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National and royal anthems

Discussions at Talk:Australia and Talk:God Save the Queen have led me here for some guidance. The debate at Australia focuses on the inclusion of God Save the Queen in the facts table as the Royal Anthem of Australia, following the format on most Commonwealth Realm articles. The debate at Talk:Australia seemed to conclude that only the national anthem should be included in the facts table, and the Royal Anthem should be footnoted. However, after reading through the guidelines here on facts tables, I see no provision even for a national anthem to be included. Is there a policy regarding national anthems and royal anthems? If not, I feel strongly that one should be created as it would have scope over many articles on Wikipedia. --G2bambino 20:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

This is something we need. Why don't you run something up and we can see who salutes it? Battling over anthems on every country page with those who love or loath them seems to be a waste of our time and talent. --Pete 01:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

A couple of points:

1. Wikipedia does not need this sort of "consistency". Templates like the infobox, and WikiProject guidelines are there to give a uniform style and encourage writing of good article, not to make sure that each box/article contains exactly the same details. Articles on different countries will be different. It is not correct to decide that a royal anthem is important enough to belong in one country's infobox, so it should be there in all the others. It is even less helpful to change 13 or so of them, and then say "look, everyone else has it". Without that sort of thing, there wouldn't be any battle to start with. As a basic principle, there is nothing wrong with slight differences, although whether people like the anthem should not be a factor in any discussions.
2. More to the point, the country infobox is already ridiculously long. A Royal Anthem would have to be considered exceedingly important for it to be added to the box for any country. National anthems may be acceptable, but that doesnt' mean the royal anthem also needs to be there. As G2bambino hs pointed out elsewhere, we don't include every official flag or symbol. We single out a few things, and we should make sure that the things we single out are the most relevant.

JPD (talk) 11:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, every country has an info table, and they all stick to the same format, as far as I can see. However, there's actually no provision for where and when to put an anthem, or which anthems to put. So, I'm inclined to agree with Pete here, in that a debate on every country article on what anthems to include and where isn't very productive when an all-encompasing policy could be established; and, as I said, this applies not only to royal anthems, but to national ones as well. I think it would go a long way to resolving disputes that have gone on, are going on, or may arise in future. --G2bambino 14:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

There is room for flexibility within the basic format. Wikipedia doesn't do "policies" for that sort of thing. The guideline that is already on the front page of this Wikiproject recommends including the national anthem, and doesn't say anything about royal anthems. ("This structure is advisory only, and should not be enforced against the wishes of those actually working on the article in question. ... Next, there is a table with quick facts about the country. ... The contents are as follows: ... National anthem; the name of the National anthem and a link to the article about it.") As I said, there would need to be a very strong argument for the inclusion of any other anthem, as the table is already overly long. JPD (talk) 18:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

:Sorry, where is this? I'm looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries#Facts table, and I don't see any mention of anthems at all. --G2bambino 18:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I see it now. --G2bambino 18:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The way I see it, those editors who wish to go against established procedures should have to mount a strong case for their non-conformity. In the case of Australia, this has not happened, and I find it hard to accept the argument that the template is already too long in this one article when these editors are not making the same case for other articles, nor do they have any history of advocating shorter templates for any other reason. For things like templates, consistency of presentation across articles is important for readers. If all nations that have a Royal Anthem listed in their infobox, but Australia does not, then readers will be misled into thinking that Australia does not have a Royal Anthem. It is ridiculous that Australia and Canada have the same situation, yet the infobox does not reflect this. --Pete 01:19, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The task is now to amend the guidelines to reflect multiple official anthems and how we handle them. Hail to the Chief has no legislative basis in the U.S. and should not be included. God Save the Queen is an official anthem of Canada and should be included. Doubtless there are other cases for special purpose anthems. Suggested wording, anybody? --Pete 01:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Pete, as I have already stated on Talk:God Save the Queen, I fully agree with you that conformity should be considered above all other considerations on wikipedia, especially when keeping the Empire in tact, send them to the gallows! But just a small point, Canada and Australia are different in that the royal anthem has some significance in Canada as it is played several times a day any time a Governor or the Governor-General is officiating, this is not the case in Australia where the national anthem is played. It is a historical footnote for Australia. The mass confusion (with buildings burning down and everything) that you refer to regarding editors being under the preposterous assumption that Australia does not actually have a royal anthem will be alleviated by readers actually reading the article (gasp) which pays full homage to the Royal Anthem and includes a full explanation in the footnote. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 02:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Too wordy. We need something that is concise and to the point. --Pete 03:32, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Another good point my friend, wordiness in an encyclopaedia, this really needs to be dealt with. WikiTownsvillian 03:38, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

What about those countries such as the UK that don't have an official national anthem, but do have a royal anthem? TharkunColl 22:57, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

In the United Kingdom we don't have very much that is 'official'. Our flag, national anthem, et al are only such by convention.

Australia has a Royal Anthem by more than convention, but by a legislative basis. Other Commonwealth Realms that just have it only by convention still have it included on their infoboxes! Biofoundationsoflanguage 09:21, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

And I would suggest that most of those countries should not include it in their infoboxes, since the question is not whether it is an anthem by convention, legislation, or proclamation (in Australia's case, it is proclamation, not legislation), but how significant the anthem is. Noone is arguing that GSTQ is not the British anthem because it has not been officially adopted (other than Pete's flawed comment about legislative basis). Noone is suggesting that royal anthems should not be included when they are the de facto national anthem. It's just that in most cases there is no good reason to go against the established procedure of only including one anthem. I do have a history of campaigning against overdoing infoboxes, and I am making the case against having the royal anthem in many articles other than Australia - I am just not so obsessed with conformity that I will go out of my way to achieve this in articles I would not otherwise edit. And that's a good thing, because as WikiTownsvillian points out, the situation in Canada is not the same as in Australia. Uniformity is not a valid argument. JPD (talk) 15:31, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

We're talking about uniformity of presentation of information, not uniformity of nations. WikiTownsvillian is incorrect in his assumptions, as noted at Talk:Australia. Some nations have more than one anthem and I would like to see this addressed - obviously each nation will have a national anthem, and it doesn't matter whether it is legislated, proclaimed, voted on the Internet or whatever, we include it. The question is how we present other anthems such as royal anthems. --Pete 04:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow Pete, you had me on side until now, but you had to take it just the little bit too far didn't you... I would STRONGLY oppose the inclusion on any article on a country of a National Anthem (or even a royal anthem) that was only supported by a vote on the Internet without any legislation or proclamation backing it up from an official source. Sorry mate, I still support you with the British Empire stuff though, keep it consistent I say, doesn't really matter whether the counties actually use it or not, it's uniformity of the realm that should be out top priority. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 05:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

So you think we should investigate national anthems on a nation by nation basis and if you don't think their foundation is strong enough, pull 'em off? Even if the local editors of the Grand Fenwick article disagree? But at least I've got you thinking about wikistandards, which is something, I guess. --Pete 01:37, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Pete, I don't think I'm talking about whichever of WikiTownsvillian's assumptions that you claim are wrong. I am talking about the simple fact that part of GSTQ is part of the official Vice-Regal Salute in Canada, but isn't in Australia. That is at least one example of how the situation is not the same. (If you ask me, the Canadian approach makes more sense, but that's not the point.) The question is indeed how we present other anthems, and in general I think we shouldn't present them in the infobox. (Why have the national and royal anthems of Norway, but only the national flag, not the royal standard, etc.?) But the case for inclusion/exclusion is not exactly the same in each country. JPD (talk) 12:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The situation is different for all nations - that pretty much goes without saying, at least until Wikipedia takes over direct world government and we can get things sorted out properly. Do you have a draft wording that we can use to cover the situation? --Pete 01:37, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Good - it seems like we all here acknowledge that the situation differs between countries. The next step is to then acknowledge that one shouldn't force consistency of presentation if the facts themselves are not consistent. Surely, accuracy is more important than presentation? --Merbabu 08:38, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

So, I take it then that there's to be no uniform treatment for royal anthems? --G2bambino 02:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I've added a line to the "Facts table" entry, citing Canada as an example. If anybody disagrees with my wording, they should also be prepared to say why they didn't propose an alternative during the lengthy discussion period. --Pete 03:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It’s got nothing to do with "wording". From where I sit, this just seems like a (another) cynical ploy from Skyring to get the RA into Australia despite a clear decision on that page. It’s pointless going over and over – what Skyring calls ‘consistency of information’ should never take priority over accuracy of information, and accuracy includes not giving undue weight. How tedious does this have to be? --Merbabu 06:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC) Regardless of your personal feelings on a single article, the discussion is about coming up with a wiki-wide guideline, as identified by another editor at the beginning of this section. Kindly either contribute in a positive and helpful manner, or let others do the work without interference. I also note that these are guidelines, and do not force editors to include material if there is a local consensus about it - see the discussion above. --Pete 06:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

So, you will not use this to help push the Royal Anthem into the Australia infobox? Until such assurrances are made, I cannot support your proposal - regardless of wording. The fact is, despite what you have argued so far, one cannot have consistency of presentation, without consistency of fact. There is very clear distinctions between various countries on this topic and this has been raised several timesin recent weeks. You do acknowledge such inconsistency of anthem usage, right? --Merbabu 06:54, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It should be pointed out that Skyring argues not to give undue weight to unnotable info over consistency of well established sections of articles when it suits his politics, I am not of course not saying he is wrong on that article, but Skyring seems to play with wikipedia policies to suit whatever argument he feels like having on any particular day. WikiTownsvillian 06:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC) This isn't a matter of politics. Again, if you can't contribute in a positive manner, then I suggest you drop the personal attacks as well. --Pete 07:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, let's stick to the issue, not editors. This goes for everyone here lest accusations of hypocrisy emerge. Please all see WP:KETTLE, contemplate what it says quietly and individually, and then let's move on. --Merbabu 07:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I was making a personal attack, just commenting about the conduct of Pete's wikilawyering here and on many different articles, he could not achieve a consensus of his liking at Talk:Australia so he’s trying to find other ways to get his way. Kettle indeed. Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 08:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, let us all just comment on articles from now on, not editors. I think any claim to a higher ground or being 'holier than thou' can be easily shown up by others. I'm not singling any editor out, nor am I suggesting it doesn't apply to me. hence my suggestion that we all read WP:KETTLE quietly and keep all non-issue comments and thoughts to ourselves from now on. :) cheers --Merbabu 08:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. WikiTownsvillian 08:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm reading that some are arguing royal anthems are appropriate in some places but not in others as their usage differs from country to country. I wonder, then, when is it appropriate to include a royal anthem and when is it not? I think a guideling of sorts should be established to prevent people from including or removing the royal anthem for political purposes; stating here when to include the royal anthem and when not to would minimize unnecessarily long and divisive debate on article talk pages, and hopefully lessen the chance of edit wars. --G2bambino 14:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I would argue that the current guideline is sufficient. It does not mention royal anthems at all, and in general they should not be included. If they are included in some articles, that is because there is always discretion involved in applying guidelines, but I believe the guideline should not recommend their inclusion at all, leaving the onus on those who wish to include them in a specific case to say why the royal anthem is important enough to be in the infobox. JPD (talk) 15:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well then maybe this page should make mention of that, lest people come here in future looking for some kind of guidance.

I merely thought we could establish here and now when it would be appropriate and when it would not. --G2bambino 16:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. My comment was a response to the recent edits, as much as your comment. I've tried to come up with wording that spells out that there is provision in the template for more than one anthem, which shouldn't generally be used, but I can't imagine any situation where I would say including the royal anthem is appropriate. I would say it is more appropriate in Canada than Australia, but would still rather not have it in either. I don't know much about Norway, Luxembourg, Thailand and so on, but I doubt that the royal anthem is significant enough to justify an extra two lines of the infobox. JPD (talk) 17:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Including the royal anthem is appropriate for those nations that have one. There is no requirement for the infobox to be as short as possible - it provides an easy to read summary of information that is otherwise buried in the text of the article. Remember that we are trying to provide a resource for seekers of information, and from the point of view of a student, the fact that a nation has an alternative anthem provides colour and interest, as well as saying something about the nation. --Pete 19:13, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I too think it's appropriate to include a royal anthem if the country has one. But, then I wonder, where do we stop including information in the infobox? Canada has three flags: the Queen's Royal Standard, the Royal Union Flag, and the National Flag. Would it be prudent to include all three in the infobox? I doubt it. --G2bambino 19:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

We're looking at an extra line for a handful of nations. I am astonished that anybody is frothing at the mouth to exclude royal anthems. --Pete 19:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, but that doesn't answer my question of: where do we stop? Do we go so far as to include national birds, flowers, animals, and the like? I'm only asking as we'd have to draw the line somewhere; all these things would take up only one line, but add all those one lines up and the infobox starts to get very long. --G2bambino 19:52, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not so much that God Save The Queen is the royal anthem, just that for older australians (born 70's and earlier) it has been their only national anthem until 1984.Polypipe Wrangler 10:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Peru

Peru is undergoing nomination for featured article status. Members of this wikiproject might be interested in posting a review at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Peru. Greetings, --Victor12 12:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Categories for deletion re Palestinian Territories

I want to draw this projects attention to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 August 7#Category:Geography of the Palestinian territories and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 August 7#Category:Cities, towns and villages in the Palestinian territories. These are highly politicised discussions and anyone who goes to these discussions will see what side I'm on and I haven't looked at who is in here and don't know what all your views are. However, I think it is important that people in WP:Countries weigh in with how you consider the Palestinian Territories should fit into your categorisation systems and that you collectively provide a substantial contribution to the debate.--Peter cohen 22:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Israel

I have put forth a peer review for the Israel article at Wikipedia:Peer review/Israel/archive1. Comments are welcome there (and on Talk:Israel, if you prefer). -- tariqabjotu 19:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Map is wrong

The map on the WikiProject Countries main page is wrong. Cambodia and Indonesia are featured articles but are not marked as such. Bhutan is marked as FA when it is not and Peru is marked as GA when it is a FA. --Victor12 21:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Its been fixed now--Astrokey44 23:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that was really fast! BTW, is it really necessary to put FA and GA icons all over the map? They don't look good IMHO. --Victor12 00:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you want to include Antarctica's FA status on the map, but thought I'd bring it up in case it was overlooked. I agree with Victor12 about the icons too. Ben Tillman 05:56, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Map needs to be updated

.

