All caps for military operations, ordnance, etc.

[David H. Barrett]

Hi, all

First time posting in these forums, so if I inadvertently tread on toes, breach etiquette, or otherwise irritate anyone beyond measure I apologise in advance. I've actually started having this discussion with Howard Berkowitz, but consider it sufficiently important to bring into a more open venue.

What are people's thoughts in general about using all caps, military style, for names of operations, aircraft, and so on? For example, "Operation DESERT STORM" or "MC-130 COMBAT SPEAR" (as opposed to "Operation Desert Storm" or "MC-130 Combat Spear").

While I understand the rationale for such usage in internal military documents, I don't really see the need for it in general documents such as Citizendium. It would not occur in the majority of published histories of military conflicts, be they books, encyclopedia entries, or whatever, and I don't think it's appropriate or necessary here.

I'll throw in some of my credentials at this point, not to try to use them for evil not good, but to demonstrate that this argument is not just coming off the top of my head. I've worked as an editor in academic book publishing for more than a decade (before moving on to become and English and History teacher - the pay sucks in publishing!), and that has included a number of military histories. I am therefore reasonably familiar with the style conventions in this area. I think it's important for consistency and credibility for us to conform with more general usage for publication of textual documents. I have every sympathy with military personnel who like to see all caps in their reports and so on, but I just don't see it being needed here.

The ''Chicago Manual of Style" calls for initial capitalization of military operations (e.g. Operation Overlord) (see http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ch08/ch08_sec122.html).

The US Air Force Special Operations Command uses "Combat Spear", not "COMBAT SPEAR", on their website, for example (http://www.afsoc.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=9195), and the fact sheets on all military aircraft on their site, and that of the Air Force (to which they link) only use all caps in the headings; upper and lower case is used throughout the remainder of the documents. (This is also the case in the overwhelming majority of public references that I can Google up about US military aircraft.)

I'd really welcome the thoughts of others on this point, and perhaps some sort of consensus on it.

But I'm not into fist-fighting, so let's keep it clean! 

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Hi, all

First time posting in these forums, so if I inadvertently tread on toes, breach etiquette, or otherwise irritate anyone beyond measure I apologise in advance. I've actually started having this discussion with Howard Berkowitz, but consider it sufficiently important to bring into a more open venue.

No problem.

What are people's thoughts in general about using all caps, military style, for names of operations, aircraft, and so on? For example, "Operation DESERT STORM" or "MC-130 COMBAT SPEAR" (as opposed to "Operation Desert Storm" or "MC-130 Combat Spear").

As background to this, I'd appreciate people reading first the article classified information, and then (I cringe myself) compartmented control system, which gets into a number of admittedly weird naming examples, and still doesn't get into the nuances.

My approach has been to stay as close as possible to the capitalization rules that apply to the primary documents. I freely admit that individual documents and organizations violate certain rules, but I see little choice but to use the authoritative U.S. references, as having the best chance of helping a reader read original materials, and to keep the articles here as consistent as possible.

While I understand the rationale for such usage in internal military documents, I don't really see the need for it in general documents such as Citizendium. It would not occur in the majority of published histories of military conflicts, be they books, encyclopedia entries, or whatever, and I don't think it's appropriate or necessary here.

I'll throw in some of my credentials at this point, not to try to use them for evil not good, but to demonstrate that this argument is not just coming off the top of my head. I've worked as an editor in academic book publishing for more than a decade (before moving on to become and English and History teacher - the pay sucks in publishing!), and that has included a number of military histories. I am therefore reasonably familiar with the style conventions in this area. I think it's important for consistency and credibility for us to conform with more general usage for publication of textual documents. I have every sympathy with military personnel who like to see all caps in their reports and so on, but I just don't see it being needed here.

The ''Chicago Manual of Style" calls for initial capitalization of military operations (e.g. Operation Overlord) (see http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ch08/ch08_sec122.html).

I have published four books and contributed to others, which generally followed the Chicago Manual of Style. When dealing with military and intelligence security conventions, in the context of information security, copy editors (Macmillan, Wiley, Addison-Wesley among others), I explained the reasons for using intelligence and military conventions. While the Web wasn't always a factor, as things go back a bit before, we agreed that using the form most likely to be accepted by a case-sensitive search engine had advantages. Not all search engines are case-sensitive.

