Talk:Võ Nguyên Giáp/Archive 1

Has the grade of general I believe
I wonder if really fight guerrilla when he defeated the french in Dien Dien Phu he had a significative heavy artillery.

Comment on the above: No, General Giap did not fight a guerilla war in Dien Bien Phu. He employed several infantry divisions and an artillery/engineer division in the battle. It was a conventional fight with a touch of WW1-style trench warfare. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom3605 (talk • contribs) 14:13, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The artillery he used were American 105 mm cannon, carried piecemeal up the mountains and re-assembled. 108.237.241.88 (talk) 17:15, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Copyvio
A lot of the material looks like it has been taken from here. GeneralPatton 09:22, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Surname
Giap's surname is Vo, not Giap. This article's name order is correct according to Vietnamese names. Please do not assume that his surname is Giap. DHN 03:44, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * However, Vietnamese people are usually referred to by their given name, not their surname (with a few exceptions). So he should be referred to as Giap and not Vo. DHN 00:28, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nui Lua
The article says that his pen name is "Nui Lua" (Núi Lửa), roughly meaning "volcano beneath the snow". In fact, núi lửa simply means "volcano". It would have to be núi lửa dưới tuyết to have the translation stated in the article. – Minh Nguy&#7877;n (talk, contribs, blog) 05:35, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Plagarism
"A lot of the material looks like it has been taken from here [1] (http://www.vwam.com/vets/tet/tet.html). GeneralPatton 09:22"

I actually found the link in which the 'Author' got his information from: http://carpenoctem.tv/military/giap.html Fuyutski

Not surprised. The whole "article" is awful from the NPOV standpoint. 100,000 bombs? 5 times the destructive power at Hiroshima? 15,000 tons of bombs were dropped (which alone is 5,000 tons less than the Hiroshima equivalent). That's 30 million pounds. The US used 750-pound bombs (they actually weighed 800+ but use the lesser figure). Dividing, you get 40,000--a sizeable amount, but not anywhere close to the claim. Smacks of agenda, propaganda, whatever--but not an encyclopedia entry. Buckboard 08:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Tet?
What about his role in Tet offensive and the impact of it on his career?

Veljko Setvanovich

Comment: The article does point out that the General was not in favor of the Tet offensive and went abroad during the entire time of that campaign. However, his going abroad might have been a ploy to fool the US into thinking nothing big was going to happen during his absence. Wrong!

While Tet was a military defeat for the Vietnamese, it delivered a severe psychological blow on US morale and therefore, can be considered a victory for General Giap. Tet lead to President Johnson's dicision not to run for election and to the beginning of the Paris conference that eventually ended the Vietnam War (for the US in 1973.)

Topic?
The article is supposed to be about one person. Instead it is about the series of wars and international poltics. His name appears only twice in the entire article. This needs to be cleaned up.


 * I seriously thought I was reading the Vietnam war article for a while, this needs a complete rewrite --KingZog 06:38, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

This article seems to have a bias that is in some ways antagonistic toward the Vietminh, and in particular the government of Vietnam that in the time of the Vietnam War was called the Viet Cong. I think that this article needs to be thoroughly vetted for bias. While not an expert about Vietnam from 1940 - 1975 I have studied the period at undergraduate level, and there seems to be a distinct bias in the selection of source material, if not a particuarly overt bias by its authors.

Is this really a biography of Giap?
I came here to find out about the man, but what I actually found was more of a history of the Vietnamese wars and politics that Giap was a part of — not a specific biography of the man himself. Joe Descartes 19:26, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Giap.jpg
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Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:42, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Giap's Supposed Statements about the Tet Offensive
There is a rumor widespread on the Internet that Giap has written some book (unnamed in most versions of the rumor) stating that the Tet Offensive was such a disaster that the Communist leaders were ready to abandon the war effort. Many versions even use the word "surrender." But then the Communist leaders saw statements by anti-war Americans indicating that United States was giving up on the war. Various versions of the rumor blame Walter Cronkite, John Kerry, or members of the US Congress. These statements persuaded the Communist leaders to fight on. All versions of this rumor are false. Giap has not, in any book or elsewhere, said that the Communists were on the point of abandoning the war in the aftermath of Tet.