Russia is now a GA.--Miyokan 01:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

agreed, I'll see how I go about doing that.--quirellstan 19:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Romania

I have placed a peer review tag for the Romania article Wikipedia:Peer review/Romania/archive2. Any help is welcomed. Nergaal 05:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Lists of countries

I was looking at the lists of countries by continent (eg List of African countries) and realised that it could quite easily say a lot more. So i made User:Chris_huh/List of African countries which has the capital city, flag, language, currency, gdp per capita, area and population. These are also sortable so separate lists sorted by these facts are not necessary. What do you think? Chris_huh^talk 13:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Nepal at FAR

Nepal has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Victor12 00:14, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Ulster Banner straw poll

Hello there, A straw poll has opened at this section of the United Kingdom talk page regarding the use of the Ulster Banner for that article's circumstances only. To capture a representative result as possible, you are invited to pass your opinion there. If joining the poll, please keep a cool head, and remain civil. Hope to see you there, Jza84 22:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Failed States Index rank

There is an ongoing discussion regarding the inclusion of the Failed States Index rank in Template:Infobox Country. Comments and suggestions are welcome at Template talk:Infobox Country#Failed States Index rank. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:29, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Gini index

I have initiated a discussion regarding the inclusion of the Gini index in Template:Infobox Country. Comments and suggestions are welcome at Template talk:Infobox Country#Proposal: Removal of Gini index. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Economic data for all countries

The IMF has a database which will spit out historical GDP, inflation, etc. statistics it seems for any country. All the "Economy of X" articles should have this kind of data, from whatever the best sources are. I just added the series for Vietnam. -- Beland 21:27, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello

I've joined your WikiProject, is there a template for my userpage? -- Therequiembellishere (talk) 17:38, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

is this project almost deat?

Nergaal (talk) 01:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Scotland peer review

Hello. The Scotland article is up for peer review. If anyone wishes to make suggestions, they will be gratefully received. Lurker (said · done) 15:16, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

South Africa at FAR

South Africa has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Victor12 (talk) 01:20, 28 December 2007 (UTC) uh wut —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.184.146.58 (talk) 01:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Standardising lists

Hello, I'm not sure whether the lists of countries (eg: Countries by population) are included in this project. If not, should we consider including them? And if we do, maybe we should make a standard list of countries to base it on. Because, for example, Countries by population density includes Somaliland in its list, and Countries by area doesn't. That wouldn't matter so much the lists weren't ordered, but they are. Unless anyone has any comments to the contrary, I'll add the lists to the project, then start creating a standardised list of countries. Whether to include Somaliland, Abkhazia and similar will be a matter for discussion. I think for now I'll base it largely on officially assigned ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes. Hopefully, this list will eventually be incorporated into all the country list pages. Briefplan (talk) 16:06, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

On second thoughts, I think I'll make a seperate project. Wikiproject:Country lists. If anyone feels like joining, please do. Briefplan (talk) 14:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

While I don't feel it warrants a separate project, do continue to stand by the ISO or officially recognized lists - until Somaliland, Abkhazia, etc become recognized, they should NOT fall into such lists. Rarelibra (talk) 16:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

List of countries by formation dates

Hello everyone! There is a discussion at List of countries by formation dates that concernes this wikiproject. It relates to the fact that some users include former colonies (such as Algeria or Western Sahara) in the columm for the last territorial changes of their respective colonial power, and this because "formely" such colonies were considered "provinces". I believe this discussion and its result may interest you. Thank you! The Ogre (talk) 10:54, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

FA team for one country?

There's been some discussion going on at Wikipedia talk:Content review/workshop about how to increase featured article production. One suggestion that came up was to find a couple of volunteers who had plenty of experience working on FA articles, and ally them with an active team from a WikiProject that knew the content side of things and was interested in taking an article to FA. The goal would be to get another FA, help the project ramp up FA production, and discover if this is a good way of sharing skills between content editors and people who know the FA process. We have three volunteers: Awadewit, Mike Christie and Wrad. So is anyone from this project interested in picking a country article to bring to featured level? If so, we're certainly ready to help. The things we think we can help on include:

• Balance
• Stylistic issues related to the manual of style, from what needs to be in the lead to how to cite to use of summary style
• Copyediting
• We may also be able to help with questions about how to do research and what constitutes a reliable source.

We won't know much, if anything, about the content of the particular article we'd work on. In a way that's the point of this idea -- the editors at this project presumably know and are interested in the content, which is why you're part of the project. What we think we can contribute is the other skills needed to take an article to featured level. If you're interested, please post a response right here. The first question would be which country article to pick. Our only input there would be to avoid starting with a country that we know is likely to have some very contentious issues, such as Israel, the United States of America or Iraq. It would be better to try this idea out on a less controversial article. Mike Christie (talk) 22:55, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

• Haiti, Kuwait, Suriname and Yemen seem to be among the articles in the poorest shape. There is an older Wikipedia:WikiProject Yemen which might be worth contacting regarding that article, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Caribbean, Wikipedia:WikiProject Western Asia and Wikipedia:WikiProject South America, or maybe the related notice boards, would be the entities to contact regarding the first three. I don't think any of them would object to the help, although I'm not sure how many members there are to work on those articles, though. John Carter (talk) 23:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Kuwait

The article on Kuwait needs a lot attention. Somebody please help me improve it. --RajatKansal (talk) 17:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

2 talk page templates

Hey there. May I recomend that one of the talkpage wikiproject countries templates be deleted: Template:WikiProject Countries or Template:WPCountries. I propose the former as it doesn't have a "class" parameter inbeded in it. Furthermore the later one seems to be on more talkpages. I am guessing that the second one got created accidentally after not knowing that the first one existed? Cheers.Calaka (talk) 04:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

WOW! I am not sure if people listened to me or what, but it now appears that Template:WikiProject Countries is in no other wiki articles (I began removing a few and it seemed that someone else finished the job for me! Good stuff!)Anyway, I propose making a notice in replace of that template onto the current template page. If there are any other objections, feel free to revert and discuss your reasons here :). Cheers! Calaka (talk) 06:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Crime and Punishment

Recently several countries are showing "crime and punishment" sections (e.g. US and Nigeria). These sections are placed under "demographics". I doubt whether that is the good position inside the article. Personally I would list such a topic under "law and justice" or a similar heading, never under demographics. Can I have your opinions; how to deal with this? Thanks Arnoutf (talk) 20:40, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see an issue with it. "Law and justice" is too vague, I think. Rarelibra (talk) 22:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not attached to that header. My main problem is that punishment has nothing to do with demographics, and the relation crime<->demographics is also not so obvious Arnoutf (talk) 17:47, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

There has been a tremendous discussion regarding this section of the article for some countries in Latin America. I am trying to insert a section that talks about crime in Mexico, which is at high rates, but so far I've been unsuccessful. The problem is the current editors of that Article, Mexico, most of them are mexicans who wish to create a good image of the country. The page of one of the editors for that article: User:Supaman89, reads this: Que onda!, I'm an 18 year old Mexican citizen who's been contributing to Wikipedia for a while now, in both English and Español. I think it's been about two years since the first time registered, which by the way was in the Spanish Wikipedia, and I have to say that I've come across some really frustrating situations, which just reinforced my patriotism to this country, and made me focus on one thing... changing the wrong idea that some people have about Mexico, which most of the times doesn't even come close to how Mexico is really like. So from his profile, it's quite clear that due to patriotism, the contents of Mexico article may be compromised. When trying to include a section about crime for that country, I was hit by extreme resistance, see discussion page [[1]] --Mhsb (talk) 04:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Mhsb - I went to the Mexico talk page and read through the various threads. It's a shame that such is occurring... but it seems that is the nature of wiki now. People get a small-minded approach of what they think is 'correct' and get their friends to one topic to make sure it leans their way. There are so many inconsistencies on wiki now - just recently I actually have someone telling me a lake in Switzerland goes by the French title in English (when I clearly provided many translated references to the contrary). Same thing is now occurring in the Netherlands. You and I both know, however, that if we go and try to change "Lac du Michigan" to "Lake Michigan" in French wiki, they will tell us it is French, not English. Hmmmm. So Mexicans don't want English wiki to view real Mexico with its crime and shantytowns. Nothing new. Rarelibra (talk) 13:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you've just confirmed what I was suspecting. That's the problem with a project like that. This will only justify criticisms against the project as a whole, Criticism of Wikipedia. NPOV is being undermined by personal interests.--Mhsb (talk) 23:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

List of autonomous areas by country is up as a Featured List!

The article, List of autonomous areas by country, is currently up for nomination as a Featured List at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of autonomous areas by country. If you have the time, please vote on the article so that it can be improved if necessarily or promoted if it deserves it. Thanks! Gary King (talk) 16:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

"Infobox Country" on "territory" articles

What is your opinion on the Western Sahara article? Is it proper to use {{Infobox Country}} for an article on a disputed territory, tweaked to represent the territorial dispute? Note that at Talk:Kosovo, the pro-independence crowd is pushing for a merge of the article on the disputed territory, Kosovo (region) with the article on the recently declared Republic, confusingly located at Kosovo. To concerns related to WP:NPOV, they suggest the article should have two Country Infoboxes, one for each side of the dispute. Do you have any comments on that? See Talk:Kosovo#Info_Boxes_-_The_next_step_in_our_Kosovo_Article_-_PLEASE_give_your_opinion. dab (𒁳) 09:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Country Specific Infoboxes AGAIN

Yeap, country specific infoboxes have come up again. It's a new flavor added to an old problem that we've discussed here before. This is happening over at Talk:Wales#Info_box_color_options and you're invited. —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 02:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

When to include a country?

A minor issue at Edward VIII of the United Kingdom has got me wondering about format regarding countries. Namely, is it common or uncommon to include a country after the name of a state or province? For example, would one write: Los Angeles, California, United States, or simply: Los Angeles, California? Ditto for Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, or just Sydney, New South Wales. From my observations the latter is sufficient, and by far the most commonplace. However, I'd like to garner some other opinions so as to avoid problems in future. Thanks in advance. --G2bambino (talk) 16:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

In the interests of countering systematic bias, it should be "location, country". For all countries. You never see "Munich, Bavaria" for example, so "Sydney, NSW" is out. - 52 Pickup (deal) 13:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I see. Thanks. --G2bambino (talk) 16:26, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Infobox Country styled

Template:Infobox Country styled has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — --Jza84 |  Talk  11:05, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Hong Kong FAR

Hong Kong has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Joowwww (talk) 11:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles. Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 22:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Ukraine FAC

An FAC is now open for Ukraine. All comments are appreciated. Thanks, Bogdan ^що? 12:00, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 238 articles are assigned to this project, of which 133, or 55.9%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place the following template on your project page:

{{User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription|banner=WPCountries}}

If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Opining

I'd like to see this project tagging talk pages in lieu of the dormant Wikipedia:WikiProject Country subdivisions and doing some work integrating the verbiage in articles consistent with Template:Types_of_administrative_country_subdivision(edit talk links history).

• In particular, the article on Russia and subarticle: Subdivisions of Russia (edit talk links history) seems to me, to be making up unnecessarily borrowed words for which there is likely a translated equivalent English term already... per my note there on that talk, we don't want dic-def creep if we can help it by adding a parenthetical or section coverage in a topic covering an equivalent name.

Further, terms and article stubs like Autonomous district and many other subdivision level articles linked by the template are likely to remain mere stubs unless a group of editors experienced at similar naming issues gets involved. Note also there are: Autonomous region, Autonomous province, Autonomous state, and whether there is a real difference or not needs some project looking after them and providing a guiding hand, if for no other reason, than to provide some uniformity. Best regards. // FrankB 19:26, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Locator maps and de facto independence

On the discussion page of Georgia there is a heated discussion how to deal with the locator (and other maps) of Georgia now that S. Ossetia and Abhkazia are no longer under the control of the central Georgian government and have become de facto independent. Officially the UN has not recognised this independence. The issue raised repeatedly is how to deal with this issue on maps. I (and another editor) have no strong opinion (while some others have) and want to follow Wiki broad consensus on this. Therefore, I would like to raise this point in this project to come up with a suggestion how to deal with it in all such cases (I know of Georgia-S Ossetia-Abhkazia, Cyprus-Turkish Cyprus, Serbia-Kosovo, China-Taiwan-Tibet, Marocco-Western Sahara, and perhaps Israel-Golan; but there maybe other cases where such a solution could apply). The issue is if, and if so how we should deal with this issue on the maps. The options are

• To colour the whole UN recognised land of Georgia, not putting any attention on the de facto independence. (this option is currently adopted for Serbia-Kosovo (also a debate there) and Cyprus, the most similar cases)
• To colour only the area actually under control by Georgia at the moment (there is as far as I know no example of this on Wikipedia)
• To use a different colour or hatching to denote the unrecognised but special status of these regions. (this is for example the case with Taiwan and Tibet disputed border areas on People's Republic of China (diff colour); and with the Western Sahara on Morocco (hatched). - Note that these examples are less similar to the Georgia case, as Taiwan is not truly a break away but a contender to rule over China, and Tibet and Western Sahara are formerly independent regions).

Any opinions are welcome. Arnoutf (talk) 07:30, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for putting this up here. I think it's right place to discuss this, though this place does not seems to be very busy :-( But perhaps this will change.

Form my point of view the second bullet will hopefully not be advocated here. It doesn't seems to make sense that Wikipedia blatantly treats a country in a form the is different to the common view of international politics. Point 1 and three are valid options, of course, and I am looking forward to interesting arguments. (NB: Tibet is not shown in a different color, but the disputed territory with India is).

I think we should first agree on certain classifications and later decide what is treated how. I find the following distinctions relevant:

1. Sovereignity: Is de facto sovereignty attained like in Taiwan, Somaliland, Kosovo, Abchasia, N. Cyprus etc. but NOT in Sahara, West Bank, Basque country, Kurdistan etc.
2. Recognition: Is the country recognized by other, widely recognized countries/country.
3. UN view: Does the UN recognize it as sovereign? (BTW how would the UN do so? I mean UN membership is a different thing than recognition from the UN). I can imagine there is debate on the UN anyway as to why it should count more than other organizations.
4. Nature of dispute: Is it about a secession like S. Ossetia, Transnistria, Southern Sudan etc. or about a dispute on which part holds the right to represent the country, like it is the case for China and Taiwan, N. and S. Korea (as far as I know), and I guess Israel and Palestine.
5. Wiki context: Does the edit concern the parent country like Serbia or the secession like Kosovo?