The US Air Force Special Operations Command uses "Combat Spear", not "COMBAT SPEAR", on their website, for example (http://www.afsoc.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=9195), and the fact sheets on all military aircraft on their site, and that of the Air Force (to which they link) only use all caps in the headings; upper and lower case is used throughout the remainder of the documents. (This is also the case in the overwhelming majority of public references that I can Google up about US military aircraft.)

And AFSOC (or Afsoc if you will) is breaking the rule on this subject.  COMBAT SPEAR is what is formally called a code name. The usages among "code name", "code word", and "nickname" are weird, wonderful, and often broken.

Code names are assigned to major commands, usually by first letter, or perhaps first word. Code words starting with C usually are Headquarters, United States Air Force. To take some other Air Force examples, the COBRA series refer to measurement and signature intelligence programs, as in RC-135 COBRA BALL. COMBAT, however, has been shared by different Air Force organizations; COMBAT prefixing an intelligence collection aircraft usually means it is for electronic intelligence (e.g., RC-135 COMBAT SENT), as opposed to communications intelligence (e.g., RC-135 RIVET JOINT). SENIOR, as far as I know, all apply to programs associated with the U-2 aircraft.

What I just described was a Department of Defense usage of "code name". CIA has a different convention of "cryptonyms", where a two-letter digraph relates to some country or area, followed by a word that deals with the specific program. It is considered elegant if one can create a name that uses the first two letters as part of a word. This is not always successful; EC deals with counterintelligence, and the CIA term for a polygraph is ECFLUTTER.  MO appeared to be Cuban-related, and the assassination plans against Castro were MONGOOSE. If there were sub-operations, for a hypothetical foreign agent in the country whose digraph were DA, DAGWOOD, his sub-agents would be DAGWOOD-1, DAGWOOD-2, etc., until a sub-agent became important enough to get his own cryptonym, DANCER. (see Clandestine cell system) With CIA, pseudonyms are something completely different than cryptonyms; they are conventionally capitalized names like George S. Murphy, which is used in situations where a CIA officer (i.e., not an "asset") is operating undercover, and their true name of Ivan K. Lee is considered classified.

Unless someone really, really wants to know more, I'll avoid more examples.  My point is that there are conventions that are more or less followed by the people that produce these things, and my first preference is to follow their rules. If I'm quoting a specific document whose title violates the rule, I may use it in the exact form used.

Each of my books' first chapter has the same title: "What problem are you trying to solve?" I suppose I'd ask that question here--is there, David, more than a matter of appearance here? Is this creating an actual problem in using the material?  There are quite a few debates on naming, and by no means is it solved on Citizendium.   Apparently, there is a recent convention that history journals prefer "Gettysburg, Battle of", rather than "Battle of Gettysburg".  That really was solved easily, by staying with the more common usage of Battle of Gettysburg, but setting the metadata sort field to "Gettysburg, Battle of".

You will note I did not write Battle of GETTYSBURG. If you read through FBI, and many other law enforcement and security agencies' documents, they often write out names in all caps, and also write out middle names. Are there any serial murderers that don't have three names? Yes, I've seen my name in my clearance reports written HOWARD CURTIS BERKOWITZ, but I don't use either caps or my middle name in my userpage, because a style had been established beforehand.

In dealing with technical material, I believe the primary authority should be the creator of the naming convention. With military phrases, if the military reference manuals say ALL CAPS, I will follow that. I will follow the rules of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry if the formal usage is required; while I might speak of "glycerine" for making artisanal soap, I will also refer to it as    Propane-1,2,3-triol in technical publication. 

I have yet to understand the problem created by following primary sources. David, do you have examples of how CODE NAMES has caused a problem in writing or reading, other than not being consistent with one style manual?

I'd really welcome the thoughts of others on this point, and perhaps some sort of consensus on it.

But I'm not into fist-fighting, so let's keep it clean! 

No, not fist-fighting. I prefer judo.

[David H. Barrett]

Hi, Howard

Thanks for the extremely comprehensive reply. Time restraints don't permit me to go into quite as much detail, but I'll try to summarise my questions and points as best I can in a limited space:

• Military usage is fine in military documents, but what is their purpose in generalist public texts such as this encyclopedia?
• If we wish to be consistent (and as an editor, of course I do), should we not choose a particular style and use it? That does not preclude flexibility, but I think it's still worth discussing.
• And I do believe there is a readability issue with all caps. Fully capitalised words are generally considered harder to read, and even if that's only marginally the case, they impede the natural flow of the eye across and through a text, and therefore the ability of the brain to process and comprehend that text. The mechanics of reading are, in short, hindered rather than helped by the practice.

