Talk:Yemen requests reevaluation of U.S. ground operations on its soil following raid

Reporter's note

I'd also like this article to mention the implications that this may have for the Trump administration, but I want to keep it fair and neutral. The more eyes the better. Ideally, I'd like to draw a parallel between this and Benghazi. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:36, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Seal's name

The Navy Seal's real name, William Owens, is shown in an image in the CBS file, given as "William 'Ryan' Owens." Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:17, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

"American" citizen

A note on the "US is a country; America is a supercontinent" comment: "America" is indeed the country the United States of America and "American" is the corresponding adjective (also the only nationwide demonym). In American English it is actually quite rare to hear "America" or "American" used to refer to North and South America together, though I understand this is less rare in British English (and the Spanish words "americano" and "estadounidense" are another matter altogether). For that, we'd say "the Americas" or "New World" or more likely either "North America(n)" or "South America(n)."

Oxford Dictionaries, which is British lists the "pertaining to USA" definition first. So does the American Heritage Dictionary.

So when I refer to a person as "American" I am not incorrect. I am choosing from among two correct options. In this case, "U.S." felt a little overused. Do not feel as though you have to remove cases of "American" as if they were errors. They are not. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:02, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

US citizens are American. So are Peruvian citizens. Use of the term (in Wikinews's own voice) "America" for "US" is a sort of cultural imperialism; it's easy to not do it, and insidiously non-neutral to use the broader term (implying an offensive value judgment about other American countries); if it bothers you to say "US" instead of "America[n]", that in itself is suggestive of the bias involved. (We also try to avoid calling the pro/anti abortion rights positions "pro-choice" and "pro-life", both terms being deliberate propaganda, likewise -phobia terms like homophobia and Islamophobia; it's usually not necessary to explain more than once about not calling anyone a "terrorist" in our own voice, although we had someone for a while quite interested in providing on-the-scene OR from Ukraine but who left in a huff after they were told they weren't allowed to call Ukrainian separatists terrorists no matter what the separatists did.) --Pi zero (talk) 19:20, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

First, Pi zero, you are absolutely allowed to have personal preferences and beliefs about the word "American." However, when the dictionary definition is one thing and those dictionaries are up to date and that matches real-world usage, then I'm not introducing bias into the article by using the word in that way. If the majority of the sources concur that this is not a loaded term, then treating it as if it were loaded even in an innocuous context could be considered bias. The Washington Post uses "America" in this way. So does The Guardian (despite their style guide, which suggests this could be a BrE/AmE thing; the American guides I have on hand don't weigh in on this]), and it doesn't seem to be an issue.

We happen to have a workaround in this case, the equally correct adjective "U.S." It does not happen to offend me. I find it more convenient to use both synonyms. If nothing else, excluding this word makes our writing more cluttered. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:52, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

It's biasing. Not just me; this is standard best practice on en.wn. Just because a dictionary, or another site's news guide, lacks our priorities doesn't make what they say right for en.wn. Like I said, it's easy, so if it bothers you, introspect. --Pi zero (talk) 20:10, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

What bothers me is not the term "U.S." itself--you can see how much I use it--but that you are acting like I did something wrong by saying "American" in a completely ordinary way and as if there were only one correct way to refer to America when there is more than one. Like I said, there's nothing wrong or offensive about you having a preference for "U.S." or dislike for "American," and it bugs me when people act like everyone has to share those preferences or else they're, in this case, an imperialist.

