Talk:World Health Organization names new coronavirus COVID-19

Comments from Gryllida (talk)
G'day,

It's a good story but how was this decision made and how was it announced? See the points below, points 7 and 1 in particular.


 * 1) (content/missing) How was the announcement made? This should be answered in the first paragraph.
 * 2) (Layout) "The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses named the virus that causes the disease "SARS-CoV-2"." is disconnected from the first three paragraph. I would put it to the back, and elaborate on the meaning.
 * 3) (content/unclear; NPOV) ""COVI" represents the coronavirus, "D" is for "disease," and "19" for the year it was first detected, 2019" should be attributed. Otherwise it is not clear whether it is Wikinews who came to the conclusion, or the official source.
 * 4) (NPOV) "though in practice the distinction may be moot" is a speculation. Can it be replaced with something factual?
 * 5) (content/missing) "WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the name had to be easy to say and, to prevent stigma, it must not cite any specific person, animal, profession or place, per guidelines the WHO established in 2015." is good. When and how did he say that?
 * 6) (content/unclear) "There was some focus on naming the virus quickly, before another name could take hold" Is this a characteristic of the guidelines, or if the current procedure (naming of this novel coronavirus)? If this applies to the current procedure, there is an immediate question of how many days or weeks have been spent to create the new name. Without this, this sentence also reads as a speculation.
 * 7) (content/missing) By the way, how many people participated in the creation of a new name? What experts participated? This seems like immediately relevant information without which the story appears incomplete.
 * 8) (NPOV) "SARS-CoV-2 has already killed more than 1000 people and infected tens of thousands. " is an example of bias by being vague. Specific numbers should be included and I believe are readily available.
 * 9) (NPOV) Seeing the reviewer removed "People often call it the Wuhan Virus" part from the story, here . That's for NPOV and I really appreciate that. Thought it would be useful to highlight this edit, in my opinion of high utility to the author in their analysis of the above and of the edit history. --Gryllida (talk) 23:26, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

I hope you can see that these things may cause distortion in the readers' perception in the current form. Where the answers or an opportunity to reword in a more objective way is not immdiately available, the respective speculations or allegations should be removed before publication.

I liked reading the story. An important change and the distinction between disease and virus has been described. Appreciate that.

Thanks and best regards, --Gryllida (talk) 23:17, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Your analysis intrigues me, Gryllida, so I'll respond. As always, I support you in whichever of these you choose to enact.  This is a collaborative project.
 * 1. The BBC source does not explicitly state that the WHO chief made the announcement by talking to reporters in Geneva, but I suppose it's a solid enough guess. I don't think the information is necessary, but feel free to add this if you want.  It's right at the beginning of the BBC article.
 * 2. The sources did not happen to talk about the meaning of the name given to the virus. But put the information wherever you want.  I think it's okay where it is, but I wouldn't revert something like that.
 * 3. I actually think you're wrong on this point. "'D' is for 'disease'" and so on isn't NPOV or original research.  It's just information.  NPR gives the meaning of the name "COVID-19" in its own voice, second paragraph.
 * 4. This isn't speculation. It's observation.  I think what's going on here is that there's something you don't like about "though the distinction might be moot" and just don't have the right word for it.  But no I did not pull it directly from a source.  If you want to remove it, I'm not going to fight you on it.  Go ahead.
 * 5. This isn't missing information per se. The article doesn't have to say where any given quote-ee was at the time they spoke.  In fact, we usually don't say this.  But if you think this information would be cool or beneficial in this case, by all means, go ahead.  As you can see in the Wikicode, this information is from the Bloomberg News source.
 * 6. The "some focus" wording is meant to refer to the quote immediately following, from Dr. Fukuda. That's why it's followed by a colon that leads into the quote.
 * 7. This is a research project request. None of the sources that I used or that I looked at and decided not to use mentioned how many people were involved in making the new name.  NPR, Bloomberg News, and the BBC did not consider their articles incomplete without this information, and I don't consider our article incomplete without it.  If you think adding it would make our article better, that's certainly legitimate.  But I'm telling you right now it would require running down an additional source, which may or may not exist.  I don't happen to want to do that.  If you do, great; that's your business, but unlike in your point #5, it won't be a quick dip into a source already linked.
 * 8. I don't believe it's bias at all. "Tens of thousands" is perfectly verifiable. Do you mean you think it's too poetic or too flowery or something?  Go ahead and change it to whatever you may prefer.  If you are wondering why I put "over 1000" instead of the exact figure, it was to avoid plagiarism/copyright problems.  That's why I do that.
 * 9. I don't believe "people call it the Wuhan virus" was a problem. I'm not going to put it back or anything, but I feel it establishes what the WHO was working against and why they wanted to rename it in the first place.
 * That was neat, Gryllida. As always, I support your contributions to articles that happen to have been started by me.  Team articles are the most fun. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:40, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hm... Upon reflection, I noticed something about several of your points.  If I may offer a scenario that includes speculation about your thought process, I think what's going on is that you read the article and see a line that bothers you, and you go "Something about this bothers me," but then you say "This line is NPOV" or "This line is speculation" instead of giving the real reason and then I go "WHAT?  I didn't put any NPOV or speculation in there.  GRRRRRRRRR!!" and then we both miss out on whatever it was that might actually have been wrong with the line.  To give a clearer example (but with a less intelligent reviewer), say Reviewer Roy sees a line that bothers him and says, "We must take this out because it is uuuuuuuuuuuh unsourced?" Then Drafter Donnie says, "WHAT?  Here's the source!  I guess you didn't see it.  Hooray, the problem is solved!" Reviewer Roy says "No!  Take it out.  It's unsourced!!"  Donnie says, "Uhhh what?!  I just showed you the source!" and the beat goes on.
 * If that's what's going on, then maybe "this line bothers me but I can't put my finger on why" might be more productive. Maybe then we could figure it out together.  But I can't read your mind, so that might not be it at all. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:02, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Covid-19 i think it means or stands for coronavirus disease 2019 Lepanta (talk) 17:01, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Review of revision 4546189 [Not ready]

 * We say "[organization] announced" without saying where or how all the time. Several of the sources do the same.  This information is not necessary for publication.  If anyone wants to add it anyway, go ahead.  As always, I support Wikinews' concept of shared authorship.  We've talked about why I don't make changes like this myself already, so let's leave it at that.
 * The idea of focus is supported by the quote from Dr. Fukuda, which follows the statement directly.
 * The connection between swine flu and the naming guidelines is given in the NPR source. Hit CTRL-F "swine." Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:53, 13 February 2020 (UTC)