I'm not against all caps merely for the sake of conformity with style manuals, and certainly not because I have some irrational problem with the "military way". I'm simply not convinced that just because the military uses it in internal documents we should use it "out here".

 

[Hayford Peirce]

As a layman, a reader, a one-time professional writer, and a guy with several manuals of style on the shelf just above the computer on which I'm writing this, let me weigh in with my own opinion: I hate words that are all in caps.

Please -- figure out some way not to use them in CZ!  If you *do* use them, I am sure that at some point the general consensus will decide to ban them and you'll have to go to a lot of work to change them.

Being a wuss, I prefer tennis myself, but I used to be able to hit the ball pretty hard and I doubt if you'd like to have caught one of my serves with the tip of your nose....

Hayford

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Hi, Howard

Thanks for the extremely comprehensive reply. Time restraints don't permit me to go into quite as much detail, but I'll try to summarise my questions and points as best I can in a limited space:

• Military usage is fine in military documents, but what is their purpose in generalist public texts such as this encyclopedia?
• If we wish to be consistent (and as an editor, of course I do), should we not choose a particular style and use it? That does not preclude flexibility, but I think it's still worth discussing.
• And I do believe there is a readability issue with all caps. Fully capitalised words are generally considered harder to read, and even if that's only marginally the case, they impede the natural flow of the eye across and through a text, and therefore the ability of the brain to process and comprehend that text. The mechanics of reading are, in short, hindered rather than helped by the practice.

I'm not against all caps merely for the sake of conformity with style manuals, and certainly not because I have some irrational problem with the "military way". I'm simply not convinced that just because the military uses it in internal documents we should use it "out here".

 

My strongest reason is compatibility with search engines. Indeed, Citizendium's own search tool and wikilinks can be unpredictable in accepting, or not accepting, certain patterns of capitalization.  I wouldn't put a lot of money on it, but I suspect that Wikimedia, the underlying software, does not always use the same matching code.  It's not as finicky as UNIX, but it does do unexpected things.

Second, I believe in following the primary sources. I use IUPAC notation when I'm writing in chemistry. I use mathematical notation when writing for mathematicians, although I don't use Greek letters in computer science because that is not the convention.  I have had some very ugly experiences with situations where people did not understand that certain medical phrasing is very high-context, and changing for "editorial" reasons can completely change the meaning.

You may or may not have noticed that I do not use the capitalization convention in all military writing.I use it where, to the best of my knowledge, the source would use it. For example, if I refer to the German WWII invasion of Poland, if staying in German seemed appropriate.  I'd use either "Fall Gelb", or, when I hunt for the special character, "Fall Weiß", Translated, I'd write "Case White", not in all caps because that was not the German usage.

I certainly would write "Battle of Normandy". Now, it would be customary to refer to the landing operation proper as NEPTUNE, but I might be persuaded to use Neptune, because I know there was no formal rule at the time; it appears in original documents because it was much harder to find lower case for rubber stamps, and Teletypes of the time were upper case only. This is an area where I've done research in primary documents of the time, at the U.S. National Archives and various military libraries. There was no general rule, but certain organizations had conventions.

With the examples I have in compartmented control system, however, those are directly from the cited documents about how markings are to be written in contemporary documents. It's probably too much detail, but I can cite some Soviet propaganda forgeries of alleged U.S. documents that were instantly obvious to anyone accustomed to the way things are written.

To answer your specific points:
Military usage is fine in military documents, but what is their purpose in generalist public texts such as this encyclopedia?
For the same reasons I use medical terminology in medical articles. Wherever possible, I use the term in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), the standard indexing for medical journals and bibliographic systems.
If we wish to be consistent (and as an editor, of course I do), should we not choose a particular style and use it? That does not preclude flexibility, but I think it's still worth discussing.
In a discipline-specific article, I wish to be consistent with the discipline, but I have no overwhelming desire to be consistent with what a layman "expects". The issue about the "lay reader" recurs again and again, but often dies out when confronted with some of the issues in math and sciences -- there simply is no way to put expressions into lay terms. I suppose I could write out, in prose, the words that describe a partial differential equation or a chemical structural formula, but if someone presented that prose to me, I'd have no idea what was meant.