You matter. Your feelings and comfort level matter. Your opinions and beliefs matter. It's okay to say, "I just like this and don't like that, so could we do it this way?" or even "This bothers me because I find it imperialist even though it's common use." Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:08, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

In case it's not clear, I'm not contesting your change to "U.S." in this case. Like I said, it's cluttered but correct. I consider this an academic discussion that could have implications in future articles. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:40, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

You seem to be under the misapprehension this is a whim of mine. I became aware soon after I got full access to the internet (I reckon that would be 1988) that non-USians are liable find the US habit of monopolizing the term American hugely dickish but much of the time they'll figure there's nothing to be done about US arrogance and insensitivity. There are folks on en.wn outspoken enough to object, and the principles by which we realize our neutrality policy fully support the objection. I'm very much aware that lots of US folk tend to say "but everyone does it, so it's okay"; that insensitivity to the problem is part of the problem. (Indeed, the same principle applied to article names on English Wikipedia is a huge gaping hole in that project's neutrality, responsible cumulatively for vast bias.) --Pi zero (talk) 22:58, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I'm not claiming that the majority of non-USians are going to be mortally offended by the national-American usage. You can find some people who will be offended by pretty much anything, though there are intelligent non-USians who do object to it. My point is that the neutrality problem with the usage is very real, and is not diminished by the fact that USians tend not to notice, or that various international orgs either don't notice or choose not to raise a fuss about it. Like Wikipedian article naming practices, it creates insidious systemic bias. (Since I'm the primary example here of a USian who sees the problem, I'll recuse myself on the question of whether there are intelligent USians who see it.) --Pi zero (talk) 00:49, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't think you're the only person who has this personal belief, but it is a personal belief. It's not like the Confederate flag. The name "America" was picked out long before the U.S. ceased to have an isolationist foreign policy.

It's not a matter of "everyone does it so it's okay." It's a matter of this being extremely common practice in very high-quality sources that set the standard for the style of English in which we're working. There's a difference between "Well I kindasorta remember my barber saying this" and "There it is in The New York Times, there it is in The Guardian, there it is in so many of the high-quality, professional publications whose work we emulate."

I checked for sources on this matter and except for some people at UNH two years ago, declaring the word "American" offensive seems to be pretty rare. Most of the news coverage of the UNH guide struck me as more "Um, what?" than "Let's do this." Do you have any RS on this? Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:57, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

You're making a basic mistake of thinking here; I'm not sure quite how to describe it, but I see it clearly. You tend to see all this stuff as a matter of... style/opinion/taste/however-one-puts-it; this is a point where I think we're likely to miscommunicate through confusion over assignments of primitive concepts to basic vocabulary; and some things are about deep principles. This is a neutrality issue. As I tried to articulate in my addendum just above — having belatedly recognized the potential for misunderstanding in my preceding remark — it's not about trying not to offend someone; the existence of objectors is a symptom, not an underlying cause. There are people out there who are offended by neutrality, after all, and we're certainly not trying to avoid offending them.

I note (though I'm trying, with some dearth of obvious success, not to let this thread become a time sink; right now I need to get to bed since I'm no longer sharp enough to review, and if I were sharp enough to review, as I hope to be when I get up in the morning, I'd want to be reviewing) — I note you said something about 'so many of the high-quality, professional publications whose work we emulate'. All in all, we don't emulate them. Wikinews exists in part because of problems in conventional journalism. We have, I think, real respect for such publications as you allude to, with variations for different publications, different situations, different articles, but we don't defer to them as models of perfection. The ideals we aspire to are ultimately not to be found in those publications, respect-worthy though they are. I've found it rather fascinating, since coming to Wikinews, to observe professional news organizations struggling with some of the same problems we do, not always with more success. --Pi zero (talk) 04:16, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I understand that you think of this as a neutrality issue. Didn't miss that part. I just don't happen to agree with you about that. It's as if someone were offended by the word "black" and insisted that anyone who didn't stick to "African American," "African Canadian," etc. all the time was a racist. They could argue that "black" suggests negativity due to some traditional phrases such as "black-hearted," etc. They could argue that talking about "blackness" rather than "full or partial African ancestry" was indicative of systemic unconscious racism and call it a microaggression. ...and you could make some highly similar arguments in the other direction. "Ugh! Do Americans think that their country is the only one that has states or is united?!" Of course not. Just like no one in America thinks we're the only country in the Americas. It's kind of like how we have a city called "Washington" and a state called "Washington" and a city called "New York" and a state called "New York." If you ask "Which one is the real Washington?" you get "They both are." There's no cognitive dissonance to it. Whether you look in the dictionary or listen to people speaking, it just doesn't hold water. Similarly, both the written sources and observable use indicate that "American" is a perfectly acceptable word for the country.

