To me, IDF means Israeli Defense Force. Putting all politics and potential allegory aside, I find it awkward to have an acronym with a specific, [edit] and potentially relevant, [/edit] meaning prepended to a ship name. I think it would just as strange to have a USMC Valkyrie Vigilant, or IRA Valkyrie Vigilant, or IAEA Valkyrie Vigilant, or IMF Valkyrie Vigilant, &c....

Just Valkyrie Vigilant seems like a perfectly adequate name.

While I understand where you are coming from, I don't think it's reasonable to expect Guild to be sensitive to every possible use of an acronym (see below). Opinions are going to vary world-wide in many cases. For instance, some of the acronyms you mentioned have no significance at all for me. IDF for me is the International Diabetes Foundation, because I work in a hospital.

IDF
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

IDF or idf may stand for:

A military force:
the Iceland Defense Force
the Irish Defence Forces
the Israel Defense Forces
A military term:
Indirect fire
A geographic area:
Île-de-France (province) (historical) of France
Île-de-France (région) of France.
An Initialism:
The AIDC F-CK Indigenous Defence Fighter (of Taiwan)
Intel Developer Forum
Intermediate distribution frame (in Telephony and Computer networking)
the International Diabetes Federation
the International Dairy Federation - collaboration on milk and milk products
Inverse Document Frequency
the Islamic Dawah Foundation
the Indian Development Foundation
inertial damping field, an inertial compensator in the Star Trek fictional universe*
inter-dimensional fatigue, a concept in the Star Control universe

you missed one, whistler: itani defense force.

pointsman, read the backstory and it'll put you in context.

Yeah the IDF is used by the Irish army AFAIK

Thanks upper case for parsing this mysterious acronym for me. And thanks Whistler for so concisely pointing out that IDF is yet another overloaded term. Maybe I do forget that the people of VO are of different cultures.

Still, I think dropping IDF would do no disservice in this instance. Of course, though, sifting for misconstrued meanings is quite the intractable rabbit hole.

--

USMC = US Marine Corps /* doesn't start with 'i', but closest analog of IDF for me */
IRA = Irish Republican Army
IAEA = International Atomic Energy Agency
IMF = International Monetary Fund

Does it not specify "Itani Defense Force" somewhere in the ship description when you're browsing them in the buy menu? I think that would clear up any misunderstanding there....

This reminds me the South Park New Year episode

This reminds me of a kid who scored a 55 on their IQ test.

This reminds me of a thread that's about to be locked.

I like the IDF in front of the name. I say keep it. It's more a reflection on Pointsman's insecurities than a barometer of Guild Software's Political Correctness.

I don't think Israel's copyright is still in effect on the acronym. If we outlaw every acronym already in use, we will need 8 letter acronyms. btw, would you care to join my guild (Unaligned Nationals).

this reminds me of that.

So, noone like my idea. So it goes...

--

Yes, i would Roda.

--

And, speaking of guilds, if Unaligned Nationals falls through, I'm going to start my own guild. Maybe I'll call it PLO or perhaps Hamas. I hope that doesn't trigger any insecurities.

There's actually Rule of Conduct specifically about that:

"8. You may not organize nor be a member of any guilds or groups within Vendetta Online that are based on, or espouse, any racist, sexist, anti-religious, anti-ethnic, anti-gay, or other hate-mongering philosophy."

But anyway, if people are seriously offended by the IDF Valk, I can look at changing it. We've been using that for a long time, and it's intended to represent a ship primarily available-to and used-by the Itani Defense Force. Not unlike the Serco Guardian Vulture and other faction-oriented variants.

As long as we can still play the game, Pointsman, I have no problem with you being the guild leader of Hamas. Oooh Oooh or Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade or whatever the hell you wanna call yourself.

Maybe you'll strap L-Mines to yourself and demand that Betheshee be given back to the Itani because they lived there like 300 years ago... or else you'll blow yourself up repeatedly.

I'm not seriously offended. It doesn't look like anyone else is either. This is just the first thing I thought of when I encountered the IDF Valk and I was surprised by the potential allusion.

IDF Valk does has a nice ring to it, though i like the sound IMF Valk better. IMF Valk also has some nice irony to it. but w/e...

Anyways, speaking of hate-mongering, I guess now we now know how LeberMac feels about some of the Levant's issues. I'm sorry if I offended you. I just wanted to make clear that IDF isn't a neutral term.

I hope this is the end of this thread.

pointsman, for crying out loud, the "idf" acronym is fortuitous. it comes from itani defense force as i've mentioned.

you wouldn't believe how many acronyms, in this game or elsewhere, i would have to find offensive myself. being bilingual (heck, multi-lingual if you take into account all my typos), i can tell you there are plenty english acronyms that sound

a) dorky
b) stupid
c) offensive
d) silly
..
z) preposterous

in french, and vice versa.

only you is offended by that because you probably attach resentment for the israeli "idf". given the counter-examples you propose, i suspect why. but this is vendetta. israel, palestine or canada or usa or fuck-knows-what doesn't apply.

in this game, it's 4437, and we're fricking far away from the u.n. -generated mess of the palestino-israeli conflict.

You don't know how stupid Bojan's nickname is if you translate it from Russian internet slang

Dude. I'm have trouble communicating apparently but I tried to say in my last post that I was done and settled with this. As I said in the first post there are many of what I thought were well know acronyms for military/international organizations that would feel strange to me being used in conjunction with a ship/weapon name. PLO & Hamas were chosen as examples because they were related (though not symmetrical) to the the term in question and because I thought that perhaps those who had no associations with 'IDF' could, while imaging a guild or ship named PLO x or Hamas y, understand where I'm coming from. All military organization carry baggage with them, especially ones involved in land disputes. None are innocent. But please don't say that I feel in a way that I have stated I don't, upper case. I'm sorry that I have to spells things out, but, as I said, apparently I'm having trouble writing. (I have an IQ 55 after all.)

You are all welcome to attack me in the name of defending whatever it is you are defending, or to malign me just for the fun of it.

I'm quite amused by the hostility here. One might forget that this is a game we are talking about.

Shalom already!

no one's attacking anyone.

i'm simply stating that changing any vo acronym based on earth acronyms is silly. be it for idf or scar or else.

salut, tiens!

I'm part of the Center for Disease Control. RAWR! http://vendetta-online.com/x/guildinfo/84/