Taking a comment of Heyford's, I don't play or watch tennis -- my vision was never up to it. I know sportscasters speak of someone doing something, if I remember correctly, "two-love", I don't ask for a translation. That's discipline-specific language. From the perspective of a military practitioner or historian, I suppose I could ask why one says "serve" as opposed to "start whatever you call an exchange by a designated person picking up the ball, throwing it into the air, and hitting it."

And I do believe there is a readability issue with all caps. Fully capitalised words are generally considered harder to read, and even if that's only marginally the case, they impede the natural flow of the eye across and through a text, and therefore the ability of the brain to process and comprehend that text. The mechanics of reading are, in short, hindered rather than helped by the practice In fact, the conventions of using ALL CAPS is deliberate, in the same sense that bold colored fonts are used: emphasis and separation from text. It is, for example, a CZ convention that the name of the article appear in bold in the first sentence of the introduction.

Bold is not easier to read. Bolding is there to draw attention to the definition, and so the eye can jump back to it.

As a Military Workgroup editor, I believe I am staying true to the conventions of the discipline by staying as close as proper to the discipline usage. As far as things like Air Force and Army "factsheets", they quite frequently contain errors beyond capitalization. I'm amazed some things get through, but I'm writing this in the United States, the only industrialized country that allows dumbed-down, oversimplified-to-the-point-of-danger direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription drugs.

As a Computers Workgroup editor, I will provide Wikilinks to definitions, up to a point where if the reader doesn't have the context, the paragraph won't make much sense.

I'm sorry, but in this case, I believe the Director of National Intelligence reference document to be more authoritative than the Chicago Manual of Style.

[David H. Barrett]

I remain utterly unconvinced, despite the none too gentle coercion of the Director of National Intelligence, standing behind me and ready to lash out with his reference document. Ouch!

At the end of the day, if the military don't use all caps in their own public documents (to whit the multiplicity of websites I've checked), why should we? And even if they do, I repeat -- why should we? This is an encyclopedia, not a military archive or manual.

I will continue to contend, head held high and nostrils flared (and looking slightly away from the camera, for that added air of mystique), that no matter what reasons the military has for using capitals in this fashion, it has no place in non-military documents unless you are citing directly from the source, in quotation marks or extended quotes. (OK, there's a concession for you. One up for the Berkster!  ) Otherwise, it's pointless, needless and difficult to read. And it doesn't in any way, shape or form -- in my hever so 'umble hopinion, sir -- equate with the use of bold text at the beginning of an article.

Having said all that, I tips me 'at to you! You do the finest line of "baffle 'em with you-know-what" that I've ever come across! A veritable avalanche of verbiage! It won't make me give in, but it sure bears admiration!

[David H. Barrett]

Could we please have some more meaningful discussion on this? We're being buried in capitals out there (no offence, intended, Howard, but if there's a consensus for change it's going to take six months to implement!)

I've had my say, and my opinion is on the open record.

What do others think?

[Paul Wormer]

I hate capitals, they shout at me, and I don't like being shouted at.  And, indeed, Citizendium is no military manual. My vote goes to David, sorry Howard.

[Hayford Peirce]

If we're having a vote, I agree with Paul: no caps.

[David H. Barrett]

I'm not really calling for a vote so much as a detailed and reasoned discussion.

I have nothing left to add personally (at this point, anyway), but I'd like to hear from people who support the use of all caps, and those who don't.

At the end of the day, I really think we need to have a rational debate on the issue and then come up with some sort of consensus, applicable across the site. These sorts of issues, as trivial as they may seem, strike at the core of our credibility and authenticity as a body of knowledge. It is to our own benefit to have these debates.

I hope this is how things work in here. I'm still a bit of a newbie, so if, as I've said a few times before, I'm treading on toes or stirring up trouble in a seemingly careless way (not my intent, naturally), please do let me know.

Having said that, as much discussion on this as possible, including reasoned argument, is the ultimate aim, I think.

Thanks!

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

I'm not really calling for a vote so much as a detailed and reasoned discussion.

I have nothing left to add personally (at this point, anyway), but I'd like to hear from people who support the use of all caps, and those who don't.

At the end of the day, I really think we need to have a rational debate on the issue and then come up with some sort of consensus, applicable across the site. These sorts of issues, as trivial as they may seem, strike at the core of our credibility and authenticity as a body of knowledge. It is to our own benefit to have these debates.

