Talk:Lists of allied military operations of the Vietnam War/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Does anybody ever look here?

There's a tag on this article suggesting that editors discuss cleaning up the article here. It's having zero effect. There are two very active editors on the article, who obviously don't look at tags and don't read Talk pages. Not sure how to get their attention. Vandalise the page with an Edit summary to look here? From experience, such editors tend not to read Edit summaries either!

Between them, the two editors have made five entries on Talk pages out of thousands of edits. Does anyone else have a suggestion? HiLo48 (talk) 08:13, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

How about their user talk pages? If that don't work, revert them. It should get their attention. --JokerXtreme (talk) 23:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

So what do you want to discuss HiLo? User: Mztourist (talk) 02:36, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Why is stuff like this allowed, but all the pointlessly detailed pop culture fancruft is immediately deleted? 134.10.18.182 (talk) 06:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

By date

This page would be much, much more better if it was listened by date instead of the alphabetical order we have now. Of course, people aren't going to pay attention to me and this page as this talk page is empty. At least I tried.--Ace Oliveira (talk) 22:25, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Then it would be a chronology... User:Mztourist(talk) 02:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It would a list AND a chronology, and probably more useful to most readers. Except to those with profound inside knowledge, the military code names for operations are a fairly useless identifier. Date (and place) would be far more useful reference tools. HiLo48 (talk) 02:44, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

OK so how do you do that? Mztourist (talk) 03:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

>:|... How does he know what? And by the way I think HiLo48 is totally right, listing the operations by date would be more useful to most people. Indigochild 23:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Split

What do you think about splitting this article into parts like "List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (A-F)", "List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (G-K)" etc? Kubek15 write/sign 10:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Hilo is suggesting it should be a chronology rather than an alphabetical list. Ideally I'd like it to be able to be sorted by date, location, units like in an excel spreadsheet, which would make it much more useful, but I'm not sure if that's possible in Wikipedia. Mztourist (talk) 10:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Whatever, we certainly need some major slimming surgery one way or another. For the first time in many weeks I just tried opening the whol article and update history. Took far too long. It's almost unusable! HiLo48 (talk) 08:05, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Split it already, per the below issue with the refs (1000+ times! x_x) and the page load time is unbearable. I don't care if it's alphabetical or chronological (prolly support the latter a bit more though), but it really needs to be split. → fetch·comms 23:56, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Fix

Can anyone fix the problem that big amount of references isn't shown because there are no letters left and 'Ran out of custom backlink labels. Define more in the MediaWiki:Cite references link many format backlink labels message; see Help:Cite errors.' is displayed? Thanks in advance.


  • The article uses the same named reference 1043 times, resulting in the error message and a long, ugly and useless string of backlinks
  • There are 581 other references
  • For many registered editors, the article will never load unless they log out and force it to re-cache, and it still takes a long time

You either need to split the article or use an alternative reference system such as {{scref}} / {{scnote}}. The {{scref}} / {{scnote}} system has some issues, but it will get you past this problem.

Inline cites will not link into a scrolled or collapsed box.

  • The date column uses date ranges, thus will not sort as intended.

Either make the column unsortable or use {{dts}}

---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 18:19, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The number of backlinks have been increased to 831. Apparently this resolves the issue by allowing backlinks through and. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 17:18, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Operation Twiceknahms

Were there really two , a week apart, by the same military organisation? I thought the point of operation names was to avoid confusion! There are plenty of other examples. Rich Farmbrough, 08:37, 21 May 2010 (UTC).

Split

OK I took the bull by the horns and split the page. All but the first page (A-F) will need some work on the references, possibly Anomie-bot will help with a little persuasion. The top and tail of the lists will need to be considered. Also whether to maintain an alpha list AND a chronological list. Rich Farmbrough, 14:57, 21 May 2010 (UTC).

Allied? Very US centric title

Noting the use of the word allied in the title, with whom are the forces listed allied? The United States, of course. Have any of the editors tried to see the war from the North Vietnamese perspective? Did it not have allies? Being in Australia at the time, I recall being told that those evil communists in China were helping them. All part of the Yellow Peril, the Domino theory, and all that. Doesn't that make China and North Vietnam allies?

Let's get the language right.

HiLo48 (talk) 08:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

You have a perfectly valid point. Any suggestions about a new title? --JokerXtreme (talk) 23:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

During the war the US/ARVN/other forces were either called Free World or Allied forces. Allied is generally used in relation to US + others operations so that's why it was adopted here. It is not a list of VC/NVA operations, which is why it is not named from their perspective, also the Vietnamese refer to the Vietnam War as the American War. If you can suggest a more appropriate title we will consider it User:Mztourist (talk) 02:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The article explicitly Wikilinks the word allied to a place where it is defined as alliances in WWI, WWII, the Gulf and Irag. NOT Vietnam. If you want to argue for a different definition you will need to update that article and this one WITH references. I certainly don't recall the term being used that way for Vietnam. Names allegedly used at the the time for what I would argue were propaganda purposes are not encyclopaedic now. HiLo48 (talk) 02:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

How about this source? Carolingian (talk) 03:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