So, these are the first things that come to my mind as being relevant in assessing such cases. Please feel free to add criteria or contest mine. Then we can define which cases we want to create a guideline for. The topic may easily widen during the discussion (Kashmir?), so it might also make sense to restrict ourselves a bit and I think a common understanding of the relevant concepts will help us. Tomeasy _{T C} 22:56, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello people! I read the whole discussion page, and here's my opinion about this: The best option is the third one, because it's the most informative, and it most corresponds to reality on the ground. The two breakaway entities are not under Georgian control anymore, yet they haven't achieved enough international recognition. Keeping the old map is politically biased, and akin to saying the Earth is flat because all people haven't agreed yet on its actual shape. Good luck! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.186.188.44 (talk) 11:24, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that by bringing it to this page we are looking for a solution that would also apply to Kosovo and Cyprus and other similar cases; so I would rather not discuss the specific of Georgia but keep it at a more general level. (I tend to agree the third is probably the most acceptable compromise for all sides). Arnoutf (talk) 11:37, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

UN officially has neither denied the two new states independence, nor recognised it. the reason is UN does not take decisions about states independence at all. Recognition is a matter of sovereign state policy. To use different colour seems to be the best option possible, as part of the UN members recognises SO and Abkhazia, including one Security Council member, and the other part does not. It is just the same that, IMHO, should be done to Serbia map.FeelSunny (talk) 19:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I think we should try to formulate things here in an abstract way. In your case Summy, if I understand you correctly, that would mean: Use different color codes in the locator map for territories that are recognized as distinct states by other states. Let's try to not mix up the urge for a general solution with specific incidences at this moment. My question to your proposal would be: Which requirements do the recognizing states need to meet so that their recognizing legitimates the distinct color coding of the recognized entity? Is it necessary that one of them is a permanent UN security council member? Or UN member, or recognition by at least X states??? Tomeasy _{T C} 20:33, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Tomeasy's list looks good to me. But maybe there should be different levels, using different visual techniques. Such as hatching when a region is disputed (by at least one widely recognised (notice the circularity in the reasoning here) country) but otherwise regarded as possibly part of a(nother) country. So with the border line intact. If a region is disputed between two countries, the hatching could replace the border line. A different colour would indicate independence (eg acknowledged by the UN?), but hatching could then be used if a neighbouring country disputes part or all of the country's independence.

So there are three elements that could be used to indiciate different things, which can then be combined:

• border line - for sovereignity, or where a border is fixed (even if it is disputed)
• colouring - for recognition (independence acknowledged, eg by the UN)
• hatching - some dispute, whichever that may be. There could even be different types of hatching for different kinds of dispute.

But most importantly, whatever scheme is used, there should be a scheme, the same throughout Wikipedia. Like Arnout said. And preferably with as much detail as possible. For example, most readers will not know about the meaning of the different types of hatching, but then it will not hinder them in any way, whilst for those who do know, it will be helpful. Amrad (talk) 11:01, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your contribution. I think this is the correct way to discuss this issue. I agree, we could in the end use different visual levels to appreciate different levels of accomplished sovereignty. Your bullet list, however, is not really clear to me. Will de facto independence be a prerequisite for you in all three cases? What's really the difference between bullet 1 and 2. I mean, if independence is universally acknowledged, what's then missing to sovereignty (even if disputed)?

A totally different issue: I think Wikipedia really requires a guideline for these issues. In order to create one that eventually has the critical mass to impact Wikipedia globally, I think we need more contributions, especially from experienced editors. Any idea, how to arrange this? Tomeasy _{T C} 14:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Good point Tomeasy. I posted a message on Village Pump (policy) about this; let's hope it attracts some attention. Arnoutf (talk) 17:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

NZ

Hey everyone, I was just wondering of another member of the project could take a cursory look at the New Zealand article and give a bit of a review, not as an actaul review for GA or FA status or anything, but a glance just to see what needs doing and report it back to here or my talk page just so see whats what. Thanks, Taifarious1 04:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC) I think the UN view is the most correct. Besides THIS IS NOT A KOSOVO case. Georgians were the victims of the ethnic cleansing from their homes not someone else. And in General the whole context was Russian defacto annexation of those Georgian territory's. The ABSOLUTE majority of the UN countries recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia("Samachablo region") as Georgian territories. Excluding Nicaragua and Russia itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daikide (talk • contribs) 23:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Countries

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7. We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations. A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible. We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:03, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Naming conventions

There have been two highly relevant suggestions over at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Countries_take_precedence and Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Naming_convention_for_country_names that could greatly use discussion and input, not to mention initial proposals from interested editors. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 03:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Project rename

I would like to rename Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries to Wikipedia:WikiProject Current countries . Reasons

1. adding the term Current denotes that this for countries that are around at this time.
2. stoping the disambiguation of Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries with Wikipedia:WikiProject Former countries and Wikipedia:WikiProject Unrecognized countries

Mr Taz 15:54, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

• support Mr Taz 15:54, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
• support with a query - I would support this but current countries has a strange ring to it and just seems a little odd, current nations or something along those lines would sound better IMHO. Taifarious1 00:18, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
• support - The name should remain as Countries. The term country is used casually in the sense of both nations and states and is used to represent graphical entity. Dnez —Preceding undated comment was added at 21:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC).

Different map formats

Take a look at these three country articles: Belgium, Lebanon and Turkey. Each one is using a different map format. Shouldn't they be standardized? Eklipse (talk) 12:59, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

United Kingdom - dire help needed!

Hello there! The United Kingdom article (an article in the top 20 most visited ever, and the 2nd most linked article on WP) has just been delisted from its WP:GA status, which is a great shame. It's in a terrible state; lists, unsourced paragraphs, single sentence sections, bad spelling, bad formatting and bad MOS. It's in a dire state, and is in need of high quality, active and impartial editors like never before. Is anybody willing to come to the rescue here. This has got to be one of this project's Top priority articles that's being slowly overlooked and overshadowed. If you have a collaboration of the month, now really is the time for this one. --Jza84 |  Talk  22:13, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Geolocation

So I put in the latitude and longitude for the capital Tiraspol for the article Transnistria. When I use the Operator plugin for Firefox to map the article, Google Maps doesn't recognize the name of the country, but Operator doesn't seem to pick up on the lat/long data. Can someone familiar with the template fix the microformat output of Template:Infobox Country? -- Beland (talk) 17:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

List of anthems by country has been nominated at FLC

List of anthems by country has been nominated as a featured list candidate; the nomination can be found here. Since the article falls under this WikiProject's scope, I am posting this notice here. It currently needs more comments, so if you've got time, please comment on the nomination page. If you do not believe that the article can be improved further, feel free to Support it. Otherwise, if you find issues with the article that are actionable, then please Oppose it with a list of items that can be improved on. Thanks in advance! Gary King (talk) 04:39, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Are maps to be considered primary or secondary sources?

Please give your input at Wikipedia talk:No original research#Regarding maps being "primary sources" according to this policy. --Rschen7754 (T C) 12:01, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

List of Countries

There's a debate going on at Talk:List of countries right now that I think some of you might be interested in. If you could drop by and give your comments, that'd be appreciated. (Beware-- It's a big discussion!) Orange Tuesday (talk) 16:53, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I started that discussion, but have since left it. I'm not going back. GoodDay (talk) 19:03, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

After much debate, a proposal here has been made to make List of countries redirect to a disambiguation page at the existing Lists of countries (note plural). Lists of countries will point to the many other 'country' lists - List of sovereign states (Which is almost identical), List of nations (under development) etc. The idea is that the word country is better disambiguated from the 'top level', and the choice of pre-existing articles that the disambiguation page can offer should avoid many of the reoccurring inter-list disputes. --Matt Lewis (talk) 16:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Did a consensus emerge in that discussion? I just noticed the link to it, & if the issue is still unresolved would like to contribute my opinion there. -- llywrch (talk) 19:45, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Serbia and Montenegro

Dunno if this is the right place to ask, but there's a fix needed at Template talk:Country data Serbia and Montenegro if a kind Admin could take care of it. Regards, jnestorius^(talk) 19:17, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Ireland proposals - important update

There is currently a 'joint' Requested Move proposal, here at Ireland Talk, that proposes moving Ireland to Ireland (island), and removing the forked 'Irish state/country' material that has appeared over the years (including additional material on Northern Ireland). The Republic of Ireland would then be the principle article for the Irish state/country, as it was originally intended to be. Concurrently, Ireland (disambiguation) would be Moved to the vacated Ireland, so the many uses of 'Ireland' that refer to the country/state (along with those uses referring to the geographical/island use), would now offer the reader a choice of destination. The Move was based on ongoing discussion at the Ireland disambiguation taskforce (see its Talk page specifically). In addition to the above Requested Move proposal, there are alternative suggestions currently underway at the taskforce Talk, such as changing the direction of the two main Ireland articles simply by editing them, including most recently; 1) Promoting Ireland as the official country/state article (not Republic of Ireland), and building up Ireland (island) as a geographical/island article, and of 2) Ensuring Ireland is a geographical/island article only (and so removing much of the forked country/state-related material). Neither of those options would require Ireland (disambiguation) to be moved to Ireland. If you support (or reject) the disambiguation page option for Ireland, please vote in the Requested Move poll, or perhaps consider commenting at the taskforce on one of the other options. As some options are 'edit-only' (and do not need to be polled), it is looking likely that something could be moved on. In good faith, --Matt Lewis (talk) 17:49, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello

Hello everyone, I'm your newest member (and your 60th). I'm from Chicago,USA I hope to help you guys out! Creez34 (talk) 02:31, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Brazil

Brazil has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 15:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Scotland

Scotland has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here.--Mais oui! (talk) 10:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Maps in country boxes

A discussion has been started here on whether the map locating the United Kingdom in that article's infobox should show the EU or not. Comments are welcome. Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Coordinates format

Hello, I have traveled from WikiProject Geographical coordinates, where we seek wider opinions on whether {{coord}} should offer a N/S/E/W labeled format for decimal coordinates (example: 43.12°N 79.34°W / 43.12; -79.34) either as an option or by default, or if the existing unlabeled format (example: 43.12°N 79.34°W / 43.12; -79.34) is sufficient. Please comment there if you have an opinion on this. Thanks! --GregU (talk) 17:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

No "Infrastructure"

Wouldn't you know that the articles written first would be the ones with the weakest (and oldest and most out-of-date) outline? I was looking for suggestions as to where "infrastructure" should go. In the United States, it is under "economy". Guess I can't point to here as a reference. Ironically, I could point to a reference if it were a state or city. Oh, well. Student7 (talk) 00:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements

All WikiProjects are invited to have their "milestone-reached" announcements automatically placed onto Wikipedia's announcements page. Milestones could include the number of FAs, GAs or articles covered by the project. No work need be done by the project themselves; they just need to provide some details when they sign up. A bot will do all of the hard work. Click here for more information or to sign your project up.

I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 21:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Guidelines for "China" vs. "PRC" usage

Please join the new discussion about Guidelines for "China" vs. "PRC" usage on the People's Republic of China article --Cybercobra (talk) 08:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Flora and fauna

Looking at the list of topics for countries, I can't see any mention of where flora and fauna should go. I don't know if it's a subject worthy of inclusion in the main country article, but presumably there should be a subarticle on it? Cheers — SteveRwanda (talk) 22:38, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Under "Geography", right?Student7 (talk) 04:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Pakistan

I have nominated Pakistan for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 05:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

FAR on Cambodia

I have nominated Cambodia for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 00:52, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators. All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:00, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Outline of knowledge

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Outline of knowledge where there seems to be all the usual confusion about the difference between, state, county and territory. --PBS (talk) 12:30, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Lists of countries

For a discussion on country lists see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries. --PBS (talk) 12:52, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The Map

I love the map (or at least the minimized version I can see of it)

but am in desperate need of help to actually be able to use it. Would anyone here be kind enough to go the page's talk page (or I can move it here) and be able to tell me what the problem is?

Kostantino888Z (talk) 00:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Country outline contest proposal

Each country has an outline in Wikipedia's Outline of knowledge.

But they are not complete.

I'd like to propose a contest to pit country WikiProjects against each other in developing the best country outline.

We're going to need judges.

We're going to need awards.

Any ideas?

What should the notices say?

What should the rules be?

How long should the contest last? 2 months?

How should we gather WikiProjects as participants? Just let any member of a WikiProject sign that WikiProject up?

How many winners should there be?

What could participants post on their user pages if their WikiProject wins?

The Transhumanist 00:10, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

I haven't been active on the outlines for a while now, but I understand that certain country outlines are significantly better than others? So wouldn't that mean an unfair advantage for certain country WikiProjects? --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 01:03, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point. The same can be said for different schools in a league. Like those schools with more students, better funding, etc. But yes, some of the outlines are WAY better. So how about this... When we send out the invites, if that's the approach we decide to take, we can skip inviting those WikiProjects for which the outline is already completed. What do you think? The Transhumanist 01:12, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Then we'll need to have a criteria for each league? Or for inclusion in the "near-complete" league, which would be left out? Are outlines eligible for FL status? Then we could still have a league for the best outlines. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 01:28, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Technically they are eligible for FL, but I wouldn't want to see a link dropped just because they couldn't find a citation for it. And that's really what FL's are all about: citations. The FL people also frown on redlinks, and those are an integral part of outlines (the topic of a link is as important to include as the link itself). So that pretty much nixes FL as a viable option.

The outlines that are most developed include Outline of the United States and Outline of the United Kingdom (extensive links), and those with lots of picture support include Outline of France, Outline of Japan, Outline of Vatican City, Outline of Taiwan, Outline of Thailand, Outline of Japan, and Outline of Iceland. The Transhumanist 01:40, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Come to think of it, the ones with pictures, I did each of those in about a day. So if the contest lasts 2 months, that's not that big of a deal. We could give the almost completeds less time? The Transhumanist 01:47, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Well for the more complete ones, the challenge could be to get those redlinks into well-sourced articles, and to get citations for the outline? It's not impossible, and it would give the average content contributor something they're used to doing. The outlines you linked to are looking good, much better since I stopped working on them a while ago. Heh, makes me feel proud to have done a bit. Well anyways, two months sounds a bit long, and enthusiasm and activity tends to wane. The MILHIST B-class assessment drive, and Tag & Assess 2008 drive both lasted about 1.5 months. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 01:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

How does one month sound? Yeah, we put in a lot of work with AWB and Linky on the rest of 'em, so they are all shaping up. The Transhumanist 02:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

One month sounds fine, as long as not during say exams. It might be problematic over the summer, but we can gauge that by having WikiProject members signing up in advance. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:13, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

This is very imaginative.

You have already discussed this so I hate to bring it up. But aren't the articles supposed to have the same "feel" when a reader looks at them? I think they do due to similar standards. There are local exceptions for colloquial wording. "Motorways" instead of "Turnpikes", "Sport" instead of "Athletics", that sort of thing. In view of the prolonged discussion this will seem like a naive question, but why do we need 195 outlines? I've been pointing newbie editors to just two: US and UK. If they don't like one, they can have the other!

Technically, we already have a process for recognizing good articles, don't we? Many are called and few are chosen, so having a side contest might be useful at that. Student7 (talk) 11:56, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

How would an outline on the United States benefit someone who wants to look up information on Japan?

