Dota definitely is a MOBA. Dota is the MOBA from which all the others are devised [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplayer_online_battle_aren...

Some people dislike that term. Many people in the dota community prefer ARTS over MOBA. Though yes, technically it’s a MOBA; many other games could be MOBAs because it’s fairly vague.

DotA and Dota 2 are the games that helped define the term MOBA. I'm not sure why you're saying it isn't one, especially since it's in the first sentence of both Wikipedia articles.

Sometimes people prefer to label dota as an ARTS: Action Real Time Strategy.

Some people dislike the MOBA nomenclature because it comes from Riot (maker of League of Legends; a clone of dota). In addition the term is pretty vague. Call of Duty, Starcraft, and DotA could all technically be “MOBAS”.

ARTS describes it a little better but I don’t think that term is great either.

In my opinion ARTS doesn't describe it better but introduces confusion since it implies these games have something in common with real time strategy games. I don't think they really have anything to do with RTS despite being originally conceived on the Warcraft 3 engine and assets. At least MOBA makes it clear that it's an entirely separate category.

> anything to do with RTS

Managing farming times and item spikes is part of the strategy. Of course it's not a true RTS, but I think that term is a bit better than MOBA; I'm also biased against Riot.

DotA is generally considered to have created the MOBA genre. That being said, you are right that MOBA's aren't as good a comparison for military unit management as games like Starcraft or Warcraft.