If any statement even close to matching the rumors had actually appeared in some book by General Giap, all the details--the exact words, and the title of the book, and the page number on which the statement appeared--would have been posted a hundred times in various places on the Internet, years ago.

The people who believe in, and spread, the rumor are unable to give those details, because Giap has never made such a statement. The most common approaches they use have been:

--Just say that Giap wrote this in "his book" as if Giap had written only one book.

--Say that the statement appeared in HOW WE WON THE WAR, published in 1976. The problem with this approach is that quite a few copies of that book are available in the United States, so it is fairly easy to get one, and find that Giap made no such statement in it.

--Say that the statement appears in Giap's 1985 memoir. That is entirely imaginary; Giap did not write any 1985 memoir.

--Pick some other title by Giap. I have actually seen someone suggest PEOPLE'S WAR, PEOPLE'S ARMY as the book in which the statement appeared. That was published long before the Tet Offensive, so it could not very well have contained anything about the Communist reaction to the Tet Offensive.

I think those who believe that there is a book by Giap that contains such a statement really have an obligation to come up with the title of this book

Ed Moise (talk) 20:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Internet Rumor
Does an internet rumor really deserve a whole paragraph smack in the middle of the most important section of the article? A one-liner in the trivia section is hardly necessary. --Gary123 (talk) 23:15, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Internet Rumor about the death of Giap in 2010 and Infobox
The rumor does refer to the possible death of Giap in 2010, according to some blog entries. As of 2103, there is no verification from an independent source, no official communique and no state funeral has happened. The rumors may get a paragraph on their own in the article or in trivia, but they should not be the base for changes in the represented facts. Right now the infobox for his picture states that he is 101 and refers to an orbituary: |died=July 21, 2010. This should be reassessed prior to 25. June 2013, as Giap then is either dead - and there is no proof for that in contradiction to what the infofobox states - or still alive and then older than 101.Conversar (talk) 08:55, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Proposed Move
I propose that we move this article to the diacritic-less form, Vo Nguyen Giap. This is primarily because the English language convention (as constructed by a survey of prominent reliable sources, below) is to drop the diacritics. Of course, we should mention the Vietnamese spelling in the lead for the education of our readers and for those who are familiar with the diacritics.
 * Encarta
 * Britannica
 * Merriam-Webster's dictionary of allusions (1999) p150
 * Embassy of Vietnam to the United States
 * TIME
 * BBC (English edition) (notice that the Vietnamese service uses diacritics for the subject, suggesting that although the BBC has the technical means to use diacritics, they deliberately avoid them when communicating in English)
 * NY Times
 * Although it is true that the vast majority of English-language sources use the form without diacritics, most of the sources you provided above were written around 2004 or before, when it was not really feasible to use Vietnamese diacritics on web pages without making the user download special fonts. It appears that the trend for the English version of the Government of Vietnam website is to use Vietnamese names with full diacritics (for example: here and here).  I don't care either way but we should be consistent with our treatment of Vietnamese names and establish a consensus before renaming articles. DHN (talk) 19:40, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Although I don't think the evidence needs to be absolutely up to the second to be convincing, I've collected a few more recent sources:
 * The below three sources are official organs of, or approved by, the Vietnamese Government:
 * The Army of Vietnam's English Service (May 2009)
 * Voice of Vietnam English Service (Sep 2007)
 * SÀI GÒN GIẢI PHÓNG, the "Official Organ of the Party Committee, the Communist Party of Vietnam, English Edition (May 2009) (Note that the Vietnamese edition, accessible by clicking the tab in the top right corner, is fully decorated with all diacritics. The conclusion I come to is that the Vietnamese editors have made the conscious decision to remove the diacritics in English, even though they are perfectly aware of their correct use and are technically quite able to use them.
 * Viet Nam News (Jun 2009)
 * Other sources from the region:
 * Public Information Bureau of the Indian Government (Dec 2007) (Given the linguistic diversity of India, they are no strangers to diacritics and alternative scripts, yet the name is unadorned here)
 * Straits Times (Jun 2009) (from Singapore)
 * As for the purported trend of the Vietnamese Embassy, there are a number of counter examples. Their most recent press releases did not use the diacritics, for example.  I'd say that the strongest conclusion we can draw is that there is no clear policy either way, or that the editors of the site don't really care.
 * Finally, the point about discussing and reaching consensus before initiating changes is welcome. The question is whether the consensus should be over all Vietnam topics or if it should be over only particular articles or subsets of articles.  My experience is that the linguistic landscape is too varied to paint, say, all Vietnam related topics with the same diacritic(less) brush.  There are some cases where the diacritics may be appropriate, and some cases where they will not be.  We should not seek consistency in terms of "all diacritics" or "no diacritics".  That sort of debate rapidly turns into a zero sum game.  Fortunately, the guidelines in these situations are fairly clear and there is quite a bit of precedent (see Wikipedia:Use English); namely, proceed on a case by case basis, using the conventions of English users, insofar as they can be verified in reliable sources.  If no such convention can readily be identified, perhaps by the lack of sources discussing the topic, then one can fall back on the fully "native" name.  The consistency that is achieved is that of consistent application of English usage, as is appropriate for an English wikipedia.Erudy (talk) 05:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The links I've provided came from the official portal of the government of Vietnam, not just a Vietnamese embassy. I don't see any inconsistency in their usage. DHN (talk) 10:28, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems the works that VNG has published in English (the books "People's War People's Army" (2001), "The South Vietnam People Will Win" (2001) "How We Won the War" (1976)) were all published under the sans-diacritic name. In addition, it looks like the majority of wikipedia links into this article are actually routed through the sans diacritic redirect. I'm going to be bold and move this article on the strength of the all the evidence of usage here posted.Erudy (talk) 20:08, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

