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Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration/Poll on Ireland article names/Position statements/Bastun

< Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration‎ | Poll on Ireland article names‎ | Position statements

Case for retention of the status quo edit

The reason for this poll is that some editors have refused to accept the consensus that the article on the Irish state should reside at Republic of Ireland. After challenges to the status quo every few months (or weeks), it was eventually decided to seek Arbcom intervention. The poll is the final outcome of that Arbitration.

The poll presents us with six choices, namely:

  1. Option A: Merge Ireland and Republic of Ireland into one article at Ireland.
  2. Option B: The state at Ireland. The island at Ireland (island).
  3. Option C: A general "all-Ireland" topic at Ireland. The island at Ireland (island). The state at Ireland (state).
  4. Option D: The island at Ireland. The state at Ireland (state).
  5. Option E: A disambiguation page at Ireland. The island at Ireland (island). The state at Ireland (state).
  6. Option F: The island at Ireland. The state at Republic of Ireland.

Option F is the current position, the status quo. I firmly believe that this is by far the best option, for the following reasons:

1. It meets Wikipedia policy - Wikipedia:Naming conventions, a longstanding policy, provides that:

Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognise, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
This is justified by the following principle: The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimised for readers over editors [my emphasis], and for a general audience over specialists.
Wikipedia determines the recognisability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject.

"Optimising for readers over editors" therefore precludes use of artificial construct disambiguators such as Ireland (state), Ireland (island).

Options B, C, D, and E are therefore precluded.

2. The island of Ireland is known as - well, "Ireland". In the English language, it does not have any alternative common name or description (apart from nicknames). WP:COMMONNAME can therefore be claimed by the article on the island.

While the article on the state of Ireland could also claim WP:COMMONNAME, it, on the other hand, is also commonly known as the "Republic of Ireland". Noone disputes that the name of the state is Ireland.[1] However, the legal description of the state is, per the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, the "Republic of Ireland".[2]

Some editors claim that the term "Republic of Ireland" is POV, a British imposition, and so on. This is not so. The term "Republic of Ireland" was introduced by the Irish Government itself, and is used by it in legislation and statutory instruments,[3] and in parliamentary debates.[4] It is used by Government bodies, such as the office of the Taoiseach,[5] and the Office of the Revenue Commissioners.[6] It is also commonly used by Irish media,[7][8][9] and by the general public.[10]

Given the ambiguity between Ireland (the island) and Ireland (the state), using "Republic of Ireland" for the article on the state therefore satisfies Wikipedia:Naming conventions.

3. The case has been made that it is disrespectful/POV/"British imposition by majority of numbers" to call the article on the state "Republic of Ireland" rather than by its official name. True, using "Republic of Ireland" for the state doesn't allow the state to reside at a page called by its official name - but so what? There are literally dozens of country articles in the Wiki not on the official name of their state.

If a policy of only using official names is to be introduced, then logically it follows that it would have to apply to all articles. Fair enough, not many readers may care if we move Libya to Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab. A damn sight more may care if we move Derry to Londonderry...

It also appears that there may be an awful lot of Irish-speaking British-majority-POV-pushers around, damn their eyes![11]

4. Unfortunately, some editors refuse to accept demonstrable facts in this matter. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a sufficient reason for refusing to optimise for readers over editors, or for ignoring our policies of verifiability and reliable sourcing.

5. Not only has there never been a consensus to move Republic of Ireland to Ireland, there is demonstrable consensus to retain the status quo:

  • Poll started 6/12/2008: In favour of move - 2. Opposed to move: 6.
  • Poll started 30/10/2008: In favour of move - 8. Opposed to move: 19.
  • Poll started 2/9/2008: In favour of move - 11. Opposed to move - 18.
  • Poll started 29/6/2007: In favour of move - 5. Opposed to move - 9.
  • Immediately underneath the 29/6/2007 poll is another poll, started 3/7/2007, giving four options. Option C was to preserve the status quo. The results were:
    • Option A - 3
    • Option B - 9
    • Option C - 16
    • Option D - 4
  • Poll started 14/3/2007: "I support the current setup": 33 ""I support another set-up": 9. This is a significant result, showing that over three times as many editors favour the status quo over any other option.
  • Poll started 11/2/2006: This was a multiple choice poll with 8 options. Option 7 was to preserve the status quo. The result was:
    • Option 7: status quo — 24 votes (66%)
    • Option 4: Ireland – Republic of Ireland, Ireland (island) — 5 votes (13%)
    • Option 3: Ireland – Ireland (state), Ireland (island) — 2 votes (6%)
    • Option 1: Ireland – Ireland (country), Ireland (island) — 2 votes (6%)
    • Option 5: Ireland – Republic of Ireland, Eire — 2 votes (6%)
    • Option 6: Ireland (disambiguation) – Ireland, Ireland (island) — 1 vote (3%)
    • Option 2: Ireland – Ireland (republic), Ireland (island) — no votes.

And so on...

Conclusion edit

The status quo works. It satisfies Wikipedia's policies. There is no strong case for a move, and to date, there has never been anything approaching consensus for a move. Can we please put this to bed (for at least two years, as per Arbcom), and get on with writing an encyclopedia?

References edit

  1. ^ Per the Constitution of Ireland, Article 4: "Article 4 - The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland.
  2. ^ Section 2 of the Act states: "2.—It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland."
  3. ^ Google returns 129 hits on the Irish Statute book. Interestingly, User:BrownHairedGirl's search of the same in March 2009 returned only 114 hits.
  4. ^ Google returns 3,430 hits from the website of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament, which includes transcripts from parliamentary debates.
  5. ^ The Taoiseach's website uses a Google search engine. A search on 23rd July '09 returned seven pages of results, including uses in speeches by Brian Cowen. (For some reason, I am being blocked when I try to save the search link here... the url is http://www.google.com/ cse?cref=http://search.gov.ie/customcse/www.taoiseach.gov.ie&sitesearch=www.taoiseach.gov.ie&q=%22Republic+of+Ireland%22 - copy and paste it into your browser and remove the space between google.com/ and cse?cref... to verify.
  6. ^ The 'Advanced Search' tab on this page on the Revenue website allows one to enter a search for an exact phrase. A search conducted on 23rd July '09 returned 205 hits. While many of the results return phrases such as "If you are calling from outside the Republic of Ireland, please telephone ++ 353...", others are used in text, such as this downloadable Word document, which uses "Republic of Ireland" in the context of disambiguating Ireland (the state) from Northern Ireland. Other documents actually contain the phrase "Republic of Ireland" in the title.
  7. ^ RTÉ, the state broadcaster, 1,850 hits.
  8. ^ Irish Times, national newspaper 431 hits.
  9. ^ Irish Independent, national newspaper, 315 hits.
  10. ^ Boards.ie, a popular Irish forum site, 1,360 hits.
  11. ^ Vicipéid, the Irish-language Wikipedia project, has had the article on the state residing at "Poblacht na hÉireann" (Irish for "Republic of Ireland") since the article was created on 25th March, 2004. Likewise, the article on the island has resided at "Éire" (the Irish for "Ireland") since the same date.

Users who endorse this perspective edit

Alternative perspectives edit


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