeated failure would mean basically strongly reducing space 
activity for Europe.

You may find this minor issue. It is not.
The mission is certainly a big success for both NASA and ESA. But it has 
a special meaning for Europe in particular. And if the probe landing had 
failed, it would have been amply advertised that the US mission was a 
success while the ESA mission was a disaster.

So, honesty would be to fairly report a european success as a european 
success. Yesterday, in one of the article, there were some external 
links to pictures and report of the probe landing and picture labelled 
as [[cassini images]].

Sorry, if you feel that it is NPOV, you are either very blind, or very 
political.

  So,
> here, the landing should be in [[Cassini-Huygens]], unless we're talking 
> about detailed information about how the landing was carried out by the 
> probe or something like that.
> 
> I don't see how this is American bias, either.  The European Space 
> Agency's own website containing the pictures of the landing has a title 
> of "Cassini-Huygens", and is located here:
> http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html
> 
> The ESA's gallery with the pictures is entitled "Cassini-Huygens images" 
> (left sidebar on the above site).
> 
> I just don't see *anyone*, including the ESA, using "Huygens" as a 
> separate
  name for the landing, only as the name of the piece of
> equipment. 

http://www.google.fr/search?as_q=&num=10&hl=fr&btnG=Recherche+Google&as_epq=huygens+probe&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=

Google search on "Huygens probe" used as alone an expression : 164 000 
results.

Besides, what you say is just wrong.
Look at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/

It is written in this page :

15 January 2005   Audio data collected by the Huygens Atmospheric 
Structure Instrument (HASI) etc...
14 January 2005   Europe reaches new frontier – Huygens lands on Titan
14 January 2005   Radio astronomers confirm Huygens entry in the 
atmosphere of Titan
14 January 2005   Huygens descent timeline
12 January 2005   Huygens trajectory spot on

The word used on the ESA site for the landing IS Huygens.

BBC report : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4121515.stm

Word used to refer to all landing events : Huygens probe

Another source : http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/huygens-mission.cfm
What are the references for the landing : Huygens.

NOT Huygens-Cassini.

There is a good reason for this : this is the Huygens probe.

  So it would seem reasonable that we use the name that both
> NASA and the ESA use, which is "Cassini-Huygens".
> 
> -Mark

It would be reasonable to use the word everyone use for the probe and 
the landing, and the only one fair in reporting the reality. The probe 
is called Huygens probe. And it is the probe which landed and took 
pictures. Not the Cassini.