Template talk:National intelligence agencies

message: 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)
thread_title: Misc

message: 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)
replies: text: According to your reasoning, only official name has the rights to appear on wikipedia, so you are  barking up the wrong tree. MI5 is  not an official name, it's just an interchangeable name for Security Service. The Security Service uses MI5 to refer itself doesn't lead to the fact that MI5 must, or will become the official name. MI5 is formerly MO5 and then renamed to Defence Security Service and finally became Security Service. MI5 may be an official name for a period (1916-1929) but not now. If we just strictly use official name and official name only, MI5 can't be used for title now. The same case is applied to MI6. According to the official website, "MI6' has become an almost interchangeable title for SIS" but "fell into official disuse years ago", like MI5. However, my argument is not based on whether the name is official, but purport that the name which is more common in use and more easily recognized by general community can be used on Wikipedia. Wikipedia allows to use common names for articles, so no way shouldn't be applied to template as well. MI6 is a more popular name and is still widely used by writers and journalists. Thus it's entirely eligible as a reference to Secret Intelligence Service. @pple 09:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not so, rather the policy on Wikipedia is for the most popular name to be used only when the official name is seldom used and not commonly known. An example is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which is referred to as North Korea because it is by this name that it's almost universally known. I understand your reasoning that the same applies to MI6/SIS, but I'm skeptical. Whereas the Security Service (as I said previously) explicitly encourages the use of MI5 as its acronym (likely because using SS may be controversial), the SIS does seem to actively discourage the use of MI6. Furthermore, increasing numbers of journalists are beginning to refer to it as SIS, while security analysts almost exclusively do so already. I do admit though that MI6 is still quite popular, so I'm willing to leave the table as is for the time-being. Perhaps in a few months, if more journalists begin writing SIS rather than MI6, we can revisit it and insert the correct name. — Impi 18:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

text: You should notify me of your reply. However, I'm tired of continually reverting now and I accept whatever names. But beware, MI6 is still very popular, as I see Tenet still used it normally in his recent memoir. :) Just a name! @pple 16:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  SIS vs MI6 

message: 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)
thread_title:  RFC: Should this template include flags for each country? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Mexico's CISEN 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Removed non-national US agencies 

message: 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)
thread_title:  These categories don't make much sense? 

message: 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)
replies: text: Deltaspace42 (talk • contribs) 09:06, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 18 December 2023