Since countries differ, so will the subjects on their outlines (specific locations, specific people, etc.). And the maps and images will differ too. See Outline of France, Outline of Japan, Outline of Iceland, Outline of Thailand, Outline of Taiwan, and Outline of Vatican City. There's plenty of room for creativity, even though there is a standard.

Also, Google two different countries, and you will see the need for separate coverage for each.

The purpose of the contest is to get the outlines completed. Some of them are in pretty sad shape.

The Transhumanist 23:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

You are right. I was talking about something else entirely. I will now abandon watching this page. Student7 (talk) 11:18, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, I want to say congratulations on the excellent idea and I'd be happy to help as a judge or whatever.

What we could do is set up a multiple-tier system similar to the English Football League system with articles getting "promoted" and "relegated" each period (a period of time would have to be decided, i.e. articles would be rejudged every period). We would award some sort of badge to the winners of each tier and this would be passed on to the winner of the next period afterwards. (if a different winner should apply).

There is a huge amount of work going to be involved whatever way you decide to do it but I will be here to help in any way I can. Best of luck. Bonzostar (talk) 18:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the judges' work will be relatively easy. Pick the x number of best ones. Just load the pages into WP:LINKY, and browse the hell out of them. The best ones will stand out. And if none stand out, then we can always have ties.

Though I guess what is missing at this point is judging criteria. Any ideas?

The Transhumanist 23:35, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

This is certainly an interesting proposal and could be a good way to foster new enthusiasm based on national pride, or even those such as myself who enjoy a challenge and would make less-than-obvious choices. After reading the above comment about outlines, I was thinking that the sheer number of countries probably means many of the WikiProjects are nonexistent or at least inactive. If the competition becomes a reality, I therefore suggest one of those notices at the top of every page (sorry, I'm not familiar with the technology behind it). That way people who would be interested but normally keep to their own area of the wiki will be informed of its existence.

Additionally, I'd favour a longer duration rather than a shorter one. Aside from the obvious rationale such as allowing more people to participate, inter-library loans (which all article writers should take advantage of if you're not - public libraries are there for a reason!) and purchasing obscure books from online stores can take a while, and I remember an article I'd copyedited and watchlisted spending a month as a Good Article nominee. But if something else develops that's closer to the Spotlight than Seven Years in Tibet, that's fine too. Recognizance (talk) 02:58, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Excellent idea. Keep in mind that in order to put a notice at the top of every page would require a separate proposal at WP:VPR. But we can certainly make that proposal once the details of how this contest will be run have been worked out. The Transhumanist 04:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea & would be happy to help in whatever is needed. dottydotdot (talk) 18:32, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea too, and I'll help in any way I can. Bernstein2291 (talk) 19:23, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Please don't propose, at WP:VPPR, a notice at the top of article pages about this contest, or anything having to do with WikiProjects. That isn't going to happen; you're just wasting everyone's time to even make the suggestion. Such notices are fine on article talk/discussion pages, on WikProject pages, and on user pages, but articles are for readers, and existing notices (top templates) are to inform readers about article problems (as well, of course, as to encourage readers to fix those problems). [Notice that maintenance categories are now hidden in articles, for exactly the same reason - they interfere with what readers need to know.] Wikipedia mainspace is the encyclopedia. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:12, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I was assuming talk pages, project pages, and perhaps portal pages. The Transhumanist 19:58, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Environment section needed

This is related to the "Flora and fauna" section above.

I am working on environment articles with the view to create a complete series of Environment of X articles for all countries (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Environment by country and Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Planning). I have discovered that the country articles are not consistent with links to the Environment of X (where they exist) and I feel that "Environment" deserves its own level two heading. Environment (not to be confused with ecology) is a large body of knowledge to describe, collate and reference. It is also of an increasing interest given the number of environmental organisations and amount of exposure in the media as well as the large number of environmental publications. Environment of X links in country articles are put under the geography section. I don't think this is appropriate since environment covers flora, fauna, climate change, environmental law, green politics, environmental issues, pollution, waste, protected areas etc. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:56, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

For current coverage, see User:The Transhumanist/Lists by country/Environment of x.

For coverage of other "X of Y" country-related articles, see User:The Transhumanist/Lists by country

The Transhumanist 03:26, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

References needed

Can anyone help find references for: Greece-Kyrgyzstan relations. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

The population given for Cook Islands is wrong. The entry for Cook Islands gives the 2006 census population as 19,589.203.97.238.175 (talk) 09:31, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The Austria article

Since Austria is a core article for this project, and Wikipedia itself, I believe that members here would agree that it is also highly important. If anyone is interested in substantially improving the article to good or featured article status, please join this discussion at Talk:Austria#Article improvement drive. Thanks for your help, Hayden120 (talk) 04:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Size does matter

Something is clearly wrong here if you ask me. The current geographical map that wikipedia uses to identify where countries are(normally seen on a country page) would contradict these figures. I mean how are America and China roughly the same size and since was India 1/3 the zie of China. If you were to combine India and Pakistan together they would easily encompass more than half of China but according to these figures produced, this doesn't seem possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RRRAD (talk • contribs) 17:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Featured countries

Hi, could a user with sophisticated ability in dealing with maps have a look at ? It hasn't been updated in a year, and no longer reflects which countries are featured or not. There are comments on the file's talk page, and in the list of featured and good articles on WikiProject Countries' main page. YeshuaDavid • Talk • 21:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Misuse of greater than (>) sign

In the country list there is a column for percent of total land area. The values reliably get smaller as the size of the country diminishes all the way down to 0.01%. The next smaller country shows as >0.01% (meaning greater than) when clearly it should show as <0.01% (meaning less than). I tried to edit this info but was unable to. Thanks, donangelico —Preceding unsigned comment added by Donangelico (talk • contribs) 01:05, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

North Korea GA nom

North Korea is currently a good article nominee. If anyone has time to review it, that'd be swell. --Cybercobra (talk) 10:47, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

GA Class Review of the United Arab Emirates

Can someone please reassess the United Arab Emirates article. I believe it has geatly improved, and deserves a review. --MoHasanie  Talk  13:10, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Out-of-date international organizations lists in "Politics of" articles

Many "Politics of COUNTRY" articles (mostly in Europe) have an "International Organizations" section that is basically a giant list of organizations in which the country is a member or observer. For example:

• Politics of Portugal#International organization participation
• Politics of the United Kingdom#International organization participation
• Politics of Spain#International organization participation
• Politics of the Republic of Ireland#International organisation participation
• Politics of Vatican City#International organization participation
• Politics of Bulgaria#International relations
• Politics of Ukraine#International organization participation

The thing is, what do these lists have to do with Politics? Very little, as best I can tell. There isn't any content explaining the relevance of the group's relations with a particular international organization, either (a la Israel, Palestinians, and the United Nations). Your average "Politics of" article should discuss internal politics, perhaps with a "Foreign Relations" section that links to the main Foreign Relations article and discusses the impact of other countries on internal politics as well as differing political positions on international outreach. International organization participation is pretty far down the list - diehard Euroskeptics may want the UK to withdraw from the EU, sure, but I don't think there's any political controversy about participation in ICAO or the WHO.

Basically, I recommend that one of the following be done:

• Move these lists from "Politics of X" to "Foreign Relations of X." (Some articles have done this already, such as Foreign relations of Italy#International organization participation)

or

• Spin these off into their own list articles, with the hope of sourced commentary in the future (say, "Iceland has been a strong opponent of whaling restrictions in the International Whaling Commission" in a "Iceland and International Organizations" article or the like).

I'd also point out that these lists don't appear to be very well maintained, so as far as we know people could have snuck in plausible but incorrect organizations that the countries aren't actually members of. Ugh. The source for these are apparently dumps of the CIA World Factbook from 2002 or so (see this really old example, or really any Politics article's earliest revision), so even if they haven't been tampered with, they may well be out of date anyway. Ideally, someone would compare all the lists against the 2009 Factbook and either source or remove any organizations not listed there. SnowFire (talk) 20:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Kosovar people vs Kosovan people CfD

Found here; all users welcome to participate. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 08:34, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

England at GAC

Alerting all WikiProject Countries members that England is undergoing a reveiw for WP:GA status. Things you can help with are listed here. Please help if you can, thanks, --Jza84 |  Talk  14:46, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Canada at FAR

Canada has been nominated for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:14, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Etymology section

In the guidelines to writing about cities and countries we tend to provide suggestions that information about the origin of the name / the etymology is given in the history section, and - if there is enough material - that a sub-section can be created. In usage some editors prefer that the etymology details be placed in their own section - which is fine if there is enough data to justify it, and the information may be found reasonably interesting or useful to the average reader. But the question now arises as where to place a stand alone Etymology section. I often find them placed as the first section - ahead of the History section - and there is a part of me which can see the logic of that. However, there is a greater logic in having the history section first, as that is the first section that readers would expect - it is generally what encyclopedias do, and the history always comes before the name (I suppose there may be settlements and countries which were named before they existed, but these must be very rare!). Where etymologies are usually placed in dictionaries and references books is at the end of the entry - and that may be where someone interested in the etymology may be expecting to look. There may be other options as to where to place the etymology, and it would be useful to get some opinions and revisit the guidelines to make things clearer. As a starting point, here are four suggestions:

1. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology subsection should be created within the History section. (If the subsection grows so large as to justify a standalone section, that section to be placed after/before the History section / at the end of the article.)
2. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology section should be created and placed after the History section.
3. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology section should be created and placed before the History section.
4. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology section should be created and placed at the end of the article.

I will copy this to other related WikiProjects. SilkTork *^YES! 10:23, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I usually put etymology info before the history section. I never thought about why exactly, but it probably seems right because etymology info is typically short and history sections can be long. I don't have a preference really, but thought I'd link to one interesting example: Pittsburgh, with etymology given its own shortish section before history, and linked to a whole article on the etymology, Etymology of Pittsburgh (a page which needs some work and references--I have some somewhere). It's an interesting idea--allowing a longer treatment of etymology without weighing the main page down too much. Pittsburgh is an unusual case though. Pfly (talk) 17:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

On second thought, the Pittsburgh example is not really about etymology but rather the history of the spelling. I'll suggest a rewording over there. Pfly (talk) 17:43, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Peer review at Republic of Macedonia

Requesting some feedback on this article, which would be deeply appreciated. See the peer review here for my comments of what kind of feedback I'm after. Best wishes, Fritzpoll (talk) 13:50, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Ships and country wikiprojects

Should articles about ships be added to the various country wikiprojects? All merchant ships have a port of registry and fly that country's merchant flag. Many ships have flown more than one flag in their life and thus could be said to fall under many different country Wikiprojects. Naval vessels could also be said to fall under the relevant country wikiproject. Another area is shipwrecks, could these also be said to fall under the relevant country wikiproject if not in international waters? Mjroots (talk) 08:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe that warships should be tagged as part of the project for the nation(s) operating that warship. No stance at this time on the others. -- saberwyn 10:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I think shipwrecks should if they are in a countries waters, or are a common dive attraction, or are historically important. Bonewah (talk) 14:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

AfD for List of country subdivisions

Need some more eyes to look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of country subdivisions, which had to be relisted to get consensus. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Needs Assessment

Needs assessment for Guyana - Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 05:09, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Haiti lead section

Due to the recent earthquake in Haiti, some editors have seen it necessary to mention this in the lead section of the Haiti country article. I consider that this goes against the consistancy principle of country articles. What is the opinion of you geography editors? --MoRsE (talk) 23:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Israel FAR

I have nominated Israel for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Cptnono (talk) 14:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Institute for Economics and Peace

After the failure to create an article for the organization, User:Mesgul82 has added statistics from the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) as a separate section with a table on multiple country articles. It is possible Wikipedia:Spam and reliability has not been addressed. Giving this much weight to these certain aspects and the source is also a concern. I have removed most of them from articles that someone else had not already done or had this as a standalone section without more properly cited sources.Cptnono (talk) 06:43, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm sticking my nose where it doesn't belong, but as far as I can see the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) article was deleted due to copyright violation issues, and not necessarily due to a lack of suitability for Wikipedia. Additionally, the ranking being added to all the country pages seems to be a ranking that already had it's own article long before attempted creation and deletion of the IEP article. Again, countries really aren't my specialty, but as far as I can see, I don't see a problem with adding the ranking to the existing rankings tables on the country pages (since the information being placed on these pages already existed in a different form on Wikipedia).--Gnowor^Talk2Me_{did wha?} 08:48, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

The Global Peace Index made me hesitate a bit but it wasn't sourced from reliable sources. Since rankings are not unheard of, adding back the rows with sources might be a good idea.

In regards to IEP, it is a primary source that may not merit inclusion. It appears to be link spam. Without some acknowledgment from secondary sources I don't see how we can give it any play here.

And I could be completely wrong. A couple other editors had concerns it looked like while going through. If it is OK then hopefully we can figure out if there is a better way to do it.Cptnono (talk) 09:22, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

RE:IEP article - Brief search, and you're right, can't find any secondary sources quickly. I'm not objecting to it's deletion. Only mentioned it in the first place as it seemed as if your motivation for the concerns about the GPI rankings might have been based on the IEP deletion.

RE: GPI rankings - It seems like adding those rows with this source should be fine, if I'm understanding the objections correctly. My argument for why these rankings should be permissible is based on the fact that the free-standing Global Peace Index article has been on wikipedia for awhile. Please correct me if I'm wrong.--Gnowor^Talk2Me_{did wha?} 09:39, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree, rankings from a non-notable organisation (or one that doesn't have a Wiki page) aren't notable. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 09:48, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I feel like I'm missing something here. This article's subject isn't notable?--Gnowor^Talk2Me_{did wha?} 10:04, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, to be clear - I don't think lack of notability of IEP kills these rankings on notability guidelines due to information on the above linked article indicating that IEP works in collaboration with other groups.--Gnowor^Talk2Me_{did wha?} 10:08, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I think when it really comes down to it, my concern with the info is th linking to potentially inappropriate pages off (various reasons including being self-serving even with a high moral ground) of wikipedia), the formatting used (an emphasis that is very close to spam), the lack of sources for some of the info being provided correctly in the table, and the cherry picked info stats to present. International rankings of New Zealand is an example of where editors have compiled a diverse range of ranks to show.