NPOV
"Giap's victory over the French crushed the legend of Western invincibility and thus opened a new era in the struggles for national independence against colonialism. With this victory, the name of Vo Nguyen Giap has become identified throughout Africa and Latin America with the defeat of colonialism."

Doesn't look like a NPOV to me, plus this section cites no sources. I think it should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.43.135.240 (talk) 12:16, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Giap's victory is, for the first time a native "colonial" army has defeated a trained, professional army from a country famed for it's military tradition. And based on the revolt on Algeria, Morocco, etc... which are most French colony just shortly after, this should be consider as "opened a new era against colonialism".

I'm welcome debate, but I will brought back the section until convinced. ([User talk:Zeraful|talk]]) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zeraful (talk • contribs) 15:38, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * In terms of the "legend of Western invincibility" I would think that the Japanese had already crushed that in and around 1942. As for the colonialism bit, one needs to differentiate between the old-timey colonialism of the British or French empires and the "new" colonialism of perceived economic imperialism of the West that was (somewhat ironically) a rallying cry for various communist-inspired movements around the world. The phrase "struggles for national independence" sounds like something straight from Pravda, too. Thus, I vote that it is mildly POV, but wouldn't be if toned down a bit and reworded.--172.190.66.90 (talk) 03:35, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Giap was a lousy general
Giap was not professional military, all he did was throw men heedlessly into battle, getting them killed en masse. He was an amateur, if he had been in the US military for instance, he would have been relieved of command and court-martialed. When he invaded with the Easter Offensive in 1972 with 200,000 troops, 40,000 of his troops were killed and Giap had to retreat back across the border with his tail between his legs: he lost big time and the North never let him be an operational General again. With Linebacker II North Vietnam was bombed into submission (I've read that the bombing was so intensive that the knees of the North Vietnamese would knock together when they walked) and North Vietnam was forced to sign the Paris Peace Accords, thus ending the war. The North Vietnamese did not honor the Paris Peace Accords however and three years after the US left Vietnam, North Vietnam defeated the corrupt, bankrupt South Vietnam. Without money from the US, South Vietnam fell apart; in 1975 a schoolgirl with a BB gun could have defeated South Vietnam. The USA lost 58,000 men in Vietnam, the North lost 1.1 million men by conservative estimates. That's a 20 to 1 kill ratio. For 20 years after the war Vietnam lived in poverty. And nowadays the number one investor in Vietnam is the USA. The USA has conquered Vietnam by economic means. 108.237.241.88 (talk) 17:34, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Who was forced to sign Paris Peace Treaty? It is America who lost in Linebacker II. There is a clear evidence that all provision of the agreement wasnot changed after the campaign. North Vietnam still be able to left their army in the South and American troops have to be repatriated. In Vietnam war, not only Amrica and its allies outnumber Vietnam in troop strength they also superior to high tech weapon. But they still withdraw with not aplomb. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yeumuvayeuem (talk • contribs) 11:20, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * You sound like you've been brainwashed, what country are you from? In fact, Linebacker II was a success for the USA--they ran out of military targets to bomb after only 11 days of bombing!  I am aware, however, that North Vietnam calls Linebacker II "The Dien Bien Phu of the Air", saying that the USA lost.  --Excuse me while I laugh out loud at that bit of Commie brainwashing nonsense propaganda....  Anyway, the USA lost 15 B-52 bombers during Linebacker II but that was because the initial raid was planned at SAC headquarters in Omaha (yes, the USA has idiot commanders just as North Vietnam had idiot commanders), so the B-52's flew in a bomber stream at a pre-determined altitude, making them easy targets.  --This stupid tactic was changed so that the bombers flew in from different directions and did not make the sharp turns that had interrupted their jamming coverage.  I've heard reports that the bombing was so intense that the knees of the Commies on the ground were knocking together.  Nixon forced North Vietnam to sign the Paris Peace Accords and the USA got its POW's back, thus ending the war for the USA.  Then three years later, after the USA had left, South Vietnam lost to the North.  The North did not honor the Peace Accords and therefore will have to live in shame and infamy for all of recorded history.  