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Archive 1Archive 2

Merge the pages but Change the title as well

Redrocker (talk) 21:20, 5 February 2016 (UTC) The pages should certainly be merged but the title should also be reviewed and changed. The term Viet-Cong was (and still is) a derogatory term applied by the South Vietnamese government, the US military and their propagandists to the NLF (and its military wing, the PLAF) and should not be uncritically adopted by any publication or forum claiming to be an encyclopaedia. The uncritical use of this term itself colours the perceptions of readers and implies acceptance of a highly subjective, politically partisan and historically arguable view of the Second Indo-China War. Uncritical use of the term 'Viet-Cong is the equivalent of replacing all references to the US military with the words 'Imperialist Yankee Invaders and Aggressors'.

Keep, Viet Cong is vastly more used than the correct name National Liberation Front, per WP:COMMONNAME. For clarification see Wikipedia:Official_names. Also the use of Viet Cong in this or related articles has no pejorative or partisan intent or meaning. It is used due to its widespread popular usage by both South Vietnamese and American military personnel and civilians, AND common usage in standard histories of the Vietnam War. --Degen Earthfast (talk) 18:54, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 December 2016

In the section "Fall of Saigon": Between the beginning of 1974 and April 1975, with now-excellent roads and no fear of aoir-interdiction, the communists delivered nearly 365,000 tons of war material to battlefields, 2.6 times the total for the previous 13 years.[69]

"aoir-interdiction" should be "air interdiction" 99.230.204.66 (talk) 07:21, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for pointing that out - Arjayay (talk) 09:56, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 28 August 2017