Possibly removing the narrowly selected information in the table and moving it into the prose in a relevant subsection would reduce the weight concerns while still having it available to the reader. If [2] is deemed to be appropriate then maybe it should be used as a source. It was done "in conjunction with" The Economist but I would rather have The Economist article used as an inline ref to limit the spam concern. I personally love The Economist. Would moving the sourced info into the prose be a better option if the article does not have an established table already?Cptnono (talk) 10:20, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

If this can be sourced from the Economist great, but the IEP isn't notable on their own. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 12:21, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

International Rankings sections

I've noticed that International rankings sections have been added to many articles including Chile and the UK. This appears to have been done by the same user as above (User:Mesgul82) Should these be kept or removed? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 16:42, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent. Ideally, any such sections would have more context, such as:

• Is it better to rank higher or lower?
• In what specific ranking is the country in the top or bottom x percent? Maurreen (talk) 07:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Less clutter please in the introduction!

As fascinating as pronounciation can be why on earth do we let it clutter up the start of articles, I've just removed some "rubbish" from the start of Tegucigalpa (nicknames with citation needed to boot) and found the IPA to be still cluttering up the introduction.

Could we remove IPA and such to infoboxes or lower sections in articles, specially for countries and capital cities? The introduction should give non-technical overview as I understand it, and loading them with citation needed and IPA isn't really productive. --Stalfur (talk) 19:12, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd go for that, but I expect we'd be the minority. Maurreen (talk) 07:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Templates Infobox geopolitical organization and Infobox organization

There is a discussion if the Template:Infobox Geopolitical organization, redirecting now to the Template:Infobox country should be redirected to Template:Infobox organization. or if not, how to define in which cases it is appropriate to use the one or another infoboxes. You opinion is appreciated. Beagel (talk) 20:35, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Merge of Republic_of_Serbia_(federal)

Someone nominated Republic_of_Serbia_(federal) to be merged into Serbia. just letting you guys know. see This page for discussion. Thank You. Gman124 ^talk 03:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

leads

need standardising :content,ordr[popup! etc--i'v[[RSI]]>typin=v.v.hard4me!!>contactme thruMSNpl[=alias (talk) 15:53, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

maps

more rneded:fe ind.oc.isl2clear loc.maps!!--i'v[[RSI]]>typin=v.v.hard4me!!>contactme thruMSNpl[sven70=alias (talk) 01:23, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

FAR

Hello everyone. The article Israel is currently at featured article review, and has been moved to the FARC section. In this section, editors make keep/delist declarations regarding the featured status of the article. Editors from this project are invited to comment on the FARC. Thanks in advance for any comments, Dana boomer (talk) 22:53, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Notification regarding Wikipedia-Books

Hadronic Matter An overview

An example of a book cover, taken from Book:Hadronic Matter

As detailed in last week's Signpost, WildBot has been patrolling Wikipedia-Books and searched for various problems in them, such as books having duplicate articles or containing redirects. WikiProject Wikipedia-Books is in the process of cleaning them up, but help would be appreciated. For this project, the following books have problems:

• Book:Africa (problems)
• Book:Cambodia (problems)
• Book:European Union (problems)
• Book:India (problems)

The problem reports explain in details what exactly are the problems, why they are problems, and how to fix them. This way anyone can fix them even if they aren't familiar with books. If you don't see something that looks like this, then all problems have been fixed. (Please strike articles from this list as the problems get fixed.)

Also, the {{saved book}} template has been updated to allow editors to specify the default covers of books (title, subtitle, cover-image, cover-color), and gives are preview of the default cover on the book's page. An example of such a cover is found on the right. Ideally, all books in Category:Book-Class country articles should have covers.

If you need help with cleaning up a book, help with the {{saved book}} template, or have any questions about books in general, see Help:Books, Wikipedia:Books, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, or ask me on my talk page. Also feel free to join WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, as we need all the help we can get.

This message was delivered by User:EarwigBot, at 00:40, 8 April 2010 (UTC), on behalf of Headbomb. Headbomb probably isn't watching this page, so if you want him to reply here, just leave him a message on his talk page. EarwigBot ^{(owner • talk)} 00:40, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Turkmen or Turkmenistani?

I'm currently encountering a problem on whether "Turkmen" or "Turkmenistani" should be used to describe Turkmenistan people. I do think that "Turkmen" is the correct term per Category:Turkmen people but since many huge categories uses "Turkmenistani" e.g. Category:Turkmenistani sportspeople, Category:Turkmenistani sportspeople stubs and Category:Turkmenistani footballers, I think I shall start a discussion here to reach consensus.

• 878000 results for Turkmen and 2900 results for Turkmenistani per Googlefight.
• Turkmen has been viewed 1338 times in March 2010 [3] and 0 view for Turkmenistani [4] per Wikipedia article traffic statistics.

Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 19:27, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi. According to the U.S. CIA World Factbook (under "People" then "Nationality" heading), the proper terms are "Turkmen(s)" (noun) and "Turkmen" (adj.). This is confirmed on page 25 of the Geographical Names and Information (revised March 2010) publication from the U.K. I never fully trust the CIA W.F. by itself, because it sometimes imposes a U.S. bias (especially regarding the area around Palestine and also Myanmar/Burma), but confirming it with the U.K. helps confirm that--at least in the English language--Turkmen is correct. The state bank refers to itself as "Turkmen", as does the state commodity and raw materials exchange. The only place, outside of en.wiki, that I see "Turkmenistani" being listed is at NationsOnline.org, a site that claims to do a lot of datamining and cross-referencing, states that the nationality is "Turkmenistani", but the ethnic group is "Turkmen". It seems pretty clear that "Turkmen" is the best choice, although there could be an a subtle issue with translation (Turkmen might be a more restrictive or "pure" form of the work, while Turkmenistani might be a broader term). I'm certainly no expert though. Hope that helps shed some new light. —Willscrlt ( “Talk” ) 22:17, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Here is the discussion about this issue on February 2007, about more than 3 years ago and the discussion tends to support Turkmen as the adjective form for Turkmenistan. But the article being discussed at that time still uses Turkmenistani? See here. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 09:33, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I would have thought that "Turkmen" was the correct demonym. Same with "Uzbek", "Kazakh", "Kyrgyz", "Tajik", "Afghan" and (word redacted)(hmm, that one doesn't work). – PeeJay 11:26, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Clearly, I was under the impression that Turkmenistani was the usage in my part of town. If BBC and other news agencies can be comfortable with the usage of Turkmenistani as a way to address the people, I don't think it's appropriate to draw a consensus... ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪ _―Œ ^{♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣} 13:43, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I was asked to participate in this discussion. I have made no conclusion yet; haven't investigated it. If there is consensus to change, I can help to perform the change - it'll need some search/replace stuff. Give me a shout if you need that.  Chzz  ►  13:37, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, the correct usage is to use "-stani" for the country demonym, as the non-stani version is usually read as referring to the ethnic group only. —Nightstallion 14:04, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, can't see that from the Turkmenistan government sites. They seems to be using "Turkmen" frequently, and I can't find any "Turkmenistani". "Turkmen state and society", "Turkmen classical poet", "Turkmen State University", "Turkmen fuel and energy" and "Turkmen sportsmen" can be seen clearly from this url Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 15:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I'm a Turkmen. I've never heard of -stani usage in Turkmenistan. Turkmen is accepted officially. All the matter here is Pakistani usage which I think because of the fact that there are many ethnicities in Pakistan instead of a majority. Pak was not acceptable as the adjective form of nationality. Then Pakistani was coined. Mainly the majority's name determines the countries demonym. Ex. French, German, etc. How do you like Russian presidential election, 2008? According to -stani logic, Russian is not proper here. Russia is a multi-ethnical country. Of course I don't agree with that. The word Russian here indicates the whole country, like Turkmen does. As I said before, Pakistan is the only exception, and for their sake the other -stan countries cannot be deprived of their ethnical (factually national) demonym. The reason behind is that Pakistan is 40 years older than other -stan countries, it is known to English-speaking world 40 years earlier than the new -stan republics. All five -stan countries call themselves with their stani-less names. Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, Kyrgyz, Kazakh all encompass all the citizens regardless of their ethnicity, like French, German, Dutch etc. We can make them ridiculous like Frenchi, Germani, Dutchi, Italiani which is totally inacceptle for the -stan adjectives as well. Pakistan is welcome. It is an exception. --Hanberke (talk) 15:58, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Hanberke, many thanks for the above insight. That makes up my own mind.

Support changing from "Turkmenistani" to "Turkmen" in categories and articles.

It would appear to me that the above represents a reasonable consensus; Arteyu, I thus recommend a bold change, linking to this discussion in the edit summaries.  Chzz  ►  14:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support change from Turkmenistani (which appears to be simply incorrect) to Turkmen wherever it appears in a title or category name. Hans Adler 14:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
• Many Thanks!!! I propose to change all Central Asian -stani adjectives (Kazakhstani, Kyrgyzstani, Tajikistani, Turkmenistani and Uzbekistani) into proper demonyms (Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen and Uzbek) or (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). Here are some examples: Template:Currencies of Asia, Kazakhstani Footballer of the Year etc. --Hanberke (talk) 06:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The CIA WFB disagrees, though: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ti.html#People —Nightstallion 09:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, the CIA seems to agree with the usage of Turkmen and Afghan but not for Uzbek, Tajik, Kyrgyz and Kazakh. I think we can draw a reasonable consensus here on Turkmen and Afghan. What do you guys think? Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 09:43, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Think we should stick to Uzbek. Found 103 results for Uzbek from the Uzbekistan government site while 0 for Uzbekistani, see [5]. But the Kazakhstan government seems to be using both terms (Kazakh and Kazakhstani), see [6] for Kazakhstani. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 09:55, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Western New Guinea -or- West Papua

I request neutral input for the survey, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Western_New_Guinea#Requested_move

I also bring to your attention the political interest in the article itself, notably the claiming of the article as part of 'WikiProject Indonesia'. With all due respect, the islands of South East Asia and on the Australian continental shelf are geographic regions whereas the Republic of Indonesia is a political state. There are already separate articles on the political and geographic subjects as partially listed at West Papua. I don't want to waste time with an edit war with writers who feel acknowledgement of the geographic region of West Papua is an insult to the republic; but, I think a claim that the article is part of 'WikiProject Melanesia' would be more appropriate given the scope of the article.Daeron (talk) 02:34, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Editing dispute at Afghanistan article

The above article has been fully protected for a month, to allow the dispute to be resolved, and a consensus reached.

Any comments from knowledgeable people from this WikiProject would be appreciated. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:13, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Heading centering

I've noticed that the "Area", "Establishment" and "Population" headings are now centered in all the Infobox country iboxes. There was nothing in the edit history, so was this some sort of internal improvement? Is there a standardization program in the works? For example, {{Infobox settlement}} still has "Area" and "Population" left-justified. This new centering makes the headers unlike all the other headers in the ibox that are still left-justified, so the centering seems to detract from the ibox. Can we get the centering changed back to left-justified for the "Area", "Population" and "Establishment" headers, please?
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  15:09, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Somalia

Hi there, I've recently been involved in a discussion at the Somalia article's talk page regarding the general quality of that article. I disagree with the focus the article has (its sections on energy and telecommunications, for example, seem much too long, while its section on politics seems to ignore "elephants in the room") and with the general tone (it seems to go out of its way to present the country in a positive light). I have tried to explain my concerns to frequent editors on the talk page, but one in particular seems to strongly disagree. I really don't want to battle through contentious edits, could some people here go and take a look at the article and give their two cents on whether I'm in the wrong here or he is? Thanks a lot, TastyCakes (talk) 15:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Côte d'Ivoire vs. Ivory Coast

There is an RFC at the Côte d'Ivoire talk page about whether Wikipedia should be use the name "Côte d'Ivoire" or "Ivory Coast". Those who would like to express their opinion and participate in the discussion should do at that talk page. Orange Tuesday (talk) 20:06, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

List of sovereign states

There is currently a discussion taking place here over how states are listed on List of sovereign states. Any input from members of this project is welcome. TDL (talk) 21:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Bangladesh FAR nom

I have nominated Bangladesh for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. -- Cirt (talk) 05:11, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Deletion Nomination

A deletion discussion for a page within the scope of your project, List of largest empires, has been created. You are welcome to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of largest empires (5th nomination). Qwyrxian (talk) 01:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Russia GA reassessment

An article that you have been involved in editing, Russia has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments here . If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Philipmj24 (talk) 03:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Comments

I've drafted this comparison of all the countries I know are featured articles, mostly gained from the outdated map on this wikiproject. Besides showing easy options for fixes, it also raises a couple of questions about the template we have here. The major thing I see is that many of these articles have a separate Foreign relations and military section, and some have a separate International rankings section. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:05, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Chipmunk. I have just been looking into the "International rankings" sections as I'm working heavily on Rwanda but don't quite think this section fits.

The sections were added en masse by a user who has now gone dormant, Mesgul82, in February this year. I think it was partly in response to an argument over inclusion of figures from the Institute for Economics and Peace (see here for details on this).

I'm quite tempted to delete this section from Rwanda, and probably from all other countries as well for the following reasons:

1. It is not a recommended section according to WP:COUNTRIES,
2. The relevance of such figures without context is quite dubious
3. If they are deemed to be relevant, the info box would be a better place form them
4. The tabular form is not really consistent with the sort of prose that should be in an article.

Interested to hear any thoughts on this.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I quite agree with Amakuru, this section should be removed from country articles. In the case of the article for Peru, which is the one I know best, before submitting the article to WP:FAC it was decided to remove this section to a separate article: International rankings of Peru. It appears it was reintroduced this year but I hve removed it once again. --Victor12 (talk) 15:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Good call on the removal of a single subsection too Victor12. I've taken a closer look at all of them, and it does seem be a random collection of figures in each one. I guess they should be removed if no editors on those local articles disapprove. It might be a good idea to add the international rankings as a see also of country articles, it is relevant. Nice list of available ones at Category:International rankings. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:43, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi again all. Following the above comments I have gone ahead and removed this section from a number of country articles and in most cases placed the removed text in a new article "International rankings of XXXX" as Victor did for Peru. In a few cases, there was already such an article so I placed the removed text in a new section thereof. This may lead to some duplication but hopefully not too much; if I have time I will go through and check for that afterwards. So far I have done all countries up to Tajikistan and will resume from there when I get the chance. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 23:24, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I think these rankings should be kept in the infoboxes. Nergaal (talk) 07:57, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm... That'll make for even larger infoboxes. I think they're best kept in a separate article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Victor12 (talk • contribs) 13:10, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this. Many of the rankings are not really notable enough to rate inclusion anywhere in the main article. While those that are relevant (population rank, HDI rank, GDP rank etc) are generally already in the info box.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:34, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

A side-note: it is scary to realize that all of these FAs were promoted in 2006/2007. Nergaal (talk) 08:01, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I know, it's strange isn't it... I am working heavily on Rwanda at present, with a view to getting it featured, so I'm using Cameroon and Chad as benchmarks to try to emulate. I just hope that the FA standards haven't moved on so much since three years ago that this approach will not be good enough....  — Amakuru (talk) 20:36, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

One of these days I think it might be worth setting up peer reviews for all of the featured (and maybe even good) country articles. I know one or two articles that I'm sure will be demoted, and I'm sure others could be easily fixed. At any rate, it should give a nice new baseline for what makes a FA country article in these new harsher days. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:43, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

This might be a good idea, some FA country articles have gone through WP:FAR, for instance, India in 2005 and 2006. --Victor12 (talk) 15:31, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The FAC for Rwanda will be an interesting test case for this as well - it will establish the kind of benchmark that the powers over there are currently looking for in our humble little country articles...  — Amakuru (talk) 19:29, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Countries articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Countries articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 22:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Counties of Romania/archive2

I opened a FLC and I think it falls within the scope of the projects as counties represent the first level subdivisions in Romania. Any comments would be appreciated. Nergaal (talk) 19:24, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Links to subsidiary articles

What is the policy on subsidiary country articles on a topic not itself notable enough to make the main country page? For example, International rankings of Algeria, Archeology of Algeria. I was about to go through every country and add the "international rankings" link to the see also section, per a request on my talk page, but it seems that the prevailing convention and also the WP:SEEALSO guideline do not encourage this, so I'm now wondering whether to proceed. Any opinions?  — Amakuru (talk) 08:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that the international rankings of a country are notable facts about it, and see no real objections to including it in the see also's. I don't think every subpage should be included though, because many of those can be found in the relevant country portals, which should be included in the see alsos. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Another option is something along the lines of {{Peru topics}}, similar templates are used in various country articles. --Victor12 (talk) 13:08, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Rwanda peer review

Hi guys,

For your information, I have just nominated Rwanda (which I have been working on a lot recently) for peer review.