2602:306:CEDF:1580:8CA1:B17F:D475:C79 (talk) 23:51, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow. Just....wow o_o --Witan (talk) 01:22, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I wonder how much film and/or games you have to watch or play to be that ignorant? even the American Gen. would recognize Giap as a military genius  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ad12594 (talk • contribs) 16:28, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yup, funny stuff. Them commies just ran to the peace table after Linebacker II...where they got pretty much everything they wanted. Hell, the NVA didn't even have to leave South Vietnam! What Linebacker got us was a "peace" agreement that could have been had in 1969. What price honor, Tricky Dick? If I had to guess, I'd bet that dude above is Air Force. If you ask them, they've won every war they've ever fought in, even Vietnam after we had given up trying to win.--172.129.11.60 (talk) 03:47, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * General Vo Nguyen Giap might not professionally trained in militaries but he is talented enough to be an excellent general. That’s why he was chosen by President Ho Chi Minh to lead the operations. And that is not called “throw men heedlessly into battle” its called determination of the whole army and that’s one of the most important thing lead to the result of the war. You can never understand that since you’re country have never been invaded by one of the strongest nation before. Besides, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap did not decide the tactic himself, he got the whole nation and the army of Vietnam’s approve. Next thing, when talking about war, there’s always causalities. I do notice about the “20 to 1 kill ratio” you’re talking about but have you ever compare about the firepower between both sides? USA got the B-52 Stratofortress, B-47 Stratojet, AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter and other modern firepower, but what Vietnam has? MiG type jet fighter, some SAM launchers and some anti-aircraft machineguns. Just look for “Weapons of the Vietnam War” on Wikipedia to see the differences between the frontlines. About the Linebacker II, or the “Dien Bien Phu in the Air” as Vietnam called it, the U.S considers it to be a success but Vietnam didn’t loss, either. For a modern technology country like the US, being able to achieve the statistics in the operation was just normal like in any other wars. But for a poor country like Vietnam back then, being able to achieve those statistics was a remarkable effort and it was considered to be a success for the country. It’s all about the perspectives when you look at the statistics at its both sides.  And lastly, even John McCain said that: “Giap was a master of logistics, but his reputation rests on more than that. His victories were achieved by a patient strategy that he and Ho Chi Minh were convinced would succeed” so exactly what are you thinking when you said that General Giap was a “lousy general”? I know that people said this many times but please consider your own self, can you do better in that situation before criticize someone, especially when it comes to war. And I know that my grammar was awful but I’m not afraid to speak my thoughts and opinions and I don’t care if people insult me because it’s true facts and it can’t be change. --Monibuvy147258369 (talk) 07:28, 16 October 2013 (UTC)]]
 * We appreciate your input but this article itself in the "Post-war" section quotes General Westmoreland as stating that Giap was an incompetent general and wouldn't have lasted more than a few weeks if he had been an American military commander. Vietnam lived in poverty for 20 years after the USA left.  Nowadays the USA is Vietnam's biggest investment partner and North Vietnam is reaping the benefits of Western Capitalism.  North Vietnam had many hi-tech weapons in the Vietnam War, provided by the Soviets.  Russia had two fleets of ships operating year round out of Vladivostok and Odessa providing the latest weaponry to North Vietnam.  When the SAM missiles were deployed to North Vietnam in the mid-1960's Russia sent 27,000 SAM operators to man the missiles.  In fact the top-scoring North Vietnamese ace in the Vietnam War was a Russian SAM operator(he shot down about a dozen American planes).  The Vietnam War was between the USA and Red China and Russia--Vietnam was just the poor country that happened to be in the way where these behemoths chose to fight it out.  50.202.81.2 (talk) 15:00, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Giap was a lot like Grant - he knew what his side was willing to throw at the problem and calculated correctly that the other side was unable to match the commitment. Giap used the tools he was given: a poorly trained and inadequately armed army and used it to great effect. In A Bright Shining Lie it was observed that North Vietnam initiated 85% of engagements, which meant that if this was a war of attrition, as Westmoreland said it was, it was the North that controlled the rate of attrition. Studying how the North conducted the war, it was actually extremely self-aware - an admirable trait - and one can't really argue with the outcome. I don't know I would call Giap brilliant, but I wouldn't consider him incompetent.

