Talk:Intelligence (information)

Too many quotes

Articles should only use quotes sparingly. Much better is for the editor to read the sources (quotes) and then paraphrase the authors. Noleander (talk) 21:22, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Issue is fixed. Guylaen (talk) 19:50, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Can we improve the disambiguation?

"Intelligence (information)" is both a bit vague/ambiguous and also unnecessary as a disambiguator (we could probably use natural disambiguation here). Here's some alternative names/locations for the content here:

• Foreign intelligence
• Military intelligence
• Intelligence gathering
• Espionage

Any of these strike others as reasonable, or any other suggestions? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 06:21, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Merging with espionage (also known as intelligence gathering), would be the most disagreeable, because that's a false understanding of the profession of intelligence.

Spies are to intelligence like the infantry is to the military. Pilots are not in the infantry, but they're still in the military.

Just as analysts are in the intelligence field, but they are not spies. Spies are like 1/20th, or less, of the total work of the Intelligence field, and they are to some people considered anachronistic to the intelligence field. Guylaen (talk) 01:28, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Also merging with military intelligence is a misunderstanding of the post-world-war-ii era of intelligence. Guylaen (talk) 01:30, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

That's reasonable. I think I'd withdraw the examples here apart from "intelligence gathering". – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 01:43, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Ahh, wait, I missed the first part about "also known as intelligence gathering". I get the objections to merging with espionage (not all intelligence collection is secret, and probably most of it is OSINT) or military intelligence (not all of it is on military targets). What's wrong with "intelligence gathering" though? Right now it redirects to espionage, but that seems wrong to me. Is using "intelligence gathering" only to mean espionage and not OSINT a common thing in this field? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:54, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Intelligence is product, collateral, information. Intelligence gathering would be all the ways/methods/history/background of getting it, which is different from espionage. That's specific clandestine, often social, methods of getting intelligence, and is a (humongous) subset of intelligence gathering. OSINT is just another type of intelligence. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 23:37, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Intelligence field is the industry.

Intelligence (information) is the product of that industry.

There are also MANY subfields that also manage, distribute, collect, evaluate, (etc.) that information – and they are all a part of the industry, but do not necessarily belong on the page dedicated to the information.

Almost every other industry has one page for the industry, and one page for the product, because they are different things.

Petroleum is not the same as the Petroleum industry. Sugar is not the same as the sugar industry. Guns are different from gunsmith. Guylaen (talk) 15:52, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Merge proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I propose merging Intelligence field into Intelligence (information). There is no reason to have these as two separate pages. I think there is actually perhaps a network of similar pages that could perhaps be merged, per the comment by @Closed Limelike Curves:. David Palmer//cloventt ^(talk) 21:12, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Might not be a bad idea, in the present, because these are all fine as-is, but could be a beefier single piece if all of the information was collected. It could split out later again as sections get big enough over time. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 00:42, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

HARD DISAGREE They are two COMPLETELY different things.

If you give me two weeks to beef-up this article, I will make it better. Guylaen (talk) 05:42, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

This article really is just a stub right now. I was hoping anyone else might have added to it by this point. Guylaen (talk) 05:43, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Well, Fall semester starts tomorrow and I'm working on my MA. But I swear I am still working on this – I have started with expanding Intelligence field, and next I will expand Intelligence (information).

It might take me longer than two weeks, but please do not consider merging or deleting until I have finished the expansions. Guylaen (talk) 02:54, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

OK, I have expanded the Intelligence field somewhat (still needs history section).

Now, I will get to work on Intelligence (information) so that the distinction can be made clearer. Guylaen (talk) 16:56, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

@Closed Limelike Curves Do you understand where I am going with this? Because epistemology makes me very bored, the kind of autism bored where I can feel my blood rushing through my arms, but I also want to make sure that these pages don't get merged. Guylaen (talk) 11:17, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I think I get it, no worries :)

In the future, can you use draftspace or subarticles (e.g. Draft:Intelligence (information)) for changes like this that leave the article in an incomplete state? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 21:12, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeah but there was a reason I made it a stub. I wanted other people to contribute, but no one did. Guylaen (talk) 09:49, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

I actually agree with @Guylaen on this particular set of articles, for the idea (I think we talked about it a year ago, ish?). Each of these can easily be 20kb or 30kb+ articles or bigger, but it's just a bit esoteric and simply needs someone to build it out from the web of articles linked on Template:Intelligence. A few of us have nibbling on it, but there's always either another fire or a shiny that distracts you. They're already much bigger now and some are different enough (despite very similar presenting names) that merging them would be Frankensteining awkwardly. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 16:29, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Ahh, ok after this expansion, I take it that "intelligence field" is meant to be an article about the private industry? Maybe it could be moved to "intelligence industry", then, to be clearer about this? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:25, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Intelligence field is the more common usage. Writers tend to prefer the term, because it differentiates the industry from the battlefield. Guylaen (talk) 16:53, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

Anyways, I REALLY REALLY need to now focus on my schoolwork for a few weeks. I will be taking a wikibreak. Guylaen (talk) 16:53, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.