The peer review page is: Wikipedia:Peer review/Rwanda/archive2

I would very much appreciate any input into that, as part of my overall goal of elevating the article to WP:FA status.

Thanks!  — Amakuru (talk) 21:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Russia

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. You are being notified as the banner of this project is on the article talk page. I have found a number of concerns which you can see at Talk:Russia/GA2. I have de-listed the article but it can be re-nominated at WP:GAN when these concerns are addressed.. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:38, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland

The discussion at Template:Countries of Europe is an example of this continuing argument. We've got to decide if E/S/W/NI belong in such articles, or if the UK is suficent. GoodDay (talk) 16:13, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

They are not sovereign states - but they are countries, per multiple WP:RS. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:40, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

In the real world, people outside the UK usually are referring to sovereign states when they speak of "countries". The mere fact that the UK uses unusual terminology doesn't elevate the rank of the UK's constituent parts above those of other entities in very similar conditions. The constituent parts of the UK don't belong on that template any more than South Tyrol or Catalonia. Similarly, Hong Kong and Tibet are not included in Template:Countries of Asia. Hans Adler 12:02, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this. As separate historical entities, they have many of the hallmarks of "countries" and it is not entirely wrong to call them such, but they have no place in an overall list of world or European countries, any more than the other subentities of nation states.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:10, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I too believe that E/W/S/NI don't belong on that template or any other similar template or articles. However, I wonder if moving all such articles, templates etc from countries to sovereign states, would help end those constant squabbles? GoodDay (talk) 15:17, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems more bulky and inefficient. There is no need to include everything that falls under different meanings of a word under a template box which is meant to contain only one meaning. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:54, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

What qualifies you, or any other editor, to define the meaning? The only Neutral way to determine what belongs on a list of countries and what does not is verifiable reliable sources. Neutral point of view says: "Neutral point of view (NPOV) is a fundamental Wikimedia principle and a cornerstone of Wikipedia. All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. This means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors." Please explain why you think this, supposedly non-negotiable, core policy should be ignored. Daicaregos (talk) 19:03, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

To avoid these constant discussions, why not rename the template Template:Sovereign states of Europe? Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:06, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Rename the template but keep the text as it is. There will probably be proposals to change the template heading similarly, but these should be easier to deal with. Hans Adler 18:14, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the template should be renamed Sovereign states of Europe. (or "in Europe"). This would make it in line with List of countries and List of European countries both of which now redirect to a title saying sovereign state, rather than country to avoid these problems. It is the quickest and least controversial solution to the problem. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:16, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

England, Scotland, Wales (and to a far lesser extent Northern Ireland) are commonly called countries. That is quite verifiable. So too is (the island of) Ireland, which is also very often called, and so quite verifiable is, a country. However, none of these places belong on this template.

This is because, in the English language, the same word can have different meanings. What is meant by "country" in this context is "sovereign state". Neither England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland nor (the island of) Ireland are countries in that sense. However, the two are so frequently used as synonyms for each other that "sovereign state" is what most people think of when the hear the word "country".

The two are not necessarily the same thing, as England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales demonstrate. None the less, there needs to be some common sense from UK contributors who have a very strong sense that the constituent parts of the UK are countries in a categorical sense and that no other word will do. The dominant understanding of the word "country" is "sovereign state" and that is not what those countries are.

If it helps, maybe rename the template and similar categories to make this distinction clearer.--RA (talk) 00:34, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Re-naming will certainly help. GoodDay (talk) 15:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I have started a request move on the template here. Template_talk:Countries_of_Europe#Requested_move BritishWatcher (talk) 11:26, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

By the way, the inclusion of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland may also be an issue on these templates.

{{Capitals in Europe}} , {{List of European capitals by region}} , {{Languages of Europe}}

2 of these state Sovereign States yet still include England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in small text and brackets after the UK. The other says European states and territories, but someone has added to the second row about non-sovereign territories or constituent nations appearing in small capitals. Do England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland need removing from these templates? the response here and over on the countries of Europe template seems to be against their inclusion, and thats with the title country.. here its actually saying sovereign state / state, but including them. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Delete England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland from them all. GoodDay (talk) 22:26, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The four constituent countries of the UK should be deleted from the first and third templates. The second template is ugly and should probably be redesigned, but in its current state it's perfectly appropriate that it includes the capitals of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Hans Adler 23:23, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Non-sovereign states and non-dependencies should be removed from all of these templates. Once you go below that level you step into the murky world of nationalism. This does not mean that nationalism is bad, merely murky. What makes Cardiff more of a capital than Vitoria-Gasteiz? Or Munich? Or Namur? That murkiness brings with it a subjectivity that is driven more by pride (and hurt when not included) than anything meaningful in an objective sense. The titles of the templates could be changed too to reflect that. --RA (talk) 08:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The continuing push to keep England/Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland & Edinbugh/Cardiff/Belfast on these articles, templates etc etc, is becoming frustrating & (dare I say it) a tad disruptive. The understanding on all these articles, templates etc etc, is that non-independants don't belong. GoodDay (talk) 14:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The first and third of those templates come directly off the {{Europe topic}} template. What are England etc. doing in the sovereign states section anyway? They should exist only in the last row, the dependencies and others, if anywhere at all (No, the word country does not appear on the Europe Topic template). The third row has its own issues anyway. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Amendment, the word country appears once, on the footnote noting transcontinental countries. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:43, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I've pointed this out many times. Indeed, there are a fair few entities outside the UK that are not independent sovereign states but are commonly or officially called "countries", such as North-Rhine-Westphalia, the Basque Country and Brittany. But it seems that users focus solely on England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

There are a few users about who refuse to accept even the possibility that the word "country" might have more than one meaning. That refuse to accept that the status of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is not identical to that of France. That seriously argue that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are states with limited recognition on the basis that the UK government's use of the word "country" to describe them is tantamount to diplomatic recognition. I really wish I was joking about that last point, because it is impossible to assume any kind of good faith in users who make such obviously ridiculous arguments - but it's one that has been made repeatedly by certain editors.

The fact is that it would be a serious violation of WP:NPOV for us to imply that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are, or should be, equal in status to independent sovereign states, as some would have it.

I don't see a need to rename articles. I think our readers are intelligent enough to know that some words in English have more than one meaning. Any reader whose English is not up to the understanding that some words in English have more than one meaning is probably not qualified to read a general-purpose encyclopædia. Renaming hundreds of templates, categories, lists and articles seems like an extraordinary waste of time when doing so does not address the issues concerned (in that "sovereign states", by the argument used against "countries", includes every state of the US). The only benefit to the encyclopædia would be an end this particular discussion. It would not benefit our readers in any significant way at all. Pfainuk talk 17:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment Because of the nature of the 1707 Act of Union, the UK Parliament is not sovereign in Scotland. We even have a WP section about this Parliamentary_sovereignty#Scotland. Essentially in Scotland, Scottish law is sovereign and that law can challenge any act of Parliament laid down by the UK government. The Act of union with Ireland similarly allowed Irish law to challenge Parliament decisions and this is retained in Northern Ireland as do the legislative bodies in the crown protectorates (the channel islands and Isle of Man). This is why questions of sovereignty do not apply to the UK, the UK Parliament cannot make any sovereign decision on behalf of the nations of Scotland or Northern Ireland or crown protectorates that cannot be challenged and over-ruled within those countries. Scotland also has border inviolability which was why in 1999 the UK government had to get the agreement of the Scottish Office (then run by the same party as the UK government) to make the legislative changes to move the Scotland/England Border in favour of England. Scotland also retains an independent army of 100 men under the command of the Duke of Atholl (who may serve some of their time in the British Army but do so separately from their commitments to the Atholl Highlanders), separate religion, are recognised a separate by many of the world's sporting bodies,they have the ability to independently print banknotes and further powers by which sovereignty can be measured. The devolution of 1998 did not give Scotland or Northern Ireland any "Devolved Powers" it simply allowed the powers they already had to be managed by a a selection of elected officials rather than the solitary figure of the Lord Advocate - it did also allow the ability for these officials to make decisions on distribution of taxation; something that had previously been done under the office of Secretary of State for Scotland. The arrangement of Scotland and Ireland within the union is no different to the arrangement of Germany or France within the European Union, they retain much of their sovereignty but chose to pool some of that power with other nations for mutual benefit. This is why it is not just a nationalist view that these countries are treated separately because they, like Monaco or Lichtenstein have far more sovereignty than a state within a federal system.

Wales on the other hand is a far more complex issue, it's laws were swept away in it's union along with much of it's sovereignty - even today laws passed at the Welsh assembly have to be scrutinised by Westminster. There may be scope within the act of union that allow it also to overturn acts of parliament but I am not well enough versed in the wording or nature of the act to confirm if this is the case. Either way, WP should not be taking a position that the UK government is sovereign it should be respecting the sources that may identify an individual country as relevant or may identify the whole union as relevant. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 14:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Quite so. We have many reliable sources saying that Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland are countries. It isn't up to us as editors to determine what is a country. It is our job to reflect what reliable sources say are countries. That way editor POV is removed. Neutral point of view says: "Neutral point of view (NPOV) is a fundamental Wikimedia principle and a cornerstone of Wikipedia. All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. This means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, allsignificant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors." Millions of people in the UK (and elsewhere) consider England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to be countries, despite being perfectly aware that they are not sovereign; a valid a viewpoint that should be reflected on Wikipedia. Daicaregos (talk) 14:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

"Because of the nature of the 1707 Act of Union, the UK Parliament is not sovereign in Scotland." - Your first sentence is quite incorrect and the rest of your post had the same problem. The United Kingdom parliament has absolute supreme sovereignty over the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If this pathetic suggestion that the UK parliament is not supreme is true, what or who is? The UK parliament has the legal authority and ability to abolish the Scottish parliament and executive if needed. Despite a separate legal system in Scotland compared to England and Wales, it also has the ability to change the laws of Scotland. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

You are grossly misleading editors here by suggesting the situation between Scotland and the United Kingdom is like that of Germany and France within the European Union, such a comment is offensive and blatantly incorrect. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:10, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The United Kingdom parliament, like the parliaments of every sovereign state in the European Union has the legal right to withdraw itself from the union. In the UKs case, all its parliament need do is repeal the European Communities Act 1972. Now please tell us who or what has sovereignty over Scotland and is able to change its laws or opt out of union? There is no legal authority what so ever. If your claim is based on the idea that the British parliament can not do anything that goes against the Acts of Union, then im afraid to say abolishing the act would go against it too so it must be impossible for Scotland to ever leave the United Kingdom? Your claim defies all logic and is not based on reliable sources. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

All your link says is "After the Act of Union 1707 there remains ambiguity about whether the principle applies in Scotland. Although no Scottish court has yet openly questioned the validity of an Act of Parliament, certain judges have raised the possibility" What the odd judge says or thinks makes absolutely no difference at all. That sentence probably needs to be changed as it gives far too much WP:UNDUE weight to a WP:FRINGE theory anyway. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The Judge's comments are completely in line with article 19 of the Union which states that Parliament's only power over the court of session is to provide regulations on how it should administer it's rulings; not on what rulings it should or should not make.

Since the Abolition of the Privy Council of Scotland, the authority of who should repeal the act of union from Scottish Law would lie with the Lord Advocate (with the authority from the Head of State) - Of course Parliament can repeal the Act of Union from English law and would equally have to get the authority of the head of state to do so. Either side being repealed would break the union. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 16:28, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Who (heaven forbid that it happens) can abolish the monarchy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? And who could abolish the Court of Session and has legal authority to appoint people to the court? And how has the creation of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom impacted on this? The court of session article says appeals go to the supreme court, who appoints those on the supreme court? BritishWatcher (talk) 16:47, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

That's something established in the various acts of union, are you questioning if all of the UK wished to remain in the union but without the monarch? If so parliament would no doubt enact a law that would be implemented into Scottish Law by the Lord Advocate (assuming they agreed) and into Northern Irish Law by whoever has legal authority there, England and Wales would be implemented by the Parliament its self. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 17:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

If you mean one section of the union leaving and wishing to remove its self from the monarchy, then it would have to be repealed a part at a time as it was with Ireland. First you would have to repeal all or part of the act of union 1707 with the net result that "Great Britain" part of the definition would come to mean "England and Wales" and that Scotland would either come under the "Dominions" section (which you've missed out BTW) as a free state, or would be removed from the monarchy altogether creating a separate monarchy with the same head of state as before 1707. The two separate monarchies would then have to fashion separate acts to abolish or rename the monarchy.