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Not moved. Clear consensus against the proposed move. bd2412 T 20:50, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Viet Cong → National Liberation Front of South Vietnam – as a neutral NPOV project we should follow English Wikipedia Title policy and go with the circa 45% of post-2010 book sources using the WP:NDESC and WP:NPOVTITLE, rather than the circa 55% of post-2010 book sources using the POV title. Numbers below.In ictu oculi (talk) 07:26, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Just for reference the numbers on [Vietnam + "Vietcong was"/"Viet Cong was"] vs [Vietnam + "NLF was"/"National Liberation Front was"] etc 2010-2016
Vietnam + "Viet Cong was" About 1,880 results
Vietnam + "Vietcong was" About 779
Vietnam + "NLF was" About 1,670 results
Vietnam + "National Liberation Front was" About 698 results
So there we go, 1,670+779=2,369 books for National Liberation Front and subsequent mentions NLF, against 1880+779 = 2,659 for Viet Cong/Vietcong if we're simply counting numbers it's still, even 2010-2016, slightly in favor of "Viet Cong". But, if we click through, is there any difference in the quality/seriousness of sources using "NLF" or "National Liberation Front"? (please do actually click through, please do compare the sort of books under each result) . After all the numbers above are about 55% vs 45%, they aren't overwhelming WP:COMMONNAME in all sources by a large margin, they are more by a slight margin, and avoided in neutral history books. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:40, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
@DrStrauss: I was hoping for more discussion. I didn't deny the 55/45 in sources for number counting. I'm making the proposal on the basis that there might be two other things to consider (1) whether WP:TITLE contains more than just WP:COMMONNAME, whether WP:TITLE also contains WP:NDESC for example, (2) whether when counting sources we should look at sources to see their quality. If it was based on counting numbers then I'd be supporting myself. I was hoping for more than repeating the numbers I've already provided. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:47, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is the English language wikipedia and the term Viet Cong is far, far more recognizable to the English-speaking public than NLF. Other examples of common names used on wikipedia which don't have an entirely favorable connotation are Plains Indians instead of "Native Americans of the Great Plains" and Byzantine Empire which is, similar to Viet Cong, a made-up name -- and not what the folks in Constantinople called themselves. Why reject the term "Viet Cong" when Plains Indians and Byzantine Empire and many other common names used as titles of Wikipedia articles are accepted?Smallchief (talk
These are the kind of non-consideration of WP:TITLE whole guideline (including WP:NPOVTITLE remember that one?) which I was expecting. Maybe the way the proposal acknowledged that Viet Cong was pejorative actually will mean a snow of opposes, because any questioning of a title on the basis that it is pejorative is against all that Wikipedia stands for. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:10, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't do alphabet soup. If I were a Byzantine I might consider the title Byzantine Empire to be incorrect and pejorative, imposed by foreign poweres. Should we change the name of the article?. Smallchief (talk 13:09, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
The soup references are for your convenience, these are clickable shortcut links to title policy. If you disagree with WP:NDESC/WP:NPOVTITLE then you should start a RFC to change WP:TITLE. As far as "NLF", NLF isn't being proposed, but books that use NLF use the full name on first mention, hence an NLF book needs to be counted as National Liberation Front. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:08, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The English Wikipedia stands for the principle of using the most common name in English, which is "Viet Cong" (and not "Việt Cộng" as is used in the article body). Moreover, if we say that "official names" are to be preferred over the most common name in English, that would be an argument to rename the article "Mặt trận Dân tộc Giải phóng miền Nam Việt Nam", not "National Liberation Front" - the latter is an abbreviated form of a translation of an abbreviated form, and not in any way "more official". I doubt that anyone will argue for using the actual official name, though. 64.105.98.115 (talk) 12:49, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
This group called themselves by many names. Which one was official is a not a question with a simple answer. They signed the 1973 Paris Peace Treaty as "The Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Viet-Nam."[1] Great scott (talk) 17:39, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
The Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam was a distinct thing from the National Liberation Front. 216.8.156.254 (talk) 16:03, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
Oh, it's much more confusing than that. In almost every communique, the they gave their name as something different. In the 1960 communique that announced the founding of the group, they were the "National Front for the Liberation of the South."[2] In 1967, they were the NFL or "National Front for Liberation."[3] In 1969, they standardized on PRG, which they used until 1975. The NVA/VC distinction was just wartime propaganda, a ruse intended to give the appearance of following the 1954 Geneva convention. All communist soldiers, whether northerners or southerners, were in fact under a single command structure. In the official history issued after the war, everyone is simply PAVN. If anyone thinks that the word "Vietcong" is somehow insulting, check out A Vietcong Memoir, written by the PRG minister of justice. Great scott (talk) 23:16, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment: I wonder if overseas Vietnamese who sided with the South during the war would consider any title that includes "liberation" to be less POV than "Viet Cong". Complicating matters, Việt Cộng has a literal sense in Vietnamese that's analogous to the term "Communist China" in English. For what it's worth, I just noticed wikt:Vietcong and wikt:Việt Cộng are lacking many of these nuances; help shoring up those entries would be much appreciated. – Minh Nguyễn 💬 05:33, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
National Liberation Front is simply the organisation's name so is by definition WP:NPOV. Scroll down the list on National Liberation Front and they are all, repeat all, at that title, except Viet Cong and Viet Minh (which actually isn't derogatory) both in anglo font, both suggesting that WP:NPOV doesn't count for Vietnam. Anyway, pretty obvious that this isn't going to pass but the point of RM was largely to test the waters to see if any editors would even pick up the challenge to address WP:NDESC and WP:NPOVTITLE and no one has. Other than one honorable exception User:Smallchief making the point that some native American tribal article titles on en.wp are derogatory and NPOV terms, but I'm not seeing specific examples. I don't think so. We have had various discussions over the years applying WP:NDESC and WP:NPOVTITLE to various ethnic groups, scheduled caste groups in India for example, and as afar as I'm aware where there's roughly equal use of derogatory/POV term and non-derogatory/NPOV term en.wp has gone with the non-derogatory/NPOV term en.wp term per WP:NDESC and WP:NPOVTITLE. This is the only article I'm aware of where we are deliberately flying in the face of WP:TITLE In ictu oculi (talk) 09:24, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Discussion on WP:NPOVTITLE WP:NDESC

  • Extremely disappointing, not the verdict, but the failure to address WP:NPOVTITLE. Having said that the entire Vietnam history corpus on en.wp has a giant perspective problem, of which use of "Viet Cong" is only a tiny part. In ictu oculi (talk)
Having read the wikipedia policy on NPOV titles, I don't think it bolsters your opinion at all. To the contrary, the policy is persuasive that the common term of Viet Cong is the correct title.[[User:Smallchief|Smallchief]] ([[User talk:Smallchief|talk]] (talk) 14:24, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
In the section Non-neutral but common names the case refers to situations where a non-neutral name is "evidenced through usage in a significant majority of English-language reliable sources". The problem is here that Viet Cong is only more common by a small majority and largely found in (a) either low-quality sources, hobbyist books on military history, or (b) books that are under no obligation to to provide neutral history such as the memoirs of US Army veterans, which is fine in that context, as a memoir, but is not the same thing as a NPOV history. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:09, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

