This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
National intelligence agencies template. |
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Espionage Template‑class | |||||||
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Most of countries have more than one intelligence agencies. What kind of agency this template aims for? External or internal or just the biggest? For what criteria will an agency be put in this template? This tem is too ambiguous. @pple 08:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
In order to avoid continuing our revert battle @pple, I suggest we thrash the differences out here. I do not believe that it's correct to use the term MI6 when referring to the Secret Intelligence Service. Unlike the Security Service, which was officially designated MI5 for a period and which actually uses "MI5" to refer to itself (see their FAQ page), the SIS was never officially designated "MI6" and it refuses to refer to itself officially by that term. Indeed, the SIS website has a fairly extensive explanation on this. Now while MI6 may be a popular way to refer to the SIS, thanks to things like the Bond franchise, it is not official and thus should not be used in an encyclopedia in place of the correct name. — Impi 17:20, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
This template needs to be reformatted. Currently it uses flags and acronyms, which makes it difficult to find a country's intelligence agency if you don't happen to recognize the flag or the acronym of the agency. I am aware that the country name appears as a mouseover tooltip when hovering the mouse pointer over the flag, but again, it's frustrating to have to mouse over every flag until you find the country you want. Furthermore, a number of the acronyms used in the template do not actually appear to be in common use (i.e., the agency is actually commonly referred to by its full name, or by its native-language acronym instead of the English one).
I suggest the list be changed to a format such as this:
— Psychonaut ( talk) 11:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I vote for both flags with country names. Well I think countries flags are important and second also we do need names of the country too. 99.224.114.143 ( talk) 05:30, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I vote for flags. Carachi ( talk) 21:55, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
I would prefer both flags and names. As flags were always their before so I go flags with now. If you want to also add the names with flags more power to you. Carachi ( talk) 01:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
There are three possibilities for identifying the country in this template of intelligence agencies. Flags-only runs afoul of MOS:ICON#Accompany flags with country names and is a non-starter. The other editor would like both the name and the icon and I think that goes against MOS:ICON#Encyclopedic purpose and MOS:ICON#Too many icons. Please indicate whether you prefer name-only or name+flag and why. Thanks Celestra ( talk) 15:34, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
(RFC Comment) I dont see any reason to change from name only, this is just used for navigation and the use of flags would be just decoration. The use of icons in a nav box just gives a level of doubt as not all are self evident. The nav box is to take you to related articles it just needs to be clear and the name only suits that purpose. MilborneOne ( talk) 09:00, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
I delete CISEN from military intelligence section because the main purpose of that agency is offering civil intelligence in tackling national security threats, especially those related to organized crime. Betoqa ( talk) 18:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Someone added US agencies that are not national-level. Since this template links to national agencies, in the US these agencies are CIA, NSA, NGA, NRO, and at the military/defense level, DIA. Therefore, other US agencies should not be included. Further, NRO should not be listed as a SIGINT provider as it simply builds and maintains satellites that provide SIGINT, GEOINT, and MASINT to NSA, NGA, and DIA respectively. 68.34.82.255 ( talk) 18:07, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
Currently the template is divided into agencies of various categories, but it's not clear what the criteria are or why that grouping really makes sense. Foreign-vs-domestic is sensible since those are almost always different agencies and operate under different laws, but foreign/military/signals intelligence doesn't make much sense. Many countries have foreign HUMINT and SIGINT in the same agencies, as well as military and civilian agencies, so they're listed multiple times. Distinguishing 'foreign' from 'signals' seems quite misleading when most foreign intelligence in most countries is, as a rule, from SIGINT sources. Then there are things like German MAD being listed as 'military' even though they don't do military intelligence as such, they're a military agency that does domestic counterintelligence. Swedish FRA (military agency doing foreign SIGINT on military and civilian matters) is listed as Signals but not Foreign or Military, while Danish FE (military agency doing foreign HUMINT and SIGINT, military and civilian matters) is listed as Foreign and Military but not Signals. Japanese DIH is listed as a Signals agency but not a military one, even though it is both. It says the Netherlands has two SIGINT agencies NSO and JSCU, but the former doesn't exist anymore and the latter is a collaboration between the AIVD and MIVD which are listed elsewhere, and not an agency in its own right.
Anyway, bottom line is that these categories conflate the method of intelligence gathering (HUMINT/SIGINT) with its target (foreign/domestic/military) and in the case of military, a target with who the agency belongs to organizationally (as with MAD). There's no real logic to it. IMO those three categories should simply be merged into 'foreign intelligence'. Most countries don't have more than 2 or 3 agencies in those categories anyway and as said, they frequently overlap. As it is now, there's both redundancy with the same agencies listed multiple times, but also missing entries since others aren't but should be. It's unclear who is or should be listed where. 91.152.169.54 ( talk) 04:39, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
This
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Please undo this edit. Finnish Defence Intelligence Agency is responsible for the signals intelligence in Finland not Finnish Security and Intelligence Service. See Finnish Defence Intelligence Agency#Signals intelligence. 85.76.13.79 ( talk) 08:27, 18 December 2023 (UTC)