Live data from Hacker News

Hackers post fake stories on real news sites 'to discredit NATO'

bbc.co.uk

1–10 of 200 posts

Re: Hackers post fake stories on real news sites 'to discredit NATO'

#4

why is the BBC calling NATO Nato? I had to internet search to figure out what they were talking about

https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art201307021121335...

> Use the abbreviated form of a title without explanation only if there is no chance of any misunderstanding (eg UN, Nato, IRA, BBC). Otherwise, spell it out in full at first reference, or introduce a label (eg the public sector union Unite).

>

> Where you would normally say the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms, where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec).

For the average reader, I would argue there is little chance of misinterpretation, and BBC certainly agrees. Besides that, because "NATO" is pronounced "nay-toh", they spell it with an initial cap.

Re: Hackers post fake stories on real news sites 'to discredit NATO'

#6

why is the BBC calling NATO Nato? I had to internet search to figure out what they were talking about

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7c...

It’s the house style to avoid too many capitals in prose.

Remember how people used to write N.A.T.O. decades ago but then simplified to NATO? Now they’re simplifying to Nato.

Re: Hackers post fake stories on real news sites 'to discredit NATO'

#7

Once the USA has a sane commander-in-chief again, it's going to need to completely overhaul its approach to the Eastern European region, among other things.

US policy toward NATO has been remarkably consistent, despite the confusing rhetoric from the commander-in-chief. The United States still refuses to recognize the Russian government's claim over Crimea, the Trump administration has continued selling arms, including lethal arms and armored vehicles, to the government of Ukraine, the United States conducted a cyberattack against Russia prior to the 2018 midterm elections, and US forces are actively participating in NATO's multinational training exercises and forward deployments in Eastern Europe. A Biden administration is expected to continue these activities.

Re: Hackers post fake stories on real news sites 'to discredit NATO'

#9

Once the USA has a sane commander-in-chief again, it's going to need to completely overhaul its approach to the Eastern European region, among other things.

US policy toward NATO has been remarkably consistent, despite the confusing rhetoric from the commander-in-chief. The United States still refuses to recognize the Russian government's claim over Crimea, the Trump administration has continued selling arms, including lethal arms and armored vehicles, to the government of Ukraine, the United States conducted a cyberattack against Russia prior to the 2018 midterm electio…

> US policy toward NATO has been remarkably consistent.

Yeah, with Trump moving troops out of Germany because he believes, contrary to all facts, we'd be trying to rip them off.

Not to mention the whole Iraq fiasco with Bush trying to rope NATO allies in a war based on lies.

Re: Hackers post fake stories on real news sites 'to discredit NATO'

#10
post #4

why is the BBC calling NATO Nato? I had to internet search to figure out what they were talking about

https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art201307021121335... > Use the abbreviated form of a title without explanation only if there is no chance of any misunderstanding (eg UN, Nato, IRA, BBC). Otherwise, spell it out in full at first reference, or introduce a label (eg the public sector union Unite). > > Where you would normally say the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with…

Interesting. Is this really not confusing? I haven't seen it done elsewhere. I find it confusing just because of that. Their reasoning for why they do it seems actually reasonable.

EDIT: Actually the fact that their rule is followed by a list of exceptions, because NICE -> Nice, SAD -> Sad would be confusing shows why this style might be not so good after all. Also, whereas N.A.T.O. -> NATO is really just a style change in some sense, because NATO can be still interpreted only as abbreviation, NATO -> Nato feels like stealing a part of the identity from the subject. NATO emphasizes some meaning behind the letters, whereas Nato resigns on that origin.

Post reply on HN