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Viet Cong

This Wikipedia article should be titled "National Liberal Front (Vietnam)," not "Viet Cong." Viet Cong is a pejorative based on a pun used exclusively by Americans. It's not what the National Liberation Front referred to themselves as, nor is it how anyone else referred to them. Wikipedia generally makes it a habit to use correct names for its article titles, and then making note in the first line of the article other popular names. Using the pejorative American name for the NLF instead of the accurate name of the group reveals a bias that Wikipedia should strive to avoid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.130.185.196 (talk) 17:06, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

The current title, though obviously against Wikipedia's rules, will remain as long as Wikipedia remains under control of the US's paid propagandists. 2601:644:1:B7CB:DB9:904D:5164:CCE3 (talk) 22:24, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
Article fails NPOV. It's not just the title that is a problem -- the entire article is ARVN (not US) propaganda. This condensed history of the Vietnam War provides enough facts and citations to get by Wikipedia's gatekeepers, but they are irrelevant to the question of who and what the NLF was. This substitution of a history of the Vietnam War just reiterates the ARVN assertion that the NLF and Hanoi were always one and the same. The article should be deleted entirely - no one is going to waste their time trying to clean up this redundant history of the Vietnam War that is misfiled under "Viet Cong". TayRuong (talk) 07:40, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
  • They were that's why the VC was excluded by the postwar northern dominated government. ALSO, after Tet the majority of the VC forces were Northern infiltrators. By why confuse the issue with the facts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.11.77.202 (talk) 12:22, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Grammatical error in second paragraph: 'ferment' should be changed to 'foment'

Suggest changing first sentence of second paragraph from:

North Vietnam established the National Liberation Front in 1960 to ferment insurgency

to:

North Vietnam established the National Liberation Front in 1960 to foment insurgency

Unless they were making alcohol. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.235.147.174 (talk) 21:52, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Spelling Error in 2nd Paragraph

"Many of the Việt Cộng's core members were voluteer "regroupees""

Surely "volunteer"? The page is locked so I can't correct it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.125.20.99 (talk) 09:50, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

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Requested move 31 May 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved per WP:SNOW. (non-admin closure) Iffy★Chat -- 08:45, 6 June 2019 (UTC)


Viet Cong → National Liberation Front for South Vietnam – As is described in the article, the name Việt Cộng is a colloquial, even pejorative name used by Americans and anti-communist South Vietnamese forces, and thus is in violation of WP:NPOVNAME. The official name of the organization before 1969 was the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam, most commonly abbreviated NLF, or sometimes NLFSV. Even sources critical of the NLF tend to use this acronym, as does this article. In 1969, the organization merged with the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG), and the Wikipedia article of the same name exclusively refers to the NLF by its official name(s). The disambiguation page for "National Liberation Front" also lists the organization by its official name, citing that it is sometimes "also called 'Viet Cong'". For all these reasons I submit the name should be changed to its official, self-identified moniker, National Liberation Front for South Vietnam. Bookmarx (talk) 17:48, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Semi-protected edit request on 8 December 2019

Spelling mistake on labelled photo to right of Logistics and equipment: Tet Offensive section

Change: Viet Cong soldiers captured by US Marcines outside of Dong Ha, RVN 1968

To: Viet Cong soldiers captured by US Marines outside of Dong Ha, RVN 1968 Menace97 (talk) 21:57, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Done, thank you – Thjarkur (talk) 22:22, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

National Liberation Front abbreviation

The abbreviation in the article is FNL when the real abbreviation is NLF. Proof,https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Liberation-Front-political-organization-Vietnam — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FEA8:2A60:B3B0:65A7:712D:329F:BEEA (talk) 20:41, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 December 2020

Change abbreviation from FNL to NLF please. W1ndStrik3 YT (talk) 23:49, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

 Done RudolfRed (talk) 18:34, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! -w1ndStrik3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by W1ndStrik3 YT (talk • contribs) 11:17, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

It appears much of the source material here is simply US government propaganda from the war.