So what, other than personal preferences, are you basing this on? Do you have anything other than "this strikes me as a neutrality issue"? or "This bothers me"? Do you have sources or something comparable?

If you don't have any right now or saw one a long time ago and don't feel like digging for it, no big deal. Feel free to message me on my talk page at some later date if you wish to continue. In addition to being useful to our work here, discussions like these are interesting to me and I enjoy them. Consider it a standing invitation. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:33, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

I've thought about it and here's how it is: Of the two people likely to serve as reviewer on articles that I write, one of them has expressed a disinclination to use the word "America" for "United States of America." I don't have to agree with your reasons. This is the sort of thing that is going to come up on small teams. If anyone proposes a rule banning the use of the word I'd oppose it. There might be a few contexts in which it's markedly better to say "America" and not "United States," but they're probably rare, so as things stand I have no plans to contest it when you change "America" to "United States." They're both correct. That being said, this is also how it is: If someone writes "Mark is from America," the reader will think we mean "Mark is from the United States of America," so I would object to using the word "America" in that way unless that's what we actually mean. "The Americas" is also correct and far more likely to be understood as intended. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:46, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I have this uncomfortable suspicion you haven't fully grokked news neutrality, as if it just hasn't quite clicked for you; as if the different cases haven't become facets of a coherent underlying whole. I suspect you have something of a preference for what I would call stylistic rules; behavioral customs that say what to do but not why, and may be mixed and matched because they don't flow from deeper principles; part of that may be bad habits picked up on Wikipedia, which suffers from a chronic case of red tape; part of it may be a natural inclination of mind (some minds simply lean more in that direction than others). But wherever it comes from, you seem strongly repelled by the prospect you could be missing something here, to the point where you're willing to be believe instead some things about me that I hope you haven't entirely thought through.

I was thinking, when I had a chance, I'd point out why this use of America is fundamentally different from the use of black as a racial term in the US. Since at least one of your last two articles has gone stale on the queue waiting for review, the prospect got rather more distant, and rather less attractive. Without getting too far into it, then, evident core differences are that (1) black doesn't have an unambiguous referent, (2) black doesn't have a technically correct and unintended alterative meaning referring to a larger group of people containing the intended group, and (3) black doesn't have an unambiguously correct alternative term. (Alternatives generally refer to smaller and better-defined groups.)

The simple behavioral principle, bereft of underlying principle, is, don't use these terms in Wikinews's own voice: America(n) to mean US; pro-life; pro-choice; terrorist/terrorism; -phobia in a cultural/political context, such as homophobia or Islamophobia. Since I'm reminded, one should also be very wary black/white as racial terms, since they not only tend to promote discrimination in the most literal sense of the term, but they don't really have clear objective meaning. (Remember that ruckus over Elizabeth Warren being 1/32 Cherokee, where it wasn't clear if the objectors were outraged that she might be lying or outraged that she might be telling the truth?) --Pi zero (talk) 20:08, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Review of revision 4286565 [Not ready]

Revision 4286565 of this article has been reviewed by Pi zero (talk · contribs) and found not ready at 19:24, 10 February 2017 (UTC). Copyright: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Not ready: See below. NPOV: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Style: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Comments by reviewer: My concern rising to the level of a not-ready review concerns what Yemen said. This article clearly states Yemen announced that Yemen is reevaluating the role of US ground ops there. However, afaics the sources that mention reevaluation/reassessment speak of requesting reassessment; they say that the requested reassessment is of the particular operation in late January, rather than broadly of the role of US ground operations in Yemen; and one source explicitly says the requested reassessment would be a reassessment by the US. Requesting that the US reassess that one operation is quite different from announcing that Yemen would reassess the role of US ground ops in Yemen. Addressing this difficulty would require either justifying what the article now says or somewhat-extensively changing it; the change would involve the headline, the lede, and iirc at least one later paragraph. This is (alas) already on its second day after the event. One wonders if there may be some further development in the story that could be used to bolster freshness. A bit more attribution is called for here and there; I figured it wouldn't be beyond what a reviewer could do during review, but preferably it would be taken care of by the reporter before submission for review. Specifically, there should be attribution for details of the raid ("The SEAL team approached [...]") and the (primary) goal of the raid. Questions about the above? Ask. If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.