David, in calling for "debate", who do you expect to participate? One of the basic differences between Wikipedia and Citizendium is that the role of an Editor. Editors have verified subject matter experience, and fill a role that does not exist at Wikipedia: acting as content authority, and, within reasonable limits, to make subject matter content decisions. I would agree that there should be a consensus among Editors in a given discipline, but, as I understand the Citizendium model, when it is a content matter, the consensus needs to be established among the Editors in that area.

Originally, I trained as a biochemist. There are ways the Chemistry editors have chosen to present certain information, and I find some of them hard to read. From my perspective, there are far too many subpages for each element; I don't see why one-line things such as orbital structure and electronegativity are separate subpages, rather than fields in a template. Even though I do have formal training in the area, and am a "user" of professional chemical knowledge in doing such things as developing clinical decision support systems with rules that use values from the clinical chemistry laboratory, I don't presume to tell that fairly prolific group about the formats they need to use. In my undergraduate chemical training, there was a course called "chemical literature", which gave the conventions that were used in chemical indexing. I really don't know if the conventions of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, or the indexing of the American Chemical Society's Chemical Abstracts have changed, but I accept that the Chemistry editors check this, and don't argue on the basis that I find their style somewhat hard to read.

In the military capitalization area, I'm hearing arguments over how readable, or not, some people find the military conventions. As I understand the Citizendium model, there is a very strong difference between something that is domain-independent, such as the color of stub links (a recent change), and the way of presenting something that does have domain-specific aspects. The former is a proper subject for general debate. The latter is not.

You may or may not have noticed, but I do not put all military or intelligence names into all caps. To take Air Force examples, I do not put "F-35A Lightning II", "C-130J Hercules", or "F-117 Nighthawk" into all caps, because there is a convention of putting "official" name on aircraft.  In some cases, that name is actually used, or something close; a C-130 transport may be called "Herc" or "Herky Bird" in common use, but there's a clear resemblance. I felt very silly putting the official name "A-10 Thunderbolt II" on there at all, because the aircraft is universally called the Warthog. I broke down and just put down "B-52", rather than "B-52 Stratofortress", because the aircraft is universally called the BUFF. In keeping with Citizendium on "family-friendliness", BUFF stands for "Big Ugly Fat...fellow".  Fellow. Yes, Fellow.

Let's return to the F-117, officially called the Nighthawk. In practice, it's called either an "F-117" or a "Black Jet". If, however, I was referring to the Lockheed proof-of-concept demonstrator for the F-117, I would refer to that as HAVE BLUE, which was the code name for the classified project.

As I've mentioned, I do not put code names in caps when the country involved did not use them; I would refer to the early German submarine attacks on shipping along the east coast of the U.S. "Aktion Paukenschlag" in German, or "Operation Drumbeat" in English.

I hope this is how things work in here. I'm still a bit of a newbie, so if, as I've said a few times before, I'm treading on toes or stirring up trouble in a seemingly careless way (not my intent, naturally), please do let me know.

Believe me, I am trying, in good faith, to explain something I am doing, as a content decision by an Editor. I don't know how many articles containing a CODE NAME, or about something being TOP SECRET/SIOP/ESI, I've written here, but it is certainly in the many tens. To see something written as "top secret" is to me, jarring. It also helps me to know the conventions when I've looked at a purported document, and realized it was a forgery because too many conventions were violated; I think that's a useful viewpoint.

Actually, I'm a little confused about your reference to "ordnance" in the subject line, since most ordnance does not have all caps, unless it's a specific abbreviation. For example, if I were to refer to the standard U.S. 2000 pound bomb, I'd use its designation of Mark 84. If it were converted to a guided bomb by attaching the components of the Joint Direct Action Munition, which is a bolt-on set of electronics and fins, I'd call it a JDAM or Mk. 84 JDAM.

While there's an inherent problem in dealing with other alphabets, I refer to the first widely deployed Russian surface-to-air missile as the S-75 Dvina, if I am using a Roman approximation of the Cyrillic designation used by its developers. When I refer to the NATO designation for the same missile, I will refer to it as an SA-2 GUIDELINE, because that is the convention for NATO designations.

Maybe you aren't defining ordnance in the formal definition, but I don't see widespread use of all caps there other than for abbreviations. I write AGM-84 Harpoon, but AGM-88 HARM, the letter being an abbreviation for High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile. I wrote AGM-86 ALCM, for air-launched cruise missile, and even mentioned that the Conventional version (CALCM) was internally called the "Secret Squirrel" -- not an official name. I call the basic 155mm howitzer projectile the M107, for that is its designation.  I'm puzzled, therefore, about your point about ordnance.

