[WikiEN-l] POV nomenclature

Thu Jul 13 18:11:59 UTC 2006

stevertigo wrote:

>--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>
>>If it's an official name, then that's what it's called. What's next,
>>renaming articles on companies and products because their names were
>>chosen to have positive associations? We could have such winners as
>>"[[computer company named after irrelevant fruit]] is the maker of
>>the [[Apple variety chosen because the name has a snappy abbreviation]]."
>>
>
>People should note that Stan's term, "official," also is POV.
>I shouldnt have to expand on that point.
>
We're not in the business of trying to impose our notion of NPOV
on organizations whose very reason for being is to take a side.
Do you think we should retitle the articles on "Department of
Defense", or "Planned Parenthood", or "Operation Save America"
(formerly "Operation Rescue" apparently). What about the "Freedom
of Access to Clinic Entrances Act"? I'm sure there are lots of
people who consider that term to be objectionably POV. Why are
we using [[People's Republic of China]] instead of "communist
China" which is far more common form, and [[Republic of China]]?
Even the article on ROC says "Taiwan" has become a more common
form.

We're not going to do a very good job of reporting other people's
POVs if we insist on inventing our own terminology to use in
lieu of theirs.

>>It's quite another to assert that military operation  names are
>>unencyclopedic or so POV that they should not be used in the WP.  The
>>operation names are just designators for an event, and are often both
>>the most common and only popularly known public label for those events
>>(Desert Storm, for example).
>>
>
>Again "most common", "most known" etc. are not significant points.
>The 2003 Invasion of Iraq article for example, according to your view,
>should be called "Operation Iraqi Freedom."
>
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.

Stan