Revision 4286565 of this article has been reviewed by Pi zero (talk · contribs) and found not ready at 19:24, 10 February 2017 (UTC). Copyright: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Not ready: See below. NPOV: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Style: Not reviewed. Please address other issues. Comments by reviewer: My concern rising to the level of a not-ready review concerns what Yemen said. This article clearly states Yemen announced that Yemen is reevaluating the role of US ground ops there. However, afaics the sources that mention reevaluation/reassessment speak of requesting reassessment; they say that the requested reassessment is of the particular operation in late January, rather than broadly of the role of US ground operations in Yemen; and one source explicitly says the requested reassessment would be a reassessment by the US. Requesting that the US reassess that one operation is quite different from announcing that Yemen would reassess the role of US ground ops in Yemen. Addressing this difficulty would require either justifying what the article now says or somewhat-extensively changing it; the change would involve the headline, the lede, and iirc at least one later paragraph. This is (alas) already on its second day after the event. One wonders if there may be some further development in the story that could be used to bolster freshness. A bit more attribution is called for here and there; I figured it wouldn't be beyond what a reviewer could do during review, but preferably it would be taken care of by the reporter before submission for review. Specifically, there should be attribution for details of the raid ("The SEAL team approached [...]") and the (primary) goal of the raid. Questions about the above? Ask. If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.

Fixed the headline and added some. For attribution, I did find some information, but there were several facts that I found in several sources (CBS, BBC, Reuters) that did not say where they got them. At which point may we at Wikinews refer to information as coming from the news sources even if they don't say where they got it? Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:39, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

When the ultimate origin is unknown, depending on one's judgement of controversy/uncertainty/whatever, one might

• present a fact as objectively true (but of course in this case the points I suggested attributing were things that triggered my spider sense).
• introduce some such verbiage as "reportedly", "local media reports", or the like (the previous item shades into this at its far end).
• name the particular source(s) that reported it.

I don't recall seeing an explicit discussion of the finer points of how circumstances favor various approaches to this. --Pi zero (talk) 22:32, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Review of revision 4286805 [Passed]