Having said that, as much discussion on this as possible, including reasoned argument, is the ultimate aim, I think.

Thanks!

[David H. Barrett]

Hi, Howard

I know what you're trying to say (and sorry about that "ordnance" thing - I was using it as a catch-all for any military equipment, and fully acknowledge that it has a much finer meaning; I guess I was counting aircraft as "weapons"), and do not in any way, shape or form doubt your good faith in this discussion.

And yes, I acknowledge your point with code names, but that doesn't mean I agree with it, nor necessarily agree that there's a clear correlation between all caps in such instances and other conventional usages, be they in science or whatever other field. There's a reason for all caps in military documentation that I argue does not exist here, code name or no code name. This is not a military text. And if, as I say again for the who-know-how-manyeth time, the military itself doesn't use all caps for such names in public informational documentation, why should we?

Thanks for continuing to engage in this at a professional level, though. I've been part of many a forum that would have dissolved into meaningless name-calling by now!

Respect!

[Hayford Peirce]

Hi, Howard,

I certainly don't want to disparage the ENORMOUS input you have contributed in a very short time frame. Or your very great expertise, which far exceeds mine in almost field I can think of.  But let's just apply a couple of common sense (or man-of-the-street) comments here:

1.) This is an encyl. for the general public, not U.S.A. military specialists.

2.) Caps are like SHOUTING.

3.) Whether we like the New York Times or not, let's postulate that they spend an enormous amount of effort devoted to the style of their publication.  They have a widely read style manual.  And what do we find at the NYT?

4.) They put certain abbreviations into caps, such as NATO.

5.) They do NOT follow military jargon, or cant, or whatever other word you want to call it, and write about DESERT STORM. They write about Operation Desert Storm.

6.) I can't think of any other publication that the well-educated layman reads, and believe me, I read a lot of them, that uses military caps jargon in their articles.

Please, Howard, I URGE (not a military operation) you to give up this misguided notion of using caps just because that's the way a bunch of military people do it!  Remember what the definition is of using two hairbrushes when one can do the job!

Amicably (and in awe of your incredible erudtion), but still firmly,

Hayford

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Hi, Howard,

I certainly don't want to disparage the ENORMOUS input you have contributed in a very short time frame. Or your very great expertise, which far exceeds mine in almost field I can think of.  But let's just apply a couple of common sense (or man-of-the-street) comments here:

1.) This is an encyl. for the general public, not U.S.A. military specialists.
2.) Caps are like SHOUTING.
3.) Whether we like the New York Times or not, let's postulate that they spend an enormous amount of effort devoted to the style of their publication.  They have a widely read style manual.  And what do we find at the NYT?
4.) They put certain abbreviations into caps, such as NATO.
5.) They do NOT follow military jargon, or cant, or whatever other word you want to call it, and write about DESERT STORM. They write about Operation Desert Storm.
6.) I can't think of any other publication that the well-educated layman reads, and believe me, I read a lot of them, that uses military caps jargon in their articles.

Please, Howard, I URGE (not a military operation) you to give up this misguided notion of using caps just because that's the way a bunch of military people do it!  Remember what the definition is of using two hairbrushes when one can do the job!

Amicably (and in awe of your incredible erudtion), but still firmly,

Hayford

Perhaps analogies might help why I really feel that appropriate caps, which, as I've mentioned, are used in specific and relevant cases: "F-117 Nighthawk" (official "public" name), HAVE BLUE (the classified proof-of-concept) and "Black Jet" (what it's actually called in the military). For my analogy, I shall move away from the military.

1.) This is an encyl. for the general public, not medical specialists.
The NYT may refer to "mad cow disease", which, while it is a reasonable description of my Aunt Shirley, is incorrect and misleading. Cows get bovine spongiform encepalopathy. When humans contract it, it's new-variant Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease.

In the very active ProMED mailing list, from the International Society for Infectious Disease, not only would "mad cow disease" not be used, but it is assumed that BSE and nvCJD are meaningful to the readership -- and even there, the language is far less cryptic than would be in a medical chart, or even a consultant report.