That source simply proves my original point that it is all about the US perspective. This is a global encyclopaedia. We have to better than that. HiLo48 (talk) 03:13, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the Allied page is definitive, but tell us what you think the article should be called? Mztourist (talk) 03:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually if we adopted a Vietnamese perspective (even today) I think the page would have to be something catchy like "American Imperialist and puppet aggressors oppression and murder missions." Following your original line of reasoning, isn't Coalition a very US-centric definition of the current operations in Afghanistan? I wonder what the Taliban call it? Mztourist (talk) 03:52, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Speculation won't help, nor will making propaganda like fun of people you seem to want to treat like an enemy. I repeat, this is a global encyclopaedia, not an American one. I want neither the North Vietnamese nor the US perspective. We need independent, reliable, objective sources to back up what we write. The word "allies" has more than one meaning, including things other than the USA's military and political friends. HiLo48 (talk) 04:46, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not really speculation, if you have ever visited Vietnam you will know that that propaganda is still the official style for discussing the war here. I am merely making the point that "balance" is actually quite subjective. The US forces called themselves the Allied or Free World forces, the North Vietnamese called the US "Imperialist Aggressors" and the South Vietnamese, South Koreans etc "puppet forces" (and continue to refer to them that way). I totally agree on the need for reliable, objective sources and would invite you to comment specifically on the quality of Carolingian's sources and contributions to this article. I ask yet again, what is your suggestion for the title of this article??? Mztourist (talk) 05:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

How about "List of military operations during the Vietnam War by the USA and its allies"? Same idea, just more even-handed use of the word allies, IMHO. HiLo48 (talk) 05:58, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

That is even more US-centric! The Vietnam War spanned Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos and ran from 1959-1975 in Vietnam. US forces were only involved in a big way from about 1962-1973, so I don't think your proposed title really covers it. "List of anti-communist military operations of the Vietnam War" would be more appropriate.Mztourist (talk) 06:36, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

My aim has been to remove the inference from the title that only the US and its friends were allies. Allies aren't just on the US side. But I think I see your point, that sometimes the USA wasn't involved. Am I right? I'm not sure that anti-Communist is safe as a definition of the chosen enemy. Was that really the only goal? I suspect that in the early days within Vietnam itself, it was really just a civil war for power. Ideologies like communism meant less than who had the power and the wealth. Wars are rarely about just the labels used by one side at the time. HiLo48 (talk) 06:49, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes not all the operations involved the US, but I think you are over-analysing the implications of a word whether its "Allied" or "anti-communist". I don't think anyone reading the title will be any more confused by the use of Allied in this article than to who is being referred to in "Coalition combat operations in Afghanistan." "Allied" has come to mean the US + other (usually Western) nations, whereas "allies" obviously can obviously refer to any alliance. I don't think we're going to agree on a new title so we will just leave it as it is. Mztourist (talk) 07:47, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the title should remain as it is. Anti-communist may not be a good term either. Allied meant US and allies in the WWII. I don't think that it was used for Vietnam anywhere outside the US. --JokerXtreme (talk) 08:29, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
In any war, language is one of the tools used. Both allied and anti-communist are non-neutral words, particularly in the context of the USA's involvement in the Vietnam war. Those who encourage their use would generally be wanting readers to see the actions being described in a positive light. That's obviously not a NPOV approach. I cannot easily think of an alternative apart from the one I've given above. My personal belief (yes, POV I know, but this is Talk) is that it's all about the US and its allies trying to influence the situation in that area of SE Asia. I don't see much wrong with my earlier suggestion. To criticise it for being restricted to Vietnam is clearly a criticism of the current title too. HiLo48 (talk) 08:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

HiLo, I don't think many readers would put the same moral loading on the word "allied" as you obviously do. How do you think a reader would "see the actions being described in a positive light"? By association with the righteous Allies of WWI or II? I think pretty much everyone knows that the US and its allies lost the Vietnam War, whether that was a good or bad thing is up to the reader to decide. How is anti-communist non-neutral? As you noted US involvement was at leats partly driven by the Domino Theory - the belief that failing to take a stand against communism in South Vietnam would lead to the fall of all of Indochina, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore etc. So the "Free World" forces gathered to fight communism and there is no doubt that the NVA, Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao were communists (of whatever shade). There's an argument that the early VC were nationalists, but as in most communist takeovers, the nationalists were soon co-opted or neutalised by the communist North Vietnamese. So anti-communist seems to be perfectly valid. Mztourist (talk) 14:31, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I think Anti-Communist forces is good enough. Hell, we even use it on the Vietnam War article. That's my two cents.--Ace Oliveira (talk) 00:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I also vote for List of anti-communist military operations of the Vietnam War. I think the discussion is over now. As I see, no-one here seems to vote for "allied" instead of "anti-Communist". The term "anti-Communist" may be good both from the Anti-Communist and the Communist perspective. Seen from the "communist perspective", the Vietnam War was an attack against North Vietnam. And by them, "Anti-Communist" is a negative word. Seen from the "anti-communist perspective" the US had the absurd understanding of it as that they did it to "free the world for communist slavery". Also, the USA actually used the world "anti-communist" on themselves during the Cold War. Also, South Vietnamese totalitarian leaders Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thieu considered themselves anti-communist. They were anti-communist in the way that they fought against regimes and rebels that considered themselves communists. That is a neutral term. Believe me. The article will soon be moved to anti-communist, replacing the word "allied". I was even SHOCKED when I saw it stay "allied" there. --188.113.91.110 (talk) 15:00, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

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