The quote that Giap wouldn't have lasted as an American general is in Karnow's book, listed in the references. Vygramul 09:02, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

death and life
big article here in the telegraph about him. Should be good for inline citations for much of the article EdwardLane (talk) 17:59, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

'Citations Needed' provisionally added regarding his role in the 1975 defeat of South Vietnam
The uncited claims for Giap's directing role in the final offensive are not supported in the two detailed Wikipedia articles on the subject. He gets no mention at all in the article on the fall of Saigon, and only one mention in the article on the 1975 Offensive that preceded that fall, a mention that relates to 1973; unlike our section here which currently has no citations at all, that clearly far superior article has over 100 citations. Despite officially being the Defence Minister at the time (at least as far as I know), he is not among the listed leaders of that offensive, even though these include not only several generals but also politicians such as Party boss Le Duan. I recall reading a lengthy interview with I-forget-which one of those generals about a year after Saigon fell, and I remember being disappointed to discover that Giap was getting no credit. Indeed, though my memory may be playing tricks on me, I think I remember that general claiming that Giap was against the offensive, fearing that it would be crushed by American bombers (as had happened to the 1972 offensive, though I don't think the general mentioned that), whereas the general claimed to have been confident that 'Oa To Ghet' (Watergate) would ensure there would be no American bombers (a correct claim, though perhaps one helped by hindsight). I have temporarily requested citations in the hope that somebody can find some reliable ones to either confirm or deny Giap's role. His Daily Telegraph obituary has a sentence that appears to support his role, but I doubt if it can be seen as reliable in the light of the other Wikipedia articles with over 100 references that fail to mention such a role (indeed for all I know the obituarist may well simply be repeating what he has read in our flawed article). Tlhslobus (talk) 06:31, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I have now found 3 citations (Time Magazine (repeated in USA Today; it's actually originally Associated Press), Washington Post, Financial Times) saying he was sidelined. I have treated this view, backed by 3 reliable sources and consistent with 2 well referenced Wikipedia articles, as the standard view, and the previous inconsistent view with no sources as an 'alternative' view, while considering whether to delete it. In theory it probably should be deleted, and I could and perhaps should delete it under WP:BOLD, but as somebody has put some work into creating it, I prefer to leave people a chance to find citations for it, and I think any decision to delete that section is arguably better taken by somebody else less involved than me. Tlhslobus (talk) 09:34, 5 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Phillip Davidson claims that Giap "stepped down from battlefield commands" and lost influence in 1972. For further details, see Vietnam at War: The History, 1946-1975, pp. 712-13. Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 09:55, 5 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I've now added this to the article citations Tlhslobus (talk) 21:04, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