The court of session has an Act of Sederunt, it can only be abolished by itself and appoints its own members. On the question of the supreme court, there is no right of appeal to the supreme court from the court of session - only when the court of session choose to allow a defendant to try their case there can it be tried there previously this permission was to the House of Lords. The case would be no different to allowing appeal to European court where appointments are made by others but where outcomes are respected. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 17:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

So is Court of session wrong? It says in the infobox "Appointed by Monarch with name presented Prime Minister—with the advice of the First Minister of Scotland, who follows the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland recommendation" The board page says " It commenced work in June 2002 as an administrative body of the Scottish Government." If the UK parliament can abolish the Scottish parliament, surely it can alter the appointments to the court? I am not understanding who you think has the authority, the court has its limits, it can not do what it likes. Someone has the authority to alter it or abolish it. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:47, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

As far as I can tell it's significantly errant, the Scottish government website as well as other pages (including their own) say that the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland simply draw up a short list of the most likely candidates. The First minister must then take the advice of the Lord President in who to choose. The Prime Minister must directly represent the First Minister/Lord President's choice when petitioning the Queen. The UK parliament (in the person of the Prime Minister) cannot alter the appointments. Prior to the founding of the Judicial Appointments board the Lord Advocate made the decision took it to the Secretary of State for Scotland who took it to the Prime Minister who took it to the Queen. The Queen alone has the authority to alter it without the court itself agreeing to alter it's self, but the Queen has never solely used Royal prerogative that I know of. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 19:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

But if the method of selection for the court can be changed by the UK parliament or by the Scottish parliament which is given all its power by the UK parliament, i do not see how it can not have the legal authority to abolish or fundamentally change the court. Either way, at present nobody has successfully challenged the UK parliaments supreme sovereignty over Scotland. The situation is in no way like Germany and France's relationship with the EU, everyone accepts they have the legal authority to withdraw themselves from the EU. No such legal authority exists in the case of Scotland withdrawing itself from the United Kingdom. Scotland is not sovereign. The UK and the UK parliament and UK monarch hold the power. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:27, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Firstly I don't think the process of selection has changed all that significantly, the difference is and has always been the way in which the selection is passed on to the Queen from the Lord Justice. Initially the Lord Justice would pass the list on as a member of the privy council, the formation of the role of Scottish Secretary saw the change to indirect passing via that role, and now it is indirect via the first minister. The formation of a government department or Quango to assist in policy-making is the business of government it has nothing to do with changing actual constitutional legislation. Either way it is likely that the Court saw benefit from and accepted rather than challenged the change (if any fundamental change can be found to have occurred) it does not limit or in any way reduce it's ability to challenge the legislation, should it have disagreed. You may be right that no significant cases have challenged parliament as yet, but this is due to the fact that the courts have acted in line with what is seen to be the political will of the people. After the next Holyrood election, whatever the outcome - the will of the Scottish people will be opposed to the will of the Westminster Parliament. Currently the hung parliament prevents that will from acting against against any legislation but compromise or majority will have to be found in the next parliamentary session and we may see such challenges raised under Scottish law. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 21:53, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The will of the Scottish people is that over 75% of those that voted in Scotland voted for unionist parties a few months ago, reaffirming the mandate of the United Kingdom parliament and government. You talk of what "may happen" or might be possible, its far from clear that it will. Until there is a successful challenge there is no evidence to suggest the UK parliament does not have supreme sovereignty. But either way its not like France/Germanys relationship with the European Union. It is nothing like it. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The will of the Scottish people was not a vote for or against unionist parties, it was a vote that the Conservative and Unionist Party would not have a mandate in Scotland. For that Reason more than 98.5% of seats or 85% of the vote in Scotland went against that party . Those 85% of voters will oppose any and all parliamentary rulings enforced on Scotland by the Conservative and Unionist Party and will expect Scottish law to represent that and a successful challenge has been made in the use of Scottish Planning Law to over-rule the Westminster parliament's attempt to build Nuclear Power stations in Scotland.

I would also urge you to read my comments again I use France and Germany as example of countries who have given some of their sovereignty away by the passing of a law under their own law that can be repealed under that same legal system. I compare Scotland's relationship with UK as far closer to Monaco's relationship with France which has surrendered Financial sovereignty, Border inviolability, defence, foreign policy and other markers of true sovereignty. However as Monaco and Lichtenstein are not part of the EU, using them in that context would have been a fallacy. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 19:50, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Bleh - this is all crystal-balling. Scotland is not independent, so it does not belong on these lists. All that is really added by this is a demonstration that the argument applied to the word "country" itself leads to some interesting conclusions when applied to the words "sovereign state". Even if we accept, without evidence, the contention that Scotland is technically sovereign, one might still argue that it is not a state (as its parliament is a creation of the Westminister parliament). But regardless, Louisiana most certainly is a sovereign state as per Article 1, Section 26 of the Louisiana state constitution. If we accept the argument that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have to go on lists and templates marked "countries" thanks to British nomenclature, then it is clear that Louisiana has to go on lists and templates marked "sovereign states" thanks to US and State law. Pfainuk talk 10:37, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Very good point about the sovereign state/Louisiana issue. A certain amount of common sense is needed that ensures we do not mix Apples and oranges. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:55, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Holy smokers. If a group in Louisiana start pushing for inclusion, we'll havve to RM these articles again; ahhhhh. GoodDay (talk) 14:26, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Are we all in general agreement, that these articles/templates/lists etc, need to be RM'd from country & capital to sovereign state & sovereign capital? Should this be taken to a Wikipedia-wide forum? GoodDay (talk) 15:26, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The two templates that clearly say sovereign states should have England, Wales, Northern Ireland and yes even Scotland removed, no change to the title or text is needed. The one with capitals by region where they are shown in capitals is a bit more complicated as the "non sovereign" bit in the second row of the infobox will need removing. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

If there is to be a centralised discussion, it should be at Template talk:Europe topic, where it has been discussed several times - with the outcome that the template be as it currently is. An alternative which I would support - which has not been mentioned here - is to leave the template as it is, with the four countries shown in a smaller font, but with a brief explanatory footnote as to their status, as is done for some of the other more debatable cases. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I was prepared to support the small text on the country template (one of the above is the example i was looking for) if we could not rename it to stop saying country, but there is no justification at all for listing them in a section with the title sovereign states. BritishWatcher (talk) 15:43, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, no, I'm not in agreement. The {{Europe topic}} template and others like it (e.g. {{Capitals in Europe}}) covers a broad range of subjects about which readers should be able to quickly specify to a particular country or territory, regardless of its political status. For example, why should readers be denied ease of access to links for the geography of the Faroe Islands or the culture of New Caledonia, simply because they're not politically independent? It'd be a massive mistake to remove links to relevant information from what is intended to be a navigational aide. Ease up on the politics.

As for the Lists of countries, again, no. The entries in a great many of those lists come from either a) plain reflections of data from a single source, or more commonly b) the ISO 3166-1 list of countries, which lists special territories like Åland as separate entries. For example, entries in the List of countries by population density are copied from a United Nations "list of countries", and includes countries like Anguilla which aren't sovereign states but are listed separately for obvious reasons.

The word "country" is completely ambiguous, and it when it's used by official sources to designate distinct territories that are not necessarily sovereign states, it becomes okay for us to do so aswell. And it is common sense to understand that in some areas the sovereignty of a country doesn't apply.

The only template of Europe's that should be moved is the {{Countries of Europe}}, which as it stands is for sovereign states only. Nightw 17:07, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

But why should England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland appear in a section of a template titled Sovereign states which is what happens at {{Capitals in Europe}} and {{Languages of Europe}} BritishWatcher (talk) 18:15, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems that the two of you agree about {{Countries of Europe}}, but disagree about {{Europe topic}}, for example. I agree with both of you on the first (as does almost everybody so far.

Regarding {{Europe topic}}, I strongly disagree with Night w. England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales currently appear under "sovereign states", which they are not. Granted, they appear in parentheses after the UK, but it's still a bit fishy. If these four are included for "ease of access to links for the geography", then I must say I'm a bit pissed off. Why do Northern Ireland (population 1.8 million), Wales (3 million) and Scotland (5.2 million) get this privilege, and none of the following does? Canton of Zurich (1.3 million), Crimea (2.0 million; the odd one out in Ukraine), Republika Srpska (1.4 million) and Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2.8 million) [two enemies that together form a sovereign federation], North Holland (2.6 million), Emilia Romagna (4.3 million), Masovian Voivodeship (5.1 million), Catalonia (7.5 million; has a national language and a lot of autonomy; governed by the nationalist party), Baden-Württemberg (10.7 million), Province of Istanbul (11.6 million), Bavaria (12.5 million), North-Rhine-Westphalia (17.9 million).

These templates do not just serve for navigation, they also convey information. And the information conveyed – that the four constituent countries of the UK are unique special cases, with nothing similar to be found elsewhere in Europe – is false. In fact it is more than false, it is a specific political POV that is not grounded in facts. Hans Adler 18:52, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The primary purpose is for navigation to specific articles. The {{Europe topic}} is the generic template used for general subjects. For Scotland, for example, a reader should be able to easily find articles about its geography, economy, history, politics, Religion, culture, languages, demographics, sport, symbols, climate, flags, islands, education, geology, fauna, flora, lakes, companies, transport, tourism, law, political parties, elections, parliament, military, Roman Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, coats of arms, cuisine, national anthem, literature, music... All of these are linked to through these templates. In some instances, articles on topics for the United Kingdom don't exist, but they do for its individual countries. They are listed in small text in parentheses, so I really don't see how they're being listed as sovereign states. An alternative would be to list them in one of the bottom two sections, so that the links are still accessible. Nightw 07:13, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

But one could argue similarly for any division of Europe, say Andalusia. One could argue a reader should be able to find topics related to Andalusia easily too. We can't just go around adding them though. Another solution besides moving them to the bottom section would be to create those missing UK articles, either as articles themselves or dabs. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:40, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, id think almost all of them do exist, either as summary articles or simply a dab page. The full UK article ones often provide links to the separate articles for the 4 countries anyway, it is not like people will not know where to go to look. The UK is the sovereign state, they need to click that to get to the UK page, and then if they want a specific part of the United Kingdom they can make a second click. That is just as fair as Americans having to click a second link to get to specifics about an American state. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:39, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

That argument is unreasonable. It could as easily be said that it is not like people will not know where to go to look for UK subjects. Country and independent/sovereign state are not synonyms. If a country is verified as such, per NPOV, it should be shown on the country templates. And btw, I haven't seen any reliable sources saying that Andalusia is a country, so the issue wouldn't arise. Daicaregos (talk) 10:33, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe BW is referring not to the countries template, but the 3 mentioned above, which do use Sovereign State. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:58, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Chipmunkdavis. In addition, it's not OK to ignore the shades of meaning of a word just because doing so suits your political agenda. We are writing an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. What counts is the meaning, not which words happen to be used to express it. Contrary to what you would expect after looking at many parallel templates for other states, Template:Departments of the United Kingdom Government is not called Template:Ministries of the United Kingdom. Maybe it was renamed after an editor insisted on adding Anglican ministry and Old Catholic Ministry to it. Hans Adler 11:06, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Should we subheading the different debates? It seems that the Countries in Europe template will be moved. Discussion of the others is ongoing, so it can either be continued here or at their respective talk pages. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:58, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

There are only actually three templates being discussed here: the {{Europe topic}} and {{European topic}}, and the {{Countries of Europe}}. The rest are merely transclusions of either of the first two. Since the last is in the process of being moved, it's just the two topic templates as I understand. Nightw 13:43, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

We could instead create a new section for primary politicial divisions, but set the default logic to #ifexist, meaning the section and its links wouldn't appear except where specific articles exist. This would allow readers to find specific articles where and when they exist, and would be beneficial in those cases where the articles at a national level are missing. Templates are for navigation, which means if there's an article for a topic, readers should be able to find the link. Nightw 13:43, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I do not believe England, Wales, Scotland and northern Ireland are needed on any of these templates. People can get to them easily via the United Kingdom. We can not just make exceptions for the UK countries. If there are any issues missing a UK article or a dab page, we can easily create one now. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:38, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't see how that is supposed to work. Germany alone has 16 constituent states. We would get at least a hundred new entries on the templates for the decentralised European countries. And then we would get disputes about what to do with the centralised countries. The 22 regions of mainland France are so relatively insignificant that it would be misleading to include them. In Ukraine it's basically the same – except that one of the provinces (Crimea) is actually not a province but has a special status that gives it an undeniable right to appear on any template that also lists Scotland or Wales. Can we keep the others out under these circumstances? And how about the many cases when of big cities forming their own top-level subdivisions? Do they also count? Does it appear on naming accidents?

This is all incredibly complicated. Huge templates in which users can't find anything are pointless. The trick of web navigation is to build tree structures. Users know that if the want to get to Catalonia, they must pass through Spain. And for Scotland through the UK. Hans Adler 15:21, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Germany is an interesting case in point. If the German government wanted "States", it would have named them Staaten. If they wanted "Provinces", they would have called them Provinzen. But the government chose the word Länder. "Countries". If the use of the word "country" by the UK government means that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have to go in, it also means that Lower Saxony, Bavaria, Bremen and all the rest have to go in. As well as Brittany and Franche-Comté, and the 37 subdivisions of those "countries" (pays) that are themselves also officially called "countries". Countries within a country? Not a problem in the UK, why should it be in France or Germany? These are all verifiably and officially "countries". Since the argument being made is that the word "country" can only have one meaning, there's no way that these can consistently be left out.

In fact, obviously, the word "country" has more than one meaning. And it does not seem unreasonable to assume that any reader qualified to read a general purpose encyclopædia should be able to distinguish between the various meanings of the word and understand the correct one given context. Pfainuk talk 21:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll add to that: What if every county within a sovergein state/country, called itself a country. There's gotta be a limit & sovereign states is that limit. GoodDay (talk) 21:53, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Just to remind people - England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are not "divisions" of the United Kingdom. They are countries which are united under a shared monarch and parliament. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

They are 4 countries that together make up the United Kingdom. It is perfectly fine to divide the UK into 4 countries if you are trying to break it down, as there isn't much else you can break it down into, as each country has its own administrative divisions. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:50, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that saying that the UK is "divided into four countries" is analogous to saying that the EU is "divided into 27 countries." It's beyond being misleading - it's simply wrong. The UK is constituted from four countries. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

They both read fine to me. Google shows the exact phrase in use, including this pdf from www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/. It's a common usage of the word divide, Australia is divided in to 6 states (+territories), Canada is divided into 10 provinces (+territories), the UK is divided into 4 countries. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:03, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

FYI: After WW2 there was initially no "German" government. The Allieds created various small "countries" and weren't entirely sure what to do with them. One option was to turn them into separate sovereign entities similar to the pre-unification situation, and to make sure they can't unite. Due to the Cold War, the western countries, and then also the eastern countries, were allowed to form unitary federations. The new constitution for the western part was prepared at the Herrenchiemsee convention by delegates of the prime ministers of the western countries of occupied Germany. There are some later changes that demonstrate the character of the countries as independent countries that pooled their sovereignty: Baden and Württemberg formed a union in 1952. In 1957 the Saarland joined Germany as a new constituent country. In 1990, Berlin (previously divided with the western part de facto but not formally part of the Federal Republic) and the four eastern countries joined the federation. It appears to me that these developments are very similar to what happened with the UK, except that they happened much more recently. According to some legal experts, the German countries have the right to leave the federation if they want, unless they explicitly and in a legally binding way gave up this right upon joining, which some did not do. E.g. the Bavaria Party advocates for a secession.