'and employed terror as a standard tactic.[46] ' ' Rice procured at gunpoint sustained the Viet Cong.[47] ' 'Squads were assigned monthly assassination quotas.[48] ' This is like accepting a Nazi version of Jewish history as fact. My father-in-law served in the Viet Cong from 1965 until the end of the war in 1975. He was from a village in Ben Tre province called Phong Mai. He would laugh at these assertions. He and his fellow soldiers fought in and around their village. He never left the province in those 10 years. The weapons they used, according to him, they stole from the ARVN soldiers. They didn't steal rice. They raised it themselves and fed themselves. This was their home! The man can still catch fish with his bare hands. They slept in trees during the day and operated at night. The RVN government in the South established "protected hamlets", in reality concentration camps, and the US created "Free Fire Zones" in which they shelled and bombed civilians at will. "Monthly assassination quotas"? This is laughable propaganda. The so-called "Massacre" at Hue is another example of US government lies being accepted as fact. The US bombed Hue incessantly during the Tet offensive. They flattened many Vietnamese cities. Naturally a lot of people got killed. Blaming this on the VC simply hid the truth. Massive firepower in a city is going to kill a lot of people. One important thing to remember, the US government claimed the Communists would slaughter people by the thousands if they won the war. They won the war but the prediction never came true. The government claiming this was however responsible for the deaths of millions in SE Asia during this same period of time. 184.97.181.40 (talk) 10:29, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

The fact the VC practiced terror tactics (including assassinations) is a well documented fact. Some sources cited were not from the "US government". But from military personnel [like Ralph Zumbro] who were there. Furthermore, this is well documented from other sources. (Including former members of the VC: see also 'A Vietcong Memoir' by T. Tang.) Unless you want to say the massacres at places like Hue and Dak Son were faked (which you kind of allude to).....I'd try another angle. Oh and as far as the claims that the communists would "slaughter people by the thousands if they won the war". Well, that's exactly what happened. Ask your father-in-law about the "re-education" camps after the war.Rja13ww33 (talk) 17:34, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps it's you that need to "try another angle" - you've done nothing to counter the poster's claims except offer up more of the propaganda they were complaining about. 41.71.22.34 (talk) 10:20, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
I'd suggest re-reading my post. Are you saying that a guy who fought with the VC is spreading "propaganda"?Rja13ww33 (talk) 17:08, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
I have no brief on behalf of the U.S. We committed horrible atrocities during the war, but so did the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese. Immediately after the fall of Saigon in April 1975, it appeared that the new communist government of Vietnam might be fairly benign, but that quickly changed. Three million Vietnamese voted with their feet and fled the country to become refugees. I think we can give the Vietnamese government some compliments for overthrowing the Khmer Rouge because the KR made any other government on the planet look good. And Vietnam also kicked China's butt in a brief war in 1979. Smallchief (talk) 21:13, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
You have no sources for any of this. CheeseInTea (talk) 19:29, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Conflicting information

Under the "Names" heading, it states The official Vietnamese history gives the group's name as the Liberation Army of South Vietnam [LASV]. However in the lede, it states that the military arm of the VC was the LASV. The nb doesn't clarify this contradiction. Nikolaih☎️📖 19:28, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Only the most common names should be in the lede. LASV isn't in that category. Fairnesscounts (talk) 22:59, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Change the infobox to war faction from militant group!!

How is it not a war faction but a militant group — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.218.153.80 (talk) 10:13, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

How many soldiers?

How many soldiers had Viet Cong? Who were they? Who were the officers? Was there some counterespionage, military police? Were soldiers shot or imprisoned, where?Xx236 (talk) 08:43, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
At least some parts of the article are rather about the US army or SV. This article is not about the war in general.Xx236 (talk) 08:56, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Viet Cong and People's Army of Vietnam use of terror in the Vietnam War

"Viet Cong and People's Army of Vietnam use of terror in the Vietnam War" is not linked here. I have added it to the "See also" list, but the article (and perhaps some other ones) should be integrated here. I really do not understand the idea of this Viet Cong article. US opinions about Viet Cong? German Wiki article contains a 'Recruiting' subsection. The Vietnames article is longer. I have no idea what it contains. Russian article may be based on Soviet advisors expertise. Xx236 (talk) 09:02, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Logistics and equipment

The section contains only one link. Xx236 (talk) 09:18, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

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