"Recent death"
Will people please stop adding this tag. It is not intended for use under such circumstances. The man was 102 and living in a nursing home. The page is not getting 100 edits a day, and information is not going to "change rapidly". Joefromrandb (talk) 08:31, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I added it because the guy was a minister and at some point the second-ranked person in the state. Most people have no idea he was living in a nursing home, but would still recognize the name in the news and go check the article. I believe that the tag was perfectly appropriate. After all, he died recently.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:37, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Exactly what "rapidly changing information" do you wish to alert readers to with the tag? What circumstances about the death of a 102-year-old man who died after several years in a nursing home do you expect to change? Joefromrandb (talk) 08:41, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * There will be state funerals etc, possibly a mourning day, no? I am not going to edit-war for the template though, and I see that you previously had issues with edit-warring, so that would nt make sense anyway.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:48, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, issues with edit-warring are not uncommon for those of us who don't suffer fools gladly. I put it back for you. Have fun with it. Joefromrandb (talk) 08:56, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Good, thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:13, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

If the 'Recent Death' template is meant to draw editors' attention to the article because it needs fixing (especially as it's on the News in most places, and has been on Wikipedia's front page, and probably still is), then I would support it, but I'm not sure whether or not that's the right way of drawing attention to it. I've done some fixing myself, but quite a bit more is needed, and I don't have the time or inclination to do it myself. Issues I've noticed (there are probably a lot that I haven't noticed) include the opening section seemingly implying Ho Chi Minh was a military leader, and very inadequate treatment of his post-1975 career, notably the invasion of Cambodia and subsequent war with China, for which the Guardian and Financial Times obituaries give conflicting accounts, his fall from grace and rehabilitation in 1994, criticism of his political timidity by a former protege, and so on (and all that's just from perusing 4 or 5 obituaries) Tlhslobus (talk) 09:53, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Obviously that isn't what the tag is for. (We have plenty of tags to do that.) Unfortunately, tags, like wiki links, are often used as a plaything by clueless editors. Joefromrandb (talk) 09:59, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Could you perhaps helpfully let some of us less knowledgeable or 'clueless' folk - and/or some of us 'fools' whom you claim not to suffer gladly :) - know to which specific tags you might be referring, and/or add one of them yourself (if it hasn't already been done unnoticed by me)? At the risk of being deemed a fool, might I suggest that would seem to be one way of reducing your risk of edit-warring with alleged fools, as well as according with generally recommended Wikipedia behavior. After all, without such helpful clarification from you, some of us might be foolish enough to worry about the possibility of getting into an unwanted edit war with somebody who admits to having a history of edit-warring with alleged fools whom he doesn't suffer gladly, and has just recently been reverting tags placed in good faith by another editor while commenting on it in a manner that could be understood as implying that editor was a fool, and clueless, in apparent violation of Wikipedia requirements to be civil :) Tlhslobus (talk) 19:35, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Better picture?
Can we get a better picture for Giap, i've just search his name on the Google image and there are many remarkable fine pictures of him in his uniform especially that posed photograph with his hat and medals. Tony19921992 (talk) 12:30, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 2

 * 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. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: move all pages. Armbrust The Homunculus 09:52, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