The Federal Republic of Austria has almost precisely the same de facto structure, but was created the other way round: By dividing a uniform state into entities also called "countries", and giving them a certain degree of autonomy.

If we have the UK constituent countries on a template we can't keep the German countries out. If we have the German countries, we can't keep the Austrian countries and Spanish auonomous provinces out. Once we have these, there is no excuse for excluding the French regions. Below the sovereign countries the situation is so chaotic that there are simply no clear dividing lines that we can use for all of Europe. Hans Adler 10:26, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

PS: In 2008, the prime minister of North-Rhine Westphalia stated that the country is not planning to secede from the Federal Republic of Germany. This clarification became necessary because North-Rhine Westphalia has expressed interest in joining the Benelux union between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. [7] If this happened, North-Rhine Westphalia would be the largest country in that union by population and a close second in terms of area and GDP. Hans Adler 10:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you are trying to go here. Canada and France have never called their various constituent parts Countries, Germany may be more ambiguous. All you are showing is that if you want to restrict something to sovereign countries then the title of the article in question needs to include the word "sovereign" . If its countries then anything which, by RS is a country gets included. What is or is not a country is determined by reliable sources, not on some sort of "if Germany then Spain" argument --Snowded ^TALK 13:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

TLDR, sorry. Back to divide. Ironically, the full sentence referenced was "The UK is divided into four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.". Please explain why it is quite acceptable to use a reliable source to show use of the word 'divide'. Yet that same source, even though it is part of the same sentence, is apparently unacceptble to verify inclusion of the UK countries in articles and templates of countries.
There is no need to choose what is or isn't a country (which is inherently POV) if reliable sources are used to determine which entry should be included. What qualifies you, or any other editor, to define its meaning? Please explain why you think Neutral point of view, a supposedly non-negotiable, core policy should be ignored. Daicaregos (talk) 11:05, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding sourcing, as an alternative perspective, should we not be aiming to follow Wikipedia's policy of using reliable secondary sources. This means that if we are compiling a "list of countries" we should base this on a list of countries published elsewhere. What we should not do is look around sources for entities called "countries" and then patch those together into our own list, if that list may not be itself published, because that would be original research. With that in mind, I have googled for a few reputable sources which have an entity corresponding to a "list of countries" (with this terminology) and found the following selection:

• Country profiles - BBC News. "Europe" / "Choose a country" dropdown box contains UK but not E/S/W/NI. (There is also a Guide to United Kingdom dropdown which does contain E/S/W/NI but this is separate from the countries drop down).
• Countries and Other Areas - (Europe). US State department. Contains UK but not E/S/W/NI.
• The World Factbook - CIA. The "Select a country or location" dropdown box contains UK but not E/S/W/NI.
• Country Profiles - Convetion on Biological Diversity. The "Select a country or location" dropdown box contains UK but not E/S/W/NI.
• Travel Reports & Warnings - Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. Oddly this one has England, which redirects to United Kingdom, but it does not have any of the others (S/W/NI).
• Country briefings - The Economist. Has "Britain" but does not have E/S/W/NI.

If anyone can find others like this, possibly including in book sources, that would be quite interesting in forming a judgement. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The "Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada." is the tinderbox style of address that irrespective of devolution has caused this move to all countries being listed. whether it's hotel site [8] Edinburgh, England or a site about Edinburgh Castle being in England [9] or a reliable article on Deer behaviour [10] sources which refer to The United Kingdom as "England" or "Britain" (which removes NI) are numerous and substantial and have led to the attitude that if England is going to be listed then S/W/NI should be listed as well. While certain editors would like all sub-divisions to be treated equally there remains the point that E/S/W/NI are not treated equally whether sources are reliable like the economist or Canadian Foreign affairs, or unreliable like the hotels and castles. I have yet to see any source which calls all of Germany "Bavaria", or "Saxony" yet I regularly see lots that tell me I live in England which is blatantly false. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 13:26, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It's false, but it's a natural mistake. The UK is so strongly dominated by Great Britain, and Great Britain is so strongly dominated by England – in terms of population numbers, GDP etc. – that people from outside often see the three terms used alternatingly and think they are being used as synonyms. Similar problems exist with the Netherlands/Holland, the Soviet Union/Russia, the US/America, France/mainland France, etc. Hans Adler 13:44, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I had no intention of posting on this page as I think there are people here who will not be persuaded by any argument. I am though going to cut and paste a post I made to Dai's talk page and will leave it there without any further comment. I don't expect it to change anyones mind, but hope they will understand why some of us find it strange that a list of countries should not include all those verifiably called countries.

"The fact is, there are millions of people throughout the world who know that Scotland, Wales and England are countries. I would think that they would be rather puzzled that they are not included in an article titled 'List of countries', not to mention those who don't know and may now never find out. To rename an article (or a template) for the express purpose of excluding them does a disservice to the reader. Alas, there are enough people on here that don't see it that way and will ensure that no list will include them. They are countries and yet there will be no list on wikipedia that will inform the reader of that. It's a sad state of affairs, but after being around here for a while it doesn't surprise me."

Jack 1958 (talk) 11:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

If those millions of people-in-question, are made to understand that 'country' is being interpeted as 'independant', they'd understand. GoodDay (talk) 14:05, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I must've missed something. Is this a discussion about whether to include certain links on templates, or yet another silly and pointless debate about whether England, Scotland, Wales, etc are referred to as "countries"? Previous consensus, I believe is that they are, and reliable sources from past discussions are plentiful. So, how about we keep this particular thread about the composition of templates, and for those of you that want to take up separate debates, please see here, and then raise the issue at WP:WikiProject United Kingdom. Nightw 13:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a distinction between the two points. Consensus may be that England, Scotland and Wales are referred to as "countries", but there is certainly no consensus that that should mean that templates and lists that use the word "country" to in the sense of "sovereign state" or "sovereign state or dependent territory" have to include England, Scotland and Wales, regardless of neutrality or of practice outside Wikipedia. Pfainuk talk 20:38, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, in the templates I agree with moving from "Countries" to "Sovereign states" for sure. In lists, as I said before, most of them rely on either a single source or the ISO, and therefore don't limit entries to only states, so it's perfectly reasonable to use an ambiguous term like "country"...in lists, that is. Templates are another matter. Nightw 04:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

We do agree (I assume) that 'country' can mean more then one thing. Like Minister for example. GoodDay (talk) 14:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Now there's an idea for a new template: List of Ministers. It could include Desmond Tutu, Kevin Rudd, Cornelius Fudge (Minister of Magic), George Osborne (often known as the "UK Finance Minister" in the foreign press), Jeremiah Wright and David Cameron (a "prime" minister). Yours in WP:SARCASM  — Amakuru (talk) 15:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland part II

The above section was getting extremely lengthy, please continue discussion here. Outback the koala (talk) 05:09, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Articles (including lists and templates) should do exactly what they say on the tin. If it is called 'list of countries …', any territory that reliable sources verify as a country should be included on that article. 'Sovereign state' and 'country' are not synonymous. It is not up to us as editors to define a 'country'. It is our job to reflect what reliable sources say are countries. That way, editor POV is removed. If reliable sources say a territory is a country, but it is not included on the article because editors want the article to mean something else (sovereign state perhaps), the name of the article should be changed to reflect its content. It may be simplistic, but this is my understanding of Neutral point of view; a fundamental principle of Wikipedia, which says: NPOV "means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors." Millions of people in the UK (and elsewhere) consider England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to be countries, despite being perfectly aware that they are not sovereign; a valid a viewpoint that should be reflected on Wikipedia. Daicaregos (talk) 07:08, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

when this matter was debated centrally (with over 100 lists were canvassed) a majority were of the opinion that just because country is in the title, we dont have to include every entity known as country. We must apply commonsense. Your demand that we add England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland would add bias, not remove it by placing entities in line with mostly sovereign states, which is very misleading. BritishWatcher (talk) 07:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

There is a way to have non-indepedant countries on a template, article, list with the name 'country' on it. Have such an article, template, list etc divided into a sovereign & non-sovereigns section. That way, United Kingdom would be in one section, while England/Scotland/Northern Ireland & Wales would be in the other. GoodDay (talk) 13:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe so, but is there an advantage to the reader of listing nonsovereign countries? The list of sovereign states conveys a direct purpose. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:31, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

In agreement personally. But, I'm just looking for some kinda compromise. GoodDay (talk) 13:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no reason for such a compromise. In the real world lists of countries don't list the 4 UK things (except in some sports contexts). That's even true for most lists of countries that originate from the UK. The only place where the 4 often occur is Wikipedia – because Wikipedia is singularly vulnerable to political activism. Hans Adler 13:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Please STOP commenting on the motivations of other editors on this issue, we have been through this before and its unacceptable --Snowded ^TALK 17:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

If only there were a way to stop the inclusion of them. GoodDay (talk) 14:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Not everyone who wishes to see the inclusion of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are political activists with nationalist agendas. There are some of us who consider that the exclusion of the four countries would be doing the encyclopedia a singular disservice. In Italy, they are called nazioni, which in English translates as nations.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I've presented my 'sectionalize' compromise. Now, 'Tis up to ya'll. GoodDay (talk) 14:28, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Adding Nations as well? This template could go for ages.

Clarify GoodDay, which template are you suggesting the compromise for? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:30, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

All of them. My guess is, many inclusionist are against moving articles, templates & stuff from country to sovereign state, because they don't want E/W/S/NI excluded. GoodDay (talk) 14:32, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

This is a really simply issue of fact. If something is a list of countries then it includes anything which the reliable sources establish is a country. If the intent is a list of sovereign states then the title of the list or article needs to make that clear. --Snowded ^TALK 17:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Then what is your explanation for the phenomenon that in the real world lists of countries don't include the 4 UK countries? Hans Adler 17:36, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The real world lists them as countries Hans, this is an issue of facts and appropriate names that match reality not the personal opinions of editors --Snowded ^TALK 17:41, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The real world calls them countries. That's not the same as listing them with the, um, full, or real, countries, i.e. with the sovereign states. The worst case is no doubt Northern Ireland. It appears that nobody but Welsh and Scottish nationalists really wants to call that a country. "Northern" was added to the sentence "The United Kingdom consists of the four countries England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland", and everybody is used to that. So it is uncontroversial that Northern Ireland is "one of the four countries". But try to add the 'information' that Northern Ireland is a country to Northern Ireland, and you will see what I mean. (It has been tried more than once.) Northern Ireland is only a country in a small number of specific contexts. England, Scotland and Wales are countries in more contexts than Northern Ireland, but they are still not countries in most contexts. In particular, where "countries" are enumerated without further context-setting, they don't belong and don't appear in the real world, with a few odd exceptions. Hans Adler 18:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Hans you are entitled to your opinions. However a country is a country, it may or may not have the attribute of sovereignty but it is always a country. It may (Northern Ireland for example) be frequently called a province and that is noted in the the article. Your use of "real world" and "real countries" is your own idiosyncratic opinion, but I would be interested to see a reference which used that language. --Snowded ^TALK 18:37, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

But not all countries belong in a list if its dominated by sovereign states. Its misleading to put them in line as equals when they quite clearly are not. Someones mentioned some examples above. We do not have Louisiana on List of sovereign states, but it has been described as one BritishWatcher (talk) 18:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Again you are expressing an opinion. If the list is of "countries" and reliable sources say that X is a country then it should be included. If the list is sovereign states the criteria for inclusion means that a non-sovereign state should not be included. Just because something is described as a country it does not mean it is a country by the way. Louisiana is a red herring here, WP:WEIGHT applies --Snowded ^TALK 19:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:Weight applies in exactly the same way when dealing with countries of the United Kingdom and proper countries that are sovereign states. We can not give EWSNI the same weight as we give France and Germany. it is simply misleading to do so. A certain amount of common sense is required, and people agreed it was a bad idea to have to rename everything from country to something else just because we dont include Wales and Scotland. Like at List of countries by GDP (nominal). That exists and has existed for years without an issue, yet it leaves Wales and Scotland off. We can not be expected to insert them in those lists and we cant be expected to rename dozens of lists, just because a couple of editors here demand the insertion of EWSNI. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:43, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem is at the moment two of the templates shown above are stating sovereign state, but they also list EWSNI. that needs to change. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I oppose adding non sovereign countries to templates, it still leaves open the debate about what else is allowed to be included as has been gone over many times in the past. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland need to be removed from templates where they appear in the sovereign state section. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

They are not sovereign states so should not be in a sovereign state list. --Snowded ^TALK 17:41, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

{{Capitals in Europe}} {{Languages of Europe}} is where they appear in the sovereign state section. If new rows should be added to accommodate things like non sovereign countries and states is another matter, but they should be removed from these two. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:44, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Alternatively, as I said before somewhere, explanatory footnotes should be added to the existing template, as done for some of the other debatable cases (South Ossetia, for example). Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Well id certainly oppose placing them in a template like normal countries and just having an explanatory note that many will miss as it could be about anything, that would still be very misleading. Placing an explanatory note after United Kingdom where it says the 4 or links to countries of the UK is more reasonable, but it still leaves us open to the issue of why treat the UK as an exception? Others may want other things added too. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I strongly oppose including any non-sovereign entities on these templates and agree with the suggestions (far) above that any template labeled as "country" that is non-geographical in nature, but political should be renamed to "sovereign state" to avoid any confusion. Where ENG, SCOT, WLS, and NI are, they should be removed posthaste. I dont agree with having an exception for the UK, it would only open a floodgate of other requests for inclusion. Outback the koala (talk) 19:06, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Coat of arms of stateless nations & Flags of stateless nations

FYI, Flags of stateless nations and Coat of arms of stateless nations have been prodded for deletion. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 06:56, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

FYI failing PROD Flags of stateless nations has now been put up for AfD as this is within the scope of this Project, feedback from Project members would be appreciated. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 10:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Malaysia review

I have nominated Malaysia for Peer Review in the hope of getting it to GA and maybe FA. The page of the review is Wikipedia:Peer review/Malaysia/archive2, any comments are welcome. Also, if anyone sees something easily copyedited, if they did so that would be appreciated. Thanks, Chipmunkdavis (talk) 00:03, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Belgium FAR listing

I have nominated Belgium for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:30, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

List of states with limited recognition at FLRC

I have nominated List of states with limited recognition for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Nightw 15:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)