Revision 4286805 of this article has been reviewed by Pi zero (talk · contribs) and has passed its review at 18:19, 11 February 2017 (UTC). Copyright: Passed Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Passed NPOV: Passed Style: Passed Comments by reviewer: I see this as a story calling for skepticism in reading sources. As submitted for review, this contained an unsafe assumption about withdrawal of permission and an attribution I found suspect. The one is not supported by the sources (once on untangles what is known about what went on), and the other is, even more trickily, potentially — but not necessarily — a flub by a source. The sources were variously more or less careful in their reporting of the alleged withdrawal of permission. The Independent had the cleanest treatment imo; they have two paragraphs saying it was never officially confirmed on either side and it was reported by NYT on Tuesday based on unofficial anonymous statement by US officials, and the Yemenis said it was wrong. I approve of that; high-confidence info about uncertain claims, empowering the reader to appreciate what went on with the claims. Looking at the NYT article from Tuesday (which is linked from our listed NYT source), [1], the NYT lede does correctly say where the info came from, but puts it way at the end of the lengthy paragraph where it has minimal impact; in effect they're presenting the claim as substantially certain. They'd have done better to put the attribution much earlier in the sentence, perhaps at the start, treating it as a possibly-true claim. I say that in hindsight, of course, but one ought to learn from such an incident to do better next time. In this case it looks as if (without rechecking every source carefully) all the sources applied basic attribution precautions to the information; sometimes we get sources, even quite reputable ones, that omit the attribution incautiously, and we have to realize it's needed and reintroduce it. In this case, of the possibilities that come readily to mind — something was said and later retracted, misunderstanding, exaggeration, deliberate misinformation — I suspect the least likely of those is said-and-retracted; but the important point for our reporting is that we don't know. The Reuters source has a sequence of two paragraphs describing harsh criticism of the whole operation, attributed to "U.S. military officials [...] last week". I don't exclude the possibility this might be correct, but my confidence in it is undermined by its oddity in context. If US military officials said that, it seems like a big deal, yet no big deal is made of it in the Reuters source — in fact it appears to be routinely contrasted with a comment by Centcom — and I didn't find it in the other sources (there was the "almost everything went wrong" remark, but I see no basis for equating the two). Granted, the failure to make a big deal could be media bias. Other sources describe criticism by someone from the Obama administration; by McCain; by Yemen. But bald criticism of the preparations by US military officials? The structure of the Reuters article, and the lack of support from the other sources, would make sense if the attribution was a mistake. So I harbor doubts about its attribution, leaving me unable to sign off on running with it. It's really interesting criticism... or at least, it would be if I were confident of who said it. The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.

Revision 4286805 of this article has been reviewed by Pi zero (talk · contribs) and has passed its review at 18:19, 11 February 2017 (UTC). Copyright: Passed Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Passed NPOV: Passed Style: Passed Comments by reviewer: I see this as a story calling for skepticism in reading sources. As submitted for review, this contained an unsafe assumption about withdrawal of permission and an attribution I found suspect. The one is not supported by the sources (once on untangles what is known about what went on), and the other is, even more trickily, potentially — but not necessarily — a flub by a source. The sources were variously more or less careful in their reporting of the alleged withdrawal of permission. The Independent had the cleanest treatment imo; they have two paragraphs saying it was never officially confirmed on either side and it was reported by NYT on Tuesday based on unofficial anonymous statement by US officials, and the Yemenis said it was wrong. I approve of that; high-confidence info about uncertain claims, empowering the reader to appreciate what went on with the claims. Looking at the NYT article from Tuesday (which is linked from our listed NYT source), [2], the NYT lede does correctly say where the info came from, but puts it way at the end of the lengthy paragraph where it has minimal impact; in effect they're presenting the claim as substantially certain. They'd have done better to put the attribution much earlier in the sentence, perhaps at the start, treating it as a possibly-true claim. I say that in hindsight, of course, but one ought to learn from such an incident to do better next time. In this case it looks as if (without rechecking every source carefully) all the sources applied basic attribution precautions to the information; sometimes we get sources, even quite reputable ones, that omit the attribution incautiously, and we have to realize it's needed and reintroduce it. In this case, of the possibilities that come readily to mind — something was said and later retracted, misunderstanding, exaggeration, deliberate misinformation — I suspect the least likely of those is said-and-retracted; but the important point for our reporting is that we don't know. The Reuters source has a sequence of two paragraphs describing harsh criticism of the whole operation, attributed to "U.S. military officials [...] last week". I don't exclude the possibility this might be correct, but my confidence in it is undermined by its oddity in context. If US military officials said that, it seems like a big deal, yet no big deal is made of it in the Reuters source — in fact it appears to be routinely contrasted with a comment by Centcom — and I didn't find it in the other sources (there was the "almost everything went wrong" remark, but I see no basis for equating the two). Granted, the failure to make a big deal could be media bias. Other sources describe criticism by someone from the Obama administration; by McCain; by Yemen. But bald criticism of the preparations by US military officials? The structure of the Reuters article, and the lack of support from the other sources, would make sense if the attribution was a mistake. So I harbor doubts about its attribution, leaving me unable to sign off on running with it. It's really interesting criticism... or at least, it would be if I were confident of who said it. The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.