Were I to write about these prion diseases here, I would refer to them by their full proper name, although I might use the abbreviation after it was defined. I would not use "mad cow disease" even were I, for some strange reason, to write an article about Aunt Shirley. You see, I have known some reasonably pleasant female bovines, and I'd not want to insult them.

2.) Caps are like SHOUTING.

Odd. It's a discipline-specific notation.  I don't understand why you are not complaining, then, about mathematical or chemical notation. Look at the section "microscopic equations" at Maxwell equation. Surely that's a bit harder to read than ALL CAPS? I'm not a physicist, and, when I go through them, I freely admit I stop and mutter a lot.

I'm more of a chemist. Penicillin is a common enough topic. The idea of a beta-lactam is essential to understanding the relationships of the class. For that reason, if I were defining the notation, I'd have the beta-lactam part of the structural formula given graphic emphasis. It's the square part in the middle. The stuff that makes particular penicillins different is a substitution for R at the top left, which is usually a bunch of other squiggly stuff. The part that makes this a penicillin, rather than a different class of beta-lactam antibiotic such as a cephalosporin, is the pentagonal stuff on the right.

Why isn't this explained in the article? Surely more people have taken penicillin than gone through the specifics of military operations? Don't they have a right to have the notation made friendlier?

I have no particular interest in tennis, so I don't bother to learn how the scoring works. In judo, however, it would be helpful to know what Ippon Seoinage was if an announcer described it. It would be even more important for me to know what it is if it were being applied to me in a dojo, so I might counter it by quickly centering on my stomach and dropping low. Were it applied to me on the street, where there are no rules, it would still be important to know the technique, so I'd counter with a backwards leg sweep, elbow strikes to the midsection, or try to get a counter neck hold--the latter is an all-or-nothing; it can miss, but if I hit it, I can break his neck.

To return briefly to the specific military usage, I would suggest that you look at the body of, for example, Operation DESERT STORM, a fairly lengthy article, I see one use each of RIVET JOINT, PAVE LOW, COMPASS CALL, and URGENT FURY. There are, indeed, multiple mentions of SCUD. 

It would be one thing if these formed the bulk of articles, but, in general, they are used in titles, wikilinks, and initial definitions. I suspect that the article with the highest percentage of all caps is compartmented control system, which specifically addresses document markings, citing actual references. How would you have me refer to TOP SECRET? Top Secret? top secret? The very point of such a marking is that it is intended to stand out.
3.) Whether we like the New York Times or not, let's postulate that they spend an enormous amount of effort devoted to the style of their publication.  They have a widely read style manual.  And what do we find at the NYT?
I don't have internal experience with the NYT, but I was a part-time science writer, while in college, for the Washington Post.  When I referred to a specific project, I used whatever convention was being used by its authors, and then used general terms. I think you will find, for example, when I discuss operations involving some special operations helicopters such as the MH-53 PAVE LOW, I use that principally to identify the specific machine, and then refer to it by function, as "navigational leader" or "rescue helicopter", "guiding AH-64 Apache Army attack helicopters." You will note that I use PAVE LOW for the one, and Apache for the other, because those are the conventions. It's not as if the bulk of these articles are in all caps.

Incidentally, while the NYT is fairly good about not using all caps except in the biggest headlines, a substantial number of newspapers do capitalize titles.
4.) They put certain abbreviations into caps, such as NATO.
5.) They do NOT follow military jargon, or cant, or whatever other word you want to call it, and write about DESERT STORM. They write about Operation Desert Storm.

They write about mad cow disease. That's not correct, but the other extreme, of nvCJD, would be inappropriate.

Again, take the example of Operation (note initial cap) DESERT STORM. I count DESERT STORM in the title and first sentence, four single uses of a CODE NAME, and multiple references to the SCUD. What would you have me use for that missile? The Roman transliterations of the Soviet designations, R-11,  R-17 or R-300 9K72 Elbrus? Scud?

I'm hearing complaints about ALL CAPS being used in a discipline-specific manner, primarily in headings and links. You would indeed have grounds for complaint IF I WROTE THE WHOLE ARTICLE IN ALL CAPS, WHICH IS HARD TO READ.

Shall I copy the Operation DESERT STORM article into a word processor, count the words, and come back with the percentage of the words that are not abbreviations, and are all caps?  I'd feel quite comfortable in guessing the incidence is well under one percent. It's certainly higher in compartmented control systems, which is talking about markings.

[David H. Barrett]

I think this is turning into a game of semantics ...