– Restore full Vietnamese name per recent dozen RMs and geo RFC at WP:VIETCON, plus per increasing use of Unicode fonts in English hardback sources, Amazon.com LOOK INSIDE Tucker Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War Oxford University Press edition, Lockhart & Duiker Historical Dictionary of Vietnam, 2010, etc., and per title consistency with Death and state funeral of Võ Nguyên Giáp and the 17 other Category:Generals of the People's Army of Vietnam and other Category:Ministers of Defence of Vietnam already at Unicode Vietnamese names. Similar rationales for attached Hanoi leaders, and the 7th bio from the 1945 Japanese puppet state Empire of Vietnam. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:27, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Vo Nguyen Giap → Võ Nguyên Giáp
 * Nguyen Tan Dung → Nguyễn Tấn Dũng
 * Le Duan → Lê Duẩn
 * Nguyen Phu Trong → Nguyễn Phú Trọng
 * Nguyen Minh Triet → Nguyễn Minh Triết
 * Truong Tan Sang → Trương Tấn Sang
 * Tran Trong Kim → Trần Trọng Kim
 * Support See János Kádár, Ernő Gerő, Mátyás Rákosi or Mustafa Kemal Atatürk for instance. Vietnamese subjects should not be treated any differentially. --TIAYN (talk) 16:13, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * question Do we have any examples of sources where diacritical marks for Vo Nguyen Giap are dropped where the might be kept for others? given his prominence it's possible he's "earned" a sans-diacritics exonym.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:25, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes we do - see below. Dohn joe (talk) 15:54, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Only the same 1 book as before, not "examples" plural. Thank you User:Obiwankenobi for having come back with the sensible rejoinder "a representative sample - say 10 books that use diacritics". The fact that this book by Pelley 2002 has been brought out before and no other found confirms that here we have one example singular of a single Duke University publication from 2002 which decided to not give full Unicode for a small batch of Vietnamese people within a text mentioning 100s of Vietnamese people. In 30 years of publishing experience I have never seen an author give a similar rationale in a preface that an inconsistent alphabet set be given to a small number of personal names (appears to be 4 or 5 names among the 100s in the book) on the basis that some readers might find the alphabet "difficult to manage". As such this is quite a remarkable (and unprofessional) outlier in the field of academic publishing, and an approach which goes counter to WP:AT policy:
 * Before we go against WP:CRITERIA No.5 in this case, we need to establish whether there is any area of en.wp, any article set, any bios, where inconsistency similar to this 1 book from 2002 is practiced? Is there in fact any other publication by Duke or any other press, where a similar approach has been taken to using different alphabet sets for people of the same nationality in the same sentence? I do not believe there is, and there has been time to produce one in previous discussions since the first time this 1 book was raised. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:54, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose, for Vo Nguyen Giap, at least. Neutral on others. As per User:Obiwankenobi's question, sources do treat at least Vo Nguyen Giap as a diacritics-free exonym. See “recognizing that nonspecialists may find the diacritics difficult to manage, I have omitted them from terms that are familiar to an English-speaking audience. Widely known toponyms (for example, Vietnam, Hanoi, Haiphong, Hue, Saigon, and so forth) appear without diacritical marks, as do proper names such as Ho Chi Minh, Ngo Dinh Diem, and Vo Nguyen Giap.” Dohn joe (talk) 15:54, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That's one example. It would be better to get a representative sample - say 10 books that use diacritics, but selectively eschew them for Giap. Otherwise it's just a one-off. But that is a good indication that an exonym may exist.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:59, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Difficult task, given my less-than-stellar searching skills. I would think another limiting factor would be that given the relative recency of easy-to-use Vietnamese fonts in publishing, the completely-non-diacritics publications still far outnumber the all-diacritics publications. One would think that some of the non-diacritics pubs would switch to selective diacritics use if they were to publish now, or in the future. In other words, there may be some "hidden exonyms" in the non-diacritics pubs. That said, I did find this ("just" a dissertation, but has been oft-cited, including in the U.S. Supreme Court): "In this dissertation, virtually all Vietnamese words are written correctly, with full diacritics, with a few of exceptions." (cf. p.49 "Vo Nguyen Giap", p.51 "Thích Quảng Đức".) Dohn joe (talk) 14:35, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support While Nguyen Giap is widely known to a US audience under that spelling because of the vietnam war, I don't think it's of more import than Gerhard Schröder being commonly spelled Gerhard Schroeder. For comparison, Le Duc Tho, a person of similar historical and political significance, is located at Lê Đức Thọ. All the others are straightforward wp:vietcon. walk victor falktalk 09:57, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per nom, User:Trust Is All You Need, and User:victor falk. Wikipedia doesn't generally strip diacritics from names in other Latin-alphabet languages.  The diacritics can be "read through" by those unfamiliar with them.  —  AjaxSmack   14:18, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per nom, User:Trust Is All You Need, and User:victor falk. Wikipedia doesn't generally strip diacritics from names in other Latin-alphabet languages.  The diacritics can be "read through" by those unfamiliar with them.  —  AjaxSmack   14:18, 20 May 2014 (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.

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