Talk:South Vietnam

Vicki, thanks for restoring South Vietnam to stub status from redirect. Many U.S. veterans who think they fought for a good cause there will appreciate having an article. Of course, the Vietnam article should still exist. The situation is perhaps similar to the West Germany and East Germany articles vs. the Germany article. Ed Poor, Thursday, June 27, 2002

Ed, about "merged" vs "conquered": The sentence now doesn't read very well; "it was conquered by ... to form"??? "merged with ... to form" makes better grammatical sense, and we should use a word that reflects this. That a conquest was involved is already stated in the first part of the sentence anyway; this part of the sentence describes the neutral fact that the countries were combined. So we should find a term that doesn't imply consent but fits in with the sentence. I claim that "merged with" is exactly the term that we need. It's a neutral term, because mergers are not necessarily voluntary. This was what in the business world is called a "hostile takeover", which is more neutrally referred to as a "merger" in that context too. If you disagree that "merged with" is neutral, claiming that it implies consent, then can you suggest another term to use instead? As it is, it doesn't read well at all, IMO. — Toby 20:03 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)

"merged with"... is neutral but "conquered"... is biased to one side

Actually, NPOV isn't my concern; I'm convinced that "conquered" is a reasonable factual word to use. The sentiment is already expressed in the phrase "the fall of Saigon", and I wouldn't even object to rephrasing that to be more explicit. When I say that "merged" is neutral, I don't mean that it's unbiased but instead that it simply doesn't say whether the merger was voluntary or not. If that point were under contention, then we'd have to use a neutral word to remain NPOV. To my knowledge, however, that point is not under contention; even those who find the government of South Vietnam illegitimate would concede that it was conquered by the other government. So I say "neutral" not to argue that we must use that word but rather that we can without being factually incorrect (since the fact of the matter is that it was not voluntary, as Ed is correct to imply). The reason that we must (or rather, should) use "merged" is simply the way that it fits into the sentence. If the fact of conquest were not expressed at all, then I would agree that it should be added (albeit in a way that reads well), but that fact is already mentioned. — Toby 21:23 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)

Merged vs. Conquered.

South Vietnam was conquered by North Vietnam in 1975. vs, South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged in 1976.

While both may factually correct, the nuance of the second is that it was voluntary, and the first more accurately reflects that the South lost the war to the North.

I vote conquered.